Corn. Look again I pray and you shall see that the field he speaks of is not the Church but the World and therefore neither doe You obey our Saviours command Let both grow up till the Harvest who teach it to be lawful to root these Tears such are Hereticks out of the World neither do Protestants disobey it if they eject manifest Heresies and notorious sinners out of the Church 58. Ad § 19. In the 19. you are so courteous as to suppose corruptions in your Doctrine and yet undertake to prove that neither could they afford us any sufficient cause or colourable necessity to depart from them Your reason is because damnable Errors there were none in your Church by D. Potters confession neither can it be damnable in respect of Error to remain in any Churches Communion whose Errors are not damnable For if the Error be not damnable the belief thereof cannot Answ D. Potter confesseth no such matter but only that he hopes that your Errors though in themselves sufficiently damnable yet by accident did not damn all that held them such he means and says as were excusably ignorant of Truth and amongst the number of their unknown sins repented daily of their unknown Errors The truth is he thinks as ill of your Errors and their desert as you do of ours only he is not so peremptory and presumptuous in judging your persons as you are in judging ours but leaves them to stand or fall to their own Master who is infinitely merciful and therefore will not damn them for meer Errors who desire to find the truth and cannot and withal infinitely just and therefore is it to be feared will not pardon them who might easily have come to the knowledge of the truth and either through Pride or obstinacy or neligence would not 59. To your minor also I answer almost in your own Words § 42. of this Chap. I thank you for your courteous supposal that your Church may Err and in recompence thereof will do you a Charity by putting you in mind into what Labyrinths you cast your self by supposing that the Church may Err in some of her Proposals and yet denying it lawful for any man though he know this which you suppose to oppose her judgment or leave her communion Will you have such a man dissemble against his Conscience or externally deny that which he knows true No that you will not for them that do so you your self have pronounced A damned Crew of dissembling Sycophants Or would you have him continue in your Communion and yet profess your Church to Err This you your selves have made to him impossible Or would you have him believe those things true which together with him you have supposed to be Errors This in such a one as is assured or persuaded of that which you here suppose that your Church doth Err and such only we say are obliged to forsake your Communion is as Schoolmen speak Implicatio in terminis a contradiction so plain that one word destroyeth another as if one should say a living dead man For it is to require that they which believe some part of your Doctrine false should withal believe it all true Seeing therefore for any man to believe your Church in Error and profess the contrary is damnable Hypocrisie to believe it and not believe it a manifest repugnancy and thirdly to profess it and to continue in your Communion as matters now stand a plain impossibility what remains but that whosoever is supposed to have just reason to disbelieve any Doctrine of your Church must of necessity forsake her Communion Unless you would remit so far from your present rigour as to allow them your Churches Communion who publickly profess that they do not believe every Article of her established Doctrine Indeed if you would do so you might with some coherence suppose your Church in Error and yet find fault with men for abandoning her Communion because they might continue in it and suppose her in Error But to suppose your Church in Error and to excommunicate all those that believe your own supposition and then to complain that they continue not in your Communion is the most ridiculous incongruity that can be imagined And therefore though your corruptions in Doctrine in themselves which yet is false did not yet your obliging us to profess your Doctrine uncorrupted against knowledge and Conscience may induce an obligation to depart from your Communion As if there were any Society of Christians that held there were no Antipodes notwithstanding this Error I might communicate with them But if I could not do so without professing my self of their belief in this matter then I suppose I should be excused from Schism if I should forsake their Communion rather than profess my self to believe that which I do not believe Neither is there any contradiction or shadow of contradiction that it may be necessary for my Salvation to depart from this Churches Communion And that this Church though Erring in this matter wants nothing necessary to Salvation 60. That there might be necessary cause to depart from the Church of Rome in some Doctrine and practices though she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation as Dr. Potter holds and you call a contradiction will appear by setting down his Words which are these To forsake the Errors of that Church and not to joyn with her in those practices which we account erroneous we are enforced by necessity For though in the issue they are not damnable to them which believe as they profess yet for us to profess and avow by Oath as the Church of Rome enjoyns what we believe not were without question damnable And they with their Errors by the grace of God might go to Heaven when we for our Hypocrisie and dissimulation he might have added and Perjury stould certainly be condemned to Hell 61. Ad § 20. Obj. But a Church not Erring in Fundamentals though Erring in other matters doth what our Saviour exacts at her hands doth as much as lies in her power to do Therefore the Communion of such a Church is not upon pretence of Error to be forsaken The consequence is manifest The Antecedent is proved because God by D. Potters confession hath promised his assistance no◠further Pag. 151.155 nor is it in her power to do more than God doth assist her to do Answ The promise of Divine Assistance is twofold Absolute or Conditional That there shall be by Divine providence preserved in the World to the Worlds end such a company of Christians who hold all things precisely and indispensably necessary to Salvation and nothing inevitably destructive of it This and no more the Doctor affirms that God hath promised absolutely Yet he neither doubts nor denys but that a farther assistance is conditionally promised us even such an assistance as shall lead us if we be not wanting to it and our selves into all not only necessary but very profitable truth and guard us from
Just as if a Brother should leave his Brothers company in some ill courses and should say to him Herein I forsake you yet I leave you not absolutely for I acknowledge you still to be my Brother and shall use you as a Brother And you perverting his speech should pretend that he had said I leave your company in these ill courses and I do well to do so because you are my Brother so making that the cause of his leaving him which indeed is the cause that he left him no farther 75. Obj. But you say The very reason for which he acquitteth himself for Schism is because he holds that the Church which they forsook is not cut off from the Body of Christ Ans This is true But can you not perceive a difference between justifying his separation from Schism by this reason and making this the reason of his separation If a man denying obedience in some unlawful matter to his lawful Sovereign should say to him herein I disobey you but yet I am no Rebel because I acknowledge you my Sovereign Lord and am ready to obey you in all things lawful should not he be an egregious Sycophant that should accuse him as if he had said I do well to disobey you because I acknowledge you my lawful Soveraign Certainly he that joyns this acknowledgment with his necessitated disobedience does well but he that makes this consideration the reason of his disobedience doth ill 76. Obj. It is an unspeakable comfort to Catholicks you say that we cannot clear our selves from Schism otherwise than by acknowledging that we do not nor cannot cut off your Church from the hope of salvation Ans I beseech you to take care that this false comfort cost you not too dear For why this good opinion of God Almighty that he will not damn men for error who were without their own fault ignorant of the truth should be any consolation to them who having the key of knowledge will neither use it themselves nor permit others to use it who have eyes to see and will not see who have ears to hear and will not hear this I assure you passeth my capacity to apprehend Neither is this to make our salvation depend on yours but only ours and yours not desperatly inconsistent Nor to say we must be damned unless you may be saved but that we assure our selves if our lives be answerable we shall be saved by our knowledge And that we hope and I tell you again Spes est rei incertae nomen that some of you may possibly be the rather saved by occasion of their unaffected Ignorance 80. Ad § 28.29 Whereas D. Potter says There is a great difference between a Schism from them and a Reformation of our selves this you say is a quaint subtilty by which all Schism and sin may be as well excused Ans It seems then in your judgment that Thieves and Adulterers and Murtherers and Traytors may say with as much probability as Protestants that they did no hurt to others but only reform themselves But then methinks it is very strange that all Protestants should agree with one consent in this defence of themselves from the imputation of Schism and that to this day never any Thief or Murtherer should have been heard of to make use of this Apology And then for Schismaticks I would know whether Victor Bishop of Rome who excommunicated the Churches of Asia for not conforming to his Church in keeping Easter whether Novatian that divided from Cornelius upon pretence that himself was elected Bishop of Rome when indeed he was not whether Felicissimus and his Crew that went out of the Church of Carthage and set up altar against altar because having fallen in persecution they might not be restored to the peace of the Church presently upon the intercession of the Confessors whether the Donatists who divided from and damned all the world because all the world would not excommunicate them who were accused only and not convicted to have been Traditors of the sacred Books whether they which for the slips and infirmity of others which they might and ought to tolerate or upon some difference in matters of Order and Ceremony or for some error in Doctrin neither pernitious nor hurtful to faith or piety separate themselves from others or others from themselves or lastly whether they that put themselves out of the Churches unity and obedience because their opinions are not approved there but reprehended and confuted or because being of impious conversation they are impatient of their Churches censure I would know I say whether all or any of these may with any face or without extream impudency put in this plea of Protestants and pretend with as much likelihood as they that they did not separate from others but only reform themselves But suppose they were so impudent as to say so in their own defence falsely doth it follow by any good Logick that therefore this Apology is not to be imployed by Protestants who may say so truly We make say they no Schism from you but only a reformation of our selves This you reply is no good justification because it may be pretended by any Schismatick Very true any Schismatick that can speak may say the same words as any Rebel that makes conscience the cloak of his impious disobedience may say with S. Peter and S. John we must obey God rather than men But then the question is whether any Schismatick may say so truly And to this question you say just nothing but conclude because this defence may be abused by some it must be used by none As if you should have said S. Peter and S. John did ill to make such an answer as they made because impious Hypocrites might make use of the same to palliate their disobedience and rebellion against the lawful commands of lawful Authority 81. Obj. But seeing their pretended Reformation consisted in forsaking the Churches corruptions their Reformation of themselves and their division from you falls out to be one and the same thing Ans Just as if two men having been a long while companions in drunkenness one of them should turn sober this Reformation of himself and disertion of his companion in this ill custom would be one and the same thing and yet there is no necessity that he should leave his love to him at all or his society in other things So Protestants forsaking their own former corruptions which were common to them with you could not choose but withal forsake you in the practice of these corruptions yet this they might and would have done without breach of Charity towards you and without a renunciation of your company in any act of piety and devotion confessedly lawful And therefore though both these were by accident joyned together yet this hinders not but that the end they aimed at was not a separation from you but a reformation of themselves 82. Neither doth their disagreement in the particulars of the
