Proposition it is understood of all those common fundamental Truths which the Christian Church of all ages hath been agreed in And the saying There is but one saving Faith is of the same sense with the saying There is but one true Religion in the world The substance of what you would inferr from the saying of Athanasius his Creed Which if a man keeps whole and inviolate as you would have it is this That a man is equally bound to believe every Article of Faith But you cannot mean that it is simply necessary to do it for that you disclaim elsewhere by your distinction of things necessary from the matter and the formal reason of Faith and therefore it can only be meant of such to whom those objects of Faith are sufficiently proposed and so far we acknowledge it too that it is necessary to Salvation for every man to believe that which he is convinced to be an object of Faith For otherwise such persons must call in question God's Veracity but if you would hence make it necessary to believe all that your Church proposes for matter of Faith you must prove that whatever your Church delivers is as infallibly true as if God himself spake and when you can perswade us of this we shall believe whatever is propounded by her When you say We cannot believe all Articles of Faith on the same formal reason because we deny the Churches Infallibility it is apparent that you make the Churches testimony the formal reason of Faith and that you are bound to prove the Church absolutely Infallible before we can believe any thing on her account Neither doth it follow Because we deny that therefore we pick and chuse our Faith for we believe all without reservation which you or any man can convince us was ever revealed by God As to what at large occurrs here again about the Infallibility of Councils there is nothing but what hath been sufficiently answered on that subject and so reserving the Question of Purgatory which is here brought in by his Lordship as a further Instance of the errours of General Councils I pass on to the two last Chapters In which we meet again with the objected inconveniencies from questioning the Infallibility of the Church and Councils That then Faith would be uncertain and private persons might judge of Councils and if they may erre in one they may erre in all as fresh as if they had never been heard of before Only the Argument from Rom. 10.15 That because none can preach except they be sent therefore the present Church is Infallible is both new and excellent on which account I let it pass If your Church with all her Infallibility can do no more as you confess in reference to Heresies but only secure the faithful members of the Church who have due care of themselves and perform their duty well towards their lawful Pastors you have little cause to boast of the great priviledge of it and as little reason to contend for the necessity of it since so much is done without it and on surer grounds by the Scriptures and the use of other means which fall short of Infallibility In the beginning of your last Chapter we have a large dispute concerning S. Cyprian's meaning in his 45. Epistle to Cornelius where he speaks of the root and matrix of the Catholick Church viz. Whether by that the Roman Church be understood or no His Lordship saith Not and gives many reasons for it you maintain the contrary but the business may be soon decided upon a true state of the occasion of writing that Epistle Which in short was this It seems Letters had been sent in the name of Polycarp Bishop of the Colony of Adrumyttium directed to Cornelius at Rome but Cyprian and Liberalis coming thither and acquainting the Clergy there with the resolution of the African Bishops to suspend communion either with Cornelius or Novatianus till the return of Caldonius and Fortunatus who were sent on purpose to give an account of the proceedings there the Clergy of Adrumyttium upon this writing to Rome direct their Letters not to Cornelius but to the Roman Clergy Which Cornelius being it seems informed by some as though it were done by S. Cyprian's Counsel takes offence at and writes to Cyprian about it Who gives him in this Epistle the account of it that it was only done that there might be no dissent among themselves upon this difference at Rome and that they only suspended their sentence till the return of Caldonius and Fortunatus who might either bring them word that all was composed at Rome or else satisfie them Who was the lawfully ordained Bishop And therefore as soon as they understood that Cornelius was the lawful Bishop they unanimously declare for him and order all Letters to be sent to him and that his communion should be embraced This is the substance of that Epistle But it seems Cornelius was moved at S. Cyprian's suspending himself as though it were done out of dis-favour to him which Cyprian to clear himself of tells him That his design was only to preserve the Vnity of the Catholick Church For saith he we gave this advice to all those who the mean time had occasion to sail to Rome ut Ecclesiae Catholicae radicem matricem agnoscerent tenerent that they would acknowledge and hold to the root and matrix of the Catholick Church by which his Lordship understands the Vnity of the Church Catholick you the particular Church of Rome But it is apparent the meaning of this Counsel was to prevent their participation in the Schism So that if upon their coming to Rome the Schismatical party was evidently known from the other which they might I grant soon understand there by the circumstances of affairs they should joyn themselves with that part which preserved the Vnity of the Catholick Church Which I take to be the true meaning of S. Cyprian But in case the matter should prove disputable at Rome and the matter be referred to other Churches then by virtue of this advice they were bound to suspend their communion with either party till the Catholick Church had declared it self By this account of the business all your Arguments come to nothing for they only prove that which I grant viz. That in case it appeared at Rome Which was the Catholick party they were to communicate with it but this was not because the Catholick party at Rome was the root and matrix of the Catholick Church for on that account the party of Novatianus might have been so too if Novatianus had been lawful Bishop but their holding to the root of the Catholick Church would oblige them to communicate only with that part which did preserve the Vnity of it For the Controversie now at Rome was between two parties both challenging an equal right and therefore if S. Cyprian had only advised them to communicate with the Roman
this pretence That we are to believe the Pope and Council Infallible because implicitly they define themselves to be so Than which one could hardly meet with a more absurd Answer from the highest Enthusiast for he can tell you as boldly that he hath the Spirit of God because he hath it and just so much you say and no more Pope and Council are Infallible because they are Infallible But I must pity you I know you would not willingly have run into these absurdities but it was your hard fortune to maintain a bad cause and you could not possibly help it for the straights you were in were so great that you must venture thorow some great absurdity to get out of them But all the pity I have for you is gone when I read your next words Thus we conceive the Relator's Achilles is fallen How fallen If he be it is only with Antaeus to rise the stronger But I assure you so far was he from falling by any force of your Answer that he stands more impregnably than ever having not so much as a heel left that you can wound him in And if you have nothing more to say than what you here give us in answer to this argument which you tell us is the common Answer of Divines I am so far from wondring that his Lordship took no notice of it that I shall only wonder at the weakness of your judgement or largeness of your Faith that can so contentedly swallow such grand absurdities If this be but as you say the Prologue to the Play I doubt you will find but a sad Catastrophe in it The main business you tell us is about the Priests intention concerning which he positively layes down that it is not of absolute necessity to the essence of a Sacrament so as to make it void though the Priests thoughts should wander from his work at the instant of using the essentials of a Sacrament yea or have in him an actual intention to scorn the Church What now have you to shew to the contrary If the Priests intention be not absolutely necessary to the essence or validity of a Sacrament you desire a reason of your adversaries Why we should not think a Priest consecrates the body of Christ as much at a Table where there is Wheaten Bread before him and that eieither by way of disputation or reading the 26. Chapter of St. Matthew he pronounces the words Hoc est corpus meum as he doth at the Altar since here is the true form Hoc est corpus meum the true matter Wheaten Bread and he that pronounces the form is a true Priest and yet in all mens judgement here 's no true Sacrament made Something else therefore is requisite to the essence of a Sacrament and What can that possibly be if it be not the intention which the Church requires Since your request is reasonable I shall endeavour your satisfaction and the rather because it tends to the full clearing the business in hand To your Enquiry then I answer That the Institution of Christ requiring such a solemnity for the administration of it and such a disposition in the Church for the receiving it and the performance of such acts in order to the administration by the dispenser of it these do sufficiently distinguish the Lords Supper from all other actions what matter form or person soever be there Were not in the Apostles times the assembling of the people together for this end and the solemn performance of the acts of administration sufficient to discriminate the Lords Supper from reading the 26. of Matthew by an Apostle at the Table when there was Bread and Wine upon it And I must confess I cannot but wonder that you should be so much to seek as not to know the one from the other unless you knew the Priests intention But I consider your Question was not made for Apostolical times but for private Masses wherein the Priest may mumble over the words of Consecration to himself and none else be the wiser or better for what he saith or doth Here it was indeed very requisite you should make the Priests intention necessary to discriminate this action from that you mentioned but where-ever the Lords Supper is duly administred according to the Primitive Institution the solemnity of the action and circumstances do so far individuate it as sufficiently to difference it from any other formalities whatsoever And so it is in conferring Orders Is there not enough do you think in the solemnity of the action with the preceding circumstances and the Bishops laying on of his hands with the using the words proper to that occasion to difference it from the Bishops casual laying his hands on the head of a man and in the mean time reading perchance the words of ordination We assert then that no further intention is at all necessary to the essence of a Sacrament but what is discoverable by the outward action Which being of that nature which may difference it self by reason of peculiar circumstances from others there is no imaginable necessity to have recourse to the private intention of the Priest for satisfaction But see how unreasonable you are herein for you would make that to be necessary to distinguish a Sacramental action from any other which it is impossible any man should be acquainted with For if I had no other way to distinguish in the case you mention but the Priests intention I must be as much to seek as ever unless I cerrainly knew what the Priests intention was which if you have an art of being acquainted with I pretend not to it Is it then necessary to distinguish the one from the other or not If not To what end is your Question If it be To what purpose is the Priests intention when I cannot know it But you would seem to object against the circumstances discriminating a Sacramental action 1. If the circumstances do shew to the standers by that the Priest really intends to make a Sacrament and this signification be necessary then the Priests intention is necessary or else Why is it necessary it should be signified I answer The circumstances are not intended to signifie the Priests intention any further than that intention is discoverable by the actions themselves so that it is not any inward intention which is thereby signified but only such an intention as the outward action imports which is the celebration of the blessed Sacrament So it is not the Priests intending to make a Sacrament as you phrasify it but his intending to celebrate it i. e. not such an intention as is unitive of matter and form as your Schools speak in this case but such as relates to the external action But against this you urge 2. That such external signification is not at all necessary for say you Might not a Catholick Priest to save the soul of some dying Infant baptize it if he could without any such signification by circumstances
is now about a twelvemonth since there appeared to the world a Book under the Title of Dr. Lawd's Labyrinth but with the usual sincerity of those persons pretended to be Printed some years before It is not the business of this Preface to enquire Why if Printed then it remained so long unpublished but to acquaint the Reader with the scope and design of that Book and of this which comes forth as a Reply to it There are three things mainly in dispute between us and those of the Church of Rome viz. Whether they or we give the more satisfactory account of the Grounds of Faith Whether their Church or ours be guilty of the charge of Schism And Whether their Church be justly accused by us of introducing many Errours and Superstitions In the handling of these all our present Debate consists and therefore for the greater Advantage of the Reader I have distributed the whole into three distinct parts which I thought more commodious than carrying it on in one continued discourse And lest our Adversaries should complain that we still proceed in a destructive way I have not only endeavoured to lay open the palpable weakness of their Cause but to give a rational account of our own Doctrine in opposition to theirs Which I have especially done in the great Controversie of the Resolution of Faith as being the most difficult and important of any other I hope the Reader will have no cause to blame me for false or impertinent Allegations of the Fathers since it hath been so much my business to discover the fraud of our Adversaries in that particular which I have chiefly done from the scope and design of those very Books out of which their testimonies are produced In many of the particular Differences I have made use of several of their late Writers against themselves both to let them see how much Popery begins to grow weary of it self and how unjustly they condemn us for denying those things which the moderate and rational men of their own side disown and dispute against as well as we and chiefly to undeceive the world as to their great pretence of Unity among themselves Since their Divisions are grown to so great a height both at home and in foreign parts that the dissenting parties mutually charge each other with Heresie and that about their great Foundation of Faith viz. the Popes Infallibility The Jansenists in France and a growing party in England charging the Jesuits with Heresie in asserting it as they do them with the same for denying it As to my self I only declare that I have with freedom and impartiality enquired into the Reasons on both sides and no interest hath kept me from letting that side of the