comprehensible by all capacities and the controversies of doctrine so intricate and so many as they required much time and learning for their disquisition onely I found my selfe unprovided for both those requisitions for this undertaking and for the decision of the other I needed not much presumption to beleeve my selfe a competent Judge when it consisteth onely in the perusall of authentique Testimonies Secondly I considered that there was no one point of controverted doctrine whereon all the rest depended but that this one Question of Fact was such as the dicision of it determined all the rest for if Luther could be proved to be the Innovatour of the Protestants faith it was necessary evicted of not being the true ancient Apostolicall Religion Therefore I began with this enquiry which Protestants are bound to make to answer to this Objection to find out an existence of some Professors of the reformed Doctrines before Luthers time for finding the Catholicks were not obligedto prove the Negative it was my part to prove to my selfe the Affirmative that our Religion was no innovation by some pre-existence before that but in the perusall of all the Stories or Records Eccesiasticall or Civill as I could choose I could finde no ancienter a dissention from the Roman Church then Waldo Wickliffe or Husse whose cause had relation to the now-professed Protestancy so as I found an intervall of about eight hundred yeares from the time that all the Protestants confesse a Unity with the Church of Rome down to those persons without any apparent profession of different Faith To answer my selfe in this point I read many of our Protestant Authors who treated of it and I found most of them reply to this sence in which I cite here one of the most authentique Doctor Whitaker in his Controversie 2. 3. pag. 479. where they aske of us where our Church was heretofore for so many Ages We answer that it was in secret solitude that is to say it was concealed and lay hid from the sight of men and further the same Doctor Chap. 4. pag. 502. our Church alwayes was but you say it was not visible doth that prove that it was not No for it lay hid in a solitary concealment to this direct sence were all the answers that ever I could meet to this Objection I repeat no more these places being so positive to our point This confession of Invisibilitie in our Church for so many ages did much perplex me it seemed to me even to offend Naturall reason such a derogation from Gods power or providence as the sufferance of so great an Ecclipse of the light of this true Church and such a Church as this is described to be seeming to me repugnant to the maine reason why God hath a Church on Earth which is to be conserver of the Doctrine Christs precepts and to conveigh it from age to age untill the end of the world Therefore I applyed my study to peruse such arguments as the Catholicks brought for the proofe of a continuall visibility of the true Church down from the Apostles time in all Ages and apparance of Doctors teaching and administring the Sacrament in proofe of this I found they brought many provisoes of the Scripture but this text most literall of the fourth of the Ephesians Christ hath placed in his Church Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the saints till we meet in the Unity of the Faith and next the discourse upon which they inferre this necessary visible succession of the Church seemed to me to be a most rationall and convincing one which is to this effect Naturall Reason not being able to proportion to a man a cause that might certainly bring him to a state of supernaturall happinesse and that such a cause being necessary to mankinde which otherwise would totally faile of the end it was created for there remained no other way but that it must be proposed unto us by one whose authority we could not of and that in so plaine a manner as the simplest may be capable of it as well as the learned This work was performed by our Saviour from whose mouth all our Faith is originally derived but this suceeding age not being able to receive it immediate from thence it was necessary it should be conveyed unto them that lived in it by those that did receive it from Christs own Mouth and so from Age to Age untill the end of the world and in what Age soever this thred of doctrine should be broken it must needs be acknowledged for the reason above mentioned that the light which should convey mankind through the darknesse of this world was extinguished and mankind is left without a Guide to infallible ruine which cannot stand with Gods providence and goodnesse which Saint Austine affirmes for his opinion directly in his book de Util. Cred. Cap. 16. saying If divine providence doe preside over humane affaires it is not to be doubted but that there is some authoritie constituted by the same God upon which going as upon certaine steps we are carried to God nor can it be said he meant the Scriptures onely by these steps sinoe experience shewes us the continuall alteration about the right sence of severall of the most important places of it that what is contained there cannot be a competent rule to mankind which consisteth more of simple then leanned men and besides the Scriptures must have been supposed to have been kept in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other thing then the Church in all Ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved the Scriptures free from all corruption then that it hath maintained it selfe in a continuall visibility which Saint Augustine concludeth to be a marke of the true Church in these words in his book Cont. Cecill 104. The true Church hath this certaine signe that it cannot be hid therefore it must be known to all Nations but that part of the Protestants is unknown to many therefore cannot be the true no inference can be stronger then from hence that the concealement of a Church disproves the truth of it Lastly not to insist upon the allegation of the sence of all the Fathers of the Church in every severall Age which seemed to me most cleare that which in this cause weighed much with me was the confession and testimony of the approved Doctors themselves of the Protestant Church as Hooker in his Book of Eccles. Pol. pag. 126. God alwaies had and must have some visible Church upon Earth and Doctor Field the first of Eccles. cap. 10. It cannot be but those that are the true Church must be known by the profession of truth and further the same Doctor sayes How should the Church be in the world and nobody professe openly the saving truth of God and Doctor White in his defence of the Way chap. 4. pag. 790. The providence of God hath left Monuments and Stories for the confirmation
it was a wise fear of the Foxe's lest he might call a knubb a horn And sure Sir they will in this case be Judges not onely of that which is Spiritual but of what it is that is so and the people receiving instruction from no other will take the most Temporal matter to be Spiritual if they tell them it is so The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy demonstrated by Mr. William Chillingworth SECT 1. IF we abstract from Episcopal Government all accidentals and consider onely what is essential and necessary to it we shall find in it no more but this An appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocesse and furnishing him with authority not absolute or arbitrary but regulated and bounded by Laws and moderated by joyning to him a convenient number of assistants to the intent that all the Churches under him may be provided of good and able Pastors and that both of Pastours and people conformity to Laws and performance of their duties may be required under penalties not left to discretion but by Law appointed SECT 2. To this kind of Government I am not by any particular interest so devoted as to think it ought to be maintained either in opposition to Apostolick Institution or to the much desired reformation of mens lives and restauration of Primitive discipline or to any Law or Precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end for obedience to our Saviour is the end for which Church-Government is appointed But if it may be demonstrated or made much more probable than the contrary as I verily think it may I. That it is not repugnant to the government setled in and for the Church by the Apostles II. That it is as complyable with the reformation of any evill which we desire to reform either in Church or State or the introduction of any good which we desire to introduce as any other kind of Government And III. That there is no Law no Record of our Saviour against it then I hope it will not be thought an unreasonable motion if we humbly desire those that are in authority especially the High Court of Parliament that in may not be sacrificed to clamour or over-borne by violence and though which God forbid the greater part of the multitude should cry Crucifie Crucifie yet our Governours would be so full of Justice and courage as not to give it up untill they perfectly understand concerning Episcopacy it self Quid mali fecit SECT 3. I shall speak at this time onely of the first of these three points That Episcopacy is not repugnant to the government setled in the Church for perpetuity by the Apostles Whereof I conceive this which follows is as clear a demonstration as any thing of this nature is capable of That this Government was received universally in the Church either in the Apostles time or presently after is so evident and unquestionable that the most learned adversaries of this Government do themselves confesse it SECT 4. Petrus Molinaeus in his Book De munere pastorali purposely written in defence of the Presbyterial-government acknowledgeth That presently after the Apostles times or even in their time as Ecclesiastical story witnesseth it was ordained That in every City one of the presbytery should be called a Bishop who should have per-eminence over his Colleagues to avoid confusion which oft times ariseth out of equality And truely this form of Government all Chuches every where received SECT 5. Theodorus Beza in his Tract De triplici Episcopatus genere confesseth in effect the same thing For having distinguished Episcopacy into three kinds Divine Humane and Satanical and attributing to the second which he calls Humane but we maintain and conceive to be Apostolical not onely a priority of order but a superiority of power and authority over other Presbyters bounded yet by Laws and Canons provided against Tyranny he clearely professeth that of this kind of Episcopacy is to be understood whatsoever we read concerning the authority of Bishops or Presidents as Justin Martyr callsthem in Ignatius and other more ancient Writers SECT 6. Certainly from these two great defenders of the Presbytery we should never have had this free acknowledgement so prejudicial to their own pretence and so advantagious to their adversaries purpose had not the evidence of clear and undeniable truth enforced them to it It will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that uningenuous assertion of the anonymous Author of the Catalogue of Testimonies for the equality of Bishops and Presbyters who affirms That their disparity began long after the Apostles times But we may safely take for granted that which these two learned Adversaries have confessed and see whether upon this foundation layd by them we may not by unanswerable reason raise this superstructure That seeing Episcopal Government is confessedly so Ancient and so Catholique it cannot with reason be denyed to be Apostolique SECT 7. For so great a change as between Presbyterial Government and Episcopal could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a little time Had Episcopal Government been an aberration from or a corruption of the Government left in the Churches by the Apostles it had been very strange that it should have been received in any one Church so suddainly or that it should have prevailed in all for many Ages after Variâsse debuer at error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud omnes unum est non est erratum sed traditum Had the Churches err'd they would have varied What therefore is one and the same amongst all came not sure by error but tradition Thus Tertullian argues very probably from the consent of the Churches of his time not long after the Apostles and that in matter of opinion much more subject to unobserv'd alteration But that in the frame and substance of the necessary Government of the Church a thing alwayes in use and practice there should be so suddain a change as presently after the Apostles times and so universal as received in all the Churches this is clearly impossible SECT 8. For what universal cause can be assigned or faigned of this universal Apostasie you will not imagine that the Apostles all or any of them made any decree for this change when they were living or left order for it in any Will or Testament when they were dying This were to grant the question To wit that the Apostles being to leave the Government of the Churches themselves and either seeing by experience or fore-seeing by the Spirit of God the distractions and disorders which would arise from a multitude of equals substituted Episcopal Government instead of their own General Councells to make a Law for a generall change for many ages there was none There was no Christian Emperour no coercive power over the Church to enforce it Or if there had