it not as well as yours and whether some mens persuasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans persuasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Lay-man by a just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Hereticks that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferred on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Popes right or an Usurpation If it were his right whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to take it from him Or if not whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an Usurped Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give Authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her Errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his Sword to his Prefect with this commission that if he Governed well he should use it for him if ill against Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to Preach against her corruptions in manners And if so why not against her Errors in Doctrine if she had any Whether she gave them not Authority to Preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her Doctrine if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or Woman that has ability to persuade others by Word or by Writing from Error and unto truth And why this Liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other Commission or Vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of Charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of Charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to persuade men out of a false unto a true way of Eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assured us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the Error of his way shall save a Soul from Death and shall hide a multitude of Sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not Consecrate a Metropolitan of England as well as the Cardinals do the Pope whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the Government in their Hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the Doctrine that the King is supream head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperors were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found Doctrine Whether it be not true that Bishops being made Bishops have their Authority immediately from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the Kings Authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has Authority immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the Authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more Authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give Authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give Authority to a Physician to practice Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperor would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to Preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have questioned his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited K. JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispenced with Whether the Popes irregularities if he should chance to incur any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a Character and ours doth not Whether the power of Consecrating and Ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have Authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of Architecture and had it immediately by infusion from God himself yet if they were the Kings Subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his Subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do not follow that whensoever the King commands an House to be Built a Message to be delivered or a Murtherer to be Executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Architect Messenger or Executioner As well as that they are ipso facto Ordained and Consecrated who by the Kings Authority are commended to the Bishops to be Ordained and Consecrated Especially seeing the King
Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledg Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick That to Alledge the necessity of Wife and Children in these days is but a weak Plea for a Married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That Men in Talk and Writing use willingly the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they do with sincerity it is easie to tell what Doom will pass against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go to Hierusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the Fore-heads of these Men that they are even going nay making hast to Rome Which scurrilous Libel void of all Truth Discretion and Honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your Infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your Tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you the greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon Men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as near to you that they may draw you to them as the Truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will Damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from Gods Word upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all Men. And this I verily believe is the true Reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the Silliness and Poorness of those suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and Falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out of Devotion towards God out of a desire that He should be Worshiped as in Spirit and Truth in the first place so also in the Beauty of Holiness what if out of fear that too much Simplicity and Nakedness in the publick Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of Men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward State and Glory of it being well disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken encrease and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Gods Sovereign Majesty and Power What if out of a persuasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this Scandal out of their way and out of an Holy Jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the Magnificence and Pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say what if out of these considerations the Governors of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where Gods Honour dwells and to make them as Heavenly as they can with Earthly Ornaments Is this a sign that they are warping towards Popery Is this Devotion in the Church of England an argument that She is coming over to the Church of Rome Sir Edwin Sands I presume every Man will grant had no inclination that way yet He Forty Years since highly commended this part of Devotion in Papists and makes no scruple of proposing it to the imitation of Protestants little thinking that they who would follow his Counsel and endeavour to take away this disparagement of Protestants and this Glorying of Papists should have been censured for it as making way and inclining to Popery His Words to this purpose are excellent Words and because they shew plainly Survey of Religion that what is now practised was approved by Zealous Protestants so long ago I will here set them down 23. This one thing J cannot but highly commend in that sort and Order They spare nothing which either cost can perform in enriching or skill in adorning the Temple of God or to set out his Service with the greatest Pomp and magnificence that can be devised And although for the most part much Baseness and Childishness is predominant in the Masters and contrivers of their Ceremonies yet this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due unto Sovereign Majesty and Power And although I am not ignorant that many Men well reputed have embraced the thrifty Opinion of that Disciple who thought all to be wasted that was bestowed upon Christ in that sort and that it were much better bestowed upon him on the Poor yet with an eye perhaps that themselves would be his quarter Almoners notwithstanding I must confess it will never sink into my Heart that in proportion of Reason the allowance for furnishing out of the Service of God should be measured by the scant and strict rule of meer necessity a proportion so low that Nature to other most bountiful in matter of necessity hath not failed no not the most ignoble Creatures of the World and that for our selves no measure of heaping but the most we can get no rule of expence but to the utmost Pomp we lift Or that God himself had so inriched the lower parts of the World with such wonderfull varieties of Beauty and Glory thut they might serve only to the Pampering of Mortal Man in his Pride and that in the Service of the High Creator Lord and giver the outward Glory of whose higher Pallace may appear by the very Lamps that we see so far off Burning gloriously in it only the Simpler Baser Cheaper Less Noble Less Beautiful Less Glorious things should be imployed Especially seeing as in Princes Courts so in the Service
