Ordination cannot be made appear either by Reason or Authority 60 SECTION V. The Intention is not knowable by Authority whether Divine or Humane 71 SECTION VI. Roman Catholicks have but a bare Opinion to secure them of the point 78 SECTION VII The Ordaining Bishops not certain whether there be true Priests in the Roman Church 88 SECTION VIII Consequences drawn from the Vncertainty of the Roman Priesthood and the feeble condition of that Church issuing from thence shewn 97 SECTION IX The Banks Mr. G. hath cast up to secure the Roman Priesthood taken in general cast down 109 SECTION X. Mr. G's Argument urged by way of Retort examined and enervated 127 IMPRIMATUR Liber cui Titulus Roman Catholicks uncertain whether there be any true Priests c. Guil. Needham RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cantuar. a Sacr. Domest April 20. 1688. THE UNCERTAINTY Of any True Priests or Sacraments In the ROMAN CHURCH Proved against Mr. EDWARD GOODALL The First Part Being chiefly Explicative of Terms SIR WERE You and I called to represent all the accidental Discourse that passed between us when I was last at Your House I fear we should vary in our Reports for when you undertook within an hour after to tell part of it at the Inn you found your self to be contradicted by those that heard us And indeed we penetrated so little into the Merits of any Point we spoke of but how that hapned our Auditors can best say that it would not be worth the while either for us to tell or others to hear the unready fruitless story of it However to make way to our present business I think fit to entertain the Readers for as your Papers have already so mine may meet with more eyes than yours and mine with a little of what passed before the close of our Altercations Which being done I shall proceed to the work which you have since scored out for me And for better Order-sake and that you may with more ease let me know the Faults you find with me I shall divide my Paper into several Sections and and Paragraphs SECT I. Matter of Fact related § 1. WHEN you alledged that our Orders in the Church of England were invalid in the judgment of Roman Catholicks a thing I could not wonder at having cause to believe You had renounced them I straight justified them by those of the Church of Rome unto which our first Reformed Bishops were admitted You said They had indeed been good had our Bishops kept to the old Ordinal but that They forsook it and only gave power to dispense the Word and Sacraments which any Deacon might do and that afterwards perceiving the Nullity that hapned by it They again alter'd the Form and gave power to do the Office of a Priest Thus you § 2. TO this I returned That Words and Phrases might be changed and yet their matter remain the same and that so it was in this case You took the word dispense I told you in too narrow and crampt a sense making it denote only distribution with respect to the Eucharist whereas Our Church made it there signifie Consecration also I added Scripture-Language would secure us in this for S. Paul himself sets forth the entire Office of the Gospel-Ministry by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Dispensation of the Gospel and all Gospel-Ministers those of the highest rank not excepted by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dispensers of the Mysteries of God. Which you could not gain say And hence I concluded that the Alteration spoken of was Verbal only and not Material § 3. This ended to occasion you to take a view of some Fetters which the Roman Church had put upon her own claims I denied that She could be certain according to her own principles that she hath any true Priesthood I thought Sir some of your Councils had put the stamp of Faith upon a Doctrin which would in its just consequences so far blot the Evidences of your Priesthood and of all other your things that depend upon it as to make them not certainly Legible and therefore I used those words according to your own principles And finding you not forward to prevent me by proving the Affirmative I gained your leave to make good the Negative which I attempted to do by the following Argument § 4. All Churches that make Priestly Ordination depend upon a Condition that no man living knows whether it be fulfill'd must be uncertain whether they have any true Priesthood But the Roman Church makes Priestly Ordination depend upon a Condition that no man living knows whether it be fulfill'd Ergo The Roman Church must be uncertain whether she hath any true Priesthood § 5. When I complained of your repeating my Syllogism imperfectly you alledged it was a long one and therefore desired me to write it down for the help of your memory To gratifie you I writ the whole as it stands saving that I only hinted the praedicate of the Minor as sufficient for your help After perusal of it you denied the Minor which I proved thus § 6. The Intention of the Bishop is a Condition which no man living knows whether it be fulfill'd or no. But the Church of Rome requires the Intention of the Bishop to Ordination Ergo The Church of Rome requires a Condition to Ordination which no man living knows whether it be fulfilled or no. § 7. Now in compliance with the words of the former Syllogism not adverted to through hast when I form'd the Second I shall present the Matter of this latter thus The Intention of the Bishop is a Condition that no man living knows whether it be fulfill'd But the Roman Church makes Ordination depend upon the