finde in my heart not to say a word to them that you might see I do not give them that respect as to the Fathers And yet take the strength of all their authorities together and make of them an accumulative argument as we may speak yet they do not conclude your cause Calvin and his Schollar in their sayings affirm no more then that which we acknowledge not from them that the Church shall by the assistance of the Spirit be sufficiently furnished with necessary Doctrine unto Salvation but those of the Church invisible may be saved though the Church visible be not Infallible and by consequence not the ground of Faith As for Doctor Saravia's passage I answer it doth not come up close to your purpose The H. G. which beareth rule in the Church objectively is the true Interpreter of Scripture and thus it is not for you And if you understand the Church objectively yet first the matter he seems to speak to is of Discipline about Government of the Church depending upon Primitive Example but we are upon points of Faith Secondly He cannot be contrary to himselfe when he acts as he did formerly in the time of the Apostles but whether he doth so act now is a question yea no question Thirdly If you will with him and from him draw the Government of the Church to be proportionably Episcopal with all my heart I reject them that reject it And your Adversaries of Wittenberg confesse nothing for you The rule they speak of namely Prophetical and Apostolical preaching c. it is the Word of God written according to which she is bound to interpret those places which are obscure and to judge of Doctrines according to the rule which she hath received so as her Interpretations are to be agreeable to the analogy of Faith and her judgements of Doctrines to be made according to the Law of the Word namely harder places are to be expounded by those which are more plain and Controversies to be decided by that rule And all this makes nothing for you For thus the Scripture is the Rule ruling and the Church is but the Rule ruled And thus we follow the Church as the Church followes the rule as Saint Paul saith Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ in the first Epistle to the Corinthians c. 11. v. 1. Or if those Lutherans mean by a certain rule any rule distinguished from Scripture it is to be understood of some general heads of Christian Doctrine in proportion whereunto doubtfull places and Doctrines were to be judged But those heads were to be gathered out of Scripture And so all is resolved towards belief in Scripture but I think no man can see how they should say such a rule which was not Scripture was confirmed by miracles So for them And for Doctor Field if you will go through the twentieth chapter of the fourth Book you shall finde nothing in him contrary to this Doctrine For he saith plainly that though the Canonical Books are received by way of Tradition yet the Scriptures have not their authority from the approbation of the Church but they win credit of themselves and yeild satisfaction to all men of their Divine Truth whence we judge that the Church which receiveth them is led by the Spirit of God Observe not because the Church is led by the Spirit of God therefore doth he say she receiveth them but because she receiveth them therefore we judge she is led by the Spirit of God And as for his Rule of Faith descending by Tradition from the Apostles what is he like to mean but the Apostles Creed which he saith there was delivered in the Church as a Rule of her Faith But even this binds not by authority of the Church or upon Vertue of Tradition but by proportion to Scripture where it is found in particulars of matter though not in form of a Creed We confesse also that we should search out the true Church as the same Doctour saith We confesse that the Catholick Church is the Houshold of Faith the Spouse of Christ the Church of the Living God and that we should embrace her Communion and rest in her judgement Yes but how Not ultimately not absolutely not in what so ever she saith because shee saith it but in what so ever shee saith from the Lord. For although she doth goe by an infallible Rule yet are we not sure she goeth by it infallibly Therefore though wee rest in her judgements as to Peace yet can wee not rest in her judgements as to Truth because our understandings are not free to assent to what man will as being bound to assent to that onely which is grounded in the Word of God in matters of Faith And now might I Vie with you in number of Pontificians against you See Durand in his Prologue upon the Sentences where he hath more to our purpose then is necessary to be Transcribed Read him your self Gerson also in his Sermon concerning Errours against Faith and Manners about the Precept Thou shalt not kill saith thus More freely more purely more truely more speedily is Truth found out and Errour reproved if the Divine Law alone be constituted as Judge according to the consideration of Aristotle He which makes the Law the Judge makes God but he that addes Man addes a Beast Panormitanus also upon the 5. of the Decret concerning almes in chap. qualiter quando The saying of any Saint established with the Authorities of the New or Old Testament is preferred before a Papal Constitution even in decision of Causes Also Ferus upon the 1 Epistle of Saint John 2. chapter in the 52.3 page of the Antuerpe Edition thus The Holy Ghost doth teach t is by the means of the Holy Scripture and Word Again The Holy Scripture is given to us as a certain sure Rule of Christian Doctrine And again in the same page For if having the Holy Scripture as a most certain Rule of Christian Doctrine set before our Eyes we notwithstanding teach things so unlike what would be done if the Scriptures were taken away And if you say now that there is added to those places Tradition in the Roman Edition after the Trent Council as is noted You will get nothing by that but shame to the Pontificians And now I think I am not much behind hand with you in Testimonies about the Question But then afterwards you presse harder upon me So you say but I do not yet feel the weight of any thing you say I beleeve the Creed and that the Church is Holy And I do not beleeve but know that from hence nothing is coming to your cause The Catholick Church makes not it self the ground of Faith but is grounded in it as before And how were the first Members of the Catholick Church made Christians but by the Word of God And from the Holynesse of it doth not follow infallibility by the Roman distinction which saith that the Pope may erre
be imbrac'd with as infallible an assent as the doctrine of the Prophets and Apost Yea there have bin many miracles wrought to testifie many very many of those points in particular in which we differ frō you As you may see shew'd by Brierly only by looking in his Index 5. miracles but see him particularly T. 2. C. 3 Tr. S. 7. Subdivis And Tr. 1. S. 5. There you shall see how solidly grounded these Miracles are against which you can object nothing which is not objected with equal probabilitie by Heathens against the Miracles of the Prophets and by Jewes against those of the Apostles Tell me then if these two motives though there be yet many others be not as powerful inducements to move us to acknowledge that God hath given his Church infallible authoritie to teach us faithfully which she received from him as were those motives for which the Jewes did prudently believe that the Scripture given them by David by Salomon by Nahum by Amos and others were written with infallible authoritie by them having Commission from God to write what they did write We then believe the Church to have such a Commission with as good security as they acknowledged this Commission in those Scripture writers Whereas the ground upon which you believe Scripture is thought to be foolish and Chimerical by some of your best Writers 34. Yet to shew further how unsecurely the greater part of your Religion did ground their faith I did add this argument that the true Original Scriptures were written in languages not knowne to one among ten thousand if we speake of a perfect knowledge Others must trust the Translations of private men and believe them rather then the Translations used by the Church in general Councils Is it not cleere that the Authority of such Translations is far greater and far more to be judged to agree with the true Original then any of your private Mens Translations You your selfe confesse that Translations are only so far Gods word as they agree with the originals whence I infer that no body in your opinion can believe any point upon the authority of any Translations until he be assured that such a point agreeth with the true Hebrew or true Greek Original How disappointed then be most of your Religion especially your women who so fiercely fly upon us for believing the Church whilest they themselves must either believe nothing for they cannot believe any thing upon the credit of the English Translation until they know how exactly it agreeth with the true Greek or true Hebrew Original which is wholy impossible for them or else they must merely take upon trust the most fallible Translations for the infallible Original and trust rather in this most important point the learning and fair dealing of those private Ministers deeply interessed in this cause then trust the gratest authority upon earth which is a general Council having so strong promise of the assistance of the Holy Ghost I intreat you here to see Chapter 4. Numb 9. 35. Again I pray tell me how you learned Ministers who have so full knowledge of these languages as to Translate and upon your own knowledge to judge of true Translations made by others of you it is that I ask how you come to know and know so sufficiently as to ground an infallible assent in your selves and others when your Translations agree with the true Original For you have now confessed that Translations are only so far Gods word as they agree with the Originals And you must mean the true Originals or else you say nothing for agreeing with false or doubtful Originals will not make them Gods undoubted Word Tell me I say it again and again how do you know which be the true and undoubtedly true Originals and upon what secure ground do you know it The true Originals be either Hebrew or Greek As for the Hebrew all must know that the ancient Hebrew Copies were all written without points that is in full substance without Vowels Now they be the Vowels which make or marre the word and sense for a Vowell addeth the soul and the sound to the consonants and maketh them signify most different things For example for a Ball write only b ll to which consonants if you adde an a it is Ball adde an e it is Bell adde an u and it is a Bull So that great confusion must needs follow if the true points that is the true Vowells were not put to the same Consonants Well now again all must know that a good while after the time of Christ and his Apostles the Jewish Rabbies under pretence of avoyding the mistakes which might happen in the lesse skilfull in the Hebrew tongue which then was almost worn out did take the old Hebrew Testament and put the points that is the Vowels unto it so that the old Testament we now use came from these Jewish hands Tell me then how know you infallibly whither these perfidious Jewes had skill and honesty enough to deliver to us their Copies with the true points and Vowells and yet all depends on this The consonants alone will not assure us in these unskilful and so remote ages For the least change in appoint maketh most contrary things to be all one for no Man can tell especially infallibly whether these words an Angel had a b ll in his hand should be read thus an Angel had a Ball in his hand or a Bell or a Bill or a Bull. Put a false Vowel and it is all one To tast cheese and to tost cheese all one to be fatt and to be fitt to increase in Grace and to increase in Grece all one to eat a bitter fig and to eat a better fig. A pot ful of butter and a Pit ful of Batter will be the same Hence you see the small infallibility you have of the possessing the true undoubted Originall Hebrew old Testament As for the new testament Saint Mathewes Gospel was Originally written in Hebrew and that Originall is quite lost Now the other Greek Originalls which we have have a stupendious Variety He who found the word Infallible so unfortunate to him which you obiect to me telleth of his own knowledge a story most unfortunate to you and yours which I have also h eapd by an other way His words are these In my hearing Bishop Usher professed that whereas he had of many yeares before a desire to publish the Testament in Greek with Various Lections and Annotations and for that purpose had used great diligence and spent much money to furnish himself with Manuscripts yet in conclusion he was forced to desist utterly least if he should ingenuously have noted all the several differences of readings which himself had collected the incredible multitude of them almost in every verse should rather have made Men Atheisticall then satisfy them in the true reading of any particular passage An evident signe that the Governours of the Church did not onely rely
the Church visible as the onely subject if it be not then the Text doth not prove absolute infallibility but onely security against damning errours or practice Not that the Church visible is not a mean of that security but therefore not a mean universally infallible but with specification Sixthly you ask how shall ignorant people be divinely perswaded that the Council is General To this he answers by giving us the means or signs of this knowledge First publique Summons Secondly publique appearance of Prelats made upon these summons from all parts of the world Thirdly publick setting publick subscribing publick divulging their Decrees and Definitions acknowledged truly to be theirs by all present denied by no man to be theirs with the least show of probability no more than such an Act is denied to be the Act of such a Parliament Ans Is here all The question was how shall ignorant people be divinely perswaded that the Council is general And now we must be answered with a probability If that which may be known probably be known divinely eo ipso upon that account then a probable Argument may make an infallible conclusion And why then do they urge infallibility of the Church for point of Faith which they can never prove It less would have made Faith they should not in prudence have combated for infallibility But as long as the conclusion follows the worse part and the effect doth not exceed the cause and the assent cannot be higher than the ground of it this answer of his is too short for the question Secondly were not all these necessary conditions of a General Council belonging to the Trent Council And why then was not the French Church perswaded to take it for a General Council Why doth the French Church say transeat concilium Tridentinum Therefore that which he saies is not so that all these motives make it evidently credible to the ignorant and to the learned that this is the true definition of the church It is evidently credible to neither So that though the Definition of the Church were infallible in it self as they say Scriprure is yet is it not infallible to us as they say Scripture is not without the Church Therefore though the Definition were infallible yet cannot they thereby prove the Council infallible but they are first to prove the Council infallible then that which is a true definition of the church will be infallibly true because truly infallible So that he needs not tell us that if we beleive all her Definitions to be true we will also believe this Definition to be true since a particular is included in an universal But before we believe all her Definitions to be true we must demand some infallible assurance that such a Council is truly universal and that an universal Council is truly infallible Otherwise we may believe one Definition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be true and yet because not proposed infallibly we cannot believe all her Definitions to be true And therefore hath he not extricated himself out of insuperable difficulties As for the Hypothesis of the Trent Council which I said was contradicted by the French Catholiques he saies their Definitions concerning Faith were never opposed by France Ans Opposition is formally indeed in contradiction But if they were denied onely it were sufficient to us Do my Adversaries think they may be saved notwithstanding this denial This surely they deny not Well then if they may be saved notwithstanding their denial then we may be saved also though we do not subscribe some definitions of a Church Then we are not bound absolutly under danger of damnation to believe all definitions of the Church Then the Church hath not infallible authority But 2. their withdrawing of their assent must draw in one of these two things either that it was not a General Council and this interpretativi makes a contradiction or that General Councils are not infallible and this in effect makes a contradiction too Yea 3. Did not the King of France write to the Trent Council under the name of a Conventus which they construed in derogation to a General Council As appears in the Trent History And 4. As for the distinction of the definitions concerning faith as if they were not so disliked but some things ordained for practice seemed less suitable to the particular state of that Kingdom This runnes out as it comes in For those things towards practice were ordained by the same Divine authority were they not Or did not the Holy Ghost assist them as to things of practice If not then proper obedience is not due to Councils because proper obedience respects things of practice but indeed the whole Council was rejected in gross and therefore when Cardinal Ossat mediated for the King of France with the Pope and the Cardinal urged the peace for him without the condition of accepting the Trent Council he wrote to the King what the Pope said one morning to him because he would not receive the Council that he had no more rest that night then a damned soule in Ossat's Letters And as to the seventh answer concerning some in the Trent Council who had Titles of Bishops Bishop Iewell affirmes it in his Apol. Par. 6. P. 62.5 and he names St. Robert of Scotland and Mr. Pates of England And the former is named in the Trent History to have been a Bishop of the post if we may say so of him for his ability in riding post so well And if forty Bishops do all agree in the same point of faith as for a good while there were not many more what can be be concluded against a possibility that they might be all sworne servants of the Pope And he that will read the Trent History will finde sufficient cause not to suspect but to believe that Council not to have had due moralities much less infallibility His best way then to secure a Council against irregularities is by the assistance of the Holy Ghost that nothing shall happen destructive of secure direction Ans this is not sufficient that nothing be destructive of secure direction against damnation if he means it now so but against all errour for this he is ingaged to make good by former denying of that distinction of errour damnative and errour not damnative Yet here he seems to warpe in this point 2. The morality of the Synod is antecedent to its infallible assistance Then we must have all defects of legality and proceeding removed before we can be perswaded of its infallibility 3. why did he except against Cajaphas for not being the true High Priest if now Cajaphas may Prophesie not knowing what he doth before the spirit of truth sent to teach the Church all truth shall faile in his duty So then notwithstanding there be not a legall High Priest the spirit of God shall infallibly act the Council as he did the Apostles But here is a double duty for them first that the spirit of God
and not private Spirit which I can esteem no better then a fantastical if not a fanatical Opinion and is Diametrically opposite to the words of the second of St. Peter 1.20 No prophecy of Scripture is made by private interpretation And all this spoken here and in the Position c. of the Church is meant of such a Church as does truely deserve the name of Catholick and so it will appear that all the discourse in this paper I received of the Roman Church considered as a Particular Church or any other Particular Church is but Impertinent and Extravagant Now also I must assure the Answerer that the Pontificians do not make the Church of Rome the formal Object of their Faith as he doth impose upon them for they acknowledge that to be the Revelation of God or the authority of God revealing which causes their Belief to the Supernatural and Divine and not onely Natural and Humane as is the Belief that there is such a City as Rome or that there is a William the Conquerour c. which kind of faith is All that Hereticks have and All such as do not ground their Belief upon the Authority of the Church I cannot also but observe in the received paper that it is improperly enough called Excess of faith as it is there opposed to want of faith to believe more then Necessary for the Number of things believed does not alter the Nature of faith it self And lastly I must tax him of false alledging the words in the Reason thus there is no infallible way without a Miracle of his Gods Revelation coming to us but by their Church whereas in the Paper delivered it is the Church abstracting from all Particular Churches and meaning the true Church which soever it is And this is done but to make way for that needless Excursion which there follows THE REJOYNDER SIR THere is no great reason for me to rejoyn First because you wave the Application of your Discourse as to the Roman Church which is not ordinary for those of your Profession when they speak highly of the Catholique Church Secondly Because I may let you alone to answer the first paper with your second as to the main of it Thirdly Because the greatest part of it hath one fault not to conclude contradictorily Yet in Christian respects to Truth and You I shall endeavour meekly some return to your Reply and to differ as little as may be from you I shall mostly follow your own Order In the beginning you dislike my dislike of the ground of Faith without giving you any Reason Answer I intended my answer as near as I could guesse to the design of your paper for the Roman Church by Obedience to the Bishop whereof Bellarmine in his Catechism Englished p. 65. 6 7. doth describe the Catholique Church You will excuse me then if I took the course to make my answer compendiously sufficient to that drift if you will hold with Papists herein And if you would confesse you meant the Roman Church by the Catholique then I have given you such a Reason against your Position as you will say nothing to And you may consider that you directed your paper as to a Protestant who is not contradistinguished to a Catholique but to a Papist if you be a Papist why doe you dissemble it to me If you be not why do we dispute And this Apology may be enough also to refute all your Objections against me of impertinencies and excursions and untrue Allegations if you will take notice also of my Parenthesis And now my Reason intimated in a promise shall be made good in performance And since you will in the question about the Catholique Church abstract from the Roman and all other particulars I shall give some account of Catholiques who did not make the authority of the Catholique Church the ground and cause of their Beleef whereby onely God his Revelation cometh to us infallibly as you expresse your self in your first paper but this Prerogative they ascribed to the Holy Scripture to be it wherein and whereby we are infallibly assured of Gods Will as to what we should beleeve and do in order to salvation That the authority of the Catholique Church is of use towards Faith we deny not but the cause and ground of Faith and that whereby we are infallibly ascertaind of the mind of God is not the Proposition of the Church but the Word of God And such being the state of the question betwixt us I shall for your shower of authorities you say you could power out against me give you or shew you a cloud of witnesses as the Apostle speaks Hebr. 12.1 against you Your shower could not wet me through but this cloud may direct you home This Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the Church and Scriptures as you may see by the 8.19 20 21. Articles and therefore it is not my Opinion will appear not to be new but agreeable to ancient Catholiques in your own esteem The first shall be Saint Irenaeus Have you appealed to Saint Irenaeus unto Saint Irenaeus shall you goe He in his third book first chapter first words thus We have not known the disposing of our salvation by any other then those by whom the Gospel came to us which then indeed they preached afterwards delivered it to us in the Scriptures by the Will of God to be the foundation and pillar of our Faith So he Now that which is delivered in Scripture by the Will of God to be the foundation and pillar of Faith is the ground and cause of our Faith And such is the Gospel according to this Testimony The next for us is Clemens Alexandrinus in the seventh of his Stromata towards the end in the 757. p. of the Greek and Latine Edition He which is to be believed by himself reasonably is worthy to be believed by the Lords Scripture and Voice working by the Lord inwardly to the benefit of men So he Then according to him the Holy Scripture is not worthy to be beleeved by men but men are worthy of beleef by it And therefore that must ground our Faith because it is it whereby we beleeve others And therefore he saith in the following words Surely we use it as the Criterium for finding out of things And therefore points are to be decided and determined by authority of it which is his chief discourse against Heretiques even to the end of that book And if you please to peruse and consider it you shall find there that in his judgement the Catholique Church which he also there commends doth not conserve it self in that denomination by its own authority but by the Rule of Scripture Now that which rules the whole rules the parts the Scripture rules the whole then us So Origen upon Saint Matthew Hom. 25. We ought not therefore for confirmation of Doctrine to swear our own apprehensions and to bring into witnesse those which every one of us doth