ballance fall where I saw the greater weight of reason In which respect I have been so far from dissembling the force of any of our Adversaries Arguments that if I could add greater weight to them I have done it being as unwilling to abuse my self as the world And therefore I have not only consulted their greatest Authours especially the three famous Cardinals Baronius Bellarmin and Perron but the chiefest of those who under the name of Conciliators have put the fairest Varnish on the Doctrine of that Church However I have kept close to my Adversary and followed him through all his windings from which I return with this satisfaction to my self that I have vindicated his Lordship and Truth together As to the style and way of writing I use all that I have to say is that my design hath been to joyn clearness of Expression with evidence of Reason What success I have had in it must be left to the Readers judgement I only desire him to lay aside prejudice as much in judging as I have done in writing otherwise I despair of his doing me right and of my doing him good For though reason be tractable and ingenuous yet prejudice and interest are invincible things Having done thus much by way of Preface I shall not detain thee longer by a particular Answer to the impertinencies of our Authours Preface since there is nothing contained therein but what is abundantly answered in a more proper place And I cannot think it reasonable to abuse so much the Readers Appetite as to give him a tedious Preface to cloy his stomach If any after perusal of the whole shall think fit to return an Answer if they do it fairly and rationally they shall receive the same civility if with clamour and impertinency I only let them know I have not leisure enough to kill Flyes though they make a troublesome noise If any service be done to God or the Church by this present work next to that Divine Assistance through which I have done it thou owest it to those great Pillars of our Church by whose command and encouragement I undertook it Who the Authour was of the Book I answer I have been the less solicitous to enquire because I would not betray the weakness of my cause by mixing personal matters in debates of so great importance And whether he be now living or dead I suppose our Adversaries cannot think it at all material unless they judge that their Cause doth live and dye with him THE CONTENTS PART I. Of the Grounds of Faith CHAP. I. The Occasion of the Conference and Defence of the Greek Church T. Cs. Title examined and retorted The Labyrinth found in his Book and Doctrine The occasion of the Conference about the Churches Infallibility The rise of the dispute about the Greek Church and the consequences from it The Charge of Heresie against the Greek Church examined and she found Not-guilty by the concurrent testimony of Fathers General Councils and Popes Of the Council of Florence and the proceedings there That Council neither General nor Free. The distinction of Ancient and Modern Greeks disproved The debate of the Filioque being inserted into the Creed The time when and the right by which it was done discussed The rise of the Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches mainly occasioned by the Church of Rome Page 1. CHAP. II. Of Fundamentals in General The Popish Tenet concerning Fundamentals a meer step to the Roman Greatness The Question about Fundamentals stated An enquiry into the nature of them What are Fundamentals in order to particular persons and what to be owned as such in order to Ecclesiastical Communion The Prudence and Moderation of the Church of England in defining Articles of Faith What judged Fundamental by the Catholick Church No new Articles of Faith can become necessary The Churches power in propounding matters of Faith examined What is a sufficient Proposition Of the Athanasian Creed and its being owned by the Church of England In what sense the Articles of it are necessary to Salvation Of the distinction of the material and formal object of Faith as to Fundamentals His Lordship's integrity and T. C. his forgery in the testimony of Scotus Of Heresie and how far
403 l 12 r Anulinus p 408 l 48 before done blot out not p 416 l 44 for context r contest p 422 l 4 for satisfied r falsified l 38 r Pelagius 2 and Gregory 1. p 433 marg l 8 for â—essime r piissime p 440 l 36 for most r not p 442 l 8 r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 447 l 13 r Alexandria l 24 r elegantissimè p 448 l 19 for him r them p 450 l 19 r unless S. Peter had p 469 l 35 after which insert is p 470 l 6 r Fundavit l 50 for first r fifth p 474 l 13 r conclude p 477 marg r Cusanus p 495 l 16 for conveying r convening p 497 l 42 for used r abused p 503 l 8 for your r their p 506 l 30 blot out are p 507 l 37 for an easie r any p 509 l 33 for it r out p 510 l 48 for he r it p 540 l 30 r denyes l 32 before shâ—ll insert there l 39 after is r no. p 550 l 29 r Spirit l 43 for and r yet p 551 l 19 for he r they l 35 place the comma after then l 43 after know insert not p 5â—6 l 25 for yet r that p 561 l 43 for wâ—ll as r that p 571 marg l ult r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 574 l 48 for mâ—ke r made l 50 for coâ—pus r corporis p 582 l 29 r indispensâ—ble p 589 l 15 r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p 595 l 4 r defensiâ—le l 5 r Invocation p 597 l 19 blot out or no p 598 l 5 for appropriation r approbation p 622 l 32 for it r is PART I. Of the Grounds of Faith CHAP. I. The Occasion of the Conference and Defence of the Greek Church T. Cs. Title examined and retorted The Labyrinth found in his Book and Doctrine The occasion of the Conference about the Churches infallibility The rise of the dispute about the Greek Church and the consequences from it The charge of Heresie against the Greek Church examined and she found Not-guilty by the concurrent testimony of Fathers General Councils and Popes Of the Council of Florence and the proceedings there That Council neither General nor Free. The distinction of Ancient and Modern Greeks disproved The debate of the Filioque being inserted into the Creed The time when and the right by which it was done discussed The rise of the Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches mainly occasioned by the Church of Rome THat which is the common subtilty of Male-factors to derive if possible the imputation of that fault on the persons of their Accusers which they are most lyable to be charged with themselves is the great Artifice made use of by you in the Title and Designe of your Book For there being nothing which your Party is more justly accused for than involving and perplexing the grounds of Christian Faith under a pretext of Infallibility in your Church you thought you could not better avoid the odium of it then by a confident recrimination And from hence it is that you call his Lordships Book a Labyrinth and pretend to discover his abstruse turnings ambiguous windings and intricate Meanders as you are pleased to stile them But those who will take the pains to search your Book for the discoveries made in it will find themselves little satisfied but only in these that no cause can be so bad but interessed persons will plead for it and no writing so clear and exact but a perplexed mind will imagine nothing but Meanders in it And if dark passages and intricate windings if obscure sense and perplexed consequences if uncertain wandrings and frequent self-contradictions may make a writing be call'd a Labyrinth I know no Modern Artist who comes so near the skill of the Cretan Artificer as your self Neither is this meerly your own fault but the nature of the cause whose defence you have espoused is such as will not admit of being handled in any other manner For you might assoon hope to perswade a Traveller that his nearest and safest way was through such a Labyrinth as that of Creet as convince us that the best and surest Resolution of our Faith is into your Churches Infallibility And while you give out that all other grounds of Christian Faith are uncertain and yet are put to such miserable shifts in defence of your own instead of establishing the Faith of Christians you expose Christianity it self to the scorn and contempt of Atheists who need nothing more to confirm them in their Infidelity then such a senseless and unreasonable way of proceeding as you make use of for laying the Foundations of Christian Faith Your great Principle being that no Faith can be Divine but what is Infallible and none Infallible but what is built on a Divine and Infallible Testimony and that this Testimony is only that of the present Catholick Church and that Church none but yours and yet after all this you dare not say the Testimony of your Church is Divine but only in a sort and after a manner You pretend that our Faith is vain and uncertain because built only on Moral certainty and Rational evidence and yet you have no other proof for your Churches Infallibility but the motives of credibility You offer to prove the Churches Infallibility independently on Scripture and yet challenge no other Infallibility but what comes by the promise and assistance of the Holy Ghost which depends wholly on the Truth of the Scripture You seek to disparage Scripture on purpose to advance your Churches Authority and yet bring your greatest evidences of the Churches Authority from it By which Authority of the Church you often tell us that Christian Religion can only be proved to be Infallibly true when if but one errour be found in your Church her Infallible Testimony is gone and what becomes then of Christian Religion And all this is managed with a peculiar regard to the Interest of your Church as the only Catholick Church which you can never attempt to prove but upon supposition of the Truth of Christianity the belief of which yet you say depends upon your Churches being the True and Catholick Church These and many other such as these will be found the rare and coherent Principles of your Faith and Doctrine which I have here only given this taste of that the Reader may see with what honour to your self and advantage to your Cause you have bestowed the Title of Labyrinth on his Lordships Book But yet you might be pardonable if rather through the weakness of your Cause than your ill management of it you had brought us into these amazing Labyrinths if you had left us any thing whereby we might hope to be safely directed in our passage through them Whereas you not only endeavour to put men out of the True way but use your greatest industry to keep them from a possibility of returning into it by not only suggesting false Principles to them but
Roman Church And from what hath been hitherto said I am so far from suspecting his Lordships candor as you do that I much rather suspect your judgement and that you are not much used to attend to the Consequences of things or else you would not have deserted Bellarmin in defence of so necessary and pertinent a point as the Infallibility of the particular Church of Rome Secondly You answer to his Lordships Discourse concerning Bellarmin's Authorities That you cannot hold your self obliged to take notice of his pretended Solutions till you find them brought to evacuate the Infallibility of the Catholick or the Roman Church in its full latitude as Catholicks ever mean it save when they say the particular Church of Rome But taking it in as full a Latitude as you please I doubt not but to make it appear that the Roman Church is the Roman Church still that is a particular Church as distinct from the Communion of others and therefore neither Catholick nor Infallible which I must refer to the place where you insist upon it which I shall do without the imitation of your Vanity in telling your Reader as far as eighthly and lastly what fine exploits you intend to do there But usually those who brag most of their Valour before-hand shew least in the Combat and thus it will be found with you I shall let you therefore enjoy your self in the pleasant thoughts of your noble intendments till we come to the tryal of them and so come to the present Controversie concerning the Greek Church The Defence of the Greek Church It is none of the least of those Arts which you make use of for the perplexing the Christian Faith to put men upon enquiring after an Infallible Church when yet you have no way to discern which is so much as a true Church but by examining the doctrine of it So that of necessity the rule of Faith and Doctrine must be certainly known before ever any one can with safety depend upon the judgement of any Church For having already proved that there can be no other meaning of the Question concerning the Church as here stated but with relation to some particular Church to whose Communion the party enquiring might joyn and whose judgement might be relyed on we see it presently follows in the debate Which was that Church and it seems as is said already a Friend of the Ladies undertook to defend that the Greek Church was right To which Mr. Fisher answers That the Greek Church had plainly changed and taught false in a point of Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost and after repeats it that it had erred Before I come to examine how you make good the charge you draw up against the poor Greek Church in making it erre fundamentally it is worth our while to consider upon what account this dispute comes in The Inquiry was concerning the True Church on whose judgement one might safely depend in Religion It seems two were propounded to consideration the Greek and the Roman the Greek was rejected because it had erred From whence it follows that the dispute concerning the Truth of Doctrine must necessarily precede that of the Church For by Mr. Fishers confession and your own A Church which hath erred cannot be relyed on therefore men must be satisfied whether a Church hath erred or no before they can judge whether she may be relyed on or no. Which being granted all the whole Fabrick of your Book falls to the ground for then 1. Men must be Infallibly certain of the grounds of Faith antecedently to the testimony of the Church for if they be to judge of a Church by the Doctrine they must in order to such a judgement be certain what that Doctrine is which they must judge of the Church by 2. No Church can be known to be Infallible unless it appear to be so by that Doctrine which they are to examine the truth of the Church by and therefore no Church can be known to be Infallible by the motives of credibility 3. No Church ought to be relyed on as Infallible which may be found guilty of any errour by comparing it with the Doctrine which we are to try it by Therefore you must first prove your Church not to have erred in any particular for if she hath it is impossible she should be Infallible and not think to prove that she hath not erred because she cannot that being the thing in question and must by your dealing with the Greek Church be judged by particulars 4. There must be a certain rule of Faith supposed to have sufficient Authority to decide Controversies without any dependence upon the Church For the matter to be judged is the Church and if the Scripture may and must decide that Why may it not as well all the rest 5. Every mans reason proceeding according to this rule of Faith must be left his Judge in matters of Religion And whatever inconveniencies you can imagine to attend upon this they immediately and necessarily follow from your proceeding with the Greek Church by excluding her because she hath erred which while we are in pursuit of a Church can be determined by nothing but every ones particular reason 6. Then Fundamentals do not depend upon the Churches declaration For you assert the Greek Church to erre fundamentally and that this may be made appear to one who is seeking after a Church Suppose then I inquire as the Lady did after a Church whose judgement I must absolutely depend on and some mention the Greek and others the Roman Church You tell me It cannot be the Greek for that hath erred fundamentally I inquire how you know supposing her to erre that it is a fundamental errour will you answer me because the true Church hath declared it to be a fundamental errour but that was it I was seeking for Which that Church is which may declare what errours are fundamental and what not If you tell me It is yours I may soon tell you You seem to have a greater kindness for your Church then your self and venture to speak any thing for the sake of it Thus we see how finely you have betrayed your whole Cause in your first onset by so rude an attempt upon the Greek Church And truly it was much your concernment to load her as much as you can For though she now wants one of the great marks of your Church which yet you know not how long your Church may enjoy viz. outward splendor and bravery yet you cannot deny but that Church was planted by the Apostles enjoyed a continual Succession from them flourished with a number of the Fathers exceeding that of yours had more of the Councils of greatest credit in it and which is a commendation still to it it retains more purity under its persecutions then your Church with all its external splendour But she hath erred concerning the Holy Ghost and therefore hath lost it A severe censure which his