Intention of the Bishop Ergo The Roman Church makes Ordination depend upon a Condition that no man living knows whether it be fulfill'd I have not Sir made this digression for your sake who did not before by word nor since by writing find the least fault with my barely verbal Alteration I did it only out of a respect to Decorum But I must go on with it a little for the sake of the less discerning Reader The minor Propositions wherein the variation lies I will place together for the more easie comparison of them The Church of Rome requires the Intention of the Bishop to Ordination The Roman Church makes Ordination depend upon the Intention of the Bishop Upon the first view of them thus placed it appears that they are equivalent Propositions giving the very same sense and so are both alike true or both alike false For by the word requires I mean requires as necessary This I have added lest any should be apt to conclude They see another person because they see another dress But to return from this unnecessary Digression You denyed the Major of my second Syllogism alledging that it was not universally true forasmuch as the Ordaining Bishops knew whether they intended to Ordain or no. §
just dependance on it I shall evince that it can be known neither of these ways and shall use more and freer words to do it than a rigorous frame of Argumentation would admit because Men not bred to the strict formality of discourse may that way judge more naturally of what is offered and might otherwise be at some loss § 3. I shall in passing describe Seeing of a thing in it self or intuitive Knowledge to be That which is formed by the proper Idea or Similitude of the Thing known and when the Understanding is carried immediately to the Object without the help of Discourse It may be illustrated by our Experience of Sensitive intuition ex gr We immediately know those proper Objects of Sight that are set before our eyes and not by any run of our thoughts from one thing to another in order to get the Knowledge of them By this we may measure the Nature of intuitive Intellection Now to the Point § 4. 1. The Intention of one Man cannot be known to another in it self or by intuitive Intellection For though God hath given us Faculties to assure us immediately of the proper Objects of our Senses and of those Verities usually called First Principles or Common Notions by which we measure the knowledge of other things yet he hath not thought fit to give us any immediately to inspect the secrets of another's heart Now the Intention of the Bishop whereof we treat is most properly one of those Secrets Liberty and Freedom is Essential to the Will which is the onely power capable of exerting that Act and therefore though it be furnished with all prae-requisites to its Acting yet it may intend or it may not and how can any man pretend to know whether it do or not Humane Understanding cannot penetrate the recesses of that free immaterial power nor break open that best secured of all created Closets § 5. So far are the particular mere Acts of the Will from being pervious to the eye of man that according to the most and greatest Authors the Angels themselves cannot at least this way know them Aquinas Cajetan Suarez Valentia Vasquez Hurtad and many more determine the Thing as I have said And indeed the case is so clear that I need but touch upon the words of one or two of them The Question in Aquinas is * Vtrum Angeli cognoscunt cogitationes cordium Whether the Angels know the thoughts of the heart And he resolves it in the Negative upon this ground | Ex sola voluntate dependet quòd aliquis actu aliqua consideret Pars 1. Quaest 57. Art. 4. It wholly depends upon the Will that any one actually considers any thing Because the Will is the only power in Man that is formally free and this power sets the understanding on work he concludes that the particular acts of the understanding cannot immediately be known by the Angels themselves If then these cannot be known for the Reason alledged much less can the mere Acts of the Will which is intrinsecally and formally free Cardinal Cajetan words it thus * Dicimus quod Cogitatio co quod volita seu libera est naturaliter occulta in locum We say that the Thought because it is voluntary or free is therefore naturally secret or hidden Suitably to these two Authors doth Hurtad offer the same Doctrine by way of remark | Adverte secretum cordis esse solos actus voluntatis Metaph. Disp 12. Sect. 4. §. 30. Mark saith he that only the Acts of the Will are the Secrets of the Heart Now if the Will be sealed up from the view of Angels much more is it from that of Men. Were it needful Saint Paul's Question would put this Point out of doubt 1 Cor. 2.11 What Man knoweth the things of a Man save the Spirit of Man which is in him § 6. It will farther appear that these Secrets fall not within the immediate cognizance of Man if I shew in a few words that they are onely open to the eye of God Who at once knows all things past present and to come by a pure and immutable Act that is by his very Essence The Authors newly named having denied that view to Created Beings go on to appropriate it to God. I will only mention Aquinas's Words which are short and plain * Ea quae ex voluntate sola dependent vel quae in voluntate sola sunt soli Deo sunt nota Loco citato Those things which depend on the Will onely or which are in the Will onely are known to God alone But a far greater Authority viz. the Scripture leaves no doubt for this asserting in many places that God reserves the Knowledge of those Secrets to himself as an incommunicable Prerogative I need refer but to a few Jer. 179 10. I the Lord search the Heart I try the Reins 1 Chron. 