of God also this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth as I have said ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due to so Sovereign Majesty and Power Which those whom the use thereof cannot persuade unto would easily by the want of it be brought to confess for which cause I crave leave to be excused by them herein if in Zeal to the common Lord of all I choose rather to commend the vertue of an Enemy than to flatter the vice and imbecility of a Friend And so much for this matter 24. Again what if the Names of the Priests and Altars so frequent in the Ancient Fathers though not in the now Popish sense be now resumed and more commonly used in England than of late times they were that so the colourable argument of their conformity which is but nominal with the Ancient Church and our inconformity which the Governors of the Church would not have so much as nominal may be taken away from them and the Church of England may be put in a State in this regard more justifiable against the Roman than formerly it was being hereby enabled to say to Papists whensoever these Names are objected we also use the Names of Priests and Altars and yet believe neither the Corporal Presence nor any Proper and propitiatory Sacrifice 25. What if Protestants be now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are bound by a Canon to follow the Ancient Fathers which whosoever doth with sincerity it is utterly impossible he should be a Papist And it is most falsly said by you that you know that to some Protestants I clcarly demonstrated or ever so much as undertook or wentabout to demonstrate the contrary What if the Centurists be censured somewhat roundly by a Protestant Divine for affirming that the keeping of the Lords day was a thing indifferent for two Hundren Years Is there in all this or any part of it any kind of proof of this scandalous Calumny 26. As for the points of Doctrine wherein you pretend that these Divines begin of late to falter and to comply with the Church of Rome upon a due examination of particulars it will presently appear First that part of them always have been and now are held constantly one way by them as the Authority of the Church in determining Controversies of Faith though not the Infallibility of it That there is Inherent Justice though so imperfect that it cannot justifie That there are Traditions though none necessary That Charity is to be preferred before knowledg That good Works are not properly meritorious And lastly that Faith alone justifies though that Faith justifies not which is alone And Secondly for the remainder that they every one of them have been Anciently without breach of Charity disputed among Protestants such for example were the Questions about the Popes being the Antichrist the Lawfulness of some kind of Prayers for the Dead the Estate of the Fathers Souls before Christs Ascension Freewil Predestination Universal Grace the Possibility of keeping Gods Commandments The use of Pictures in the Church Wherein that there hath been anciently diversity of opinion anongst Protestants it is justified to my hand by a witness with you beyond exception even your great Friend M. Brerely whose care exactness and fidelity you say in your Preface is so extraordinary great Consult him therefore Tract 3. Sect. 7. of his Apology And in the 9 10 11. 14. 24. 26. 27. 37. Subdivisions of that Section you shall see as in a mirror your self proved an egregious calumniator for charging Protestants with innovation and inclining to Popery under pretence forsooth that their Doctrine begins of late to be altered in these points Whereas M Brerely will inform you they have been anciently and even from the begininng of the Reformation controverted amongst them though perhaps the Stream and Current of their Doctors run one way and only some Brook or Rivulet of them the other 27. It remains now in the last place that I bring my self fairly off from your foul Aspersions that so my Person may not be any disparagement to the Cause nor any scandal to weak Christians 28. First upon Hearsay you charge me with a great number of false and impious Doctrines which I will not name in particular because I will not assist you so far in the spreading of my own undeserved defamation but whosoever teaches or holds them let him be Anathema The Summ of them all is this Nothing ought or can be certainly believed farther than it may be proved by evidence of Natural Reason where I conceive Natural reason it opposed to supernatural Revelation and whosoever holds so let him be Anathema And moreover to clear my self once for all from all imputations of this nature which charge me injuriously with denial of Supernatural Verities I profess sincerely that I believe all those Books of Scripture which the Church of England accounts Canonical to be the Infallible Word of God I believe all things evidently contained in them all things evidently or even probably deducible from them I acknowledge all that to be Heresie which by the Act of Parliament primo of Q. ELIZ. is declared to be so and only to be so And though in such points which may be held diversly of divers men salvâ Fidei compage I would not take any Mans Liberty from him and humbly beseech all men that they would not take mine from me Yet thus much I can say which I hope will satisfie any man of reason that whatsoever hath been held necessary to Salvation either by the Catholick Church of all ages or by the consent of Fathers measured by Vincentius Lyrinensis his rule or is held necessary either by the Catholick Church of this age or by the consent of Protestants or even by the Church of England that against the Socinians and all others whatsoever I do verily believe and embrace 29. But what are all Personal matters to the business in hand If it could be proved that Cardinal Bellarmine was indeed a Jew or that Cardinal Perron was an Atheist yet I presume you would not accept of this for an Answer to all their writings in defence of your Religion Let then my actions and intentions and opinions be what they will yet I hope truth is nevertheless Truth nor reason ever the less Reason because I speak it And therefore the Christian Reader knowing that his Salvation or Damnation depends upon his impartial and sincere judgment of these things will guard himself I hope from these Impostures and regard not the Person but the cause and the reasons of it not who speaks but what is spoken Which is all the favour I desire of him as knowing that I am desirous not to persuade him unless it be truth whereunto I persuade him 30. The last Accusation is That I answer out of Principles which Protestants themselves will profess to detest whch indeed were to the purpose
it may without any fault at all some go one way and some another and some and those as good men as either of the former suspend their judgments and expect some Elias to solve doubts and reconcile repugnances Now in all such Questions one side or other which soever it is holds that which indeed is opposite to the sense of the Scripture which God intended for it is impossible that God should intend Contradictions But then this intended Sense is not so fully declared but that they which oppose it may verily believe that they indeed maintain it and have great shew of reason to induce them to believe so and therefore are not to be damned as men opposing that which they either know to be a truth delivered in Scripture or have no probable Reason to believe the contrary but rather in Charity to be acquitted and absolved as men who endeavour to find the Truth but fail of it through humane frailty This ground being laid the Answer to your ensuing Interrogatories which you conceive impossible is very obvious and easie 14. To the first Whether it be not in any man a grievous sin to deny any any one Truth contained in holy Writ I answer Yes if he knew it to be so or have no probable Reason to doubt of it otherwise not 15. To the second Whether there be in such denial any distinction between Fundamental and not Fundamental sufficient to excuse from Heresie I answer Yes There is such a distinction But the Reason is because these points either in themselves or by accident are Fundamental which are evidently contained in Scripture to him that knows them to be so Those not Fundamental which are there-hence deducible but probably only not evidently 16. To the third Whether it be not impertinent to alledge the Creed as containing all Fundamental points of Faith as if believing it alone we were at Liberty to deny all other Points of Scripture I answer It was never alledged to any such purpose but only as a sufficient or rather more than a sufficient Summary of those points of Faith which were of necessity to be believed actually and explicitely and that only of such which were meerly and purely Credenda and not Agenda 17. To the fourth drawn as a Corollary from the former Whether this be not to say that of Persons contrary in belief one part only can be saved I answer By no means For they may differ about points not contained in Scripture They may differ about the sense of some ambiguous Texts of Scripture They may differ about some Doctrines for and against which Scriptures may be alledged with so great probability as may justly excuse either Part from Heresie and a self-condemning obstinacy And therefore though D. Potter do not take it ill that you believe your selves may be saved in your Religion yet notwithstanding all that hath yet been pretended to the contrary he may justly condemn you and that out of your own principles of uncharitable presumption for affirming as you do that no man can be saved out of it CHAP. II. The ANSWER to the Second CHAPTER Concerning the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion C. M. Of our estimation respect and reverence to holy Scripture even Protestants themselves give Testimony while they possess it from us and take it upon the integrity of our custody c. I HIL Ad § 1. He that would Usurp an absolute Lordship and Tyranny over any People need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty of abrogating and disanulling the Laws made to maintain the Common Liberty for he may frustrate their intent and compass his own design as well if he can get the Power and Authority to interpret them as he pleases and add to them what he pleases and to have his interpretations and additions stand for Laws if he can rule his People by his Laws and his Laws by his Lawyers So the Church of Rome to establish Her Tyranny over mens Consciences needed not either to abolish or corrupt the Holy Scriptures the Pillars and Supporters of Christian Liberty which in regard of the numerous multitude of Copies dispersed through all places Translated into almost all Languages guarded with all sollicitous care and industry had been an impossible attempt But the more expedite way and therefore more likely to be successful was to gain the opinion and esteem of the publick and authorized interpreter of them and the Authority of adding to them what Doctrine she pleased under the Title of Traditions or Definitions For by this means she might both serve her self of all those causes of Scripture which might be drawn to cast a favourable countenance upon Her ambitious pretences which in case the Scripture had been abolished she could not have done and yet be secure enough of having either her Power limitted or her corruptions and abuses reformed by them this being once setled in the minds of men that unwritten Doctrines if proposed by her were to be received with equal reverence to those that were written and that the sense of Scripture was not that which seemed to mens reason and understanding to be so but that which the Church of Rome should declare to be so seemed in never so unreasonable and incongruous The matter being once thus ordered and the holy Scriptures being made in effect not your Directors and Judges no farther than you please but your Servants and Instruments always prest and in readiness to advance your designs and disabled wholly with minds so qualified to prejudice or impeach them it is safe for you to put a Crown on their head and a Reed in their Hands and to bow before them and cry Hail King of the Jews to pretend a great deal of esteem and respect and reverence to them as here you do But to little purpose is verbal reverence without entire submission and sincere obedience and as our Saviour said of some so the Scripture could it speak I believe would say to you Why call ye me Lord Lord and do not that which I command you Cast away the vain and arrogant pretence of Infallibility which makes your Errors incurable Leave Picturing God and Worshiping him by Pictures Teach not for Doctrine the Commandments of men Debar not the Laity of the Testament of Christ's Blood Let your publick Prayers and Psalms and Hymes be in such Language as is for the Edification of the Assistants Take not from the Clergy that Liberty of Marriage which Christ hath left them Do not impose upon men that Humility of Worshiping Angels which S. Paul condemns Teach no more proper Sacrifices of Christ but one Acknowledge them that Die in Christ to be blessed and to rest from their Labours Acknowledge the Sacrament after Consecration to be Bread and Wine as well as Christs Body and Blood Acknowledge the gift of continency without Marriage not to be given to