all opportunities to disgrace it and infringe the liberties of it Thence came the rage of Leo against Anatolius the Patriarch of Constantinople in the time of Martianus thence the feud between Simplicius and Felix 3. of Rome and Acacius of Constantinople for defending the Priviledges of his See in opposition to the Pope's insomuch that Felix fairly excommunicates him because he would not submit to the Pope's tryal in the case of the Patriarch of Alexandria which continued so long that Euphemius who succeeded Acacius though he excommunited Petrus Moggus of Alexandria yet could not be received into the Communion of the Roman Church by Felix because he would not expunge the name of Acacius out of the Diptychs of the Church and afterwards Gelasius refused it on the same grounds which Euphemius still denying to do the Schism continued And although afterwards the Emperour Anastasius and the Greek Church desired the making up of this difference yet no other terms of communion would be accepted by Hormisdas without the expunging the name of Acacius So implacably were they bent against the very memory of Acacius for defending the Priviledge of his See that they would rather continue that lamentable Schism than not avenge themselves upon him and consequently make all future Patriarchs fearful of opposing the Pope's Authority If we look yet further we shall still find the ambition of the Popes to have caused all the disturbance in the Greek Churches although some of the Patriarchs of Constantinople cannot be excused from the same faults In the time of the second Council at Nice Pope Adrian not only contends for the enlargement of his Jurisdiction but threatens to pronounce them Hereticks who did not consent to it which makes Petrus de Marcâ say That he supposeth that the first time ever any were charged with Heresie on such an account The same pretence we find still in all the Schisms which after happened as that in the time of Photius that afterward in the time of Michael Cerularius and in the successive ages still the terms of communion were Submission to the Church of Rome and acknowledgledging the supremacy of that See which the Greeks did then and do still constantly deny so that it was not the Greeks Levity but the Romanists ambition and usurpation which gave occasion to that fearful Schism But for all this It must still be lawful for your Church to add and Anathematize too which his Lordship thought a little unreasonable but it seems you do not For say you The Church did rightly Anathematize all such denyers why so Because the meaning of the Latin Church being understood by the Addition of Filioque and that whosoever denyed must be supposed to deny the Procession then it became Heresie to deny it and the Church did rightly Anathematize all such denyers So you say indeed but you would do well 1. To shew that the understanding the meaning of the Latin Church is sufficient to make the denyers of what she affirms to be Hereticks 2. How any one that denies the Filioque must be supposed to deny the Procession if you mean the Procession à Filio you speak very wisely but prove nothing for some might grant the Procession and yet deny the lawfulness of your Churches adding to the Creed 3. All this while we are to seek how the Latin Church can make any thing to be a Heresie which was not so before And therefore if your Anathema's have no better grounds the Greeks need not much fear the effects of them That your Church on any occasion is apt enough to speak loud words we may very easily believe but whether she had just cause to speak so big in this cause is the thing in question and we have already manifested the contrary His Lordship sayes It ought to be no easie thing to condemn a man of Heresie in foundation of Faith much less a Church least of all so ample and large a Church as the Greek especially so as to make them no Church Heaven Gates were not so easily shut against multitudes when S. Peter wore the Keyes at his own Girdle To this you answer Neither is the Roman-Catholick Church justly accusable of cruelty though the Bishop taxes her of it because she is quick and sharp against those that fall into Heresie But if she hath power to pronounce whom she please Hereticks and on what account she please as Hadrian I. in case of his Patrimony and then it be commendable in her to deal with them as Hereticks it must needs be dangerous opposing her in any thing for such who dread her Anathema's But his Lordship was not speaking of what was to be done in case of notorious Heresie but what tenderness ought to be used in condemning men for Heresie and much more in condemning whole Churches for it on such slender accounts as you do the Greek Church You should shew When S. Peter or any of the Apostles did exclude Churches from communion for denying such Articles as that you charge the Greek Church with And it would be worth your enquiry why those in the Corinthian Church who at least questioned the Resurrection those in the Galatian and other Churches who asserted the Necessity of the Ceremonial Law under the Gospel both which errours are by the Apostle said to be of so dangerous a nature are not Anathematized presently by the Apostle and thrown out of the Church at least to prevent the infection of other Christians if not for the good of the Libertine Hereticks as you speak Your mentioning S. Peters proceeding with Ananias and Sapphira must be acknowledged a very fit resemblance for your Churches dealing with Hereticks only they whom you are pleased to account Hereticks have cause to rejoyce that since your Churches good will is so much discovered she hath not the same miraculous Power For then she would be sure to have few left to oppose her But do you really think Anania's and Sapphira's fault was no greater than that of the Greek Church that you produce this instance and do you think the Church enjoyes still the same power over offenders which S. Peter then had If not to what purpose do you mention such things here unless to let us see that it is want of some thing else besides will which makes you suffer any whom you call Hereticks to live That S. Paul chastised his untoward Children indeed you tell us from 1 Cor 5.5 1 Tim. 1.20 but if you bring this to any purpose you must make the Greeks Errour as bad as Incest or a denying the Faith and when you have done so you may hear of a further answer On what account your Church punisheth Delinquents will be then necessary to be shewed when you have a little further cleared what Power your Church hath to make Delinquents in such cases as you condemn the Greek Church for But as long as your Church is Accuser Witness and Judge too you must never
were proved to be so Of the Motives of Credibility and how far they belong to the Church The difference between Science and Faith considered and the new art of mens believing with their wills The Churches testimony must be according to their principles the formal object of Faith Of their esteem of Fathers Scripture and Councils The rare distinctions concerning the Churches infallibility discussed How the Church can be Infallible by the assistance of the Holy Ghost yet not divinely Infallible but in a manner and after a sort T. C. applauded for his excellent faculty in contradicting himself HE that hath a mind to betray an excellent Cause may more advantagiously do it by bringing weak and insufficient Evidences for it then by the greatest heat and vigour of Opposition against it For there cannot possibly be any greater prejudice done to a weighty and important truth then to perswade men to believe it on such grounds which are if not absolutely false yet much more disputable then the thing it self For hereby the minds of men are taken off from the native evidence which the truth enquired after offers to them and build their assent upon the certainty of the medium's suggested as the only grounds to establish a firm assent upon By which means when upon severe enquiry the falsity and insufficiency of those grounds is discovered the person so discovering lyes under a dangerous temptation of calling into question the truth of that which he finds he assented to upon grounds apparently weak and insufficient And the more refined and subtle the speculations are the more sublime and mysterious the matters believed the greater still the danger of Scepticism is upon a discovery of the unsoundness of those principles which such things were believed upon Especially if the more confident and Magisterial party of those who profess the belief of such things do with the greatest heat decry all other wayes as uncertain and obtrude these principles upon the world as the only sure foundation for the belief of them It was anciently a great question among the Philosophers whether there were any certainty in the principles of knowledge or supposing certainty in things whether there were any undoubted 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rules to obtain this certainty of knowledge by If then any one Sect of Philosophers should have undertaken to prove the certainty that was in knowledge upon this account because whatever their Sect or Party delivered was infallibly true they had not only shamefully beg'd the thing in dispute but made it much more lyable to question then before Because every errour discovered in that Sect would not only prove the fondness and arrogance of their pretence of being Infallible but would to all such as believed the certainty of things on the authority of their Sect be an argument to disprove all certainty of knowledge when they once discovered the errours of those whose authority they relyed upon Just such is the case of the Church of Rome in this present Controversie concerning the Resolution of Faith The question is What the certain grounds of our assent are to the principles and rule of Christian Religion the Romanists pretend that there can be no ground of True and Divine Faith at all but the Infallible testimony of Their Church let then any rational man judge whether this be not the most compendious way to overthrow the belief of Christianity in the world For our assent must be wholly suspended upon that supposed Infallibility which when once it falls as it unavoidably doth upon the discovery of the least errour in the doctrine of that Church what becomes then of the belief of Christianity which was built upon that as it s only sure foundation So that it is hardly imaginable there could be any design more really destructive to Christianity or that hath a greater tendency to Atheism then the modern pretence of Infallibility and the Jesuits way of resolving Faith Which was the reason why his Lordship was so unwilling to engage in that Controversie How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God not out of any distrust he had of solving it upon Protestant Principles as you vainly suggest nor out of any fears of being left himself in that Labyrinth which after all your endeavours you have lost your self and your cause in as appears by your attempting this way and that way to get out and at last standing in the very middle of that circle you thought your self out of If his Lordship thought this more a question of curiosity then necessity it was because out of his great Charity he supposed them to be Christians he had to deal with But if his charity were therein deceived you shall see how able we are to make good the grounds of our Religion against all Adversaries whether Papists or others And so far is the answering of this question from making the weakness of our cause appear that I doubt not but to make it evident that our cause stands upon the same grounds which our common Christianity doth and that we are Protestants by the same reason that we are Christians And on the other side that you are so far from giving any true grounds of Christian Faith that nothing will more advance the highest Scepticism and Irreligion then such Principles as you insist on for resolving Faith The true reason then why the Archbishop declared any unwillingness to enter upon this dispute was not the least apprehension how insuperably hard the resolution of this question was as you pretend but because of the great mischief your Party had done in starting such questions you could not resolve with any satisfaction to the common reason of mankind and that you run your selves into such a Circle in which you conjure up more Spirits then ever you are able to lay by giving those advantages to Infidelity which all your Sophistry can never answer on those principles you go upon That this was the true ground of his Lordship's seeming averseness from this Controversie appears by his plain words where he tells you at first of the danger of mens being disputed into infidelity by the Circle between Scripture and Tradition and by his expressing his sense of the great harm you have done by the starting of that question among Christians How we know the Scriptures to be the Word of God But although in this respect he might be said to be drawn into it yet lest you should think his averseness argued any consciousness of his own inability to answer it you may see how closely he follows it with what care and accuracy he handles it with what strength of reason and evidence he hath discovered the weakness of your way which he hath done with that success that he hath put you to miserable shifts to avoid the force of his arguments as will appear afterwards I am therefore fully of his mind that it is a matter of such consequence it deserves to be