been any we know no force was equal to the courage of the Christians of those times Their lives were then at command for they had not then learnt to fight for Christ but their obedience to any thing against his Law was not to be commanded for they had perfectly learn't to dye for him Therefore there was no power then to command this change or if there had been any it had been in vain SECT 9. What device then shall we study or to what fountain shall we reduce this strange pretended alteration Can it enter into our hearts to think that all the Presbyters and other Christians then being the Apostles Schollers could be generally ignorant of the Will of Christ touching the necessity of a Presbyterial Government Or dare we adventure to think them so strangely wicked all the World over as against knowledge and conscience to conspire against it Imagine the spirit of Diotrephes had entered into some or a great many of the Presbyters and possessed them with an ambitious desire of a forbiddden superiority was it possible they should attempt and atchieve it once without any opposition or contradiction and besides that the contagion of this ambition should spread it self and prevail without stop or controul nay without any noyse or notice taken of it through all the Churches in the World all the watchmen in the mean time being so fast asleep and all the dogs so dumb that not so much as one should open his mouth against it SECT 10. But let us suppose though it be a horrible untruth that the Presbyters and people then were not so good Christians as the Presbyterians are now that they were generally so negligent to retain the government of Christ's Church commanded by Christ which we now are so zealous to restore yet certainly we must not forget nor deny that they were men as we are And if we look upon them but as meer naturall men yet knowing by experience how hard a thing it is even for policy arm'd with power by many attempts and contrivances and in a long time to gain upon the liberty of any one people undoubtedly we shall never entertain so wild an imagination as that among all the Christian Presbyteries in the World neither conscience of duty nor love of liberty nor aversenesse from pride and usurpation of others over them should prevail so much with any one as to oppose this pretended universal invasion of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the liberty of Christians SECT 11. When I shall see therefore all the Fables in the Metamorphosis acted and prove stories when I shall see all the Democracies and Aristocracies in the World lye down and sleep and awake into Monarchies then will I begin to believe that Presbyterial Government having continued in the Church during the Apostles times should presently after against the Apostles doctrine and the will of Christ be whirl'dabout like a scene in a masque and transformed into Episcopacy In the mean time while these things remain thus incredible and in humane reason impossible I hope I shall have leave to conclude thus Episcopal Government is acknowledged to have been universally received in the Church presently after the Apostles times Between the Apostles times and this presently after there was not time enough for nor possibility of so great an alteration And therefore there was no such alteration as is pretended And therefore Episcopacy being confessed to be so Ancient and Catholique must be granted also to be Apostolique Quod erat demonstrandum FINIS The Preface to the READER THe eminent abilities in the most noble Author of the ensuing learned Discourse and learneder Reply can scarcely be imagined unknown to any whom this language can reach But if any such there be I shall desire them to learne the perfections of that most excellent Person rather from the Dedication then this Preface the designe of which is onely to give the Reader some satisfaction concerning the nature of this Controversie in it selfe and of these Dissertations in particular The Romish Doctrine of their owne Infallibility as it is the most generall Controversie betweene them and all other Churches excluded by them from their Communion So it is of such a comprehensive nature that being proved and clearely demonstrated it would without question draw all other Churches so excluded to a most humble submission and acknowledgement nay to an earnest desire of a suddaine Reconciliation upon any Termes whatsoever For howsoever they please to speak and write of our Hereticall and obstinate persistance in manifest Errors yet I hope they cannot seriously thinke we would be so irrationall as to contradict him whom we our selves think beyond a possibillity of erring and to dispute perpetually with them whom onely to heare were to be satisfied But when they have propounded their Decisions to be beleeved and imbraced by us as Infallibly true and that because they propound them who in their own opinion are Infallible if notwithstanding some of those Decisions seeme to us to be evidently false because clearely contradictory to that which they themselves propound as infallibly true that is the Word of God surely we cannot be blamed if we have desired their Infallibility to be most clearly demonstrated at least to a higher degree of evidence then we have of the contradiction of their Decisions to the infallible Rule Wherefore The great Defenders of the Doctrine of the Church of England have with more then ordinary diligence endeavoured to view the grounds of this Controversie and have written by the advantage either of their learning accurately or of their parts most strongly or of the cause it selfe most convincingly against that darling Infallibility How clearely this Controversie hath been managed with what evidence of truth discussed what successe so much of reason hath had cannot more plainly appeare then in this that the very name of Infallibility before so much exalted begins now to be very burthensome even to the maintainers of it Insomuch as one of their latest and ablest Proselytes Hugh Paulin de Cressy lately Dean of Laghlin c. in Ireland and Prebendary of Windsor in England in his Exomologesis or faithfull Narration of the occasion and motives of his Conversion hath dealt very clearly with the World and told us that this Infallibilitie is an unfortunate Word That Mr. Chillingworth hath cumbated against it with too too great successe so great that he could wish the Word were forgotten or at least layd by That not onely Mr. Chillingworth whom he still worthily admires but we the rest of the poore Protestants have in very deed very much to say for our selves when we are pressed unnecessarily with it And therefore Mr. Cressy's advise to all the Romanists is this that we may never be invited to combat the authority of the Church under that notion Oh the strength of Reason rightly managed O the power of Truth clearly declared that it should force an emnient member of the Church of Rome whose
in any point of Religion yet to be in a readinesse to cry To the fire with him to Hell with him as Polybius saith in a certaine furious faction of an army of severall nations and consequently of severall languages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They all joyned onely in understanding this word throw at him These I say in my opinion were chiefly the causes which made so many so suddenly leave the Church of Rome that indeed to borrow the same Authors Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They needed no perswasion to do it but onely newes that others had done it For as this alone if beleeved makes all the rest to be so too so one thing alone disliked where infallibility is claimed overthrowes all the rest If it were granted that it agreeth not with the goodnesse of God to let men want an infallible Guide and therefore there must be one and that the Church of Rome were it yet if that teach any thing to my understanding contrary to Gods goodnesse I am not to receive her Doctrine for the same cause for which they would have me receive it it being as good an argument this guide teacheth things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore this is not appointed by God as to say it is agreeable to his goodnesse there should be one therefore there is one and sure it is lawfull to examine particular Doctrines whether they agree with that Principle which is their foundation and for that me thinks to damn him that neither with negligence nor prejudication searches what is Gods will though he misse of it is as contrary as the first can be supposed Next I would know whether he that hath never heard of the Church of Rome shall yet be damned for not beleeving her infallible I have so good an opinion of them as to assure my self they will answer he shall not I will then ask whether he that hath searched what Religions there are and finds hers to be one and her infallibility to be a part of it if his reason will not assent to that shall be damned for being inquisitive after Truth for he hath committed no other fault greater then the other and whether such an ignorance I mean after impartiall search be not of all other the most invincible Nay grant the Church to be infallible yet me thinks he that denies it and imploies his reason to seek if it be true should be in as good case as he that beleeveth it and searcheth not at all the truth of the Proposition he receives For I cannot see why he should be saved because by reason of his parents beleef or the Religion of the Country or some such accident the Truth was offered to his understanding when had the contrary been offered he would have received that And the other damned that beleeves falshood upon as good ground as the other doth truth unlesse the Church be like a Conjurers Circle that will keep a man from the Divell though he came unto it by chance They grant no man is an Heretick that beleeves not his Heresie obstinately and if he be no Heretick he may sure be saved It is not then certain damnation for any man to deny the Infallibility of the Church of Rome but for him onely that denies it obstinately And then I am safe for I am sure I do not Neither can they say I shall be damned for Schisme though not for Heresie for he is as well no Shcismatick though in Schisme that is willing to joyne in Communion with the true Church when it appears to be so to him as he is no Heretick though he holds Hereticall opinions who holds them not obstinately that is as I suppose with a desire to be informed if he be in the wrong Next Why if it be not necessary alwaies to beleeve the Truth so one beleeve in generall what the Church would have beleeved for so they excuse great men that have held contrary opinions to theirs now before they were defined or knew them to be so why I say shall not the same implicite assent serve to whatsoever God would have assented unto though I mistake what that is when indeed to beleeve implicitely what God would have beleeved is to beleeve implicitely likewise what the Church teacheth if this Doctrine be within the number of those which God commands to be beleeved I have the lesse doubt of this opinion that I shall have no harme for not beleeving the Infallibility of the Church of Rome because of my being so farr from leaning to the contrary and so suffering my will to have power over my understanding that if God would leave it to me which Tenet should be true I would rather chuse that that should then the contrary For they may well beleeve me that I take no pleasure in tumbling hard and unpleasant Books and making my self giddy with disputing obscure Questions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If I should beleeve there should alwaies be whom I might alwaies know a society of men whose opinions must be certainely true and who would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 labour to discusse and define all arising doubts so that I might be excusably at ease and have no part left for me but that of obedience which must needs be a lesse difficult and so a more agreeable way then to endure endlesse Volumes of Commenters the harsh Greek of Epiphanius and the harder Latin of Irenaeus and be pained by distinguishing between different sences and various Lections and he would deserve not the lowest place in Bedlem that would preferr these studies before so many so more pleasant that would rather imploy his understanding then submit it and if he could think God imposed upon him onely the resisting temptations would by way of addition require from himself the resolving of doubts yet I say not that all these Books are to be read by those that understand not the languages for them I conceive their seeking into the Scripture may suffice but he who hath by Gods grace skill to look into them cannot better use it then in the searching of his will where they say it is to be found that he may assent to them if there he find reason for it or if not they may have no excuse for not excusing him For whereas they say it is pride makes us doubt of their Infallibilitie I answer That their too much lazinesse and impatience of examining is the cause that many of them do not doubt Next what pride is it never to assent before I find reason since they when they follow their Church as infallible pretend reason for it and will not say they would if they thought they found none and if they say we do find reason but will not eonfesse it then pride hinders not our assent but our declaration of it which if it do in any one he is without question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 con demned by himself and it must be a very partiall Advocate that would strive to
that any opinion which was not truly received from hand to hand should by such a community be accepted as received from hand to hand is to make it beleeve what it seeth clearly to be false to lye unto it's own soule against it's own soule and the soule of it's posterity Let us adde to this that the multitude of this Church is so dispersed through so many Countries and languages of so divers governments that it is totally impossible they should agree together or meet upon a false determination to affirme with one consent a falsity for truth no interest being able to be common unto them all to produce such an effect Wherefore as an understanding man cannot chuse but laugh at the self-weening Hampshire Clown who thinks in his heart there was no such Country as France and that all that was told of it were but Travellers tales because himselfe being upon the Sea shore had seen nothing but water beyond England so I think no wise man will accompt him lesse then phrentick that understandeth so little in humane wayes as to think whole Nations by designe or by hazard can agree together to professe and protest a thing which they know of their own knowledge to be a meer lye and a well known falshood to themselves and all their neighbours CHAP. III. THe force of the declared linke of succession is so manifest to a capable understanding that being compared with any objection made against it it will of it selfe maintain it's evidence and bear down the greatest oppositors and opposition if the understanding be left unto it selfe and not wrested by the prejudice of a some wayes interessed will Neverthelesse there is a deeper root which greatly strengthens and reduceth into action the former efficacity of the tradition And this is that Christian doctrine is not a speculative knowledge instituted for delight of man to entertain his un derstanding and hath no further end then the delectation which ariseth out of contemplation but it is an art of living a rule of attaining unto eternall blisse a practicall doctrine whose end is to informe our action that our life and actions squared by her directions may lead us to that great good the which God Almighty esteemed so highly of that he thought it reason enough for him to shade his Divinity under the misery of man to make us partakers of so great a blisse Hence it followeth that no error can fall even in a point which seemeth wholly speculative in Christian faith but soone it breedeth a practicall effect or rather defection in Christian behaviour What could seem more speculative then whether the second or third Persons of the Trinity were truly or participately God Yet no sooner was an error broached in these questions but there followed a great alteration in Christian action in their Baptismes in their manner of Prayer in the motives of Love and Charity toward Almighty God the very ground-work and foundation of all Christian life Whether man hath free-will or no seemeth a question