all Let not the Weapons of your Warfare be Carnal such as are Massacres Treasons Persecutions and in a word all means either violent or fraudulent These and other things which the Scripture commands you do and then we shall willingly give you such Testimony as you deserve but till you do so to talk of estimation respect and reverence to the Scripture is nothing else but talk 2. For neither is that true which you pretend That we possess the Scripture from you or take it upon the integrity of your Custody but upon Universal Tradition of which you are but a little part Neither If it were true that Protestants acknowledged The integrity of it to have been guarded by your alone Custody were this any argument of your reverence towards them For first you might preserve them entire not for want of Will but of Power to corrupt them as it is a hard thing to Poyson the Sea And then having prevailed so far with men as either not to look at all into them or but only through such spectacles as you should please to make for them and to see nothing in them though as clear as the Sun if it any way made against you you might keep them entire without any thought or care to conform your Doctrine to them or reform it by them which were indeed to reverence the Scriptures but out of a persuasion that you could qualifie them well enough with your glosses and interpretations and make them sufficiently conformable to your present Doctrine at least in their judgment who were prepossessed with this persuasion that your Church was to judge of the sense of Scripture not to be judged by it 3. Whereas you say No cause imaginable could avert your will from giving the function of Supream and sole judge to holy Writ but that the thing is impossible and that by this means controversies are encreased and not ended What indifferent and unprejudiced man may not easily conceive another cause which I do not say does but certainly may prevert your Wills and avert your understandings from submitting your Religion and Church to a Tryal by Scripture I mean the great and apparent and unavoidable danger which by this means you would fall into of losing the Opinion which men have of your Infallibility and consequently your Power and Authority over mens Consciences and all that depends upon it so that though Diana of the Ephesians be cryed up yet it may be feared that with a great many among you though I censure or judge no man the other cause which wrought upon Demetrius and the Craftsmen may have with you also the more effectual though more secret influence and that is that by this craft we have our living by this craft I mean of keeping your Proselytes from an indifferent Tryal of your Religion by Scripture and making them yield up and captivate their judgment unto yours As for the impossibility of Scriptures being the sole Judge of Controversies that is the sole rule for man to judge them by for we mean nothing else you only affirm it without proof as if the thing were evident of it self And therefore I conceiving the contrary to be more evident might well content my self to deny it without refutation Yet I cannot but desire you to tell me If Scripture cannot be the Judge of any Controversie how shall that touching the Church and the Notes of it be determined And if it be the sole Judge of this one why may it not of others Why not of All Those only excepted wherein the Scripture it self is the subject of the Question which cannot be determined but by natural reason the only Principle beside Scripture which is common to Christians 4. Then for the Imputation of increasing contentions and not ending them Scripture is innocent of it as also this Opinion That Controversies are to be decided by Scripture For if men did really and sincerely submit their judgments to Scripture and that only and would require no more of any man but to do so it were impossible but that all Controversies touching things necessary and very profitable should be ended and if others were continued or increased it were no matter 5. In the next Words we have direct Boyes-play a thing given with one hand and taken away with the other an acknowledgment made in one line and retracted in the next We acknowledge say you Scripture to be a perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule only we deny that it excludes unwritten Tradition As if you should have said we acknowledge it to be as perfect a Rule as a writing can be only we deny it to be as perfect a Rule as a writing may be Either therefore you must revoke your acknowledgment or retract your retractation of it for both cannot possibly stand together For if you will stand to what you have granted That Scripture is as perfect a Rule of Faith as a Writing can be you must then grant it both so Compleat that it needs no addition and so evident that it needs no interpretation For both these properties are requisite to a perfect rule and a Writing is capable of both these properties 6. That both these Properties are requisite to a perfect rule 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 its self is not a perfect Rule And then the end of a rule is to regulate and direct Now every instrument is more or less perfect in its kind as it is more or less 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 far 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 writing all these which she pretends to be Divine unwritten Traditions and add them to the verities already written
they profess it literally always to be obeyed unless some impiety or some absurdity force us to the contrary and they are not yet arrived to that impudence to pretend that either there is impiety or absurdity in receiving the Communion in both kinds This therefore they if not others are plainly taught by our Saviour in this place But by S. Paul all without exception when he says Let a man examine himself and so let him Eat of this Bread and Drink of this Chalice This a Man that is to examine himself is every man that can do it as is confessed on all hands And therefore it is all one as if he had said let every man examine himself and so let him Eat of this Bread and Drink of this Cup. They which acknowledg Saint Pauls Epistes and Saint Johns Gospel to be the Word of God one would think should not deny but that they are taught these two Doctrines plain enough Yet we see they neither do nor will learn them I conclude therefore that the Spirit may very well teach the Church and yet the Church fall into and continue in Error by not regarding what she is taught by the Spirit 72. But all this I have spoken upon a supposition only and shewed unto you that though these promises had been made unto the present Church of every Age I might have said though they had been to the Church of Rome by name yet no certainty of her Universal Infallibility could be built upon them But the plain truth is that these Promises are vainly arrogated by you and were never made to you but to the Apostles only I pray deal ingenuously and tell me who were they of whom our Saviour says These things have I spoken unto you being present with you c. 14.25 But the comforter shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have told you v. 26 Who are they to whom he says I go away and come again unto you and I have told you before it come to pass v. 28.29 You have been with me from the beginning c. 15. v. 27 And again these things I have told you that when the time shall come you may remember that I told you of them and these things I said not to you at the beginning because I was with you c. 16.4 And because I said these things unto you sorrow hath filled your Hearts v. 6 Lastly who are they of whom he saith v. 12. I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now Do not all these circumstances appropriate this whole discourse of our Saviour to his Disciples that were then with him and consequently restrain the Promises of the Spirit of truth which was to lead them into all truth to their Persons only And seeing it is so is it not an impertinent arrogance and presumption for you to lay claim unto them in the behalf of your Church Had Christ been present with your Church Did the Comforter bring these things to the Remembrance of your Church which Christ had before taught and she had forgotten Was Christ then departing from your Church And did he tell of his departure before it came to pass Was your Church with him from the beginning Was your Church filled with sorrow upon the mentioning of Christs departure Or lastly did he or could he have said to your Church which then was not extant I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now as he speaks in the 13. vers immediately before the words by you quoted And then goes on Howbeit when the Spirit of truth is come he will guide you into all Truth Is it not the same You he speaks to in the 13. vers and that he speaks to in the 14 And is it not apparent to any one that has but half an Eye that in the 13. he speaks only to them that then were with him Besides in the very Text by you alledged there are things promised which your Church cannot with any modesty pretend to For there it is said the Spirit of Truth not only will guide you into all Truth but also will shew you things to come Now your Church for ought I could ever understand does not so much as pretend to the Spirit of Prophesie and knowledge of future events And therefore hath as little cause to pretend to the former promise of being led by the Spirit into all truth And this is the Reason why both You in this place and generally your writers of Controversies when they entreat of this Argument cite this Text perpetually by halfs there being in the latter part of it a clear and convincing Demonstration that you have nothing to do with the former Unless you will say which which is most ridiculous that when our Saviour said He will teach you c. and he will shew you c. He meant one You in the former clause and another You in the latter 73. Obj. But this is to confine Gods Spirit to the Apostles only or to the Disciples that then were present with him which is directly contrary to many places of Scripture Ans I confess that to confine the Spirit of God to those that were then present with Christ is against Scripture But I hope it is easie to conceive a difference between confining the Spirit of God to them and confining the Promises made in this place to them God may do many things which he does not Promise at all much more which he does not promise in such or such a place 74. Obj. But it is promised in the 14. Chap. that this Spirit shall abide with them for ever Now they in their persons were not to abide for ever and therefore the Spirit could not abide with them in their Persons for ever seeing the coexistence of two things supposes of necessity the existence of either Therefore the promise was not made to them only in their Persons but by them to the Church which was to abide for ever Ans Your Conclusion is not to them only but your Reason concludes either nothing at all or that this Promise of abiding with them for ever was not made to their Persons at all or if it were that it was not performed Or if you will not say as I hope you will not that it was not performed nor that it was not made to their Persons at all then must you grant that the Word for ever is here used in a sense restrained and accommodated to the subject here entreated of and that it signifies not Eternally without end of time but perpetually without interruption for the time of their lives So that the force and sense of the Words is that they should never want the Spirits assistance in the performance of their function And that the Spirit would not as Chirst was to do stay with them for a time and afterwards leave them but would abide with them if they kept their