of you in this dispute you have first said you knew not what and now you know not what to say Tell us where the originall of infalibilitie lies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surely it doth not become infalibilitie to be so reserved To passe this you tell me in your fourth Par. that I lay to your charge the supposing of the question And I am still of that minde For if you say that as things stand we have no other assurance to ground our faith upon but the Church you do plainly suppose that which is mainly in question and so must do until you prove it And I still say unto you as I did that you do not well consider what you say in saying as things stand as if the rule of faith were a Lisbian rule and might alter upon occasions and as if the Scripture must be accommodated to the use of the Church Yes intellectus currit cum praxi And the Scripture is to follow the Church and not the Church the Scripture would you have it so So it seems by what follows for so you answer that though God might have ordained otherwise yet as things stand the Church is the ground of our faith in all points speaking of the last ground on which we must stand to wit not an humane but Divine ground the pillar and ground of truth And what do you say here more than you said before or more than we can say mutatis mutandis Though God could have ordained otherwise that there should have been a standing Councel or a singular person successively infalible to have proposed and determined all things infalibly yet as things stand the Scripture is the ground of our faith in all points necessary speaking of the last ground on which we must stand not a humane but a Divine ground Wherein are we inferiour to you but that we do not put in all points But we put in all points necessarie And what need more And the Church is not yet proved to determine any thing infalibly the Scripture proposeth all things necessary infalibly And me thinks you should if you please think the Scripture a divine ground rather than the Church To take then your own principle The ground of faith must be Divine The Church is not a ground Divine Therefore no ground The Major is your own The assumption is proved thus The Testimonie of men is Humane The Testimonie of the Church is the Testimonie of men Therefore The first proposition in the ordinary capacity of men is plaine For no effect can exceed the cause And the second proposition is as plaine if the men that are of the Church are considered as private men by your own grounds But these men you say being in the capacitie of a Church are inspired by the Holy Ghost so as they cannot erre in any point True if they be assisted with the Holy Ghost Well but how shall I know what a Church is and whether such men be of the Church and whether such men be assisted with the Holy Ghost Yea whether there be an Holy Ghost All these particulars I must be satisfied in before that I can believe by a Divine faith that what the Church proposeth definitively is true A Church cannot be in the nature of it expressed without a profession of that Religion which directs man to his supernaturall end Now this Religion requires a supernaturall revelation as Aquinas disputes it in the begining of his Sums Then this Religion must be revealed being not naturally intelligible either by principles or works of nature Where and how is this Religion revealed you cannot say by the Church for the question is of the Church And so consequently how is it revealed that such are of the Church and assisted by the Holy Ghost or that there is an Holy Ghost Expedite these questions And again consider that S. Austin and other Fathers have spoken freely of discerning the Church by Scripture whe◠in I am informed what Religion is what a Church which the true Church and that there is a Holy Ghost Again I must believe by a divine faith that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth as you say Well but how shal I come by this divine faith God infuseth it you will say well but doth he infuse it immediately as in respect of Scripture So you must say well then cannot you think that he can infuse faith of the Scripture immediately in respect of the Church Answer me is this faith wrought in me by the credibility of the Church or not if not how If so then the Church is naturally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the testimonie of the Church must be resolved into the testimonie of men extra rationem Ecclesiae then is it of itself but humane Therefore must you come to this that the Testimonie of the Church is infallible by Athoritie of Scripture Well then if so then the Church is not the last ground on which we must stand Nor yet is it the first ground as we take it for a Divine ground which you mean for it is not Divine but by the word of God yea if the Church be the last ground on which we must stand then why do you prove the Authority of the Church by the Authority of Scripture And if you say that you also prove the Scripture to be the word of God by the Church yet not as the last ground but the Church is resolved into the Authoritie of Scripture as the last ground for if the Church hath no being as such but by Scripture in the substance of it then the Church must be ultimately grounded in Scripture for that which is primum in generatione is ultimum in resolutione So a primo ad ultimum the Scripture is the ground of faith And so this will be contrary to what follows in your last that we do not first believe the Church for the Scripture If you speak of a generall motive to believe the Scripture so we may begin with the Church upon the account of credible men as towards humane faith but if you speak of belief as Divine so we cannot first begin with the Church because we must first be assured of the Church by the word of God under the formalitie of Divine faith the word of God must be first in genere credibilium unlesse there were a resultance of a Church out of naturall principles which is not to be said And in your following words you intimate as much as if we might first admit the Scripture to be the word of God and then prove by the Scriptures the authority of the Church If we may admit the Scriptures for Gods word first then first the Scriptures may be believed to be the word of God without the authority of the Church which is contrary to what you have said formerly Then secondly the Scripture must be the last ground of faith because as before that which is first in generation is last in resolution And
of Scripture and Traditions were agreeable to the substance of Scripture or not if so then they hold their virtue by Scripture If not they remain under debate whether they were infallible Neither is Tradition before Scripture to be confounded with traditions after Scripture We can grant more to the former than we can to the latter both in the substance of the matter and in the manner of certification And for the time after the old Testament was written he doth well to say that it remained almost solely and alone to the Jews For what was Iob and why might not others of the learned Gentils travail for divine knowledge as well as Pythagoras and Plato and Orpheus into Egypt as Iustin Martyr saith of them Ninthly he answers to the cause put of a Pope's differing from the Council upon a question he saies nothing shall be deferred and yet no peril For if it were necessary to have a present definition the Holy Ghost would not forget to inspire the parties requisit to do their duties Ans Again What necessity then of every controversie to be ended Secondly How should the people know whether the business required a present definition Surely they may know by this that it did not require a present definition because if so the Holy Ghost would not have forgot to have inspired the parties requisite to do their duties Well then also we can say that we may be as confident that what is not clearly delivered in Scripture doth not require a full definition because if it had the Holy Ghost would not have forgot to inspire the Pen-men of Scripture to do their duties In the tenth answer he is very suspensive how to declare himself in the point of Ecclesiastical Monarchy He saies a Monarch in some Nations could not do all things without a Parliament But he thinks himself on the surer side that he is sufficiently assisted when he defineth with a Council Ans First why do they not speak out and tell us which is which The Church can end all controversies as they say but not that capital controversie about the Church That whereby all things are to be made manifest is that not to be made manifest We must see all things by the light but the light must be private Do they declaim against private Spirits and will not let us publiquely know the power of the Pope comparately to a Council and yet they together must be the subject of publique Authority And why do they tell us that the Scripture cannot prove it self and therefore we must not resolve our Faith in that and yet we must resolve our selves in the Authority of the Church and yet the Church cannot tell us where this Authority Supreme is or will not And it is all one to us for we are in the dark as well by their want of will to shew us light as of power But since it seems we may be saved in the opinion of the Jesuit or in the opinion of the Sorbonist we draw this advantage from it that notwithstanding we know not infallibly which part of the contradiction to hold in points of question we may yet be secured against damnation pendenti lite And what controversie is of such moment for an infallible Judge as who it is Secondly Infallibility may be in one as well as in many since it comes by the assistance of the Holy Ghost then if they think God hath provided absolutely the most plain and expedite way for the direction of his Church this must be placed in the Pope without a Council I hope the Holy Ghost needs no Council which cannot soon and easily be made in all the essentials And therefore he should not have compared the Pope with a Monarch but he should have compared upon this reckoning a Monarch with the Holy Ghost Then though a Monarch could not do all things without a Parliament yet a Pope might do all without a Council because the Pope should be infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost as the Apostles were but they do not think so of a Monarch Again they think that the Pope is of divine institution and that a King is meerly a creature of the peoples and therefore he that hath a divine institution must needs have more divine assistance Again when he defineth with a Council he defineth not so much as Head of the Church but as a Bishop in communi with the rest as indeed anciently the custom was and this derogates from the Monarchy of the Church And if he had a priority of order this doth not infer a priority of Jurisdiction over all the Church which Pelagius and Gregory Bishops of Rome abhorred Eleventhly he saies not one Council have been opposite to another Ans This proposition in terms is not true The Council of Constantinople under Leo the Emperour decreed against Images The second Council of Nice decreed for them And what do they think of Pope Vigilius his judgement betwixt the Council of Chalcedon and the fifth Council of Constantinople about the Epistle of Ibas whether it conteined heresie or not And is not the African Council against Appeals opposite to the Trent Council which adds to the Catholique Apostolique Church the Roman as making the Roman to be omnium Ecclesiarum matrem magistram of all Churches the mother and mistress But this hath been touched before He goes on In the Nicene he the Pope erred not as you will grant nor in the three next General Councils as the Church of England grants Ans He saies well He erred not in the first Nicene But this antecedent will not make a conclusion or consequent that therefore he hath not or cannot erre in others It followeth not from a negative surely of one act to a negative of the power they are to prove that he cannot erre which is infallibility But secondly We say also that he could not erre in the other General Councils neither as Head of the Church because he was not Head of the Church He might have erred as a Bishop of Rome but as Head of the Church he could not erre not that we do assert him to have been Head of the Church but because we say he was not Head of the Church and therefore could not erre as such He goes on He subscribed not in the Council of Ariminum how then did he erre in it Yea because he subscribed not that Council is never accounted lawful by any but Arrians Ans He seems now to come to terms more moderate Before he speaks of Councils to be confirmed by the Pope Subscription is less and more general Every confirmation includes eminently a subscription but every subscription makes not a confirmation For they will not deny that other Bishops were wont to subscribe Secondly they may know that the 5. council of Constantinople went for good without his Subscription nay notwithstanding what he published for the tria Capitula which were condemned in the foresaid Council Therefore if they have
faith but only Opinion or humane belief ANSVVER THe Paper may be resolved into a Supposition and a Reason and a Conclusion To these in order First The Supposition It is not sufficient to make one a Catholick that he believe the same things that a Catholick doth believe unless the Catholick Church be the Ground also of his belief c. as in the Amplification of it This Supposition is indeed the main Position of the Pontificians and that which is formally Constitutive of them in that Denomination so that the Answer to it is not made as to a private Opinion or the Opinion of a private Man but as to the General Tenet of their Church in the matter of it In the Terms the word Catholick is to be distinguished for if they mean thereby such an one as they account a Catholick viz. one subject to the Church of Rome upon its own Authority It is very true that None is such a Catholick but he that shall render his belief to them in all things upon this their Proposal and so whatsoever is the Material Object of their faith yet the Formal Object is the Definition of the Church of Rome But if there be a true Sense upon ancient Account also of a Catholick who doth not believe Articles of faith upon the Proposal of the Church then there may be in a true sense a Catholick now who doth not make the Church the last Resolutive of faith For where the Scripture was acknowledged the Rule of Faith and Manners also there the Authority of the Church was not the Determinative thereof And that it was will be made good if it be desired by several Testimonies But secondly give it suppose it that None is a Catholick in a right sense but he that believeth what the Church believeth because the Church believeth it yet the Romane will not gain his purpose thereby unless we would grant this Supposition also That the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church which indeed is meant in the Paper though wisely not expressed But this supposition that the Church of Rome is the Catholick Church is not to be yielded neither in regard of Comprehension for that makes a contradiction nor in regard of Dominion neither for other Churches have not submitted themselves to their Authority this needs no disproof from us till it hath a proof from them And thirdly If we should stand up to all that their Church in particular doth propose and if we should assent to it upon their Account we might be damned not for our want of faith but for Excess of faith in the Object Material and for the Error of faith in the Formal Object For we should believe more then is true if we should believe whatsoever they believe and somewhat also destructive of Articles in the Apostles Creed And we should also believe upon the wrong Inductive which is not the Authority of their Church as we may see now in the Answer to the Reason The Reason hath in it somewhat true somewhat false True that faith is to believe a thing because God revealeth it False that there is no Infallible way without a Miracle of his Revelation coming to us but by their Church which they suppose to be the Church its Proposition For if the question be This how shall we come to know whether the Church of Rome be the right Church upon the Authority whereof we must ground our faith Wherein shall we terminate our belief hereof In the Authority of the Church of Rome or not We are to believe that they say which God hath revealed but the Cause of our belief must be because the Church proposeth it So then we must believe the Church of Rome upon her own testimony and we must resolve all into this that the Church of Rome is the right Church although it be neither a Revelation nor a natural Principle such as this that The Whole is greater then the Part which indeed gave the Occasion of that Check which was given to Rome Greater is the Authority of the world then of a City Orbis quam Urbis S. Jerom. in Ep. ad Evagrium Wherefore if the faith of a Catholick must consist in submitting his understanding and adhering to the Church and in believing every thing because she proposeth it as is said in the Conclusion yet it is not necessary that this Church should be the Church of Rome For this in proportion would be to resolve our Perswasions into the Judgment of particular Men because a Particular Church which according to the Paper makes no Catholick faith but an Opinion or humane belief REPLY IN the Paper received the Position which I gave It is not sufficient c. is disliked because it makes the Catholick Church the Ground of our belief but in truth I find no reason given for such dislike or any thing said against it but what to me seems very strange and is this If there be a true sense upon ancient account also of a Catholick who doth not believe Articles of faith upon the Proposal of the Church c. To which I answer that I would fain know what Catholick upon ancient Account did not believe Articles of faith upon the Proposal of the Church or indeed how can I account him a Catholick without a palpable Contradiction that doth not believe the Catholick Church S. Iren. l. 3. c. 4. saith We ought not to seek among others the truth which we may easily take and receive from the Church seeing that the Apostles have most fully laid up in her as into a rich Treasure-house or place where the Depositum of the Church is kept all things which are of truth that every man that will may take out of her the drink of life For this is the Entrance of life but all the rest are Thieves and Robbers for which cause they are verily to be avoyded But those things which are of the Church are with great diligence to be loved and the tradition of truth is to be received And the said Iren. l. 1. c. 3. telleth us that the Church keepeth with most sincere diligence the Apostles faith and that which they preached S. Cypr. Ep. ad Cornel. avoucheth that the Church alwayes holdeth that which she first knew See also his Ep. 69. ad Florentium And S. Aug. had so great an Estimation of the Church that he sticked not to say cont Ep. Manich. quam vocant Fundamentum c. 5. I would not believe the Gospel except the Authority of the Church did move me thereunto Moreover disputing against Cresconius concerning the baptism of Hereticks l. 1. cont Cresc he useth this discourse Although of this that the baptisme of Hereticks is true baptism there be no certain Example brought forth out of the Canonical Scriptures yet also in this we keep the truth of the said Scriptures when as we do that which now hath pleased the whole Church which the Authority of the Scriptures themselves doth commend That
understand and think to be according to Truth unless he shall shew them to be holy out of that which is contained in the Divine Scriptures as in the certain Temples of God what can be more to our purpose Then the Scripture is the Ground of Doctrines then of Faith As for Athanasius we need not his words knowing his practice of holding the equality of the Divine Nature in the second Person the Son of God against all the World Yet he speaks as he did if you will look upon him about the Incarnation of the Word at the latter end But then having taken occasion by these if thou wilt read the Divine Books and wilt apply thy minde to them shalt learn out of them more plainly and more perfectly the truth of what we have said So he Now where the Truth is learned more plainly and perfectly there is the ground of Truth In the Divine writings is the truth of those things more plainly and more perfectly learned After the same manner doth Tertullian bring in his suffrage in his Book of Praescriptions a little after the beginning of it thus Do we prove the Faith by the Persons or prove the Persons by the Faith And again Faith consists in the rule You have the Law and Salvation by the observation of it And soon after To know nothing against the rule is to know all things And again That which we are the Scriptures were from the beginning we are of them before it was otherwise before they were corrupted by you So he besides other passages wherein he witnesseth for us Saint Ambrose giveth us also his voice in his first Book to Gratian chap. 4. in the beginning thus But I will not that you believe an Argument O holy Emperour and our disputation let us ask the Scripture let us ask the Apostles let us ask the Prophets Then we are to be determined in our Belief by the Scriptures Saint Cyprian also who for order of time should have been put before gives his verdict for us in the beginning of his sixth Sermon concerning the Lords Prayer thus The Evangelical Precepts most beloved Brethren are nothing else but the Divine Magisteries the foundations of building our Hope the firmaments of corroborating our Faith the nutriments of chearing our heart the Gubernacles of directing our journey the safegards of obtaining Salvation which while they do instruct the Docile mindes of Believers upon Earth bring them to the Kingdome of Heaven So the Father Where you see the Scriptures are asserted immediately to be the Ground and Firmanent of Faith Yea neither doth Saint Austin seem to speak onely for your cause In the seventh Tome in the third Chapter of the Unity of the Church against the Epistle of Petilianus in the beginning he hath these words But as I began to say let us not hear these things I say these things thou sayest but let us hear these things the Lord saith There are certainly the Books of the Lord whose authority we both consent unto we both believe we both are obedient to there let us seek our Church there let us discusse our cause And soon after Let those things be taken out of your way which against one another we recite not out of the Divine Canonical books but otherwise And soon after Some may ask why I would have these things taken out of the way since if they brought forth your Communion is invincible he answers because I would not have the Church demonstrated by Humane Documents but by Divine Oracles and so to the end of the Chapter which he concludes thus therefore let us seek it the Church in the Holy Canonical Scriptures I have now made good my words to give you Catholick Testimonies on our side Amongst which Saint Austins authority gives advantage to plant Arguments upon thus If in businesses of dispute we must hear what the Lord saith not what man saith then the Scripture is the ground not humane authority But let us not hear what I say or thou saist saith the Father but what the Lord saith Again Where we must seek the Church there we must resolve our Faith But we must seek the Church in the Scriptures as the Father saith If the Church is to be proved by the Scriptures then the Scriptures are the ground of Faith because they are the ground of the Church there is no resolution of Faith but in that which is indemonstrable therefore not in the Church because that is demonstrated by the Scriptures as he saith Again Divine Oracles are the ground of Faith the Scriptures are the Divine Oracles as he saith as the Scripture saith as Saint Ignatius saith in his Epistle to the Church of Sâ—â—yrna Indeed the proper object of Faith Catholick is the Word of God not the Word of Man And proportionable the cause of this Faith must be divine authority not any authority of Man As demonstrative reason makes Science so humane authority make Opinion but Faith is an assent to that which is spoken by God as true because he speaketh it therefore the authority of the Church is not a mean apt to beget Faith because it is of another kinde and cannot exceed the nature of humane authority although it be the highest in the kinde if it be represented in a lawful General Council Yet even General Councils have erred and therefore they cannot he the Ground of Faith This is the prerogative of the Canonical books as the Father and all Antiquity calleth them but never did we hear of a Canonical Church The Scripture is the Canon is the rule not the Church The Church witnesseth Truth The Church keepeth Truth The Church defendeth Truth The Church Representative in a Council determineth Controversies authoritatively not infallibly and therefore bindes not unto Faith but to Peace not to Faith in the Conscience but to Peace in the Church not affirmatively that we should say it is true because they say it but negatively that we should not rashly oppose it as false because they define it as true Hitherto we go for the honour of the Church Catholick not Roman And now I have given you some reason of our Faith It followes now in your Reply or indeed how can I account him a Catholick without a palpable contradiction that doth not believe the Catholick Curch Answ I say so too But what from thence To professe a belief that there is a Catholique Church whereof part is triumphant in Heaven part on Earth expectant and to professe my self to belong to the Catholique Church is not inclusive of your sense that the Catholique Church is the ground of our belief We believe the Catholique Church grounded in the Scripture or built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner Stone as Saint Paul speaks Ephes 2.20 Secondly This is not to your purpose because the Catholique Church as it is an object of Belief must be considered as invisible whereas you intend the