record of it kept in the Publick Archives of the Nation Would not mens interest make them careful to preserve it inviolable especially considering the frequency of causes whose decision depends upon it and the dispersion of the Copy's abroad and the diligence of such whose profession leads them to look to such things And will not the same reasons hold in a greater measure for the integrity and incorruption of Scriptures Do not the eternal Concerns of all Christians depend upon those sacred records that if those be not true they were of all men most miserable Were not innumerable Copy's of these writings suddenly dispersed abroad and all Christians accounted it a part of their Religion to search and enquire into them Hath there not alwayes been a succession of diligent and faithful persons whose office and profession it hath been to read interpret and vindicate these Books and who have left excellent monuments of their endeavours in this nature Is it then possible to suppose all those Copy's at once imbezeled all those Christians in one age deceived all those Divines so secure and negligent that there should be any considerable alteration much less any total depravation of these writings When once I see a whole Corporation consent to burn their publick Charter and substitute a new one in the place of it and this not be suspected or discovered When I shall see a Magna Charta foisted and neither King nor people be sensible of such a Cheat When all the world shall conspire to deceive themselves and their children I may then suspect such an imposture as to the Scripture but not before And will not all this perswade you that there is no necessity of making your Church Infallible in order to our certainty that we have the same books of Scripture which were delivered by the Apostles If not the next news I shall expect to hear from you will be That we can have no certainty of the Being of God or the Foundation of all Religion but from your Churches Infallibility there being every jot as much reason to say that all mankind should be deceived into the belief of a Deity by some cunning Politicians as that all Christians should be deceived as to the belief of such Books to be Scripture which were universally corrupted and if you understood Consequences you would have urged one assoon as the other But still remember into what precipices this good doctrine of Infallibility leads you But it may be your meaning is more gentle and easie than to suppose there could be no certainty as to all the Books being the same but only that we cannot have any Infallible certainty that there are no corruptions crept into these Books which we have but from your Churches Testimony To which I answer 1. That there is no reason to suppose this should be your meaning 2. Supposing it were your meaning there is no reason in the thing 1. There is no reason to suppose this should be your meaning for you are speaking of such things which are necessary to be believed and therefore are properly objects of Faith but that there are no kind of corruptions crept into the Copy's of Scripture cannot with you be an object of Faith For those of your party do some of them confess and others contend that there are many corruptions crept into the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New and that there are abundance of corruptions in your Vulgar Latin is not only abundantly proved by our Writers but acknowledged by the learnedst of your own and irrefragably demonstrated by the different editions of Sixtus and Clement Suppose this were your meaning there were no reason in the thing For 1. Your Church cannot Infallibly assure us there are no corruptions 2. We may be sufficiently assured of it without the Testimony of your Church 1. Your Church cannot assure us at all much less Infallibly that there are no such corruptions For what reason can there be Why we should rely on the judgement of only a part of the whole Society of Christians and that part at great opposition with many other considerable Churches must we then believe your Church where it agrees with or it differs from the rest If only where it agrees with the rest then it is not the testimony of your Church we rely on but the Vniversal consent of all If where it differs shew us some reason why we should believe your Church in opposition to all others Especially 1. When we consider what contradiction there hath been in the testimony of your Church about this very thing as appears not only by the great difference among your writers concerning the authentick Copy's some still defending the Hebrew and Greek Texts and others standing up for that great Diana of Rome the Vulgar Latin Considering then that by the decree of the Council of Trent the Vulgar Latin is looked on by you as the most authentick Copy of the Scripture let any one judge whether ever this could be judged more authentick than when the Pope himself in Cathedrâ doth revise any edition of it and use all possible care for the setting of it forth not only comparing it with the best ancient MS S. but taking the pains to correct it with his own hand both before and after the press and all this was done by Sixtus 5. as himself declares in the Preface to his edition of the Vulgar Latin A.D. 1590. Yet within little more then two years after comes out the edition of Clement 8. which as appears by the computation of such who have taken the pains to compare them differs from the other in some thousands of places Now I pray tell me what Infallible certainty are we like to have concerning the Copy's of Scripture being the same with those delivered by the Apostles from the Infallibility of your Church when this testimony of your Church doth so finely contradict it self within little more then two years time Nay when Sixtus 5. his care was so great and extraordinary in his edition that an Inscription was made in the Vatican in perpetuam rei memoriam which is in letters of Gold in these words SACRAM PAGINAM EX CONCILII TRIDENTINI PRAESCRIPTO QVAM EMENDATISSIMAM DIVVLGARI MANDAVIT Which Inscription as Angelus Roccha tells us was purposely made to set forth that infinite care and pains which the Pope took in that edition Which were so great saith he that it is impossible that any should recount them and for his own part he stood astonished when he saw them for he not only carefully corrected the Copy before the Impression but reviewed it sheet by sheet after that the edition might be the more faithful And shall we after all this believe that Sixtus 5. never lived to see this edition compleat which is the miserable shift some of your party have to avoid this evident contradiction Or shall we think what others pretend That he never
Customs controverted between the Papists and us which no doubt is the true reason why the three first ages are declined by Cardinal Perrone yet there is not the least shadow of pretence why they should be silent in this present Controversie since the great business of their writings was to vindicate the Christian Faith to perswade the Heathens to believe it and to manifest the grounds on which they were induced to believe themselves If therefore in this they do unanimously concurr with that resolution of Faith I have already laid down nothing can be desired more for the evidence and confirmation of the truth of our way than that it is not only most consonant to Scripture but built on the truest Reason and was the very same which the Primitive Christians used when they gave an account of their Faith Which I shall do not by some mangled citations but deducing it from the scope and design of their writings and drawing it successively down from the first after the Apostles who appeared in Vindication of the Christian Faith I begin with Justin Martyr who as Photius saith of him was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not far from the Apostles either in time or virtue and who being a professed Philosopher before he became a Christian we may in reason think that he was more inquisitive into the grounds of Christian Faith before he believed and the more able to give an account of them when he did Whether therefore we consider those arguments which first induced him to believe or those whereby he endeavours to perswade others to it we shall find how consonant and agreeable he is to our grounds of Faith how far from any imagination of the Churches Infallibility In the beginning of his excellent Dialogue with Trypho where if I may conjecture he represents the manner of his conversion in a Platonical way introducing a solemn conference between himself and an ancient person of great gravity and a venerable aspect in a solitary place whither he was retired for his meditations Pet. Halloix is much troubled who this person should be Whether an Angel in humane shape or a man immediately conveyed by an Angel to discover Christianity to him which when he had done he was as suddenly carried back again Scultetus I suppose from this story asserts Justin Martyr to be converted by Divine Revelation But if I be not much mistaken this whole Conference is no more than the setting forth the grounds of his becoming a Christian in the Platonical mode by way of Dialogue and probably the whole Disputation with Trypho may be nothing else but however that be it is apparent Trypho looked on him as a Platonist by his Pallium and Justin Martyr owns himself to have been so and therefore it was very congruous for him to discourse after the Academick manner In which discourse when Justin Martyr had stood up in vindication of the Platonick Philosophy and the other Person endeavours to convince him of the impossibility of attaining true happiness by any Philosophy For when Justin had said That by Philosophy he came to the Knowledge of God the other person demanded How they could know God who had never seen him nor heard him He replied That the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God was only intelligible by our minds as Plato said He again asks Whether there were such a faculty in the minds of men as to be able to see God without a Divine Power and Spirit assisting it Justin answers that according to Plato the eye of the understanding was sufficient to discover that there is such a Being which is the cause of all things but the nature of it is ineffable and incomprehensible Upon which he proceeds to enquire What relation there was between God and the Souls of men and what means to come to the participation of him after a great deal of discourse on which subject between them Justin comes at last to enquire if there were no truth and certainty in Philosophy By whose instruction or by what means he should come to it To which that person returns this excellent Answer That there had been a long time since several persons much elder than the reputed Philosophers blessed men just and lovers of God speaking by the inspiration of the Divine Spirit foretelling things which have come to pass since whom they call Prophets These only saw the Truth and declared it to men neither flattering nor fearing any nor conquered with the love of honour But they only spake the things which they heard and saw being filled with the Holy Spirit Whose Books are still extant which whosoever reads and assents to will find himself much improved in the principles and ends of things and whatever becomes a Philosopher to know For they write not by way of argument or demonstration but that which is above it they are most faithful witnesses of Truth For the things which have and do come to pass do enforce men to believe the Truth of what they spake And not only so but they are most worthy to be believed for the Miracles which they wrought Moreover they extol the Maker of the World God and the Father and declare to the World his Son Christ which the false Prophets who are acted by a seducing and impure spirit neither have done nor yet do do but they attempt to shew some tricks for the amazement of men and cry up the evil and deceiving spirits But do thou above all things pray that the gates of light may be opened to thee For these things are not seen nor understood by all but only by them to whom God and Christ shall grant the knowledge of them A most signal and remarkable Testimony as any is extant in all Antiquity for acquainting us with the true grounds and reasons of Faith which therefore I have at large produced The very reading of which is sufficient to tell us How true a Protestant this whether Angel or Man was When Justin asked him What Teachers he should have to lead him to Truth He tells him There had been long before Philosophers excellent persons in the world called Prophets men every way good who did nothing for fear or favour or love of themselves But Justin might further ask How he should come to be instructed by them He tells him Their Writings were still extant wherein were contained such things as might hugely satisfie a Philosophical mind concerning the Origine and Principles of things He might still enquire Whether those things were demonstrated or no in them No he replies but they deserve assent as much if not beyond any demonstration because they manifest themselves to be from God by two things the exact accomplishment of the Prophecies made by them and the unparalleld Miracles which were wrought by them But might not the evil spirits work such things No For although their false Prophetsâ—ay â—ay do several things to amaze men yet they can do no
that you deny not the truth of what is therein contained for otherwise the want of Authority in themselves the ambiguity of them the impossibility of knowing the sense of them without Tradition are the very same arguments which with the greatest pomp and ostentation are produced by you against the Scriptures being the Rule whereby to judge of Controversies Which we have no more cause to wonder at than Irenaeus had in the Valentinians because from them we produce our greatest arguments against your fond opinions Now when the Valentinians pretended their great rule was on oral Tradition which was conveyed from the Apostles down to them to this Irenaeus opposeth the constant Tradition of the Apostolical Churches which in a continued succession was preserved from the Apostles times which was the same every where among all the Churches which every one who desired it might easily be satisfied about because they could number them who by the Apostles were appointed Bishops in Churches and their successors unto our own times who taught no such thing nor ever knew any such thing as they madly fancy to themselves We see then his appeal to Tradition was only in a matter of fact Whether ever any such thing as their opinion which was not contained in Scripture was delivered to them by the Apostles or no i. e. Whether the Apostles left any oral Traditions in the Churches which should be the rule to interpret Scriptures by or no And the whole design of Irenaeus is to prove the contrary by an appeal to all the Apostolical Churches and particularly by appealing to the Roman Church because of its due fame and celebrity in that Age wherein Irenaeus lived So that Irenaeus appealed to the then Roman Church even when he speaks highest in the honour of it for somewhat which is fundamentally contrary to the pretensions of the now Roman Church He then appealed to it for an evidence against such oral Traditions which were pretended to be left by the Apostles as a rule to understand Scripture by and were it not for this same pretence now what will become of the Authority of the present Roman Church After he hath thus manifested by recourse to the Apostolical Churches that there was no such Tradition left among them it was very reasonable to inferr that there was none such at all for they could not imagine if the Apostles had designed any such Tradition but they would have communicated it to those famous Churches which were planted by them and it was absurd to suppose that those Churches who could so easily derive their succession from the Apostles should in so short a time have lost the memory of so rich a treasure deposited with them as that was pretended to be from whence he sufficiently refutes that unreasonable imagination of the Valentinians Which having done he proceeds to settle those firm grounds on which the Christians believed in one God the Father and in one Lord Jesus Christ which he doth by removing the only Objection which the Adversaries had against them For when the Christians declared the main reason into which they resolved their Faith as to these principles was Because no other God or Christ were revealed in Scripture but them whom they believed the Valentinians answered this could not be a sufficient foundation for their Faith on this account because many things were delivered in Scripture not according to the truth of the things but the judgment and opinion of the persons they were