hear you say that he declines this Question and never tells you whether or no there be any other points of faith which being sufficiently propounded as divine Revelations may be denied and dis-believed He tells you plainly there are none such and therefore you cannot say that he tells you not whether there be any such Again it is almost as strange to me why you should say this was the only thing in question Whether a man may deny or disbelieve any point of faith sufficiently presented to his understanding as a truth revealed by God For to say that any thing is a thing in question me-thinks at the first hearing of the words imports that it is by some affirmed and denied by others Now you affirm I grant but What Protestant ever denied that it was a sin to give God the lye Which is the first and most obvious sense of these words Or which of them ever doubted that to disbelieve is then a fault when the matter is so proposed to a man that he might and should and were it not for his own fault would believe it Certainly he that questions either of these justly deserves to have his wits called in question Produce any one Protestant that ever did so and I will give you leave to say It is the only thing in question But then I must tell you that your ensuing Argument viz. To deny a truth witnessed by God is damnable But of two that disagree one must of necessity deny some such truth Therefore one only can be saved is built upon a ground clean different from this postulate For though it be always a fault to deny what either I do know or should know to be testified by God yet that which by a cleanly conveyance you put in the place hereof To deny a truth witnessed by God simply without the circumstance of being known or sufficiently proposed is so far from being certainly damnable that it may be many times done without any the least fault at all As if God should testifie something to a man in the Indies I that had no assurance of this testification should not be oblig'd to believe it For in such cases the Rule of the Law hath place Idem est non esse non apparere not to be at all and not to appear to me is to me all one If I had not come and spoken unto you saith our Saviour you had had no sin 10. As little necessity is there for that which follows That of two disagreeing in a matter of faith one must deny some such truth Whether by such you understand Testified at all by God or testified and sufficiently propounded For it is very possible the matter in controversie may be such a thing wherein God hath not at all declared himself or not so fully and clearly as to oblige all men to hold one way and yet be so overvalued by the parties in variance as to be esteemed a matter of faith and one of those things of which our Savior says He that believeth not shall be damn'd Who sees not that it is possible two Churches may excommunicate and damn each other for keeping Christmass ten dayes sooner or later as well as Victor excommunicated the Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter day And yet I believe you will confess that God had not then declared himself about Easter nor hath now about Christmass Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would fain know on which side was the sufficient proposal The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point of Predetermination as a matter of faith I would know in this thing also which way God hath declared himself whether for Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of faith and Apostolique Tradition That Heretiques gave true Baptism Others there were and they as good Catholiques as he that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Justin Martyr and Irenaeus held the doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of faith and though Justin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirm that some good Christians held the contrary S. Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolique tradition as the Baptizing of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of faith that the Bishops of Rome were Judges of Appeals from all parts of the Church Catholique no not in Major Causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary do you resolve me but now I am resolv'd they do so In all these differences the point in question is esteemed and proposed by one side at least as a matter of faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of faith or you will have no means to shew that we do disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the foundation is on which the whole fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer me briefly to this Dilemma Either in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts erred damnably and denied God's truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which do deny God's truth sufficiently propounded may go to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of faith one should deny God's truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are proved false Yet though they were as true as Gospel and as evident as Mathematical Principles the Conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these Propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can inferr either as the immediate production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this Conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I do not understand unless you will pretend that this consequence is good Such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned Which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sins upon repentance and consequently to ruine the Gospel of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinals to determine For if against this it be alleaged that no man can repent of the sin wherein he dies This muce I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sin of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 11. Ad § 4. You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your
of Schism it is certainly consequent that all who persist in this Division must be so likewise Which is not so certain as you pretend For they which alter without necessary cause the present government of any State Civil or Ecclesiastical do commit a great fault whereof notwithstanding they may be innocent who continue this alteration and to the utmost of their power oppose a change though to the former State when continuance of time hath once setled the present Thus have I known some of your own Church condemn the Low-countrey men who first revolted from the King of Spain of the sin of Rebellion yet absolve them from it who now being of your Religion there are yet faithful maintainers of the common liberty against the pretences of the King of Spain 5. Fourthly That all those which a Christian is to esteem neighbours do concur to make one company which is the Church Which is false for a Christian is to esteem those his neighbours who are not members of the true Church 6. Fifthly That all the Members of the Visible Church are by charity united into one Mystical body Which is manifestly untrue for many of them have no Charity 7. Sixthly That the Catholique Church signifies one company of faithful people which is repugnant to your own grounds For you require not true Faith but only the Profession of it to make men members of the visible Church 8. Seventhly That every Heretique is a Schismatique Which you must acknowledge false in those who though they deny or doubt of some Point professed by your Church and so are Heretiques yet continue still in the Communion of the Church 9. Eighthly That all the Members of the Catholique Church must of necessity be united in external Communion Which though it were much to be desired it were so yet certainly cannot be perpetually true For a man unjustly excommmunicated is not in the Churches Communion yet he is still a Member of the Church and divers time it hath happened as in the case of Chrysostom and Epiphanius that particular men and particular Churches have upon an overvalued difference either renounced Communion mutually or one of them separated from the other and yet both have continued Members of the Catholique Church These things are in those seven Sections either said or supposed by you untruly without all shew or pretence of proof The rest is impertinent common place wherein Protestants and the cause in hand are absolutely unconcern'd And therefore I pass to the eighth Section 10. Ad § 8. Wherein you obtrude upon us a double Fallacy One in supposing and taking for granted that whatsoever is affirmed by three Fathers must be true whereas your selves make no scruple of condemning many things of falshood which yet are maintained by more than thrice three Fathers Another in pretending their words to be spoken absolutely which by them are limited and restrained to some particular cases For whereas you say S. Austin c. 62. l. 2. cont Parm. inferrs out of the former premises That there is no necessity to divide Unity to let pass your want of diligence in quoting the 62. Chapter of that Book which hath but 23. in it to pass by also that these words which are indeed in the 11. Chapter are not inferred out of any such premises as you pretend this I say is evident that he says not absolutely that there never is or can be any necessity to divide Unity which only were for your purpose but only in such a special case as he there sets down That is When good men tolerate bad men which can do them no spiritual hurt to the intent they may not be separated from these who are spiritually good Then saith he there is no necessity to divide Unity Which very words do clearly give us to understand that it may fall out as it doth in our case that we cannot keep Unity with bad men without spiritual hurt i.e. without partaking with them in their impieties and that then there is a necessity to divide Unity from them I mean to break off conjunction with them in their impieties Which that it was S. Austin's mind it is most evident out of the 21. c. of the same Book where to Parmenian demanding How can a man remain pure being joyned with those that are corrupted he answers Very true this is not possible if he be joyned with them that is if he commit any evil with them or favour them which do commit it But if he do neither of these he is not joyned with them And presently after These two things retained will keep such men pure and uncorrupted that is neither doing ill nor approving it And therefore seeing you impose upon all men of your Communion a necessity of doing or at least approving many things unlawful certainly there lies upon us an unavoidable necessity of dividing Unity either with you or with God and whether of these is rather to be done be ye Judges 11. Irenaeus also says not simply which only would do you service there cannot possibly be any so important Reformation as to justifie a separation from them who will not reform But only they cannot make any corruption so great as is the pernitiousness of a Schism Now They here is a relative and hath an antecedent expressed in Irenaeus which if you had been pleased to take notice of you would easily have seen that what Iraeneus says falls heavy upon the Church of Rome but toucheth Protestants nothing at all For the men he speaks of are such as Propter modicas quaslibet causas for trifling or small causes divide the body of Christ such as speak of peace and make war such as strain at gnats and swallow Camels And these saith he can make no reformation of any such importance as to countervail the danger of a division Now seeing the causes of our separation from the Church of Rome are as we pretend and are ready to justifie because we will not be partakers with her in Superstition Idolatry Impiety and most cruel Tyranny both upon the bodies and souls of men Who can say that the causes of our separation may be justly esteemed Modicae quaelibet causae On the other side seeing the Bishop of Rome who was contemporary to Irenaeus did as much as in him lay cut off from the Churches unity many great Churches for not conforming to him in an indifferent matter upon a difference Non de Catholico dogmate sed de Ritu vel Ritus potiùs tempore Not about any Catholique doctrine but only a Ceremony or rather about the time of observing it so Petavius values it which was just all one as if the Church of France should excommunicate those of their own Religion in England for not keeping Christmas upon the same day with them And seeing he was reprehended sharply and bitterly for it by most of the Bishops of the world as Eusebius testifies Euseb hist l. 5. c. 24. Perron Replic 3.