29.17 1 Sam. 16.7 Psal 7.9 Acts 1.24 c. The Sum of what hath appeared here is That the Intention of the Ordaining Bishop is not Knowable immediately or in it self by any created intellect Nor can it be seen in its Cause by reason of that Dominion a Free Agent hath over its own Acts which it may or may not exert when it pleases If it be askt me Why God hath given any Faculty to any of his Creatures which as to its particular tendencies is impenetrable to the sharpest eye of Man or Angel I might take up with resolving it solely into the Divine pleasure However it seems congruous to Reason it should be so Which thing I shall set forth in the Words of Balthazar Tellez * Ordo Naturalis praestantiaque intellectualium Crcaturarum postulabant ne Secreta suorum cordium intuitive al is manifestarcntur praeterquam Dco qui solùm ut testatur Scriptura renum testis est cordis Scrutator vcrus In Logic Disput 14. Sect. 1. and so shut up this particular Natural Order saith he and the Excellency of intellectual Creatures did require that the Secrets of their Hearts should not be intuitively manifested to any besides God who alone as the Scripture attests is the Witness of the Reins and the true searcher of the Heart 2. As I have shewn that the Bishop's Intention cannot be known in it self by any besides himself so Sir I now come to shew that it cannot be known by any effects § 7. The Reason is It is so merely and intirely an Act of the Will that it is the Act of no other power and consequently doth not of it self produce any Term or Effect without the Will for which reason such Acts are called immanent both by Philosophers and School Divines But it would be needless here to cite them The Term or Effect then being shut up in the Will it is no more discoverable than the Act it self which you without ground suppose to be manifested by it and so you have nothing to argue from in that case as from a
and then our Bishop hath but an empty Name And the fourth comes in too he knows not what his Consecrator Intended So then our Bishop and his Consecrator with respect to their Knowledge whether they ordain Priests are necessarily liable to Six Contingencies any of which falling out will Un bishop him and therefore make void his Ordinations Think then how vastly these Contingences will multiply from the Apostles times to ours and that our present Bishop is so far chargeable with any one of the said Omissions of Intention that he hath lost his Power and Office if any such hath happen'd in a direct descent According to the Suggestions of common Reason your Mass-books and other Books contain Suppositions That there may be defect of due Intention And Priesthood comes down no other way but by a claim of Succession Intention is necessary to hold the links together and is concerned in the manifold particulars specified and if any of the links be broken all falls to pieces No Bishop or Priest afterwards in that particular Line to the worlds end Now I refer it to every inquisitive man whether the ground be not too slippery for Certainty to stand on amidst the manifold variety of those contingencies ' forementioned Though I allowed you for Argument sake the judgment of Charity for all your Bishops of this time yet supposing they mean never so honestly in their Acts it appears now That is not sufficient to decide the question for their Intention may be void and ineffectual though not through want of Will yet for want of Power Their Baptizers or Ordainers may have neglected them and These upon this score are made useless to others The fault may have been committed several Ages ago which yet the poor Gentlemen can neither know nor remedy What room then is there for certainty in this thick contexture of hazards We shall find that even the dark judgment of Charity will run very low if we follow the Ordainers up into some distant Ages wherein Ignorance and Vice strove as it were for mastery in the Roman Church What say you of the 9th and 10th Ages and the four next following wherein Learning was generally fallen asleep in the Western Europe and wickedness as much awake in it If Historians of those times may be credited as they must or farewel Authority great breaches might very probably be made in the Sucession of Bishops in many Sees for such as are blind and careless of their own Souls will hardly be sure to look out sharp and be regardful of the Salvation of others in their Administrations It ought to be observed With what ease and speed Nullities may be diffused and multiplied Let us put a fair case Suppose a Bishop within whose Diocese the greatest University of a Nation is should out of unbelief contempt of Religion supine carelesness or from any other cause omit to Intend as is required in his frequent Ordinations of the Collegians it would follow that the Bishops taken out of these Priests though never so good men and careful to Intend as they ought must yet act ineffectually and fill many places with empty names instead of power The more such so much the worse and the longer they live the bigger is the mischief And who can secure us against this Supposition Now considering that Nullities may have at any time thus spread I speak still with a Relation to your doctrine and that the farther they go they grow far more numerous what