is easier for you to declaim as you do than to dispute against it But these men you say must be Hereticks because they separated from the Communion of the Visible Church and therefore also from the Communion of that which they say was invisible In as much as the invisible Church communicated with the visible 35. Ans I might very justly desire some proof of that which so confidently you take for granted That there were no persecuted and oppressed maintainers of the Truth in the days of our Fore-fathers but only such as dissembled their opinions and lived in your Communion And truly if I should say there were many of this condition I suppose I could make my Affirmative much more probable than you can make your Negative We read in Scripture that Elias conceived there was none left besides himself in the whole Kingdom of Israel who had not revolted from God and yet God himself assures us that he was deceived And if such a man a Prophet and one of the greatest erred in his judgment touching his own time and his own Country why may not you who are certainly but a man and subject to the same passions as Elias was mistake in thinking that in former ages in some Countrey or other there were not always some good Christians which did not so much as externally bow their knees to your Baal But this answer I am content you shall take no notice of and think it sufficient to tell you that if it be true that this supposed invisible Church did hypocritically communicate with the visible Church in her corruptions then Protestants had cause nay necessity to forsake their Communion also for otherwise they must have joyned with them in the practice of impieties and seeing they had such cause to separate they presume their separation cannot be Schismatical 36. Yes you reply to forsake the external Communion of them with whom they agree in faith is the most formal and proper sin of Schism Answ Very true but I would fain know wherein I would gladly be informed whether I be bound for fear of Schism to communicate with those that believe as I do only in lawful things or absolutely in every thing whether I am to joyn with them in Superstition and Idolatry and not only in a common profession of the Faith wherein we agree but in a common dissimulation or abjuration of it This is that which you would have them do or else forsooth they must be Schismaticks But hereafter I pray remember that there is no necessity of communicating even with true Believers in wicked actions Nay that there is a necessity herein to separate from them And then I dare say even you being their judge the reasonableness of their cause to separate shall according to my first observation justifie their separation from being Schismatical 37. Arg. But the property of Schism according to D. Potter is to cut off from the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates And these Protestants have this property therefore they are Schismaticks 38. Ans I deny the Syllogism it is no better than this One Smptom of the Plague is a Feaver but such a man hath a Feaver therefore he hath the Plague The true conclusion which issues out of these Premisses should be this Therefore he hath one Symptom of the plague And so likewise in the former therefore they have one property or one quality of Schismaticks And as in the former instance The man that hath one sign of the plague may by reason of the absence of other requisites not have the plague So these Protestants may have something of Schismaticks and yet not be Schismaticks A Tyrant sentencing a man to death for his pleasure and a just judge that condemns a malefactor do both sentence a man to death and so for the matter do both the same thing yet the one does wickedly the other justly What 's the reason because the one hath cause the other hath not In like manner Schismaticks either always or generally denounce damnation to them from whom they separate The same do these Protestants yet are not Schismaticks The Reason because Schismaticks do it and do it without cause and Protestants have cause for what they do The impieties of your Church being generally speaking damnable unless where they are excused by ignorance and expiated at least by a general repentance In fine though perhaps it may be true that all Schismaticks do so yet universal affirmatives are not converted and therefore it follows not by any good Logick that all that do so when there is just cause for it must be Schismaticks The cause in this matter of separation is all in all and that for ought I see you never think of But if these rigid Protestants have just cause to cut off your Church from the hope of salvation How can the milder sort allow hope of salvation to the Members of this Church Ans Distinguish the quality of the Persons censured and this seeming repugnance of their censures will vanish into nothing For your Church may be considered either in regard of those in whom either negligence or pride or worldly fear or hopes or some other voluntary sin is the cause of their ignorance which I fear is the case of the generality of men amongst you or in regard of those who owe their Errors from Truth to want of capacity or default of instruction either in respect of those that might know the truth and will not or of those who would know the truth but all things considered cannot In respect of those that have eyes to see and will not see or those that would gladly see but want eyes or light Consider the former sort of men which your more rigid censures seem especially to reflect upon and the heaviest sentence will not be too heavy Consider the latter and the mildest will not be too mild So that here is no difference but in words only neither are you flattered by the one nor uncharitably censured by the other 39. Your next blow is directed against the milder sort of Protestants who you say involve themselves in the sin of Schism by communicating with those as you call them exterminating Spirits whom you conceive your self to have proved Schismaticks And now load them further with the crime of Heresie For say you if you held your selves obliged under pain of damnation to forsake the Communion of the Roman Church by reason of her Errors which yet you confess were not fundamental shall it not be much more damnable to live in confraternity with these who defend an Error of the failing of the Church which in the Donatists you confess to have been properly Heretical 40. Ans You mistake in thinking that Protestants hold themselves obliged not to communicate with you only or principally by reason of your Errors and Corruption For the true reason according to my third observation is not so much because you maintain Errors and Corruptions
others I hope had Chairs besides S. Peter and therefore he is a Schismatick who against that one single Chair erects another viz. in that place making another Bishop of that Diocess besides him who was lawfully elected to it 100. Obj. But he stiles S. Peter Head of the Apostles and says that from thence he was called Cephas Answ Perhaps he was abused into this opinion by thinking Cephas derived from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a head whereas it is a Syriack word and signifies a Stone Besides S. Peter might be head of the Apostles that is first in order and honour among them and not have supream Authority over them And indeed that S. Peter should have authority over all the Apostles and yet exercise no one Act of Authority over any one of them and that they should shew to him no sign of subjection methinks is as strange as that a King of England for twenty five years should do no Act of Regality nor receive any one acknowledgment of it As strange methinks it is that you so many Ages after should know this so certainly as you pretend to do and that the Apostles after that those words were spoken in their hearing by vertue whereof S. Peter is pretended to have been made their Head should still be so ignorant of it as to question which of them should be the greatest yet more strange that our Saviour should not bring them out of their Error by telling them S. Peter was the man but rather confirm it by saying the Kings of the Gentiles exercise authority over them but it should not be so among them No less a wonder was it that S. Paul should so far forget S. Peter and himself as that first mentioning him often he should do it without any Title of Honour Secondly speaking of the several degrees of men in the Church he should not give S. Peter the highest but place him in equipage with the rest of the Apostles and say God hath appointed not first Peter then the rest of the Apostles but first Apostles secondly Prophets Certainly if the Apostles were all first to me it is very probable that no one of them was before the rest For by First all men understand either that which is before all or that before which is nothing Now in the former sense the Apostles could not be all first for then every one of them must have been before every one of the rest And therefore they must be First in the other sense And therefore No man and therefore not S. Peter must be before any of them Thirdly and Lastly that speaking of himself in particular and perhaps comparing himself with S. Peter in particular rather than any other he should say in plain terms I am in nothing inferior to the very Chiefest Apostles But besides all this though we should grant against all these probabilities and many more that Optatus meant that S. Peter was head of the Apostles not in our but in your sense and that S. Peter indeed was so yet still you are very far from shewing that in the judgment of Optatus the Bishop of Rome was to be at all much less by Divine right successor to S. Peter in this his Headship and Authority For what incongruity is there if we say that he might succeed S. Peter in that part of his care the Government of that particular Church as sure he did even while S. Peter was living and yet that neither he nor any man was to succeed him in his Apostleship nor in his Government of the Church Universal Especially seeing S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles by laying the Foundations of the Church were to be the Foundations of it and accordingly are so called in Scripture And therefore as in a building it is incongruous that Foundations should succeed Foundations So it may be in the Church that any other Apostle should succeed the first 101. Ad § 37. Obj. What you here cite out of S. Austin if it be applied to Luther's Separation is impertinent For it is one thing to separate from the Communion of the whole World another to separate from all the Communions in the World One thing to divide from them who are United among themselves another to divide from them who are divided among themselves Now the Donatists separated from the whole World of Christians United in one Communion professing the same Faith serving God after the same manner which was a very great Argument that they could not have just cause to leave