Faith in the Gospel And this is illustrated by the Samaritanes beleeving Christ through the testimony of the woman but when they came to Christ and saw him They said unto the woman we believe no more for thy saying for we have heard and seen that he indeed is the Saviour of the world the Christ John 4.42 So Saint Austin might be moved by the voyce of the Church to give an ear to the Truth of the Gospel and yet was settled in the Beleef of it from its self by the Spirit of God When he did beleeve the immediate cause of his Divine Faith was from the Gospel by the Spirit of God although before he did beleeve he was moved to think well of the Gospel by the authority of the Church So he did not belive the Gospel by the authority of the Church as a Theological principle but as an outward mean and help thereunto For the authority of the Church could not by its testimony of the Gospel make it properly credible because the testimony of the Church is to be made true by it And if it be not true in it self then the testimony is false So that before we know whether the Gospel be true we know not whether the testimony of the Church be true As also we cannot tell how to beleeve that the Church should alwayes give a true testimony as you suppose in every point but by the Scripture And therefore there is no ground or rest for Faith but in the Scripture Since if we beleeve the Church because the Scripture gives testimony of it and then the Scripture because the Church gives testimony thereof we must first beleeve the Scripture before we beleeve the Church Therefore we must terminate our Faith in the Scripture and if we do beleeve it beleeve it for it self it being the first credible Fifthly Look to the end of that chapter and there after he had disputed subtilly he doth conclude soberly But God forbid that I should not beleeve the Gospel and then concludes against his Adversary from thence as the rule of the difference betwixt them for Beleeving that saith he I do not find how to beleeve you c. And that the Scripture is the Rule he went by you may see in his 32. chapter against Cresconius whether let me if you please refer you for brevitie None can overcome S. Austin but S. Austin And therefore I need not say any thing to the second testimony which is taken out of him against Cresconius Yet observe Although of this there is no example certainly brought forth out of the canonical Scriptures yet also we keep the Truth of the Holy Scriptures in this when we do that which hath pleased the whole Church saith he Namely in that which is not a ruled case in Scripture as the question was about the Truth of the Baptisme of Hereticks It seems then if it had been determined in Scripture there had been an end of it that because the Holy Scripture cannot deceive saith he And this property absolute belongs to it not to humanitie Whosoever doth fear to be deceived by the obscurity of the Question may ask counsel touching it of the Church whom without doubt the Scripture it self doth shew saith he First here is an obscure question about practice so are not all points Some are clear in Scripture and yet the Propsition is universall that we must believe every thing by the proposal of the Church as if we must beleeve nothing but what the Church defineth and whatsoever it doth define that we must beleeve Secondly VVe should ask counsel onely which doth not suppose an absolute determination Thirdly which Church the Scripture doth without doubt shew then the Church is to be proved by Scripture again And without doubt doth shew but doth not shew to be alwayes without doubt and infallible Fourthly he afterwards goeth about to prove it against him by testimonies out of Scripture But behold yet again in a third Testimony of Saint Austin No peaceable man will be against the Church Answer Saint Austin is again welcome I say so too and shall anon end with the whole Sentence And yet once more in a fourth Testimony Saint Austin It is of most insolent madness to dispute against that which the whole Church holdeth VVe answer VVe say so too in things of indifferency which every particular Church hath power in for it self and the Catholicke Church for all And yet all Catholick practices are not now observed by the Church of Rome as for one Infant Communion But according to the Father if the Authority of the Scripture doth prescribe which of these is to be done it is not to be doubted that we should do so as we read In such things then which are defined by Scripture we know what we should do intuitively to Scripture without asking counsel of the Church As certainly I may believe that Jesus is the Christ that he that believeth shall be saved immediately out of Scripture and not upon the Churches proposal And now I have delivered you from your fear of my rejecting the Fathers Surely we should love the Fathers though they were our Enemies and we have no reason to fear them when they are our Friends Therefore if you please to give me leave so far let me say as Nilus the Archbishop of Thessalonica as the Book bears title said in his first Book about the Primacy of the Pope or the difference between the Greek and Latin Churches It is very unreasonable that you who have not the Fathers for your examples should of your selves understand that which is better and we who have the Fathers should not Afterwards in your Reply you come to upbraid me with Devotion to modern men But this Belief of yours concerning me is not well grounded we delight not our selves in being Servants to Men in matters of Faith What is true we like in any what is not true we do not like in any In Divine writings we take all for there we consider not so much what is said as who saith in Humane Writings we pick for we consider not who speaketh but what is said agreeable to the Scriptures Therefore with them we deal as Saint Austin with Saint Cyprians authority in the forenamed chapter against Cresc What we find in them which is agreeable to the Canonical Scripture we receive with commendation what doth not with their leaves we leave But to make as short work with them as I can I answer first as many testimonies and more clear might be found in them against you I hope if those testimonies be for you let one be set against the other And if you say I should be moved by them because they are ours I answer Secondly If they agree with the sense of the Fathers you cannot condemn them if they do not agree we do Thirdly It is possible to be Even with you in the same kind by a retaliation of Pontificians against you But Fourthly I could
as to his own person but not in matters of Faith as to the Church I beleeve that the Church is the Spouse of Christ and that she is without spot or wrinkle or any such thing as to that part which is in Heaven and that the other part of the Church as invisible which is not yet in Heaven shall be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing when it cometh up to Heaven But I do not beleeve that that Text is meant of the Church visible For all here glorious or none not all glorious here therefore none For you find it in the Text that it is to be presented as a glorious Church namely as in the whole But you will not say that every Member of the visible Church is here glorious without spot without wrinkle or any such thing If you do say so you contradict Bellarmin in his third Book of the Militant Church the second chapter who there includes in his Definition of the Church visible even Reprobates wicked and ungodly men and requires there no internal virtue for the constitution of a Member of the Church but onely an external profession of Faith and communion of Sacraments And besides you know glory which is a perfection of Grace doth not belong to the way but the Country in Heaven And besides if you will not beleeve me in such an Exposition beleeve your Estius who with * In his Retractations p. 9. Ed. Frob. but this Quotation not added in my copy to him Saint Austin understands it upon good Reason of the Church invisible as you may see in Estius Comment upon the place And here by the way we have another Testimony of your own against you if you account your Argument from this Text sufficient to your cause And we have St. Austins authority to boot as Estius quotes him And moreover Holynesse is no formal principle of our direction especially in points of Faith It is Holy because it follows and as it follows the Rule and so should we in faith and manners And therefore if it were to be understood of the Visible Church as it is not yet you conclude nothing for your turn upon this consideration To hasten the next Text is formerly urged the Church the Pillar and Ground of Truth Yet squeeze it and presse it and make the best use of it you can it will not afford your inference you would make from it For first some and also very reasonably will refer this Expression not to the Church but to the Mystery of Godlinesse which follows and so they make it as an Hebrew form of setting out some high point and grand Doctrine and then it goes thus A Pillar and Ground of Truth and without Controversie a great Mystery of Godliness is this namely God manifested in the flesh c. If so your interesse in it is sunk and indeed the copulative And and without Controversie doth not seem so well and so close to knit else But it being given not granted that that Criticisme is not sufficient what of all that For Saint Irenaeus as before gives this Eulogy to the Scripture The Scripture gives it to the Church Now to which doth this propertie belong first and absolutely To the Scripture or to the Church Not to the Church for the Church hath it from the Scripture Now that which hath it first hath its absolutely and independently upon that which follows therefore the Scripture is the absolute Pillar and ground of Truth Then there Faith hath sure footing there it sits down there it rests on that Ground upon that Pillar The Church then hath this Title but subordinately and what it saith cannot bind but conditionately to that which is the absolute Ground and Pillar of Truth For the Truth is the Pillar and Ground of the Church as Saint Chysostome saith upon the place Take it then of the Catholick Church not Roman The Text doth more set out the Office of the Church then the authority It doth hold it doth propose it doth uphold the Truth but this doth not convince or evince that whatsoever the Church doth hold we should also hold and upon that account also as if God had appointed the Church infallibly to conveigh to us whatsoever Truth and nothing but Truth And therefore may we and ought we to search the Scriptures as our Savâ—our speaks John 5.39 and by them examine whatsoever the Church saith as those of Beraea did that which was said by Saint Paul and they commended for it And therefore we cannot believe the Definitions of the Church upon its own word Nay can we also say that God doth now give unto the Church such assistance as then which was noted before and therefore we distinguish times not thinking there should be as much said of the Church now as when it included the Apostles and therefore supposing that the Church then did hold all that was true and nothing contrary yet we cannot say it of the Church now and therefore is not the cause of Faith under whose authority it must also passe beside the Divine Revelation to make it Catholique For the Church is conserved by the Truth as Estius also upon the place then thus where the ground of the Catholique Church is there is the ground of Catholique Faith The Scripture is the ground of the Catholique Church unlesse it be conserved by some other principle then by which it is constituted And it is conserved by the Truth saith he and thy word is Truth saith our Saviour John 17.17 And whereas he sayes that the Truth sustaineth the Church and the Church sustaineth the Truth and so one is the cause of the other we answer this is not availeable for you For in the same kinde of cause it cannot be for then we are in a circle but the Truth sustains the Church so as to continue it in its principles the Church sustains the Truth but by way of ministery which doth not make it to be a principle of Faith no not to us Neither do the other Texts speak for you as you would have them If the gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church it doth not follow that then Catholique Faith must be built upon the proposalls of the Church Nothing shall prevail to the Condemnation of those who belong to the Church of God as invisible and nothing shall prevail not the Gates of Hell against the Church visible so as somewhere or other there shall not be some who shall professe the Christian Doctrine and Worship sufficiently to salvation The next Text speaks towards Excommunication which comes little into the question for the authority of the Church may proceed to Censure although we be not bound upon peril of want of Faith to submit our understandings to the definitions of the Church As to the authority we may submit so as to endure the censure though we do not submit our judgements as to believe the definitions As to the next place of Scripture
your self See how you now differ from your selfe Before the ground of Believing was the authority of the Church now the authority of God revealing the cause of their belief Before you concluded Faith consisted in submitting the understanding and adhering to the Church and in believing every thing because she proposeth it now it is the authority of God revealing which causes their faith to be Divine As for the term thus the formal object is such under which and in respect whereunto any thing proceedeth if then Gods Revelation cometh not to us under the Proposal of the Church or as proposed by the Church then the cause is lost if it doth then grant me my term and affirm with me that the Pontificians hold so If not they are better then you And what means else their implicite faith unlesse we are to believe every thing as the Church believeth it and because the Church proposeth it as you said and if we be to beleive every thing as the Church believe it then is the Church the formal object of their faith since they are also bound not to doubt but simply to obey as Bellarmine tells us in his fourth Book of the Roman Bishop 5. chap. The other term you find fault with is excesse of faith You taxe it as improperly spoken But surely it will passe without any Grain of Salt or of allowance if we consider that Faith may be compared as to a particular object and so there is not an Excesse of Faith as to that but then it may be compared as to many objects and so though we do not more believe one thing then we should if we should indeed believe it yet may we believe more then we should If we believe those things which are not at all to be believed And thus if we should believe whatsoever the Church of Rome proposeth we might be destroyed for excesse of Faith The Church of Rome is peccant in excesse of Faith by believing more points then it should believe and this is the reason why our Divinity is in negatives as to differences with them because their Divinity in differences to us is in additions SIR If you will excuse me for being so long I shall now conclude with the whole conclusion of Saint Austin whereof you gave me but part Against Reason no Sober Man will go against Scriptures no Christian then Christians should go by Scriptures against the Church no Peace-maker The Roman Catholick's first Treatise How in these times in which there be so many Religious the true Religion may certainly be found out The Preface THE Romane Catholicks have often foretold that by permitting freely to all sorts of people whatsoever the reading of the Scriptures in their Mother Tongue multitudes of New Sects and Heresies would not fail to grow up in numberless Number and as for the Peoples Manners they would daily grow worse and worse How true this is let the world judge That then which now mainly imports is to distinguish the true Religion from so many false ones This is my Aim To effect this I did write a short Paper shewing the Catholick Church so to teach the infallible way to Salvation which is to be obtained onely in the true faith that we cannot have as things stand any other Assurance to ground our faith upon securely I did never deny that when by the Infallible Authority of the Church we are secured that the Scriptures be the word of God we cannot believe such things as are clearly contained in the Scripture for so I should deny that I could not believe that to be infallibly true which upon an Infallible ground I believed to be Gods own word But I did and still do maintain that no man can have Infallible ground to believe the Scriptures now but he who first believeth that which the Church teacheth to be infallibly true Whence it will follow that his faith must needs now at the first be grounded upon the Revelation of Gods truth made by God to us by his Church and not by his written word The Papers I did write to this Effect have been answered by some truly Learned Scholar so that I hope so worthy a Man will not reject such a Reply as may seem to be as clear a Demonstration as any wise Man can hope for in this Matter And such a Demonstration I hope by Gods grace to make whilst I endevour to make good the Title prefixed to this Paper which Title I now add to shew that my chief drift is to guide a Soul redeemed by Christs blood to that happy eternity to which we cannot attain unless in all doubtful Controversies of faith we follow the Catholick Church as an Infallible Judge in all those Controversies we being obliged under pain of damnation not to dis-believe this Judge And whilst I demonstrate this I do demonstrate my former Position That the Infallible Authority of the Catholick Church is the Ground of our faith And also going on with this Demonstration I will leave nothing of Concernment unanswered in the Reply made and thus I will conclude contradictorily to the said Reply which a little after the beginning denyeth The Authority of the Catholick Church to be the Ground of faith and that whereby we are infallibly ascertained of the minde of God I answer not the Reply just in the Order that my Answer was returned for so I should be over-long I use this way of a little Treatise to prove my Title for thus all will be more clear and less tedious In the Conclusion I shew all the parts of the Reply to have been fully answered in this Discourse The Proof of the Title St. Anselme hath a very fit Similitude to express how much a Contentious Spirit in disputing doth blind the understanding from seeing the Manifest Truth He sayeth that a little before Sun-rising two men in the fields did fall into a hot debate concerning that place of the Heavens in which the Sun was that day to rise the one pointing out one part of the Heavens the other another They passed so far in their Contention that falling together by the Ears they both pulled out one anothers Eyes and so when the Sun by and by after did rise neither of them both could see a thing so clear as was the place of the Sun rising To our purpose Because Zeal in Religion is accounted laudable and also because prejudice caused by Education in such or such a Religion is a thing exceedingly swaying us to our own side we are commonly apt to grow into so hot a debate in disputations about Religion that I may freely say This Passion hindreth many thousands from seeing that clear Sun-shine of Truth which men of mean Capacity would clearly behold if setting all passion and prejudice aside they did with a Calm and humble Mind beg of God to give them this grace of seeking Truth with all sincerity for then he who should seek should find This is proved manifestly
you charge me in differing from my selfe because before I taught the ground of Believing to be the Authority of the Church and now I say it is the Authority of God Revealing My Reply is exceeding easie The Ground of our Faith is God Revealing and God Revealing by his Church as he first causeth our first Belief when he tells us by his Church such and such Books are Infallibly his Word God Revealing is alwaies the formal object of Faith but sometimes God Revealeth his minde by Scriptures and sometimes by the Church as he did for two Thousand yeares and more before the Scriptures were written The Prophets before they did write did say This saith the Lord to wit this he said by their Mouths So say I This and this saith our Lord by the Mouth of his Church as I have shewed Numb 22. Saint Athanasius to speak and I have shewed Numb 28. The General Councel of Chalcedon to have said Peter hath spoken by the mouth of Leo Pope of Rome And thus Gods Revelation cometh to us by the Church She and onely She teacheth us these and these Scriptures to be Gods Word We must first believe her before we can come to have Infallible Ground to believe Scriptures as I have fully shewed After we have believed Scripture we cannot by Scripture onely know the undoubted sense of many necessary places in Scripture as hath been shewed Again all things necessary to be believed be not set down in Scripture as hath also been shewed fully The Revelation of God coming to us in all these cases by the Church you by your own words in this place must grant her Authority to be our ordinary cause of Faith At the end of these your Answers you would fain seem to have spoken properly in accusing us of Excesse of Faith But your distinction doth no way salve the Impropriety of the Speech for there is still a difference in more believing Objects and believing more Objects but granting that it may be improperly spoken yet even in that Sense it is not truly said because there can be no Excesse of Faith in believing what God saith for believing upon an Infallible Authority all that we believe we cannot believe more then we should if we believe no more things then be grounded upon that Infallible Authority as we do not And consequently we do no more then believe such things as have for their Warrant This faith the Lord. Having now answered your Paper from the beginning to the end I am most willing to take your own close out of Saint Austin Against Reason no sober Man will go against Scriptures no Christian against the Church no Peace-maker adding his other words Tr. 32. in Joan. Let us believe my Brethren so much as a Man loveth the Church just so much he hath of the Holy Ghost SIR I Cannot answer it to God nor to his Church with us if I let you seem to your self or to others of your perswasion that you have the Victory untill you have overcome your Error therefore you will excuse me if I still follow you To your Preface then If the Roman Catholiques have often foretold that by permitting freely to all sorts of people the reading of the Scriptures in their Mother-tongue multitudes of new Sects and Heresies would not fail to grow up in numberlesse number and as for the peoples Manners they would grow worse and worse as you say in the beginning then are your Roman Catholiques in this false Prophets because they seem by you to make that the cause of Heresies and bad Manners This is plainly fallacia non causa or the fallacy of accident And secondly it is contrary to that of our Saviour Christ Saint Mark the 12.24 Do you not therefore erre not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God By our Saviour the knowledge of the Scriptures is not the cause of erring but the not knowing of the Scriptures is the cause of erring You do therefore erre not knowing the Scriptures which are able to make us wise unto Salvation as Saint Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 3.15 And thirdly You confesse in this Paper that when we are by the Church assured that the Scripture is the Word of God we may Ground our Faith in it for those things which are plainly delivered And fourthly How cometh it to passe then that some of those in whom Infallibility as you think is vested have been Hereticks and lewd the former of which indeed you do much deny but is exemplified in Liberius's subscribing against Athanasius as you may see fully proved by our Reinolds against your Hart. And surely was that also an action of bad Manners Therefore if your Church were the true Church yet doth it not you see teach the way of Salvation infallibly and therefore can we not by it infallibly discerne the true Religion from the false Indeed the Catholick Church hath taught the infallible way of Salvation but that was the Scripture as I proved by many Testimonies and this was a teaching the infallible way by consequence because it did teach the Scripture which is the infallible way yet hath it not in particular points taught the infallible way infallibly Neither are we by the Church infallibly resolved that the Scripture is the Word of God although the authority of the true Church be a motive herein yet is it not that wherein ultimately we ground our Faith of the Scriptures as I have shewed Whereas then you say that we cannot have as things stand any other assurance to ground our Faith upon securely namely then the Church you do still but fortiter supponere for we cannot ground our assurance securely upon the Church And secondly Whereas you say that as things stand we have no other assurance c. you do not well consider what you say or I do not understand what you mean for hereby you do intimate that the Church is not the ground of our Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that which is indeed the ground of our Faith must be so absolutely and universally as farre as is necessary the Church security is but the best of the kinde amongst those which are humane but we must have a Divine indefectible ground for our Divine Faith in which there cannot be falsity Neither thirdly Is the Church the first ground because by it we believe the Scripture to be the Word of God because if we did by it believe the Scripture then we are not first to believe it by the Scripture And if whatsoever credence we do give to it we do give by authority of the Scripture then are we first to believe the Scripture and then that is the first ground Fourthly In that you say you did never deny that when we are by the Infallible authority of the Church assured of the Scripture to be the Word of God we may believe such things as are clearly contained in Scripture c. you say that which concludes against the practice of