can a thoughtful man fin amidst all this for the certainty of the Roman Priesthood If it be said No man knows on the other hand that they fail to Intend I answer It is not enough to Certainty not to know that they fail we are to know that they fail not Knowledge stands not in Negatives it is Positives that stay the Understanding Give a positive Reason why they must hit the mark and I shall be sure they cannot miss it But none we have found can do this The result is Not one of the Roman Church except the Ordaining Bishops can know the Intention of the Ordainers They know it not either in it self or in its Cause or by any Effects They are not assured of it either by Divine Revelation or by sufficient Humane Authority And therefore they have no true certainty of their Priesthood which depends upon it They have not to use your own terms either a Metaphysical or Mathematical or yet a Moral certainty of it They have not to speak my own language either Divine or Theological or yet Moral certainty that any one of all the reputed Clergy of the Roman Church is a true Priest For the Ordaining Bishops They may indeed know whether themselves Intend but know not whether there be any force or virtue in their Intention for making Priests for want of knowing the Intention of the whole Succession of their Baptizers Ordainers and Consecrators So that not one Soul in the Church of Rome hath any true certainty of the matter You see I have laid the weight of what hath been said on these two grounds 1. That a Mental interior Intention is required to the very Being of your Sacraments which hath been shewn from your own Authors 2. That Holy Orders is a Sacrament and so as much depends upon the Intention as any other of them This I have indeed taken all along for granted but shall now prove it from the Council of Trent * Dubitare nemo potest Ordinem esse vere proprie unum ex septem Sanctae Ecclesiae Sacra mentis Sess 23. cap. 7. None ought to doubt that Order is truely and properly one of the seven Sacraments of the Holy Church These Two I say are your own Principles and from them I have concluded your Uncertainty of your Priesthood considered in particular and so have made good my word It now remains that in the next Section I draw from hence such Consequences or Consectaries as will set the feeble estate of the Roman Church in so full a Light that all that wink not must needs see it SECT VIII Consequences drawn from the Vncertainty of the Roman Priesthood and the feeble condition of that Church issuing from thence shewn § 1. IF no Roman Catholick can be certain that there is any one true Priest in particular in their Church This necessarily follows in the general That each of them must be uncertain whether he have the benefit of any one Sacrament which depends upon the Priestly character Now you teach that all your Sacraments do so depend except Baptism and Matrimony So then five of the seven are unavoidably uncertain to each of you by immediate inference from the Uncertainty of your Priesthood § 2. Moreover You are uncertain upon the same ground viz. your ignorance of the Minister's Intention of having the two other whether administred by Priests who are the ordinary Ministers of them or by others whom necessity makes such in the Priests
several ages been promoted to the dignity of Bishops who have been men of very little Learning and much laziness and so may have faln short of Knowing either That your Church requires the said Intention at all or at least under the said Necessity and no wonder then if they may have omitted it But here is yet no malice nor devils in the case for I may suppose if such had known it they would have roused up themselves to the performance of their duty § 25. For Supine Negligence It is too frequently seen that many grosly slight and neglect those duties which yet they know are to be done for the good of others without harbouring any malicious design against them § 26. It is enough to hint to the Reader that the Intention may fail through occasional Cares or Fears or Crosses or deep Studies spoken of before which either put the Thoughts often to long stands or pauses or else hurry them away from duty else whiter Many men are enabled by sad experience to conceive this I have said to be very probable § 27. Besides Natural Inadvertence incident to all men There is in many a very dull unactive temper of Mind arising either from Natural Constitution or sometimes from contracted Bodily distempers whereby the thoughts are many times hindred from rising higher than to what is sensibly to be done And it cannot be denied that it is morally possible that such Impersections may be incident to your Bishops as well as other men and that their due Intending may be obstructed by them § 28. Now Sir I must put you in mind you have not made any tolerable Enumeration of the Causes of the defect of Intention and while you have only put a Bar against an Universal Conspiracy from malice you give room for the defect from all other Causes which you have no way provided against and so you are stark lame in your defence If you are well acquainted with Roman Catholick writers I wonder you should take up so short since they assign the same Causes I have done Suarez doth in one place add to Malice other two Causes of this among other things viz. Culpable ignorance and Natural Inadvertence which excuseth from sin * Sive id fecerit ex malitia sive ex ignorantia culpabili sive ex naturali inadvertentia quae excusat peccatum