by knowledge an apprehension or beliefe But if you take the word properly and exactly it is both false for faith is not knowledge no more then three is foure but eminently contained in it so that he that knowes believes and something more but he that believes many times doe not know nay if he doth barely and meerely believe he doth never know and besides it is retracted by your selfe presently where you require That the object of faith must be both naturally and supernaturally unknown And againe in the next page where you say Faith differs from science in regard of the objects obscurity For that science and knowledge properly taken are Synonimous termes and that a knowledge of a thing absolutely unknown is a plain implicancy I think are things so plain that you will not require any proofe of them 3 But then whereas you adde that if such a knowledge were no more then probable it could not be able sufficiently to over beare our will and encounter with humane probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and bloud and therefore conclude that it was farther necessary that this supernaturall knowledge should be most certain and infallible To this I answere that I doe heartily acknowledge and believe the Articles of our faith be in themselves Truths as certain and infallible as the very common Principles of Geometry and Metaphysicks But that there is required of us a knowledge of them and an adherence to them as certain as that of sense or science that such a certainty is required of us under pain of damnation so that no man can hope to be in the state of Salvation but he that findes in himselfe such a degree of faith such a strength of adherence This I have already demonstrated to be a great errour and of dangerous and pernitious consequence And because I am more and more confirm'd in my perswasion that the truth which I there delivered is of great and singular use I will here confirme it with more reasons And to satisfy you that this is no singularity of my own my Margent presents you with a Protestant Divine of great authority and no way singular in his opinions who hath long since preached and justified the same doctrine 4 I say that every Text of Scripture which makes mention of any that were weake or of any that were strong in faith of any that were of litle or any that were of great faith of any that abounded or any that were rich in faith of encreasing growing rooting grounding establishing confirming in faith Every such Text is a demonstrative refutation of this vain fancy proving that faith even true and saving faith is not a thing consisting in such an indivisible point of perfection as you make it but capable of augmentation and diminution Every Praier you make to God to encrease your faith or if you conceive such a prayer derogatory from the perfection of your faith The Apostles praying to Christ to encrease their faith is a convincing argument of the same conclusion Moreover if this doctrine of yours were true then seeing not any the least doubting can consist with a most infallible certainty it will follow that every least doubting in any matter of faith though resisted and involuntary is a damnable sinne absolutely destructive so long as it lasts of all true and saving faith which you are so farre from granting that you make it no sinne at all but only an occasion of merit and if you should esteeme it a sinne then must you acknowledge contrary to your owne Principles that there are Actuall sinnes meerely involuntary The same is furthermore invincibly confirmed by every deliberate sinne that any Christian commits by any progresse in Charity that he makes For seeing as S. Iohn assures us our faith is the victory which overcomes the world certainly if the faith of all true Believers were perfect and if true faith be capable of no imperfection if all faith be a knowledge most certain and infallible all faith must be perfect for the most imperfect that is according to your doctrine if it be true must be most certain and sure the most perfect that is cannot be more then most certain then certainly their victory over the World and therefore over the flesh and therefore over sinne must of necessity be perfect and so it should be impossible for any true believer to commit any deliberate sinne and therefore he that commits any sinne must not think himselfe a true believer Besides seeing faith worketh by Charity and Charity is the effect of faith certainly if the cause were perfect the effect would be perfect and consequently as you make no degrees in faith so there would be none in charity and so no man could possibly make any progresse in it but all true believers should be equally in Charity as in faith you make them equall from thence it would follow unavoidably that whosoever findes in himselfe any true faith must presently perswade himselfe that he is perfect in Charity and whosoever on the other side discovers in his charity any imperfection must not believe that he hath any true faith These you see are strange and portentous consequences and yet the deduction of them from your doctrine is cleere and apparent which shewes this doctrine of yours which you would fain have true that there might be some necessity of your Churches infallibility to be indeed plainly repugnant not only to Truth but even to all Religion and Piety fit for nothing but to make men negligent of making any progresse in faith or Charity And therefore I must entreat and adjure you either to discover unto me which I take God to witnesse I cannot perceive some fallacy in my reasons against it or never hereafter to open your mouth in defence of it 5 As for that one single reason which you produce to confirm it it will appeare upon examination to be resolved finally into a groundlesse Assertion of your own contrary to all Truth and experience and that is That no degree of faith lesse then a most certaine and infallible knowledge can bee able sufficiently to overbeare our will and encovnter with humane probabilities being backt with the strength of Flesh and Blood For who sees not that many millions in the world forgoe many times their present ease and pleasure undergoe great and toylsome labours encounter great difficulties adventure vpon great dangers and all this not upon any certain expectation but upon a probable hope of some future gain and commodity and that not infinite and eternall but finite and temporall Who sees not that many men abstain from many things they exceedingly desire not upon any certain assurance but a probable feare of danger that may come after What man ever was there so madly in loue with a present penny but that hee would willingly spend it upon any litle hope that by doing so hee might gain an hundred thousand pound And I would fain know
you in some and with you against Luther in others And I also demand upon what infallible ground you hold your Canon agree neither with us nor Luther For sure your differing from us both is of it selfe no more apparently reasonable then our agreeing with you in part and in part with Luther If you say your Churches infallibility is your ground I demand againe some infallible ground both for the Churches infallibility and for this that Yours is the Church and shall never cease multiplying demands upon demands untill you settle me upon a Rock I mean giue such an Answer whose Truth is so evident that it needs no further evidence If you say This is Vniversall Tradition I reply your Churches infallibility is not built upon it and that the Canon of Scripture as we receiue it is For wee doe not professe our selues so absolutely and and undoubtedly certain neither doe we urge others to be so of those Books which haue been doubted as of those that never haue 46 The Conclusion of your Tenth § is That the Divinity of a writing cannot be known from it selfe alone but by some extrinsecall authority Which you need not proue for no wise man denies it But then this authority is that of Vniversall Tradition not of your Church For to me it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Gospell of Saint Mathew is the word of God as that all which your Church saies is true 47 That Believers of the Scripture by considering the divine matter the excellent precepts the glorious promises contained in it may be confirmed in their faith of the Scriptures divine Authority that among other inducements and inforcements hereunto internall arguments haue their place and force certainly no man of understanding can deny For my part I professe if the doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the fountain of goodnesse as the Miracles by which it was confirm'd were great I should want one main pillar of my faith and for want of it I feare should be much stagger'd in it Now this and nothing else did the Doctor mean in saying The Belieuer sees by that glorious beam of divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internall Arguments that the Scripture is of Divine Authority By this saith he he sees it that is hee is moved to and strengthned in his beliefe of it and by this partly not wholly by this not alone but with the concurrence of other Arguments He that will quarrell with him for saying so must finde fault with the Master of the Sentences and all his Schollers for they all say the same The rest of this Paragraph I am as willing it should be true◠as you are to haue it and so let it passe as a discourse wherein we are wholy unconcern'd You might haue met with an Answerer that would not haue suffred you to haue said so much Truth together but to me it is sufficient that it is nothing to the purpose 48 In the next Division out of your liberality you will suppose that Scripture like to a corporall light is by it selfe alone able to determine and moue our understanding to assent yet notwithstanding this supposall Faith still you say must goe before Scripture because as the light is visible only to those that haue eyes so the Scripture onely to those that haue the Eye of Faith But to my understanding if Scripture doe moue and determine our Vnderstanding to assent then the Scripture and its moving must be before this assent as the cause must bee before its own effect now this very assent is nothing else but Faith and Faith nothing else then the Vnderstanding's assent And therefore upon this supposall Faith doth and must originally proceed from Scripture as the effect from its proper cause and the influence and efficacy of Scripture is to be presuppos'd before the assent of faith unto which it moues and determines and consequently if this supposition of yours were true there should need no other meanes precedent to Scripture to beget Faith Scripture it selfe being able as here you suppose to determine and moue the understanding to assent that is to belieue them and the Verities contained in them Neither is this to say that the eyes with which we see are made by the light by which we see For you are mistaken much if you conceiue that in this comparison Faith answers to the Eye But if you will not pervert it the Analogie must stand thus◠Scripture must answer to light The eye of the soule that is the Vnderstanding or the faculty of assenting to the bodily eye And lastly assenting or believing to the act of seeing As therefore the light determining the Eye to see though it presupposes the Eye which it determines as every Action doth the object on which it is imployed yet it selfe is presuppos'd and antecedent to the act of seeing as the cause is alwaies to its effect So if you will suppose that Scripture like light moues the understanding to assent The Vnderstanding that 's the eye and object on which it works must bee before this influence upon it But the Assent that is the beliefe whereto the Scripture moues and the understanding is mov'd which answers to the act of seeing must come after For if it did assent already to what purpose should the Scripture doe that which was done before Nay indeed how were it possible it should be so any more then a Father can beget a Sonne that he hath already Or an Architect build an house that is built already Or then this very world can bee made againe before it be unmade Transubstantiation indeed is fruitfull of such Monsters But they that haue not sworne themselues to the defence of Errour will easily perceiue that I am factum facere and Factum infectum facere are equally impossible But I digresse 49 The close of this Paragraph is a fit cover for such a dish There you tell us That if there must be some other meanes precedent to Scripture to beget faith this can be no other then the Church By the Church we know you doe and must understand the Roman Church so that in effect you say no man can haue faith but he must bee mou'd to it by your Churches Authority And that is to say that the King and all other Protestants to whom you write though they verily think they are Christians belieue the Gospell because they assent to the truth of it and would willingly dye for it yet indeed are Infidels and belieue nothing The Scripture tells us The heart of man knoweth no man but the spirit of man which is in him And who are you to take upon you to make us belieue that we doe not belieue what we know we doe But if I may think verily that I belieue the Scripture and yet not belieue it how know you that you belieue the Roman Church I am as verily and as
THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS A SAFE VVAY TO SALVATION OR AN ANSVVER TO A BOOKE ENTITLED MERCY AND TRVTH Or Charity maintain'd by Catholiques Which pretends to prove the Contrary By WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the Vniversity of OXFORD Isaac Casaubon in Epist. ad Card. Perron Regis IACOBI nomine scriptâ Rex arbitratur rerum absolutè necessariarum ad salutem non magnum esse numerum Quare existimat ejus Majestâ—s nullam ad ineundam concordiam breviorem viam fore quà m si diligentèr sepatentur necessaria à non necessariis ut de necessariis conveniat omnis opera insumatur in non necessariis libertati Christianae locus detur Simpliciâ—er necessaria Rex appellat quae vel expresse verbum Dei praecipit credenda faciendave vel ex verbo Dei necessariâ consequentiâ vetus Ecclesia elicuit Si ad decidendas hodiernas Controversias haec distinctio adhiberetur jus divinum à positivo sen Ecclesiastico candidè separaretur non videtur de iius quae sunt absolutè necessaria inter pios moderatos viros longa aut acris contentio futura Nam paucailla sunt ut modò dicebamus fere ex aequo omnibus probantur qui se Christianos dici postulant Atque istam distinctionem Sereniss Rex tanti putat esse momenti ad minuendas Controversias quae hodie Ecclesiam Dei tantopere exercent ut omnium pacis studiosorum judicet officium esse diligentissimè hanc explicare docere urgere OXFORD Printed by LEONARD LICHFIELD and are to be sold by Iohn Clarke under St Peters Church in Corn-hill Anno Salutis M.DC.XXXVIII TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE CHARLES By the Grace of God KING of great Britaine France Ireland Defendor of the Faith c. May it please your most excellent Majesty I Present with all humility to Your most sacred hands a Defence of that Cause which is ought to be infinitely dearer to you then all the world Not doubting but upon this Dedication I shall be censur'd for a double boldnesse both for undertaking so great a Work so far beyond my weak abilities and againe for presenting it to such a Parton whose judgement I ought to fear more then any Adversary But for the first it is a satisfaction to my selfe and may be to others that I was not drawn to it out of any vain opinion of my selfe whose personall defects are the only thing which I presume to know but undertook it in obedience to Him who said Tu conversus confirma fratres not to S. Peter only but to all men being encouraged also to it by the goodnesse of the Cause which is able to make a weak man strong To the belief hereof I was not led partially or by chance as many are by the preiudice and prepossession of their Country Education and such like inducements which if they lead to truth in one place perhaps lead to error in a hundred but having with the greatest equality and indifferency made enquiry and search into the grounds on both Sides I was willing to impart to others that satisfaction which was given to my selfe For my inscribing to it your Maiesties sacred Name I should labour much in my excuse of it from high presumption had it not some appearance of Title to your Maiesties Patronage protection as being a Defence of that Book which by special order from your Maty was written some years since chiefly for the generall good but peradventure not without some aime at the recovery of One of your meanest Subiects from a dangerous deviation so due unto your Maty as the fruit of your own High humility and most Royall Charity Besides it is in a manner nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction upon that blessed Doctrine where With I have adorn'd arm'd the Frontispice of my Book which was so earnestly recommended by your Royall Father of happy memory to all the lovers of Truth Peace that is to all that were like himselfe as the only hopefull meanes of healing the breaches of Christendome whereof the Enemy of soules makes such pestilent advantage The lustre of this blessed Doctrine I have here endeavoured to uncloud and unveile and to free it from those mists and fumes which have been rais'd to obscure it by that Order which envenomes even poison it selfe and makes the Roman Religion much more malignant and trubulent then otherwise it would be whose very Rule and Doctrine obliges them to make all men as much as lies in them subjects unto Kings and servants unto Christ no farther then it shall please the Pope So that whether Your Maiesty be considered either as a Pious Sonne towards your Royall Father K. IAMES or as a tender hearted compassionate Sonne towards your distressed Mother the Catholique Church or as a King of your Subiects or as a Servant unto Christ this worke to which I can give no other commendation but that it was intended to doe you service in all these capacities may pretend not unreasonably to your Gracious acceptance Lastly being a defence of that whole Church and Religion you professe it could not be so proper to any Patron as to the great Defendor of it which stile your Maiesty hath ever so exactly made good both in securing it from all dangers and in vindicating it by the well ordering and rectifying this Church from all the foule as persions both of Domestick Forraine enemies of which they can have no ground but their own malice and want of Charity But it is an argument of a despairing lost cause to support it selfe with these impetuous out-cries and clamors the faint refuges of those that want better arguments like that Stoick in Lucian that cried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O damn'd villaine when he could say nothing else Neither is it credible the wiser sort of them should believe this their own horrid assertion That a God of goodnesse should damne to eternall torments those that love him and love truth for errors which they fall into through humane frailty But this they must say otherwise their only great argument from their daÌ„ning us our not being so peremptory in damning them because we hope unaffected Ignorance may excuse theÌ„ would be lost therefore they are engag'd to act on this Tragicall part only to fright the simple and ignorant as we doe litle children by telling them that bites which we would not have them meddle with And truely that herein they doe but act a part and know themselves to doe so and deale with us here as they doe with the King of Spain at Rome whom they accurse and Excommunicate for fashion sake on Maundy-Thursday for detaining part of S. Peters Patrimony and absolve him without satisfaction on Good-Friday methinkes their faltring and inconstancy herein makes it very apparent For though for the most part they speak nothing but thunder and lightning to us damne us all without