l. 2. c. and as Cardinal Perron though mincing the matter yet confesseth by this very Irenaeus himself in particular admonished that for so small a cause propter tam modicam causam he should not have cut off so many Provinces from the body of the Church and lastly seeing the Ecclesiastical Story of those times mentions no other notable example of any such Schismatical presumption but this of Victor certainly we have great inducement to imagine that Irenaeus in this place by you quoted had a special aim at the Bishop and Church of Rome Once this I am sure of that the place fits him and many of his successors as well as if it had been made purposely for them And this also that be which finds fault with them who separate upon small causes implies clearly that he conceived there might be such causes as were great and sufficient And that then a Reformation was to be made notwithstanding any danger of division that might ensue upon it 12. Lastly S. Denis of Alexandria says indeed and very well that all things should be rather endured than we should consent to the division of the Church I would add Rather than consent to the continuation of the division if it might be remedied But then I am to tell you that he says not All things should rather be done but only All things should rather be endured or suffered wherein he speaks not of the evil of Sin but of Pain and Misery Not of tolerating either Error or Sin in others though that may be lawful much less of joyning with others for quietness sake which only were to your purpose in the profession of Error and practice of Sin but of suffering any affliction nay even martyrdom in our own persons rather than consent to the division of the Church Omnia incommoda so your own Christo pherson enforced by the circumstances of the place translates Dionysius his words All miseries should rather be endured than we should consent to the Churches division 13. Ad § 9. In the next Paragraph you affirm two things but prove neither unless a vehement Asseveration may pass for a weak proof You tell us first That the Doctrin of the total deficiency of the visible Church which is maintained by divers chief Protestants implies in it vast Absurdity or rather sacrilegious Blasphemy But neither do the Protestants alledged by you maintain the deficiency of the Visible Church but only of the Churches visibility or of the Church as it is Visible which so acute a man as you now that you are minded of it I hope will easily distinguish Neither do they hold that the visible Church hath failed totally and from its Essence but only from its purity and that it fell into many corruptions but yet not to nothing And yet if they had held that there was not only no pure visible Church but none at all surely they had said more than they could justifie but yet they do not shew neither can I discover any such Vast absurdity or Sacrilegious Blasphemy in this Assertion You say secondly that the Reason which cast them upon this wicked Doctrin was a desperate voluntary necessity because they were resolved not to acknowledge the Roman to be the true Church and were convinced by all manner of evidence that for divers Ages before Luther there was no other But this is not to dispute but to divine and take upon you the property of God which is to know the hearts of men For why I pray might not the Reason hereof rather be because they were convinced by all manner of evidence as Scripture Reason Antiquity that all the visible Churches in the world but above all the Roman had degenerated from the purity of the Gospel of Christ and thereupon did conclude there was no visible Church meaning by no Church none free from corruption and conformable in all things to the doctrin of Christ 14 Ad § 10. Neither is there anyr epugnance but in words only between these as you are pleased to stile them exterminating Spirits those other whom out of Courtesie you intitle in your 10. § more moderâ—te Protestants For these affirming the Perpetual Visibility of the Church yet neither deny nor doubt of her being subject to manifold and grievous corruptions and those of such a nature as were they not mitigated by invincible or at least a very probable ignorance none subject to them could be saved And they on the other side denying the Churches Visibility yet plainly affirm that they conceive very good hope of the Salvation of many of their ignorant and honest Fore fathers Thus declaring plainly though in words they denyed the Visibility of the true Church yet their meaning was not to deny the perpetuity but the perpetual purity incorruption of the Visible Church 15. Ad § 11. Let us proceed therefore to your 11. Section where though D. Potter and other Protestants granting the Churches perpetual Visibility make it needless for you to prove it yet you will needs be doing that which is needless But you do it so coldly and negligently that it is very happy for you that D. Potter did grant it 16. For What if the Prophets spake more obscurely of Christ than of the Church What if they had fore-seen that greater contentions would arise about the Church than Christ Which yet he that is not a meer stranger in the story of the Church must needs know to be untrue and therefore not to be fore-seen by the Prophets What if we have manifestly received the Church from the Scriptures Does it follow from any or all these things that the Church of Christ must be always visible 17. Besides What Protestant ever granted that which you presume upon so confidently that every man for all the affairs of his soul must have recourse to some Congregation If some one Christan lived alone among Pagans in some Countrey remote from Christendom shall we conceive it impossible for this man to be saved because he cannot have recourse to any Congregation for the affairs of his soul will it not be sufficient for such a ones salvation to know the doctrin of Christ and live according to it Such fancies as these you do very wisely to take for granted because you know well 't is hard to prove them 18. Let it be as unlawful as you please to deny and dissemble matters of faith Let them that do so not be a Church but a damned crew of Sycophants What is this to the Visibility of the Church May not the Church be Invisible and yet these that are of it profess their faith No say you Their profession will make them visible Very true visible in the places where and in the times when they live and to those persons unto whom they have necessary occasion to make their profession But not visible to all or any great or considerable part of the world while they live much less conspicuous to all ages after them
of the Catholique Church Now having perused Breely I cannot find any one Protestant confessing any one Father to have concurred in opinion with you in this point And the Reader hath reason to suspect that you also out of all the Fathers could not find any one authority pertinent to this purpose for otherwise you were much to blame citing so few to make choice of such as are impertinent For let the understanding Reader peruse the 55. Epist of S. Cyprian with any ordinary attention out of which you take your first place and I am confident he shall find that he means nothing else by the words quoted by you But that in one particular Church at one time there ought to be but one Bishop and that he should be obeyed in all things lawful The non-performance whereof was one of the most ordinary causes of Heresies against the Faith and Schism from the Communion of the Church Universal He shall find secondly and that by many convincing Arguments that though he write to Cornelius Bishop of Rome yet he speaks not of him but of himself then Bishop of Carthage against whom a faction of Schismatiques had then set up another And therefore here your ingenuity is to be commended above many of your side For whereas they ordinarily abuse this place to prove that in the whole Church there ought to be but one Priest one Judge you seem somwhat diffident hereof and thereupon say That these words plainly condemn Luther whether he will understand them as spoken of the Universal or of every Particular Church But whether they condemn Luther is another question The question here is Whether they plainly prove the Pope's Supremacy over all other Bishops which certainly they are as far from proving as from proving the Supremacy of any other Bishop seeing it is evident they were intended not of one Bishop over the whole Catholique Church but of one Bishop in one particular Church 99. And no less impertinent is your saying out of Optatus if it be well lookt into though at the first sight it may seem otherwise because Optatus his scene happened to be Rome whereas S. Cyprians was Carthage The truth is the Donatists had set up at Rome a Bishop of their faction not with intent to make him Bishop of the whole Church but of that Church in particular Now Optatus going upon S. Cyprians above-mentioned ground of one Bishop in one Church proves them Schismatiques for so doing and he proves it by this Argument S. Peter was first Bishop of Rome neither did the Apostles attribute to themselves each one his particular Chair understand in that City for in other places others I hope had Chairs besides S. Peter and therefore he is a Schismatique who against that one single Chair erects another understand as before in that place making another Bishop of that Diocess besides him who was lawfully elected to it 100. But yet by the way he styles S. Peter head of the Apostles and says that from thence he was called Cephas Ans Perhaps he was abused into this opinion by thinking Cephas derived from the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a head whereas it is a Syriack word and signifies a stone Besides S. Peter might be head of the Apostles that is first in order and honour among them and not have Supreme Authority over them And indeed that S. Peter should have Authority over all the Apostles and yet exercise no one act of Authority over any one of them and that they should shew to him no sign of subjection me-thinks is as strange as that a King of England for twenty five years together should do no Act of Regality nor receive any one acknowledgement of it As strange methinks it is that you so many ages after should know this so certainly as you pretend to do and that the Apostles after that those words were spoken in their hearing by vertue whereof S. Peter is pretended to have been made their head should still be so ignorant of it as to question which of them should be the greatest yet more strange that our Saviour should not bring them out of their error by telling them S. Peter was the man but rather confirm it by saying the Kings of the Gentiles exercise authority over them but it should not be so among them No less a wonder was it that S. Paul should so far forget S. Peter and himself as that first mentioning of him often he should do it without any title of Honour Secondly speaking of the several degrees of men in the Church he should not give S. Peter the highest but place him in equipage with the rest of the Apostles and say God hath appointed not first Peter then the rest of the Apostles but first Apostles secondly Prophets Certainly if the Apostles were all first to me it is very probable that no one of them was before the rest For by First all men understand either that which is before all or that before which is nothing Now in the former sense the Apostles could not be all first for then every one of them must have been before every one of the rest And therefore they must be First in the other sense And therefore No man and therefore Not S. Peter must be before any of them Thirdly and Lastly that speaking of himself in particular and perhaps comparing himself with S. Peter in particular rather than any other he should say in plain terms I am in nothing inferior to the very chiefest Apostles But besides all this Though we should grant against all these probabilities and many more that Optatus meant that S. Peter was head of the Apostles not in our but in your sense and that S. Peter indeed was so yet still you are very farr from shewing that in the judgement of Optatus the Bishop of Rome was to be at all much less by divine right successor to S. Peter in this his Headship and Authority For what incongruity is there if we say that he might succeed S. Peter in that part of his care the government of that particular Church as sure he did even while S Peter was living and yet that neither he nor any man was to succeed him in his Apostleship nor in his government of the Church Universal Especially seeing S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles by laying the foundations of the Church were to be the Foundations of it and accordingly are so called in Scripture And therefore as in a Building it is incongruous that Foundations should succeed Foundations So it may be in the Church that any other Apostles should succeed the first 101. Ad § 37. The next Paragraph I might well pass over as having no Argument in it For there is nothing in it but two sayings of S. Austin which I have great reason to esteem no Argument untill you will promise me to grant whatsoever I shall prove by two sayings of S. Austin But moreover the second of these sentences