belonging to the nature of man fit for a curious Phylosopher but upon the preaching of the negative part presently followed an unknowen Libertinage men yeilding themselves over to all concupiscence since they were perswaded they had no power to resist free-will being denyed I need not instance in prayer to Saints worshiping Images prayer for the dead and the like which is evident could not be changed without an apparent change in Christian Churches So that a doctrine contrary to faith is like a disease which although the cause be internall yet cannot the effects and symptomes be kept from the outward parts and view of the world The consequence which this note draweth is that it is not possible that any materiall point of Christian faith can be changed as it were by obreption whilst men are on sleepe but it must needs raise a great scandall and tumult in the Christian Common-weale For suppose the Apostles had taught the world it were Idolatry to pray to Saints or use reverence towards their Pictures How can we imagine this honour brought in without a vehement conflict and tumult in a people which did so greatly abhor Idolatry as the Apostles Disciples did I might make the like instance in other points if the whole History of the Church did not consist of the invasions made by Heretiques and the great and most violent waving of the Church to and fro upon those occasions We remember in a manner as yet how change came into Germany France Scotland and our own Country Let those be a signe to us what we may thinke can be the creeping in of false doctrine specially that there is no point of doctrine contrary to the Catholique Church rooted in any Christian Nation that the Ecclesiasticall History does not mention the times and combats by which it entred and tore the Church in peices Let it therefore remaine for most evidently constant that into the Christian Church can come no error but it must be seen and noted and raise scandall and opposition to shew it selfe as truly it is contrary to the nature of Piety and Religion And when it does come it cannot draw after it any others then such as first desert the root of Faith and Anchor of Salvation that is to be judged by what their fore-fathers taught them and affirmed to have received from their Ancestors as the Faith which Christ and his Apostles delivered to the whole world of their time and to such as ever claime and maintaine the right of succession as rule of what they beleeve Yet may this also be worthy of consideration that as in our naturall body the principall parts are defended by Bones Flesh Skinnes and such like defences in such sort that no outward Agent can come to offend them before having annoyed some of these so in the Catholique faith there are in speculation those we call Theologicall conclusions and other pious opinions and in practise many Rites and Ceremonies which stop the passage unto the maine principall parts of Christian beleife and action And about these we see daily such great motions in the Catholique Church that he must be very ignorant of the Spirit of God which quickneth his Church that can imagine any vitall part of his faith can be wounded while it lyes asleep and is insensible of the harm befalleth it for as in any Science a principle cannot be mistaken but it must needs draw a great shoale of false consequence upon it and lame the whole Science so never so little an error in faith can be admitted but in other Tenets and Ceremonies it must needs make a great change and innovation CHAP. IV. NOw let any discreet man consider what further evidence he can desire or peradventure what greater assurance nature can afford and not be of an awkward wilfulnesse to aske that which is not conformable to the lawes of nature Much like unto him who being sate in a chaire far from the chimney could not
labour of writing them and Traditors who deliver'd them to be burnt would have been thought to have committed no greater fault then if they had done the same to any ordinary writing But if the first Christians and generally their successours since have even carefully and assiduously stucked what by comparing places what by all other waies to understand them and thought themselves bound to beleeve and obey whatsoever they found or thought they found there contain'd and esteem'd that they were taught by themselves what they learnt from their writings as they must have thought it the same thing unlesse the Apostles authority had vanisht by having their instructions put into paper which were as if the Kings verball Commands bound us but not his Proclamations Then here appeares a gate at which errors might enter which you at least I am sure this part of your Treatise did not consider 2 But even their verball might either bee mis-interpreted or knowinglie mis-alledged even by those who are counted Archi-Catholicks for I pray must not one of those two have been done or by the Church of Rome or by those of Asia which example I would not so often speake of but that I hope 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is as good an excuse as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For fince it is impossible that Saint John and Sain Peter both inspir'd by the Holy Ghost which is the Spirit of Truth should teach contradictorie doctrines whereof one must necessarily be false what else can follow but that one part if not both intended to deceive or were themselves deceiv'd in it and what makes it impossible that such a mistake by men of authoritie may not generallie spread and after a plaine example your reason will be no more able to overthrow experience then the earthen Pitcher in the Fable was to break the Brasen one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3 One of the Arguments you make for the infallibility of the way which you propound is That the Doctrine which the Apostles taught was neither long nor hard to be carried away Out of which me thinkes I can evidently deduce that the Church of Rome is not that since both it appears how long that is and since you tell us your selfe That the cause of many errors among you is the multiplicity of Catholique Doctrines which doth not oblige a man o the knowledge of every Part but to a prompt subjection to the Church Truely if there be no contradiction between these two Propositions I will confesse that I have hitherto mistaken what the word signifies unlesse you mean that the Apostle by teaching subjection to the Church indusively taught all that she teaches and so what they delivered was short but what implicitely much If this were so certainely the Apostles when they included almost all their doctrine in the subjection enjoyn'd to the Church taught some certaine markes by which men might at all times know her though you pretend to none but such as the Greeke Church as much claime which is enough to scruple the ignorant and rightly too as the Roman as Antiquity Succession Miracles c. excepting onely communion with the Pope and splendor whereof neither are proper markes of the true Church that is such as can never be absent from her since the Heresie of a Pope which hath been and is not by your owne whole Church held impossible may take away the one way and a generall Persecution the other 4 It appeares also by what you speake of the immediate joines es of the descent that you suppose if any errour come in some one Age must joyn to teach it which by no meanes followes no more then one Age of them at Rome joyn'd to teach their Posterity Italian instead of Latine but some may have taught a Doctrine to be probable in one Age more then in the second and all in the third according to Seneca's observation The error of few especially when Notable Persons begetting the error of a multitude and againe the authority of a multitude deceiving Particular men and so by degrees it may be thought from Probable True from true fere de Fide from that absolutely a part of Faith and consequently to have come from Tradition whilst the contrary opinion being first believ'd the more improbable next false from false Temerary from temerary Haeresi proximum and from that absolutely Hereticall hath by almost insensible degrees met with a mighty change and is arriv'd at Hell before it almost misdoubted it And that these progresse-Doctrines have travel'd it is casie for any man to see who hath been but a little conversant in your own Books and whosoever denies it may as well deny that their is any green in Summer when there is hardly any thing else 5 And for the Case you put that the wisest and best of the Townes where Doctrines were delivered should have met c. I both suppose that the controversie of who were best and wisest would not it felf have been easily ended but allowing that it might have been easily done and would have been most usefully done yet it never was and so suppose the way never so good it was yet like a Medicine which be it never so Soveraigne can never cure if it be never taken Councells there have been call'd Ancient because lesse Modern and generall because lesse particular for the first was not till more then three hundred yeeres after Christ nor to the largest appeares it that ever any were summon'd from beyond the bounds of the Ancient Roman Empire though Christianity were much farther extended Some lesse meetings or Conciliabula there were indeed before but none of these accounted infallible by your selves though me thinks they should by your grounds and in deed it would go ill with your own infallibility if you should for of the two most notable the one defended Rebaptization and the other condemned Samosatenus and in doing so taught as plain Arrianisme if we might know mens meaning by their words which if we cannot all arguing especially from what any Authors say is ended as even Arrius himself was condemned for at Nice If these intended to discusse the Comroversie out of the Principle you speak of and yet miss'd Tradition when they meant to have followed it then so might your best and wisest men have done too if they did not intend it then it seemes it hath not been held needfull alwaies by Catholikes to try Doctrines by that Criterium which you now prescribe Who can be ignorant what he was taught when he was a child as the ground and substance of his hopes for all Eternity Truely the ordinary fort more then most easily For because either their mind wanders or their Teachers descend not to their capacities they commonly goe away both from publique Sermons and private Catcchismes as if they had receiv'd instructions in a language as strange to them as that wherein they say their prayers Besides their own Fathers teach them
little or nothing because that is as much as they have learnt themselves especially in ignorant places and times their Ghostly Fathers teach them most but that much more concerning life then opinions so that though they were not ignorant of all they were taught yet they are absolute strangers to the greatest part of what your Church teaches And if now no more of their Religion be delivered by Verball Tradition what was then when many points which are now often taught though not constantly and in all places but upon occasions were not thought of in many yeeres Suppose that about the Question of what makes a Priest a convocation of men had met I mean of such who knew not what was taught in Bookes before Luthers time and what I say would be true in somewhat a lesse degree of this more instructed Age what account could they have given what they had been taught when they were Children Truely they could have said we know it to be the custome for our Bishops to make Priests and some of us have heard he onely is to make them what is done and taught in other places we know not Very far would they have been from all agreeing that they were taught when they were Children as part of the ground of their hopes for all Eternity by their Fathers as receiv'd from their so as come down from the Apostles that he is no Priest to whom in expresse tearmes Commission is not given to offer for the living and the dead which now being objected to the Clergy of England perswades me that your Church teacheih more then generally men are taught when Children or indeed at any time by any Verball Tradition For not onely the Ordinary sort but even your most learned men knew not what is Tradition if that be still your Rule of Faith for they disagree among themselves whether some things be of Faith or no as for Example Whether the Pope can erre in the Cannonization of a Saint for if all Questions were that way to be ended and such Traditions were evident as if they were such as you speak of they must be all your side must be soone resolv'd both in this and all other such Questions And if you say that indeed all Particular Doctrines are not taught by such a Tradition but that by so much as all are taught they know their Judge and Director concerning them and so are taught them implicitely I answer that the Vulgar although they are generally told that the Church is infallible yet I doubt whether they be either taught that this Doctrine hath had any such generall and uninterrupted a delivery or have heard much concerning those meanes by which she her-selfe is to be known or those Circumstances by which we are to know when she expresseth her opinion That the Pope is the Head of the Church they know but whether Tradition teach him to be so of Divine or humane Right from God of Councels or tacite consent and what Power is included in that Headship a Mahumetan is as much instructed as most of them and even his head-ship is ordinarily prov'd to them but out of some place of Scripture out of which they hear his Infallibility concluded too without being told the different degree in which those two Doctrines are to be held Secondly For the learned neither are they taught so well some of these things but that they differ concerning them and your self fly wholly speaking of them leaving them to agree among themselves and as Cardinall Perron saies in one place he will do us Protestants when we differ suffering the dead to bury the dead If then neither are you all agreed by what to know your Church nor when she hath defin'd so that even what is of faith is undermined among you I find cause to beleeve that Tradition is no excellent Director of you even in your grounds no not to teach you to know that which should teach you all the rest And if you were yet at the same wicket and by the same degrees by which I have shewd that other errors both may and have not onely entered into your Church but ascended also to high places there this doctrine concerning your Director might have done the same True it is that very little is generally and constantlie taught in all ages to the people and that which is seldome is told them to have been so receiv'd from hand to hand by the verball Tradition you speak of and if they be at any time taught so and remember it yet they know not whether the next Curate teach the same at least if under the same notion and degree of Necessitie Indeed it would not be so intricate a worke as now adaies it is to be a Christian if your way had been onely followed but it is not this Tradition but the writings of past Ages which transmit to posteritie the opinions of the Doctors of past times many of them being erroneous and more unnecessarie out of these works the learned learne and teach againe in their workes what the greater part the unlearned scarce ever heare of out of these they settle the degrees your Doctrines are to be held in some as probable some true some almost necessarie some altogether and teach concerning others that some are false some dangerous some damnable whereas the vulgar have seldome their meat so curiouslie joynted to them but are told in generall for the most part unlesse some publick opposition or other occasion perswade them at some time to descend to teach them more particularlie that this is so good and this is not so And indeed the degree in which the last Age held such an opnion is both most hard to know not onely because the ignorant are seldom taught it by word of mouth and the learned have seldome occasion without some opposition to explaine themselves so farre in their writings but because also as many and as considerable Persons not writing as doe write we cannot know by the Authors what the whole Age thought true except the acceptation of that Doctrine were a condition of the Communoin and most necessarie to be known because most of our controversies with your Church are as much if not more about the necessitie of her opinions as about the truth of them For we seeing plainlie that in the purest ages many of the chiefest Doctors have contradicted some of her Tenets without suspicion of Heresie are not able to conceive how a doctrine should from being indifferent in one age become necessarie in another and the contrarie from onely false Heriticall As time makes Botches Pox And plodding on will make a Calfe an Oxe especially if that way had allwaies been walkt in which you now speak of No judicious man can deny to see with his eyes if he have cast them never so little upon the present state of Christendome that there is one Congregation of men which layeth claime to Christ his Doctrine as upon