have been accomplished in and by the Catholicke Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it 6 Because the doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the doctrine of Protestants contrary to the doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the confession of Protestants themselves I meane those fathers who lived within the compasse of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves doe very frequently and very confidently appeale 7 Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to preach Protestant Doctrine 8 Because Luther to preach against the Masse which containes the most materiall points now in controversy was perswaded by reasons suggested to him by the Divell himselfe disputing with him So himselfe professeth in his Book de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himselfe to follow the Divell 9 Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the begining maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controversy writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty 10 Because by denying all humane authority either of Pope or Councells or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible meanes of suppressing Heresy or restoring unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow brieâ—ly and in order 43 To the first God hath neither decreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwaies visibly prfessed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed nor foretold that there shall be alwaies a visible company of men free from all error in it selfe damnable Neither is it alwaies of necessity Schismaticall to separate from the externall communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church suppos'd to want nothing necessary require me to professe against my conscience that I believe some error though never so small and innocent which I doe not believe and will not allow me her communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismaticall and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records farre more creditable then these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirm'd and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with supernaturall and divine Miracles which for number and glory outshine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sunne doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this book by the confession of all sides confirm'd by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after ages great signes and wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false doctrine and that I am not to believe any doctrine which seemes to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angell from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true doctrine should in all ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signes of false doctrine then much to regard them as certain arguments of the truth Besides setting aside the Bible the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and died in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the members of that Church Lastly it seemes to me no strange thing that God in his Iustice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the professors of the Roman Doctrine have to abuse the World To the fourth All those were not Heretiques which by Philastrius Epiphanius or S. Austine were put in the Catalogue of Heretiques To the fift Kings and Nations have been and may be converted by men of contrary Religions To the sixt The Doctrine of Papists is confess'd by Papists contrary to the Fathers in many points To the seaventh The Pastors of a Church cannot but have authority from it to preach against the abuses of it whether in Doctrine or practice if there be any in it Neither can any Christian want an ordinary commission from God to doe a necessary work of Charity after a peaceable manner when there is no body else that can or will doe it In extraordinary cases extraordinary courses are not to be disallowed If some Christian Lay-man should come into a country of Infidels had ability to perswade them to Christianity who would say he might not use it for want of Commission To the eighth Luthers conference with the Divell might be for ought I know nothing but a melancholy dreame If it were reall the Divell might perswade Luther from the Masse hoping by doing so to keep him constant to it Or that others would make his diswasion from it an Argument for it as we see Papists doe and be afraid of following Luther as confessing himselfe to have been perswaded by the Divell To the ninth Illiacos intra muros peccatur extra Papists are more guilty of this fault then Protestants Even this very author in this very Pamphlet hath not so many leaves as falsifications and calumnies To the tenth Let all men believe the Scripture and that only and endeavour to believe it in the true sense and require no more of others and they shall finde this not only a better but the only meanes to suppresse Heresy and restore Unity For he that believes the Scripture sincerely and endeavours to believe it in the true sense cannot possibly be an Heretique And if no more then this were requir'd of any man to make him capable of the Churches Communion then all men so qualified though they were different in opinion yet notwithstanding any such difference must be of necessity one in Communion The Preface to the READER GIVE me leave good Reader to informe thee by way of Preface of three points The first concernes D. Potters Answere to Charity Mistaken The second relates to this Reply of mine And the third containes some Premonitions or Prescriptions in case D. Potter or any in his behalfe thinke fit to rejoyne 2. For the first point concerning D. Potters Answere I say in generall reserving particulars to their proper places that in his whole Booke he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the point in question which was Whether both Catholiques and Protestants can be saved in their severall professions And therefore Charity Mistaken judiciously pressing those particulars wherein the difficulty doth precisely consist proves in generall
to doe it without all bitternesse or gall of invective words both for as much as may import either Protestants in generall or D. Potters person in particular unles for example he will call it bitternesse for me to terme a grosse impertinency a sleight or a corruption by those very names without which I doe not know how to expresse the things and yet therein I can truly affirme that I have studied how to deliver them in the most moderate way to the end I might give as little offence as possibly I could without betraying the Cause And if any unfit phrase may peradventure have escaped my pen as I hope none hath it was beside and against my intention though I must needs professe that D. Potter gives so many and so just occasions of being round with him as that perhaps some will judge me to have been rather remisse then moderate But since in the very title of my Reply I professe to maintaine Charity I conceive that the excesse will be more excusable amongst all kinds of men if it fall to be in mildnesse then if it had appeared in too much zeale And if D. Potter have a mind to charge me with ignorance or any thing of that nature I can and will ease him of that labour by acknowledging in my selfe as many and more personall defects then he can heap upon me Truth only and syncerity I so much valew and professe as that he shall never be able to prove the contrary in any one least passage or particle against me 9. In the third and last place I have thought fit to expresse my selfe thus If D. Potter or any other resolve to answere my Reply I desire that he will observe some things which may tend to his owne reputation the saving of my unnecessary paines and especially to the greater advantage of truth I wish then that he would be carefull to consider wherein the point of every difficulty consists and not impertinently to shoot at Rovers and affectedly mistake one thing for another As for example to what purpose for as much as concernes the question betweene D. Potter and Charity Mistaken doth he so often and seriously labour to proue that faith is not resolved into the authority of the Church as into the formall Obiect and Motive thereof Or that all points of Faith are contained in Scripture Or that the Church cannot make new Articles of Faith Or that the Church of Rome as it signifies that particular Church or Diocesse is not all one with the universall Church Or that the Pope as a private Doctor may erre With many other such points as will easily appeare in their proper places It will also be necessary for him not to put certaine Doctrines upon us from which he knowes we disclaime as much as himselfe 10 I must in like manner intreat him not to recite my reasons and discourses by halfes but to set them down faithfully and entirely for as much as in very deed concernes the whole substance of the thing in question because the want sometime of one word may chance to make void or lessen the force of the whole argument And I am the more solicitous about giving this particular caveat because I finde how ill he hath complied with the promise which he made in his Preface to the Reader not to omit without answere any one thing of moment in all the discourse of Charity Mistaken Neither will this course be a cause that his Reioynder grow too large but it will be occasion of brevity to him and free me also from the paines of setting downe all the words which he omits and himselfe of demonstrating that what he omitted was not materiall Nay I will assure him that if he keep himselfe to the point of every difficulty and not weary the Reader and overcharge his margent with unnecessary quotations of Authors in Greek and Latin and sometime also in Italian and French together with proverbs sentences of Poets and such grammaticall stuffe nor affect to cite a multitude of our Catholique Schoole divines to no purpose at all his Book will not exceed a competent size nor will any man in reason be offended with that length which is regulated by necessity Againe before he come to set downe his answere or propose his Arguments let him consider very well what may be replied and whether his own objections may not be retorted against himselfe as the Reader will perceiue to haue hapned often to his disadvantage in my Reply against him But especially I expect and Truth it selfe exacts at his hand that he speak cleerly and distinctly and not seek to walk in darknesse so to delude and deceiue his Reader now saying and then denying and alwaies speaking with such ambiguity as that his greatest care may seeme to consist in a certaine art to find a shift as his occasions might chance either now or heereafter to require and as he might fall out to be urged by diversity of severall arguments And to the end it may appear that I deale plainely as I would haue him also doe I desire that he declare himselfe concerning these points 11 First whether our Saviour Christ haue not alwaies had and be not ever to haue a visible true Church on earth and whether the contrary doctrine be not a damnable Heresy 12 Secondly what visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Church and agreeing with the pretended Church of Protestants 13 Thirdly Since he will be forced to grant that there cā be assigned no visible true Church of Christ distinct from the Church of Rome and such Churches as agreed with her when Luther first appeared whether it doe not follow that shee hath not erred fundamentally because every such errour destroies the nature and being of the Church and so our Saviour Christ should haue had no visible Church on earth 14 Fourthly if the Roman Church did not fall into any fundamentall errour let him tell us how it can be damnable to liue in her Communion or to maintaine errours which are knowne and confessed not to be fundamentall to damnable 15 Fiftly if her Errours were not damnable nor did exclude salvation how can they be excused from Schisme who forsooke her Communion upon pretence of errours which were not damnable 16 Sixtly if D. Potter haue a minde to say that her Errours are damnable or fundamentall let him doe us so much charity as to tell us in particular what those fundamentall errours be But he must still remember and my selfe must be excused for repeating it that if he say the Roman Church erred fundamentally he will not be able to shew that Christ our Lord had any visible Church on earth when Luther appeared and let him tell us how Protestants had or can haue any Church which was universall and extended her selfe to all ages if once he grant that the Roman Church ceased to be the true Church of Christ and consequently how they can hope
Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter day And yet I beleiue you will confesse that God had not then declared himselfe about Easter nor hath now about Christmasse Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would faine know on which side was the sufficient proposall The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point of predetermination as a matter of faith I would knowe in this thing also which way God hath declar'd himselfe whether for Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of faith Apostolique tradition That Heretiques gaue true Baptisme Others there were and they as good Catholiques as hee that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus held the doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of faith and though Iustin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirme that some good Christians held the contrary St Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolique tradition as the Baptising 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 Iudges of Appeales 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 doe you resolve me but now I am resolv'd they doe so In all these differences the point in question is esteem'd and propos'd 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 meanes to shew that we doe 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 mee briefly to this Dilemma Eyther in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts err'd damnably and denyed Gods truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which doe deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded may goe 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 Gods truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are prov'd false Yet though they were as true as Gospell and as evident as Mathematicall 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 inferre either as the immediat production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I doe not understand unlesse 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 sinnes upon repentance and consequently to ruine the Gospell of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinalls to determine For if against this it be alleadged that no man can repent of the sinne wherein he dies This muche I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sinne of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 11 To the fourth You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your Adversary Pretending his objections are mean and vulgar and such as have been answered a thousand times But if your cause were good these Arts would be needlesse For though some of his objections have been often shifted by men that make a profession of devising shifts and evasions to save themselves and their Religion from the pressure of truth by men that are resolv'd they will say something though they can say nothing to purpose yet I doubt not to make it appear that neither by others have they beene truly and really satisfied and that the best Answere you give them is to call them Mean and vulgar objections 12 To the Fift But this paines might have been spared For the substance of his discourse is in a Sermon of D. Vshers and confuted four yeares agoe by Paulus Veridicus It seemes then the substance of your Reply is in Paulus Veridicus and so your paines also might well have been spared But had there been no necessity to help and peece out your confuting his Arguments with disgracing his person which yet you cannot doe you would have considered that to them who compare D. Potters Book the Arch-Bishops Sermon this aspersion will presently appear a poore detraction not to be answered but scorn'd To say nothing that in D. Potter being to answere a book by expresse Command from Royall Authority to leave any thing materiall unsaid because it had been said before especially being spoken at large and without any relation to the Discourse which he was to Answere had been a ridiculous vanity and foule prevarication 13 To the sixt In your sixt parag I let all passe saving only this That a perswasion that men of different Religions you must mean or else you speak not to the point Christians of divers Opinions and Communions may be saved is a most pernitious heresy and even a ground of Atheisme What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would inferre this conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain in Logick then you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it And whether contradictions will flow from the same fountaine let the Learned judge Perhaps you will say you intended not to deliver here a positive and measur'd truth and which you expected to be call'd to account for but only a high and tragicall expression of your just detestation of the wicked doctrine against which you write If you mean so I shall let it passe only I am to advertize the lesse-wary Reader that passionate expressions and vehement asseverations are no arguments unlesse it be of the weaknesse of the cause that is defended by them or the man that defends it And to remember you of what Boethius saies of some such things as these Nubila mens est haec ubi regnant For my part I am not now in Passion neither will I speak one word which I think I cannot justify to the full and I say and will maintaine that to say That Christians of different Opinions
of the New Testament they giue a farre different rule saying All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we doe receiue and account them Canonicall This I say is a rule much different from the former Of whose authority was NEVER any doubt in the Church For some Books might be said to be Commonly received although they were sometime doubted of by some If to be Commonly received passe for a good rule to know the Canon of the New Testament why not of the Old Aboue all we desire to know upon what infallible ground in some Bookes they agree with us against Luther and divers principall Lutherans and in others jump with Luther against us But seeing they disagree among themselues it is evident that they haue no certaine rule to know the Canon of Scripture in assigning whereof some of them must of necessity erre because of contradictory propositions both cannot be true 10 Moreover the letters syllables words phrase or matter contained in holy Scripture haue no necessary or naturall connection with divine Revelation or Inspiration and therefore by seeing reading or understanding them we cannot inferre that they proceed from God or be confirmed by divine authoritie as because Creatures involve a necessary relation connection and dependance on their Creator Philosophers may by the light of naturall reason demonstrate the existence of one prime cause of all things In Holy Wrâ—â— there are innumerable truths not surpassing the spheare of humane wit which are or may be delivered by Pagan Writers in the selfe same words and phrase as they are in Scripture And as for some truths peculiar to Christians for Example the mystery of the blessed Trinitie c. The only setting them down in Writing is not enough to be assured that such a Writing is the undoubted word of God otherwise some sayings of Plato Trisâ—egistus Sybils Ovid c. must be esteemed Canonicall Scripture because they fall upon some truths proper to Christian Religion The internall light and inspiration which directed and moved the Authors of Canonicall Scriptures is a hidden Qualitie infused into their understanding and will and hath no such particular sensible influence into the externall Writing that in it we can discover or from it demonstrate any such secret light and inspiration and therefore to be assured that such a Writing is divine we cannot know from it selfe alone but by some other extrinsecall authority 11 And here we appeale to any man of judgement whether it be not a vaine brag of some Protestants to tell us that they wot full well what is Scripture by the light of Scripture it selfe or as D. Potter words it by that glorious beame of divine light which shines therein even as our eye distinguisheth light from darknesse without any other help then light it selfe and as our eare knowes a voice by the voice it selfe alone But this vanity is refuted by what we said even now that the externall Scripture hath no apparent or necessary connection with divine inspiration or revelation Will D. Poiter hold all his Bretheren for blinde men for not seeing that glorious beam of divine light which shines in Scripture about which they cannot agree Corporall light may be discerned by it selfe alone as being evident proportionate and connaturall to our faculty of seeing That Scripture is Divine and inspired by God is a truth exceeding the naturall capacity and compasse of mans understanding to us obscure and to be believed by divine faith which according to the Apostle is argumentum non apparentium an argument or conviction of things not evident and therefore no wonder if Scripture doe not manifest it selfe by it selfe alone but must require some other meanes for applying it to our understanding Neverthelesse their own similitudes and instances make against themselues For suppose a man had never read or heard of Sunne Moone Fire Candle c. and should bee brought to behold a light yet in such sort as that the Agent or Cause efficient from which it proceeded were kept hidden from him could such a one by only beholding the light certainly know whether it were produced by the Sunne or Moone c. Or if one heare a voice and had never known the speaker could he know from whom in particular that voice proceeded They who look upon Scripture may well see that some one wrote it but that it was written by divine inspiration how shall they know Nay they cannot so much as know who wrote it unlesse they first know the writer and what hand he writes as likewise I cannot know whose voice it is which I heare unlesse I first both know the person who speakes and with what voice he useth to speak and yet even all this supposed I may perhaps be deceaved For there may be voices so like and Hand so counterfeited that men may be deceaved by them as birds were by the grapes of that skilfull Painter Now since Protestants affirme knowledge concerning God as our supernaturall end must be taken from Scripture they cannot in Scripture alone discerne that it is his voice or writing because they cannot know from whom a writing or vioce proceeds unlesse first they know the person who speakeâ— ' or writeth Nay I say more By Scripture alone they cannot so much as know that any person doth in it or by it speak any thing at all because one may write without intent to signifie or affirme any thing but onely to set downe or as it were paint such characters syllables and words as men are wont to set copies not caring what the signification of the words imports or as one transcribes a writing which himselfe understands not or when one writes what another dictates and in other such cases wherein it is cleare that the writer speakes or signifies nothing in such his writing and therefore by it we cannot heare or understand his voice With what certainty then can any man affirme that by Scripture it selfe they can see that the writers did intend to signifie any thing at all that they were Apostles or other Canonicall Authors that they wrote their own sense and not what was dictated by some other man and finally and especially that they wrote by the infallible direction of the Holy Ghost 12 But let us be liberall and for the present suppose not grant that Scripture is like to corporall light by it selfe alone able to determine and moue our understanding to assent yet the similitude proues against themselues For light is not visible except to such as haue eyes which are not made by the light but must be presupposed as produced by some other cause And therefore to hold the similitude Scripture can be cleare onely to those who are endued with the eye of faith or as D. Potter aboue cited saith to all that haue eyes to discerne the shining beames thereof that is to the believer as immediatly after he speaketh Faith then must not originally proceed from Scripture but
