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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A59899 A vindication of both parts of the Preservative against popery in an answer to the cavils of Lewis Sabran, Jesuit / by William Sherlock ... Sherlock, William, 1641?-1707. 1688 (1688) Wing S3370; ESTC R21011 87,156 120

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he can be infallible in nothing Protestants believe Christ to be an infallible Teacher and the Christian Faith to be infallibly true and this they believe with all the firmness and certainty of assent but this is not what the Church of Rome used to call Infallibility though the Jesuite if it be not meer want of understanding in him seems to be hammering out a new notion of Infallibility but it is but a rude and imperfect Embryo yet we shall see what they will make of it in time And here I find my self obliged to look a little backwards to see how he states the Churches Infallibility for he mightily complains of Protestant Misrepresentations about it Our Guide then he tells us is the Catholick Church either diffusive in its whole extent that is as it contains or signifies the whole number of Christians all the World over or representative in its Head and Bishops the Pope and a General Council The Church diffusive or the whole number of Christians on Earth is most certainly the true notion of the Catholick Church on Earth is that Church to which most of the Promises made to The Church in Scripture are made but how this Church diffusive should be our Guide wants to be explained if the Church diffusive or the whole number of Christians is the Guide who is to be guided unless the Guide is to be a Guide only to himself However I hope then every particular Christian will be allowed a private judgment of his own for the Church diffusive will be a very strange Guide if it cannot use its own reason and judgment and how the whole which consists of all particular Christians should judge for itself when no particular Christian must judge is somewhat mysterious that is that all Christians must judge and yet none must judge But I will not dispute with him about this but whenever he will collect the Votes of the Church diffusive or of all the Christians in the World I promise to subscribe to their Definitions The Representative Church is the Head and Bishops the Pope and a General Council I thought the Pope in Jesuits Divinity had been the Church virtual and a General Council the Church representative But I have in a late Discourse proved that the Pope is not the Head of the Catholick Church nor a Council of Bishops the representative of it and he may try his skill upon it when he pleases Now it seems the Church diffusive has the keeping of the general faith of Christians first received from Christ and his Apostles and preserved by all Bishops in their respective Diocesses and in the minds and actions of each faithful Believer in the whole Catholick Church Strange that our Jesuite should now at last turn a meer Blackloist or Traditionary Divine This general Faith of Christians he compares to the common Laws of the Land to shew I suppose his skill in the Law and make the learned Gentlemen of the Temple to pity or scorn The Master's ignorance well let that be as it will for I pretend to no skill in Laws but as for this general Faith of Christians whatever it be like I would gladly learn from the Church diffusive what it is for I matter nothing else but the General Faith of Christians but how to learn this he has not told us it is preserved he says by all Bishops in their respective Diocesses and in the minds and actions of each faithful Believer in the whole Catholick Church Well then must we examine all Bishops and every particular Believer about this this is impossible to be done will any one Bishop or any one particular Believer since every Bishop and every particular Believer has it suffice to tell us what this general Faith of Christians is is this an infallible Conveyance of the Faith to depend upon the Tradition of Bishops and Christian People is there no faithful and authentick Record of this Faith from whence we may learn what Christ and his Apostles delivered to the Church So one would think by this Jesuit's account who takes no notice of the Holy Scriptures as if the common Faith of Christians could not be learnt from them but from the tradition of the Church diffusive Thus much for Common Law but the Church has her Statute Laws too and they are the Decisions or Canons of General Councils declaring and applying to particular Instances the Common Law and Belief of the Church but how does the Pope and a General Council or the Church representative as he calls it come to have the power of declaring and applying the common Faith of Christians which is in the keeping of the Church diffusive and therefore one would think could be declared by none else do the Pope and a General Council infallibly know the Sentiments and Opinions of all the Christian Bishops and People in the World This they must do or else they cannot declare the common Faith of Christians unless they can infallibly declare what they do not know If their Authority be only to declare the common Faith of Christians how shall we know that they declare nothing but the common Faith of Christians for if they do their Decrees are not valid for they declare that which is false This Jesuit has greatly intangled and perplexed the Cause by laying the whole stress upon the declarative and applying Power Had he said that the Pope and a General Council had Authority to declare what is the Christian Faith and though they declared that to be the true Faith which the Church diffusive never heard of before yet after their decision it must be received as the common Faith of Christians though it had not been so formerly there had been some sense in this though no truth but when he says the Church can only declare what is and always has been the common Faith of Christians if I can find by ancient Records that what the Council declares to be the common Faith of Christians now was either not known or condemned in former Ages if I certainly know that she declares that to be the Faith which at the very time of the Council was so far from being the common Faith of Christians that it was not the common Faith of the Council but was contradicted by the wisest and best part of it then I certainly know that the Council has not declared the common Faith of Christians and therefore that its Decrees are of no Authority But he proceeds We hold that this general Faith received from the Apostles and preserved in all the Members of the Catholick Church explained upon occasion by the Church representative is infallibly true and this is all the Infallibility the Catholick Church pretends to And there is no Protestant but will own this Infallibility That the Faith at first received from the Apostles the same Faith which was delivered by the Apostles preserved in all the Members of the Catholick Church and the same Faith explained upon occasion