spoken to This therefore being such a pretence as would destroy any firm resolution of Faith into Scripture and must necessarily place it in Tradition Irenaeus concerns himself much to demonstrate the contrary by an ostension as he calls it that Christ and the Apostles did all along speak according to truth and not according to the opinion of their auditours which is the entire subject of the fifth Chapter of his third Book Which he proves first of Christ because he was Truth it self and it would be very contrary to his nature to speak of things otherwise then they were when the very design of his coming was to direct men in the way of Truth The Apostles were persons who professed to declare truth to the world and as light cannot communicate with darkness so neither could truth be blended with so much falshood as that opinion supposeth in them And therefore neither our Lord nor his Apostles could be supposed to mean any other God or Christ then whom they declared For this saith he were rather to increase their ignorance and confirm them in it then to cure them of it and therefore that Law was true which pronounced a curse on every one who led a blind man out of his way And the Apostles being sent for the recovery of the lost sight of the blind cannot be supposed to speak to men according to their present opinion but according to the manifestation of truth For what Physitian intending to cure a Patient will do according to his Patients desire and not rather what will be best for him From whence he concludes Since the design of Christ and his Apostles was not to flatter but to cure mens souls it follows that they did not speak to them according to their former opinion but according to truth without all hypocrisie and dissimulation From whence it follows that if Christ and his Apostles did speak according to truth there is then need of no Oral Tradition for our understanding Scripture and consequently the resolution of our Faith as to God and Christ and proportionably as to other objects to be believed is not into any Tradition pretending to be derived from the Apostles but into the Scriptures themselves which by this discourse evidently appears to have been the judgement of Irenaeus The next which follows is Clemens of Alexandria who flourished A. D. 196. whom St. Hierome accounted the most learned of all the writers of the Church and therefore cannot be supposed ignorant in so necessary a part of the Christian Doctrine as the Resolution of Faith is And if his judgement may be taken the Scriptures are the only certain Foundation of Faith for in his Admonition to the Gentiles after he hath with a great deal of excellent learning derided the Heathen Superstitions when he comes to give an account of the Christians Faith he begins it with this pregnant Testimony to our purpose For saith he the Sacred Oracles affording us the most manifest grounds of Divine worship are the Foundation of Truth And so goes on in a high commendation of the Scripture as the most compendious directions for happiness the best Institutions for government of life the most free from all vain ornaments that they raise mens souls up out of wickedness yielding the most excellent remedies disswading from the greatest deceit and most clearly incouraging to a foreseen happiness with more of the same nature And when after he perswades men with so much Rhetorick and
general Foundations of Christian Society But if any Society shall pretend a necessity of communion with her because it is impossible this should be done by her this priviledge must in reason be as evident as the common grounds of Christianity are nay much more evident because the belief of Christianity it self doth upon this pretence depend on the knowledge of such Infallibility and the indispensable obligation to communion depends upon it 2. There being a possibility acknowledged that particular Churches may require unreasonable conditions of communion the obligation to communion cannot be absolute and indispensable but only so far as nothing is required destructive to the ends of Christian Society Otherwise men would be bound to destroy that which they believe and to do the most unjust and unreasonable things But the great difficulty lyes in knowing when such things are required and who must be the judge in that case to which I answer 3. Nothing can be more unreasonable then that the Society imposing such conditions of communion should be judge whether those conditions be just and equitable or no. If the question only were in matters of peace and conveniency and order the judgement of the Society ought to over-rule the judgements of particular persons but in such cases where great Bodies of Christians judge such things required to be unlawful conditions of communion what justice or reason is there that the party accused should sit Judge in her own cause 4. Where there is sufficient evidence from Scripture reason and tradition that such things which are imposed are unreasonable conditions of Christian communion the not communicating with that Society which requires these things cannot incurr the guilt of Schism Which necessarily follows from the precedent grounds because none can be obliged to communion in such cases and therefore the not communicating is no culpable separation 5. By how much the Societies are greater which are agreed in not communicating with a Church imposing such conditions by how much the power of those who rule those Societies so agreeing is larger by so much the more justifiable is the Reformation of any Church from these abuses and the setling the bonds of Christian communion without them And on those grounds viz. the Church of Romes imposing unlawful conditions of communion it was necessary not to communicate with her and on the Church of Englands power to reform it self by the assistance of the Supream power it was lawful and justifiable not only to redress those abuses but to settle the Church upon its proper and true foundations So that the Church of Romes imposing unlawful conditions of communion is the reason why we do not communicate with her and the Church of Englands power to govern and take care of her self is the reason of our joyning together in the service of God upon the principles of our Reformation On these grounds I doubt not but to make it appear how free the Church of England is from all imputation of Schism These things being thus in general premised we come to consider what those principles are on which you can found so high a charge as that of Schism on the Protestant Churches And having throughly considered your way of management of it I find all that you have to say may be resolved into one of these three grounds 1. That the Roman Church is the true and only Catholick Church 2. That our Churches could have no power or cause to divide in their Communion from her 3. That the Authority of the Roman Church is so great that upon no pretence soever could it be lawful to withdraw from Communion with her I confess if you can make good any one of these three you do something to the purpose but how little ground you have to charge us with Schism from any of these Principles will be the design of this Part at large to manifest I begin then with the first which is the pretence of your Churches being the Catholick Church and here we again enter the lists to see how fairly you deal with your Adversary Mr. Fisher saith That from the Controversie of the resolution of Faith the Lady callâ—d them and desiring to hear whether the Bishop would grant the Roman Church to be the right Church the Bishop saith he granted that it was To which his Lordship answers after a just complaint of the abuse of disputations by mens resolution to hold their own though it be by unworthy means and disparagement of truth that the question was neither asked in that form nor so answered And that there is a great deal of difference especially as Romanists handle the question of the Church between The Church and A Church and there is some between a True Church and a Right Church For The Church may import the only true Church and perhaps the root and ground of the Catholick And this saith he I never did grant of the Roman Church nor ever mean to do But A Church can imply no more then that it is a member of the whole And this I never did saith he nor ever will deny if it fall not absolutely away from Christ. That it is a True Church I granted also but not a Right For Truth only imports the being right perfection in conditions thus a Thief is a true man though not an upright man So a corrupt Church may be true as a Church is a company of men which profess the Faith of Christ and are baptized into his Name but it is not therefore a right Church either in doctrine or manners And this he saith is acknowledged by very learned Protestants before him This is the substance of his Lordships answer to which we must consider what you reply That about the terms of the Ladie 's question you grant to be a verbal Controversie and that whatever her words were she was to be understood to demand this alone viz. Whether the Roman were not the True Visible Infallible Church out of which none can be saved for herein you say she had from the beginning of the Controversie desired satisfaction And in this subject the Roman Church could not be any Church at all unless it were The Church and a Right Church The reason is because St. Peters successour being the Bishop of Rome and Head of the whole Church as you tell us you will prove anon that must needs be the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if it be any Church at all And because the Church can be but one if it be a true Church it must be the right Church But all this amounts only to a confident assertion of that which wants evident proof which is that the notion of a Church relates to one as appointed the Head of the whole Church without which it would be no Church at all Which being a thing so hard to be understood and therefore much harder to be proved we must be content to wait your leasure till you shall think fit
and punctual then this testimony of Cyprian is to overthrow that sense of the Catholick Church which you contend for How farr were Cyprian and the African Bishops from making Rome the center of Ecclesiastical communion when they looked on appeals thither as very unjust and unreasonable What acknowledgement and dependence was there on the Church of Rome in those who looked on themselves as having a portion of Christs flock committed to them of which they were to give an account to God alone And I pray what excellent persons were those who undervalued the Authority of the African Bishops and ran to Rome St. Cyprian tells us they were pauci desperati perditi and translate these with as much advantage to your cause as you can So fatal hath it been to Rome even from its first foundation to be a receptacle for such persons And is not this a great credit to your cause that such persons who were ejected out of communion for their crimes at home did make their resort to Rome and the more pious and stout any Bishops were the more they defended their own priviledges in opposition to the encroachments of the Roman Sec. Which was apt to take advantage from such Renegado's as these were by degrees to get more power into her hands and lift up her head above her fellow-Churches But lest you should think that St. Cyprian only spake these things in an heat out of his opposition to these persons and his desire to crush them you shall see what his judgement was concerning the same things when he purposely discourseth of them For in his Book of the Vnity of the Church he useth that expression which destroyes all your subordinate union in the Church which is Episcopatus unus est cujus à singulis in solidum pars tenetur They who consider and understand the importance of that speech will find nothing more destructive to your doctrine of the Catholick Church then that is For when he makes the Vniversal Government of the Church to be but one Episcopal office and that committed in the several parts of it with full power to particular Bishops can any be so senseless to imagine that he should ever think the Government of the Church in General to depend on any one particular Church as chief over the rest And that the former words do really import such a full power in particular Bishops over that part of the flock which is committed to them appears from the true importance of the phrase insolidum a phrase taken out of the Civil Law where great difference is made between an obligation in partem and in solidum and so proportionable between a tenure in partem and in solidum those things were held in solidum which were held in full right and power without payments and acknowledgements But where the usus-fructus belonged to another it was not held in solidum So that when St. Cyprian saith that every part belonging to each Bishop was held in solidum he therein imports that full right and power which every Bishop hath over his charge and in this speech he compares the Government of the Church to an estate held by several Freeholders in which every one hath a full right to that share which belongs to him Whereas according to your principles the Government of the Church is like a Mannor or Lordship in which the several inhabitants hold at the best but by Copy from the Lord and you would fain have it at the will of your Lord too But thus farr we see St. Cyprian was from your modern notion of the Catholick Church that he looks on the Vnity of it as depending on the consent of the Catholick Bishops and Churches under their full power and not deriving that Vnity from any particular Church as the head and fountain of it And therefore in the former Schism at Rome about Cornelius and Novatianus St. Cyprian imployed two of his colleagues thither Caldonius and Fortunatus that not only by the Letters they carried but by their presence and Counsel they should do their utmost endeavour to bring the members of that divided body to the unity of the Catholick Church Which is certainly a very different thing from the Catholick Churche's deriving its Vnity from the particular Church of Rome Many other instances of a like nature might be produced out of the Reports of St. Cyprians times but these are sufficient to evidence how far the Vnity of the Catholick Church was then from depending on the Church of Rome But lest we should seem to insist only on St. Cyprians testimony it were easie to multiply examples in this kind which I shall but touch at some of and proceed If the Church of Rome then had been looked on as the center of Ecclesiastical communion is it possible to conceive that the excommunications of the Church of Rome should be slighted as they were by Polycrates for which St. Hierome commends him as a man of courage that Stephen should be opposed as he was by Cyprian and Firmilian in a way so reflecting on the Authority of the Roman Church that appeals to Rome should be so severely prohibited by the African Bishops that causes should be determined by so many Canons to be heard in their proper Dioceses that when the right of appeals was challenged by the Bishops of Rome it was wholly upon the account of the imaginary Nicene Canons that when Julius undertook by his sole power to absolve Athanasius the Oriental Bishops opposed it as irregular on that account at the Council at Antioch that when afterwards Paulus Marcellus and Lucius repaired to Rome to Julius and he seeks to restore them the Eastern Bishops wonder at his offering to restore them who were excommunicated by themselves and that as when Novatus was excommunicated at Rome they opposed it not so neither ought he to oppose their proceedings against these persons What account can be given of these passages if the Vnity of the Catholick Church had depended on the particular Church of Rome Besides while the Church of Rome continued regular we find she looked on her self as much obliged to observe the excommunications made by other Churches as others were to observe hers As in the case of Marcion who being excommunicated by his Father the Bishop of Sinope in Pontus and by no means prevailing with his Father for his admission into the Church again resorts to Rome and with great earnestness begs admission there where he received this answer That they could not do it without the command of his Father for there is one Faith and one consent and we cannot contradict our worthy brother your Father This shews the Vnity of the Catholick Church to proceed upon other grounds than the causal influence of the Church of Rome when the consent of the Church did oblige the Church of Rome not to repeal the excommunication of a particular Bishop Upon which ground it was that Synesius