servants and instruments alwaies prest and in readinesse to advance your designes and disabled wholly with mindes so qualified to prejudice or impeach them it is safe for you to put a crown on their head and a reed in their hands and to bow before them cry Haile King of the Iewes to pretend a great deale of esteem and respect reverence to them as here you doe But to little purpose is verball reverence without entire submission and syncere obedience and as our Saviour said of some so the Scripture could it speak I believe would say to you Why call ye mee Lord Lord and doe not that which I command you Cast away the vaine and arrogant pretence of Infallibility which makes your errors incurable Leave picturing God and worshipping him by pictures Teach not for Doctrine the Commandments of men Debarre not the Laity of the Testament of Christs blood Let your publique Prayers and Psalmes and Hymmes be in such language as is for the edification of the Assistants Take not from the Clergy that liberty of Marriage which Christ hath left them Doe not impose upon men that Humility of worshipping Angels which S. Paul condemnes Teach no more proper sacrifices of Christ but one Acknowledge them that dye in Christ to be blessed and to rest from their labours Acknowledge the Sacrament after consecration to be Bread and Wine as well as Christs body and blood Acknowledge the gift of continency without Marriage not to be given to all Let not the weapons of your warfare be carnall such as are Massacres Treasons Persecutions and in a word all meanes either violent or fraudulent These and other things which the Scripture commands you doe and then we shall willingly give you such Testimony as you deserve but till you doe so to talk of estimation respect and reverence to the Scripture is nothing else but talk 2 For neither is that true which you pretend That we possesse the Scripture from you or take it upon the integrity of your Custody but upon Vniversall Tradition of which you are but a little part Neither if it were true that Protestants acknowledged The integrity of it to have been guarded by your alone Custody were this any argument of your reverence towards them For first you might preserve them entire not for want of Will but of Power to corrupt them as it is a hard thing to poyson the Sea And then having prevailed so farre with men as either not to look at all into them or but only through such spectacles as you should please to make for them and to see nothing in them though as cleere as the sunne if it any way made against you you might keep them entire without any thought or care to conforme your doctrine to them or reforme it by them which were indeed to reverence the Scriptures but out of a perswasion that you could qualify them well enough with your glosses and interpretations and make them sufficiently conformable to your present Doctrine at least in their judgement who were preposses'd with this perswasion that your Church was to judge of the sense of Scripture not to be judged by it 3. For whereas you say No cause imaginable could avert your will from giving the function of supreme and sole Iudge to holy writ but that the thing is impossible and that by this meanes controversies are encreased and not ended you mean perhaps That you can or will imagine no other cause but these But sure there is little Reason you should measure other mens imaginations by your own who perhaps may be so clouded and vail'd with prejudice that you cannot or will not see that which is most manifest For what indifferent and unprejudicate man may not easily conceive another cause which I doe not say does but certainly may pervert your wills and avert your understandings from submitting your religion and Church to a tryall by Scripture I mean the great and apparent and unavoidable danger which by this meanes you would fall into of loosing the Opinion which men have of your Infallibility and consequently your power and authority over mens consciences and all that depends upon it so that though Diana of the Ephesians be cryed up yet it may be feared that with a great many among you though I censure or judge no man the other cause which wrought upon Demetrius and the Craftsmen may have with you also the more effectuall though more secret influence and that is that by this craft we have our living by this craft I mean of keeping your Proselytes from an indifferent tryall of your Religion by Scripture and making them yeeld up and captivate their judgement unto yours Yet had you only said de facto that no other cause did avert your own will from this but only these which you pretend out of Charity I should have believed you But seeing you speak not of your selfe but of all of your side whose hearts you cannot know and professe not only That there is no other cause but that No other is imaginable I could not let this passe without a censure As for the impossibility of Scriptures being the sole judge of Controversies that is the sole rule for man to Iudge them by for we mean nothing else you only affirme it without proofe as if the thing were evident of it selfe And therefore I conceiving the contrary to be more evident might well-content my selfe to deny it without refutation Yet I cannot but desire you to tell me If Scripture cannot be the Iudge of any Controversy how shall that touching the Church and the notes of it be determined And if it be the sole judge of this one why may it not of others Why not of All Those only excepted wherein the Scripture it selfe is the subject of the Question which cannot be determined but by naturall reason the only principle beside Scripture which is common to Christians 4 Then for the Imputation of increasing contentions and not ending them Scripture is innocent of it as also this opinion That controversies are to be decided by Scripture For if men did really and sincerely submit their judgements to Scripture and that only and would require no more of any man but to doe so it were impossible but that all controversies touching things necessary and very profitable should be ended and if others were continued or increased it were no matter 5 In the next wordes we have direct Boyes-play a thing given with one hand and taken away with the other an acknowledgement made in one line and retracted in the next We acknowledge say you Scripture to be a perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule only wee deny that it excludes unwritten tradition A siâ— you should have said we acknowledge it to be as perfect a rule as a writing can be only we deny it to be as perfect a rule as a writing may be Either therefore you must revoke your acknowledgement or retract your
Church upon pretence of her errors haue failed even in fundamentall points and suffered shipwrack of their Salvation ought to deter all Christians from opposing her in any one doctrine or practises as to omit other both ancient and modern heresies we see that divers chiefe Protestants pretending to reform the corruptions of the Church are come to affirm that for many Ages she erred to death and wholy perished which D. Potter cannot deny to be a fundamentall Errour against that Article of our Creed I believe the Catholique Church as he aâ—â—irmeth it of the Donatists because they confined the universall Church within Africa or some other smal tract of soile Least therefore I may fall into some fundamentall errour it is most safe for me to belieue all the Decrees of that Church which cannot errâ— fundamentally especially if we adde That according to the Doctrine of Catholique Divines one errour in faith whether it be for the matter it selfe great or small dâ—stroies faith as is shewed in Charity Mistaken and consequently to accuse the Church of any one Errour is to affirm that she lost all faith and erred damnably which very saying is damnable because it leaues Christ no visible Church on earth 21 To all these arguments I adde this demonstration D. Potter teacheth that there neither â—as nor can be any iust cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more then from Christ himselfe But if the Church of Christ can erre in some points of faith men not only may but must forsake her in those unlesse D. Potter will haue them to believe one thing and professe another and if such errours and corruptions should fall out to be about the Churches Liturgy publique Service administration of Sacraments and the like they who perceive such errours must of necessity leaue her externall Communion And therefore if once we grant the Church may erre iâ— followeth that men may and ought to forsake her which is against D. Potters own words or else they are inexcusable who left the Communion of the Roman Church under pretence of Errours which they grant not to be fundumentall And if D. Potter think good to answer this argument he must remember his own doctrine to be that even the Catholique Church may erre in points not fundamentall 22 Another argument for the universall Infallibility of the Church I take out of D. Potters own words If saith he we did not dissent in some opinions from the present Roman Church we could not agree with the Church truly Catholique These words cannot be true unlesse he presuppose that the Church truly Catholique cannot erre in points not fundamentall For if she may erre in such points the Roman Church which he affirmeth to erre only in points not fundamentall may agree with the Church truly Catholique if she likewise may erre in points not fundamentall Therefore either he must acknowledge a plain contradiction in his own words or else must grant that the Church truly Catholique cannot erre in points not fundamentall which is what we intended to proue 23 If Words cannot perswade you that in all Controversies you must rely upon the infallibility of the Church at least yeeld your assent to Deeds Hitherto I haue produced Arguments drawn as it were ex naturâ rei from the Wisdome and Goodnesse of God who cannot faile to haue left some infallible meanes to determine Controversies which as we haue proved can be no other except a Visible Church infallible in all her Definitions But because both Catholiques and Protestants receive holy Scripture we may thence also proue the infallibility of the Church in all matters which concern Faith and Religion Our Saviour speaketh clearly The gates of Hell shall not prevail against her And I will aske my Father and he will giue you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever the Spirit of truth And But when he the Spirit of truth commeth he shall teach you all truth The Apostle saith that the Church is the Pillar and ground of Truth And He gaue some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the Saints unto the work of the Ministery unto the edifying of the body of Christ untill we meet all into the unity of faith and knowleâ—ge of the Sonne of God into a perfect man into the measure of the age of the â—ulnesse of Christ that now we be not Children wavering and carried about with every winde of doctrine in the wickednesse of men in craftinesse to the circumvention of Errour All which words seem cleerly enough to proue that the Church is universally infallible without which unity of faith could not be conserved against every winde of Doctrine And yet Doctor Potter limits these promises and priviledges to fundamentall points in which he grants the Church cannot erre I urge the words of Scripture which are universall and doe not mention any such restraint I alleadge that most reasonable and receaved Rule that Scripture is to be understood literally as it soundeth unlesse some manifest absurdity force us to the contrary But all will not serue to accord our different interpretations In the mean time divers of Doctor Potters Brethren step in and reject his limitation as over large and somewhat tasting of Papistry And therefore they restrain the mentioned Texts either to the Infallibility which the Apostles and other sacred Writers had in penning of Scripture or else to the invisible Church of the Elect and to them not absolutely but with a double restriction that they shall not fall damnably and finally and other men haue as much right as these to interpose their opinion and interpretation Behold we are three at debate about the selfe same words of Scripture We conferre divers places and Text We consult the Originalls We examine Translations We endeavour to pray heartily We professe to speak sincerely To seek nothing but truth and salvation of our own soules and that of our Neighbours and finally we use all those meanes which by Protestants themselues are prescribed for finding out the true meaning of Scripture Neverthelesse we neither doe or haue any possible meanes to agree as long as we are left to our selues and when we should chance to be agreed the doubt would still remain whether the thing it selfe be a fundamentall point or no And yet it were great impiety to imagine that God the Lover of soules hath left no certaine infallible meanes to decide both this and all other differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion Our remedy therefore in these contentions must be to consult and heare God's Visible Church with submissiue acknowledgment of her Power and Infallibility in whatsoever she proposeth as a revealed truth according to that divine advice of S. Augustine in these words If at length thou seem to be sufficiently tossed and hast a desire to put an end to
may admit the efficiency of Sacraments There is no mention of Ecclesiasticall Apostolicall Divine Traditions one way or other or of holy Scriptures in generall and much lesse of every book in particular nor of the Name Nature Number Effects Matter Forme Minister Intention Necessity of Sacraments and yet the due Administration of Sacraments is with Protestants an essentiall Note of the Church There is nothing for Baptisme of Children nor against Rebaptization There is no mention in favour or against the Sacrifice of the Masse of Power in the Church to institute Rites Holy daies c. and to inflict Excommunication or other Censures of Priesthood Bishops and the whole Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy which are very fundamentall points of S. Peters Primacy which to Calvin seemeth a fundamentall errour nor of the possibility or impossibility to keep Gods commandements of the procession of the holy Ghost from the Father and the Sonne of Purgatory or Prayer for the dead in any sense And yet D. Potter doth not deny but that Aerius was esteemed an Heretique for denying all sort of Commemoration for the dead Nothing of the Churches Visibility or Invisibility Fallibility or Infallibility nor of other points controverted betwixt Protestants themseves and between Protestants and Catholiques which to D. Potter seem so hainous corruptions that they cannot without damnation joyne with us in profession thereof There is no mention of the Cessation of the Old Law which yet is a very main point of faith And many other might be also added 15. But what need we labour to specify particulars There are as many important points of faith not expressed in the Creed as since the worlds begining now and for all future times there have been are and may be innumerable grosse damnable Heresies whose contrary truths are not contained in the Creed For every fundamentall Error must have a contrary fundamentall truth because of two contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true As for example if it be a damnable error to deny the Bâ— Trinity or the Godhead of our Saviour the belief of them must be a truth necessary to Salvation or rather if we will speak properly the Error is damnable because the opposite Truth is necessary as death is frightfull because life is sweet and according to Philosophy the Privation is measured by the Forme to which it is repugnant If therefore the Creed contain in particular all fundamentall points of faith it must explicitely or by cleer consequence comprehend all truths opposite to innumerable Heresies of all ages past present and to come which no man in his wits will affirme it to doe 16 And here I cannot omit to signify how you applaud the saying of D. Vsher. That in those propositions which without all controversy are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy Obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting salvation neither have we cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this Rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable heresies thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God Now D Potter knowes that the Mystery of the B. Trinity is not universally received in the whole Christian world as appeares in very many Heretiques in Polony Hungary and Transilvania and therefore according to this Rule of D. Vsher approved by D. Potter the deniall of the B. Trinity shall not exclude Salvation 17 Let me note by the way that you might easily have espied a foul contradiction in the said words of D. Vsher by you recited and so much applauded For he supposeth that a man agrees with other Churches in belief which joyned with holy Obedience may bring him to everlasting salvation and yet that he may superinduce damnable heresies For how can he superinduce damnable heresies who is supposed to believe all Truths necessary to salvation Can there be any damnable heresy unlesse it contradict some necessary truth which cannot happen in one who is supposed to believe all necessary Truths Besides if one believing all fundamentall Articles in the Creed may superinduce damnable heresies it followeth that the fundamentall truths contrary to those damnable heresies are not contained in the Creed 18 According to this Modell of D. Potters foundation consisting in the agreement of scarceone point of faith what a strange Church would he make of men concurring in some one of few Articles of belief who yet for the rest should be holding conceits plainly contradictory so patching up a Religion of men who agree only in the Article that Christ is our Saviour but for the rest are like to the parts of a Chimaera having the head of a man the neck of a horse the shoulders of an Oxe the foot of a Lion c. I wrong them not herein For in good Philosophy there is greater repugnancy between assent and dissent affirmation and negation est est non non especially when all these contradictories pretend to rely upon one and the selfe same Motive the infallible Truth of Almighty God then between the integrall parts as head neck c. of a man horse lion c. And thus Protestants are farre more bold to disagree even in matters of faith then Catholique Divines in questions meerely Philosophicall or not determined by the Church And whâ—e thus they stand only upon fundamentall Articles they doe by their own confession destroy the Church which is the house of God For the foundation alone of a house is not a house nor can they in such an imaginary Church any more expect Salvation then the foundation alone of a house is fit to afford a man habitation 19 Moreover it is most evident that Protestants by this Chaos rather then Church doe giue unavoidable occasion of desperation to poore soules Let some one who is desirous to save his soule repaire to D. Potter who maintaines these grounds to know upon whom he may rely in a matter of so great consequence I suppose the Doctors answer will be Vpon the truely Catholique Church She cannot erre damnably What understand you by the Catholique Church Cannot generall Councells which are the Church representatiue erre Yes they may weakly or wilfully misaply or misunderstand or neglect Scripture and so erre damnably To whom then shall I goe for my particular instruction I cannot confer with the united body of the whole Church about my particular difficulties as your selfe affirmes that the Catholique Church cannot be told of private iniuries Must I then consult with every particular person of the Catholique Church So it seemes by what you write in these words The whole militant Church that is all the members of it cannot possibly erre either in the whole faith or any necessary Article of it You say M. Doctour I cannot for my