Apostolique Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church an Argument of their Errour So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolique Churches nay more from these than from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetual Succession of them but in other Apostolique Churches they wanted both These scatter'd men saith he of the Donatists Epist 165. read in the holy books the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and mad than to the Lectors reading these Epistles to say Peace with you and to separate from the peace of these Churches to which these Epistles were written So Optatus having done you as it might seem great service in upbraiding the Donatists as Schismatiques because they had not Communion with the Church of Rome overthrows and undoes it all again and as it were with a spunge wipes out all that he hath said for you by adding after that they were Schismatiques because They had not the fellowship of Communion with the seven Churches of Asia to which S. John writes whereof he pronounces confidently though I know not upon what ground Extraseptem Ecclesias quicquid foris est alienum est Now I pray tell me do you esteem the Authority of these Fathers a sufficient assurance that separation from these other Apostolique Churches was a certain mark of Heresie or not If so then your Church hath been for many Ages heretical If not How is their authority a greater Argument for the Roman than for the other Churches If you say they conceived separation from these Churches a note of Schism only when they were united to the Roman so also they might conceive of the Roman only when it was united to them If you say they urg'd this only as a probable and not as a certain Argument so also they might do that In a word whatsoever answer you can devise to shew that these Fathers made not separation from these other Churches a mark of Heresie apply that to your own Argument and it will be satisfied 32 The other place is evidently impertinent to the present question nor is there it in any thing but this That Caecilian might contemn the multitude of his adversaries because those that were united with him were more and of more account than those that were against him Had he preferr'd the Roman Church alone before Caecilian's enemies this had been little but something but when other Countries from which the Gospel came first into Africa are joyned in this Patent with the Church of Rome how she can build any singular priviledge upon it I am yet to learn Neither do I see what can be concluded from it but that in the Roman Church was the Principality of an (a) You do ill to translate it the Principality of the Sea Apostolique as if there were but one whereas Saint Austin presently after speaks of Apostolical Churches in the plural number and makes the Bishops of them joynt-Commissioners for the judging of Ecclesiastical causes Apostolique Sea which no man doubts or that the Roman Church was not the Mother Church because the Gospel came first into Africa not from her but from other Churches 33. Thus you see his words make very little or indeed nothing for you But now his Action which according to Cardinal Perron's rule is much more to be regarded than his words as not being so obnoxious to misinterpretation I mean his famous opposition of three Bishops of Rome in Succession touching the great question of Appeals wherein he and the rest of the African Bishops proceeded so far in the first or second Milevitan Councel as to (b) The words of the Decree which also Bellarm l. 1. de Matrim c. 17. assures us to be perform'd by S. Austin are these Si qui Africani ab Episcopis provocandum putaverint non nisi ad Africana provocent Concilia vel ad Primates provinciarum suarum Ad transmarina autem qui putaverit apellandum à nullo intra Africam in Communionem suscipiatur This decree is by Gratian most impudently corrupted For whereas the Fathers of that Councel intended it particularly against the Church of Rome he tels us they forbad Appeals to All excepting only the Church of Rome decree any African Excommunicate that should appeal to any man out of Africk and therein continued resolute unto death I say this famous Action of his makes clearly and evidently and infinitely against you For had Boniface and the rest of the African Bishops a great part whereof were Saints and Martyrs believed as an Article of faith that Union and Conformity with the doctrin of the Roman Church in all things which she held necessary was a certain note of a good Catholique and by God's Command necessary to Salvation how was it possible they should have opposed it in this Unless you will say they were all so foolish as to believe at once direct contradictions viz. that conformity to the Roman Church was necessary in all points and not necessary in this or so horribly impious as believing this doctrin of the Roman Church true and her power to receive Appeals derived from divine Authority notwithstanding to oppose and condemn it and to Anathematize all those Africans of what condition soever that should appeal unto it I say of what condition soever For it is evident that they concluded in their determination Bishops as well as the inferiour Clergy and Laity And Cardinal Pâ—rron's pretence of the contrary is a shameless falshood repugnant to the plain words of the (c) The words are these Praefato debito salutationis officio impendiò deprecamur ut deinceps ad aures vestras hinc venientes non saciliùs admittat is nec à nobis excommunicatos ultra in Communionem velitis recipere quia hoc etiam Niceno Concilio de finitum facile advertet venerabilitastus Nam si de inferioribus Clericis vel Laicis videtur id praecaveri quanto magis hoc de Episcopis voluit observari Remonstrance of the African Bishops to Celestine Bishop of Rome 34 Your allegation of Tertullian is a manifest conviction of your want of sincerity For you produce with great ostentation what he saies of the Church of Rome but you and your fellows always conceal and dissemble that immediatly before these words he artributes as much for point of direction to any other Apostolique Church and that as he sends them to Rome who lived neer Italy so those neer Achaia he sends to Corinth those about Macedonia to Philippi and Thessalonica those of Asia to Ephesus His words are Go to now thou that wilt better imploy thy curiosity in the business of thy salvation run over the Apostolical Churches wherein the Chairs of the Apostles are yet sate upon in their places wherein the Authentique Epistles are recited sounding out the voice and representing the face of
damnable errors Remember I pray you what your self affirms pag. 69. where speaking of our Church and yours you say All the difference is from the weeds which remain there and here are taken away Yet neither here perfectly nor every where alike Behold a fair confession of corruptions still remaining in your Church which you can only excuse by saying they are not Fundamental as likewise those in the Roman Church are confessed to be not Fundamental What man of judgment will be a Protestant since that Church is confessedly a corrupt one 22. I still proceed to impugn you expresly upon your own grounds You say That it is comfort enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all capital dangers but she may not hope to triumph over all sin and error till she be in heaven Now if it be comfort enough to be secured from all capital dangers which can arise only from error in Fundamental Points why were not your first Reformers content with enough but would needs dismember the Church out of a pernicious greediness of more than enough For this enough which according to you is attained by not erring in Points Fundamental was enjoyed before Luther's reformation unless you will now against your self affirm that long before Luther there was no Church free from error in Fundamental Points Moreover if as you say no Church may hope to triumph over all error till she be in heaven You must either grant that errors not Fundamental cannot yield sufficient cause to forsake the Church or else you must affirm that all Community may and ought to be forsaken and so there will be no end of Schisms or rather indeed there can be no such thing as Schism because according to you all communities are subject to errors not Fundamental for which if they may be lawfully forsaken it followeth clearly that it is not Schism to forsake them Lastly since it is not lawful to leave the Communion of the Church for abuses in life and manners because such miseries cannot be avoided in this world of temptation and since according to your Assertion no Church may hope to triumph over all sin and error You must grant that as she ought not to be left by reason of sin so neither by reason of errors not Fundamental because both sin and error are according to you impossible to be avoided till she be in heaven 23. Furthermore I ask Whether it be the Quantity and Number or Quality and Greatness of doctrinal errors that may yield sufficient cause to relinquish the Churches Communion I prove that neither Not the Quality which is supposed to be beneath the degree of Points Fundamental or necessary to Salvation Not the Quantity or Number for the foundation is strong enough to support all such unnecessary additions as you tearm them And if they once weighed so heavy as to overthrow the foundation they should grow to Fundamental errors into which your self teach the Church cannot fall Hay and stubble say you and such (g) Pag. 155. unprofitable stuffe laid on the roof destroys not the house whilest the main pillars are standing on the foundation And tell us I pray you the precise number of errors which cannot be tolerated I know you cannot do it and therefore being uncertain whether or no you have cause to leave the Church you are certainly obliged not to forsake her Our blessed Saviour hath declared his will that we forgive a private offender seventy seven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of trespasses and why then dare you alledge his command that you must not pardon his Church for errors acknowledged to be not Fundamental What excuse can you feign to your selves who for Points not necessary to Salvation have been occasions causes and Authors of so many mischiefs as could not but unavoidably accompany so huge a breach in Kingdoms in Common-wealths in private persons in publique Magistrates in body in soul in goods in life in Church in the State by Schisms by rebellions by war by famin by plague by bloud-shed by all sorts of imaginable calamities upon the whole face of the earth wherein as in a map of Desolation the heaviness of your crime appears under which the world doth pant 24. To say for your excuse that you left not the Church but her errors doth not extenuate but aggravate your sin For by this device you sow seeds of endless Schisms and put into the mouth of aâ— Separatists a ready Answer how to avoid the note of Schism from your Protestant Church of England or from any other Church whatsoever They will I say answer as you do prompt that your Church may be forsaken if she fall into errors though they be not Fundamental and further that no Church must hope to be free from such errors which two grounds being once laid it will not be hard to infer the consequence that she may be forsaken 25. From some other words of D. Potter I likewise prove that for Errors not Fundamental the Church ought not to be forsaken There neither was saith he nor can be (h) Pag. 75. any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself To depart from a particular Church and namely from the Church of Rome in some Doctrins and practises there might be just and necessary cause though the Church of Rome wanted nothing necessary to Salvation Mark his Doctrin that there can be no just cause to depart from the Church of Christ and yet he teacheth that the Church of Christ may err in Points not Fundamental Therefore say I we cannot forsake the Roman Church for Points not Fundamental for then we might also forsake the Church of Christ which your self deny and I pray you consider whether you do not plainly contradict your self while in the words above recited you say there can be no just cause to forsake the Catholique Church and yet that there may be necessary cause to depart from the Church of Rome since you grant that the Church of Christ may err in Points not Fundamental and that the Roman Church hath erred only in such Points as by and by we shall see more in particular And thus much be said to disprove their chiesest Answer that they left not the Church but her corruptions 26. Another evasion D. Potter bringeth to avoid the imputation of Schism and it is because they still acknowledg the Church of Rome to be a Member of the body of Christ and not cut off from the hope of Salvation And this saith he clears us from the (i) Pag. 76. imputation of Schism whose property it is to cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation the Church from which it separates 27. This is an Answer which perhaps you may get some one to approve if first you can put him out of his wits For what prodigious Doctrins are these Those Protestants who believe