this title that she hath received it from his Apostles without interruption delivered from Father to Son untill this day and admits not any Doctrine for good and legitimate which he doth not receive in this manner What the Judicious of whom I am no member can do I know not but I not onely can but do deny it you meaning by that Congregation the Church of Rome for by seeing that not upon this but other kind of claim certaine Doctrines have arrived to the very brink of being defined I have cause to think that if they received none in upon other grounds these would not be suffered to stand so neer the doore And indeed there being between your selfe such differences that Erasmus tels us that he who is a Heretick among the Dominicans is Orthodox to the Scotists sure one side hath admitted of a Doctrine for Legitimate which hath not been so received and then me thinks this being easily endable which it is by seeing which claimes such a delivery for if both do it then two Parts may which you deny if neither do then your whole Church goes by some other Rule that which doth upon that which you call the Catholique Grounds me thinks should have obtained a definition for her and the other which resists that Principle upon which they ought onely to build should have been suddenly and absolutely condemned This will appeare plainer if we consider the opinions of your Church by the Actions of her Head in a notable and late Example A great controversie being risen between the Dominicans and the Jesuites it was heard before Pope Clement let us see then what course he took to find which Part held the Truth since he was not likely especially in a time wherein by being more opposed then usually he had reasons to be consequently more cautious to chuse a new way by which truth was not wont to be found out by your side upon like occasions Did he send for the wisest and best men from all nay from adjoyning Parts to enquire of them what they had been taught by their Fathers to have been received by them uninterruptedly from the Apostles did he examine with which of them the first and purest ages sided did he consider which opinion would make us have the more excellent conceit of God and work most towards the expelling of Vice None of all these were his course but he appointed both sides to prove which of them followed Saint Austine and according to them he intended to give sentence if the advice of Cardinall Perron had not prevailed to the contrary But many days they spent in examining what he thought who thought so variously concerning it that he scarce knew himself which whereas before him all the Ancients that I could ever meet with were with the Iesuites with an Vnanimous consent and by them if they must be tried by men as fallible as themselves it would have better agreed with their own Principles to have had both Parts judged After the Pope let us hear Bishop and allmost Cardinall Fisher who being one of your own Authors and Martyrs cannot be thought to praevaricate against that Church for whose defence he imployed not onely his Inke but his Blood His words are these There are many things of which was no enquirie in the Primitive Church which yet upon doubts arising are now become perspicuous by the diligence of after-times And that you may see that he speakes of points of Faith He addes No Orthodox man now doubts whether there be a Purgatory of which yet among the Ancients there is no mention or exceeding rarely It is not believed by the Greeks to this day Neither did the Latines conceive this Truth at once but by little and little And for an Epiphonema he closeth it thus Considering that Purg atory was a good while unknown after partly by Revelations partly by Scripture came little by little to be believed by some and so at last the beliefe of it was generally received by the Catholique Churches Who can wonder concerning Indulgencies that in the Priinitive Church there was no use of them Indulgences therefore began after men had trembled a while at the Torments of Purgatory See I pray how will you two agree You say the Church of Rome receives but what she claimes to be come down to her from the Apostles without interruption He saith some of her Doctrines were long unknown and came in by Revelations and Scripture you say new Doctrines cannot come into a Church that holds this Principle He saith Doctrines have come in by little and little So either she held not allwaies this Principle or for all that they might come in To be short all which he hath said seemes to me as if he had purposely intended to frame a Ram to batter down that fortification which you have built about the Roman Church Now though he be of so great an Authority that he needs no backing yet I will desire you to look into Alphonsus de Castro where he speakes of Indulgences and see if he mend the matter He confesseth that the use of them seemes to be late received into the Church yet would not have them contemned because many things are known to after-commers of which those ancient Writers were wholly ignorant Amongst whom there is rarely mention of Transubst antiation more rarely of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son of Purgatory almost none For though he speaks after as if he meant onely that the names of these were unmentioned and not the things yet it is plaine that if he brought them in to any purpose it was to prove that some Doctrines are after of necessity to be believed which once were not and Doctrines consist in the Things not in the Name I could next tell you of Erasmus his saying Res deducta est ad Sophisticas contentiones Articulorum Miriades proruperunt Religion is come down to Sophistry and a Miriad of Articles are broken out But knowing that his words will not find so much respect because he himself finds lesse favour as those of others more allowed among you let us mark these words of Sancta Clara The Church when it is said to define any thing she rests not upon any new Revelations but upon the ancient lying hid in writings and words of the Apostles which he sayes not as his private opinion but the constant beliefe of Doctors By which it appeares plainly that there are at least interpretations of what the Apostles taught drawn forth by Reason not received by Tradition which makes now a part of the present Roman Religion a sufficient Gappe for Errors to enter at when either mistakings or ends may become new opinions and stile them but interpretations of the old Salmeron a Voluminous Jesuite one neither by his order nor his inclination an enemy at all to the Roman Church being press'd by the opinions of the Ancients affirmes Doctores quò Juniores
with the Protestants by want of Succession Vocation and such like Bull-beggers would goe over to them as I have heard Spalato meant to doe if they were not kept by an unwillingnesse to change the spirituall tyrannie of the Pope for the temporall of the Turke But although there were no such Churches or they made no such claime yet having shew'd out of your own Authors that some opinions have not been constantly delivered by Tradition but have entered into the Church upon the grounds which might at least possiblie deceive them of Scripture Reason and Revelation and others knockt apace to be let in I hope we may be excused for making a reveiw of all and examining what doctrines have been brought in if not by Scripture which we think reasonable at least by comparing what this age teacheth and requires with what the first Ages did to which we are encourag'd by your selves who make agreement with Antiquitie the chief mark of the Church unlesse you meane your selves to be onelie Judges even of those things by which you bid us to judge you For our examinations by reason I cannot tell why you mislike it since those who trust their own reason least trust it yet to chuse for them one whom they may trust against which all Arguments drawn from her fallibilitie without question lie Your Religion is built upon your Church her authoritie upon reasons which we think slight and fallacious and your selves think but prudentiall and probable ought we not then nay must we not examine them by Reason or receive them upon your word And allowing them probable reason yet I have still cause to examine further whether your superstructions be not more unreasonable then your foundations are reasonable for then I cannot receive a more unprobable doctrine then that is probable which it is prov'd by Yet in respect of things appearing divers at divers times I doe not like my own way so well as to esteem it absolutelie infallible but though I keep it because I account it the best yet I will promise to leave it when you can shew me a better which will be hard to doe because you cannot prove it to be better but by reason against which proofe and consequentlie against whatsoever it proves your own Objections remaine For to be perswaded by reason that to such an authoritie I ought to submit it is still to follow reason and not to quit her And by what else is it that you examine what the Apostles taught when you examine that by ancient Tradition and ancient Tradition by a present Testimonie Yet when I speake thus of finding the Truth by Reason I intend not to exclude the Grace of God which I doubt not for as much as is necessarie to Salvation is readie to concurre to our Instruction as the Sunne is to our sight if we by a wilfull winking chuse not to make not it but our selves guilty of our blindnesse Indeed if we love darknesse better then light and instead of esteeming it shut it out it were but just in God if we so continue long hardened not to suffer it to see after when we would since so obstinatelie we would not when we might like to that which happened to those Englishmen of whom Froissard speakes who having long bound up an eye and made a foolish vow never to see with that till they could see their Mistresses when they returned and unbound them they saw nothing but that they could not see Yet when I speake of Gods grace I mean not that it infuseth a knowledge without reason but workes by it as by its Minister and dispels those Mists of Passions which doe wrap up Truth from our Understandings For if you speake of its instructing any other way though I confesse it is possible as God may give us a sixth sence yet it is not ordinarie and ought not to be brought to dispute because so we leave visible Arguments to flie to invisible and your Adversarie when he hath found your play will be soon at the same locke and I beleeve in this sence infus'd Faith is but the same thing otherwise apparell'd which you have so often laught at in the Puritans under the title of private Spirit This being supposed either this Principle hath remain'd unto her ever since her beginning or she took it up in some one Age of the sixteen if she took it up she then thought she bad nothing in her but what she had receiv'd from her fore-fathers and if she thought so she knew it This Principle is not yet taken up by her and suppose it were yet since some other opinions are confess'd to have been receiv'd by her not from a constant Tradition but Scripture and Revelations and not at once but by little and little this very Principle of receiving nothing but from Tradition might it selfe have been receiv'd not from Tradition nor need it have been in any one Age of the sixteen but some might have taught it in one Age more in another and all at last and this so farre from being an impossibilitie that it were no wonder Let us adde that the multitude of this Church is so dispersed through so many Countries and Languages that it is impossible they should agree together upon a false Determination to affirme with one consent a Falsity for Truth no Interest being able to be common to them all to produce such an effect Although so many Countries could not so well agree upon it at once yet some might so perswade others that in time and by degrees the disease may be grown epidemicall And trulie considering in everie Countrie how few there are who thinke of Religion at all or of them againe who walke in it by the directions of their owne eyes even of them who take upon them to shew that way to others but for the most part which they did much more in more ignorant times when Scriptura sacra cum vetustis authoribus frigebat are lead by some few whom they reverence for their Piety and learning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose words are accounted lawes and they againe by a Thomas or a Scot or at best by Austine or Hierome and thinke it Tradition enough to have it from them for else why thinke they to beare us downe with the Authoritie of one or two Fathers if they thinke that not ground enough to goe upon themselves it seemes little stranger to me that whole Countries should let in not ancient opinions then that a few should since a few in all places have ever govern'd all the rest of this I will bring two very known examples out of the Ecclesiasticall Historie The first is of Valens the Emperour who being himselfe an Arrian and making peace with a Nation which was not so and supposing that they would never have firme concord with him to whom in Faith he was so opposite was advised to perswade their Bishop to change his beleife for which end having