instruction acquaint the universall Church with my particular scruples You say the Prelates of Gods Church meeting in a lawfull generall Councel may erre damnably It remaines then that for my necessary instruction I must repaire to every particular member of the universall Church spread over the face of the earth and yet you teach that the promises which our Lord hath made unto his Church for his assistance are intended not to any particular persons or Churches but only to the Church Catholique with which as I said it is impossible for me to confer Alas O most uncomfortable Ghostly Father you driue me to desperation How shall I confer with every Christian soule man and woman by sea and by land close prisoner or at liberty c. Yet upon supposall of this miraculous Pilgrimage for Faith before I haue the faith of Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely rely Procure will you say to knew whether he belieue all fundamentall points of faith For if he doe his faith for point of beliefe is sufficient for salvation though he erre in a hundred things of lesse moment But how shall I know whether hee hold all fundamentall points or no For till you tell me this I cannot know whether or no his beliefe be sound in all fundamentall points Can you say the Creed Yes And so can many damnable Heretiques But why doe you aske me this question Because the Creed containes all fundamentall points of faith Are you sure of that not sure I hold it very probable Shall I hazard my soule on probabilities or even wagers This yeelds a new cause of despaire But what doth the Creed contain all points necessary to be believed whether they rest in the understanding or else doe further extend to practise No. It was composed to deliver Credenda not Agenda to us Faith not Practise How then shall I know what points of beliefe which direct my practise be necessary to salvation Sâ—ll you chalk our new paths for Desperation Well are all Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter fundamentall I cannot say so How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not fundamentall Read my Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. there you shall finde that fundamentall doctrines are such Catholique Verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those grand and capitall doctrines which make up our Faith in Christ that is that common faith which is alike precious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer which the Apostle else-where cals the first principles of the oracles of God the forme of sound words But how shall I apply these generall definitions or descriptions or to say the truth these only varied words and phrases for I understand the word fundamentall as well as the words principall essentiall grand and capitall doctrines c. to the particular Articles of the Creed in such sort as that I may be able precisely exactly particularly to distinguish fundamentall Articles from points of lesse moment You labour to tell us what fundamentall points be but not which they be and yet unlesse you doe this your Doctrine serues only either to make men despaire or else to haue recourse to those whom you call Papists and which giue one certain Rule that all points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of Faith in such sense as that to deny any one cannot stand with salvation And seeing your selfe acknowledges that these men doe not erre in points fundamentall I cannot but hold it most safe for me to joyn with them for the securing of my soule and the avoiding of desperation into which this your doctrine must cast all them who understand and belieue it For the whole discourse and inferences which here I haue made are either your own direct Assertions or evident consequences cleerly deduced from them 20 But now let us answer some few Objections of D. Potters against that which wee haue said before to avoid our argument That the Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed he saith The Creed is an abstract of such necessary Doctrines as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it and therefore needs not expresse the authority of that which it supposes 21 This answer makes for us For by giving a reason why it was needlesse that Scripture should be expressed in the Creed you grant as much as we desire namely that the Apostles judged it needlesse to expresse all necessary points of faith in their Creed Neither doth the Creed suppose or depend on Scripture in such sort as that we can by any probable consequence infer from the Articles of the Creed that there is any Canonicall Scripture at all and much lesse that such Books in particular be Canonicall Yea the Creed might haue been the same although holy Scripture had never been written and which is more the Creed even in priority of time was before all the Scripture of the new Testament except the Gospell of S. Mathew And so according to this reason of his the Scripture should not mention Articles contained in the Creed And I note in a word how little connexion D. Potters arguments haue while he tells us that the Creed is an Abstraâ—â— of such necessary doctrines as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it therefore needs not expresse the authority of that which it supposes it doth not follow The Articles of the Creed are delivered in Scripture therefore the Creed supposeth Scripture For two distinct writings may well deliver the same truths and yet one of them not suppose the other unlesse D. Potter be of opinion that two Doctors cannot at one time speak the same truth 22 And notwithstanding that D. Potter hath now told us it was needlesse that the Creed should expresse Scripture whose Authority it supposes he comes at length to say that the Nicene Fathers in their Creed confessing that the holy Ghost spake by the Prophets doth thereby sufficiently avow the divine Authority of all Canonicall Scripture But I would ask him whether the Nicene Creed be not also an Abstract of Doctrines delivered in Scripture as he said of the Apostles Creed and thence did infer that it was needlesse to expresse Scripture whose authority it supposes Besides we doe not only belieue in generall that Canonicall Scripture is of divine authority but we are also bound under pain of damnation to belieue that such and such particular Booksâ— not mentioned in the Nicene Creed are Canonicall And lastly D. Potter in this Answer grants as much as we desire which is that all points of faith are not contained in the Apostles Creed even as it
not deny I presume that S. Peter preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Marke wrote all 42 Our next inquiry let it be touching S. Iohns intent in writing his Gospell whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to eternall life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much lesse then the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justify what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. Neither will I deny but S. Iohns secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary doctrine is in S. Iohn which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should doe before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospell what that was certainly no Father in the world understood it better then himselfe Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signes saith he also did Iesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Iesus is Christ the sonne of God and that believing you may have life in his name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signes are written Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. Iohn wrote in his Gospell or lesse then all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively faith would certainly bring them to eternall life 43 This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justify my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the foure Evangelists has in his book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. But for S. Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospell in my judgement it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospell where he declares what he intends to write in these words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed Adde to this place the entrāce to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Iesus began both to doe and teach untill the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke does not undertake the very same thing which he saies many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospell of Christ and every necessary doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and ministers of the word from the begining delivered not the whole Gospell of Christ 5. Whether he does not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospell of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Iesus began to doe and teach must not at least imply all the Principall and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the Principall and most necessary things which Iesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospell be not lesse principall and lesse necessary then all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposalls I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not choose but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonicall Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these Propositiōs which without Controversy are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresy thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44 Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule seeing the Doctrine of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the deniall of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himselfe in supposing a man may belieue all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45 To the first I answere what I conceive he would whose words I here justify that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Vniversality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those severall Professions of Christiany that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words he excludes from the universality here spoken of the denyers of the Doctrine of the Trinity as being but a handfull of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these professions which maintain it And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your objection or else negligently to oversee them Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophisticall Pamphlet against B. Vshers Sermon
shew or shadow of Reason and an evident sophisme grounded upon an affected mistake of the sense of the word Fundamentall 49 The first untruth is that D. Potter makes a Church of men agreeing scarcely in one point of faith of men concurring in some one or few Articles of belief and in the rest holding conceits plainly contradictory Agreeing only in this one Article that Christ is our Saviour but for the rest like to the parts of a Chimaera c. Which I say is a shamelesse calumny not only because D. Potter in this point delivers not his own judgement but relates the opinion of others M. Hooker and M. Morton but especially because even these men as they are related by D. Potter to the constituting of the very essence of a Church in the lowest degree require not only Faith in Christ Iesus the sonne of God and Saviour of the World but also submission to his Doctrine in mind and will Now I beseech you Sir tell me ingenuously whether the doctrine of Christ may be called without blasphemy scarcely one point of Faith or whether it consists only of some one or few Articles of belief Or whether there be nothing in it but only this Article That Christ is our Saviour Is it not manifest to all the world that Christians of all Professions doe agree with one consent in the belief of all those Bookes of Scripture which were not doubted of in the ancient Church without danger of damnation Nay is it not apparent that no man at this time can without hypocrisy pretend to believe in Christ but of necessity he must doe so Seeing he can have no reason to believe in Christ but he must have the same to believe the Scripture I pray then read over the Scripture once more or if that be too much labour the New Testament only and then say whether there be nothing there but scarcely one point of Faith But some one or two Articles of beleif Nothing but this Article onely that Christ is our Saviour Say whether there be not there an infinite number of Divine Verities Divine precepts Divine promises and those so plainly and undoubtedly delivered that if any sees them not it cannot be because he cannot but because he will not So plainly that whosoever submits syncerely to the doctrine of Christ in mind and will cannot possibly but submit to these in act and performance And in the rest which it hath pleased God for reasons best known to himselfe to deliver obscurely or ambiguously yet thus farre at least they agree that the sense of them intended by God is certainly true and that they are without passion or prejudice to endeavour to find it out The difference only is which is that true sense which God intended Neither would this long continue if the walls of separation whereby the Divell hopes to make their Divisions eternall were pulled down and errour were not supported against Truth by humane advantages But for the present God forbid the matter should be so ill as you make it For whereas you looking upon their points of difference and agreement through I know not what strange glasses have made the first innumerable and the other scarce a number the truth is clean contrary That those divine Verities Speculative and Practicall wherein they universally agree which you will have to be but a few or but one or scarcely one amount to many millions i◠an exact account were taken of them And on the other side the Ponts in variance are in comparison but few and those not of such a quality but the Error in them may well consist with the belief obedience of the entire Covenant ratified by Christ between God and man Yet I would not be so mistaken as if I thought the errours even of some Protestants unconsiderable things and matters of no moment For the truth is I am very fearfull that some of their opinions either as they are or as they are apt to be mistaken though not of themselves so damnable but that good and holy men may be saved with thē yet are too frequent occasions of our remisnes and slacknesse in running the race of Christian Profession of our deferring Repentance and conversion to God of our frequent relapses into sinne not seldome of security in sinning consequently though not certain causes yet too frequent occasions of many mens damnation and such I conceive all these doctrines which either directly or obliquely put men in hope of eternall happinesse by any other means saving only the narrow way of sincere and universall obedience grounded upon a true and lively faith These Errours therefore I doe not elevate or extenuate and on condition the ruptures made by them might be composed doe heartily wish that the cement were made of my deerest blood and only not to be an Anathema from Christ Only this I say that neither are their points of agreement so few nor their differences so many as you make them nor so great as to exclude the opposite Parties from being members of one Church Militant joynt heires of the glory of the Church Triumphant 50 Your other palpable untruth is that Protestants are farre more bold to disagree even in matters of faith then Catholique Divines you mean your own in Questions meerely Philosophicall or not determined by the Church For neither doe they differ at all in matters of faith if you take the word in the highest sense and mean by matters of faith such doctrines as are absolutely necessary to Salvation to be believed or not to be disbelieved And then in those wherein they doe differ with what colour or shadow of Argument can you make good that they are more bold to disagree then you are in Questions meerely Philosophicall or not determined by the Church For is there not as great repugnancy between your assent and dissent your affirmation and negation your Est Est Non Non as there is between theirs You follow your Reason in those things wich are not determined by your Church and they theirs in things not plainly determined in Scripture And wherein then consists their greater their farre greater boldnesse And what if they in their contradictory opinions pretend both to rely upon the truth of God doth this make their contradictions ever a whit the more repugnant I had alwaies thought that all contradictions had been equally contradictions and equally repugnant because the least of them are as farre asunder as Est and Non Est can make them and the greatest are no farther But then you in your differences by name about Predetermination the Immaculate Conception the Popes Infallibility upon what other motive doe you rely Doe not you cite Scripture or Tradition or both on both sides And doe you not pretend that both these are the infallible Truths of Almighty God 51 You close up this Section with a fallacy proving forsooth that we destroy by our confession the Church which is the house of God
a venture but desire to have certaine direction to it This supposition therefore being the hinge whereon your whole discourse turnes is the Minerva of your owne Brayne and therefore were it but for this have we not great reason to accuse you of strange immodesty in saying as you doe That The whole discourse inferences which here you have made are either D. Potters own direct assertions or evident consequences cleerely deduced froÌ„ them Especially seeing your proceeding in it is so consonant to this ill beginning that it is in a manner wholly made up not of D. Potters assertions but your owne fictions obtruded on him 54 Ad § 19. To the next Question Cannot Generall Councels erre You pretend he answers § 19. They may erre damnably Let the Reader see the place and he shall finde damnably is your addition To the third demand Must I consult about my difficulties with every particular person of the Catholique Church You answer for him that which is most false that it seemes so by his words The whole militant Church that is all the members of it cannot possibly erre either in the whole faith or any necessary Article of it Which is very certaine for should it doe so it should be the Church no longer But what sense is there that you should collect out of these words that every member of the militant Church must be consulted with By like reason if he had said that all men in the world cannot erre If he had said that God in his own person or his Angels could not erre in these matters you might haue gathered from hence that he laid a necessity upon men in doubt to consult with Angels or with God in his own person or with all men in the world Is it not evident to all sober men that to make any man or men fit to be consulted with besides the understanding of the matter it is absolutely requisite that they may bee spoken with And is it not apparently impossible that any man should speak with all the members of the Militant Church Or if hee had spoken with them all know that he had done so Nay does not D. Potter say as much in plain termes Nay more doe not you take notice that hee does so in the very next words before these where you say he affirmes that the Catholique Church cannot be told of private injuries unlesse you will perswade us there is a difference between the Catholique Church and the whole Militant Church For whereas you make him deny this of the Catholique Church united and affirm it of the Militant Church dispersed into particulars The truth is he speaks neither of united nor dispersed but affirmes simply as appeares to your shame by your own quotations that the Catholique Church cannot bee told of private iniuries and then that the whole Militant Church cannot erre But then besides that the united Church cannot be consulted and the dispersed may what a wild imagination is it and what a strange injustice was it in you to father it upon him I beseech you Sir to consider seriously how far blinde zeal to your superstition hath transported you beyond all bounds of honesty and discretion made you carelesse of speaking either truth or sense so you speak against D. Potter 55 Again you make him say The Prelates of Gods Church meeting in a lawfull Councell may erre damnably and from this collect It remaines then for your necessary instruction you must repaire to every particular member of the Vniversall Church spread over the face of the earth And this is also Pergulapictoris veri nihil omnia ficta The Antecedent false not for the matter of it but that D. Potter saies it And the consequence as far from it as Gades from Gange and as coherent as a rope of sand A generall Councell may erre therefore you must travell all the world over and consult with every particular Christian As if there were nothing else to be consulted with nay as if according to the doctrine of Protestants for so you must say there were nothing to be consulted with but only a Generall Councell or all the world Haue you never heard that Protestants say That men for their direction must consult with Scripture Nay doth not D. Potter say it often in this very Book which you are confuting Nay more in this very page out of which you take this peece of your Cento A Generall Councell may erre damnably are there not these plain words In searches of Truth the Scripture With what conscience then or modesty can you impose upon him this unreasonable consequence yet pretend that your whole discourse is either his own direct assertion or evident consequences cleerely deduc'd from them You adde that yet he teaches as if he contradicted himselfe that the promises of God made to the Church for his assistance are not intended to particular persons but only to the Catholique Church which sure agrees very well with any thing said by D. Potter If it be repugnant to what you said for him falsely what is that to him 56 Neither yet is this to drive any man to desperation unlesse it be such a one as hath such a strong affection to this word Church that he will not goe to heaven unlesse he hath a Church to lead him thither For what though a Councell may erre and the whole Church cannot be consulted with yet this is not to send you on the Fooles Pilgrimage for faith and bid you goe and conferre with every Christian soul man and woman by Sea and by Land close prisoner or at liberty as you dilate the matter But to tell you very briefly that Vniversall Tradition directs you to the word of God and the word of God directs you to Heaven And therefore here is no cause of desperatioÌ„ no cause for you to be so vain and tragicall as here you would seeeme Yet upon supposall you say of this miraculous pilgrimage for faith before I have the faith of Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely rely And hereunto you frame this answere for the Doctor Procure to know whether he believe all Fundamentall points of faith Whereas in all the Doctors book there is no such answer to any such question or any like it Neither doe you as your custome is note any page where it may be found which makes mee suspect that sure you have some priuate licence to use Heretiques as you call them at your pleasure and make them answer any thing to anything 57 Wherein I am yet more confirmed by the answer you put in his mouth to your next demand How shall I know whether he hold all Fundamentall points or no For whereas hereunto D. Potter hauing given one Answer fully satisfactory to it which is If he truly believe the undoubted bookes of Canonicall Scriptâ—re he cannot but believe all Fundamentalls and another which is but somethings