them according to that of Tertullian Variasse debuerat error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unum est non est Erratum sed Traditum But Luther and his followers did not so The World I mean of Christians and Catholicks was divided and subdivided long before he divided from it and by their divisions had much weakened their own Authority and taken away from you this Plea of S. Austin which stands upon no other Foundation but the Unity of the whole Worlds Communion 102. Ad § 38. Obj. If Luther were in the right most certain those Protestants that differed from him were in the wrong Answ But that either he or they were Schismaticks it follows not Or if it does then either the Jesuits are Schismaticks from the Dominicans or they from the Jesuites The Canonists from the Jesuits or the Jesuits from the Canonists The Scotists from the Thomists or they from the Scotists The Franciscans from the Dominicans or the Dominicans from the Franciscans For between all these the World knows that in point of Doctrine there is plain and irreconcileable contradiction and therefore one Part must be in Error at least not Fundamental Thus your Argument returns upon your self and if it be good proves the Roman Church in a manner to be made up of Schismaticks But the answer to it is that it begs this very false and vain supposition That whosoever Errs in any point of Doctrine is a Schismatick 103. Ad § 39. In the next place you number up your Victories and tell us that out of these premises this conclusion follows That Luther and his followers were Schismaticks from the Visible Church the Pope the Diocess wherein they were baptized from the Bishop under whom they lived from the Country to which they belonged from their Religious order wherein they were professed from one another and lastly from a mans self Because the self same Protestant is convicted to day that his yesterdays opinion was an Error To which I answer that Luther and his followers separated from many of these in some opinions and practices But that they did it without cause which only can make them Schismaticks that was the only thing you should have proved and to that you have not urged one reason of any moment All of them for weight and strength were cousin-germans to this pretty device wherewith you will prove them Schismaticks from themselves because the self same Protestant to
obedience to all Courts of civil judicature yet he says not they are bound to think that determination lawful and that sentence just Nay it is plain he says that they must do according to the Judges sentence though in their private opinion it seem unjust As if I be wrongfully cast in a suit at Law and sentenced to pay an hundred pound I am bound to pay the money yet I know no Law of God or man that binds me in conscience to acquit the Judge of error in his sentence Neither is there any necessity as you say that he must either acknowledge the Universal Infallibility of the Church or drive men into dissembling against their Conscience seeing nothing hinders but I may obey the sentence of a Judge paying the mony he awards me to pay or forgoing the house or land which he hath judged from me and yet withal plainly profess that in my Conscience I conceive his Judgment erroneous To which purpose they have a saying in France that whosoever is cast in any cause hath liberty for ten days after to rail at his Judges 110. But observe I pray that Mr. Hooker says not absolutely and in all their causes but onely in litigious causes of the quality of those whereof he there treats In such matters as have plain Scripture or reason neither for them nor against them and wherein men are perswaded this or that way upon their own only probable collection in such cases This perswasion saith he ought to be fully setled in mens hearts that the will of God is that they should not disobey the certain commands of their lawful Superiors upon uncertain grounds But do that which the sentence of judicial and final decision shall determin For the purpose a Question there is whether a Surplice may be worn in Divine Service The authority of Superiors injoyns this Ceremony and neither Scripture nor reason plainly forbids it Sempronius notwithstanding is by some inducements which he confesses to be onely probable lead to this perswasion that the thing is unlawful The quaere is whether he ought for matter of practice follow the injunction of authority or his own private and only probable perswasion M. Hooker resolves for the former upon this ground that the certain commands of the Church we live in are to be obeyed in all things not certainly unlawful As for requiring a blind and an unlimited obedience to Ecclesiastical decisions universally and in all cases even when plain Text or reason seems to controul them M. Hooker is as far from making such an Idol of Ecclesiastical Authority as the Puritans whom he writes against I grant saith he that proof derived from the authority of mans judgment is not able to work that assurance which doth grow by a stronger proof And therefore although ten thousand General Councils would set down one and the same definitive sentence concerning any point of Religion whatsoever yet one demonstrative reason alledged or one manifest testimony cited from the word of God himself to the contrary could not choose but over-weigh them all in as much as for them to be deceived it is not impossible it is that Demonstrative Reason or Divine Testimony should deceive And again Whereas it is thought that especially with the Church and those that are called mans authority ought not to prevail It must and doth prevail even with them yea with them especially as far as equity requireth and farther we maintain it not For men to be tied and led by authority as it were with a kind of captivity of judgment and though there be reason to the contrary not to listen to it but to follow like beasts the first in the Herd this were brutish Again that authority of men should prevail with men either against or above reason is no part of our belief Companies of learned men be they never so great and reverend are to yield unto reason the weight whereof is no whit prejudiced by the simplicity of his person which doth alledge it but being found to be sound and good the bare opinion of men to the contrary must of necessity stoop and give place Thus M. Hooker in his Seventh Section of his Second Book 112. Ad § 43. The next Section hath in it some objections against Luthers person but none against his cause which alone I have undertaken to justifie and therefore I pass it over Yet this I promise that when you or any of your side shall publish a good defence of all that your Popes have said and done especially of them whom Bellarmine believes in such a long train to have gone to the Devil then you shall receive an ample Apology for all the actions and words of Luther In the mean time I hope all reasonable and equitable Judges will esteem it not unpardonable in the great and Heroical spirit of Luther if being oposed and perpetually baited with a world of Furies he were transported sometimes and made somewhat furious As for you I desire you to be quiet and to demand no more whether God be wont to send such Furies to preach the Gospel Unless you desire to hear of your killing of Kings Massacring of Peoples Blowing up of Parliaments and have a mind to be ask't whether it be probable that that should be Gods cause which needs to be maintained by such Devilish means CHAP. VI. The ANSWER to the Sixth CHAPTER Shewing that Protestants are not Hereticks Ad § 1. HE that will accuse any one man much more any great multitude of men of any great and horrible crime should in all reason and justice take care that the greatness of his evidence do equal if not exceed the quality of the crime And such an accusation you would here make shew of by pretending first to lay such grounds of it as are either already proved or else yielded on all sides and after to raise a firm and stable structure of convincing arguments upon them But both these I find to be meer and vain pretences and having considered this Chapter also without prejudice or passion as I did the former I am enforced by the light of Truth to pronounce your whole discourse a painted and ruinous Building upon a weak and sandy foundation 2. Ad § 2 3. First for your grounds a great part of them is falsely said to be either proved or granted It is true indeed that Man by his natural wit and industry could never have attained to the knowledge of Gods will to give him a supernatural and eternal happiness nor of the means by which his pleasure was to bestow this happiness upon him And therefore your first ground is good That it was requisite his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that end and means by a knowledge supernatural I say this is good if you mean by knowledge an apprehension or belief 3. But then whereas you add that if a such a knowledge were no more than probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbear our
barely to go to heaven and to be a door-keeper in the house of God especially if he will be content to tast of Purgatory in the way he may obtain it at any easier purchase Therefore the Religion of your Church is not so holy nor so good as the doctrin of Christ delivered in Scripture and therefore not so likely to come from the Fountain of holiness and goodness 72. Lastly if I follow your Church for my Guide I shall do all one as if I should follow a Company of blind men in a judgment of colours or in the choice of a way For every unconsidering man is blind in that which he does not consider Now what is your Church but a Company of unconsidering men who comfort themselves because they are a great company together but all of them either out of idleness refuse the trouble of a severe tryal of their Religion as if heaven were not worth it or out of superstition fear the event of such a tryal that they may be scrupled and staggered and disquieted by it and therefore for the most part do it not all Or if they do it they do it negligently and hypocritically and perfunctorily rather for the satisfaction of others than themselves but certainly without indifference without liberty of judgment without a resolution to doubt of it if upon examination the grounds of it prove uncertain or to leave it if they prove apparently false My own experience assures me that in this imputation I do you no injury but it is very apparent to all men from your ranking doubting of any part of your Doctrin among mortal sins For from hence it follows that seeing every man must resolve that he will never commit mortal sin that he must never examine the grounds of it at all for fear he should be moved to doubt or if he do he must resolve that no motives be they never so strong shall move him to doubt but that with his will and resolution he will uphold himself in a firm belief of your Religion though his reason and his understanding fail him And seeing this is the condition of all those whom you esteem good Catholicks who can deny but you are a Company of men unwilling and afraid to understand lest you should do good That have eyes to see and will not see that have not the love of truth which is only to be known by an indifferent tryal and therefore deserve to be given over to strong delusions men that love darkness more than light in a word that you are the blind leading the blind and what prudence there can be in following such Guides our Saviour hath taught us in saying If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch 74. Ad § 32. Your next and last argument against the faith of Protestants is because wanting certainty and prudence it must also want the