yeeld to her in all points but one and that the least considerable she would yet throw us into the fire as Hereticks for dissenting from her in that You are bidden to put what yeare or age such an error entered and it is evidently true that then that yeare or age the Church conspired to tell a lie and deceive their Posterity You would never be loved if you were a Poser and used to aske such hard questions for either you must mean by an opinion entering when first any man pofessed it or when first by all in communion with your Church it was assented unto If you mean the first it is impossiible to be answered for if one should ask who taught first that Christ was not begotten by God before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary through his power and the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost one who knew little of Antiquity would answer Socinus a more learned Person would say Photinus another Paulus Samosatenus another might find before him Artemon and another yet before him Theodorus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with whom curious Logicians and great Readers of Euclid Aristotle Galen and Theophrastus were joyned and yet that he was the first we have no certainty for if a little of Eusebius had been lost Theodorus and Artemon had not been now heard of which may as well have happened to others before them either by want of being taken notice of by an Historian or by the losse of the History and not onely is this so in this but in all other points If you mean the second for so you must by your Inference though the words of the Question will bear both sences it is as impossible for you to receive an answer For how shall I know when all it is granted For suppose no Author to have been lost and me to have read and remembred them all yet as in England when the Calvinists opinion prevailed most as wise and learned men as those who writ though differing in opinion from the Authors yet opposed them not so publiquely but that many might believe the more generall Tenet to be received by all how should I know that the opinions of the Authors of severall Ages did agree with that of all equally wise and learned in the same times for if there be no greater certaintie of the opinions of all of one Kingdome in our owne Age think what Infallibilitie can we have concerning an absolute generall consent a thousand years agoe And of this France may as well be an example as England wherein many called Cassandrians dissent from the publiquely received Doctrines though with so little stirr that our Posterity will not know that there now are such So that all which any man can answer to this Question is that such a one was the first that he knowes of who taught such a Doctrine and such a time the first wherein he knowes not that any contradicted it or that your Church defines it for a necessary opinion and exacted assent to it as a condition of their Communion which answer will be nearer to Truth or Falshood according to the measure of the answerers learning And indeed if you please to remember that when learning rose againe and the Reformation began most Manuferipts of considerable Books had long layn unreguarded by the generallity in Popish Libraries and out of them onely had some few been Printed you must confesse that it was in the power of your Church what answer we should be able to make to that Question which you propose which then it is no wonder if it were not answered for your willingnesse to keep men in darknesse concerning this even in times of most light is to be seen by your expurgatory Indexes For there though you professe to meddle with none but Moderne Authors whereas it is plaine you go as high as Bertram yet both that will serve to deceive our posterity concerning the generall opinions of these times and if your Church in former Ages used any course somewhat Analogicall to this upon those Authors who then were moderne too as likely enough they did or you have cause to hope they did for your more justification then how can I know when any opinion entered that is either first was at all or first by all taught since in all times how little mention soever be made of it there may have been some Doctors of that opinion though either no Authors or allthough Authors yet by this Stratageme may be kept from us Neither indeed can you answer this Question your self for you know not in what Year or Age did either the giving the Eucharist to Infants begin or end at least Saint Austine knew not the first who believed it an Apostolical Tradition Neither was this a bare Custome but implyed an opinion of good which Children received which the change shewes plainely to have altered and certainely either the first opinion was a Superstition or the latter a Sacriledge But howsoever your Consequence followes not for though your Church conspired and deceived their Posterity yet it might not conspire to deceive their Posterity but to instruct it being themselves deceived And therefore when you reckon up the Motives which men have to speak false I wonder to see Hopes and Feares put in and error left out It is Gods course deeplier to root and strengthen those things which he would have most flourish Now Christians know that he made mankind for his Elect the world for mankind and therefore he hath rooted those things which more immediately belong to his Elect as his Church Faith and Holy Spirit in it then the principles either of mans nature or of the world which was made for it himselfe assuring us of it when he told us That one tittle should not perish of the holy Writ though Heaven and Earth should be dissolved and so seeing the latter principle relyeth upon the not failing of God to his Church which should ever watch upon their actions that nothing should creepe into Christian life which presently the Zeale of the faithfull should not startle at I thinke it needlesse to seeke further to qualifie the strength of that part which receiveth it from the quality of so good a workman as the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must therefore observe that this word Church hath so many significations even among your selves that it seldome comes into the mouth of a Romane Arguer but there comes withall foure Termes into his Sillogisme I could wish therefore that you would still set downe your Definition of it and put that instead of the word Church into what you say least what your late Graecian Defender Cariophilus saies of Hereticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they delight in doubtfull expressions may seem more properly to belong to you Certainlie in some sence the Elect are Gods Church and in that sence the Church belongs not to his Elect but is it
make out of it Arguments to perswade them to revolt from you It is no wonder if your Church be like the Congregation in the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most part know not why they are come together And truely if thus it were not if all had liberty to seek Truth and if all who sought it were indifferent in their seeking and their judgments were absolutely unbridled by their affections and unswaied by prejudice I cannot perswade my self that so many could meet in thinking it fit to receive for so they seem to me such impossible Doctrines upon such improbable grounds or to require a more then probable assent to but probable Doctrines allowing them to be such and should not see what is grounded upon them if not impossible is at least much more improbable then the Motives are probable which kind of Assent cannot be expected by God who as he requires onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable service so also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable Faith Here followeth the Third Part of this Discourse which is a Reply to such Answers as you have been pleased to make to a little of that little which I at first opposed SPeaking of the Church Rome as this day it is the true Church of God I answer the doubter she neither hath nor can have any error which he need to feare and be shie of The which two limitations I adde for avoiding Questions impertinent unto our businesse The first for those which concerneth the connexion of the Sca of Rome to the Universall The latter to avoide such Questions as touch that point whether the Church may erre in any Philosophicall or other such matter which Questions are not so pertinent to our Matter Meaning by the true Church a companie of men which hold all and no more that Christ taught for other interpretation I beleeve you will not give it then there is no question but that not onely it hath no dangerous error but none at all but that yours is such remaines unproved and I beleeve manet aeternumque manebit For upon examination I doubt not it will appeare that as I have read of a Cohort of Persians which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Immortall Cohort which all died in one battell so your infallibe Church will be found to abound in errors and to belie equallie hertitle being troubled her selfe with what she undertakes to secure others from like the Apothecary in Lucian who undertaking to cure all men of the Cough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could himselfe scarce prescribe his Medicine for coughing the while Besides of what sort soever the error be yet since the Condition of her Communion is to professe a beleife that she hath none such a one as to them who indeed beleeve so would not be dangerous yet to me who cannot professe this but against my Conscience how slight a one soever may be an occasion of damnation Againe as to me your answer appeares false so to those of your own side it will appeare hereticall to me it would give no satisfaction though you had proved what you but affirme because I desire to know an eternall not a temporarie Guide whereas if in your Church there should happen any Schisme your answer then would give me no meanes to resolve my selfe which part were the guide that is the true Church without a new and peradventure by the way an endlesse search To them it will give scandall because first you presuppose that we must know the Church by the Doctrine and the Doctrine by the Church and secondlie you imply a possibilitie that the Church of Rome is now but by accident and may come not to be the true Church and so all their confidence built upon her as the Directresse of all Churches and the eternall Admirall of Gods Fleet will appeare to have a very fallible foundation Besides in the cause of your Limitation I find more reason to commend your Discretion then your Ingenuitie for for the first if you had said that the Universall Church of Christ must alwaies be connected to the particular one of Rome which were to allow her Infallibilitie you knew Antiquitie to have said much against you and besides that this being not yet de fide among your selves nor evident in it selfe could not serve for a foundation to the whole bodie of our faith if you had absolutelie denied it you knew that you should incurre the displeasure of the most prevailing part of your own men and that then the maine and to the Ignorant the onely visible signe would bee taken away For the second if you had affirmed that the Church could erre in nothing how slight soever you would both have contradicted many of your own side as Stapleton by name and have asserted more then there were any coloun of proofe for and would have wanted this distinction to retire to if you were confuted in any particular if you had restrained her Infallibilitie to things necessarie or weightie or the like then the question would again have risen which are those for many errors which we lay to her charge concerne not things indeed necessarie though she adde to the error that other of thinking that whatsoever she holds becomes necessarie by her holding it and then for all you have said the doctrine of Purgatorie might be false and yet she the Church and that infallible as farre as by your Doctrine her Infallibilitie had need to be extended Neither doe I remit the questioner to Scripture for his satisfaction although I hold Scripture a very sufficient meanes to satisfie the man who goeth to it with that preparation of understanding and will which is meet and required Howsoever this I may answer for them who prove it out of Scripture that because they dispute against them who admit of Scripture and deny the authority of the Church if they can convince it they doe well though they will not themselves admit generally of a proofe out of Scripture as not able to prove every thing in foro contentioso If you hold Scripture to be so sufficient a mean I wonder Sir why you thinke not fit to remit me to it unlesse you thinke that you have severall sufficient waies to prove so evidenta Truth by or thinke me not to come with meet preparation Indeed if that be as among you it is counted to come resolved not to judge of what the Roman Church holds by what the Scriptures say but to beleeve that they say whatsoever she holds then I confesse I come not with the Conditions required but if it be to come desirous to finde the Truth and to follow and professe it when I have found it in spite of all temporall respects which might either fright or allure me from so doing then I suppose that Charitie which hopeth all things will encline you to beleeve that I come as I ought to come untill some evident reason perswade you to the