you plainly if it be a fault I know not whose it should be but theirs For sure it can be no fault in me to follow such Guides whether â—oever they lead me Now I say they haue led me into this perswasion because they haue given me great reason to belieue it and none to the contrary The reason they haue given me to belieue it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselues in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might haue a forme by which for matter of faith they might professe themselues Catholiques So Putean out of Th. Aquinas That the faithfull might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitely So Vincent Filiucius That being separated into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing And that that might serve as a mark to distinguish true Christians from Infidels So Cardinall Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectuall unlesse it contain at least all points of simple beliefe which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitely known by all men So that if it be fault in me to belieue this it must be my fault to belieue the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot doe if I belieue not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore sayes of God himselfe I make no scruple at all to apply to the Apostles and to say Si error est quod credo à vobis deceptus sum If it be an errour which I belieue it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspition That we are led into this perswasion out of a hope that we may the better maintain by it some opinions of our own It is plainly uncharitable I know no opinion I haue which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to enduce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither doe I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I haue more evident grounds then this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths bee granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church dependent only in respect of us upon universall Tradition That Scripture is the only Rule of faith That all things necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in Scripture Let I say these most certain and divine Truths be laid for foundations and let our superstructions bee consequent and coherent to them and I am confident Peace would be restored and Truth maintained against you though the Apostles Creed were not in the world CHAP. V. That Luther Calvin their Associates all who began or continue the separation from the externall Communion of the Roman Church are guilty of the proper and formall sinne of Schisme THE Searcher of all Hearts is witnesse with how unwilling minds we Catholiques are drawen to fasten the denomination of Schismatiques or Heretiques on them for whose soules if they imployed their best blood they judge that it could not be better spent If we rejoyce that they are contistated at such titles our joy riseth not from their trouble or griefe but as that of the Apostles did from the fountaine of Charity because they are contâ—â—stated to repentance that so after unpartiall examination they finding themselves to be what we say may by Gods holy grace begin to dislike what themselves are For our part we must remember that our obligation is to keep within the meane betwixt uncharitable bitternesse and pernicious flattery not yeelding to worldly respects nor offending Christian Modesty but uttering the substance of truth in so Charitable manner that not so much we as Truth and Charity may seeme to speak according to the wholesome advise of S. Gregory Nazianzen in these divine words We doe not affect peace with preiudice of the true doctrine that so we may get a name of being gentle and mild and yet we seek to conserue peace fighting in a lawfull manner and containing our selves within our compasse and the rule of Spirit And of these things my iudgment is and for my part I prescribe the same law to all that deale with soules and treat of true doctrine that neither they exasperate meâ—s minds by harshnesse nor make them haughty or insolent by submission but that in the cause of faith they behave themselves prudently and advisedly and doe not in either of these things exceed the meane With whom aÌ„greeth S. Leo saying It behoveth us in such causes to be most carefull that without noise of contentions both Charity be conserved and Truth maintained 2. For better Methode we will handle these points in order First we will set downe the nature and essence or as I may call it the Quality of Schisme In the second place the greatnesse and grievousnesse or so to tearme it the Quantity thereof For the Nature or Quality will tell us who may without injury be iudged Schismatiques and by the greatnesse or quantity such as finde themselves guilty thereof will remaine acquainted with the true state of their soule and and whether they may conceive any hope of salvation or no. And because Schisme will be found to be a division from the Church which could not happen unlesse there were alwaies a visible Church we will Thirdly prove or rather take it as a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath beene such a Visible Congregation of Faithfull People Fourthly we will demonstrate that Luther Calvin and the rest did separate themselves from the Communion of that alwaies visible Church of Christ and therefore were guilty of Schisme And fifthly we will make it evident that the visible true Church of Christ out of which Luther and his followers departed was no other but the Roman Church and consequently that both they and all others who persist in the same division are Schismatiques by reason of their separation from the Church of Rome 3 For the first point touching the Nature or Quality of Schisme As the naturall perfection of man consists in his being the Image of God his Creator by the powers of his soule so his supernaturall perfection is placed in fimilitude with God as his last End and Felicity and by having the said spirituall faculties his Vnderstanding and Will linked to him His Vnderstanding is united to God by Faith his Will by Charity The former relies upon his infallible Truth The latter carrieth us to his infinite Goodnesse Faith hath a deadly opposite Heresie Contrary to the Vnion or Vnity of Charity is Separation and Division Charity is twofold As it respects God his Opposite Vice is Hatred against God as it uniteth us to our Neighbour his contrary is Seperation or division of affections and will from our Neighbour Our Neighbour may be considered either as one private person
those who goe out to be Schismatiques but not those from whom they depart That to forsake the Chaire of Peter is Schisme yea that it is Schisme to erect a Chaire which had no origen or as it were predecessouâ— before it self That to continue in a division begun by others is to be Heires of Schismatiques and lastly that to depart from the Communion of a particular Church as that of S. â—yprian was is sufficient to make a man incur the guilt of Schisme and consequently that although Protestants who deny the Pope to be supreme Head of the Church doe think by that Heresy to cleere Luther from Schisme in disobeying the Pope Yet that wâ—ll not serve to free him from Schisme as it importeth a division from the obedience or Communion of the particular Bishop Diocesse Church and Country where he lived 36 But it is not the Heresy of Protestants or any other Sectaries that can deprive S. Peter and his Successours of the authority which Christ our Lord conferred upon them over his whole militant Church which is a point confessed by learned Protestants to be of great Antiquity and for which the judgement of divers most ancient holy Fathers is reproved by them as may be seen at large in Brerely exactly citing the places of such chiefe Protestants And we must say with S. Cyprian Heresies have sprung and Schismes been bred from no other cause then for that the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest and Iudge is considered to be for the time in the Church of God Which words doe plainely condemne Luther whether he will understand them as spoken of the Vniversall or of every particular Church For he withdrew himselfe both from the obedience of the Pope and of all particular Bishops and Churches And no lesse cleere is the said Optatus Milevitanus saying Thou caust not deny but that thou knowest that in the City of Rome there was first an Episcopall Chaire placed for Peter wherein Peter the head of all the Apostles sate whereof also he was called Cephas in which one Chaire Vn was to be kept by all least the other Apostles might attribute to themselves each one his particular chaire and that he should be a Schismatique and sinner who against that one single Chaire should erect another Many other Authorities of Fathers might be alleaged to this purpose which I omit my intention being not to handle particular controversies 37 Now the arguments which hitherto I have brought prove that Luther and his followers were Schismatiques without examining for as much as belongs to this point whether or no the Church can erre in any one thing great or small because it is universally true that there can be no just cause to forsake the Communion of the Visible Church of Christ according to S. Augustine saying It is not possible that any may have just cause to separate their Communion from the Communion of the whole world and call themselves the Church of Christ as if they had separated themselves from the Communion of all Nations upon just cause But since indeed the Church cannot erre in any one point of doctrine nor can approve any corruption in manners they cannot with any colour avoid the just imputation of eminent Schisme according to the verdict of the same holy Father in these words The most manifest sacriledge of Schisme is eminent when there was no cause of separation 38 Lastly I prove that Protestants cannot avoid the note of Schisme at least by reason of their mutuall separation from one another For most certain it is that there is very great difference for the outward face of a Church and profession of a different faith between the Lutherans the rigid Calvinists and the Protestants of England So that if Luther were in the right those other Protestants who invented Doctrines far different from his and divided themselues from him must be reputed Schismatiques and the like argument may proportionably be applyed to their further divisions subdivisions Which reason I yet urge more strongly out of D. Potter who affirmes that to him and to such as are convicted in conscience of the errors of the Roman Church a reconciliation is impossible and damnable And yet he teacheth that their difference from the Roman Church is not in fundamentall points Now since among Protestants there is such diversity of beliefe that one denieth what the other affirmeth they must be convicted in conscience that one part is in errour at least not fundamentall and if D. Potter will speak consequently that a reconciliation between them is impossible daÌ„nable what greater division or Schisme can there be then when one part must judge a reconciliation with the other to be impossible daÌ„nable 39 Out of all which premisses this Conclusion followes That Luther his followers were Schismatiques from the universall visible Church from the Pope Christs Vicar on earth Successour to S. Peter from the particular Diocesse in which they received Baptisme from the Countrey or Nation to which they belonged from the Bishop under whom they lived many of them from the Religious Order in which they were professed from one another And lastly from a mans selfe as much as is possible because the selfe same Protestant to day is convicted in conscience that his yesterday's Opinion was an error as D. Potter knows a man in the world who from a Puritan was turned to a moderate Protestant with whom therefore a reconciliation according to D. Potters grounds is both impossible and damnable 40 It seemes D. Potters last refuge to excuse himselfe and his Brethren from Schisme is because they proceeded according to their conscience dictating an obligation under damnation to forsake the errours maintained by the Church of Rome His words are Although we confesse the Church of Rome to be in some sense a true Church and her errors to some men not damnableâ— yet for us who are convinced in conscience that she erres in many things a necessity lies upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those errors 41 I answer It is very strange that you judge us extreamly Vncharitable in saying Protestants cannot be saved while your selfe avouch the same of all learned Catholiques whom ignorance cannot excuse If this your pretence of conscience may serue what Schismatique in the Church what popular seditious brain in a kingdome may not alledge the dictamen of conscience to free themselves from Schisme or Sedition No man wishes them to doe any thing against their conscience but we say that they may and ought to rectifie and depose such a conscience which is easie for them to doe even according to your own affirmation that wee Catholiques want no meanes necessary to salvation Easie to doe Nay not to doe so to any man in his right wits must seem impossible For how can these two apprehensions stand together In the Roman Church I enjoy all meanes necessary to
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 unlawfull 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 saies not simply which only would doe you service there cannot possibly be any so important Reformation as to justify a separation from them who will not reforme But only they cannot make any corruption so great as is the pernitiousnesse of a Schisme 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 seene that what Irenaeus saies 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 warre such as straine at gnatts swallow Camels And these faith he can make no reformation of any such importance as to countervaile 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 justify because we will not be partakers with her in Superstition Idolatry Impiety and most cruell Tyranny both upon the bodies and soules 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 dogmâ—te 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 sharpely and bitterly for it by most of the Bishops of the world as Eusebius testifies and as Cardinall Perron though mincing the matter yet confesseth by this very Ierenaeus himselfe 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 Ecclesiasticall story of those times mentions no other notable example of any such Schismaticall presumption but this of Victor certainly we have great inducement to imagine that Irenaeus in this place by you quoted had a speciall aime 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 he which finds fault with them who separate upon small causes implies cleerely 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 insue upon it 12 Lastly S. Denis of Alexandria saies indeed and very well that all things should be rather indured then we should consent to the division of the Church I would adde Rather then consent to the continuation of the division if it might be remedied But then I am to tell you that he saies not All things should rather be done but only All things should rather be indured or suffered wherein he speaks not of the evill of sinne but of Pain and Misery Not of tolerating either Error or Sinne in others though that may be lawfull much lesse of joyning with others for quietnesse sake which only were to your purpose in the profession of Errour and practise of sinne but of suffering any affliction nay even martyrdome in our own persons rather then consent to the division of the Church Omnia incommoda so your own Christophorson enforced by the circumstances of the place translates Dionysius his words All miseries should rather be endured then we should consent to the Churches division 13 Ad § 9. In the next Paragraph you affirme two things but prove neither unlesse a vehement Asseveration may passe for a weake proofe You tell us first that the Doctrine of the totall deficiency of the visible Church which is maintained by divers chiefe Protestants implies in it vast absurdity or rather sacrilegious Blasphemy But neither doe the Protestants alleaged 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 doe 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 then they could justify but yet you doe 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 Doctrine 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 diverse 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 aboue all the Roman had degenerated from the purity of the Gospell 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 doctrine of Christ. 14 Ad § 10. Neither is there any repugnance but in words only between these as you are pleased to stile them exterminating Spirits and those other whom out of Curtesy you intitle in your 10. § more moderate Protestants For these affirming the Perpetuall 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 affirme that they conceive very good hope of the Salvation of many of their ignorant
answerable but already answered The memorandums I would commend to him are these 30 That not every separation but only a causelesse separation from the externall Communion of any Church is the Sinne of Schisme 31 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 That to leave the Church and to leave the externall 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 haue 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 repell 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 applied to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madnesse moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoid the Communion of bad men Whereunto one faire answer to let passe many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospell as it is not is impertinently applied 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 in stead of Donatus in the latter part of the Dilemma as well as in the former would make a suspicious man conjecture that you your selfe took notice of this exception of disparitie 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 Doctrine if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you doe understand it is a certain truth and it is easier for you to declaime as you doe then to dispute against it But these men you say must bee Heretiques because they separated from the Communion of the visible Church and therefore also from the Communion of that which they say was invisible In as much as the invisible Church communicated with the visible 35 Ans. I might very justly desire some proofe of that which so confidently you take for granted That there were no persecuted and oppressed maintainers of the Truth in the daies of our Fore-fathers but only such as dissembled their opinions lived in your Communion And truly if I should say there were many of this condition I suppose I could make my Affirmative much more probable then you can make your Negatiue We read in Scripture that Elias conceived There was none left besides himselfe in the whole kingdome of Israell who had not revolted from God and yet God himselfe assures us that he was deceived And if such a man a Prophet and one of the greatest erred in his judgement touching his own time and his own countrey why may not you who are certainly but a man and subject to the same passions as Elias was mistake in thinking that in former ages in some countrey or other there were not alwaies some good Christians which did not so much as externally bow their knees to your Baal But this answer I am content you shall take no notice of and thinke it sufficient to tell you that if it bee true that this supposed invisible Church did hypocritically communicate with the visible Church in her corruptions then Protestants had cause nay necessity to forsake their Communion also for otherwise they must haue joyn'd with thē in the practise of impieties and seeing they had such cause to separate they presume their separation cannot be schismaticall 36 Yes you reply to forsake the externall Communion of them with whom they agree in faith is the most formall proper sin of Schisme Ans. Very true but I would fain know wherein I would gladly be informed whether I bee bound for feare of Schisme to communicate with those that believe as I doe only in lawfull things or absolutely in every thing whether I am to joyn with them in superstition and Idolatry and not only in a common profession of the faith wherein we agree but in a common dissimulation or abjuration of it This is that which you would haue them do or else forsooth they must be Schismatiques But hereafter I pray remember that there is no necessity of communicating even with true Beleevers in wicked actions Nay that there is a necessity herein to separate from them And then I dare say even you being their judge the reasonablenesse of their cause to separate shall according to my first observation justifie their separation from being schismaticall 37 Arg But the property of Schisme according to D. Potter is to cut off from the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates And these Protestants haue this property Therefore they are Schismatiques 38 Ans. I deny the Syllogisme it is no better then this One Symptome of the Plague is a Feaver But such a man hath a Feaver Therefore he hath the Plague The true conclusiō which issues out of these Premisses should be this Therefore he hath one Symptome of the plague And so likewise in the former therefore they haue one property or one quality of Schismatiques And as in the former instance The man that hath one signe of the plague may by reason of the absence of other requisites not haue the plague So these Protestants may haue something of Schismatiques and yet not be Schismatiques A Tyrant sentencing a man to death for his pleasure and a just judge that condemnes a malefactor doe both sentence a man to death and so for the matter doe both the same thing yet the one does wickedly the other justly What 's the reason because the one hath cause the other hath not In like manner Schismatiques either alwaies or generally denounce damnation to them from whom they separate The same doe these Protestants yet are not Schismatiques The Reason because Schismatiques doe it and doe it without cause and Protestants haue cause for what they doe The impieties of your Church being generally speaking damnable unlesse where they are excus'd by ignorance and expiated at least by a generall repentance In fine though perhaps it may be true that all Schismatiques doe so yet universall affirmatiues are not converted and therefore it followes not by any good Logick that all that doe so when there is just cause for it must be Schismatiques The cause in this matter of separation is