fourth condition Supernaturality For that being a humane perswasion it is not in the essence of it Supernatural and being imprudent and rash it cannot proceed from Divine motion and so is not supernatural in respect of the cause from which it proceedeth Ans This little discourse stands wholly upon what went before and therefore must fall together with it I have proved the Faith of Protestants as certain and as prudent as the faith of Papists and therefore if these be certain grounds of supernaturality our faith may have it as well as yours I would here furthermore be informed how you can assure us that your faith is not your perswasion or opinion for you make them all one that your Churches doctrine is true Or if you grant it your perswasion why is it not the perswasion of men and in respect of the subject of it an humane perswasion I desire also to know what sense there is in pretending that your perswasion is not in regard of the object only and cause of it but in nature or essence of it supernatural Lastly whereas you say that being imprudent it cannot come from divine motion certainly by this reason all they that believe your own Religion and cannot give a wise and sufficient reason for it as millions amongst you cannot must be condemned to have no supernatural faith or if not then without question nothing can hinder but that the imprudent faith of Protestants may proceed from divine motion as well as the imprudent faith of Papists 75. And thus having weighed your whole discourse and found it altogether lighter than vanity why should I not invert your conclusion and say Seeing you have not proved that whosoever errs against any one point of Faith loseth all divine Faith nor that any error whatsoever concerning that which by the Parties litigant may be esteemed a matter of faith is a grievous sin it follows not at all that when two men hold different doctrines concerning Religion that but one can be saved Not that I deny but that the sentence of S. Chrysost with which you conclude this Chapter may in a good sense be true for oftimes by the faith is meant only that Doctrin which is necessary to salvation and to say that salvation may be had without any the least thing which is necessary to salvation implies a repugnance and destroys it self Besides not to believe all necessary points and to believe none at all is for the purpose of salvation all one and therefore he that does so may justly be said to destroy the Gospel of Christ seeing he makes it uneffectual to the end for which it was intended the Salvation of mens souls But why you should conceive that all differences about Religion are concerning matters of faith in this high notion of the word for that I conceive no reason CHAP. VII The ANSWER to the Seventh CHAPTER Shewing that Protestants are not bound by the Charity which they owe to themselves to reunite themselves to the Roman Church 6. Ad § 2. WHereas you say it is directly against Charity to our selves to adventure the omitting of any means necessary to salvation this is true But so is this also that it is directly against the same Charity to adventure the omitting any thing that may any way help or conduce to my salvation that may make the way to it more secure or less dangerous And therefore if the errors of the Roman Church do but hinder me in this way or any way endanger it I am in Charity to my self bound to forsake them though they be not destructive of it Again whereas you conclude That if by living out of the Roman Church we put our selves in hazard to want something necessary to Salvation we commit a grievous sin against the vertue of Charity as it respects our selves This consequence may be good in those which are thus perswaded of the Roman Church and yet live out of it But the supposition is certainly false We may live and die out of the Roman Church without putting our selves in any such hazard Nay to
God I say not that she was God but that they might lawfully offer to her And as I deny not but it follows she is a Woman therefore not a God so I think you will grant it follows as justly she is a Woman therefore not to be adored with offerings And therefore seeing the words lie indifferently between us and are not expresly and especially here applied for the refutation of that Heresie which you pretend they were guilty of I see no reason why Epiphanius might not as well intend them for that purpose which I conceive as for that which you conceive The last place alledged tells us that she was begotten and Born as other Men and Women are Which if the Collyridians had thought her God Eternal and absolutely without beginning should not have been barely said but proved as being in effect the very point in question and therefore seeing Epiphanius contents himself with saying so without proof it is evident he never thought they would make difficulty to grant it and consequently that they did not believe her to be God Eternal But then again if the Rule be good which part of your proofs depend upon That whatever Epiphanius denies in this discourse that the Collyridians held for upon that ground from Non Deum hanc efficeret non tamen Deus you conclude they believed her God If I say this Rule be good then you should be constant to it and now that he says Non tamen aliter genita est praeter hominum naturam she was not begotten in a different way from other men you should infer that they believed not that she was God but that she was otherwise Born and Begotten than the ordinary sort of Men. And so whereas he says before Non tamen corpus de coelo tulit her Body was not from Heaven you should infer that they believed her Body came from Heaven And again from those Sanctum erat Mariae corpus non tamen Deus you should collect that they thought not only her person but her Body to be God or if these be wild and weak deductions then you must acknowledge that I have done yours some favour in vouchsafing them a particular answer 5. Demand Whether in the Church of Roman it be not an approved and perpetually practised worship of the Blessed Virgin that Incense which was never anciently offered unto any either by Jews or Gentiles but to the true or to a supposed true God and Tapers and divers other oblations should be offered to her honour Answ A practice of the Church of Rome and approved too by those that practise it belongs not to her except it be a practice of the Church and approved by her What her practice is abroad I know not here at home I see no such practice nor do I know any approbation of it in any of her publick declarations But this I know that there is nothing in it unlawful or savouring of the Collyridian Superstition to offer Wax Tapers or any other thing at the Memories of the Blessed Virgin or any other Canonized Saint either as means to procure their intercession by these outward Signs of the Honour and Devotion which they bear to them as of Old we find by 8. Austin a Ad aquas Tibilotanas Episcopo offerente Projecto reliquias martyris gloriosissimi Stephani ad ejus memoriam veniebat magnae multitudinis concursus accursus Ibi caeca mulier ut ad episcopum portantem pignora Sacra duceretur oravit Flores ques ferebat dedit recepit oculis admovit protenus vidit August de Civit. Dei l. 22. c. 8. abscedens aliquid de Altari S. Stephani florum quod occurrit tulit Idem Ibid. c. they did use to adorn their Tombs with Flowers or as monuments of their thankfulness for some benefits received by their Intercession as Theodoret b Theodoretus de curandis affec Graec. l. 8. tells us of Eyes and Ears and Hands some of Gold and some of Silver hung up in the Chappels of the Saints that had been presented as oblations by those that had recovered health in those Members according to their Vows made to that purpose in time of Sickness Reply I do not deny but a practice may be tolerated in a Church and not approved As the Publick Stews are in Italy and Usury in England But it is one thing to Tolerate with condemnation another to Tolerate without condemnation nay with condemnation of those that should oppose or condemn it And such I doubt not upon examination you may find is this practice general in the Church of Rome offering Tapers to the Saints and for their honour I say not only to God at the Memories of the Saints as you would mince the matter which yet were a groundless superstition God having appointed no such Sacrifice to be offered to him under the Gospel but to the Saints themselves and to their honour prove this lawful for either of those purposes you mention either to procure their intercession or as Monuments of thankfulness for benefits obtained by it and then you shall do something Otherwise you will but trifle as now you have done For instead of telling us what may be done de jure you tell us what of Old has been done de facto As if ab antiquo and a principio were all one or as if the Church as we pretend being subject to corruption part of this corruption might not possibly have come in S. Austins or Theodorets time yet this I say not as if I would decline the Tryal of this cause by S. Austin or Theodoret but because I am sure you will not be Tryed by the Fathers no not the consent of Fathers in all things and therefore there is no reason nor equity in the World that you should serve your selves with their Authority in any thing But now what is it which was done in S. Austins time that may justifie the Practice of the Roman Church was there then any approved offering of Wax Tapers and Incense to the Queen of Heaven or any other Saint nil horum you neither do nor can produce any thing out of S. Austin to this purpose But what then is it Why forsooth they were used to adorn their Tombs Egregiam verò laudem spolia ampla of Old in S. Austins time they were used to adorn their Tombs with Flowers therefore we may offer Tapers to them Truly an excellent Enthymeme but I fear the concealed proposition which should make it a Syllogism hides its head for shame and dares not appear yet we will for once make bold to draw it forth into light that you may look upon it and tell us how you like it This therefore it is Whose soever Tombs we adorn to them and to their honour we may offer Wax Tapers Consider it I pray you and if you approve it then approve also of offering Tapers not only to Canonize Saints but to all Christians that