Writers and find it in every one I take it to be impossible testimonies one may find in many ages but such as will demonstrate and convince a full Tradition I much doubt Neither do I find by experience that who will draw a man by a rope or chaine giveth him the whole rope or chaine into his hands but onely one end of it unto which if he cleave hard he shall be drawn which way the rope is carried Tradition is a long chaine every generation or delivery from Father to Son being a link in it c. Of this opinion I was wholly before First upon my own small observation which also perswaded me that no controverted opinions had so much colour for such a Tradition out of antiquity as some which now are by both parts condemned And after by consideration of what hath been so temperately learned and judiciously writen by our Protestant Perron D'Aille But though I think that nothing is wholly provable by sufficient testimonies of the first ages to have had Primary and generall Tradition except the undoubted books of Scripture or what is so plainly there that it is not controverted between you and us yet I think the Negative is easie to be proved because any one known person dessenting and yet then accounted a learned and pious Catholique shews the Tradition not to have been generall and that the Church of this Age differs from that of those times if it Anathematize now for what then was either approved of or at least thought not so horrid but it might be borne with And again though we agree upon what will not serve to convince a full Tradition yet we disagree about what will serve for allowing there were any controverted opinions delivered with equall Tradition to the Scripture which I deny to have beene but would receive if it so appeared yet sure you beginne at the wrong end in the examination of what those are which ought to be done by considering the testimonies of the first ages and not of the last for in your own similitude of a rope though to helpe me to climbe by if you put but one end into my hands yet you must shew me that the other end is somewhere fastened or else for ought I know instead of getting up by it I may onelie get a fall and this fastening appeares not to me till I be shewed some more certaine connexion between the Opinions of this Age and those of the Apostolicke times then yet you have done or till you have answered those Arguments by which as I perswade my selfe I have made it appeare that it cannot be done As for the two places concerning the Popes and Councels Infallibillity it is not to my purpose to meddle of them because of one side the way I have begun beareth no need of those discourses and on the other I should engage my selfe in Quarrels betweene Catholique and Catholique obscure the matter I have taken in hand and profit nothing in my hearers more then to be judged peradventure to have more learning then wisedome to governe it withall With your favour Sir these places concerne not onely questions between your selves but between you and us for I thought you had all agreed though I knew you had not alwaies done so and though it seemes by your declining to speak about it that you doe not yet that generall Councels confirmed by the Pope are infallible and the Doctrines defined by them are to be beleeved de fide which if you be not then the Glew which it is so bragged you have to keepe you still at Unitie is dissolved and if you be then you should both have answered upon what grounds you are so and have destroyed my Objections against the possibilitie of certaintie knowing when it is that these which used to be called the Church have defined finding therefore Altum Silentium where there was so much cause of speaking makes me beleeve that the cause why you have not answered is onely because you could not and then you have a readie Apologie that Nemo tenetur ad impossibilia which I beleeve the rather because I know that to so cleare a judgement as yours that place of Scripture When two or three are gathered together c. which is so often press'd for the Infallibilitie of Councels must appeare to make as much for the Synod of Dort as for the Councell of Trent and to so great a learning as yours it cannot be unknown how few if any of the Ancients have asserted their Infallibilitie and how many both of the Ancients and your Modernes have denied it I am confirmed in this beleife too because you I know would never have accepted that as a sufficient excuse from me if I had avoided to answer an Argument so because Protestants are not agreed upon the point if you had thought it such as that they ought to have been agreed upon it and truelie this is as great and considerable a question as any among us As for the two places of Fevardentius which alloweth many Fathers to have fallen into errors I thinke it will not trouble him who is accquainted with the course of this present Church wherein divers who be thought great Divines fall into errors for which their Bookes are sometimes hindered from the print sometimes recalled or some leaves commanded to be pasted up the reason is the multiplicity of Catholike Doctrine which doth not oblige a man to the knowledge of every part but to the prompt subjection of the instruction of the Church wherefore many men may hold false doctrine inculpably not knowing it to be such even now after the learned labours of so many that have strived to open and facilitate by Method what is true and what is false much more in the Fathers times when there was great want of so many Compilers as these latter ages have produced First What Fevardentius confesseth proves plainlie that for which I intended it which was the ridiculousnesse of proving their Doctrine to be true by being conformable to that of the Fathers and yet making themselves Judges of those Judges they appeale too and confessing that many of them erred in many points which if they did they might as well doe the same in those about which we differ although they agreed with you and dissented from us Secondlie What both he confesseth and you confesse with him disproves that way of knowing divine Truths which you propose for neither the Doctors of the ancient Church who were sure more likelie to know what was then taken for Tradition then any late Compilers nor of the Modern who had a mind to deliver truth and trac'd and followed your way of finding it could erre in points of faith if Qui docet ut didicit he that teacheth as he hath been taught must still be in the right for publique Tradition no learned man at least can be ignorant not any man say you of what he was taught
ages had erred in it we must of necessitie following your advice have followed their error too or with the saying of so many of your side that if I should reckon them up I should make a Catalogue of Authors equall to those of Photius or Gesner or Possevine who all joyne that Truth was most likelie to be most certainlie known that time which was in Campians words Christo propior ab hac lite remotior neerer to Christ and consequentlie to Tradition and to which for that cause all thinke fit to appeale against us or with that custome of your Church which suffers none to take Orders before they have vowed to interpret Scriptures according to the Fathers which if men now adaies be more likelie to find the Truth then at that time they were as they must be if truth in this age be more easie to be found whether through greater abundance of Compilers or what else soever then this Vow is as much as if they had vowed to leave the best way of Interpretation and teaching to follow the worst As for the two points he saith avert him from Catholique doctrine I am mistaken if he be not mistaken in both The first is that the Catholiques doe damne all who are not in the Union of their Church He thinkes the sentence hard yet I thinke he will not deny me this that if any Church does not say so it cannot be the true Church For call the Church what you will the Congregation of the Elect the Congregation of the Faithfull the Congregation of Saints or Just call it I say or define it what you will doth it not clearly follow that whosoever is out of the Church cannot be saved for he shall not be the Elect Just Faithfull c. without which there is no salvation How then can any Church maintain these two Propositious I am the true Church and yet one may be saved without being in me This is by your favour a meere Paralogisme for though those who define the Church by qualities which both Parts agree to be the conditionall Keyes to the Kingdome of Heaven must needs affirme that none out of the Church can be saved yet what is this to them who meane by the Church the Companie of the Orthodox in all points and by them your selves out of which allowing that there be such a one which I doubt of and that to be yours I shall beleeve that some may be saved till I see some more cause to thinke all error in Religion alwaies damnable which it is plaine by what after you say that you thinke not your selfe and the Church taken in this sence which is your sence may maintaine both Propositions or to shew you how much what you say would make against your selfe thus I argue The true Church must hold that none can be saved out of her but your Church denies not but that some out of her may be saved therefore yours is not the Church My Major is included in your own saying that those two Propositions are not maintainable together My Minor though false yet is also your confession where you say that the Churches Proposition is not so cruell as it seemes though the words be rough and therefore so ought you to make my conclusion too Besides those who exclude all from Salvation who are out of the Church in the other sence meaning by it the Elect as they are not like them in the wrong so they are not occasion of much harme like them who stiling the Church a companie of men of such a beleife and under such a government affirme an impossibilitie of being saved out of it for they giving no visible signe of who is in the Church for who can know the Elect but the Electer cause no want of Charitie nor frequencie of Warre and persecutions by it as the others doe who having made first a visible partition least those who are out of it may draw others out too they send them out of the world by way of prevention But per adventure he is scandalized that the Catholick Church requireth actuall Communion externall with her which he thinketh may in some case be wanting without detriment of Salvation But how would he have the Church speake which speak eth in common but abstracting from such particular eases as may change wholly the Nature of the Question I am scandalized not because you require to Salvation joining with you in Communion but because also you require joyning with you in opinions and if it were onely this yet am not I any whit satisfied with what you say for it for with the true Church that is the Commpany of true believers in points any way materiall or rather the truest I conceive it not damnation sometimes not to communicate For if they have any never so slight errors and which appeares so to me which yet they will force me to subscribe to if I Communicate with them my assent would be damnable or if they require the same subscription to some truths which yet after my reall indeavours in inquiry appear errors to me I doubt not but my refusall is no way damnable Neither can I absolve your Church concerning this her saying for your reason because she speakes in generall wholly abstracting from particulars which change the nature of the Question for why doth she so why doth she not expresse her exceptions or at least tell us that the rule is not so generall but that it will beare some and not make men who know not that she intends to restraine at all what she so absolutely pronounceth and who will find no cause to take your bare word for her intentions many times at least to hate them as Gods enemies whom he loves as his friends and beleeve them to fry in Hell who shine in Heaven Howsoever if she use to expresse herself in rougher words then her meaning is how apt may she be to be mistaken in severall of her resolutions and consequently how easie is it for some age to have misunderstood the past and deceive the following Neither do I like your example because that is not to differ from the Church but to mistake her meaning though even he who should denie that there were three Gods if he thought that by the Trinitie your Church so meant must consequently think her not infallible and so by your grounds be consequently a Heretick The current of Catholick Doctors that no man shall be damned for infidelity but he who doth wilfully misbeleeve and that to do so it is required that Faith be sufficiently proposed unto him and what is to be sufficiently proposed is not determined amongst them There wanteth not Divines who teach that even ignorantia affectata doth excuse from Heresie On the other side it is most certaine that no man is damned for not professing what he is not damned for not believing Wherefore profession being that which engrafteth a man exteriorly in the Church
fit to be left Howsoever the long doubt of some and opposall of other Orthodox to this course and that arising not from their Policie or Compassion but their Conscience not as thinking it unprofitable or unfit but unlawfull shews that there was then no Tradition that the Apostles taught it to be lawfull so to use Hereticks upon which onelie all the Infallibilitie which you claime for any beliefe or custome of your Church is founded Saint Austine justifieth such proceedings against Hereticks Truely for putting them to death unlesse when they first assaulted which makes a wide difference for then it was not done as to Hereticks but as to Assassines from whom Nature teaches us to defend our selves and consequentlie to re-offend them whensoever Religion barres it not experience shewing us the danger of meerly defending to be neer to that too of not doing it at all I know not that ever he did nor do I beleeve it That some degree of punishment should be inflicted upon them I confesse he at last consented but chiefly to force them to come and see what the Church did whose actions the Hereticks impudently belied as if they set pictures upon the altar and did what you both doe and defend and they did not i. e. denied it Howsoever we have Saint Austine against Saint Austine and not onely his authority but his reasons more valid by much then that when he saith that such oppressions would make them think themselves vi victos non veritate convictos overcome by force not convicted by Truth and consequently dislikes it ne fictos Catholicos habeamus quos apertos Hereticos novimus least they become from open Hereticks but fained Catholicks Reasons which though these be not all we have in my opinion it was as impossible for him reasonably to answer when he was living as it would be now for him to do it when he was dead Besides as he useth these strong arguments against it so he is himself a strong example against it for the Church had lost this her so notable Champion if they then had been as severe to the Manichees as you are to us Saint Gregory vseth the like against Pagans if I remember and the Church laterly hath rather encreased then decreased in the practice of it I believe your memory deceives you in this which you have cause to hope it doth for else the Church of Rome differs from that of Saint Gregories times it being now with her a judged case that Infidels may not be compelled to the Faith as I am told is shewed by Vaelentia Saint Thomas Hartado and others the Church having no power over those who are out of it and therefore they please to say that like them who among the Romans were onely Cives ad onera liable to the taxes of Citizens without Interest in their Priviledges Baptisme hath made us of the Church enough to be liable to her Punishments though not to be benefitted by her Communion Though indeed the same cause why you would have Hereticks put to death for feare of harming others with their opinions me thinks should extend to their punishment too unlesse you believe us to be as bad as Malefactors and not