generally used as if it may be justly used in any place by those that haue power and think they haue truth certainly they cannot with reason deny but that it may bee used in every place by those that haue power as well as they and think they haue truth as wel as they what could follow but the maintenance perhaps of truth but perhaps onely of the profession of it in one place the oppression of it in a hundred What will follow from it but the preservation peradventure of unity but peradventure only of uniformity in particular States Churches but the immortalizing the greater and more lamentable divisions of Christendome and the world And therefore what can follow from it but perhaps in the judgement of carnall policie the temporall benefit and tranquillity of temporall States and Kingdomes but the infinit prejudice if not the desolation of the kingdome of Christ And therefore it well becomes thē who haue their portions in this life who serve no higher State then that of England or Spain or France nor this neither any further then they may serue themselves by it who thinke of no other happinesse but the preservation of their own fortunes and tranquillity in this world who think of no other meanes to preserve States but humane power and Machiavillian policie and belieue no other Creed but this Regi aut Civitati imperium habenti nihil iniustum quod utile Such men as these it may become to maintaine by worldly power and violence their State instrument Religion For if all be vain and false as in their judgement it is the present whatsoever is better then any because it is already setled and 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 man-kinde 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 Kingdomes 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 then to force weak men by the profession of a religion which they believe not to loose their owne eternall happinesse out of a vain and needlesse feare least they may possibly disturb their temporall quietnesse There is no danger to any state from any mans opinion unlesse it be such an opinion by which disobedience to authority or impiety is taught or licenc'd which sort I confesse may justly be punished as well as other faults or unlesse this sanguinary doctrine bee joyn'd with it that it is lawfull for him by humane violence to enforce others to it Therefore if Protestants did offer violence to other mens consciences and compell them to embrace their Reformation I excuse them not much lesse 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 and tyrannous violence though it may be avoided according to that of our Saviour When they persecute you in one Citty fly 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 then murderers and to dye for their religion rather then to fight for it But of all the men in the world you are the most unfit to accuse them hereof against whō the soules of the Martyrs from under the Altar cry much lowder then against all their other Persecutors together Who for these many ages together haue daily sacrificed Hecatombes of innocent Christians under the name of Heretiques to your blind zeal and furious superstition Who teach plainly that you may propagate your Religion whensoever you haue power by deposing of Kings and invasion of Kingdomes think when you kill the adversaries of it you doe God good service But for their departing corporally from them whom mentally they had forsaken For their forsaking the externall Cōmunion company of that part of the unreformed part of the Church in their superstitions impieties thus much of your accusation we embrace glory in it And say though some Protestants might offend in the manner or the degree of their separation yet certainly their separation it selfe was not Schismaticall 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 iust cause to doe so no more then to depart from Christ himselfe I haue shewed divers times already that you sdeal very injuriously with him confounding together Departing from the Church and Departing from some generall opinions and practises which did not constitute but vitiate not make the Church but marre it For though he saies that which is most true that there can be no iust cause to depart from the Church that is to cease being a member of the Church no more then to depart from Christ himself in as much as these are not divers but the same thing yet he no where denies but there might be iust and necessary cause to depart from some opinions and practises of your Church nay of the Catholique Church And therefore you doe vainly to infer 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 Ca cilianus and the Chayre of Cyprian 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 Diocesse be none because they had just and necessary cause of their departure For otherwise they must haue continued in the profession of known Errours and the practise of manifest corruptions 98 Ad § 36. In the next Section you tell us that Christ our Lord gaue S. Peter his successors authority over his whole Militant Church And for proof hereof you first referre us to Brerely citing exactly the places of such cheefe Protestants as haue 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 proue this point true you onely 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 then any of those who are pretended to be confessed by Protestants to haue held with you in this matter and when those whom you haue to doe 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 lesse then Apostolicall is a certain note of truth Yet this I say not as if I did acknowledge what you pretend that Protestants did confesse 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 of the Catholique Church Now having perused Brerely I cannot find any one Protestant confessing any one Father to haue 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 finde 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 hee shall finde that he meanes nothing else by the words quoted by you But that in one particular Church at one time there ought to bee but one Bishop and that he should be obeyed in all things lawfull The non-performance whereof was one of the most ordinary causes of heresies against the Faith and Schisme from the Communion of the Church Vniversall He shall finde secondly and that by many convincing Arguments that though he write to Cornelius Bishop of Rome yet hee speaks not of him but of himselfe then Bishop of Carthage against whom a faction of Schismatiques had then set up another And therefore here your ingenuitie is to bee commended aboue 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 and one Iudge you seem somewhat diffident hereof and thereupon say that these words plainly condemne Luther whether he will understand them as spoken of the Vniversall or of every particular Church But whether they condemne Luther is another Question The question here is whether they plainly proue the Popes Supremacy over al 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 lesse 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 aboue 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 Chaire understand in that Citty for in other places others I hope had Chaires besides S. Peter and therefore he is a Schismatique who against that one single Chaire erects another understand as before in that place making another Bishop of that Diocesse besides him who was lawfully elected to it 100 But yet by the way he stiles S. Peter head of the Apostles and saies that from thence he was called Cephas Ans. Perhaps he was abused into this opinion by thinking Cephas derived from the greeke 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 overall the Apostles and yet exercise no one act of Authority over any one of them and that they should shew to him no signe of subjection me thinkes is as strange as that a King of England for twenty five yeares should doe no Act of Regality nor receive any one acknowledgement of it As strange me thinks it is that you so many ages after should know this so certainly as you pretend to doe 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 confirme it by saying the Kings of the Gentiles exercise authority over them but it should not be so among them No lesse a wonder was it that S. Paul should so farre forget S. Peter and himselfe as that first mentioning him often he should doe it without any title of Honour Secondly speaking of the severall 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 himselfe in particular and perhaps comparing himselfe with S. Peter in particular rather then any other he should say in plain termes 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 farre from shewing that in the judgement of Optatus the Bishop of Rome was to be at all much lesse by divine right successor to S. Peter in this his Headship Authority For what incōgruity 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 Vniversall Especially seeing S. Peter and the rest of the Apostles by laying the foundations of the
that although the Waldenses Wicliffe c. had agreed with Protestants in all points of doctrine yet they could not bragge of Succession from them because their doctrine hath not been free from interruption which necessarily crosseth Succession 24 And as want of Succession of Persons and Doctrine cannot stand with that Vniversality of Time which is inseparable from the Catholique Church so likewise the disagreeing Sectâ— which are dispersed throughout divers Countries and Nations cannot help towards that Vniversality of Place wherewith the true Church must be endued but rather such locall multiplication doth more more lay open their division want of Succession in Doctrine For the excellent Observation of S. Augustine doth punctually agree with all modern Heretiques wherein this holy Father having cited these words out of the Prophet Ezechiell My flocks are dispersed upon the whole face of the Earth he addes this remarkable sentence Not all Heretiques are spread over the face of the Earth and yet there are Heretiques spread over the whole face of the Earth some here some there yet they are wanting in no place they know not one another One Sect for example in Africa another Heresy in the East another in Egypt another in Mesopotamia In divers places they are divers one Mother pride hath begot them all as our own Mother the Catholique Church hath brought forth all faithfull people dispersed throughout the whole world No wonder then if Pride breed Dissention and Charity Vnion And in another place applying to Heretiques those words of the Canticles If thou know not thy selfe goe forth and follow after the steps of the flocks and feed thy kids he saith If thou know not thy selfe goe thou forth I doe not cast thee out but goe thou out that it may be said of thee They went from us but they were not of us Goe thou out in the steps of the flocks not in my steps but in the steps of the flocks nor of one flock but of divers and wandring flocks And feed thy Kids not as Peter to whom is said Feed my sheepe but seed thy Kids in the Tabernacles of the Pastors not in the Tabernacle of the Pastor where there is one flock and one Pastor In which words this holy Father doth set down the Markes of Heresy to wit going out from the Church and Want of Vnity among themselves which proceed from not acknowledging one supreme Visible Pastor and Head under Christ. And so it being Proved that Protestants having neither succession of Persons nor Doctrine nor Vniversality of Time or Place cannot avoid the just note of Heresy 25 Hitherto we have brought arguments to prove that Luther and all Protestants are guilty of Heresy against the Negative Precept of faith which obligeth us under pain of damnation not to imbrace any one errour contrary to any Truth sufficiently propounded as testified or revealed by Almighty God Which were enough to make good that among Persons who disagree many one point of Faith one part only can be saved Yet we will now prove that Whosoever erreth in any one point doth also break the Affirmative Precept of Faith whereby we are obliged positively to believe some revealed truth with an infallible and supernaturall Faith which is necessary to salvation even necessitate finis or meâ—ii as Divines speak that is so necessary that not any after he is come to the use of Reason was or can be saved without it according to the words of the Apostle Without Faith it is impossible to please God 26 In the beginning of this Chapter I shewed that to Christian Catholique faith are required Certainty Obscurtty Prudence and Supernaturality All which Conditions we will proue to bee wanting in the beliefe of Protestants even in those points which are true in themseluâ—s and to which they yeeld assent as hapeneth in all those particulars wherein they agree with us from whence it will follow that they wanting true Divine Faith want meanes absolutely necessary to salvation 27 And first that their beliefe wanteth Certainty I proue because denying the Vniversall infallibility of the Church can haue no certain grouÌ„nd to know what Objects are â—evealed or testified by God Holy Scripture is in it selfe most true and infallible but without the direction declaration of the Church we can neither haue certain means to know what Scripture is Canonicall nor what Translations be faithfull nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Every Protestant as I suppose is perswaded that his own opinions be true and that he hath used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer Conferring of divers Texts c. and yet their disagreements shew thaâ— some of them are deceaved And therefore it is cleer that they haue no one certain ground whereon to rely for understanding of Scripture And seeing they hold all the Articles of Faith even concerning fundamentall points upon the selfe same ground of Scripture interpreted not by the Churches Authority but according to some other Rules which as experience of their contradictions teach doe sometimes faile it is cleer that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all And albeit sometime it chance to hit on the truth yet it is likewise apt to lead them to errour As all Arch-heretiques believing some truths withall divers errours upon the same ground and motive have indeed no true divine infallible faith bâ—t only a fallible humane opinion and perswasion For if the ground upon which they rely were certain it could never produce any errour 28 Another cause of uncertainty in the faith of Protestants must rise from their distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall For since they acknowledge that every errour in fundamentall points destroyeth the substance of faith and yet cannot determine what points bee fundamentall it followeth that they must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamentall error and so want the substance of faith without which there can be no hope of Salvation 29 And that he who erreth against any one revealed truth as certainly some Protestants must doe because contradictory Propositions cannot both be true doth loose all Divine faith is a very true doctrine delivered by Catholique Divines with so generall a consent that the contrary is wont to be censured as temerarious The Angelicall Doctor S. Thomas proposeth this Question Whether he who denieth one Article of faith may retain faith in other Articles and resolveth that he cannot which he proveth Argumentâ— sed contra because As deadly sin is opposits to Charity so to deny one Article of faith is opposite to faith But Charity doth not remain with any one deadly sin therefore faith doth not remain after the deniall of any one Article of faith Whereof he gives this farther reason Because saith he the nature of every habit doth depend upon the formall Motiue and Obiect thereof which Motiue being taken away the
thou wilt and not belieue what thou wilt not Nay this holy Father is not content to call it Foolishnesse but meer Maâ—nesse in these words Why should I not most diligently enquire what Christ commanded of those before all others by whose Authority I was moved to belieue that Christ commanded any good thing Canst thou better declare to me what he said whom I would not haue thought to haue been or to be if the Beliefe thereof had been recommended by thee to me Thâ— therefore I believed by fame strengthned with Celebrity Consent Antiquitie But every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing which deserues Authority What MADNESSE is this Belieue them Catholiques that we ought to belieue Christ but learne of us what Christ said Why I beseech thee Surely if they Catholiques were not at all and could not teach mee any thing I would more easily perswade my selfe that I were not to belieue Christ then I should learne any thing concerning him from other then those by whom I believed him Lastly I aske what wisedome it could bee to leaue all visible Churches and consequently the true Catholique Church of Christ which you confesse cannot erre in points necessary to salvation and the Roman Church which you grant doth not erre in fundamentalls and follow private men who may erre even in points necessary to salvation Especially if we adde that when Luther rose there was no visible true Catholique Church besides that of Rome and them who agreed with her in which sense she was and is the only true Church of Christ and not capable of any Error in faith Nay even Luther who first opposed the Roman Church yet comming to dispute against other Heretiques he is forced to give the Lye both to his own words and deeds in saying We freely confesse that in the Papacy there are many good things worthy the name of Christian which have come from them to us Namely we confesse that in the Papacy there is true Scripture true Baptisme the true Sacrament of the Altar the true keys for remission of sinnes the true office of Preaching true Catechisme as our Lords Prayer Ten Commandements Articles of faith c. And afterward I avouch that under the Papacy there is true Christianity yea the Kernell and Marrow of Christianity and many pious and great Saints And again he affirmeth that the Church of Rome hath the true Spirit Gospells Faith Baptisme Sacraments the Keyes the Office of Preaching Prayer Holy Scripture and whatsoever Christianity ought to have And a little before I heare and see that they bring in Anabaptisme only to this end that they may spight the Pope as men that will receive nothing from Antichrist no otherwise then the Sacramentaries doe who therefore believe only Bread and Wine to be in the Sacrament meerely in hatred against the Bishop of Rome and they think that by this meanes they shall overcome the Papacy Verily these men rely upon a weak ground for by this meanes they must deny the whole Scripture and the Office of Preaching For we have all these things from the Pope otherwise we must goe make a new Scripture O Truth more forcible as S. Austine saies to wring out Confession then is any racke or torment And so we may truly say with Moyses Inimici nostri sunt Iudices Our very Enemies give sentence for us 32 Lastly since your faith wanteth Certainty and Prudence it is easy to inferre that it wants the fourth Condition Supernaturality For being but an Humane perswasion or Opinion it is not in nature or Essence Supernaturall And being imprudent and rash it cannot proceed from divine Motion and grace and therefore it is neither supernaturall in it selfe nor in the cause from which it proceedeth 33 Since therefore we have proved that whosoever erres against any one point of faith looseth all divine faith even concerning those other Articles wherein he doth not erre and that although he could still retaine true faith for some points yet any one errour in whatsoever other matter concerning faith is a grievous sinne it cleerely followes that when two or more hold different doctrines concerning faith and Religion there can be but one Part saved For declaring of which truth if Catholiques be charged with Want of Charity and Modesty and be accused of rashnesse ambition and fury as D. Potter is very free in this kind I desire every one to ponder the words of S. Chrysostome who teacheth that every least errour overthrowes all faith and whosoever is guilty thereof is in the Church like one who in the Common wealth forgeth false come Let them heare saith this holy Father what S. Paul saith Namely that they who brought in some small errour had overthrown the Gospell For to shew how a small thing ill mingled doth corrupt the whole he said that the Gospell was subverted For as he who clips a little of the stamp from the Kings mony makes the whole piece of no value so whosoever takes away the least particle of sound faith is wholly corrupted alwaies going from that beginning to worse things Where then are they who condemne us as contentious persons because we cannot agree with Heretiques and doe often say that there is no difference betwixt us and them but that our disagreement proceeds from Ambition to dominere And thus having shewed that Protestants want true Faith it remaineth that according to my first designe I examine whether they doe not also want Charity as it respects a mans selfe THE ANSVVER TO THE SIXTH CHAPTER That Protestants are not Heretiques HE that will accuse any one man much more any great multitude of men of any great and horrible crime should in all reason and justice take care that the greatnesse of his evidence doe equall if not exceed the quality of the crime And such an accusation you would here make shew of by pretending first to lay such grounds of it as are either already proved or else yeelded on all sides and after to raise a firme and stable structure of convincing arguments upon them But both these I find to be meere and vaine pretences and having considered this Chapter also without prejudice or passion as I did the former I am enforc'd by the light of Truth to pronounce your whole discourse a painted and ruinous Building upon a weak sandy Foundation 2 Ad § 2. 3. First for your grounds a great part of theÌ„ is falsely said to be either proved or granted It is true indeed that Man by his naturall wit or industry could never have attained to the knowledge of Gods will to give him a supernaturall and eternall happinesse nor of the meanes by which his pleasure was to bestow this happinesse upon him And therefore your first ground is good That it was requisite his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that end and meanes by a knowledge supernaturall I say this is good if you mean