the Pope to be head of the Universal Church and therefore are they not compared ad idem Thirdly Is it determined in Scripture whether the Pope be Head of the Church or not You say it is for if you say it is not you are all lost Well if it be determined by Scripture then consequently it is determined in Scripture that the King is not and so this your Controversie is one of those which is decided and concluded negatively in or by Scripture So this exception against us doth not thrive Another point of this kind you make in your eleventh Number about the Canon of Scripture your Argument seems to be thus that we should know the Canon is necessary we do not know it by Scripture therefore by the Church Is it not thus you cannot make your matter shorter without any detriment to you And therefore we answer first as at first which you give us the occasion to put you in mind of that if the Church were Infallible Judge of all Canonical books yet would it not follow from hence that it should be Infallible Judge in all points of Faith and Manners which you would fain have as very â—seful for you unlesse caâ—â—ally for we might suppose more assistance to the Church in this particular then in other cases since also when that is made sure that there are the books of Scripture we should look for no other directions for Life and Salvation but this Therefore if you argue that because it is Judge Infallible of Canonical books it is Judge of all matters you do not rightly proceed from a particular You are in that which is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore you do not conclude in your first Universality Secondly We are not to be assured by Divine Faith that there are Canonical books from the authority of the Church and therefore is not the Church the Infallible Judge herein We must beleeve them to be Canonical by their own Authority otherwise we shall never believe them to be so so that you see we deny the Assumption and we say we may know the Canonical books by Scripture we have no other Divine Authority to know them by They bear witnesse of themselves they carry their own light which we may see them by as we see the Sun by its own light For let me put you to this Dilemma either the Scripture is to be believed for it self or the Church is to be believed for it self If the Scripture be to be believed for it self then have we our cause if the Church be to be believed for it self then must we know this by a Revelation beside Scripture which your Bellarmine disputes against in the beginning of his Controversies and whether that Revelation be not Anabaptistical and more uncertain then the word of God judge you And I pray is it not more fiâ— that the Scripture should be believed in its own cause then the Church but if you say that the Authority of the Church is evidenced by Scripture concerning it then that is to be believed for itself as towards the Church and why not then other parts of it Thirdly If the Church be the Judge Infallible of Canonical books how came Saint Hierome to be repugnant to the Church in the debate about Books Apocryphal as you know and may see by your Bellarmin in his second Book De verbo Dei cap. 9. amongst which Apocryphal books the Maccabees are numbred to be by him accounted such and therefore Saint Jerome did not in his Latin Edition translate them and then let S. Jerom's authority justifie Lâ—ther upon your principles for you account the Maccabees to be as well Canonical as you and we do the Apocalyps That the Scripture is silent of its own Canon and that we cannot prove a book to be infallibly Canonical by it self without begging the question hath litle of iudiciousness in it for how do we see light how do we prove first and indemonstrable principles how do we prove that which we apprehend by natural light after this manner is the understanding irradiated to see the authority of Scripture in it and by it well and how do we prove the Church to be infallible by it without begging the question therefore you must come about to Scripture And again if you prove the Church to be infallible Judge herein because the Scripture is not you beg the question who are to dispute not I who am to answer Your twelfth number goes upon a false supposition at least in part of it namely that we are bound to believe that the Gospel of Saint Matthew was written by him as also the Gospel of St. Mark to be written by St. Mark We deny it We are bound indeed to believe that the Gospel of St. Matthew and St. Mark as we distinguish them are the word of God but we are not bound to believe that they were written by them It is no part or duty of my faith to believe the Penman of any part of Scripture save onely so far as it is declared in the body of Scripture for it is not Scripture because Saint Matthew wrote it but Saint Matthew wrote it as being inspired that it was the word of God in the matter of it If then your discourse goes upon the matter of it it was answered before if upon the title it is not allowed to be de fide or any point of faith that such was writer of any piece of Scripture And whereas you urge that some have denied this Gospel and some or other have denied other books to be Canonical how then shall we end this Controversie or others about the Canon by Scripture I answer And do not Hereticks deny your Church to be infallible will you therefore quit your opinion So then either this argument is not good against us or it is also good against you Secondly If Hereticks reject some books we may be disposed by the authority of the Catholick Church to our faith of them by their own authority And this seems to be as much as Saint Austin would have us to attribute to the Church in this particular as we have his advice in his second Book de Doctrinâ Christianâ cap. 8. where he says in Canonicis autem Scripturis Ecclesiarum Catholicarum quam-plurimum sequatur authoritatem In Canonical Scriptures let him very much follow the authority of the Catholick Churches amonst which surely these are they which merited if you will construe it so to have Apostolick seats and to receive Apostolick Epistles Observe that he saith let him follow the authoritie very much which doth not conclude that we should wholly rely upon it and of the Catholick Churches in the plural not one only Then there are more Catholick Churches in his judgement and such are they which merited to have Apostolick Seas and Epistles then your Church onely is not to be called the Apostolique Sea And whereas afterward in this Church he doth reckon Apocryphall Books yet is
it to be noted that herein he followed the authoritie of the Churches Notwithstanding which Saint Jerome as before did not receive them which makes a sufficient reason to hold that the authority of the Churches is not a sufficient ground of faith in the belief of Canonical Books or else St. Jerome who in this may be compared with St. Austin for his judgement is in the same condemnation with us Afterwards you plead that since the Gospel of S. Matthew was written in Hebrew whereof there is not extant any one Copy in the world and it is not certain who or how faithfully he did translate it we cannot be certain by the Scripture that this is the word of God therefore by the Church This I think is the sum of your plea. We answer First Again we do not disclaim the use of the Catholique Churches in the credence of the Word of God but this doth not certifie us Secondly You Catholiques as you would be called speak largely that not one of the Ancients conceived it to be written in Greek surely all the Ancients did not write surely all that did write are not now had But take it of all that did write and are now extant and put it to be so that all were of Saint Jeromes Opinion in his Preface upon Saint Matthew yet all that you say is not certainly true that there is not a Copy of the Hebrew Gospel extant in all the world For not to speak of the Hebrew Gospels set out by Munster and Mercer which Ludovicus de Dieu takes notice of in the Preface to his Notes upon the Gospels if you will give any heed to your Isidor Clarius he will tell you I suppose otherwise when he saith in a little Preface which is a Testimonie out of Saint Jerome in his Catalogue of Ecclesiastick writers that St. Jerome there affirms ipsum Hebraicum habetur usque hodiè in Casariensi Bibliotheca which Pamphilus the Martyr studiosissimè confecit and that he had the liberty by the Nazaraeans who in Beroea City of Syria do use this volume to describe it So he Now it may be that remains there and therefore you cannot be certain of what you say And this is more then an ordinary Authority of the Church in an interpretation Again how come your Latin interpretation of this Gospel to be authentique if it was not taken out of an authentick copie for the Church can doe no more then declare that which is authentique then must it be authentique otherwise they make Scripture Again let me give you one intimation that possibly so might yet at first be written in Greek my reason is this in the first of Saint Matthew 23. verse it is said of Christ they shall call his name Emmanuel which being interpreted is God with us If it were written in Ebrew what need of any interpretation in the same Language since the Letters of the Word put together without any variation do make that signification Again if the Church hath made the Greek Translation authentique why is your Latin made authentique Is there two authentiques If it be not authentique by the Church what would you infer Again the harmony of it with other Gospels hath more in it to perswade Faith then the credit of the Church Again if it be an Interpretation yet unlesse you do evince it that we do build our Faith upon the Interpretation you do nothing Now then as your people do fix their Faith upon that which is interpreted not up-upon the interpretation so may we build our belief upon this Gospel to be the Word of God by the illumination of the Spirit of God and yet not upon the Translation The Translation doth but conveigh unto our knowledge the words but it is the Spirit of God that doth work in us belief thereof that it is the VVord of God The Translation attends the Notification of the object what that is which is to be believed but it is the Divine perswasion which attends the act and is the cause why it is believed the Interpretation is but the Instrument of Faith the ground of it is the perswasion of God that it is the Truth and VVord of God and therefore your argumentation goes upon a wrong supposition as if we resolved our Faith in the Translation as such And what you except afterwards against the certainty of our Faith upon the account of the Greek Translation doth also return easily upon you for the same possibility of error is urged against your Latin either by ignorance or negligence or on purpose for the upholding of your new opinions And let me ask you why you account your Latin to be Authentique you will say because the Church of Rome was infallibly assisted in it VVas it then Infallibly assisted when it renders the Ebrew in Genesis ipsa for ipsum that it might be for the honour of the Virgin VVell but give it that the Latin was infallibly made by the Church why not the Greek also infallibly made by the Church and more confirmed by the Church then your Latin one you get nothing then by this exception And this may satisfie you how a Manichaan might believe the Gospel of Saint Matthew which you put to the question An opinion thereof he may have by the judgement of the Church some knowledge of it to be the Word of God he may gather by the agreement with the other Gospels but the Faith of it to be such is to be wrought by the Spirit of God whereby those who heard the Apostles were caused to believe that which they preached to be the Word of God without perswasion of the Church which was not then in a body when some first believed As for the Fathers holding Books to be Canonical by the Church we have spoken to already in this paper and we shall meet with it again You speak indeed of them as in general upon designe ad faciendum populum but you do not name the places onely Saint Athanasius you are pleased to quote VVe answer if you mean that he received the Gospels and rejected the Gospel of St. Thomas upon the Authority of the Church as the cause of his Faith of them you do not prove it by what he saies If you mean that he was induced to think well of them by the reception of the Church and to refuse the other by their refusal this doth not come home to the question And suppose the Church its refusal of the Gospel of Saint Thomas was sufficient for him to refuse it too yet doth it not follow that because the Church did receive the other Gospels he received them no otherwise then because they did for this makes the reception of the ChurCh to be but as a necessary condition not the formal cause of his Faith As for Tertullians and Saint Jeroms and St. Austins authorities in this case we shall finde an answer when you quote the places The Testimony of Eusebius which you produce
here is one place where the Father useth the words not in the Roman sence which may be made use of to another pupose about your opinion of merit and also if you will not mean it here of deserving this makes some diminution of respect to the book and some advantage more I shall make of this chapter in its place Many lines in your fourteenth page you have afterwards wherein we have nothing but vaunts or repetitions I will not trouble you with the latter nor my self with the former But towards the end of that page you would order the matter so as to hold your own and yet to give Scripture its due respects And you seem to bring it to this determination that when there is an acknowledgement made that the Scriptures are in themselves the Word of God it doth not derogate from Scripture to hold that yet they are not known to us by an infallible ground that they are the Word of God but by the testimony of the Church which in shorter terms is expressed by others of your Church that the authoritie of the Scripture doth depend upon the Church But this will not serve the covering is too short For first this distinction is too narrow to extend to the difference betwixt us in particular points of faith Therefore if you will yield that points of Religion are to be examined and ended infallibly by Scripture when we know it to be the Word of God then we will onely stick to this Question But if you will still maintain the infallibilitie of the Church in all her definitions then your composition will not be sufficient although it could satisfie as to that particular But secondly It will not satisfie because you do not sufficiently provide for the honour of the Scriptures authoritie and therefore you derogate from Scripture in this although you did take away no honour from Scripture as in regard of its truth Do you lay it to heart that the many questions betwixt us is about the authoritie of the Scripture the formal Reason of credibilitie is the authoritie That which makes me to believe it to be the Truth of God as being his Word is the Authoritie For if the credibilitie doth rise from the truth of it in it self you destroy your own cause for that you confesse the Scripture to be the infallible Word of God then betwixt us simply about the Truth of the Scripture there is no contest And doe not you affirm that the authoritie of the Church is the Ground of Faith because you think that the Church by its authoritie is worthy to be believed since it is infallible But why then do you not grant this authority to the Scripture since you confess it to be infallible If the reason of believing the Church be the infallibility of it according to you why is not the infallibility of the Scripture the reason of believing it since it is confessed infallible And if you say you do believe it to be so by the authority of the Church then the formal reason of believing it is not the infallibility of the Scripture but of the Church and yet the infallibility of the Church shall be the formal reason of believing it But you say you must know the Scripture to be infallible that I cannot do but by the Church Well but do not you then see that you preferre the authority of the Church before the authority of Scripture for the Church with you is to be believed for it self for so it must be or else the Scripture must be believed for it self or else we shall have in Divinity no principium primo primum wherein to rest Now if the Scripture be to be believed for it self then we have ended the businesse If the Church be to be believed for it self then we prefer the Authority of the Church before the authority of Scripture then you derogate from the authority of Scripture Thirdly the Church hath authority or not It hath you say then of it self or not what will you say If of it self what hath a company of Christians more to say for themselves then others If you say the authority comes from succession others also have had a constant succession And it must come to one first society Well where had that society its authority of it self or not If of it self what by revelation beside Scripture or not If beside then the charge of Anabaptisticalness is fallen upon you What then From Scripture Well then the Scripture in regard of those Texts which concern the Church is to be believed for it self and then why not in others Fourthly The Word of God in the substance and matter of it was before the Church therefore because the Church was begotten by it and therefore it must be known before the Church Yea reconcile your Opinion with that of Bellarmine in his first Book De Verbo Dei cap. 20. The Rule of Catholique Faith must be certain and known for if it be not known then it will not be a Rule to us If it be not certain it cannot be a Rule If it be a known Rule against Anabaptists why not also a known Rule against Papists and therefore that it must be made manifest by the Church is not necessary for how was it made manifest to the first Church to be the rule As for the instance of yours that Christ was made manifest to many by the Testimony of the Baptist and of the Apostles before the Scriptures were written and yet this derogate not from Scripture We answer soon First It is yet to be proved whether the Church hath that inspiration as John Baptist and the Apostles had for the first planting of the Church until that be made good your Argumentation is not Secondly Although the New Testament was not written the Old was and Iohn the Baptist and the Apostles preached no other Doctrine then was contained in the Old So our Saviour If ye had believed Moses ye would have believed me for he wrote of me in the 5. of Saint Iohn the 46. verse Thirdly If Iohn the Baptist and the Apostles were believed by a Divine Faith without the authority of the Church as the first Disciples did why may not the Scriptures be believed by a Divine Faith without the authority of the Church If the Apostles were believed immediately without the Church in what they said why may they not be believed also in what they wrote And surely to goe a little more close and deep if we speak properly there is not so much a ground of Faith as a cause if with the Schoolmen we grant as we may that Faith is a supernatural habit infused by God which disposeth the understanding to assert that which is said by God is true because he saith it not because the Church saith it And if you say that the Scripture and the Church are not opposite true when the Church ruleth it self by Scripture But if the Question be which proposal is
is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You go on in your Paraphrastical discourse But because I am not one who have not yet believed the Gospel and so this answer cannot serve me notwithstanding I must tell you that I am such an one that I would not believe the Gospel without the authority of the Catholick Church did move me So you Out of which words of your own you may learn how to understand the sense and tense of the Father in the place But because I am not one who have not yet believed the Gospel then he had believed the Gospel before and was not to believe it now and therefore his words must be referred in the African idiotism unto the time more then imperfect otherwise what he had believed he was to believe now which cannot stand with your Infallibility And yet you say afterwards mark if his ground be not so as I told you because saith he I have believed the Gospel it self upon the preaching of the Catholiques therefore if his Adversary should say do not believe the Catholicks he doth not go consequently to force him by the Gospel to any Faith to Manichaeus And hereupon you break out in these words Can he more clearly ground upon the Infallible Authority of their Teaching then upon this to believe the Gospel it self Answ Again these words do not include a Divine Faith of the Infallibility of the Church which you must have or else your cause is starved Because those words I would not believe the Gospel unlesse the authority of the Catholick Church did move me which must be the principal ground do not include his Faith of the Infallibility of the Church He might be moved by the authority of the Church though not resolved in his Faith by the Infallibility pretended according to this proportion must all his discourse be understood which proceeds from his belief of the Gospel by them to his being perswaded by them to Manichaeism if any thing should be found in the Gospel towards it or else proceeds to his not believing of Manichaeus upon his belief of the Catholicks who bad him believe the Gospel and not Manichaus These must be the hinges upon which the whole disputation must turn and therefore if those words be not understood of an ultimate determination of his Faith by the authority of the Church but of an instrumental moving nothing will be concluded sufficient and sufficiently for you But this answer you give not me any return to Ponder it very well for its importance in this debate For if the whole chapter was soberly spoken and if that he did not speak of himself as when he was a Manichaeu yet if he here intends to signifie no more then onely the authority of the Church was an impulsive to the belief of the Gospel you will evince no more then what you need not contend for because we do not contend against it as being not the state of the question Therefore it remains for you to prove your supposition or your proofs of an Infallible authority of the Church which indeed you would put in in your conclusions but is wanting in the premises And if it did belong to me to dispute it were not difficult to shew the contrary And since they may come in upon account of the reason of my denial they shall be there two moments from the chapter First Because he saith he did believe the Gospel per illos not propter Now what we do properly believe any one in we must believe for him not by him for him as a cause not by him as an instrument and therefore we believe what God sayes to be true not by him but for him And if the Apostles as he sayes were not 〈◊〉 of their Faith 2 Cor. 1â— 14 then were not those Catholicks he speaks of such as he ought for themselves to believe Secondly Because in several places of the chapter he doth signifie that if any reason could be given or any thing whereby it might be manifestly known that his Adversary were in the right he would leave his Catholicks Now this is not spoken consistently to the nature of Faith upon Infallible authority for what we do believe in way of Faith we do so believe as there cannot be a falsity in it as Aquinas doth confesse and I suppose you too for you would conclude no falsity or error can be in any thing which the Church doth define because it is infallible and therefore all the Reason and all the Science in the world are not able to shake Faith whereunto the contrary is intimated in the Father Nay if there be no arguing to the principles of Faith from other principles but from the principles of Scripture there is arguing to Divine conclusions then assuredly Faith in principles of Theology as this is one the verity of the Gospel is not obnoxious to any decay by any reasons And it seems his Faith then in the Gospel was not Divine upon the consideration of their authority since Reason may be valid against Humane authority but not Divine so that had he meant he built his Faith of the Gospel upon the authority infallible of the Church there had been no place for Reason to have any power of assent on the behalf of the Manichees Again if you hold to the Gospel my hold shall still be to the authority of the Church upon whose authority I believed the Gospel I saith he will hold my self to those by whose teaching I have believed the Gospel and there commanding me I will not believe thee So you think that this is also available for you surely nothing lesse for besides that you omit much of his connexion that makes for my former argument and also that â—â—â—kes against your rash and blind believing besides that you may understand that here he doth not compare the authority of the Church with the autopisty of Scripture which is the 〈◊〉 of the controversie but he doth compare the authority of the Catholicks as towards the belief of the Gospel with the authority of the Manichees as to believe their false Gospel of Manichaeus Indeed the authority of the Church is more urged and is more usefull to prevail aboâ—â—e or against the authority of private opposites but wâ—â— that it hath the moment of credibility above or equally to the authority of Scripture it self is that which is an question and is not here determined for you But you go on And Saint Austin goeth on so far upon this ground as a ground Infallible What of Faith it is again denyed not onely simply but it is denyed to be held so by him in this discourse If you may have your suppositions we must needs soon have done Well go on That he saith if perhaps you Manichaâ—us can find me any clear place in the Gospel to prove the Apostleship of Manichaeus that then indeed they shall weaken the authority of the Catholicks So he â—aith And what can you make of this