them or that their opinions are so irrationall as not likely to spread and ours so reasonable that against them the sword is the best shield and therefore as Brennus did his you put that into the scales for want of weight it being of giving Reasons as the Poet saith it is of giving Requitalls Irasci quam donari vilius constat Another reason which perswades me that you are mistaken in what you say of Gregory as this mistake facilitates my beliefe that you are so about Austines too is that Bede tells that some Romanists having converted the King of Kent that King did not yet force any to become Christians for saith he he had learned of these his Masters that the service of Christ WHICH REASON EXTENDS FARTHER THEN TO PAGANS must be voluntary and not forced Now if these received what they taught from Gregory as you often tell us then either he did not as you often say or thought that unlawfull which himself did And howsoever this Custome hath encreased since is very unconsiderable for unlesse it have its authority explicitely or implicitely from the Apostles it can give none since and unlesse it be proved to be well done at first no continuance can give this or any other action more justification then at first it had Moses speech I believe is mistaken the force of it being that the banishment of Bishops shewed his faith because the banished were Catholickes which shewed Lucius to be none If Moses had meant as you would have him he should not have said onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not indefinitelie the banishing of Bishops but the banishing of Orthodox Bishops the leaving therefore of that out wherein according to you the whole sence of his Argument lay seemes to me plainlie enough to shew that he meant what they and you denie especiallie he adding as you may see in Zozomon their being punish'd by labour as well as punishment and then saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which things are whollie abhorring from Christ and all right Beleevers concerning God and in Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Gods servant ought not to fight for so he counted to punish But what can be said if the Church useth that for the prevention of a greater and more dangerous evill which all politique Estates use for the remedies of lesse and lesse dangerous evils and are commended for it For if Faith he the way to Salvation and Heresie be the bane of Faith if Salvation the greatest good then the danger of a Countries being over-runne with Heresie is the greatest of dangers greater then the multiplicity of Theeves greater then the unsurety of the wayes greater then a Plague or Invasion why then doth not reason force us to use meanes to prevent it which the same reason-and experience teacheth us to be most efficacious in this and all other contagious and gangrening maladies of the Common-wealth I hope reason it selfe and the Zeale of the Author to his own and Countries salvation will supply my shortnesse in this point for supposing a Church be assured she is in the right and that the doctrine preach'd as then leadeth to damnation I know not why Caiphas his words should not be propheticall in this case and that truly it doth expedire that Unus moriatur pro populo non tota gens pereat I wish heartilie you were as good a Caterer as a Cooke I meane that you brought as good reasons as you dresse artificiallie what you bring For I finde there is in your words a verie notable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 able to steale a man into your opinion before he hath askt himselfe why but if he stay to doe so then all your excellent
which I have answered their duty indeed but not theirs onely though Principally is to instruct us in the way to Heaven which they doing in the Persons of Embassadors between God and us and having no absolute Letters of Credence to bid us to beleeve that God saies whatsoever they say he saies as much as can be wrested out of Scriptures for any present Church being said of the Scribes and Pharisees who yet proved themselves not infallible our best way is in my mind to examine their Commission and if they can shew that they treat according to that to submit to them as in the same case we must to any of the Layetie or rather to God of whose commands they are but Organs and if not to beware of their Leaven Yet it may be that some man may hold that such an opinion is to be beleeved onelie because such a Church proposeth it and yet not believe her Infallible since he may think her authoritie by reason of her Learning Multitude Sanctitie Unitie and Libertie to be more probable then any contradicting argument and that men are to assent to what is most probable and truelie if he could prove to me his Major I am alreadie so much of the opinion of his Minor that I should joyne with him in his Conclusion So that if I understand any thing where there is no Infallibility there is no Power where no Power no Unity where no Unity no Entity where no Entity no Church How you tie Power to Infallibilitie I guesse but cannot how you tie Unitie to Power For how many things are all men even at Unitie about though one have no Power over another in them onelie cemented together by their clear evidence And how many more do whole Bodies and Sects of men agree about without any such power though they differ in other points as so do you too Do not Protestants agree with you about manie and the chiefest credenda and about almost all the meerely facienda Though not perswaded to this agreement by the Power of any Judge which they do acknowledge Nay if men could be at Unitie about no thing which were not proposed by some Guide or defined by some Judge endued with such a power how came all you to agree that there is some such Guide and Judge required since sure you receive not that upon its own authoritie and if men may find the necessitie of a Guide and Judge without any Guide or Judge and remain in Unitie about that why may they not also about whatsoever is clearly taught by God which reason assures us to be all that is necessarie and if you say that all things necessarie are not clearlie taught because we do not though it proves not that we might not agree upon them then I replie that I may as well say that neither is it cleare that there is a Guide because we dissent from you in it although receiving the authoritie of the Scripture out of which Cardinall Perron confesseth that Saint Austine saith that both the necessitie of your guide the Church and she her self are to be known and reason which as they may be plain in this point for you and yet perswade us not so may they be in all necessarie points and yet we who make theirs our ground not perswade one another As little see I why there can be no Entitie nor Church where there is no Unitie For the first though there be small Unitie among Christians yet certainly Christians and their Religion have some Entitie indeed if what you say were true there were no Entitie in yours For the second I know not why two parties over-valuing their differences may not conceive each other to be none of the Church and so declare even by excommunications and yet remain both Parts of it for if a Husband misse-suspecting his Wife of Adulterie declare her to be no longer his Wife this cannot make her give over being so if the bond be indeed not broken as well as chrysostome and Epiphanius both excommunicated by each other and yet both Saints or as particular men may by your own confession be interiorly in the Church although seeming out of it even to the Church her self and so those be both of the Church between whom there is no Unity For not onely in your own Cariophilus his words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also though the persons have power yet if the cause have not sufficiencie I take you to agree that an excommunication is but a brutum fulmen as Victors of the Asian Bishops The best therefore and strictest definition and which I think you will not refute which I can give for the Church is especially in that sence as out of it there can be no salvation those who are desirous to know Gods Will or Christs at the strictest for I am not certaine nor I beleeve is it defined among you whether an explicite knowledge of Christ be absolutely necessarie to Salvation though I know no guiltlesse ignorance of him can bring unavoidably upon any man eternall torments and ready when known to beleeve and follow it and sure many of these may eternally disagree even in points which are necessarie abstracting from particular cases and yet their differences not exclude them from the Church and consequentlie a Church may be without Unitie Quod erat demonstrandum Now for the Controversies mentioned besides that there is a meanes to terminate them they be such as bring no breach of the ancient life and action of Christians which all those opinions do which for the most part are reputed to make Hereticks You saw verie well that if no Unitie no Church were a true Proposition yours hath in it differencies enough to destroy its being a Church and therefore are faine to applie what salves you can but all in vaine For your meanes to terminate them doth not make them not to be before they are terminated and consequently by your Rule yours is no Church till then Besides their bringing to breach of the ancient life and action of Christians proves not but one of them may be a Heresie since you say not your selfe that all Heresies are such but onelie for the most part and indeed to prove that you must be able to set down what those opinions are which before a definition may make a Heretick which I beleeve you will not venture to doe in haste though we much desire it at your hands that we may know if none of them be such That some controversies amongst us are not resolved is a thing necessarie amongst humane affaires where things must have a time to be born to encrease to fall and the greater things are the greater is their Period It is true that some time to be taken notice of must passe between an opinions rising and being condemned but that so long they should run on and many of your Councels having since been held is sure not necessarie and shewes
I mean as many as are now extant and speak of it held something which both parts condemne as the opinions of the Chiliasts If I say he find not this or I shew him not that he might have found it I professe I will be ready to spend my life for that Church against which I now employ my Pen So that this will be the end neither of your Churches have been alwaies visible onely the difference is this that we are most troubled to shew our Church in the Latter and more corrupt Ages and they theirs in the first and purest that we can least find ours at night and they theirs at Noone And whereas he expects that Doctor White should stand to this to confesse his Religion false if a continuall descent of it cannot be demonstrated if he himself will please to grant as much as he exacts if he but continue in this resolution and in this search I doubt no more but that he will soone leave to be a Papist then I should doubt if I saw him now receiving the Communion in the Kings Chappell that he had done it already Sixtly His Reasons for the necessitie of the Visibility follow because the contrary were a derogation from Gods Power or Providence I answer To say he could not keep the Truth exactly in mens beleefe were to derogate from Gods Power to say he had not given sufficient meanes to find the Truth and yet damned men for error the first would be a derogation from his Providence the second from his Justice but to say he suffers men to erre who neglect the meanes of not erring and that he damnes none for a meer error in which the will hath no part and consequently the man no fault derogates from none of the three but saies he this is repugnant to the maine reason why God hath a Church upon Earth to be the conserver of the Doctrine of Christ and to conveigh it from Age to Age. I answer To conserve it is every mans duty but such as they may all faile in and indeed is rather the the form of the Church then the end of the Church an exact conservation making an exact Church and a lesse perfect conserving a lesse perfect Church As for conveighance of Doctrine the whole Church conveighs none whereof many if his be it have had but little conveighed to them Particular Christians especially Pastors teach others which it is every mans duty to do when he meets with them who want instruction which he can give and they are likely to receive yet is not the instruction of others every mans maine end But Mr. Mountague I know perswades him that some body of men are appointed to conveigh this Doctrine which men are to receive onely because they deliver it and this I absolutely deny for we receive no Doctrine from the Church upon the Churches authority because we know her not to be the Church till we have examined her Doctrine and so rather receive her for it then it for her Neither for the conveighance of the Truth is it necessarie that any company of men in all times hold it all because some may conveigh some Truthes and others another out of which by comparing their Doctrine with the Scripture men may draw forth a whole and perfect body of Truth and though they deliver few other Truthes yet in delivering Scripture wherein all necessarie Truth is conteined they deliver all and by that Rule whosoever regulates his life and Doctrine I am confident that though he may mistake Error for Truth in the way he shall never mistake Hell for Heaven in the end Seventhly His next reason is their common Achilles the fourth of the Ephesians which he chuseth onely to employ like his Triarios his main Battle leaving his Velites his light-armed Souldiers some places too allegoricall even in his own opinion to stand examination The words are these He hath given some Prophets some Apostles some Evangelists some Pastors and some Doctors For the instauration of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the Edification of the body of Christ till we all meet in the Unity of Faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man and unto the measure of the Age of the fullnesse of Christ. That we may be no more Children tost and carried about with every wind of Doctrine c. Now out of this place I see not how a Succession may be evinced rather I think it may if that Apostle meant none For first He saith not I will give but he hath given and who could suppose that the Apostles could say that Christ had given then the present Pope and the Doctors who now adhere to him Secondly Allow that by what he hath given were meant he hath promised which would be a glosse not much unlike to that which one of the most wittie and most eloquent of our Modern Divines Doctor Donne notes of Statuimus i abrogamus yet since these severall Nounes are governed by the same Verb and no distinction put it would prove as well a necessitie of a continuall Succession of Apostles Prophets and Evangelists as of Pastors and Doctors which is more then either they can shew or pretend they can so that it seemes to me to follow that these were then given to do this till then and not a Succession of them promised till then to do this and so we receiving and retaining the Scriptures wherein what they taught is contained as we would any thing else that had as generall and ancient a Tradition if there were any such need no more for if he say that men are tost for all the Scripture I answer so are they for all their Doctors nay if these keep any from being tost it is the Scripture which does it upon which their authoritie is by them founded upon their own Interpretation and Reason who yet will not give us leave to build any thing upon ours out of plainer places and though they tell us that we cannot know the Scriptures but from the Church they are yet faine as appeares to prove the authoritie of the Church out of Scripture which makes me ask them in the words of their own Campian and with much more cause Nihilne pudet Labyrinthi Eighthly There followes another reason to this sence that reason not being able to shew man a way to eternall happinesse and without such a one man would faile of the end to which he was ordained it must be proposed by an infallible authority in so plaine a manner as even the simple might be capable of it which being performed by our Saviour it must be conveighed to succeeding Ages by those who heard it from him and whensoever this thread failed mankind was left without a Guide to inevitable ruine I answer That though all this granted it proves not against us for we have the Scripture come down to us relating Christs Doctrine and written by those that heard it