that those amongst you who were invincibly ignorant of the truth might by Gods great mercy have their errors pardoned and their souls saved And this is all he says and this you confess to be all he says in divers places of your Book which is no more than you your self do and must affirm of Protestants and yet I believe you will not suffer us to inferr from hence that you grant Protestants to have for the substance the true preaching of the Word and due administration of the Sacraments and want nothing fundamental or necessary to salvation And if we should draw this consequence from your concession certainly we should do you injury in regard many things may in themselves and in ordinary course be necessary to salvation to those that have means to attain them as your Church generally hath which yet by accident to these which were by some impregnable impediment debarred of these means may by Gods mercy be made unnecessary 27. Lastly whereas you say that Protestants must either grant that your Church then was the visible Church or name some other disagreeing from yours and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrin or acknowledge there was no visible Church It is all one as if to use S. Paul's similitude the head should say to the foot Either you must grant that I am the whole body or name some other member that is so or confess that there is no body To which the foot may answer I acknowledge there is a body and yet that no member beside you is this body nor yet that you are it but only a part of it And in like manner say we We acknowledge a Church there was corrupted indeed universally but yet such a one as we hope by Gods gracious acceptance was still a Church We pretend not to name any one Society that was this Church and yet we see no reason that can inforce us to confess that yours was the Church but only a part of it and that one of the worst then extant in the World In vain therefore have you troubled your self in proving that we cannot pretend that either the Greeks Waldenses Wickliffites Hussites Muscovites Armenians Georgians Abyssines were then the visible Church For all this discourse proceeds upon a false and vain supposition and begs another point in Question between us which is that some Church of one denomination and one Communion as the Roman the Greek c. must be always exclusively to all other Communions the whole visible Church And though perhaps some weak Protestant having this false principle setled in him that there was to be always some Visible Church of one denomination pure from all error in doctrin might be wrought upon prevailed with by it to forsake the Church of Protestants yet why it should induce him to go to yours rather than the Greek Church or any other which pretends to perpetual succession as well as yours that I do not understand unless it be for the reason which Aeneus Sylvius gave why more held the Pope above a Council than a Council above the Pope which was because Popes did give Bishopricks and Archbishopricks but Councils gave none and therefore suing in Forma Pauperis were not like to have their cause very well maintained For put the case I should grant of meer favour that there must be always some Church of one Denomination and Communion free from all errours in doctrin and that Protestants had not always such a Church it would follow indeed from thence that I must not be a Protestant But that I must be a Papist certainly it would follow by no better consequence than this If you will leave England you must of necessity go to Rome And yet with this wretched Fallacy have I been sometimes abused my self and known many other poor souls seduced not only from their own Church and Religion but unto yours I beseech God to open the eyes of all that love the truth that they may not always be held captive under such miserable delusions 28. We see then how unsuccessful you have been in making good your accusation with reasons drawn from the nature of the thing and which may be urged in common against all Protestants Let us come now to the Arguments of the other kind which you build upon D. Potter's own words out of which you promise unanswerable reasons to convince Protestants of Schism 29. But let the understanding Reader take with him but three or four short Remembrances and I dare say he shall find them upon examination not only answerable but already answered The Memorandums I would commend to him are these 30. 1. That not every separation but only a causeless separation from the external Communion of any Church is the Sin of Schism 31. 2. That Imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alleage to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome 32. 3. That to leave the Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church at least as D. Potter understands the words is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to have those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and Obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publike worship of God This little Armour if it be rightly placed I am perswaded will repel all those Batteries which you threaten shall be so furious 33. Ad § 13 14 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austine against Donatus applyed to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madness moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoyd the Communion of bad men Whereunto one fair answer to let pass many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospel as it is not is impertinently applyed to Luther and Lutherans whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties And your not substituting Luther instead of Donatus in the later part of the Dilemma as well as in the former would make a suspicious man conjecture that you your self took notice of this exception of disparity between Donatus and Luther 34. Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrin if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you do understand it is a certain truth and it is easier for you to declaim as you do than to dispute against it But these men you say must
were and I suppose you will not go about to persuade us that they forsook themselves or their own communion And if you urge that they joyned themselves to no other part therefore they separated from the whole I say it follows not in as much as themselves were a part of it and still continued so and therefore could no more separate from the whole than from themselves Thus though there were no part of the people of Rome to whom the Plebeians joyned themselves when they made their Secession into the Aventine Hill yet they divided themselves from the Patricians only and not from the whole people because themselves were a part of this people and they divided not from themselves 57. Ad § 18. In the 18. § you prove that which no man denies that Corruption in manners yeelds no sufficient cause to leave the Church yet sure it yields sufficient cause to cast them out of the Church that are after the Churches publique admonition obstinate in notorious impieties Neither doth the cutting off such men from the Church lay any necessary upon us either to go out of the world or out of the Church but rather puts these men out of the Church into the world where we may converse with them freely without scandal to the Church Our blessed Saviour foretold you say that there should be in the Church tares with choise corn Look again I pray and you shall see that the field he speaks of is not the Church but the world and therefore neither do you obey our Saviour's command Let both grow up till the harvest who teach it to be lawfull to root these tares such are Heretiques out of the world neither do Protestants disobey it if they eject manifest Hreretiques and notorious sinners out of the Church 58. Ad § 19. In the 19. you are so curteous as to suppose corruptions in your doctrin and yet undertake to prove that neither could they afford us any sufficient cause or colourable necessity to depart from them Your reason is Because damnable errors there were none in your Church by D. Potters confession neither can it be damnable in respect oferror to remain in any Churches communion whose errors are not damnable For if the error be not damnable the belief thereof cannot Ans D. Potter confesseth no such matter but only that he hopes that your errors though in themselves sufficiently damnable yet by accident did not damn all that held them such he means and saies as were excusably ignorant of the Truth and amongst the number of their unknown sins repented daily of their unknown errors The truth is he thinks as ill of your errors and their desert as you do of ours only he is not so peremptory and presumptuous in judging your persons as you are in judging ours but leaves them to stand or fall to their own Masters who is infinitely merciful and therefore will not damn them for meer errors who desire to find the truth and cannot and withal infinitely just and therefore it is to be feared will not pardon them who might easily have come to the knowledge of the truth and either through Pride or Obstinacie or Negligence would not 59. To your minor also I answer almost in your own words § 42. of this Chap. I thank you for your courteous Supposal that your Church may erre and in recompence thereof will do you a charity by putting you in mind into what Labyrinths you cast your self by supposing that the Church may erre in some of her Proposals and yet denying it lawful for any man though he know this which you suppose to oppose her judgement or leave her communion Will you have such a man dissemble against his conscience or externally deny that which he knows true No that you will not for them that do so you your self have pronouced a damned crew of dissembling Sycophants Or would you have him continue in your Communion and yet profess your Church to erre This you your selves have made to him impossible Or would you have him believe those things true which together profess your Church to erre This you your selves have made to him impossible Or would you have him believe those things true which together with him you have supposed to be Errors This is such a one as is assur'd or perswaded of that which you here suppose that your Church doth erre and such only we say are obliged to forsake your communion is as Schoolmen speak Implicatio in terminis a contradiction so plain that one word destroyeth another as if one should say a living dead man For it is to require that they which believe some part of your Doctrin false should withall believe it all true Seeing therefore for any man to believe your Church in error and profess the contrary is damnable Hypocrisie to believe it and not believe it a manifest repugnancy and thirdly to profess it and to continue in your Communion as matters now stand a plain impossibility what remians but that whosoever is supposed to have just reason to disbelieve any doctrin of your Church must of necessity forsake her Communion Unless you would remit so far from your present rigour as to allow them your Churches communion who publikely profess that they do not believe every article of her established doctrin Indeed if you would do so you might with some coherence suppose your Church in error and yet find fault with men for abandoning her communion because they might continue in it and suppose her in error But to suppose your Church in error and to excommunicate all those that believe your own supposition and then to complain that they continue not in your communion is the most ridiculous incongruity that can be imagined And therefore though your corruptions in doctrin in themselves which yet is false did not yet your obliging us to profess your doctrin uncorrupted against knowledge and conscience may induce an obligation to depart from your communion As if there were any society of Christians that held there were no Antipodes notwithstanding this error I might communicate with them But if I could not do so without professing my self of their belief in this matter then I suppose I should be excus'd from Schism if I should forsake their communion rather than profess my self to believe that which I do not believe Neither is there any contradiction or shadow of contradiction that it may be necessary for my salvation to depart from this Churches communion And that this Church though erring in this matter wants nothing necessary to Salvation And yet this is that manifest contradiction which D. Potter you say will never be able to salve viz. That there might be necessary cause to depart from the Church of Rome in some Doctrins and Practises though she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation 60. And your Reason wherewith you prove that there is in these words such a plâ—in contradiction is very notable For say you if she wanted