laudando praecipere by commending them to be such instruct them that such indeed they ought to be to whom perfidiousness should not get access And for this he instanceth in such another Rhetorical expression of Synesius to Theophilus of Alexandria wherein he tells him that he ought to esteem what his Throne should determine as an Oracle or Divine Law And certainly this comes nearer Infallibility than that of St. Cyprian doth But what inconveniency there should be that St. Cyprian by this interpretation should give no more prerogative to the Church of Rome than to that of Alexandria or Antioch I cannot easily imagine till you prove some greater Infallibility attributed then to the Church of Rome than was to other Apostolical Churches which as yet we are to seek for But at length you tell us after much ado he grants perfidia may be taken for errour in Faith or for perfidious misbelievers and Schismaticks who had betrayed their Faith but then say you he cavils with the word Romanos This must be limited only to those Christians who then lived in Rome to whom quà tales as long as they continued such errour in Faith could not have access What you say his Lordship doth at length and after much ado he did freely and willingly but that you might have occasion for those words you altered the course of his answers and put the second in the last place But still you have the unhappiness to misunderstand him For although he grants that perfidia may relate to errour in Faith yet as it is here used it is not understood of it abstractly but concretely for perfidious misbelievers i. e. such perfidious persons excommunicated out of other Churches were not likely to get access at Rome or to find admittance into their communion And in this sense it is plain that St. Cyprian did not intend by these words to exempt the Romans from possibility of errour but to brand his adversaries with a title due to their merit calling them perfidious i. e. such as had betrayed or perverted the Faith When you therefore ask is not this great praise I suppose none but your self would make a question of it viz. that the Church of Rome had then so great purity as not to admit such perfidious misbelievers into her communion And it were well if the present Church of Rome were capable of the same praise But when you add It is as if St. Cyprian should say St. Peters See could not erre so long as it continued constant in the truth you wilfully misunderstand his Lordships meaning who speaks of the persons and not meerly of their errours but however is it not a commendation to say that the Church of Rome consisted of such persons then who adhered to the Apostolical Faith and therefore errour could not have access to them And I look on it as so great a commendation that I heartily wish it could be verified of your Church now Neither is this any such Identical proposition as that you produce but only a declaration of their present constancy and inferring thence how unlikely it was that errours should be admitted by them His Lordship to make it plain that St. Cyprian had no meaning to assert the unerring Infallibility of either Pope or Church of Rome insists on the contest which after happened between St. Cyprian and Pope Stephen upon which he saith expresly That Pope Stephen did not only maintain an errour but the very cause of Hereticks and that against Christians and the very Church of God And after this he chargeth him with obstinacy and presumption And I hope this is plain enough saith his Lordship to shew that St. Cyprian had no great opinion of the Roman Infallibility To this you answer With a famous distinction of the Popes erring as a private Doctor and as the Vniversal Pastor and that St. Cyprian might very well be supposed to think the Pope erred only in the first sense Not to spend time in rifling this distinction of the Popes erring personally but not judicially or as a private Doctor but not as Vniversal Pastor which it were an easie matter to do by manifesting the incongruity of it and the absurdities consequent upon it in case that doctrine which the Pope erres in comes to be judicially decided by him It is sufficient for us at present to shew that this distinction cannot relieve you in our present case For your Doctors tell us the Pope then erres personally and as a private Doctor when he erres only in his own judgement without obliging others to believe what he judges to be true but then he erres judicially and as Vniversal Pastor when he declares his judgement so as to oblige others to receive it as true Now can any thing be more evident then that St. Cyprian judged Pope Stephen to erre in this latter and not in the former sense For doth he not absolutely and severely declare himself against St. Cyprians opinion condemning it as an errour and an innovation But say you He did not properly define any doctrine in that contestation but said nihil innovetur nisi quod traditum But was not that the question what was traditum and what not for Cyprian and his party denyed it to be a tradition which Stephen asserted was so and doth he not therefore undertake to define something in this cause But say you If this argument hold good against the Infallibility of Popes viz. that St. Cyprian held Pope Stephen erred therefore the Pope may erre in matters of Faith it will be a good consequence also to say St. Cyprian held Pope Stephen erred even whilst he maintained an universal immemorial tradition therefore the Pope may erre whilst he follows such a tradition I answer 1. Who besides you would not have seen that the question was not Whether the Pope was Infallible or no but whether St. Cyprian judged him to be Infallible or no for if it appear that St. Cyprian did not judge him Infallible then those former words cannot be interpreted to such a sense as doth imply Infallibility 2. No doubt if the Pope may err in other things he may err when he thinks he follows an universal immemorial tradition not that he doth err when he doth really follow such a one but he may err in judging that to be an universal immemorial tradition which is not and this was the case between St. Cyprian and Pope Stephen the Pope pretended to follow an universal tradition St. Cyprian judgeth him to err in it and that it was not so And is it not plain still notwithstanding these frivolous pretences that St. Cyprian had no opinion at all of the Popes Infallibility in any sense and therefore out of honour to him you are bound to interpret his former words to some other sense then that of any Infallibility in the Church of Rome Thus all his Lordships answers standing good you have gained no great matter by this first testimony of St.
Cyprian The second Authority is out of St. Hierome whose words are The Roman Faith commended by the Apostle admits not such praestigiae deceits and delusions into it though an Angel should Preach it otherwise than it was Preached at first being armed and fenced by St. Pauls Authority it cannot be changed Here you tell us You willingly agree with his Lordship that by Romanam fidem St. Hierom understands the Catholick Faith of Christ and so you concur with him against Bellarmine that it cannot be understood of the particular Church of Rome But by the way you charge your Adversaries with great inconsequence that in this place they make Roman and Catholick to be the same and yet usually condemn you for joyning as Synonyma 's Roman and Catholick together A wonderful want of judgement as though the Roman Faith might not be the Catholick Faith then and yet the Catholick Faith not be the Roman Faith now The former speech only affirms that the Faith at Rome was truly Catholick the latter implyes that no Faith can be Catholick but what agrees with Rome and think you there is no difference between these two But you say further That this Catholick Faith must not here be taken abstractly that so it cannot be changed for Ruffinus was not ignorant of that but that it must be understood of the immutable Faith of the See Apostolick so highly commended by the Apostle and St. Hierom which is founded upon such a rock that even an Angel himself is not able to shake it But St. Hierom speaking this with a reference to that Faith he supposeth the Apostle commended in them although the Apostle doth not so much commend the Catholickness or soundness of their Faith as the act of believing in them and therefore whatever is drawn from thence whether by St. Hierome or any else can have no force in it for if he should infeâ— the immutability of the Faith of the Church of Rome from so apparently weak a foundation there can be no greater strength in his testimony than there is in the ground on which it is built and if there be any force in this Argument the Church of Thessalonica will be as Infallible as Rome for her Faith is commended rather in a more ample manner by the Apostle then that of Rome is St. Hierome I say referring to that Faith he supposes the Apostle commended in them must only be understood of the unchangeableness of that first Faith which appears by the mention of an Angel from Heaven Preaching otherwise Which certainly cannot with any tolerable sense be meant thus that St. Hierome supposed it beyond the power of an Angel from Heaven to alter the Faith of the Roman Church For in the very same Apology he expresseth his great fears lest the Faith of the Romans should be corrupted by the Books of Ruffinus But say you What is this then to Ruffinus who knew as well as St. Hierom that Faith could not change its essence However though St. Hierome should here speak of the Primitive and Apostolical Faith which was then received at Rome that this could receive no alteration yet this was very pertinent to be told Ruffinus because St. Hierome charges him with an endeavour to subvert the Faith not meerly at Rome but in all other places by publishing the Books of Origen with an Encomiastick Preface to them and therefore the telling him The Catholick Faith would admit of no alteration which was received at Rome as elsewhere might be an Argument to discourage him from any attempts of that nature And the main charge against Ruffinus is not an endeavour to subvert meerly the people of Rome but the Latin Church by his translation and therefore these words ought to be taken in their greatest latitude and so imply not at all any Infallibility in the Roman See The remaining Testimonies of Gregory Nazianzene Cyril and Ruffinus as appears to any one who reads them only import that the Roman Church had to their time preserved the Catholick Faith but they do not assert it impossible it should ever do otherwise or that she is an Infallible preserver of it and none of their Testimonies are so proper to the Church of Rome but they would equally hold for any other Apostolical Churches at that time Gregory Nazianzene indeed sayes That it would become the Church of Rome to hold the entire Faith alwayes and would it not become any other Church to do so to doth this import that she shall Infallibly do it or rather that it is her duty to do it And if these then be such pregnant Authorities with you it is a sign there is little or nothing to be found in Antiquity for your purpose But before we end this Chapter we are called to a new task on occasion of a Testimony of St. Cyril produced by his Lordship in stead of that in Bellarmin which appeared not in that Chapter where his Name is mentioned In which he asserts That the foundation and firmness which the Church of Christ hath is placed not in or upon the person much less the Successour of St. Peter but upon the Faith which by Gods Spirit in him he so firmly professed which saith his Lordship is the common received opinion both of the ancient Fathers and of the Protestants Vpon this Rock that is upon this Faith will I build my Church On which occasion you run presently out into that large common place concerning Tu es Petrus and super hanc Petram and although I should grant all that you so earnestly contend for viz. That these words are not spoken of St. Peters Confession but of his Person I know no advantage which will accrue to your cause by it For although very many of the Fathers understand this place of St. Peters Confession as containing in it the ground and Foundation of Christian Religion Thou art Christ the Son of the Living God which therefore may well be said to be the Rock on which Christ would build his Church and although it were no matter of difficulty to defend this interpretation from all exceptions yet because I think it not improbable the words running by way of address to St. Peter that something peculiar to him is contained in them I shall not contend with you about that But then if you say that the meaning of St. Peters being the Rock is The constant Infallibility in Faith which was derived from St. Peter to the Church of Rome as you seem to suggest you must remember you have a new task to make good and it is not saying That St. Peter was meant by the Rock will come within some leagues of doing it I pass therefore by that discourse as a thing we are not much concerned in for it is brought in by his Lordship as the last thing out of that testimony of Cyril but you were contented to let go the other more material Observations that you might more