for your use Take it by it selfe and it will come to this that a clear place in the Gospel would perswade him to lessen his opinion of the authority of the Catholicks then he would hold clear Scripture above or against the authority of the Church then their authority is not in his judgement Infallible or else Infallible authority of the Church may be opposite to Infallible authority of the Scripture and one in his opinion of them the Scripture is more Infallible then the other the Church which is incongruous for in Infallibility there is no degree no more then in Truth And if you say that the Scripture yet may be more Infallible to him this spoyls all your cause for you say you go to Faith by the Church because that way is more plain c manifestâ— Therefore you hasten me from this passage to shew me what will follow But what do you think will follow I pray note it well their authority being weakned and shewed once fallible now neither can I so much as believe the Gospel And why so because upon the authority of these Catholicks I had believed the Gospel So you But do you see how you interpose your glosse in your Parenthesis thus their authority being once weakned and shewed once fallible Do you imagine that we can neglect or overlook this your glossall inference or opposition and shewed once fallible as if there were no authority but that which is Infallible and there were no weakning of authority but to make it fallible Authority may stand with Fallibility for we grant Authority to the Church distinguishing it from Infallibility And if you had done so you had saved many a wound which your Church hath got by that unfortunate word Infallibility as one of your own men happily confessed Neither therefore doth it follow that the authority of the Catholicks being weakned and shewed once fallible he could not at all believe the Gospel because by the authority of the Catholicks he had believed the Gospel but he could not then believe the Gospel by that inductive and motive of the authority of the Church for the first Christians believed the Apostles severally without the authority of the Church Yea if upon that consideration he could not have believed the Gospel their authority by whom he did believe it being weakned yet doth it not from hence flow necessarily that when he did believe the Gospel he did believe it upon an Infallible authority because although he could not believe the Gospel without it yet might he account it as towards belief but a condition not a cause of his Faith And this you must have or else you do not contradict Whatsoever is necessary to an effect is not the cause of it although whatsoever is a cause thereof is necessary to it Therefore that is not so which again you say that the ground of his beleef in the Gospel was their infallible authoritie as not only these but also the next words shew manifestly When will you by your proof put the infallible proposal of the Church out of question when shall we have any more then supposals of it Let us see your next words Wherefore if in the Gospel there be nothing found that is evident to prove the Apostleship of Manichaeus then I will beleeve the Catholicks rather then you but if you shall read me out of the Gospel something that is evident to prove Manichaeus an Apostle then neither will I beleeve the Catholicks nor thee Why so I will not beleeve the Catholicks because they whose Doctrine I thought infallible have lyed to me concerning the Manichaeaus But I will not beleeve thee even when thou citest clear Scripture for of this case he speaketh and why so because thou dost cite me that Scripture to which Scripture I had now beleeved upon their authority who have lyed to me So you And what now from hence can you gather more then from the former passage of the same nature unlesse you did make good another Parenthetical supposition whose Doctrine I thought infallible This is not in Saint Austin but comes from your own private Spirit And therefore if you will not be ruled by our Spirit because of the former exception to the contrary surely we have no cause to be overperswaded by your judgement without any reason for it Secondly May you not from hence take notice that what I said of Saint â—ustin that in the Testimony here he might speak as in some heat of Dispute For can we think that Saint Austin had such a soul as to say soberly and categorically that he would not beleeve clear Scripture which was cited by any one because Catholicks had told him otherwise Did Saint Austin in your conceit differ in judgement from your Aquinas or did your Aquinas differ from Saint Austin Consider then what your Aquinas saith in his Summes the first Part the first question and the eight Art Innititur enim fides nostra revelationi Apostolis Prophetis facta qui Canonicos libros scripserunt for our Faith doth rely upon the revelation made to the Apostles and Prophets who wrote the Canonical Books but not upon the revelation if any other was made to other Doctours Nay he confirms it by Saint Austin out of his 19. Epist a little after the beginning Solis enim Scripturarum libris c. For I have learned to give this honour onely to the Books of Scripture which are called Canonical as to believe most firmly that none of the Authours thereof did erre in writing any thing but others I so read that whatsoever holynesse or learning they are excellent in I do not think true therefore because they thought so or wrot so Compare then this passage with the other or the other with this and then judge whether either he did not differ from himself in his Principles or did not speak the former as a disputant Thirdly Let me note whereas you do rightly translate Saint Austin as speaking of his beleef by the Catholicks in the tense more then past you give your self occasion to think that he meant the main passage non crederem not of himself then but as before a Manichee And your argument which you produce a little after against this last answer because he speaks here of beleeuing the Acts of the Apostles and beleeving it by a necessary consequence because he hath already beleeved the other Canonical books upon the same authority of the Church doth not overthrow my answer because you say your self that this book of the Acts he did beleeve by consequence by the authority of the Church he was at first moved to beleeve the other books and therefore by consequence he did beleeve the book of the Acts because the Catholick authority did in like manner commend both Scriptures The speaking here in the present doth not derogate from my answer because the beleeving by consequence supposeth an act of beleeving antecedent Also Fourthly note that here he said the
to you is not bound to so much Fourthly whereas you say They so will make him wise unto salvation and to continue still assured of the doctrine of the Church and never to contradict that Do not you see that you add to Paul in the Predicate for S. Paul saies they are able to make him wise unto salvation and you say so they are able to make him wise to salvation and to continue still assured of the Doctrine of the Church and not to contradict the Church who is it that wrests Scripture now Do not you draw it to your own use no you will say it is all one to make us wise unto salvation and to make us continue still assured of the Doctrine of the Church and not to contradict the Church Is it then all who have not contradicted the Church are saved none that have contradicted the Church are saved The former you will not say the later you cannot prove Pope Vigilius contradicted the Church in the 5. Gen. Council about the three Chapters was he damned Fifthly you say the Scriptures so understood would make him wise unto salvation and to continue in the doctrine of the Church How do you understand it copulatively or disjunctively Copulatively that the Scriptures and the orall traditions would make him wise unto salvation and to continue in the doctrine of the Church or disjunctively that the Scriptures would make him wise unto salvation and the traditions to continue in the doctrine of the Church If disjunctively then we may be wise unto salvation and yet not continue in the doctrine of the Church to wit by the Scriptures If we cannot have salvation without continuing in the Church then prove your Church to be as infalible to us as the Doctors of the Church were to Timothy until that time you will be thought to beg the question So to end this answer we note here that you take special care of the Church It seems by your stickling about the Church that what S. Austin said in his de Civitate Dei concerning Rome-Heathen is also true by you of Rome-Christian Et major cura unius Romae quam totius Coeli And there is more care had of one Rome than all Heaven You go on Thirdly you say You confess that when we are by the Church assured that the Scripture is the Word of God we may ground our faith in it for those things which are plainly delivered You say yes but I also say that all things necessary to salvation are not plainly delivered in Scripture So then it seems you come downe from your former universality that whatsoever we do believe we must believe upon the proposals of the Church as the formal cause and motive thereof and why then do you not allow the people the use of the Bible as in order to those things which are plainly delivered So that by this concession you open the way to contradict your own practice But you would shut it again by saying that all things necessary to salvation are not plainly delivered in it Be sure you take heed of this that you do not grant this for why then should all fly to the Church for infalible directions in way of supply well Are they not delivered or not plainly which speak your mind If not delivered then surely not plainly for of that which is not there are no affections as the Rule is but they may be delivered and yet not plainly Come out of the clouds and do not make a noise but lighten us If not delivered think upon the Argument you know well If many things not necessary are plainly delivered in Scripture then much rather all things necessary If delivered and not plainly then plainly not delivered for if they be delivered they are delivered for our use as a Rule of faith and action and how are they a Rule if they be not sufficiently plain for then we must have another Rule for the understanding of this Rule And also think upon the former Argument which proceeds upon your own distinction that the Scriptures were able to make Timothy wise unto salvation but not every one If Timothy then much more others because more is required as you say to a Minister in point of belief than to others But you would prove what you say S. Peter saith that many to their perdition did misunderstand some hard places of S. Paul so that mis-interpretation of hard places may be the cause of perdition Ans First you will excuse us if we note that the danger they were in was not by misunderstanding but by wresting of those places You know the Greek is as before was said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Syriack renders it perverting depraving and so also your Translation of Rhemes depraving This is not so much an intellectual error as a moral fault and the danger is by the later Secondly Here 's but some things hard to be understood in S. Paul's Epistles not all not many and from hence you cannot argue that all things therefore in S. Paul's Epistles and much lesse in the whole Scripture are hard to be understood If you syllogize so you proceed a particulari a dicto secundum quid Thirdly the perverting and depraving doth more immediately depend upon their being unstable than ignorant Therefore cannot you impute that to simple ignorance which at least partly belongs to another cause Fourthly how prove you that those things which were hard to be understood were of those things which are necessary to salvation If you say so it lies upon you to prove it if they were not such then this text is not pertinent Fifthly it is to their own destruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So then it seems hereby they had the liberty to read those Epistles and why should you therefore hinder the people from the use of Scripture since they run the danger of their own destruction by wresting them And peruse your own Estius upon the place who doth ingenuously note that it is not said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as referring to the Epistle as some copies he said would have it but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 referring to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which respects the time of Christs coming although afterwards Estius would extend them to the point of justification by faith Fourthly you object heresie and lewd life to some in whom you say we invested infallibility If I should grant all what prove you from hence but that there be other ways to heresie and bad life besides giving all scope to interpret the Scriptures as we judge fit c. unto but to prevent Ans But do you remember what occasion I had to object this to you by way of recrimination you charged us by the judgement of your learned Divines that the free use of the Scripture would be it upon which the peoples manners would grow worse and worse And to this I said how comes it then to passe that some in whom you vested
infallibilitie were guiltie of heresie and bad manners and I instanced in Liberius subscribing against Athanasius So that the way your Church hath doth not free you from these crimes and therefore you do unreasonably urge against your Adversarie inconveniences of his principles which are common to yours And yet you will now complain of me because I am even with you The debate betwixt us upon this point lies thus you faulted our permission of the use of Scripture to the people as the cause or the cause without which heresie and bad manners do not arise I answered in defence of Scripture this not the cause nor the causa sine quae non of them since heresie and bad manners have been in those of your Church in whom your infalibility is placed and therefore have you no cause to take it so ill that I answered you so home All the causality you can pretend of heresie and bad manners by a free use of the Scriptures is through mis-interpretation of them is it not yea is it so then how come those who are infalible to be hereticks and bad You had best take away Scripture from all that so there may be no heresie Well it seems you now begin to bethink your self that heresie and bad life are not the properties of a free use of Scripture as we understand them quarto modo but as consequents or inseparable accidents which are in a larger sense as properties namely as omni sed non soli so I construe your last words if I should grant all what prove you from hence but that there be other ways to heresie and bad life c. you must then allow us to tell you that you are somewhat disposed to go hence and to deduct and refute the overboiling expressions of the danger of Scripture as to the people at least as if all the heresies and bad life were to be grounded or charged upon the common liberty of reading Scripture And let me come up a little more closely to you I demand of you Whether you will or dare to say that all those who have had the free use of Scripture have interpreted it in difficult places as they judged fit and therefore were of bad life if not then is it not proprium omni And so for heresie you cannot say that every one who hath freely used Scripture hath interpreted or mis-interpreted it unto heresie for how then could he of your Church say si fides in doctos solos caderet nihil esset occuperius Deo Or did they believe without the use of Scripture by an implicit faith in the Church Did they But this implicit faith implies a contradiction in adjecto for faith supposeth knowledge of what we believe in the object though not in the reason but implicit is divided against knowledge and if you say that it knows the Church which it doth believe it will come to this that all the faith of the people shall be shrunk into one Article of the Church and no matter whether they explicitly believe God or Christ or any thing else will this prove good Divinity Or will good Divinity prove this And besides it is not implicit faith which believes the Church but explicit for they must actually believe the Roman Church to be it unto which salvation is obliged Then reading of the Scriptures is not a cause to all though not all the cause of heresie for some have got salvation by it and therefore were no hereticks unless you will say they might have salvation and be hereticks too If you will say it then why would you perswade our people that there is no salvation for us hereticks Then subjection to the Roman Church is not necessary to salvation for although all Christians but you according to your Principles are hereticks yet they may be saved because hereticks may be saved However we may have faith by reading of Scripture and if faith then we are not hereticks by Knots argumentation because he would have heresie destroy all faith But you have reason to say that other ways of heresie there may be besides being conversant in Scripture for you know that hereticks have pleaded Antiquity therefore by your Logick you should not plead it for use and settlement of faith Whereas you say Again had not David who was a Murtherer and an Adulterer had not Solomon who was an Idolater the infalible assistance of the Holy Ghost in writing severall parts of the holy Scripture Sir I thank you for helping your weak Adversary for this makes for me and proves for me what I said on behalf of Scripture that heresie and badnesse were accidentall at most to the use of Scripture because those whom you account infallible were guilty thereof You prove now by other examples the possibility thereof The sense of the discourse as to badnesse of life is this If bad manners be competible to those who are accounted infallible then the mis-interpretation of Scripture by the ignorance of the people is not the cause of bad maners but verum prius and now you not denying it to be true of your Pope would confirm it by certain examples in Scripture But I hope you meane to reflect this towards the proof of infalibility to be consistent with a lewd life And therefore I answer to you that I deny not the distinction of infalibility in rebus fidei and not in point of action I deny not the distinction in the notion of it but I deny it in the application of it to the Pope I do acknowledge him in one part of it falible in the latter but you must prove him infalible in the former as David and Solomon was and we have done We are agreed in the Thesis that there may be infalibility of faith where there is lewdness of life but we differ in the Hypothesis as you intend it not that the Pope may not be nought in life but that he is not infalible in defining points of faith or manners But you would avoid the danger of my former answer therefore you say But to prevent this and all that elsewhere you can say against the Pope I in my twenty first number desired you and all to take notice of that which you here quite forget I said I would have every one to know that the Roman Church doth oblige us no more than to believe that the Pope defining with a lawfull Councell cannot erre How then doth the belief or faith of a Church I speake not of private mens private opinions invest infalibility in a person hereticall or bad So then let my answer be put into this forme Liberius the Pope was guilty of heresie and bad manners Liberius was according to you infalible therefore the Subject of infalibility may be an heretick and guiltie of bad manners and consequently heresie and bad life are not to be imputed to the mis-interpretation of Scripture Before you graunted me the Conclusion that heresie and bad life may come in otherwise
then thirdly Why do you dispute with us concerning the Authority of Scriptures by the Church since we have admitted the Scriptures for the word of God And therefore should you not urge us to the acknowledgement of Scriptures by the Authoritie of the Church but wholly to the acknowledgement of the Church by the Authority of the Scriptures Paragr 5. In the fifth Par. you say you charge me with abating from my first proposition in which I said Divine faith in all things was caused by the proposall of the Church because now I say that when by the infalible Authoritie of the Church we are assured that the Scripture is the word of God we may believe such things as are clearly contained in Scripture Ans And I cannot yet bate you an ace of my charge For your termes are of a believing indefinitely upon proposall of the Church as if 't were the immediate formall cause of all faith and so severall of your Arguments would prove that the Scripture is not at all our rule but the Church And this your first paper made to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore if you had clearly intended the dispute of this point whether we are to believe the Scripture to be the word of God by the Authoritie of the Church and so consequently or causally all to be believed for the Church you should have made this the state of the main question But now you say when by the infalible Authoritie of the Church we are assured that the Scripture is the word of God we may believe such things as are clearly contained in Scripture And do you not go lesse now Do but compare the quantities of your assertions before all things to be believed upon and for the proposall of the Church now some things may be believed for the Scripture which are plainly contained in it And the Church and the Scripture are in our case opposed so then if first all is to be believed by the Authoritie of the Church and now some things clearly contained may be believed upon Scripture then do you not onely abate but contradict your self in effect for it will come to this all is to be believed upon the proposal of the Church somwhat may be believed not upon the proposal of the Church but of Scripture For when we are assured you say that the Scripture is the word of God we may believe such things as are plainly contained in Scripture then we are to believe it upon the account of the word of God And your Church can have no higher Authoritie surely than God's word for it Therefore if you say we are to believe what is plainly contained in Scripture when we are assured by the Church that it is the word of God for the authoritie of the Church then I pray tell me why we should believe the Church if not for the word of God Again to consider these words of yours if we must be assured by infalible Authority of the Church that the Scripture is the word of God before we can believe what is plainly contained therein then either one of us must yeild upon the case of the infalibilitie of the Church or else nothing plainly contained in Scripture can be by your opinion believed But you think that some things are plainly set down in Scripture though elsewhere you would conclude as if all things in Scripture were obscure and so you now also abate in this and herein we both agree and we think the Church's Authority is not infalible wherein we differ from you Now which think you in reason should yeild you or we One would think you should yeild rather since we can prove that whatsoever is contained in Scripture is to be believed without the Authoritie of the Church and you cannot prove the Authority of the Church to be plainly contained in Scripture yea must yet believe upon your principles the infalible Authority of the Church before you can believe it though plainly contained in Scripture because you must first be assured by the infalible Authoritie of the Church that the Scripture is the word of God before you do believe what is contained in Scripture And again thirdly we are assured that the Scripture is the word of God why may not we then have leave to believe things plainly contained in Scripture Certa sunt in paucis as Tertullian saith We say certain necessary truths are not so many Why are not we then well grounded in Religion surely in your account because we do not go to divine faith by your infalible Church Even as the death of Remus it was ordained by Romulus that whosoever went over the trench at the building of Rome any other than the ordinary way should be put to death so Zâ—n 2. An. because we do not go the ordinarie Roman way to the building of us in our most holy faith we must die for ever As if our faith were not true Divine faith because it is not implicit by the Church Which is as much as to say the obedience of faith is not good because it is not blind And this is as much as to say we do not see because we do not see And therefore fourthly since as hath been shewed the authority of the Church is resolved into Scripture and since you have confessed that we may admit the Scriptures to be the word of God and yet may need to be assured of the Authoritie of the Church your apologie for your self in this paragraph must needs be insufficient In the sixth Par. You begin with taking notice of my character of my self to be one of the slender sons of the Church of England whether so or whether he hath shewed that Treatise of mine to be no demonstration Let the indefferent reader after the due pondering the force of all Arguments determine Sir I dare not alter my small opinion of my self And therefore the consideration of such matters should have dropped from a judicious head into a learned pen. And if your demonstration as you call it be indeed such as doth merit the terme you have proved me to be no better than my word And if I prove it to be no demonstration I do not yet falsifie what I said of my self For I shall impute the cause of it to our cause the weakest hand may defend our cause the strongest cannot defend yours To passe this you go on Sure I am that this is no Demonstration which you adde the Scripture is infalible but the Church is not therefore I must take for my ground the Scripture Ans But you leave out the scope of this Argumentation and the formalitie of the conclusion You spake of as clear a Demonstration as any wise man can hope for in this matter I told you it was hard to say who does optimum quod sic Well but then I wished you to put it to the test and to try the debate of it by this rule of wisdome and