diligence to find the truth do yet miss of it and fall into Error there is no danger in it They that Err and they that do not Err may both be saved So that those places which contain things necessary and wherein Error were dangerous need no Infallible interpreter because they are plain and those that are obscure need none because they contain not things necessary neither is Error in them dangerous The Law-maker speaking in the Law I grant it is no more easily understood than the Law it self for his Speech is nothing else but the Law I grant it very necessary that besides the Law-maker speaking in the Law there should be other Judges to determine Civil and Criminal Controversies and to give every man that Justice which the Law allows him But your Argument drawn from hence to shew a necessity of a visible Judge in Controversies of Religion I say is Sophistical and that for many Reasons 14. First Because the variety of Civil cases is infinite and therefore there cannot be possibly Laws enough provided for the determination of them and therefore there must be a Judge to supply out of the Principles of Reason the interpretation of the Law where it is defective But the Scripture we say is a perfect Rule of Faith and therefore needs no supply of the defects of it 15. Secondly To execute the Letter of the Law according to rigour would be many times unjust and therefore there is need of a Judge to moderate it whereof in Religion there is no use at all 16. Thirdly In Civil and Criminal causes the parties have for the most part so much interest and very often so little honesty that they will not submit to a Law though never so plain if it be against them or will not see it to be against them though it be so never so plainly whereas if men were honest and the Law were plain and extended to all cases there would be little need of Judges Now in matters of Religion when the Question is whether every man be a fit Judge and chooser for himself we suppose men honest and such as understand the difference between a Moment and Eternity And such men we conceive will think it highly concerns them to be of the true Religion but nothing at all that this or that Religion should be the true And then we suppose that all the necessary points of Religion are plain and easie and consequently every man in this cause to be a competent Judge for himself because it concerns himself to judge right as much as Eternal happiness is worth And if through his own default he judge amiss he alone shall suffer for it 17. Fourthly in Civil Controversies we are obliged only to external passive obedience and not to an internal and active We are bound to obey the Sentence of the Judge or not to resist it but not always to believe it just But in matters of Religion such a Judge is required whom we should be obliged to believe to have judged right So that in Civil Controversies every honest understanding man is fit to be a Judge But in Religion none but he that is infallible 18. Fifthly in Civil Causes there is means and power when the Judge has decreed to compel men to obey his Sentence otherwise I believe Laws alone would be to as much purpose for the ending of differences as Laws and Judges both But all the Power in the World is neither fit to convince nor able to compel a mans Conscience to consent to any thing Worldly terror may prevail so far as to make men profess a Religion which they believe not such men I mean who know not that there is a Heaven provided for Martyrs and a Hell for those that dissemble such truths as are necessary to be professed But to force either any man to believe what he believes not or any honest man to dissemble what he does believe if God commands him to profess it or to profess what he does not believe all the Powers in the World are too weak with all the Powers of Hell to assist them 19. Sixthly in Civil Controversies the case cannot be so put but there may be a Judge to end it who is not a party In Controversies of Religion it is in a manner impossible to be avoided but the Judge must be a party For this must be the first whether he be a Judge or no and in that he must be a party Sure I am the Pope in the Controversies of our time is a chief party for it highly concerns him even as much as his Popedom is worth not to yield any one point of his Religion to be Erroneous And he is a man subject to like passions with other men And therefore we may justly decline his Sentence for fear temporal respects should either blind his judgment or make him pronounce against it 20. Seventhly in Civil Controversies it is impossible Titius should hold the land in question and Sempronius too and therefore either the Plantiff must injure the Defendant by disquieting his possession or the Defendant wrong the Plantiff by keeping his right from him But in Controversies of Religion the Case is otherwise I may hold my Opinion and do you no wrong and you yours and do me none Nay we may both of us hold our Opinion and yet do our selves no harm provided the difference be not touching any thing necessary to Salvation and that we love truth so well as to be diligent to inform our Conscience and constant in following it 21. Eightly For the ending of Civil Controversies who does not see it is absolutely necessary that not only Judges should be appointed but that it should be known and unquestioned who they are Thus all the Judges of our Land are known men known to be Judges and no man can doubt or question but these are the Men. Otherwise if it were a disputable thing who were these Judges and they had no certain warrant for their Authority but only some Topical congruities would not any man say such Judges in all likelihood would rather multiply Controversies then end them 22. Ninthly and lastly For the deciding of Civil Controversies men may appoint themselves a judge But in matters of Religion this office may be given to none but whom God hath designed for it who doth not always give us those things which we conceive most expedient for our selves 23. So likewise if our Saviour the King of Heaven had intended that all Controversies in Religion should be by some Visible Judge finally determined who can doubt but in plain terms he would have expressed himself about this matter He would have said plainly The Bishop of Rome I have appointed to decide all emergent Controversies For that our Saviour designed the Bishop of Rome to this Office and yet would not say so nor cause it to be written ad Rei memoriam by any of the Evangelists or Apostles so much as once but leave it to
be drawn out of uncertain Principles by thirteen or fourteen more uncertain consequences He that can believe it let him All these Reasons I hope will convince you that though we have and have great necessity of Judges in Civil and Criminal causes yet you may not conclude from thence that there is any publick authorized Judge to determine Controversies in Religion nor any necessity there should be any 24. But the Scripture stands in need of some watchful and unerring eye to guard it by means of whose assured vigilancy we may undoubtedly receive it sincere and pure Very true but this is no other than the watchful Eye of Divine providence the goodness whereof will never suffer that the Scriptures should be depraved and corrupted but that in them should be always extant a conspicuous and plain way to Eternal happiness Neither can any thing be more palpably unconsistent with his goodness than to suffer Scripture to be undiscernably corrupted in any matter of moment and yet to exact of men the belief of those verities which without their fault or knowledge or possibility of prevention were defaced out of them So that God requiring of men to believe Scripture in its purity ingages himself to see it preserved in sufficient purity and you need not fear but he will satisfie his ingagement You say we can have no assurance of this but your Churches Vigilancy But if we had no other we were in a hard case for who could then assure us that your Church has been so vigilant as to guard Scripture from any the least alteration There being various Lections in the ancient Copies of your Bibles what security can your new raised Office of Assurance give us that that reading is true which you now receive and that false which you reject Certainly they that anciently received and made use of these divers Copies were not all guarded by the Churches vigilancy from having their Scripture altered from the purity of the Original in many places For of different readings it is not in nature impossible that all should be false but more than one cannot possibly be true Yet the want of such a protection was no hindrance to their Salvation and why then shall the having of it be necessary for ours But then this Vigilancy of your Church what means have we to be ascertain'd of it First the thing is not evident of it self which is evident because many do not believe it Neither can any thing be pretended to give evidence to it but only some places of Scripture of whose incorruption more than any other what is it that can secure me If you say the Churches vigilancy you are in a Circle proving the Scriptures uncorrupted by the Churches vigilancy and the Churches vigilancy by the incorruption of some places of Scripture and again the incorruption of those places by the Churches vigilancy If you name any other means than that means which secures me of the Scriptures incorruption in those places will also serve to assure me of the same in other places For my part abstracting from Divine Providence which will never suffer the way to Heaven to be blocked up or made invisible I know no other means I mean no other natural and rational means to be assured hereof than I have that any other Book is uncorrupted For though I have a greater degree of rational and humane Assurance of that than this in regard of divers considerations which make it more credible That the Scripture hath been preserved from any material alteration yet my assurance of both is of the same kind and condition both Moral assurances and neither Physical or Mathematical 25. To the next argument the Reply is obvious That though we do not believe the Books of Scripture to be Canonical because they say so For other Books that are not Canonical may say they are and those that are so may say nothing of it yet we believe not this upon the Authority of your Church but upon the Credibility of Universal Tradition which is a thing Credible of it self and therefore fit to be rested on whereas the Authority of your Church is not so And therefore your rest thereon is not rational but meerly voluntary I might as well rest upon the judgment of the next man I meet or upon a chance of a Lottery for it For by this means I only know I might Err but by relying on you I know I should Err. But yet to return you one suppose for another suppose I should for this and all other things submit to her direction how could she assure me that I should not be mis-led by doing so She pretends indeed infallibility herein but how can she assure us that she hath it What by Scriptures That you say cannot assure us of its own Infallibility and therefore not of yours What then by Reason That you say may deceive in other things and why not in this How then will she assure us hereof 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 be an end of the like multiplied Demands till we rest in something evident of it self which demonstrates to the World that this Church is infallible And seeing there is no such Rock for the Infallibility of this Church to be setled on it must of necessity like the Island of Delos flote up and down for ever And yet upon this point according to Papists all other Controversies in Faith depend 26. To the 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 § The sum and substance of the Ten next Paragraphs is this That it appears by the Confessions of some Protestants and the Contentions of others that the Questions about the Canon of Scripture what it is and about the Various reading and Translations of it which is true and which not are not to be determined by Scripture and therefore that all Controversies of Religion are not decidable by Scripture 27. To which I have already answered saying That when Scripture is affirmed to be the rule by which all Controversies of Religion are to be decided Those are to be excepted out of this generality which are concerning the Scripture it self For as that general saying of Scripture He hath put all things under his Feet is most true though yet S. Paul tells us That when it is said he hath put all things under him it is manifest he is excepted who did put all things under him So when we say that all Controversies of Religion are decidable by the Scripture it is manifest to all but Cavillers that we do and must except from this generality those which are touching the Scripture it self Just as a Merchant shewing a Ship of his own may say all my substance is in this Ship and yet never intended to deny that his Ship is part of his substance nor yet to say that his Ship is in it self Or as a man may