Tom. 4. disp 32. And your Authors in their applying Remedies against this Evil seem to have their eyes chiefly fixed upon other Causes than Malice To shew this and the defectibleness of the Intention I shall produce only-one Testimony It is a passage in the famous Mass-book ad Vsum Sarum * Cautclie Missae If any Priest in the time of Consecration be distracted from Actual Intention and devotion Siquis tempore Consecrationis ab actuali intentions devotione distractus fuerit nihilominus consecrat dummodo intentio habitualis in eo remanscrit Si autem per summam distractionem habitualis intentio cum actuali tollcretur videtur quod deberet verba consecrationis cum actuali intentione resumere he nevertheless consecrates provided the Habitual Intention remain in him But if through very great distraction his Habitual Intention be taken away as well as the Actual it seems that he ought to resume the Words of Consecration say them over again with Actual Intention Here note that the words Habitual and Virtual have the very same signification as to our case and that Aquinas with the other elder Schoolmen described this Intention by the word Habitual till Scotus his time who substituted the word Virtual as more proper to express the said Notion and is followed ever since by the writers of the Roman Church § 29. Now I go on to say 1. This passage of the Mass-book is an express acknowledgment that Priests when they do the Exterior work of Consecration may fail to Intend both Actually and Virtually Which upon the same ground is equally applicable to Bishops with respect to Ordination 2. It prescribes this Remedy against the said defect that the Offending Priest go to the work again and do it better I wish the advice had power to necessitate those it is addressed to to follow it But that alas cannot be hoped for § 30. 3. This advice is not offered to such as withdraw their Intention through personal malice or contempt of Religion which is the thing I here directly aimed to shew but to such as fail by inadvertence or dispersion of thoughts And such are omitted in this address perhaps for this Reason That such cannot be well lookt upon as capable in any proximate degree of the Advice given whereas some at least of those other careless blundering yet charitable Priests may 4. I observe once again from the scope of the cited passage against a certain Person I mentioned before That the distraction or disturbance here mentioned as the Cause of the failure of the Intention cannot be meant of the distemper of Frenzy or Madness For 1. The Advice is offered to such as perceive their own defect which Mad men as such cannot do 2. Wise men and such I hope the Compilers of the Sarum-Missal will be held to be advise that Physick be given to Mad-men for the Recovery of their Reason rather than directions to act wisely by which supposeth them already in the state of it If a Mad-man who had gained a Habit of Baptizing before his distemper should rush into a House and wash an Infant newly born with the Invocation of the most Blessed Trinity no wise Man would desire him to do it again with due heed and Actual Intention his supposed condition forbidding him either to hit the Intention at first or to amend it in the repeated Action This advice then given must be concluded to be directed to persons capable of receiving it which therefore cannot be frantick Priests Hereby is confounded the affirmation of the Priest I point at viz. That none but madmen could fail to intend aright § 31. You fee Sir several purposes are served by this Citation besides that I directly brought it for but all of them tend to the illustration of the Subject treated of I shall only add this at parting with it That it is not to be lookt upon as a single Testimony only but instead of a thousand such as implying the judgment of all those Clergymen who used and approved that renowned Missal And what a considerable part of our Nation that Book obtained in before that of Pope Pius the V. was framed for the general Uniformity of your Worship I leave you to think of and consequently what a vast Company of your Clergy who sure were the best Judges in this case did implicitely and by true Interpretation acknowledge that there may be a defect of the Intention both Actual and Virtual which may proceed from other Causes than that of Malice which yet is the only thing alledged by you to that purpose § 32.
Next as an enforcement why there could be no malicious conspiracy of your Prelates you add this They could not say you propose any advantage to themselves by it but the clean contrary But you forget the Genius of Malice to which doing mischief is an agreeable thing without any allurements of Worldly profits or the like Remember the sad Instance of Satan's murdering our first Parents This I say not as believing any such conspiracy nor is the fancying such a thing at all needful to my business having shewed that what Malice may do in some the same may other Causes effect in others as to the spoiling of the Intention I say it only to shew that to be weakness which you bring to strengthen your Ground § 33. There will need no conspiracy of any sort to render you uncertain of the validity of your Ordainer's Intention if you remember what I said before after the dispatch of my first task viz. That all the defects of Intention in your Ordaining Bishops from the Apostles death hitherto are chargeable upon and utterly disable all that are reputed to derive power from them and that