particular States and Churches but the immortalizing the greater more lamentable divisions of Christendom and the world And therefore what can follow from it but perhaps in the judgement of carnal policy the temporal benefit and tranquillity of temporal States and Kingdoms but the infinite prejudice if not the desolation of the Kingdom of Christ And therefore it well becomes them who have have their portions in this life who serve no higher State than that of England or Spain or France nor this neither any further than they may serve themselves by it who think of no other happiness but the preservation of their own fortunes and tranquillity in this world who think of no other means to preserve States but human power and Machivilian policy and believe no other Creed but this Regi aut Civitati imperium habenti nihil injustum quod utile Such men as these it may become to maintain by worldly power and violence their State-instrument Religion For if all be vain and false as in their judgment it is the present whatsoever is better than any because it is already setled an alteration of it may draw with it change of States and the change of State the subversion of their fortune But they that are indeed servants and lovers of Christ of Truth of the Church and of Mankind ought with all courage to oppose themselves against it as a common enemy of all these They that know there is a King of Kings and Lord of Lords by whose will and pleasure Kings and Kingdoms stand and fall they know that to no King or State any thing can be profitable which is unjust and that nothing can be more evidently unjust than to force weak men by the profession of a Religion which they believe not to lose their own eternal happiness out of a vain and needless fear lest they may possibly disturb their temporal quietness There being no danger to any State from any mans opinion unless it be such an opinion by which disobedience to authority or impiety is taught or licenc'd which sort I confess may justly be punished as well as other faults or unless this sanguinary doctrin be joyn'd with it That it is lawful for him by human violence to enforce others to it Therefore if Protestants did offer violence to other mens consciences and compel them to embrace their Reformation I excuse them not much less if they did so to the sacred Persons of Kings and those that were in authority over them who ought to be so secur'd from violence that even their unjust und tyrannous violence though it may be avoided according to that of our Saviour When they persecute you in one City flie into another yet may it not be resisted by opposing violence against it Protestants therefore that were guilty of this crime are not to be excused and blessed had they been had they chosen rather to be Martyrs than Murderers to die for their religion rather than to fight for it But of all the men in the world you are most unfit to accuse them hereof against whom the souls of the Martyrs from under the Altar cry much lowder than against all their other Persecutors together Who for these many ages together have daily sacrificed Hecatombs of innocent Christians under the name of Heretiques to blind zeal and furious superstition Who teach plainly that you may propagate your Religion whensoever you have power by deposing of Kings and invasion of Kingdoms and think when you kill the adversaries of it you do God good service But for their departing corporally from them whom mentally they had forsaken For their forsaking the external Communion and company of the unreformed part of the Church in their superstitions and impieties thus much of your accusation we embrace and glory in it And say though some Protestants might offend in the maner or degree of their separation yet certainly their separation it self was not Schismatical but innocent and not only so but just and necessary And as for your obtruding upon D. Potter that he should say There neither was nor could be just cause to do so no more than to depart from Christ himself I have shewed divers times already that you deal very injuriously with him confounding together Departing from the Church and Departing from some general opinions and practises which did not constitute but vitiate not make the Church but marr it For though he saies that which is most true that there can be no just cause to depart from the Church that is to cease being a member of the Church no more than to depart from Christ himself in as much as these are not divers but the same thing yet he nowhere denies but there might be just and necessary cause to depart from some opinions and practices of your Church nay of the Catholique Church And therefore you do vainly to inferr that Luther and his followers for so doing were Schismatiques 97. Ad § 35. I answer in a word that neither are Optatus his sayings rules of Faith and therefore not fit to determine Controversies of Faith And then that Majorinus might well be a Schismatique for departing from Caecilianus and the Chayr of Cyprian and Peter without cause and yet Luther and his followers who departed from the Communion of the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of their own Diocess be none because they had just and necessary cause of their departure For otherwise they must have continued in the profession of known Errors and the practice of manifest Corruptions 98. Ad § 36 In the next Section you tel us that Christ our Lord gave S. Peter and his successors authority over his whole Militant Church And for proof hereof you first referre us to Brerely citing exactly the places of such chief Protestants as have confessed the antiquity of this point Where first you fall into the Fallacy which is called Ignoratio Elenchi or mistaking the Question for being to prove this point true you only prove it ancient Which to what purpose is it when both the parties litigant are agreed that many errors were held by many of the ancient Doctors much more ancient than any of those who are pretended to be confessed by Protestants to have held with you in this matter and when those whom you have to do with and whom it is vain to dispute against but out of Principles received by them are all peremptory that though novelty be a certain note of falshood yet no Antiquity less than Apostolical is a certain note of truth Yet this I say not as if I did acknowledge what you pretend that Protestants did confess the Fathers against them in this point For the point here issuable is not Whether S. Peter were head of the Church Nor whether the Bishop of Rome had any priority in the Church Nor whether he had authority over it given him by the Church But whether by Divine right and by Christs appointment he were Head
had said By shewing the Tradition of the Roman Church we confound all Heretiques For to this Church all Churches must agree what had this been but to give for a reason that which was more questionable than the thing in question as being neither evident in it self and plainly denyed by his adversaries not at all proved nor offered to be proved here or elsewhere by Irenaeus To speak thus therefore had been weak and ridiculous But on the other side if we conceive him to say thus You Heretiques decline a trial of your Doctrin by Scripture as being corrupted and imperfect and not fit to determin Controversies without recourse to Tradition and instead hereof you fly for a refuge to a secret Tradition which you pretend that you received from your Ancestors and they from the Apostles certainly your calumnies against Scripture are most unjust and unreasonable but yet more-ever assure your selves that if you will be tryed by Tradition even by that also you will be overthrown For our Tradition is far more famous more constant and in all respects more credible than that which you pretend to It were easie for me to muster up against you the uninterrupted successions of all the Churches founded by the Apostles all conspiring in their Testimonies against you But because it were too long to number up the Successions of all Churches I will content my self with the Tradition of the most ancient and most glorious Church of Rome which alone is sufficient for the confutation and confusion of your Doctrin as being in credit and authority as farr beyond the Tradition you build upon as the light of the Sun is beyond the light of a Gloworm For to this Church by reason it is placed in the Imperial City whither all mens affairs do necessarily draw them or by reason of the powerful principality it hath over all the adjacent Churches there is and always hath been a necessity of a perpetual recourse of all the faithful round about who if there had been any alteration in the Church of Rome could not in all probability but have observed it But they to the contrary have always observed in this Church the very Tradition which came from the Apostles and no other I say if we conceive his meaning thus his words will be intelligible and rational which if instead of resort we put in agree will be quite lost Herein therefore we have been beholding to your honesty which makes me think you did not wittingly falsifie but only twice in this sentence mistake Undique for Ubique and translate it every where and of what place soever in stead of round about For that it was necessary for all the faithful of what place soever to resort to Rome is not true That The Apostolique Tradition hath alwayes been conserved there from those who are every where is not Sense Now instead of conservata read observata as in all probability it should be and translate undique truly round about and then the sense will be both plain and good for then it must be rendred thus For to this Church by reason of a more powerful principality there is a necessity that all the Churches that is all the faithful round about should resort in which the Apostolique Tradition hath been alwayes observed by those who were round about If any man say I have been too bold a Critick in substituting observata instead of conservata I desire him to know that the conjecture is not mine and therefore as I expect no praise for it so I hope I shall be farr from censure But I would intreat him to consider whether it be not likely that the same Greek word signifying observo and conservo the Translater of Irenaeus who could hardly speak Latin might not easily mistake and translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conservata est instead of observata est Or whether it be not likely that those men which anciently wrote Books and understood them not might not easily commit such an errour Or whether the sense of the place can be salved any other way if it can in God's name let it if not I hope he is not to be condemned who with such a little alteration hath made that sense which he found non-sense 30. But whether you will have it Observata or Conservata the new sumpsimus or the old mumpsimus possibly it may be something to Irenaeus but to us or our cause it is no way material For if the rest be rightly translated neither will Conservata afford you any argument against us nor Observata help us to any evasion For though at the first hearing of the glorious attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome The confounding Heretiques with her Tradition and saying It is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet he that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rational in Irenaeus having to do with Heretiques who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholiques declined a tryal by Scripture as not containing the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rational in Irenaeus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit than their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contain'd in it and yet that it may be irrational in you to urge us who do not decline Scripture but appeal to it as a perfect rule of faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many wayes repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition farr more general than it self which gives Testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrins plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a farr greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was United with all other Apostolique Churches than now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be Error but Tradition and therefore Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that fourteen hundred years may have made a great deal of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though neer the fountain they may retain their native and unmixt sincerity yet in long progress cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corruptand impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus playes the Historian only and not the Prophet and sayes only that the Apostolique Tradition had been alwayes there as in other Apostolique Churches
a man may perswade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the foresaid truths upon the foresaid motives without any dependance upon any succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this phancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretique but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretique whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in our own power therefore our being or not being Heretiques depends not on it Besides What is more certain than that he may make a straight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the world had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the word of God and the Rule of faith regulate his faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his word believed he by his Providence must take order that either by succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserv'd and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Bar do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined of times make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroncous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formerly alledged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men otthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39 When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelibe Character be any reality or whether it be a creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a word whether our Bishops and Priests have it not as well as yours and whether some mens perswasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans perswasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Layman by just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Heretiques that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferr'd on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Pope's right or an usurpation If it were his right Whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only Whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to make it from him Or if not Whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it Whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude Because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an usurp'd Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his sword to his Praefect with this Commission that If he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so Why not against her errors in doctrin if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her doctrin if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from errour and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out a false unto a true way of eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as