reason may this be called the Pontificians use plenty of the Fathers against us therefore he will not answer to my testimonies from them nor to my answers to his testimonies against us Doe any of those Pontificians fully answer my testimonies and doe they sufficiently take off my answers If they doe he should have told me which and where But were I as apt to brag as the Romans are I might not be far from crying victoria that I should stand to answer the Fathers and bring them to stand for us though my Adversary saies I bring them to lesse than nothing and yet he that makes so much of them in shew should detrect this way of plea by them Whereas their small errors used presently to be discovered and cryed down This is not altogether true For how many of their errors continued long yea great errors also as the Millenarie opinion And Infant Communion was not presently decreed neither Therefore yet it remaines to be proved that any of the points of difference betwixt the Papists and us was a standing opinion of the Primitive times which my Adversary would insinuate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it would make a learned man amazed to ask as you do how few of them have touched upon our differences Ans There is no such cause of Amazement Learned men in generall wonder lesse and learned men cannot wonder particularly at this as knowing the reason which was added by me having not occasion by Adversaries and therefore doth my Adversary wisely passe by any mention of the reason as not being pertinent for his use But also was that I said well guarded first how few I did not say none Secondly I said touched namely as to handle and this is necessary to be believed because indeed there were few of them Argumentative then though some of them might put out occasionally some expressions relating to our differences yet is not this to touch argumentatively our differences for aliud agentis parva autoritas as the rule is And then thirdly if many of them at least did not touch so as to handle discursively all our differences there is no cause of admiring my speech for if they had handled some not all how should we have been directed in those which they had not handled Now then let all be considered then upon the whole matter let me say this that if any Pontifician can prove that many of them did handle argumentatively all the points of debate betwixt us then I shall give leave for the amazement of my expression Therefore as to the Authors he produceth of his side who give account of the Fathers in our diffâ—rences as Coccius Gualterus the Author of the Progeny of the Catholicks and Protestants or any other named by any other I say this that he should have told me particulary where each of them doth produce any Father and in what point and also should have shewed in them that many Fathers have all conjunctively spoken of the severall points and also that they have spoken of them directly on purpose where the seat of the matter was and also that no where they contradict what in one place they said or at least did not elsewhere speak doubtingly otherwise he concludes not any thing of weight against me And then secondly I can returne my Adversary number for number and weight for weight of our own who have answered all the testimonies of the Fathers which their learned Champions have produced as Bishop Jewell Dr. Whitaker Dr. Reynolds besides Chamier of France who have refuted the instances of the Fathers Yea the challenge of the first of them was never yet well answered as to the testimony of the Fathers And thirdly either the Fathers cannot be brought in with their suffrages for them or they can if they cannot why doth Campian and others crack and brag of the Fathers and then also my Adversaries Authors are disannulled If they can then either the Fathers speak contradictions since we produce them as well for us and therefore cannot we be ruled by them or else my Adversary needed not to have shifted the answering to them but might have found other passages out of them to have commodiously reconciled the seeming variance Yea then either my Adversary had not such cause to rest infallibity in a Council if all the Fathers of all ages agreed or the consent of the Fathers might be a rule to the Council and then my discourse of the Fathers had good conjunction with the Controversie about Councils As for the Author of the Progeny of Catholicks and Protestants whom he brings in here as handling a part all our main differences and doth in all these points give us the very words of our own chief Doctors clearly acknowledging a great number of holy Fathers directly opposit to us in each one of these points To this I answer that it is possible some of our Church may not meet with right editions of the Fathers might not discerne their true works might mistake the sense and application of some words or not being able dexterously to reconcile their expressions to some other passages of the Fathers and to our opinions might conclude them as opposit If this Argument were good then are they also bound to conclude the Fathers to be on our side because Bellarmin produceth in his Disputations testimonies of the Fathers for us Indeed he endeavours to answer those testimonies but I dare affirme that severall of those testimonies which the Author hath produced from our own side of the Fathers may as well be answered as some of those which Bellarmin answers Thirdly my Adversaries might have known also that there is a book written by none of ours which is a Confutation of Papists by Papists So then if they will set our Divines against us we can set their Divines against them yea also in severall points were the testimonies of the Primitive Church urged against some of their points in the Trent Council by some of their Church Fourthly I have read Breerley through it being commended to me by one who thought I think thereby to convince me in the case and I can give no other account than as Mr. Chillingworth doth that he hath not dealt exactly with the Confessions of those of our Church as in the instance of some passages out of Mr. Hooker as may be seen in Mr. Chillingworth page 62. As also in a passage of Luther as may be seen in Mr. Chilling If the pages 79 and 92 be compared And therefore have we no reason to be concluded against upon his word yea some of the authorities he bringeth do not respect the main points betwixt us and as I remember some authorities are not contradictory to our cause and therefore was I rather confirmed by reading of that book And therefore groundlesse is my Adversaries excuse for not medling with the holy Fathers in this Controversie betwixt us Though they did not professedly discusse and determine our questions and
down in Scripture For though we have not the formall and materiall number of things distinctly to be believed yet all that is distinctly to be believed may be plainly set down there And therefore if we believe them we believe sufficiently Therefore if he takes the terme distinctly in this sense that we must necessarily know that this is one of the points necessary to be believed we deny it of every point that is necessary although we may say so of some as that Jesus is the Christ because in Scripture salvation is denied any other way as Acts. 4.12 If he takes the term as signifying that some things are actually and explicitly to be believed we grant it but the consequence so is not valid Secondly this returnes upon them and therefore should they not have moved this stone For where have they set down a list of all those things which by every of them are necessary to be believed distinctly in contradistinction to their implicit faith And if they say that they are ready distinctly to believe whatsoever is proposed by the Church so we say that we are also ready to believe whatsoever shall be sufficiently proposed out of Scripture And sure we have as good cause for an implicit faith as to Scripture as they have as to the Church And if Mr. Knot 's judgement be the sense of the Roman Church there is but one fundamentall point of them actually and distinctly to be believed in which are comprised all points by us taught to be necessary to salvation in these words we are obliged under pain of damnation to believe whatsoever the Catholick visible Church of Christ proposeth as revealed by Almighty God If any be of another mind all Catholicks denounce him to be no Catholick So he And therefore why do they urge a particular and Inventory of all points distinctly to be believed when they content themselves with one Generall If the Church must be proved by Scripture as formerly we have shewed and according to St. Austin then one generall comprehensive point might more reasonably be sufficient for us and that is this we are obliged under pain of damnation to believe whatsoever plainly appeares to be revealed by Almighty God in Scripture But yet we do not content our selves thus for we say all points necessary are distinctly to be believed and they may distinctly be believed because they are plainly delivered more plainly than the Decrees of Councils at least the Trent Council And he that says he is bound to believe all that is contained in Scripture when clearly proposed to him as such by consequent is ready to embrace all points necessary because they are plainly delivered Therefore indeed is our opinion more agreeable to a distinct account of what is to be expressely believed than theirs because we make a distinction in point of credibility by the matter saying that some things are plainly proposed because necessary to be believed though all things are necessary to be believed when plainly proposed The former sort whereof requires absolute belief the latter conditionate to the competent appearance of them to be such as God hath shewed to come from him by revelation He proceeds Every one is bound not to work upon the Sunday Every one is bound not to have two Wives at one time Not also to marry within such or such a degree of Consanguinitie Where are all these things plainly set down in Scripture Ans Some things are neither de fide nor de verbo fidei as that the Bishop of Rome is the universall Bishop of the Church Some things are de verbo fidei yet not de fide in propriety of phrase as necessary in the matter as namely historicall truths as that Jesus rode to Jerusalem Some things are de verbo fidei and de fide also as that Jesus is the Christ that whosoever believeth shall be saved The question now betwixt us is of the last kind whether Scripture with sufficient clearnesse sets down all those things which are de fide in this sense So that my Adversary was to prove that these particulars are so necessary to be believed that no man who doth not believe them distinctly can be saved And while he saith so that they are such and doth not prove them we need say no more than that he doth not prove them Asserentis est probare And I am not to answer unto words but Arguments Yet secondly these are sufficiently knowable by Scripture the first by the equity of the fourth Commandement and the intimations thereof in the new Testament The second by God's own institution in state of innocency and by the first Ep. to the Cor. 7.2 But for fornication let every man have his own wife 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And yet if they will hold that this is one of the practick credibles in the foresaid necessity they doe endanger the condition of those Jews who had more wives And also they will incurre the danger of being engaged to answer for that Pope who as before gave liberty to take another wife And for the third it is sufficiently declared as to the necessity of knowledge and practice in Levit. 18. And if to the knowledge what is to be done in these we are so strictly obliged by the law of God as that if we misse a degree we are damned it must also be made as clear as whatsoever is necessary that the law of God hath given unto the Pope a faculty and power of dispensing as to Mariages within those degrees If the law of God hath not made these cases of Mariage as plain as is necessary for those who are not so studious to know the utmost of their liberty as to resolve a negative of practice upon any appearance to the contrary then the law of God must as clearly as to exclude doubt shew unto us that infallible directory whereby we may come exactly to the knowledge of what is to be done herein And if this can be made to appear why is it not Num. 5. Other endlesse difficulties be superadded by those other words plainly set down and first to prove a point plainly set down in Scripture so that I infallibly know the undoubted true sense of it I must first know such a book to be the true and undoubted word of God which as I shall shew num 20. cannot be known by Scripture This we have taken away before so far as it concerns the present dispute and we are like to meet with it again it seems and no sober Christian before he had proved an infallible Propounder of every truth to be believed would have raised this scruple But intellectus currit cum praxi as the Romanist said religion must be accommodated for their use To this more upon the place It cannot be known at least by those who can truely swear that they are no more able by the reading of the book of Numbers for example to discover in it any Divine light
said that God wanted ability to set down other points as plainly and there is no repugnance ex natura rei that other points should be as plainly set down as that therefore if God in his wisedom and goodnesse caused by his Spirit that verity to be clearly delivered for our salvation how can we believe that he did not also direct the Pen-men of the Spirit of God to deliver all other points necessary to salvation with necessary plainnesse Again thirdly if the word of the Prophets was a more firme word than the Testimomonies of the Apostles as Estius upon the place as to the Jewes for the faith in the Messiah then where we have that and the writings of the Apostles in the new why should we not account this a more sure word than the word of the Church in this point or any other contained in Scripture Why may not we as likely doubt of the Church specially a particular Church as well as the Jews might doubt of the Apostles And is not the Doctrine of the old and new Testament more sure than the Doctrine of the Church To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this it is because there is no light in them as the Prophet speaks then the Scripture is the rule of their Doctrine and therefore more sure that which gives credit to others must be more credible Yea and untill they prove that something new in substance was added to the new Testament above what was contained in the old that text availes also for Christians against any thing not written Neither can the Romanist say that that word of Prophecy shines in a dark place by the hand of man in the Church for it is spoken of the word as written and the Prophets who then wrote the word were dead If the Prophets had been then living it had been reasonable for the Jews to have taken their direction from their mouth as it might be reasonable for us to take the word of God from the mouth of the Apostles were they now living but the Prophets are dead and the Apostles are dead by whom we know God spake but that God speaks now by the Church as he did by them we are yet to deny untill it be better proved or these texts better answered But we have one more Your sixth and last text is Acts the 17. where it is said of the Beroeans Num. 14. they received the word with all readinesse of mind and searched the Scripture daily whether those things were so Against the proceedings of this Text he brings severall Pleas some common to former Texts as at the latter end of the number these are answered already those that are new we shall here examine And first he calls for one evident clear syllable which saith the Beroeans did search the Scripture before they believed St. Paul Nay is it not first said they received the word with all readinesse of mind Ans First he says that which is to be proved that those words they received the word with all readinesse of mind do inferr rather that they did believe St. Paul before they did search the Scriptures For though St. Paul was infallible in his Doctrine and therefore might be believed and ought yet it doth not appear that they were perswaded of him and therefore it is not said they recieved St. Paul with all readinesse of mind but they received the word and they might receive it with all chearfulnesse as good though they did search it whether true Secondly they might receive it with all readinesse upon appearance of probability although they did not believe it until by search they found it agreeable to the Scriptures Yea somewhat may be received without probability and with all readinesse of mind too as an Adversaries paper And that they did not believe it untill they had compared it with the writings of the Apostles appears more probable by the following words that they did daily search the Scriptures if these things were so their search was an sit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If they did believe why did they still search and daily search Doe we search for that which infallibly we believe Then where is certainty which Mr. Knot makes necessary to faith But he himself will ingenuously confesse as much as seems requisite for our cause in these words upon those motives which St. Paul proposed to them before they searched the Scriptures and being by those motives and Instructions well enlightned to understand the Scriptures they for their further comfort and confirmation searched the Scriptures daily to see whether they testified the same point and this one point of our Saviours comming being clearly in Scripture perhaps St. Paul might bid them search in such and such texts for it These words we must take great notice of what motives they were he doth not expresse but such it seems as upon which many thousands did recieve it whose proceedings you can never prove lesse laudable than the Beroeans But this his parenthesis does 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He might have left it out better For why then are these Beroeans commended If there was not in them somewhat of excellent ingenuity why are they commended for this that they received the word with all chearfulnesse searching the Scriptures daily Doth not this belong also to their commendation that they searched the Scriptures daily Nay it may be further if we may have leave to be critical their receiving of the word with all chearfulnesse was concurrent with the searching of the Scriptures daily and so the participle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be taken per modum medii whereby they came to embrace the word the use of Participles is not it may be infrequent in this sense However it is not comely for him when the Scripture doth give a reputation and honor to these Beroeans to equalize many thousands to them But we must a little more reflect upon his words Motives these Beroeans had proposed by St. Paul before they searched the Scriptures But what motives That is not expressed by St. Paul nor indeed that they had any Well but we give it that they had motives And if the authority of the Church had been one of those motives my Adversary would not have omitted it And yet also we can grant motives before the resolution of faith So that those Beroeans might have motives and yet not believe before the searching of the Scriptures But this how loath is he to come to that they did search the Scriptures as in order to believing Therefore he doth substitute other ends of their searching of the Scriptures namely for their comfort and confirmation What For their comfort and confirmation and not for their faith But if the searhing of the Scriptures be of use to our comfort and confirmation then also to our faith but not to beget it it may be No As in naturalls so in spirituals we may be said to be nourished by
and consequently hope too Yet we may hope to make his charge nought and our faith good but we need not say any more than what hath been said whereunto he hath said as much as comes to little yet now he diverts hither We must say therefore again that this should not be a question betwixt us how we believe the Scriptures to be the word of God for this is supposed betwixt us as the subject of the question And we say that the sense of this argumentation is to as much purpose as if when we are at London we must go back again because we did not go the new way As to the Assumption then we deny it We do ground our assent to this truth upon Divine Revelation Yea moreover we return him his argument in terms and therefore they have no Divine faith so naturall it is for those to speak most who have a mind to cover their own defects They cannot ground their assent to this truth upon Divine Revelation because they ground it upon the authority of the Church for they must either have an immediate revelation that the Church is infallible or else they must ground it upon the general sum of revealed truth and that is the Scripture for as for Tradition that which is of a particular Church is of no weight as to this businesse and universall Tradition must go upon account of the Church now then if they say that they have a Revelation immediate that the Church is infallible in proposing those books to be Canonical they make that to be of use to them which they deny to us who have as good reason to say that we may as well have an immediate revelation that the Scripture is the word of God but if they ground their faith upon some texts of Scripture which concern the Church then they must believe the Scripture for it self So then either they must come to us or else indeed they have no Divine faith And therefore had he no cause to be offended with that I said that the Canonical books are worthy to be believed for themselves as we assent to prime principles in the habit of Intelligence To this he says in a parenthesis And so is the book of Toby and Judith as well as these But doth he say this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and doth he not then find fault with the antient Church who did not as hath been shewn give equall reverence to these as to the books Canonical If they be as worthy to be believed as the books Canonical then they erred in not receiving them with equall belief And if they erred then our Adversaries are lost And now as for our assent to the Canonicall books in the manner of assent to prime principles by the help of the Spirit of God they are not like to prosper in the abuse of it First it is to be noted that we are not now to deal with one that denies the Scripture to be the word of God for to an unbeliever hereof we should use other arguments rationally to induce him to a good opinion hereof but when we are demanded by a Christian what is it that grounds our faith of Scripture one would think we might say that we are resolved to a Divine faith hereof by the Spirit of God disposing our assent to them as of themselves worthy to be believed which is the reason of assent to prime principles And therefore secondly we do not say that our assent to the Canonical books is by a naturall light as our assent to prime principles but that our assent is made to them by way of Intelligence through the Spirit the light of the Spirit as to shew us the Scripture to be worthie of belief for it selfe is supernaturall but when that comes we believe it as we do prime principles not by discourse but because it is credible of it self Faith herein bears more proportion to intelligence than to science because we do not in faith use a reason to the act as we do in science And this is intimated in the common reading of that text of the Prophet Si non crediderint non intelligent if they will not believe they shall not understand so then since faith is a supernaturall habit as the School-men the Spirit of God doth infuse it into us as being an habit infused as they speak and this doth dispose us to believe the Scripture to be the word of God as by him indited And one would think that it is a better ground to believe it to be the word of God because he saith so than to believe it because the Church saith so and it is more about because I cannot believe it upon the account of the Church but because God gives testimony of the Church and why cannot we then believe God teste seipso So all the assent we give to them is made upon the veracity of God which is the center in which all lines of Scripture do meet and terminate Therefore might he have spared that which follows Have you brought all the infallibility of Christian Religion unto this last ground to be trampled by the Socinians Ans First I do not see what reason we have to lay the foundation of Religion so as to please the Socinian One who maintained the Protestant cause was prejudiced by suspition of being inclined to Socinianism and I am now found fault with for not providing for their satisfaction in our principles Well but secondly I do not finde that Socinians do abhor this tenure of Scripture And thirdly they to be sure do trample upon the authority of their Church as infallible And therefore this is to be returned home to the Romanist And also upon the former grounds might he have omitted what follows from doe you expect unto all that you believe for although the object is to be believed for it self as a prime principle yet is there not a naturall light for it that comes supernaturally and therefore faith is a supernatural habit But if they would be accounted such rationall men in the faith of Scripture they do deserve from the Socinian a negative reverence by a positive favour to them But again how far is that which I have said different from the determination of Ratisbon in their fourth session Scripturae dicuntur perfectae quoad perfectionem eredibilitatis et exactissimae veritatis The Scriptures are said perfect as in respect of the perfection of credibility and most exact truth And the perfection of credibility belongs to the first principles which are indemonstrable And as those principles have themselves immobiliter unto Sciences as Aquinas so the Scriptures have themselves unto Divinity Here we must rest And if every one doth not believe them to be the word of God upon this account this doth not derogate from the credibility of the object thus we say that the Scriptures are the infallible word of God is evident of its own self needing no further proof for the requiring