and fully in these words T is too true indeed that there is a miserable rent in the Church and I make no question but the best men do most bemoan it nor is he a Christian that would not have Vnity might he have it with Truth But I never said nor thought that the Protestants made this rent The cause of the Schism is yours for you thrust us from you because we call'd for truth and redress of abuses For a Schism must needs be theirs whose the cause of it is The woe runs full out of the mouth of Christ ever against him that gives the offence not against him that takes it ever And in the Margent shewing that a separation may sometimes be necessary he instanceth in the orthodox departing from the communion of the Arrians upon which he sayes It cannot be that a man should do well in making a Schism There may be therefore a necessary separation which yet incurrs not the guilt of Schism and that is when Doctrines are taught contrary to the Catholick Faith And after saith The Protestants did not depart for departure is voluntary so was not theirs I say not theirs taking their whole body and cause together For that some among them were peevish and some ignorantly zealous is neither to be doubted nor is there danger in confessing it Your body is not so perfect I wot well but that many amongst you are as pettish and as ignorantly zealous as any of ours You must not suffer for these nor we for those nor should the Church of Christ for either And when A. C. saith That though the Church of Rome did thrust the Protestants from her by excommunication yet they had first divided themselves by obstinate holding and teaching Opinions contrary to the Roman Faith His Lordship answers So then in his Opinion Excommunication on their part was not the prime cause of this division but the holding and teaching of contrary Opinions Why but then in my opinion saith he that holding and teaching was not the prime cause neither but the corruptions and superstitions of Rome which forced many men to hold and teach the contrary So the prime cause was theirs still And A. C. telling him That he said that it was ill done of those who first made the separation He answers That though he remembred not that he said those words yet withall adds If I did not say it then I do say it now and most true it is That it was ill done of those whoere they were who first made the separation But then A. C. must not understand me of Actual only but of Causal separation For as I said before the Schism is theirs whose the cause of it is and he makes the separation that gives the first just cause of it not he that makes an actual separation upon a just cause preceding And this is so evident a Truth that A. C. cannot deny it for he sayes it is most true These passages I have laid together that the Reader may clearly understand the full state of this great Controversie concerning Schism the upshot of which is that it is agreed between both parties that all separation from communion with a Church doth not involve in it the guilt of Schism but only such a separation as hath no sufficient cause or ground for it So that the Question comes to this Whether your Church were not guilty of such errours and corruptions as gave sufficient cause for such a separation The Question being thus stated we now come to consider how you make good your part in it Your first pretence is if reduced into argument for you seem to have a particular pique against a close way of disputing That your Church is a right and orthodox Church and therefore could never give any just cause of separation from it For the Lady asked as A. C. would have it Whether the Roman Church was not the right Church not be not but was not that is relating to the times before the breach was made Now his Lordship tells him That as to the terms he might take his choice For the Church of Rome neither is nor was the right Church as the Lady desired to hear A particular Church it is and was and in some times right and in some times wrong but the right Church or the Holy Catholick Church it never was nor ever can be And therefore was not such before Luther and others left it or were thrust from it A particular Church it was but then A. C. is not distinct enough here neither For the Church of Rome both was and was not a right or orthodox Church before Luther made a breach from it For the word ante before may look upon Rome and that Church a great way off or long before and then in the prime times of it it was a most right and orthodox Church But it may look also nearer home and upon the immediate times before Luther or some ages before that and then in those times Rome was a corrupt and tainted Church far from being Right And yet both these times before Luther made his breach And so he concludes that Section with this clause That the Roman Church which was once right is now become wrong by embracing superstition and errour And what say you now to all this Two things you have to return in answer to it or at least to these two all that you say may be reduced 1. That if the Roman Church was right once it is so still 2. That if the Roman Church were wrong before Luther the Catholick Church was so too These two containing all that is said in this case must be more particularly discussed 1. That if the Roman was the right Church it still is so seeing no change can be shewn in her Doctrine If there have been a change let it appear when and in what the change was made Thus you say but you know his Lordship never granted that the Roman Church ever was the right Church in the sense you take those words for the true Catholick Church that it was once a right particular Church he acknowledged and as such was afterwards tainted with errours and corruptions If so you desire to know what these were and when they came in to the former I shall reserve an Answer till I come to the third part of my task where you shall have an account of them to the latter the time when these came in because this is so much insisted on by your party I shall return you an Answer in this place And that I shall do in these following Propositions 1. Nothing can be more unreasonable than to deny that errours and corruptions have come into a Church meerly because the punctual time of their coming in cannot be assigned For Will any one question the birth of an Infant because he cannot know the time of his conception Will any one deny there are tares in the field because
examine particulars they would as soon believe it was impossible for that man to fall whom they see upon the ground as your Church to be infallible which they find overspread with errour and corruptions Much such another Answer you return to his Lordship's second Exception which is at his calling the Christian Faith the Roman Faith For you say It is no incongruity so to call it for the Bishop of Rome being Head of the whole Christian or Catholick Church the Faith approved and taught by him as Head thereof though it be de facto the general Faith and Profession of all Christians may yet very well be called the Roman Faith Why because the root origine and chief Foundation under Christ of its being practised and believed by Christians is at Rome But if the Bishop of Rome be no such thing as Head of the Christian Church and they must have a very wide Faith which must swallow that Vniversal Headship with all the appurtenances upon your bare affirmation if it belongs no more to him to approve and teach the Faith then to any other Catholick Bishop if the coming from Rome affords no credibility at all to the Christian Faith then still there remains as great an incongruity as may be in calling the Christian Faith the Roman Faith And as to all these my denial is as good as your affirmation when you undertake to prove I shall to answer If A. C. adds the practice of the Church to the Roman Faith I see no advantage is gotten by it for the first must limit the latter and the Faith being Roman the Church must be so too and therefore all your cavils on that subject come to nothing The third Exception is against the place out of S. Bernard and S. Austin which his Lordship saith are mis-applied for neither of them saith he spake of the Roman and S. Bernard perhaps neither of the Catholick nor the Roman but of a particular Church or Congregation His words are What greater pride than that one man should prefer his judgement before the whole Congregation Which A. C. conveniently to his purpose rendred before the whole Congregation of all the Christian Churches in the world Whereas no such thing is in him as all the Christian Churches in the world And his Lordship saith He thinks it is plain that he speaks both of and to the particular Congregation to which he was then preaching This you deny not but say The argument holds â minori ad majus to shew the more exorbitant pride of those who prefer their private fanatick Opinions before the judgement of the whole Catholick Church The Roman Church you should have said for you own no Catholick Church but what is Roman and therein the argument you mention will hold yet further against those who prefer the Novel Opinions of the Roman Church before the ancient Apostolical Faith of the truly Catholick Church His Lordship adds That it is one thing to prefer a mans private judgement before the whole Congregation and another for an intelligent man in something unsatisfied modestly to propose his doubts even to the Catholick Church And much more may a whole National Church nay the whole body of Protestants do it Now you very wisely leave out this last clause that you might take an opportunity to declaim against Luther Zuinglius Calvin c. for want of modesty But what pretext could there have been for such virulency had they been guilty of what you charge them if you would but have given us all that his Lordship said And may not I now therefore more justly return you your own language in the same page upon a far less occasion That here 's a manifest robbery of part of his Lordships words for which you are bound to restitution For his Lordship as it were foreseeing this cavil warily adds that concerning a whole National Church and the whole body of Protestants which you for reasons best known to your self craftily leave out But we must excuse our adversary for this slip though it be an unhandsome one For the truth is he had no other way to hide the guiltiness of his own pen c. These are your own words only applied and that much more justly to your self for a more palpable fault in the very same page wherein you had accused his Lordship for one of that kind But you go on further and supposing the doubts had been modestly proposed yet this could not at all help the Protestant cause in regard their doubts were in points of Faith already determined for such by authority of the Catholick Church to question any of which with what seeming modesty soever is sinful heretical and damnable Were it our present business it were easie to make it appear that the far greatest part of the matters in Controversie were never determined as points of Faith before the Council of Trent and I hope you will not say that was before the Reformation or any proposal of doubts But if they had been defined by your Church for matters of Faith and our great doubt be How your Church comes to have this power of determining points of Faith to whom should this doubt be propounded to your Church no doubt then we should hear from her as now we do from you That to question it with what seeming modesty soever is sinful heretical ond damnable And Is it not then likely that your Church should ever yield to the proposal of doubts and you do well to tell us so for it will save Protestants a great deal of labour when they see your Church so incurable that she makes it sinful heretical and damnable to question any thing she hath determined Although we do with much more reason assert it to be sinful heretical and damnable in your Church to offer to obtrude erroneous Doctrines on the Faith of the Christian world as points necessary to be believed and to urge superstitious practices as the conditions of communion with her To the place of S. Austin wherein he saith That it is a part of most insolent madness for any man to dispute Whether that be to be done which is usually done in and through the whole Catholick Church of Christ. His Lordship answer 1. Here 's not a word of the Roman Church but of that which is all over the world Catholick which Rome never yet was and for all your boast of having often shewn That the Roman and the Catholick are all one I dare leave it to the indifferent Reader Whether you have not miserably failed in your attempts that way 2. He answers That A. C. applies this to the Roman Faith whereas S. Austin speaks expresly of the rites and ceremonies of the Church and particularly about the manner of offering upon Maundy-Thursday whether it be in the morning or after supper or both 3. T is manifest by the words themselves that S. Austin speaks of no matter of Faith
in the safe-conduct he had granted Thus we see how on all hands it appears from Husse's fears and desires the Emperours power the nature of safe-conducts the Emperours own sense of it and the Councils decree that this first Answer hath no ground at all viz. that the safe conduct was granted jure communi and that it was only to hinder unjust violence and not the execution of Justice But besides you say John Husse was justly burnt for two reasons The first is For being obstinate in his Heresie the second For having fled which the Emperour had prohibited in his safe-conduct under pain of death I answer It is not Whether a man obstinate in Heresie may be burnt which is now the Question although that may justly bear a dispute too But Whether one suspected for Heresie and coming to a Council with safe-conduct for coming and returning may be burnt without violation of Faith your first reason then is nothing to the purpose and your second as little First Because there is no certain evidence at all of Husse's flying it not being objected against him by the Emperour who only upbraided him with his obstinacy in his Heresie as the cause of his execution and withall if Husse had fled and had suffered death for that as you say he ought to have done he would not have suffered the death proper to Heresie and not to flying nor been accounted as by all your own Authours he is a sufferer on the account of Heresie But this being a groundless Calumny it needs no further confutation But before we come to your second Answer the case of Hierom of Prague must be discussed so far as it is distinct from that of John Husse who it seems was trepanned by a pretended safe-conduct granted him by the Council and not by the Emperour wherein you tell us that express clause of salvâ semper justitiâ was inserted which is another argument that the safe-conduct of the Emperour to Husse was of another nature because it ran in general terms without any such clause but poor Hierom who it seems was not acquainted with the arts and subtilties of his enemies but thought them as honest as himself ventures to Constance upon this safe-conduct but when he came thither and began to understand the jugglings of his enemies he thought to shift for himself by flight but being taken was burnt So that Hierom suffered through his honest simplicity and credulity not considering what that salvâ justitiâ would mean in his case which as they interpreted it was such another safe-conduct as known Malefactors have to the place of Justice but to call it a safe-conduct in the sense which Hierom apprehended it in is as proper as to say A man that is to be executed shall have a Salvo for his life This was therefore intended as appears by the event as a meer trick to bring him within their power and so all such safe-conducts granted with those clauses by such persons who are to interpret them themselves are and nothing else For they are the sole Judges what this Justice shall be Neither can you say then That Faith was kept with Hierom of Prague for no such thing as a safe-conduct truly so called was intended him and when the Emperour was sollicited to grant him one he utterly denied it because of the bad success he had in that of John Husse and some of the Council being then present with the Emperour offered to give him a safe-conduct but they very honestly explained themselves that it was a safe-conduct for coming thither but not for going thence again And so it proved So that Faith was well given to Hierom of Prague and as well kept to John Husse But say you Had the Protestants gone to the Council of Trent upon the safe-conduct granted them by that Council jure speciali in the second manner they could not at all have been punished under any pretence of Heresie without manifest breach of Faith which all Catholicks hold to be unlawful The like may be said of the safe-conduct offered them for going to Rome But you must better satisfie us that you look upon this as a breach of Faith than as yet you have done For so are your ambiguities in your expressions of this nature that men who know your arts can hardly tell when they have your right meaning For you may look on all breach of Faith as unlawful and yet not look on your acting contrary to your express words in safe-conducts offered to Hereticks to be a breach of Faith For you may say Faith is there only broken where men are bound to keep it but you are not bound to keep it with Hereticks and that because your obligation to the Church is greater than it can be to Hereticks when therefore you have Hereticks in your power it is an easie matter for you to say that were it in any thing else but in a matter so nearly concerning the Interest of your Holy Mother the Church you could not but observe it but your obligation to that is so great as destroies all other which are contrary to it and the obligation being destroyed there is no breach of Faith at all and therefore you may hold all breach of Faith unlawful and yet you may proceed against those whom you account Hereticks contrary to all engagements whatsoever and then say This is no breach of Faith And the truth is by your Doctrines of aequivocations and mental reservations you have made all manner of converse in the world so lubricous and uncertain that he who hath to deal with you especially in matters where the interest of your Church is concerned had need be wary and remember to distrust or else he may repent it afterwards If you therefore account the Protestants crafty Foxes in not coming to Rome or the Council of Trent it was because they would not venture too near the Lions Den but if you will not account them wise men for refusing so fair an offer you will give us leave to think them so till they see better reason to trust your offers And the Council of Trent did very well to tell them in their form of safe-conduct they would not do by them as the Council of Constance did for therein they shew how much the Faith of Councils was sunk by that so that if that were not particularly excepted no trust would ever be given to them more But supposing the safe-conduct of the Council of Trent to have been never so free from suspicion the Protestants had sufficient reasons not to appear there as will be manifested afterwards We come therefore now to your second Answer in vindication of the Council of Constance which is this That by that decree the Council declares that no Secular Power how soveraign soever can hinder the proceedings of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal in causes of Heresie for which there is great reason and consequently if the Emperour or any other Secular Prince