I say our Saviour took to perform an admirable miracle even upon the man himself and that he brought about by as unlikely a course only with inviting himself to his house By which unexpected affability and courtesie of our Saviour this so notorious and famous Publican and sinner was so surpriz'd with joy and comfort that presently he gives over all thought and consideration of his trade as a thing of no moment and being to receive Christ into his house and knowing how ill agreeing companions Christ and Mammon would prove in the same lodging he resolves to sweep it and make it clean for the entertaining of him he empties it of that dross and dung wherewith before it was defiled half of his estate goes away at a clap upon the poor and the remainder in all likelihood is in great danger to be consum'd by that noble and generous offer which he makes in the words of my Text Whomsoever I have defrauded by forged cavillation I restore c. 4. In which words I shall observe unto you these two General Parts Division First a Discovery and it may be confession of his beloved bosome sin the sin of his trade in these words If I have defrauded any man or whomsoever I have defrauded Secondly Satisfaction tendered in the words following I restore unto him four fold In the former General we may take notice of two particulars 1. Zacchaeus his willingness and readiness of his own accord to discover and confess his sin when he said Whomsoever I have defrauded And 2. the nature and heinousness of the crime discovered which is called a defrauding by forged cavillation or as some Translations read with false accusation In the second General likewise which is the satisfaction tendered by Zacchaeus there offer themselves two particulars more namely 1. So much of the satisfaction as was necessary to be performed by virtue of an indispensable Precept and that is Restitution in these words I restore unto him 2. That which was voluntary and extraordinary namely the measure and excess of this Restitution which he professeth should be four fold Of these two parts therefore with their several particulars in the same order as they have been proposed briefly and with all the plainness and perspicuity I can imagine And 1. Of the former General and therein of the first Particular namely Zacchaeus his readiness to confess his Sin in these words If I c. 5. I said even now only General I. It may be this was a confession of his crime but now I will be more resolute Partic. 1. and tell you peremptorily this was a confession for without all question Zacchaeus as the case stood now with him was in no humour of Justifying himself he had no mind to boast his integrity in his office Or if he had he might be sure that common fame if that were all yet that alone might be a sufficient argument at least too great a presumption against him to confute him But to put it out of question Our Saviour himself by applying the 10. verse of this Chapter to him acknowledgeth him for a sinful undone man one that had so far lost himself in the wandring mazes of this wicked world that unless Christ himself had taken the pains to search and enquire after him and having found him by the power and might of his Grace to rescue and recover him from the errour of his ways by restoring him his eyes whereby he might take notice towards what a dangerous precipice he was hastening there had been no possibility but at last he must have needs fallen headlong into the gulf of destruction 6. Now it being I suppose evident that Zacchaeus was guilty and that in a high degree and openly and scandalously guilty of the crime here discover'd there is no doubt to be made but that he who was so willing to unlock and disperse his ill gotten treasures would not begin to divert his covetousness upon his sins he would not hoard them up but would place his glory even in his shame and whereas he had been the servant and slave of sins he would wear his shackles and fetters as signs of the glorious victory which through Christ he had won and emblemes of that blessed change which he found in himself being rescued from the basest slavery that possibly can be imagined into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God 7. But it may be you will say Suppose Zacchaeus did freely and voluntarily confess his sin to Christ who had authority to forgive him his sins though he had never discovered them what collection shall be made from hence Zacchaeus might be as bold as he would with himself but as for us his example shall be no rule to us we thank God this is Popery in these daies and since we have freed our selves from this burden we will not be brought into bondage to any man we will confess our sins I warrant you only to God who is only able to forgive us them as for the Minister it may be we will sometimes be beholding to him to speak some comfortable words now and then to us when we are troubled in conscience and we have not been taught to go any further 8. I confess I find no great inclination in my self especially being in the Pulpit to undertake a controversie even where it may seem to offer it self much less to press and strein a Text for it for I desire to have no adversaries in my Preaching but only the Devil and Sin Only having now mentioned Confession and considering how much the Doctrine of our holy Mother the Church hath been traduc'd not only by the malice and detraction of our professed enemies of the Church of Rome but also by the suspicious ignorance and partiality of her own children who out of a liking of the zeal or rather fury of some former Protestant Writers have laid this for a ground of stating Controversies of our Religion That that is to be acknowledged for the Doctrine of these Reformed Churches which is most opposite and contradicting to the Church of Rome So that as the case goes now Controversies of Religion are turn'd into private quarrels and it is not so much the Truth that is sought after as the salving and curing the reputation of particular men 9. These things therefore considered truly for my part I dare not take upon me so much to gratifie the Papists as to think my self oblig'd to maintain many incommodious speeches of some of our Divines in this point Hoc Ithacus velit magno mercentur Atridae They will never be unfurnish'd of matter to write Books to the worlds end if this shall be the method of stating Controversies Oh what an impregnable cause should we have against the Church of Rome if we our selves did not help to weaken and betray it by mixing therewith the interests and conceits of particular men 10. Give me therefore leave I pray you to give you
yours and do me none Nay we may both of us hold our opinion and yet do our selves no harm provided the difference be not touching any thing necessary to salvation and that we love truth so well as to be diligent to inform our Conscience constant in following it 21. Eighthly For the deciding of Civil Controversies men may appoint themselves a Judge But in matters of Religion this office may be given to none but whom God hath designed for it who doth not alwayes give us those things which we conceive most expedient for our selves 22. Ninthly and Lastly For the ending of Civil Controversies Who does not see it is absolutely necessary that not only Judges should be appointed but that it should be known and unquestioned who they are Thus all the Judges of our Land are known men known to be Judges and no man can doubt or question but these are the Men. Otherwise if it were a disputable thing Who were these Judges and they had no certain warrant for their Authority but only some Topical congruities Would not any man say such Judges in all likelihood would rather multiply Controversies than end them So likewise if our Saviour the King of Heaven had intended that all Controversies in Religion should be by some visible Judge finally determined Who can doubt but in plain terms he would have expressed himself about this matter He would have said plainly The Bishop of Rome I have appointed to decide all emergent Controversies For that our Saviour designed the Bishop of Rome to this Office and yet would not say so nor cause it to be written ad Rei memoriam by any of the Evangelists or Apostles so much as once but leave it to be drawn out of uncertain Principles by thirteen or fourteen more uncertain Consequences He that can believe it let him 23. All these Reasons I hope will convince you that though we have and have great necessity of Judges in Civil and Criminal Causes yet you may not conclude from thence that there is any publique authorized Judge to determine Controversies in Religion nor any necessity there should be any 24. But the Scripture stands in need of some watchful and unerring eye to guard it by means of whose assured Vigilancy we may undoubtedly receive it sincere and pure Very true but this is no other than the watchful eye of Divine Providence the goodness whereof will never suffer that the Scripture should be depraved and corrupted but that in them should be always extant a conspicuous and plain way to eternal happiness Neither can any thing be more palpably unconsistent with his goodness than to suffer Scripture to be undiscernably corrupted in any matter of moment and yet to exact of men the Belief of those verities which without their fault or knowledge or possibility of prevention were defaced out of them So that God requiring of men to believe Scripture in its purity ingages himself to see it preserved in sufficient purity and you need not fear but he will satisfie his engagement You say We can have no assurance of this but your Churches Vigilancy But if we had no other we were in a hard case for Who could then assure us that your Church hath been so vigilant as to guard Scripture from any the least alteration There being various Lections in the ancient Copies of your Bibles What security can your new raised Office of Assurance give us that that reading is true which you now receive and that false which you reject Certainly they that anciently received and made use of those divers Copies were not all guarded by the Churches Vigilancy from having their Scripture altered from the purity of the Original in many places For of different readings it is not in nature impossible that all should be false but more than one cannot possibly be true Yet the want of such a protection was no hinderance to their salvation and Why then shall the having of it be necessary for ours But then this Vigilancy of your Church what means have we to be ascertained of it First the thing is not evident of it self which is evident because many do not believe it Neither can any thing be pretended to give evidence to it but only some places of Scripture of whose incorruption more than any other what is it that can secure me If you say the Churches Vigilancy you are in a Circle proving the Scriptures uncorrupted by the Churche's Vigilancy and the Churche's Vigilancy by the incorruption of some places of Scripture and again the incorruption of those places by the Churche's Vigilancy If you name any other means then that means which secures me of the Scripture's incorruption in those places will also serve to assure me of the same in other places For my part abstracting from Divine Providence which will never suffer the way to Heaven to be blocked up or made invisible I know no other means I mean no other natural and rational means to be assured hereof than I have that any other Book is uncorrupted For though I have a greater degree of rational and humane Assurance of that than this in regard of divers considerations which make it more credible That the Scripture hath been preserved from any material alteration yet my Assurance of both is of the same kind and condition both Moral Assurances and neither Physical or Mathematical 25. To the next Argument the Reply is obvious That though we do not believe the Books of Scripture to be canonical because they say so For other Books that are not Canonical may say they are and those that are so may say nothing of it yet we believe not this upon the Authority of your Church but upon the Credibility of Universal Tradition which is a thing Credible of it self and therefore fit to be rested on whereas the Authority of your Church is not so And therefore your rest thereon is not Rational but meerly voluntary I might as well rest upon the judgement of the next man I meet or upon the chance of a Lottery for it For by this means I only know I might err but by replying on you I know I should err But yet to return you one Suppose for another suppose I should for this and all other things submit to her direction How could she assure me that I should not be misled by doing so She pretends indeed infallibility herein but how can she assure us that she hath it What by Scripture That you say cannot assure us of its own Infallibility and therefore not of yours What then by Reason That you say may deceive in other things and why not in this How then will she assure us hereof By saying so Of this very affirmation there will remain the same Question still How can it prove it self to be infallibly true Neither can there be an end of the life multiplied Demands till we rest in something evident of it self which demonstrates to the world that this Church