condition is in my judgement a plain revocation of the former For had you made the matter of faith either naturally or supernaturally evident it might have been a fitly attēpered duely proportioned object for an absolute certainty naturall or supernaturall But requiring as you doe that faith should be an absolute knowledge of a thing not absolutely known an infallible certainty of a thing which though it is in it selfe yet is it not made appeare to us to be infallibly certain to my understanding you speak impossibilities And truly for one of your Religion to doe so is but a good Decorum For the matter and object of your Faith being so full of contradictions a contradictictious faith may very well become a contradictious Religion Your faith therefore if you please to haue it so let it be a free necessitated certain uncertain evident obscure prudent and foolish naturall and supernaturall unnaturall assent But they which are unwilling to believe non-sense themselves or to perswade others to doe so it is but reason they should make the faith wherewith they believe an intelligible compossible consistent thing and not define it by repugnances Now nothing is more repugnant then that a man should be required to give most certain credit unto that which cannot be made appeare most certainly credible and if it appeare to him to be so then is it not obscure that it is so For if you speak of an acquired rationall discursive faith certainly these Reasons which make the object seem credible must be the cause of it and consequently the strength and firmity of my assent must rise and fall together with the apparent credibility of the object If you speak of a supernaturall infused faith then you either suppose it infused by the former meanes and then that which was said before must be said again for whatsoever effect is wrought meerly by meanes must beare proportion to and cannot exceed the vertue of the meanes by which it is wrought As nothing by water can be made more cold then water nor by fire more hot then fire nor by honey more sweet then honey nor by gall more bitter then gall Or if you will suppose it infused without meanes then that power which infuseth into the understanding assent which beares analogie to sight in the eye must also infuse evidence that is Visibilitie into the Object look what degree of assent is infus'd into the understanding at least the same degree of evidence must be infused into the Object And for you to require a strength of credit beyond the appearance of the objects credibility is all one as if you should require me to goe ten miles an houre upon a horse that will goe but fiue to discern a man certainly through a myst or cloud that makes him not certainly discernable To heare a sound more cleerly then it is audible to understand a thing more fully then it is intelligible and he that doth so I may well expect that his next injunction will be that I must see something that is invisible heare something inaudible understand something that is wholly unintelligible For he that demands ten of me knowing I haue but five does in effect as if he demanded five knowing that I have none and by like reason you requiring that I should see things farther then they are visible require I should see something invisible and in requiring that I believe something more firmly then it is made to mee evidently credible you require in effect that I believe something which appeares to me incredible and while it does so I deny not but that I am bound to believe the truth of many Texts of Scripture the sense whereof is to me obscure the truth of many Articles of faith the manner whereof is obscure and to humane understandings incomprehensible But then it is to be observed that not the sense of such Texts not the manner of these things is that which I am bound to believe but the truth of them But that I should believe the truth of any thing the truth whereof cannot bee made evident with an evidence proportionable to the degree of faith required of me this I say for any man to be bound to is unjust and unreasonable because to doe it is impossible 8 Ad § 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Yet though I deny that it is required of us to be certain in the highest degree infallibly certain of the truth of the things which we believe for this were to know not believe neither is it possible unlesse our evidence of it be it naturall or supernaturall were of the highest degree yet I deny not but that wee are to believe the Religion of Christ we are and may be infallibly certain For first this is most certain that we are in all things to doe according to wisdome and reason rather then against it Secondly this is as certain That wisdome and Reason require that wee should believe these things which are by many degrees more credible and probable then the contrary Thirdly this is as certain that to every man who considers impartially what great things may be said for the truth of Christianity and what poore things they are which may be said against it either for any other Religion or for none at all it cannot but appear by many degrees more credible that Christian Religiō is true then the contrary And from all these premises this conclusion evidently followes that it is infallibly certain that we are firmely to beleeve the truth of Christian Religion 9 Your discourse therefore touching the fourth requisite to faith which is Prudence I admit so farre as to grant 1. That if we were required to believe with certainty I mean a Morall certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain I mean morally an unreasonable obedience were required of us And so likewise were it were we required to believe as absolutely certain that which is no way represented to us as absolutely certain 2. That whom God obligeth to believe any thing he will not fail to furnish their understandings with such inducements as are sufficient if they be not negligent or perverse to perswade them to believe 3. That there is an abundance of Arguments exceedingly credible inducing men to believe the Truth of Christianity I say so credible that though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in true wisdome and prudence the Articles of it deserve credit and ought to be accepted as things revealed by God 4. That without such reasons and inducements our choice even of the true faith is not to be commended as prudent but to be condemned of rashnesse and levity 10 But then for your making Prudence not only a commendation of a believer and a justification of his faith but also essentiall to it and part of the definition of it in that questionlesse you were mistaken and have done as if being to say
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 saies he saies out of Irenaeus Neither doth or can the Cardinall deny the story to be true therefore he goes about by indirect Arts to foyle it cast a blurre upon it Lastly whensoever Eusebius saies any thing which the Cardinall thinkes for the advantage of his side he cites him and then he is no Arrian or at least hee would not take that for an answer to the arguments he drawes out of him b That Ruffinus was enemy to the Roman Church is said but not proved neither can it be c Eusebius saies the same also of caeteri omnes Episcopi all the other Bishops that they advised Victor to keepe those things that belonged to peace and unity and that they sharpely reprehended Victor for having done otherwise d This is said but no offer made of any proofe of it The Cardinall thinks we must take every thing upon his word They to whom the Tradition was delivered Polyerates 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 Cardinall 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 Iudge of what was necessary to be believed and done what not what was Vniversall 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 conforme themselves to the Church of Rome f This is to suppose that Excommunication is an Act or Argument or signe of Power 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 Equalls upon Equalls and by Inferiors upon Superiors if the equalls or inferiors thought their equalls or superiors did any thing which deserved it g And what is this but to confesse 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 proofe 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 preferres the power of the Roman Church And it is evident out of the Councell of Chalcedon that all the Principality which it had was given it not by God but by the Church in regard it was seated in the Imperiall City Whereupon when afterwards Constantinople was the Imperiall City they decreed that that Chuch should have equall 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 God or grounded upon Scripture but only by the Church and therefore alterable at the Churches pleasure i This is falsely translated Convenire ad Romanam Ecclesiam every body knowes signifies no more but to resort or come to the Roman Church which then there was a necessity that men should doe because that the affaires of the Empire were transacted in that place But yet Irenaeus saies not so of every Church simply which had not been true but only of the adjacent Churches for so he expounds himselfe in saying To this Church it is necessary that every Church that is all the faithfull round about should resort With much more reason therefore we returne the Argument thus Had Irenaeus thought that all Churches must of necessity agree with the RomaÌ„ how could he all other Bishops have then pronounc'd that to be no matter of Faith no sufficient ground of Excommunication which Victor and his adherents thought to be so And how then could they have reprehended Victor so much for the ill use of his power as Cardinall Perron confesses they did seeing if that was true which is pretended in this also as well as other things it was necessary for them to agree with the Church of Rome Some there are that say but more wittily then truly that all Cardinall Bellarmines works are so consonant to themselves as if he had written them in two houres Had Cardinall Perron wrote his book in two houres sure he would not have done that here in the middle of the Book which he condemns in the beginning of it For here he urgeth a consequence drawn from the mistaken words of Irenaeus against his lively and actuall practice which proceeding there he justly condemnes of evident injustice His words are For who knowes not that it is too great an injustice to alleage consequences from passages and even those ill interpreted and misunderstood and in whose illation there is alwaies some Paralogisme hid against the expresse words and the lively actuall practise of the same Fathers from whom they are collected and that may be good to take the Fathers for Adversaries and to accuse them for want of sense or memory but not to take them for Iudges and to submit themselves to the observation of what they have believ'd and practised k This is nothing to the purpose he might choose these examples not as of greater force and authority in themselves but as fitter to be imploied against Victor as domestique examples are fitter and more effectuall then forraine and for his omitting to presse him with his own example and others to what purpose had it been to use them seeing their Letters sent to Victor from all parts wherein they reprehend his presumption shewed him sufficiently that their example was against him But besides he that reads Irenaeus his Letter shall see that in the matter of the Lent Fast and the great variety about the celebration of it which he paralels with this of Easter he presseth Victor with the example of himselfe and others not Bishops of Rome both they saith hee speaking of other Bishops notwithstanding this difference retained peace among themselves and wee also among our selves retaine it inferring from his example that Victor also ought to doe so l If the Popes proceeding was just then the Churches of Asia were indeed and in the sight of God excommunicate and out of the state of Salvation which Irenaeus and all the other ancient Bishops never thought And if they were so why doe you accouâ—t them Saints and Martyrs But the truth is that these Councells did no way shew
ages after For example In mutilation of the Communion in having your Service in such a language as the Assistants generally understand nor your offering to Saints your picturing of God your worshipping of Pictures 42 Ad § 24. As for Vniversality of place the want whereof you object to Protestants as a marke of Heresie You have not set down cleerely and univocally what you mean by it whether universality of fact or of right and if of fact whether absolute or comparative and if comparative whether of the Church in comparisō of any other Religion or only of Hereticall Christians or if in comparison of these whether in comparison of all other Sects conjoyn'd or in comparison only of any One of them Nor have you proved it by any good argument in any sense to be a certain mark of Heresy For those places of S. Austine doe not deserve the name And truly in my judgement you have done advisedly in proving it no better For as for Vniversality of right or a right to Vniversality all Religions claime it but only the true has it and which has it cannot be determin'd unlesse it first be determin'd which is the true An absolute Vniversality and diffusion through all the world if you should pretend to all the world would laugh at you If you should contend for latitude with any one Religion Mahumetisme would carry the victory from you If you should oppose your selves against all other Christians besides you it is certain you would be cast in this suit also If lastly being hard driven you should please you selves with being more then any one Sect of Christiās it would presently be replied that it is ūcertain whether now you are so but most certain that the time has been when you have not been so Then when the whole world wondred that it was become Arrian then when Athanasius oppos'd the world and the world Athanasius then when your Liberius having the contemptible paucity of his adherents objected to him as a note of error answered for himselfe There was a time when there were but three opposed the decree of the King and yet those three were in the right and the rest in the wrong then when the Professors of error surpassed the number of the Professors of truth in proportion as the sands of the Sea doe the Starres of the Heaven As S. Austine acknowledgeth then when Vincentius confesseth that the poyson of the Arrians had contaminated not now some certain portion but almost the whole World then when the author of Nazianzens life testifies That the Heresy of Arrius had possessed in a manner the whole extent of the world and when Nazianzen found cause to cry out Where are they who reproach us with our pouerty who define the Church by the multitude and despise the little flock They have the People but we the faith And lastly when Athanasius was so overborn with Sholes floods of Arriās that he was enforc'd to write a Treatise on purpose against those who judge of the truth only by plurality of adherents So that if you had prov'd want of Universality even thus restrained to be an infallible note of Heresy there would have been no remedy but you must have confessed that the time was when you were Heretiques And besides I see not how you would have avoided this great inconvenience of laying grounds and storeing up arguments for Antichrist against he comes by which he may prove his Company the true Church For it is evident out of Scripture and confessed by you that though his time be not long his dominion shall be very large and that the true Church shall be then the woman driven into the wildernesse 43 Ad § 25. 26. The remainder of this Chapter if I would deale strictly with you I might let passe as impertinent to the question now disputed For whereas your argument promises that this whole Chapter shall be imploied in proving Luther the Protestants guilty of Heresy here you desert this question and strike out into another accusation of them that their faith even of the truth they hold is not indeed true faith But put case it were not does it follow that the having of this faith makes them Heretiques or that they are therefore Heretiques because they have this faith Aristotle beleeved there were Intelligences which moved the Spheares he believed this with an humane perswasion and not with a certain obscure prudent supernaturall faith and will you make Aristotle an Heretique because he believed so You believe there was such a man as Iulius Caesar that there is such a City as Constantinople and your beliefe here of has not these qualifications which you require And will you be content that this shall passe for a sufficient proofe that you are an Heretique Heresy you have defin'd above to be a voluntary error but he that believes truth though his belief be not qualified according to your minde yet sure in believing truth he believes no error from hence according to ordinary Logick methinkes it should follow that such a man for doing so cannot be guilty of Heresy 44 But you will say though he be not guilty of Heresy for believing these truths yet if his faith be not saving to what purpose will it be Truly very litle to the purpose of Salvation as litle as it is to your proving Protestants guilty of Heresy But out of our wonted indulgence let us pardon this fault also and doe you the favour to hear what you can say to beget this faith in us that indeed wee have no faith or at least not such a faith without which it is impossible to please God Your discourse upon this point you have I know not upon what policie disjoynted and given us the grounds of it in the begining of the Chapter and the superstructure here in the end Them I have already examined and for a great part of them proved them vain and deceitfull I have shewed by many certain arguments that though the subject matter of our faith be in it selfe most certain yet that absolute certainty of adherence is not required to the essence of faith no nor to make it acceptable with God but that to both these effects it is sufficient if it be firme enough to produce Obedience and Charity I haue shewed besides that Prudence is rather commendable in faith then intrinsecall and essentiall to it So that whatsoever is here said to prove the faith of Protestants no faith for want of certainty or for want of prudence is already answered before it is objected for the foundation being destroyed the building cannot stand Yet for the fuller refutation of all pretences I will here make good that to prove our faith destitute of these qualifications you have produc'd but vain Sophismes and for the most part such arguments as returne most violently upon your selves Thus then you say 45 First that their belief wanteth
thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not lawes for all Christians but Counsells of perfection and matters of Supererrogation that a man shall doe well if he doe observe them but he shall not sinne if he observe them not That they are for them who ayme at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sonnes of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content barely to goe to heaven and to be a doore keeper in the house of God especially if he will be content to tast of Purgatory in the way he may obtaine it at any easier purchase Therefore the Religion of your Church is not so holy nor so good as the doctrine of Christ delivered in Scripture and therefore not so likely to come from the Fountaine of holinesse goodnesse 72 Lastly if I follow your Church for my Guide I shall doe all one as if I should follow a Company of blind men in a judgement of colours or in the choice of a way For every unconsidering man is blind in that which he does not consider Now what is your Church but a Company of unconsidering men who comfort themselves because they are a great company together but all of them either out of idlenesse refuse the trouble of a severe tryall of their Religion as if heaven were not worth it or out of superstition fear the event of such a tryall that they may be scrupled and staggered and disquieted by it and therefore for the most part doe it not at all Or if they doe it they doe it negligently and hypocritically and perfunctorily rather for the satisfaction of others then themselves but certainly without indifference without liberty of judgement without a resolution to doubt of it if upon examination the grounds of it prove uncertain or to leave it if they prove apparently false My own experience assures me that in this imputation I doe you no injury but it is very apparent to all men from your ranking doubting of any part of your Doctrine among mortall sinnes For from hence it followes that seeing every man must resolve that he will never commit mortall sinne that he must never examine the grounds of it at all for fear he should be mov'd to doubt or if he doe he must resolve that no motives be they never so strong shall move him to doubt but that with his will and resolution he will uphold himselfe in a firme belief of your Religon though his reason and his understanding faile him And seeing this is the condition of all those whom you esteem good Catholiques who can deny but you are a Company of men unwilling and afraid to understand least you should doe good That have eyes to see and will not see that have have not the love of truth which is only to be known by an indifferent tryall therefore deserve to be given over to strong delusions men that love darknesse more then light in a word that you are the blind leading the blind and what prudence there can be in following such Guides our Saviour hath taught us in saying If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch 73 There remaines unspoken to in this Section some places out of S. Austin and some sayings of Luther wherein he confesses that in the Papacy are many good things But the former I have already considered and return'd the argument grounded on them As for Luthers speeches I told you not long since that we follow no privat men and regard not much what he saies either against the Church of Rome or for it but what he proves He was a man of a vehement Spirit and very often what he took in hand he did not doe it but over doe it He that will justify all his speeches especially such as he wrote in heat of opposition I believe will have work enough Yet in these sentences though he overreach in the particulars yet what he saies in generall we confesse true and confesse with him that in the Papacy are many good things which have come from them to us but withall we say there are many bad neither doe wee think our selves bound in prudence either to reject the good with the bad or to retain the bad with the good but rather conceive it a high point of wisdome to separate between the pretious and the vile to sever the good from the bad and to put the good in vessels to be kept and to cast the bad away to try all things and to hold that which is good 74 Ad § 32. Your next and last argument against the faith of Protestants is because wanting Certainty and Prudence it must also want the fourth condition Supernaturality For that being a humane perswasion it is not in the essence of it supernaturall and being imprudent and rash it cannot proceed from Divine motion and so is not supernaturall in respect of the cause from which it proceedeth Ans. This litle discourse stands wholly upon what went before and therefore must fall together with it I have proved the Faith of Protestants as certain and as prudent as the faith of Papists and therefore if these be certain grounds of supernaturality our faith may have it as well as yours I would here furthermore be inform'd how you can assure us that your faith is not your perswasion or opinion for you make them all one that your Churches doctrine is true Or if you grant it your perswasion why is it not the perswasion of men and in respect of the subject of it an humane perswasion I desire also to know what sense there is in pretending that your perswasion is not in regard of the object only and cause of it but in nature or essence of it supernaturall Lastly whereas you say that being imprudent it cannot come from divine motion certainly by this reason all they that believe your own Religion and cannot give a wise and sufficient reason for it as millions amongst you cannot must be condemn'd to have no supernaturall faith or if not then without question nothing can hinder but that the imprudent faith of Protestants may proceed from divine motion as well as the imprudent faith of Papists 75 And thus having weighed your whole discourse and found it altogether lighter then vanity why should I not invert your conclusion and say Seeing you have not proved that whosoever erres against any one point of Faith looseth all divine Faith nor that any error whatsoever concerning that which by the Parties litigant may be esteem'd a matter of faith is a grievous sinne it followes not at all that when two men hold different doctrines concerning Religion that but one can be saved Not that I deny but that the sentence of S. Chrysost. with which you conclude this Chapt. may in a good sense be true for oftimes by