an infallible assent no more than the first principles which are the object of intelligence And also therefore upon the premisses that which concludes the number might have been forborn Indeed you have brought your whole Religion to as pitifull a case as your Adversaries could wish it These braving words do not hurt a solid cause they are to be returned to the place from whence they came who hath brought Religion to so pitifull a case as the Pontifician who must have religion made accomodable to their pride and covetuousness No case of Religion so pitifull as uncertainty no such uncertainty of Religion as with them For if they ground their Religion upon the determination of Councils wherein onely Bishops have their vote and the Bishop of Rome his confirmation thereof no man can according to their principles be certain whether there be a true Pope or true Bishop as hath been said Moreover we can make use of intrinsecall arguments for the truth of Scripture to be the word of God as well as they We can make use of extrinsecall arguments better for we make use of the authority of the whole Church and do give it in this point as much reverence as is due thereunto But therefore till that which is here said for the setling of our faith be disproved and also till it be proved that we do not make use of these arguments towards our faith of Scripture because we do not pitch our finall resolution in them our ground of faith and of Religion is as good and sound as theirs yea in respect of our own subjective faith more Yea the Romanist might know that he hath been told that Estius doth differ from them upon this point and says that it is not necessary to faith to be begotten by the proposall of the Church in the third B. of senten 23 dist Yea also Stapleton in his Triplication against Whitaker saith p. 103. Ego igitur quicquid in haec causa Spiritui sancto tribuendum est plenissime assignavi c. I have most fully assigned what is to be attributed to the Holy Ghost in this cause asserting these two things both that by faith infused alone or by the testimony of the Holy Spirit alone all faith may be begotten when it pleaseth the Spirit of God to teach any extraordinarily immediately and also although ordinarily a thing is delivered by the testimony and authority of the Church yet no faith doth efficaciously follow without the gift of faith infused by God or without the internall testimony of the Spirit of God And again the same in the next page to the same purpose to clear himself of the suspition of giving no more to the Holy Ghost in this point than those who put the last reason of believing in the testimony of the Church he says disertly Ego enim c. For I have denied and do deny that the last reason of believing is to be put in the testimony of the Church not onely upon that head that that last proposition or resolution I believe the Church to be governed by the Holy Ghost is not had without the inward gift of faith or that he who believeth this believeth this by a gift of faith and not by humane faith or acquisit but especially upon that head that without any testification of the Church or notice of the Church or of the knowledge of that proposition That the Church is governed by the Spirit of God by the onely Magisterie of the Spirit of God one may believe all that is to be believed as the Prophets and Apostles being taught by the Spirit of God alone did believe many things for from hence it follows invincibly against Durandus and others since there can be but one formall reason of our faith and some believe without the testimony of the Church but none can believe without the testimony of the Spirit that the proper and formall reason of faith is not the voice of the Church but must be the testimony the Doctrine the Magistery of the Spirit of God So he And therefore there is lesse between Stapleton and me than betwixt my Adversary and me When all is done therefore we must come to this of the Father Cathedram habet in coelis qui corda docet in terris He hath his Chair in Heaven that teacheth hearts on earth and with the heart man believeth unto salvation Rom 10.10 Num. 21. Therefore in the following number he needed not to take notice of my differing from others of our own Church in this point let them agree with their own men Let Bannes and Stapleton agree with Durand or if they cannot be reconciled let them never hereafter make any difference amongst our selves a prejudice to the cause It is then no more reproach to me to differ from others than for some of them As for the three then whom he says I differ from Mr. Chillingworth Dr. Cowell and Mr. Hooker if they do not agree it it is no infallible argument against me even in the opinion of those three But also as to the first I say and my Adversaries might have known that he held not faith in the high notion of a Divine assent as they do But that a morall assurance was sufficient to it and sufficiently influxive into necessary practice And therefore having this opinion of faith he conceived no such need of an infallible ground hereof but took therefore a common principle for his motive hereof namely universal tradition Secondly if he takes not his grounds from my Adversaries what do they get by him For in his sixty sixth page he says that it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to him that the Gospell of St. Mathew is the word of God as that all that the Roman Church says is true Yea moreover the same p. 135. doth fairly shew that the Spirit of God may give assurance hereof which he says indeed is not rationall and discursive but supernaturall and infused An assurance it may be to himself but not to any other and again p. 211. that the Doctrine it self is very fit and worthy to be thought to come from God Nec vox hominem sonat And is not then in his opinion the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If then he had raised faith to that height of a Divine assent as my Adversaries do it is very like he would have thought better of this assurance by the Spirit to be more ordinary since universal tradition if it hath any weight must rest in Scripture as it is the tradition of the universal Church which also he contradistinguisheth not onely to the Roman Church for place but to the present universall Church for time because we cannot prove the Church but by Scripture And as for the other two whose judgements he opposeth to my opinion I think they may receive convenient satisfaction by what is said to the former that they did not deny this assurance by the Spirit of God but
that it is not argumentative to others And therefore as to the question about the sufficiency of Scripture Mr. Hooker says that this is to be supposed that the Scriptures are the word of God And notwithstanding he thinks this is not to be proved by it self yet in his first book 34. p. he speaks enough in that he says the Scriptures do sufficiently direct us to salvation And he quotes for it Sotus in the margent And if it sufficiently directs us to salvation then must it be sufficiently clear of it self that it is the word of God for otherwise the principal point unto salvation must be known otherwise And if they think to argue well that we must have all faith from the authority of the Church because we have the faith of the Scriptures from the Authority of the Church we may as well conclude that since we have sufficient direction to salvation from the Scripture we are also sufficiently directed to this main point of faith from the Scripture that the Scripture is the word of God Yea more the Scripture doth give better evidence of it self to be the word of God than the Church can give testimony of it self to be infallible because the Church as such in religion is a non ens without Scripture in the substance of it But to make an end of this exception against me in varying from others this is the common Protestant principle or else Stapleton was decieved who makes account that every one of us ad unum do hold the Scripture to be known per se et sua quadam luce propria In Analsiy principionem Therefore if the question be how we are privately assured ultimately that the Scripture is the word of God we say with Stapleton that we are assured hereof by the testimony of the Spirit if the question be how we prove it to others to be the word of God we can for extrinsecall proof make use with Mr. Chillingworth of universal tradition His exception then against our private assurance of the Scripture to be the word of God in his following words comes to nothing for we need not from what we have said say that the assent of faith is evident as to an object of sense but yet the assent may be more firm and certain The formall object of faith is inevident yet may we more fastly hold to what we believe than to what we see because what we see depends upon our fallible sense but what we believe hath an infallible ground namely the word of God that this is his word For this ultimately must settle our personall faith or else we have no faith of proper name which is infallibly grounded All believe that what God says is true but if to the question whether God says this God cannot bring his own testimony there can be no authentick ground of Religion in subjecto And those therefore who would not have died to bear witness to a thing of sense have died to bear testimony to the Christian Religion and also have died for it assuredly ex vi habitus by the power of the habit of faith not ex vi traditionis by the credibility of the Church And as to that which he takes â—â—â—tice of that I acknowledge a greater necessity of such a Church to declare by infallible authority which books be the true word of God which not than to declare any other point I answer that it is not very ingenuously taken here by him what I said for I spake by way of supposition that it would not follow if the Church were infallible as to propose or tax and consign Canonical books as Stapleton speaks yet that we had need of the Church infallibly to propose every other point of faith He it seems took positively what was spoken upon supposition Every thing which is given in discourse is not granted to him but this he refers to num 43. For the ending then of this Paragraph and sufficiently for the Controversie upon the whole matter it remains that the Scripture must be credible for it self or else the Church Not the Church that must be known by the Scriptures as before therefore those texts by which the Church is proved in the truth and infallibility must be worthy to be believed for themselves or not if so then why not other parts of Scripture and so we have our purpose if not then are we in a circle and must beg the question and never be satisfied Num. 22. Here another argument is drawn against me from the effect negatively which in the kind of it doth not conclude A non esse ad non posse non valet And we may as well argue that some have this way attained faith therefore this is the way however the possibility proceeds from the effect to 〈◊〉 but it doth not proceed against a possibility from the deniall of it to some Because Pighius and Hermannus have not found assurance this way therefore this is not the way for finall assurance is inconsequent Secondly the cause of non-assurance thus doth not arise from the defect in Scripture which Stapleton says and some others is true and holy and authentick but God doth not give by his Spirit faith to all All men have not faith as the Apostle as commonly we expound it and though they are said to believe in the sense of the Church because they professe the Christian Religion yet by an internall act of faith many not Thirdly neither are we bound to maintain this proposition of theirs Facienti quod in se est datur gratia ex congruo and therefore if upon the use of means they have not this Divine faith infused it is no prejudice to our cause for not onely gifts are gratiae gratis datae but also the gratiae gratum facientes are also freely given and therefore is their distinction by the way faultie And therefore if there be many millions which is yet more than he could know who can truly and sincerely protest before God and take it upon their salvation that they are wholly unable by the reading these books to come to an infallible assurance that this is Gods word This inferrs nothing of moment against us because although we have not ordinarily the effect without the means yet because we use the meanes therefore necessarily we shall have the effect doth not follow if the graces of God be free Yea fourthly those millions he means are of their Church we may suppose and they we may think are instructed to find no resolution but in their own way by the proposall of the Church So that as St. Paul says Rom. 10.3 of the Jews that they going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God so also may we say of these that they going about to establish the authority of the Church in this point have not submitted themselves to the authority of God Yea fifthly and lastly to be even
or in an higher kind nothing is more credible for this testimony of the Spirit which is not yet disproved makes a thing not only prudently credible but necessarily and in the way of Divine faith And that which is prudently credible doth not include this but this eminently includes that which is prudentiall credibility Yet he goes on Yet here I intreat you to mark how they resolv'd their faith then c. namely in the space of the 200 years and more wherein they had nothing but tradition to make them give an infallible assent to their Church Ans This I have marked and not precariously But what shall I see in it that will give a sober man any satisfaction For first what if they did believe the soul to be immortall because God said it by the Church and the Church because it said that it had Commission from God is authorized with infallibility and did also believe this because the Church said so and why so because they would do so what of all this therefore we are not infallibly assured that the Scripture is the word of God by the testimony of the Spirit If they did believe indeed in way of a Divine faith then the Spirit of God did assure them by tradition For otherwise they forsake the antient Theological account of faith and they must either say that faith is not an habit infused or that it may be an habit infused without the Spirit of God but if they believed improperly or in the way of humane faith as we doe believe there are seven hills at Rome without universall tradition or a miracle then this is not to the purpose for the discourse is peccant in the ignorance of the Elench we can say as much without contradiction to our cause Secondly they cannot surely expect that we should gratifie them so much as to say there is as much reason to believe tradition now as then because now they themselves will say that we have the benefit of what assurance the general Councils can make And also 3. we must here note out of their own words for the use of our cause that for the space of 200 years and more they had nothing but tradition to make them give an infallible assent to their Church So then for the same space they had not the coroboration of general Councils and therefore these do not make the reason of belief simply as they would have it because the Church was so long without them 4. Though the universal comprehends particulars yet a particular doth not comprehend an universal therefore whatsoever assent is due to tradition universal is not due to tradition particular of Rome This is their trick to build all upon the common ground of the whole Church and then to inclose the universal Church within the walls of Rome This we must enter our plea against upon all occasions 5. We see they are come off unto some latitude in their conception of faith because the last resolution in this quest of faith they make to be thus and they would do so because they would do so and again because it had been more folly not to accept of this Church's Commission to teach them infallibly all truths So that now the acquiscence of the soul in the deep mistery of faith must be terminated and determined upon rhe variable point and principle of prudence and that which must eternaly setle our mind in the first and last ground of infallibility must be this we do so because we will do so or because it were folly not to believe So then since currente rota the discourse is come to this let us have our liberty to believe as we do believe because we see it to be folly for ought can be seen by them to accept the Church's Commission to teach infallibly all truths Sixthly if they say all truths then they seem to be fallen from their former Concession and also Stapleton's that some truths may be believed without necessity of the Church Seventhly as for the immortality of the soul which they insist in to have been believed because God said it by the Church we say easily that this might with lesse difficulty be received from the Church because it is surely probable and some will say demonstrable by reason and therefore is not only asserted by Plato who might have it from the Jewes by redundance in Aegypt whither he and Pythagoras and some others travelled for wisdom as Justin Martyr witnesseth but also in effect as I think by Aristotle And also here certainly they must be put to distinguish betwixt the Church of Rome and the whole Church or else his words are not true or else Pope John the 22. did not belong to the Church for he did not commend to others the Faith of the Immortality of the Soul And yet he goes on Which Commission to teach them infallibly all truth they knew by tradition to have been ever accepted as Divine by all good people This reason if I may say so is surely full of it self but not solid for it doth in effect run round again and the Faith of the Church is proved by the Church for they make all good people to be convertible with the Church and therefore they make the holy Catholick Church to be the visible But how then is the Church Regula regulata the Rule ruled as hath been confessed before Secondly must we content our selves with this in the grand concernment of faith because the Church did accept this Commission as Divine which we know by Tradition but how shall we know this Tradition to be of the Church before we know the Church Are they advised of this then must we come to be assured of the Doctrine before we be assured of the Church And this Doctrine we must be assured of independently of the Church because we cannot know the Church but by the Doctrine and by the Doctrine of the Scripture too as S. Austin discourseth against the Donatists Thirdly if all good people know by tradition this Commission to be divine then my Adversary needed not to have pinched the last resolution of faith so as to have said they believed because they would do so or because it had been meer folly not to accept this commission for though universal Tradition cannot transcend its sphere unto a causality of proper faith divine yet hath it more reason in it than to make a generall beliefe arbitrary or to preserve the act of it from folly in the negative A Divine assurance will not be compared with a negative prudence but universal tradition doth surpass it We had best then compound the difference betwixt himself by a kind of division thus negative prudence was suitable to his former proof Aqua ascendit quantum descendit but Divine assurance which I suppose he urgeth by tradition is necessary for the question For the certainty of faith is such as cui non potest subesse falsum in which there can be no
uni tantum aut alteri populo proponuntur in particular judgements and in precepts of manners which are not proposed to the whole Church but to one or another people he saies they may erre in the same Chap. but so may not Scripture therefore can they not receive the vulgar edition absolutely as the first Church did receive the Original Copies so that either my Adversary hath overshot or the Cardinal under and if they will have nothing to do with him that in any title importing Faith or Manners differ from them then they have many to excommunicate on Munday Thursday though they absolve them again on Good Friday as they do the King of Spain for detaining part of St. Peters Patrimony And as for the other exception I made against the vulgar by the varieties of the Edition of Sixtus 5tus and clement the 8th he refers me to a Famous Book called Charity maintained written against Dr. Potter See it Part 2. c. b. n. 3. as I take it in his Copy but he saves me the labour in telling me the effect of it thus That by Authentical testimonies of persons beyond all exception is shewed there that the decree of Sixtus 5tus about his Edition was never promulgated and that he had declared divers things to have crept in which needed a second revew and that the whole work should be re-examined though he could not do it being prevented by death Ans according to their principles no Authentique testimony but of a Council confirm'd by the Pope let them shew such And then we say Secondly what if the decree of Sixtus 5tus was not promulg'd was not this Sixtus 5tus's Edition And it seems there was a decree for it but not promulg'd and the promulgation makes it but legible the decree I hope makes it credible the promulgation attends the binding of it in actu exercito but the decree attends the constitution of it in actu signato And was there no error in it because it was not promulgated Or rather was not it therefore not promulgated because there was error in it Thirdly the Authority of the Trent Council was ingaged rather for this than for that of Clement the 8th for the Trent Council as they know speaks of it as in verbis de presenti haec ipsa vetus vulgata editio quae longo tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesiâ probata est this very same old and vulgar edition which by long use of so many ages is approved in the very Church as if it had been so long before born and now when it was of age should be onely Christen'd Fourthly How did divers things creep in which needed a second review what while the Church slept then how can we believe the Church in tradition and purity of Copies for she may sleep while they are stolen or corrupted Therefore have they no cause to triumph that Mr. Chillingworth hath said nothing to this point in defence of Docter Potter as they say in the following words For if the Citation be right Part 2. Mr. Chillingworth did not publish for ought I knew what he had against the second part And he gives an account thereof why he did not in the latter end of his Answer to the 1 part p. 390. And therfore they did not ingenuously charge him with this omission since it was forborne in the whole upon ingenious reasons And if they thinke to save themselves because Sixtus his decree was not published surely Mr. Chillingworth may be excused because the second Part of his Answer was not published However he had said enough against the perfection of the Vulgar translation in his answer to the first part 77. Even upon the opinion of their own men Lyranus Cajetan Pagini◠Arias Erasmus Valla Steuchus who in many places have rejected it and differed from it And to these he adds the judgement of Vega who was present at the Council and was instructed therein by the President of the Council the Cardinal S. Cruce as he saies and of Dredo and Mariana who had the opinion of Laines in it the General then of the society and in a sort of Bellarmine also But also if they might boast of not being answered in one point then some body might boast that they have given Treaties for Answers Lastly will they be confident that the decree was not published for the authority of the vulgar edition why then doth it go under the name of Sixtus 5us's Bible yea also Dr. Iames who hath written Bellum Papale to such a purpose in his third part 36. p. hath asserted that all the shifts they have made herein will not serve For both Bull and Bibles are in many mens hands whatsoever Gretser saith to the Contrary This Paragraph might have been spared N. 37. and I might be excused surely for sparing it it gives me a former reason why my two places out of St. Austin are not answered he tells me that I have given him leave to have no more to do with the Fathers This is his reason and my reason is because he will have more to do than he can do to answer them We deny not a tryal by the Fathers though their Judgement be not infallible and since we produce the Fathers for us we are bound to answer them against us as contrarily if they produce them against us they are bound to answer them against themselves and this is a rule of Reason Testem quem quis adducit pro se tenetur recipere contra se the witness which one brings for himself he is bound to receive against himself And therefore whatsoever Coccius saies ad faciendum populum we may I think say well as Nilus did in his first book of Ecclesiastical dissentions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is altogether absurd that those who have not the Fathers for their examples should of themselves discern that which is better and that we who have the Fathers should not so neither understand So he of the Romans also so that my Adversary should not have stopt this gap with an exception against my opposing of the Council of Ariminum to the Nicene Council towards proving the contradiction and consequently the fallibility of Councils but this he hath nothing new to say against and therefore I have nothing to answer more then formerly onely he chides me because I proposed the Council of Ariminum as if it had been a lawful Council and so would deceive the people which knoweth not which councils be lawful which not No This spoyles all infallibility is in Councils the people do not know which are right councils and those that are not right are not and where then shall the people find their infallibility where the way so plain that Fooles cannot err as they have told us It is better to be without a guide than to have one we cannot trust So we bid the Roman people good night and take our leaves of this number N. 38. But this