of those that understand reason This is sufficient to shew the vanity of this Argument But I adde moreover that you neither have named those Protestants who held the Church to have perished for many Ages who perhaps held not the destruction but the corruption of the Church not that the true Church but that the pure Church perished or rather that the Church perished not from its life and existence but from its purity and integrity or perhaps from its splendor and visibility Neither have you proved by any one reason but only affirmed it to be a Fundamental Error to hold that the Church militant may possibly be driven out of the world and abolished for a time from the face of the earth 65. But to accuse the Church of any Error in Faith is to say she lost all Faith For this is the Doctrin of Catholique Divines that one Errour in Faith destroyes Faith To which I answer that to accuse the Church of some Error in Faith is not to say she lost all Faith For this is not the Doctrin of all Catholique Divines But that he which is an Heretique in one Article may have true Faith of other Articles And the contrary is only said and not shewed in Charity Mistaken 66. Ad § 21. D. Potter saies We may not depart from the Church absolutely and in all things and from hence you conclude Therefore we may not depart from it in any thing And this Argument you call a Demonstration But a Fallacy à dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid was not used heretofore to be called a Demonstration D. Potter says not that you may not depart from any opinion or any practice of the Church for you tell us in this very place that he sayes even the Catholique may err and every man may lawfully depart from Error He only says You may not cease to be of the Church nor depart from those things which make it so to be and from hence you infer a necessity of forsaking it in nothing Just as if you should argue thus You may not leave your friend or brother therefore you may not leave the Vice of your friend or the Errour of your brother What he sayes of the Catholique Church p. 75. the same he extends presently after to every true though never so corrupted part of it And why do you not conclude from hence that no particular Church according to his judgment can fall into any Error and call this a Demonstration too For as he sayes p. 75. That there can be no just cause to depart from the whole Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself So p. 76. he tels you That whosoever forsakes any one true member of this body forsakes the whole So that what he sayes of the one he sayes of the other and tels you that neither Universal nor particular Church so long as they continue so may be forsaken he means Absolutely no more than Christ himself may be forsaken absolutely For the Church is the body of Christ and whosoever forsakes either the body or his coherence to any one part of it must forsake his subordination and relation to the Head Therefore whosoever forsakes the Church or any Christian must forsake Christ himself 67. But then he tels you plainly in the same place That it may be lawful and necessary to depart from a Particular Church in some Doctrins and Practices And this he would have said even of the Catholike Church if there had been occasion but there was none For there he was to declare and justifie our departure not from the Catholike Church but the Roman which we maintain to be a particular Church But in other places you confess his Doctrin to be that even the Catholique Church may erre in points not Fundamental which you do not pretend that he ever imputed to Christ himself And therefore you cannot with any candor interpret his words as if he had said We may not forsake the Church in any thing no more than Christ himself but only thus We may not cease to be of the Church nor forsake it absolutely and totally no more than Christ himself And thus we see sometimes A mountain may travel and the production may be a mouse 68. Ad § 22. But D. Potter either contradicts himself or else must grant the Church infallible Because he saies if we did not differ from the Roman we could not agree with the Catholique which saying supposes the Catholique Church cannot erre Answer This Argument to give it the right name is an obscure and intricate Nothing And to make it appear so let us suppose in contradiction to your supposition either that the Catholique Church may erre but doth not but that the Roman actually doth or that the Catholique Church doth erre in some few things but that the Roman erres in many more And is it not apparent in both these cases which yet both suppose the Churches Fallibility a man may truly say Unless I dissent in some opinions from the Roman Church I cannot agree with the Catholique Either therefore you must retract you imputation laid upon D. Potter or do that which you condemn in him and be driven to say that the same man may hold some errors with the Church of Rome and at the same time with the Catholique Church not to hold but condemn them For otherwise in neither of these cases is it possible for the same man at the same time to agree both with the Roman and the Catholique 69. In all these Texts of Scripture which are here alleaged in this last Section of this Chapter or in any one of them or in any other Doth God say clearly and plainly The Bishop of Rome and that Society of Christians which adheres to him shall be ever the infallible guide of Faith You will confess I presume he doth not and will pretend it was not necessary Yet if the King should tell us the Lord Keeper should judge such and such causes but should either not tell us at all or tell us but doubtfully who should be Lord-Keeper should we be any thing the nearer for him to an end of contentions Nay rather would not the dissentions about the Person who it is increase contentions rather than end them Just so it would have been if God had appointed a Church to be Judge of Controversies and had not told us which was that Church Seeing therefore God doth nothing in vain and seeing it had been in vain to appoint a Judge of Controversies and not to tell us plainly who it is and seeing lastly he hath not told us plainly no not at all who it is Is it not evident he hath appointed none Obj. But you will say perhaps if it be granted once that some Church of one denomination is the infallible Guide of Faith it will be no difficult thing to prove that yours is the Church seeing no other Church pretends to be so Answ Yes the Primitive and
conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be alwayes so he sayes not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Anti-christ that the Roman Church in particular was fore-warned that she also Rom. 11. Nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they lookt not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no Reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appears manifestly out of this Book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the doctrin of the Chiliasts was in his judgement Apostolique Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appears to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgements in the point are any way recorded are for it and Justin Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not In Dial. cum Tryphon he reckons amongst Heretiques Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Irenaeus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Heretical and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto Errour by holding contradictions Fifthly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noon that though Irenaeus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the doctrin which he there delivers and defends against the Heretiques of his â—ime viz. That there is one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witness of Tradition in general Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaim'd the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Irenaeus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrin and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of this Excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Heretiques though separated and cut off from the Roman Church Cardinal Perron to avoid the stroak of this convincing argument raiseth a cloud of eloquent words Lib. 3. cap. 2. Of his Reply to King Iames. c. 2. sect 32. which because you borrow them of him in your Second part I will here insert and with short censures dispel and let his Idolaters see that Truth is not afraid of Giants His words are these The first instance then that Calvin alleageth against the Popes censures is taken from Eusebius a an Arrian author and from Ruffinus b enemie to the Roman Church his translator who writ c that S. IRENAEUS reprehended Pope Victor for having excommunicated the Churches of Asia for the question of the day of Pasche which they observed according to a particular tradition that S. JOHN had introduced d for a time in their Provinces Calv. ubi supra because of the neighbourhood of the Jews and to bury the Synagogue with honour and not according to the universal Tradition of the Apostles Irenaeus saith Calvin reprehended Pope Victor bitterly because for a light cause he had moved a great and perillous contention in the Church There is this in the Text that Calvin produceth he reprehended him that he had not done well to cut off from the body of unity so many and so great Churches But against whom maketh this Ruffin in vers hist Eccl Eus l. 5 c. 24. but e against those that object it for who sees not that S. IRENAEUS doth not there reprehend the Pope for the f want of power but for the ill use of his power and doth not reproach to the Pope that he could not excommunicate the Asians but admonisheth him that for g so small a cause he should not have cut off so many Provinces from the body of the Church Euseb hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 24. Irenaeus saith Eusebius did fitly exhort Pope Victor that he should not cut off all the Churches of God which â—eld this ancient tradition And Ruffinus translating and envenoming Eusebius saith Ruffin ib. c. 24. Iren l. 3. c. 3.1 Book Ch. 25. He questioned Victor that he had not done well in cutting off from the Body of Unity so many and so great Churches of God And in truth how could S. IRENAEUS have reprehended the Pope for want of power he that cites To the Roman Church because of a more powerful principality that is to say as above appeareth h because of a principality more powerful than the temporal or as we have expounded otherwhere because of a more powerful Original i It is necessary that every Church should agree And k therefore also S. IRENAEUS alleageth not to Pope Victor the example of him and of the other Bishops of the Gauls assembled in a Council holden expresly for this effect who had not excommunicated the Asians Euseb hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 22. nor the example of Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem and of the Bishops of Palestina assembled in another Council holden expresly for the same effect who had not excommunicated them nor the example of Palmas and of the other Bishops of Pontus assembled in the same manner and for the same cause in the Region of Pontus who had not excommunicated them but only alleadges to him the example of the Popes his predecessors Iren. apud Euseb hist Eccl. 5. c. 26. The Prelates saith he who have presided before Soter in the Church where thou presidest Anisius Pius Hyginus Telesphorus and Sixtus have not observed this custom c. and nevertheless none of those that observed it have been excommunicated And yet O admirable providence of God the l success of the after-ages shewed that even in the use of his power the Popes proceeding was just For after the death of Victor the Councils of Nicea of Constantinople and of Ephesus Conc. Antioch c. 1. Conc. Const c. 7. Conc. Eph. p. 2. act 6. excommunicated again those that held the same custom with the Provinces that the Pope had excommunicated and placed them in the Catalogue of Heretiques under the titles of heretiques Quarto-decumans But to this instance Calvins Sect do annex two