the longer the Line is spun out by time there will be more Nullities in the Intention both of Bishops and Priests § 34. To rivet this I ask What if the Catholick Church for many Ages after Christ did not require this Intention as necessAry to the Sacraments If so the grand Motive to vigilance and heedfulness of Intending was wanting and so it is more probable defects might then arise which might baffle and enervate the greatest care and circumspection of succeeding Bishops I cannot find that it was uninterruptedly so required but if you can I intreat you to shew it The Sum hereof is 1. You have attempted to arm your self only against one of the many Causes of defect of Intention letting in the rest like a Flood upon you 2. You have falsly supposed that the effectual valid Intention cannot have failed in your Church without an Universal Conspiracy of the Bishops of one Age Whereas the defect may have been let in by degrees and so may have overspread your Church for any thing you have said to the contrary on this Head. SECT X. Mr. G.'s Argument urged by way of Retort examined and enervated NOW you come to instance in and frame an Argument upon a desperate Subject which you take to be exactly parallel to mine and say That is vicious and therefore Mine must be so And to make the clearer way to your Syllogistick Forms you pretend to lay down two Principles of our Church as the Ground-work of them Of the First you express your self thus You take it for a Principle amongst you that there is a certain Number of those that are truly Elected to Salvation in your Communion You mean in the Church of England § 1. For Reply Holding you to be well seen in the Doctrine of our Church I would desire you to instruct me where I may find that Principle I had thought our Church had dealt with such Things only in a general way with a respect to the Universal Church and left particular Churches to try their Election by making sure their Calling Of our Articles the 17th only concerneth this point Which so far as I am concerned to produce it runs thus Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby He hath constantly decreed by his Counsel secret to us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of Mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting Salvation as Vessels made to honour And of the Promises relative unto this the same Article saith Furthermore we must receive God's promises in such wise as they be generally set forth in holy Scripture You see how indefinitely our Church speaks in this Matter Those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of Mankind And We must receive God's promises as they be generally set forth in holy Scripture 'T is our Principle you see That some in God's Church belong to the Election of Grace and that God will make good his Promises by Saving them But we descend no lower nor need we as thinking it sufficient for any particular Church to be able to say We have all necessary Doctrine both Dogmatical and Moral and may be Saved if we truly Believe and Sincerely obey it to both which God in his mercy call us We venture not to say God hath Elected and promised to Save those in Italy or these in England But we say Whosoever truly Repents and Believes the Gospel shall be Saved whether in Italy or England or any other place We have Divine Warranty for this But we have none to give a Local or Personal description of those that are Elected and shall through Grace be Saved § 2. Nevertheless we have as great ground of Hopes judging of the Tree by the Fruits that many of the Members of this Church are of the Number of the Elect and so will be saved as you can have that the Members of the Italian or Spanish or French Church are such But we do not cannot I say undertake Unerrably to determine the Estates of particular Men or Men of particular places When we bury Men of the most pious and exemplary conversations you may remember we express our strong Hopes onely but not perfect assurance of their Bliss Secret things belong to God. § 3. However this will not alter the Nature of our proceeding because you afterwards say The Argument may be thus applied to any Christian Church in the World or to all of them put together The Universal Church exists in all of them put together and since you make the Case of That and particular Churches all One as to this Matter I have the Liberty to make the Argument to respect all of them put together or the Universal Church You mention a Second Principle in this manner And you will allow this also as a Principle That these Elect must have true Saving Grace in their Hearts as a Condition necessary to their Salvation This Sir I acknowledge to be one of the Principles of our Church and of all other Christian Churches in the World. Then you proceed from hence to add this Which saving grace because you do not know to be in any particular man therefore you cannot be certain that He is one of those that is Elected to Salvation Which is unquestionably true Now I am to examine your Forms of Argumentation pretended to be parallel to those I urged against you Your first is thus That Church which makes Salvation depend upon a Condition which no Man living knows whether it be fulfill'd in order to Salvation must be Vncertain whether they have any who shall be saved in their Communion But the English Church doth so Ergo The English Church is Vncertain whether they have any which shall be saved in their Communion § 4. Now because you say The Argument may be