afterwards and take Tradition for the matter of what was written we grant it if but he takes tradition of the primitive Church to be that which was derived to after times and was not written we deny it to be believed upon her sole Authority In the former sense it is true but not pertinent in the latter pertinent but not true And indeed this was the notion of Traditions for the first times namely to be that sâ—â—â—â—e of doctrine which did comprehend the materialls of faith 〈◊〉 to be any thing different from Scripture or diverse 〈…〉 first of the Gal. 8. doth not signifie contra but praeâ—â—â— from Scripture So he will finde Irenaeus to mean it And so St. Cyrill of Jerusalem in his 5. Cat. 117. p of the gr last Ed. makes it to be upon account no other than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the System out of the Holy Scriptures about every of those things conteined And again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for things of faith were not composed as it pleased men but the most pertinent things being gathered out of all Scripture do make up the doctrine of faith And again as the seed of mustard in a little grain doth contein many branches so faith it self in few words doth comprehend the knowledge of piety that is in the old and new Testament And what followes but that text which he my adversary named 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 see therefore Brethren and hold the Traditions So then if he takes Tradition in the first sense the Church was infallible therein by the Apostles if in the second the Tradition was infallibly Scripture and the Church believed it upon that account And that Traditions did not bind either in their own virtue or without Scripture they may see in St. Basil who yet speaks much for them So in the seventh ch of the Holy Ghost where speaking of the controversie whethre they were to say of the Son of God with whome or by whome he hath these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. this is not sufficient to us that it is a Tradition of the Fathers for even they did follow the will of Scripture having taken principles out of testimonies which a little before we proposed to you out of Scripture God therefore said by his Apostles that the Traditions then were infallible being in matter the same with what they wrote for their Authority Now if God said this shall we upon his fallible discourse for even Councils are fallible in their discourse come to say the Church's Traditions are further infallible then agreeable to his word though God never said so and never yet expressed any such infallibility of the Church And thus I return him his own words mutatis mutandis And so my Argument out of Irenaeus is not yet refuted Neither doth he take away my use of Irenaeus testimony in the next paragr For as to my Argument what he saies is not appliable It was thus out of his Authority If the Scripture had not been left to us we should have had Tradition more certainly conveighed to us as the Gospel was before it was written but the Scripture is now left to us therefore no need of certain conveighance of tradition to us This Syllogism he makes no offer of answer to for that which he saies in a Parenthesis though you cannot invent the means by which Tradition should have been conveighed more certainly supposing there had been no Scripture I can receive without prejudice to my Argument for whatsoever Hypothetically should have been done had not there been Scripture yet now since we have Scripture we have no such need of we now dispute upon the fact not against the supposition Therefore from the dint of the ratiocination he digresseth to an observation of disrespect in me to St. Irenaeus because I said Neither can we believe that those barbarous Nations did rely onely upon Tradition Ans He is in this deceived To assent to Tradition in the matter of it and not to assent to the matter upon the sole Authority of Tradition are not such opposites as he imagines for they may well agree Therefore though the Father said they did assent to Tradition as to the matter yet not by Tradition as the manner Tradition was the objectum materiale not the objectum formale of their Faith And the next words as he also perhibits the Fathers words do defend my answer having Salvation written in their hearts by the Holy Ghost So then they were assured of the Doctrine of Salvation by the Holy Ghost then they did not believe that Tradition upon the sole Authority of the Church So this contradicts my Adversary and makes for me not onely by consequence because it is against him but directly for then we can as well be assured of Scripture by the Holy Ghost have no such need then of the authority of the Church as to salvation though the church were infallible which is one of the things to be proved and cannot And yet besides this tradition in the sense of the Father was in the matter of it Scripture and therefore hath no consanguinity with the true state of the question So then we may conclude in the negative they did not rely upon or believe upon the sole account of that very tradition yet if they had it would not conclude against our cause because that tradition is not the same with what belongs to the question To be civil to an Adversary in this number N. 14. all the sense of it may be resolved into this discourse If the radition of the Church testifying her own infallibility in proposing for Gods Word that which she delivereth for Gods word be to be believed then she is to be believed as proposing that to be Gods Word which is not written Ans This hath been abundantly agitated before with our indemnity to the Plaintiffe but since he repeats I do not And we answer First the consequence is not clear especially if we extend it to that which is not grounded in Scripture if he understands it of that which is grounded in Scripture it is not proper to the question As to that which is not grounded in Scripture we may still deny the major Tradition universal of the Church may be worthy of assent as to the truth of Scripture to be the Word of God and not so of that which is delivered beside Scripture which also is held by others against them and the reason is not yet disproved because there was more necessity of the Faith of Scripture than that which is delivered beside Scripture and therefore may we well suppose a greater assistance to the proposing of Scripture than any thing diverse Deus non deficit in necessariis Why do they assert infallible assistance to General Councils not to private Doctors or to a National Council Namely because others are to be directed by the General Councils well then the Church universal might be more assisted for the proposing of
Scripture than for any thing else But then I deny the minor the Tradition of the Church testifying her own infallibility is not worthy of an infallible assent It may be worthy of the highest degree of moral assurance yet not of an iâ—fal ible assent No Authority can write as to Conscience what a king writes as to civil credit teste me ipso but that which is immediatly divine And why then do the Pontificians prove the Authority of the Church by Scripture The Church without Scripture is not yet Christned if we take Scripture for the substance of the matter it will be but the highest form of Heathens And therefore the Scripture is to be believed antecedently to the Church And how little his examples have proved the minor we have seen even as much as he had cause to conclude against me out of my own words thus Tradition in matters of Faith unwritten is of equal Authority to Scripture The Traditions we stand upon be matters of Faith truly once delivered by our Saviour or his Apostles though the Revelation were not written by them therefore this is of equal Authority to Scripture even according to your own words Surely it is easier to answer this than to forbear the Person The proposition was not my words I hope categorically spoken but as being the state of the question if those Traditions be in the matter beside Scripture And now he takes this to be my affirmation simply And then we deny his minor too because that which they stand upon is not matter of Faith as being not revealed by our Saviour or his Apostles or truly delivered by either for they are uncertain by which And if they will urge that Text St. Iohn the 16.22 as Bellarmin does they may think that many things might be written afterwards or were not points of Faith And this Text hereticks have urged and therefore by my Adversaries Logique he should not And did St. Austin think that any could soberly say that the points of difference were of that number Or did any of the Saints in Heaven see what they were in speculo Trinitatis and did send down word thereof As for his defence of the exception which he took against the Scriptures being a sufficient rule to us N. 15. because neither the Apostles nor their Successours took any care to have the Scripture communicated to all Nations in such Languages as all or the greater part of them could understand my answer is yet good the care was taken in that the new Testament was written in Greek which was a common language then And this I gave an Argument of in that the Grecian is contradistinguished to the Jew in the New Testament And therefore the Greek must be the greatest and most famous part and therefore the language common this proof he is not pleased to meddle with at all Another proof that that was the common Language was that of Tully for Archias the Poet Graeca per totum orbem leguntur This he takes notice of And he saies and so is Virgil in Latin But this doth not contradict me yea he gives me a corroboration of my Argument for whom did Virgil imitate Theocritus in his Eglogues Hesiod in his Georgicks Homer in his Aeneids Yea Horace had read the Greeks it seems by his Grecisms Yea Terence was so conversant in Menander that he was called Menander dimidiatus But he saies This is to be understood thus that the most learned sort of men every where read Greek and Virgil. Ans This supposed is not exclusive to the Greeks being the common Language as to others since he will think the Latin was common to the people then and yet the most learned read Virgil. And did not all those Nations whom St. Paul wrote his Epistles to understand Greek Did he write onely to the most learned In what Language was the Epistle to the Romans and the Epistle to the Hebrews for the Roman Church confesseth that this Epistle also was written by St. Paul written were they not both written in Greek yea the Jews that used the Septuagint Translation were many So Philo the Jew and Marcus Antonius the Roman wrote in Greek And therefore that which was spoken by the Oratour was spoken without any such Hyperbole He saies yet further either this must be spoken in way of a notable amplification or Scripture must be denied because even between the two Cities of Antioch and Constantinople the Greek tongue was not the vulgar Language of Pontus Cappadocia Asia minor Phrygia Pamphilia all which Nations the Scripture Act. 2. testifieth to have had different Languages Ans Though the Scripture speaks of them as distinguished in speech yet not in Language but dialect and so it is expressed ver 6.8 And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be restrained as to those who had several dialects therefore whereas he saies the Greek tongue was not the vulgar Language of Pontus c. If he means that the common Dialect of the Greek was not used by them all this is not much to be stood upon because it is not reasonable to say that those who spake several Dialects did not understand the common Greek for take them all Attique Jonique Dorique Aeolique and Baeotique they differ ordinarily but in terminations or pronunciation from the common Within that compass is also Galatia which St. Jerom testifieth to have had a language somwhat like those of Trevers An. It is as farre from Thebes to Athens as from Athens to Thebes is it not Then that of Trevers must be as neer that of greek as that of the Galatians which was greek in St. Pauls time If afterwards the language altered or was corrupted this doth not contradict us because we must distinguish times And therefore yet it remains good that the greek was understood of the greater part of the world and therefore the Apostles took care to have the knowledge of the Gospel to be commonly understood And if they had not God did miraculously by the gift of the Holy Ghost sub forma visibili in the second of the Acts in the gift of tongues And this concludes against their Latin service as also St. Paul discourseth and concludeth against it in the first Ep. Cor. 14. And though we cannot tell the time when the Scripture can first be shewed to have been thus communicated to the people of severall languages what is this to the purpose If it had not been done afterwards it is enough to us that the Apostles did write in the most common language for those times And if it had not been done it should have been done But that it was done appears seasonably in the great Bible Neither can they tell us or will when the vulgar Latin began first to be Authentique whether under Sixtus Quintus or Clement the eighth In the beginning he tells me that I moved a question how the people should clearly know the true Tradition from the false Ans I did
Authors And if some of theirs have professed to take testimonies upon his credit because they had not Books by them I may be easily excused for asking the question whether the Bishop of Bitonto did not say so and so in the Council of Trent He that asks a question seems to be wary of asserting And if the opinion of one able Doctor be sufficient to make a point probable as some of them have lately said this point of fact is not altogether unprovided of some hope of probability My Author is Bishop Iewel who speaks it more than once in his Apology Neither have they cause to bragge that their Church have been the men who were still imployed in the upholding the Authority of Councils Surely my Adversaries did pass by Cajetan and Bellarmin and Valentia and did not take notice of what they have said towards fallibility of Councils even lawful that so infallibility and Monarchy might be necessarily devolved from heaven as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the Pope's lap All that make perstriction of the Authority of Councils are not hereticks it seems because some that are good Roman Catholicks do speak of their fallibility so that this infallibility should be intailed upon the Bishop universal And so they differ from my Adversaries platforme of infallible direction In this he shewes himself highly displeased for offering to compare the Determinations of Trent with the word of God He thinkes it fine doctrine that determinations of Councils should be examined by such as I and he is Ans it is halfe an argument for us that they are angry at this But first we do not speak of an Authoritative examination which is forensical but a rational inquiry which is for private satisfaction 2. If the Decrees of that Council be indeed infallible they will abide the test if not how can we believe them Do they think 3. That we are more bound to believe the council of Trent then the Beraeans were bound to believe what was said by St. Paul without discussing since specially they are pleased in the Trent Council somtimes to joyn St. Paul as partner with St. Peter in the honour of their Church 3. We may surely finde more cause to examine the Trent Council then some others since it hath not yet obteined in the Christian world the reputation of a lawful General Council therefore though we doe not examin others yet this we may 4. would they not have us preferre the doctrin of Trent before any differing from it yes surely then we must inquire into it and privately judge it otherwise we make a blind choice Fifthly If the consent of the major part which is most immediatly considerable in a Council should morally bind why should we not as well believe the Council of Ariminum since what else he hath pretended against it is not cogent Sixthly If they think that one cannot think well of a lawful General Council unless he believes their infallibility that proposition is easily denied They may be fallible and yet not faulted by me in piety or prudence Infallible conclusions do not follow upon moral principles The one makes them careful the other faithful but though they do not deceive me they may be deceived themselves And if their infallibility did depend upon their piety and prudence how are we infallibly certain of that upon which their infallibility should be grounded Nor does my consideration of a Council betray in me a want of charity or humility as he supposeth they have themselves as Disparates to Theological Faith and are not of the same Conjugation Humility disposeth me to think of my self meanly Charity disposeth me to think better of others because I know my own imperfections and do not know anothers perfections as Aquinas notes But if these were dispositive unto Faith yet not causal If causal of Faith yet of Faith humane not divine unless I did see Gods Word for believing men This is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if they can prove this we have no more to say Until then I can love my Adversaries and think humbly of my self And yet cannot be perswaded that my Adversaries are infallible And if they were infallible in the dispute how should infallibility be the prerogative of the Council confirmed by the Pope So then as long as I can give reverence to a Council without present Faith I am not posed but they who must beg the question In this he chargeth me with shifting because I said now let us not see the opinions by infallibility but the infallibility by your determinations whereas else where I say you should go a priori and shew that your Church is infallible and therefore her definitions to be admitted This in effect he supposeth to be my shift to evade his pressure of me Ans No such matter Good cause for both distinguish reasons and respects First I hope they think it lawful to urge both waies in a different kind of discourse we demonstrate the effect by the cause we know the cause by the effect Secondly The way a Priori is more distinct and therefore this would presently make an end of the controversie if it could be effected because it satisfies us in the cause Prove the infallibility and then we fall down or rise up to the definitions They are then to be taken ipso facto and they produce Faith ex opere operato as we may speak This the way of nature But when they cannot make this good then the other way and quoad nos is to shew us their infallibility by their determinations and an easie way it is to us to shew them the unlikeliness of infallibility by their determinations For it is sufficient to the negative of infallibility to find one errour in any of their definitions but it is not sufficient to them for the affirmative of infallibility to prove that the Church hath not erred in some particular definitions The latitude of the power is not discharged by some acts Quem saepe transit casus aliquando invent If it hath erred but once we are sure it can erre then infallibility is destroyed if it hath not erred in some yet it doth not follow that it hath not erred in others Yea if it hath erred in none we cannot ex vi formae conclude infallibility unless it be proved that the power of erring is bound in the Church Representative as the Schoolmen say the power of sinning is bound in the Church Triumphant Thirdly We are now upon the Hypothesis incidently and so it is very reasonable for us to go this way with them because a particular Church hath not the priviledges of the universal Church It is generally supposed that the universal Church cannot erre in things necessary but this is not granted to any Church of one denomination Now the Trent Council belongs to a particular Church and therefore as to that our way of proceeding is not irrational And therefore all that he saies upon this argument comes to
either abstractly from the speaker or complexely with the speaker in the former it is considered with respect to the matter and so he said well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are not to look at so much the author as the matter in the latter respect it is respective to the motive and so I am more induced by the Church though not determined And therfore as to those termes to whose saying you would give an infallible assent when you see that which he saith to be conformable to Scripture we say that the termâ— saying is distinguishable into the object purely or into the object with the act and authour In the former there is no difference in the latter there is we may believe that which is said when we do not believe him that saies it And so may we believe rather the Church whose office it is to propose truth as he confesseth it is not the Divells Neither did we by these answers smother up any thing which clearly overthroweth our replie who say we must follow the Church onely so far as we see her follow Scripture That which he saith here doth no way weaken our replie It hath been answered before and the strength of it broken For first though they could not see at all how far the Church followed the Scripture for the first two thousand years and the barbarous Nations never having seen the Scripture did truely believe doth this hinder us from holding now that we are to believe the Church in points of faith no further then we see grounds for what they said out of Scripture take it of faith divine and in things of faith it is yet good And their instances do not evacuate it Distingue tempora distinguish the times God might in that time and season of immediate revelation work then a faith immediately which now is not reasonable to expect ordinarily as appears by the first Chap. of the Ep. to the Hebrews the first ver Privilegia paucâ—rum non faciunt regulam communem Secondly the Faith of the barbarous nations was not terminated in the Church as if they had believed the Church and therefore believed that which was said by them But was terminated in the matter which was said by the Church The Church was instrumental to the knowledge of the matter and might be instrumental as to dispose them for faith But the authority of the Church was not the formal cause of the act of faith And Knotts himself is loath to assert it And this is that which Tertullian hath said non ex persona fides sed ex fide persona aestimanda est We are not to esteem the doctrine by the person but the person by the doctrine And the tradition which St. Irenaeus speaks of was the sum of the Christian Faith which is in Scripture So he as before and so St. Cyril of Hierusalem vnderstands it as may appear by that of Cyril in his fourth Catech. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must not deliver any thing in the divine and holy mysteries of faith without the divine Scriptures This is the Epilogue of the Chap. and is of use onely to tell me what he hath done I think not done before N. 38. and this is all the answer he gives me for taking away what he had said out of two places of Scripture forementioned towards infallibility Before he referred me for satisfaction to the due place here he referrs me back again And as for any reply to my answer out of the Fathers or my use of them he saies to me you know why I resolve to pass them Yes particularly why he saies nothing more to what I said about St. Austins testimony in his Epistle against the Manichee If I may be interpreter it is thus resolved he had good reason to pass them because they pass him And so we have made an end of his long but not hard Chapter CHAP. V. No Church is our Iudge infallible then not the Roman This Chapter which concerns the Hypothesis should injustice have been longer but he reduceth the proof of it to a small pittance and if all the Churches which submit not themselves to the Bishop of Rome as their supreme Pastour be of no better proportion it will be Catholick for all that do submit but not for all But since he is so short in this we will be even with him and bring all he saies in this second Treatise for so some times he calles it into one Syllogism the Church is the Judge infallible appointed in businesses of Religion No other but the Roman is this Church therefore To the proposition we have said enough before He would now make good the assumption or praesumption as we might speak supposing the proposition to be demonstrated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore he quarrels with me because we except against his supsition of it It is true had the major been a maxim irrefragable then there had been more reason to blame us for exception against it and for not applying our selves in present address to the minor but since we see no cause nor the Churches of God why the proposition should be swallowed we call upon him to make good the thesis that there is a Church appointed as infallible Judge in businesses of Religion and therefore we told him that he might as well prove he had right to Utopia because he only claimes it whereas he should first prove the An sit whether there be such a place And therefore if he would have had us say nothing to the questioning of the supposition he should have made it stronger first and then should not have concluded bravingly that therefore all he had said of the Church was to be applied to the Roman no other being infallible as in the former treatise num 28 Well but he must prove his minor N. 2. because all other Churches do not lay claime to this infallibility and are demonstrated to be fallible we grant the Antecedent without any proof and his proof was not so good as his proposition But therefore it belongs to them to be infallible we deny the consequence We deny the Title upon the claime And he is angry because we make his plea from the claim to be weak And the weaknes of it appeares in that it is weaker grounded upon a true supposition nor is it very sound in the proceeding of the consequence in the first regard we say debile fundamentum fallit opus And therefore since that is one of his principles his conclusion must be naught as before His consequence he proveth thus the Protestant Chucrh and all other Churches different from the Roman do Iudge themselves acknowledge themselves declare and profess themselves to be fallible and that according to infallible Scripture If then any of these Churches be infallible in what they Iudge and declare for truth grounded in Scripture they are infallible in this their Iudging and declaring themselves to be fallible therefore infallibly they