which the simple are capable of understanding I mean as much as is plaine and more is not necessarie since other Questions may as well be suffered without harme as those between the Jesuites and the Dominicans about Praedetermination and between the Dominicans and allmost all the rest about the Immaculate Conception and those who are not neither are they capable out of Scripture to discerne the true Church much lesse by any of those Noteswhich require much understanding and learning as Conformity with the Ancients and such like Ninethly The same answer I give to this serves also to the following words of Saint Austine for whereas Mr. Mountague concludeth that he could not meane the Scriptures as a competent Rule to mankind which consisteth most of simple Persons because there hath been continuall alterations about the sence of important places I answer That I may as well conclude by the same Logick that neither is the Church a competent Guide because in all Ages there have also been disputes not onely about her authority but even which was she and to whatsoever reason he imputes this to the same may we the other as to Negligence Pride Praejudication and the like and if he please to search I verily beleeve he will find that the Scriptures are both easier to be known then the Church and that it is as easie to know what these teach as when that hath defined since they hold no decrees of hers binding de Fide without a confirmation of the Popes who cannot never be known infalliblly to be a Pope because a secret Simony makes him none no not to be a Christian because want of due intention in the Baptizer makes him none whereof the latter is alwaies possible and the first in some ages likely and in hard Questions a readinesse to yeeld when they shall be explained me thinks should serve as well as a readinesse to assent to the decrees of the Church when those shall be pronounced Tenthly He saith that the Scripture must be kept safe in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved that free from Corruption then it self in a continuall visibilitie I answer That neither to giving authority to Scriptures nor to the keeping of them is required a continuall visibility of a no-waies erring body of Christians the Writers of them give them their authority among Christians nor can the Church move any other and that they were the Writers we receive from the generall Tradition and Testimony of the first Christians not from any following Church who could know nothing of it but from them for for those parts which were then doubted of by such as were not condemned for it by the rest why may not we remain in the same suspence of them that they did and for their being kept and conveighed this was not done onely by their Church but by others as by the Greeks and there is no reason to say that to the keeping and transmitting of records safely it is required to understand them perfectly since the old Testament was kept and transmitted by the Jewes who yet were so capable of erring that out of it they looked for a Temporall King when it spoke of a Spirituall and me thinks the Testimony is greater of a Church which contradicts the Scripture then of one which doth not since no mans witnessing is so soon to be taken as when against himself and so their Testimonie is more receiveable which is given to the Scriptures by which themselves are condemned Besides the generall reverence which ever hath been given to these Books and the continuall use of them together with severall parties having alwaies their eyes upon each other each desirous to have somewhat to accuse in their adversaries give us a greater certaintie that these are the same writings then we have that any other ancient book is any other ancient Author and we need not to have any erring Company preserved to make us surer of it Yet the Church of Rome as infallible a Depositarie as she is hath suffered some variety to creep into the Coppies in some lesse materiall things nay and some whole Books as they themselves say to be lost and if they say how then can that be rule whereof part is lost I reply That wee are excused if we walk by all the Rule that we have and that this maketh as much against Traditions being the Rule since the Church hath not looked better to Gods unwritten Word then to his written and if she pretend she hath let her tell us the cause why Antichrists comming was deferred which was a Tradition of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and which without impudence she cannot pretend to have lost And if againe they say God hath preserved all necessary Tradition I reply so hath he all necessarie Scripture for by not being preserved it became to us not necessarie since we cannot be bound to beleeve and follow that we cannot find But besides I beleeve that which was ever necessary is contained in what remaines for Pappias saith of Saint Mark that he writ all that Saint Peter preacht as Irenaeus doth that Luke writ all that Saint Paul preacht nay Vincentius Lirinensis though he would have the Scripture expounded by ancient Tradition yet confesseth that all is there which is necessary and yet then there was no more Scripture then we now have as indeed by such a Tradition as he speakes of no more can be proved then is plainly there and almost all Christians consent in and truely I wonder that they should brag so much of that Author since both in this and other things he makes much against them as especially in not sending men to the present Roman Church for a Guide a much readier way if he had known it then such a long and doubtfull Rule as he prescribes which indeed it is impossible that almost any Question should be ended by Eleventhly He brings Saint Austines authority to prove that the true Church must be alwaies visible but if he understood Church in Mr Mountagues sence I think he was deceived neither is this impudent for me to say since I have cause to think it but his particular opinion by his saying which Cardinall Perron quoted that before the Donatists the Question of the Church had never been exactly disputed of and by this being one of his maine grounds against them and yet claiming no Tradition but onely places of Scripture most of them allegoricall and if it were no more I may better dissent from it then he from all the first Fathers for Dionysius Areopagita was not then hatcht in the point of the Chiliasts though some of them Pappias and Irenaeus claimed a direct Tradition and Christs owne words Secondly As useth this kind of libertie so he professeth it in his nineteenth Epistle where he saith that to Canonicall Scriptures he had
great Principle is non = retractation to retract so necessary so fundamentall a Doctrine to desert all their Schooles and contradict all their Controvertists But indeed not without very good cause For he professes withall that no such word as Infallibility is to be found in any Councel Neither did ever the Church enlarge her Authority to so vaste a widenesse But doth rather deliver the victory into our hands when we urge her Decisions In all which Confessions although he may seeme onely to speak of the Word yet that cannot be it which he is so wearie of because we except not against the word at all but confesse it rightly to signifie that which we impugne neither do we ever bring any nominall Argument against it But as when Cardinall Bellarmine sets downe the Doctrine of the Church in their positive tearmes Summus Pontifex cum totam Ecclesiam docet in his quae ad Fidem pertinent nullo casu errare potest We conceive he hath sufficiently expressed the sence of the word Infallibility so that Infallibilis est nullo casu errare potest are to us the same thing It cannot therefore be the Word alone but the whole importance and sence of that word Infallibility which Mr. Cressy so earnestly desires all his Catholicks ever hereafter to forsake because the former Church did never acknowledge it and the present Church will never be able to maintaine it This is the great successe which the Reason Parts and Learning of the late Defendors of our Church have had in this maine Architectonicall Controversie And yet though the Church never maintained it though the Protestants have had such advantage against it though Mr. Cressy confessing both hath wished all Catholicks to forsake it yet will he not wholly forsake it himself but undertakes most irrationally to answer for it If the Church never asserted it if the Catholicks be not at all concerned in it to what end will Mr. Cressy the great mitigator of the rigor and defendor of the latitude of the Churches Decisions maintaine it If Mr. Chillingworth have had such good successe against it why will his old Friend Mr. Cressy endeavour to answer his arguments especially considering when he hath answered them all he can onely from thence conclude that Mr. Chillingworth was a very bad Disputant who could bring no argument able to confute that which in it selfe is not to be maintained So unreasonable it is and inconsistent with his Concessions that he should give an answer at all but the manner of his answer which he gives is farr more irrationall For deserting the Infallibility he answers onely the authority of the Church and so makes this authority answer for that Infallibility from whence these three manifest absurdities must necessarily follow First When he hath answered all M. Chillingworth's arguments in the same manner as he pretends to answer them he must still acknowledge them unanswerable as they were intended by him that made them And no argument need to be thought good for any thing else if he which made it knew what he said as Mr. Chillingworth certainely did Secondly He onely pretends to answer those arguments as against the authority of the Church simply considered without relation to such an Infallibility which were never made against an authority so quallified And therefore whether the argument of his deare friend were to any purpose or no his answer manifestly must be to none Thirdly If hee intend to refute all opposition made to their Infallibility by an assertion of their bare authority then must he assert that authority to be as great and convincing which is fallible as that which is infallible that Guide to be as good which may lead me out of my way as that which cannot That Iudge to be as fit to determine any doubt who is capable of a mistake as he which is not And then I make no question but some of his own Church amongst the rest of their dislikes will put him in mind of that handsome sentence of Cardinall Belarmine Iniquissimum esset cogere Christianos ut non appellent ab eo Judicio quod erroneum esse potuit I once thought to have replied to those answers which he hath given to Mr. Chillingworth's arguments but his antecedent Concession hath made them so inconsiderable to me that upon a second thought I feare I should be as guilty in replying after my Objections as he hath been in answering after his Confessions Wherefore I shall conclude with an asseveration of mine own which shall be therefore short because mine That the Reply of this most excellent Person Sola operarum summa praesertim in Graecis incuria excepta is the most accurate Refutation of all which can be said in this Controversie that ever yet appeared and if what hath already been delivered have had such successe upon so eminent an adversary then may we very rationally expect at least the same effect upon all who shall be so happy as to read these Discourses Which is the earnest desire of I. P. To the Right Honourable Henry Lord Viscount of Falkland my Honourable Lord. My Lord NOt long before the death of that incomparable person your Lordships Mother that great example of piety and humility the Lady Viscountesse of Falkland she was pleased to commit to my hand that which she beleeved next her Children the dearest pledge of her dead Lord some excellent Monuments of his Reason Wit and Industry in the search of that which he would have as gladly found as he hath rationally rejected an Infallible Iudge here on Earth in all our Controversies in point of Religion of which the labouring world seemeth at present to stand in so much need I have considered often of that singular trust and friendship in making me the depositarie of so rich a Jewell And since she from whose hands I received it is gone thither where she stands in no need of these discourses I know no person living that hath more right to it then your Lordship or indeed to whom I would more willingly offer it For though your Lordship be now out of my immediate charge and Tuition yet as long as it shall please God to make me able to do or point at any thing that may though never so little helpe forward to perfect a good work in you I shall never account my selfe disobliged I must professe to all the World that there is no Family now in being to which I owe more true service then to your Lordships And shall to the utmost of my power upon all occasions make it good I have nothing left me but a poor thankfull heart which hath been my onely sure Companion when all things else have forsaken me That still remaines 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being neither in the power of time nor persons to spoile me of that which like a good Conscience to my self must to my friends be the best feast I can make them My Lord