new Observations the first that the Pope having threatned the Bishops of Asia to excommunicate them Polycrates the Bishop of Ephesus and Metropolitan of Asia despised the Popes threats as it appears by the answer of the same Polycrates to Pope Victor Euseb hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 24. Hieron in Hieron in script Eccl. in Polyer which is inserted in the writings of Eusebius and of Saint JEROM and which JEROM seemeth to approve when he saith he reports it to shew the spirit and authority of the man And the second that when the Pope pronounced anciently his Excommunications he did no other thing but separate himself from the Communion of those that he excommunicated and did not thereby separate them from the universal communion of the Church To the first then we say that so farr is this Epistle of Polycrates from abating and diminishing the Popes authority that contrariwise it greatly magnifies and exalts it For although Polycrates blinded with the love of the custom of his Nation which he believed to be grounded upon the Word of God who had assigned the fourteenth of the Moneth of March for the observation of the Pasche and upon the example of S. JOHN'S tradition maintains it obstinately Nevertheless this that he answers speaking in his own Name Exod. 12. Hieronym ubi supra and in the name of the Council of the Bishops of Asia to whom he presided I fear not those that threeaten us for my Elders have said It is better to obey God than man Doth it not shew that had it not been that be believed the Pope's threat was against the express Word of God there had been cause to fear it and he had been obliged to obey him for m who knows not that this answer It is better to obey God than men is not to be made but to those whom we were obliged to obey if their commundements were not contrary to the commandements of God And that he adds that he had called the Bishops of Asia Euseb Hist Eccl l. 5. c. 23. to a National Council being n summoned to it by the Pope doth it not insinuate that the other Councils whereof Eusebius speaks that were holden about this matter through all the Provinces of the Earth and particularly that of Palestina Bâ—da in frag de Aequinociio veâ—â—aâ— which if you believe the act that Beda said came to his hands Theophilus Archbishop of Cesarea had called by the auctority of Victor were holden at the instance of the Pope and consequently that the Pope was the first mover of the Universal Church And that the Councils of Nicea of Constantinople of Ephesus embraced the Censure of Victor and excommunicated those that observed the custom of Polycrates that was deceived in believing that the Popes commandement was against Gods commandement And that S. JEROM himself celebrates the Paschal Homilies of Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria which followed the Order of Nicea concerning the Pasche doth it not justifie that when S. JEROM saith That he reports the Epistle of Polycrates to shew the spirit and authority of the man he intends by authority not authority of right but of fact that is to say the credit that Polycrates had amongst the Asians and other Quarto decimans These are the Cardinal's words the most material and considerable passages whereof to save the trouble of repetition I have noted with letters of reference whereunto my answers noted respectively with the same letters follow now in order a If Eusebius were an Arrian author it is nothing to the purpose what he writes there is no Arrianism nor any thing towards it Never any error was imputed to the Arrians for denying the Authority or the infallibility of the Bishop or Church of Rome Besides what Eusebius says he says out of Irenaeus Neither doth or can the Cardinal deny the story to be true and therefore he goes about by indirect Arts to foil it and cast a blurr upon it Lastly whensoever Eusebius says any thing which the Cardinal thinks for the advantage of his side he cites him and then he is no Arrian or at least he would not take that for an answer to the arguments he draws out of him b That Ruffinus was enemy to the Roman Church is said but not proved neither can it be c Eusebius says the same also of caeteri omnes Episcopi all the other Bishops That they advised Victor to keep those things that belonged to peace and unity and that they sharply reprehended Victor for having done otherwise d This is said but no offer made of any proof of it The Cardinal thinks we must take every thing upon his word They to whom the Tradition was delivered Polycrates and the Asian Bishops knew no such matter nay professed the contrary And who is more likely to know the Truth they which lived within two ages of the fountain of it or the Cardinal who lived sixteen ages after it e How can it make against those that object it seeing it is evident from Irenaeus his Reprehension that he thought Victor and the Roman Church no infallible nor sufficient Judge of what was necessary to be believed and done what not what was universal Tradition what not what was a sufficient ground of Excommunication and what not and consequently that there was no such necessity as is pretended that all other Churches should in matters of faith conform themselves to the Church of Rome f This is to suppose that Excommunication is an Act or Argument or sign of Power and Authority in the party excommunicating over the party excommunicated whereas it is undeniably evident out of the Church-Story that it was often used by Equals upon Equals and by Inferiours upon Superiours if the Equals or Inferiours thought their Equals or Superiours did any thing which deserved it g And what is this but to confess that they thought that a small cause of Excommunication and unsufficient which Victor and his adherents thought great and sufficient And consequently that Victor and his Part declared that to be a matter of faith and of necessity which they thought not so And where was then their conformity h True you have so expounded it but not proved nor offered any proof of your exception This also we must take upon your Authority Irenaeus speaks not one Word of any other power to which he compares or before which he preferrs the power of the Roman-Church And it is evident out of the Council of Chalcedon * Cant. 28. That all the Principality which it had was given it not by God but by the Church in regard it was seated in the Imperial City Whereupon when afterwards Constantinople was the Imperial City they decreed that that Church should have equal Priviledges and dignity and preheminence with the Church of Rome All the Fathers agreed in this Decree saving only the Legats of the Bishop of Rome shewing plainly that they never thought of any Supremacy given the Bishops of Rome by
the state of the Question and the Doctrine of our Church in the words of one who both now is and for ever will worthily be accounted The glory of this Kingdome Bishop Usher's Ans to the Jesuit Cap. of Confession p. 84. Be it known saith he to our adversaries of Rome I add also to our adversaries even of Great Britain who sell their private fancies for the Doctrine of our Church that no kind of Confession either publick or private is disallow'd by our Church that is any way requisite for the due execution of that ancient Power of the Keys which Christ bestowed upon his Church The thing which we reject is that new pick-lock of Sacramental Confession obtruded upon mens consciences as a matter necessary to salvation by the Canons of the late Conventicle of Trent in the 14. Session 11. And this truth being so evident in Scripture and in the writings of the ancient best times of the Primitive Church the safest interpreters of Scripture I make no question but there will not be found one person amongst you who when he shall be in a calm unpartial disposition that will offer to deny For I beseech you give your selves leave unpartially to examine your own thoughts Can any man be so unreasonable as once to imagine with himself that when our Saviour after his Resurrection having received as himself saith all power in heaven and earth having led captivity captive came then to bestow gifts upon men when he I say in so solemn a manner having first breath'd upon his Disciples thereby conveying and insinuating the Holy Ghost into their hearts renewed unto them or rather confirm'd and seal'd unto them that glorious Commission which before he had given to Peter sustaining as it were the person of the whole Church whereby he delegated to them an authority of binding and loosing sins upon earth with a promise that the proceedings in the Court of Heaven should be directed and regulated by theirs on Earth Can any man I say think so unworthily of our Saviour as to esteem these words of his for no better than complement for nothing but Court-holy-water 12. Yet so impudent have our adversaries of Rome been in their dealings with us that they have dared to lay to our charge as if we had so mean a conceit of our Saviour's gift of the Keys taking advantage indeed from the unwary expressions of some particular Divines who out of too forward a zeal against the Church of Rome have bended the staffe too much the contrary way and in stead of taking away that intolerable burden of a Sacramental necessary universal Confession have seem'd to void and frustrate all use and exercise of the Keys 13. Now that I may apply something of that which hath now been spoken to your hearts and consciences Matters standing as you see they do since Christ for your benefit and comfort hath given such authority to his Ministers upon your unfeigned repentance and contrition to absolve and release you from your sins why should I doubt or be unwilling to exhort and perswade you to make your advantage of thi◠gracious promise of our Saviours why should I envy you the participation of so heavenly a Blessing Truly if I should deal thus with you I should prove my self a malicious unchristian-like malignant Preacher I should wickedly and unjustly against my own conscience seek to defraud you of those glorious Blessings which our Saviour hath intended for you 14. Therefore in obedience to his gracious will and as I am warranted and even enjoyned by my holy Mother the Church of England expresly in the Book of Common-Prayer in the Rubrick of Visiting the Sick which Doctrine this Church hath likewise embraced so far I beseech you that by your practise and use you will not suffer that Commission which Christ hath given to his Ministers to be a vain form of words without any sense under them not to be an antiquated exspired Commission of no use nor validity in these daies But whensoever you find your selves charg'd and oppressed especially with such Crimes as they call Peccata vastantia conscientiam such as do lay waste and depopulate the conscience that you would have recourse to your spiritual Physician and freely disclose the nature and malignancy of your disease that he may be able as the cause shall require to proportion a remedy either to search it with corrosives or comfort and temper it with oyl And come not to him only with such a mind as you would go to a learned man experienc'd in the Scriptures as one that can speak comfortable quieting words to you but as to one that hath authority delegated to him from God himself to absolve and acquit you of your sins If you shall do this Assure your souls that the understanding of man is not able to conceive that transport and excess of joy and comfort which shall accrew to that mans heart that is perswaded that he hath been made partaker of this Blessing orderly and legally according as out Saviour Christ hath prescribed 15. You see I have dealt honestly and freely with you it may be more freely than I shall be thanked for But I should have sinn'd against my own soul if I had done otherwise I should have conspir'd with our adversaries of Rome against our own Church in affording them such an advantage to blaspheme our most holy and undefiled Religion It becomes you now though you will not be perswaded to like of the practise of what out of an honest heart I have exhorted you to yet for your own sakes not to make any uncharitable construction of what hath been spoken And here I will acquit you of this unwelcome subject and from Zacchaeus his confession of his Sin I proceed to my second particular namely the nature and hainousness of the crime confess'd which is here call'd a defrauding another by forged cavillation 16. The crime here confessed is called in Greek Sycophancy Partic. II. for the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the understanding of which word in this place we shall not need so much to be beholden to the Classical Greek Authors as to the Septuagint who are the best Interpreters of the Idiom of the Greek language in the Evangelical writings Two Reasons of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are given the one by Ister in Atticis the other by Philomnestus de Smynthiis Rhodiis both recorded by Athenaeus in that treasury of ancient learning his Deipnosophists in the third Book which because they are of no great use for the interpretation of S. Luke I willingly omit 17. Now there are four several words in the Hebrew which the Seventy Interpreters have rendred in the old Testament by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the verbal thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One whereof signifies to abalienate or wrest any thing from another by fraud and sophistry opposed to another word in the same language which imports