found or rather that Company is to be imbraced before all other in which all sides agree that salvation may be found We therefore must inferre that it is safest for you to seeke salvation among us You had good reason to conceal S. Augustins answer to the Donatists 10 You frame another argument in our behalf and make us speake thus If Protestants believe the Religion of Catholiques to be a safe way to Heaven why doe they not follow it which wise argument of your own you answer at large and confirm your answer by this instance The Iesuits and Dominicans hold different Opinions touching Predetermination and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Yet so that the Iesuits hold the Dominicans way safe that is his error not damnable and the Dominicans hold the same of the Iesuits Yet neither of them with good Consequence can presse the other to believe his opinion because by his own Confession it is no damnable error 11 But what Catholique maketh such a wise demaund as you put into our mouths If our Religion be a safe way to heaven that is not damnable why doe you not follow it As if every thing that is good must be of necessity imbraced by every body But what think you of the Argument framed thus Our Religion is safe even by your Confession therefore you ought to grant that all may imbrace it And yet further thus Among different Religions and contrary waies to heaven one only can be safe But ours by your own Confession is safe whereas we hold that in yours there is no hope of salvation Therefore you may and ought to imbrace ours This is our Argument And if the Dominicans and Iesuits did say one to another as we say to you then one of them might with good consequence press the other to believe his opinion You have still the hard for tune to be beaten with your own weapon 12 It remaineth then that both in regard of Faith and Charity Protestants are obliged to unite themselves with the Church of Rome And I may adde also in regard of the Theologicall Vâ—â—tue of Hope without which none can hope to be saved and which you want either by exâ—â—sse of Confidence or defect by Despair not unlike to your Faith which I shewed to be either â—â—â—cient in Certainty or excessive in EvideÌ„ce as likewise according to the rigid Calvinists it is either so strong that once had it can never be lost or so more then weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotten For the trve Theologicall Hope of Christians is a Hope which keeps a mean between Presumption and Desperation which moves us to work our salvation with feare and trembling which conducts us to make sure our salvation by good works as holy Scripture adviseth But contrarily Protestants doe either exclude Hope by Despaire with the Doctrine that our Saviour died not for all and that such want grace sufficient to salvation or else by vaine Presumption grounded upon a fantasticall persuasion that they are Predestinate which Faith must exclude all feare and trembling Neither can they make their Calling certain by good works who doe certainly beleeve that before any good works they are justified and justified even by Faith alone and that by Faith whereby they certainly believe that they are justified Which points some Protestants doe expresly affirme to be the soule of the Church the principall Origen of salvation Of all other points of Doctrine the chiefest and weightiest as already I have noted Chap. 3. n. 19. And if some Protestants doe now relent from the rigour of the aforesaid doctrine we must affirme that at least some of them want the Theologicall Vertue of Hope yea that none of them can have trve Hope while they hope to be saved in the Communion of those who defend such doctrines as doe directly overthrow all true Christian Hope And for as much as concernes Faith we must also infer that they want Vnity therein and consequently have none at all by their disagreement about the soule of the Church the principall Origen of salvation of all other points of Doctrine the chiefest and weightiest And if you want trve Faith you must by consequence want Hope or if you hold that this point is not to be so indivisible on either side but that it hath latitude sufficient to imbrace all parties without prejudice to their salvation notwithstanding that your Brethren hold it to be the soule of the Church c. I must repeat what I have said heretofore that even by this Example it is cleer you cannot agree what points be fundamentall And so to whatsoever answer you fly I presse you in the same manner and say that haue no Certainty whether you agree in fundamentall points or Vnity and substance of Faith which cannot stand with difference in fundamentalls And so upon the whole matter I leave it to be considered whether Want of Charity can be iustly charged on us because we affirme that they cannot without repentance be saved who want of all other the most necessary meanes to salvation which are the three Theologicall Vertues FAITH HOPE and CHARITY 13 And now I end this first part having as I conceive complyed with my first designe in that measure which Time Commodity scarcity of Books and my own small Abilities could afford which was to shew that Amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved For since there must be some infallible Meanes to decide all Controversies concerning Religion and to propound truth revealed by Almighty God and this Meanes can be no other but the Visible Church of Christ which at the time of Luthers appearance was only the Church of Rome and such as agreed with her We must conclude that whosoever opposeth himself to her definitions or forsaketh her Communion doth resist God himself whose Spouse she is and whose divine truth she propounds and therefore becoms guilty of Schisme and Heresie which since Luther his Associates and Protestants have done and still continue to doe it is not Want of Charity but abundance of evident cause that forceth us to declare this necessary Truth PROTESTANCIE VNREPENTED DESTROIES SALVATION THE ANSVVER TO THE SEAVENTH CHAPTER That Protestants are not bound by the Charity which they owe to themselves to re-unite themselves to the Roman Church THE first foure Paragraphs of this Chapter are wholly spent in an un-necessary introduction unto a truth which I presume never was nor will be by any man in his right wits either denied or question'd and that is That every man in wisdome and charity to himselfe is to take the safest way to his eternall Salvation 2 The fift and sixt are nothing in a manner but references to discourses already answered by me and confuted in their proper places 3 The seaventh eight ninth tenth and eleventh have no other foundation but this false pretence That we confesse the Roman Church free from damnable error 4 In the
of Salvation to none among you but to those whose ignorance was the cause of their error and no sinne cause of their ignorance and presently after when another project comes in your head you make his words softer then oile towards you you pretend he does and must confesse That your Doctrine containes no damnable error that your Church is certainly a true Church that your way to heaven is a safe way and all these acknowledgements you set down simple and absolute without any restriction or limitation whereas in the Doctor they are all so qualified that no knowing Papist can promise himselfe any security or comfort from them We confesse saith he the Church of Rome to be in some sense a true Church and her errors to some men not damnable we believe her Religion safe that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some such as believe what they professe But we believe it not safe but very dangerous if not certainly damnable to such as professe it when they believe or if their hearts were upright and not perversly obstinate might believe the contrary Observe I pray these restraining termes which formerly you have dissembled A true Church in some sense not damnable to some men a safe way that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some And then seeing you have pretended these confessions to be absolute which are thus plainly limited how can you avoid the imputation of an egregious Sophister You quarrell with the Doctor in the end of your Preface for using in his Book such ambiguous tearmes as these in some sort in some sense in some degree and desire him if he make any reply either to forbear them or to tell you roundly in what sort in what sense in what degree he understands these and the like mincing phrases But the truth is he hath not left them so ambiguous and undetermin'd as you pretend but told you plainly in what sense your Church may passe for a true Church viz. In regard we may hope that she retaines those truths which are simply absolutely and indispensably necessary to Salvation which may suffice to bring those good soules to heaven who wanted meanes of discovering their errors this is the charitable construction in which you may passe for a Church And to what men your Religion may be safe and your errors not damnable viz. to such whom Ignorance may excuse and therefore he hath more cause to complain of you for quoting his words without those qualifications then you to finde fault with him for using of them 30 That your Discourse in the 12. § presseth you as forcibly as Protestants I have shewed above I adde here 1. Whereas you say that faith according to rigid Calvinists is either so strong that once had it can never be lost or so more then weak and so much nothing that it can never begotten That these are words without sense Never any Calvinist affirmed that faith was so weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotten but it seemes you wanted matter to make up your Antithesis and therefore were resolved to speak empty words rather then loose your figure Crimina rasis Librat in antithetis doct as posuisse Figuras Laudatur 2. That there is no Calvinist that will deny the Truth of this proposition Christ died for all nor to subscribe to that sense of it which your Dominicans put upon it neither can you with coherence to the received Doctrine of your own Society deny that they as well as the Calvinists take away the distinction of sufficient and effectuall grace and indeed hold none to be sufficient but only that which is effectuall 3. Whereas you say They cannot make their calling certain by good workes who doe certainly believe that before any good works they are justified and justified by faith alone and by that faith whereby they certainly believe they are justified I ans There is no Protestant but believes that Faith Repentance and universall Obedience are necessary to the obtaining of Gods favour and eternall happinesse This being granted the rest is but a speculative Controversy a Question about words which would quickly vanish but that men affect not to understand one another As if a company of Physitians were in consultation and should all agree that three medicines and no more were necessary for the recovery of the Patients health this were sufficient for his direction towards the recovery of his health though concerning the proper and specificall effects of these three medicines there should be amongst them as many differences as men So likewise being generally at accord that these three things Faith Hope Charity are necessary to salvation so that whosoever wants any of them cannot obtain it and he which hath them all cannot faile of it it is not very evident that they are sufficiently agreed for mens directions to eternall Salvation And seeing Charity is a full comprehension of all good workes they requiring Charity as a necessary qualification in him that will be saved what sense is there in saying they cannot make their calling certain by good workes They know what salvation is as well as you and have as much reason to desire it They believe it as heartily as you that there is no good worke but shall have its proper reward and that there is no possibility of obtaining the eternall reward without good workes and why then may not this Doctrine be a sufficient incitement and provocation unto good workes 31 You say that they certainly believe that before any good works they are iustified But this is a calumny There is no Protestant but requires to Iustification Remission of sinnes and to Remission of sinnes they all require Repentance and Repentance I presume may not be denied the name of a good worke being indeed if it be rightly understood and according to the sense of the word in Scripture an effectuall conversion from all sinne to all holinesse But though it be taken for meer sorrow for sinnes past and a bare purpose of amendment yet even this is a good worke and therefore Protestants requiring this to Remission of sinnes and Remission of sinnes to justification cannot with candor be pretended to believe that they are justified before any good worke 32 You say They believe themselves iustified by faith alone and that by that faith whereby they believe themselves iustified Some peradventure doe so but withall they believe that that faith which is alone and unaccompanied with sincere and universall obedience is to be esteem'd not faith but presumption and is at no hand sufficient to justification that though Charity be not imputed unto justification yet is it required as a necessary disposition in the person to be justified and that though in regard of the imperfection of it no man can be justified by it yet that on the other side no man can be justified without it So that upon the whole matter a man may truly and safely say that the
Authority of defining some of you setling it in the Pope himselfe though alone without a Councell Others in a Councell though divided from the Pope Others only in the conjunction of Councell and Pope Others not in this neither but in the acceptation of the present Church Vniversall Lastly others not attributing it to this neither but only to the perpetuall Succession of the Church of all ages of which divided Company it is very evident and undeniable that every former may be and are obliged to hold many things defin'd and therefore necessary which the latter according to their own grounds have no obligation to doe nay cannot doe so upon any firme and sure and infallible foundation THE CONCLVSION ANd thus by Gods assistance and the advantage of a good cause I am at length through a passage rather tireing then difficult arriv'd at the end of my undertaken voyage and have as I suppose made appear to all dis-interessed and unprejudicate readers what in the begining I undertook that a vein of Sophistry and Calumny runs clean through this first part of your book wherein though I never thought of the directions you have been pleas'd to give mee in your Pamphlet entitled a Direction to N. N. yet upon consideration of my answer I finde that I have proceeded as if I had had it alwaies before my eyes and steer'd my course by it as by a card and compasse For first I have not proceeded by a meere destructive way as you call it nor objected such difficulties against your Religion as upon examination tend to the overthrow of all Religion but have shewed that the truth of Christianity is cleerely independent upon the truth of Popery and that on the other side the arguments you urge and the courses you take for the maintenance of your Religion doe manifestly tend if they be closely and consequently followed to the destruction of all religion and lead men by the hand to Atheisme and impiety whereof I have given you ocular demonstrations in divers places of my book but especially in my answer to your direction to N. N. Neither can I discover any repugnance between any one part of my answer and any other though I have used many more judicious and more searching eyes then mine owne to make if it were possible such a discovery and therefore am in good hope that though the musicke I have made be but dull and flat and even downright plain-song yet your curious and criticall eares shall discover no discord in it but on the other side I have charg'd you frequently and very justly with manifest contradiction and retractation of your own assertions and not seldome of the main grounds you build upon and the principall conclusions which you endeavour to maintain which I conceive my selfe to have made apparent even to the â—ye c. 2. § 5. c. 3. § 88. c. 4. § .14 24. c. 5. § 93. c. 6. § 6. 7. 12. 17. c. 7. § 29. and in many other parts of my answer And though I did never pretend to defend D. Potter absolutely and in all things but only so farre as he defends truth neither did D. Potter desire me nor any law of God or man oblige me to defend him any farther yet I doe not finde that I have cause to differ from him in any matter of moment particularly not concerning the infallibility of Gods Church which I grant with him to be infallible in fundamentalls because if it should erre in fundamentalls it were not the Church Nor concerning the supernaturality of Faith which I know believe as well as you to be the gift of God and that flesh blood reveal'd it not unto us but our Father which is in Heaven But now if it were demanded what defence you can make for deserting Ch. Mistaken in the main question disputed between him and D. Potter Whether Protestancy without a particular repentance and dereliction of it destroy Salvation whereof I have convinc'd you I believe your answer would be much like that which Vlysses makes in the Meâ—amorphosis for his running away from his friend Nestor that is none at all For Opposing the Articles of the Church of England the Approbation I presume cleeres my book from this imputation And whereas you give me a Caution that my grounds destroy not the belief of diverse Doctrines which all good Christians believe yea and of all verities that cannot be prov'd by naturall reason I professe syncerely that I doe not know nor believe that any ground laid by me in my whole Book is any way inconsistent with any one such Doctrine or with any verity revealed in the word of God though neuer so improbable or incomprehensible to Naturall Reason and if I thought there were I would deale with it as those primitive converts dealt with their curious Books in the Acts of the Apostles For the Ep. of S. Iames and those other Books which were anciently controverted and are now received by the Church of England as Canonicall I am so farre from relying upon any Principles which must to my apprehension bring with them the deniall of the authority of them that I my selfe believe them all to be Canonicall For the overthrowing the Infallibility of all Scripture my Book is so innocent of it that the Infallibility of Scripture is the chiefest of all my grounds And lastly for Arguments tending to prove an impossibility of all Divine Supernaturall Infallible Faith and Religion I assure my self that if you were ten times more a spider then you are you could suck no poyson from them My heart I am sure is innocent of any such intention and the searcher of all hearts knowes that I had no other end in writing this Book but to confirm to the uttermost of my ability the truth of the Divine and Infallible Religion of our dearest Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus which I am ready to seale and confirm not with my arguments only but my bloud Now these are directions which you have been pleas'd to give me whether out of a fear that I might otherwise deviate from them or out of a desire to make others think so But howsoever I have not to my understanding swarved from them in any thing which puts me in good hope that my Answer to this first Part of your Book will give even to you your self indifferent good satisfaction I have also provided though this were more then I undertook a just and punctuall examination and refutation of your second Part But if you will give your consent am resolv'd to suppresse it and that for divers sufficient and reasonable considerations First because the discussion of the Controversies entreated of in the first Part if we shall think fit to proceed in it as I for my part shall so long as I have truth to reply will I conceive be sufficient employment for us though wee cast off the burden of those many lesser dispuâ—es which remain behind in the Second And perhaps