not from hence that Heresie was supposed to dissolve that obligation to obedience which otherwise men lay under And if it doth destroy that Faith which men owe to their Soveraigns in case of Heresie Will it not equally destroy that Faith which Princes promise to their subjects in case of Heresie too For what reason can be given for the one which will not hold for the other also And who were they I pray but those loyal persons the Jesuits who broached fomented and propagated that Doctrine Was not Father Creswell a Jesuit who under the name of Andreas Philopator delivers this excellent Doctrine That the whole School of Divines teach and it is a thing certain and of Faith that any Christian Prince if he manifestly falls off from the Religion of the Catholick Roman Church and endeavours to draw others from it doth by Law of God and man fall from all power and authority and that before the sentence of the Pope and Judge delivered against him and that all his subjects are free from the obligation of any Oath to him of obedience and loyalty and that they may and ought cast such a one out of his power as an Apostate and a Heretick lest he infect others I might mention many more who write after the same nature but I spare you only this one may serve instead of many for he delivers it not only as his own judgement but the consent of the School and as a thing most certain as being of Faith And will you still say That no Jesuits own such principles as That Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks For if Heresie doth thus destroy all obligation to obedience in subjects to Heretical Princes Will it not much more in Princes toward heretical subjects because certainly Princes have a greater power and right to command over subjects than subjects over them even in your own case of Heresie Since this therefore is the avowed Doctrine of the Jesuitical School perswade whom you can to believe that you look on an obligation to Faith remaining in a case of Heresie Certainly none who understand your principles and practices will have much cause to rely on your Faith in this particular So much at present of the Jesuits Integrity as to this principle of keeping Faith with Hereticks What you add further about the Council of Constance and John Husse and Hierom of Prague is only serving up the very same matter in somewhat different words for there is nothing contained in them but what hath been sufficiently disproved already for it all depends on the nature of the safe-conduct and the difference of the Secular and Ecclesiastical Power His Lordship very pertinently asks supposing men might go safely to Rome To what purpose is it to go to a General Council thither and use freedom of speech since the Church of Rome is resolved to alter nothing and you very pertinently answer That they were invited thither to be better instructed and reclaimed from their errours But Will no place serve to reclaim them but Rome Can they not be as well instructed elsewhere and by other means than by being summoned to a General Council We had thought the intention of General Councils had been to have had free debates concerning the matters which divide the Church But it seems the Protestants must have been summoned as guilty persons i. e. Hereticks and their Adversaries must have sate as their proper Judges and such who were accused as the great Innovators must have believed themselves Infallible and by your own saying If an Angel from Heaven had come as a Protestant thither he would not have been believed nay it had been well he had escaped so if your power were as great over spirits as over our grosser bodies So I suppose John Husse and Hierom of Prague were invited to Constance to be better instructed and it is well we know by their example what you mean by your good instructions and out of a desire to avoid them care not how little we appear where our Adversaries not only intend to be Judges but resolve beforehand to condemn us whatsoever we say For so you tell us That Rome and the Fathers of Trent were resolved to stick to their own Doctrine which they call Catholick notwithstanding any pretended difficulties or objections brought against it either by Bishops or any other person Your kind invitations then of the Protestants were wonderful expressions of your Churches civility towards them that they might be present to hear themselves condemned and then escape how they could themselves The offer of a publick Disputation his Lordship truly tells you signifies nothing without an indifferent arbitration and the impossibility of agreeing on that renders the other useless and only becomes such Thrasonical persons as Campian was who yet had as little reason as any man to boast of his Atchievements in his disputations When you therefore say His Lordship would have some Atheist Turk or Jew to fit as indifferent persons you shew only your Scurrility and want of understanding For his Lordship only insists on the necessity of that to shew the uselesness of publick Disputations where such cannot be agreed on as in this case And he truly saith This is a good Answer to all such offers that the Kings and Church of England had no reason to admit of a publick Dispute with the English Romish Clergy till they shall be able to shew it under the Seal or Powers of Rome that that Church will submit to a Third who may be an indifferent Judge between us and them or to such a General Council as is after mentioned not such a one as you would have wherein the Pope should sit as Head of the Church for that is to make the greatest Criminal Judge in his own cause And this saith he is an honest and I think a full Answer And without this all Disputation must end in Clamour and therefore the more publick the worse Because as the Clamour is the greater so perhaps will be the Schism too CHAP. IV. The Reformation of the Church of England justified The Church of Rome guilty of Schism by unjustly casting Protestants out of Communion The Communion of the Catholick and particular Churches distinguished No separation of Protestants from the Catholick Church The Devotions of the Church of England and Rome compared Particular Churches Power to reform themselves in case of general Corruption proved The Instance from the Church of Judah vindicated The Church of Rome paralleld with the ten Tribes General Corruptions make Reformation the more necessary Whether those things we condemn as errours were Catholick Tenets at the time of the Reformation The contrary shewed and the difference of the Church of Rome before and since the Reformation When things may be said to be received as Catholick Doctrines How far particular Churches Power to reform themselves extends His Lordships Instances for the Power of Provincial Councils in matters of
just cause of actual separation of one Church from another in that Catholick body of Christ the Church of Rome hath given as great cause as any since as Stapleton grants there is scarce any sin that can be thought on by man Heresie only excepted with which that Sea hath not been fouly stained especially from eight hundred years after Christ. And he need not except Heresie into which Biel grants it possible the Bishops of the Sea may fall And Stella and Almain grant it freely that some of them did fall and so ceased to be Heads of the Church and left Christ God be thanked at that time of his Vicars defection to look to his Cure himself But you tell us The discovery of some few motes darkens not the brightness of the Sunshine I wonder what you account Beams if the Sins of your Popes and others be but motes with you We grant that the Sun himself hath his Maculae but they are such as do not Eclipse his Light we find the Maculae in your Church but we are to seek for the bright Sunshine Or Doth it lye in the service of your Religious Votaries For that is the great part of the conspicuous Piety of your Church which you instance in But Is this indeed the bright Sunshine of your Church that there are so many thousand of both Sexes you do well to joyn them together who tye themselves by perpetual vows never to be dissolved by their own seeking and therefore doubtless pleasing to God whether they are able to keep them or no and these pray if they understand what they say and sing Divine Hymns day and night which makes the Sunshine the brighter which you say is a strange and unheard of thing among Protestants What that men and women though not in Cloysters pray and sing Hymns to God no surely For as the Devotion of our Churches is more grave and solemn so it is likewise more pious and intelligible You pray and sing but how Let Erasmus speak who understood your praying and singing well Cantiuncularum clamorum murmurum ac bomborum ubique plus satis est si quid ista delectant Superos Do you think those Prayers and Hymns are pleasing to God which lye more in the throat than the heart And such who have been wise and devout men among your selves have been the least admirers of your mimical uncouth and superstitious devotions but have rather condemned them as vain ludicrous things and wondered as Erasmus said what they thought of Christ who imagined he could be pleased with them Quid sentiunt obsecro de Christo qui putant eum ejusmodi cantiunculis delectari Are these then the glorious parts of your Devotions your Prayers and Hymns But they pray and sing Divine Hymns day and night If this be the only excellency of your Devotion How much are you out-done by the ancient Psalliani and Euchitae that spent all their time in prayer and yet were accounted Hereticks for their pains Still you pray and sing but to whom to Saints and Angels often to the Virgin Mary with great devotion and most solemn invocations but to God himself very sparingly in comparison If this then be the warm Sunshine of your Devotions we had rather use such wherein we may be sure of Gods blessing which we cannot be in such Prayers and Hymns which attribute those honours to his creatures which belong wholly to himself But you not only sing and pray but can be very idle too and the number of those men must be called Religious Orders and the Garment of the Church is said by you to be imbroidered by the variety of them and for this Psalm 44.10 is very luckily quoted And are those indeed the ornaments of your Church which were become such sinks of wickedness that those of your Church who had any modesty left were ashamed of them and call'd loud for a Reformation Those were indeed such Gardens wherein it were more worth looking for useful or odoriferous flowers as you express it than for Diogenes to find out an honest man in his croud of Citizens Therefore not to dispute with you the first Institutions of Monastick life nor how commendable the nature of it is nor the conveniencies of it where there are no indispensable vows the main things we blame in them are the restraints of mens liberties whatever circumstances they are in the great degeneracy of them in all respects from their Primitive Institutions the great snares which the consciences of such as are engaged in them are almost continually exposed to the unusefulness of them in their multitudes to the Christian world the general unserviceableness of the persons who live in them the great debaucheries which they are subject to and often over-run with and if these then be the greatest Ornaments of your Churches Garments it is an easie matter to espy the spots which she hath upon her What you add concerning the good lives of Papists and bad of Protestants if taken universally iâ— as unjust as uncharitable if indefinitely it shews only that not thâ— particular lives of men on either side but the tendency of the Doctrine to promote or hinder the sanctity of them is here to be regarded And to that you speak afterwards but in a most false and virulent manner when you say That though sins be committed among you they are not defended or justified as good works whereas among Protestants Darkness it self is called Light and the greatest of all sins viz. Heresie Schism Sacriledge Rebellion c. together with all the bad spawn they leave behind them are cryed up for perfect Virtue Zeal good Reformation and what not I doubt not but you would be ready to defend and justifie this open Raillery of yours and call it a good work notwithstanding what you said before If we had a mind to follow you in such things How easie a matter were it to rip up all the frauds impostures villanies of all sorts and kinds which have been committed by those who have sate in your Infallible Chair and charge them all on your Church with much more justice than you do the miscarriages of any under the name of Protestants For the Protestant Churches disown such persons and condemn those practices with the greatest indignation whereas you excuse palliate and plead for the lives of the Popes as much as you dare and not out-face the Sun at Noon which hath laid open their Villanies Where do the Principles of Protestants incourage or plead for Heresie Schism Sacriledge Rebellion c. much less cry them up as Heroicall actions Doth not the Church of England disown and disclaim such things to the uttermost Have not her sufferings made it appear how great a hater she is of Heresies Schisms Sacriledge and Rebellion Did she ever cry up those for Martyrs who died in Gun-powder treasons Did she ever teach it lawful to disobey Heretical Princes and to take away their lives
this Binius himself condemns those Acts which report this story for spurious there being a manifest repugnancy in the time of them and no such person as Polychronius ever mentioned by the Ecclesiastical Historians of that time and other fabulous Narrations inserted in them Yet these are your goodly proofs of the Popes power to depose Patriarchs But we must see whether you have any better success in proving his power to restore such as were deposed for which you only instance in Athanasius and Paulus restored by Julius whose case must be further examined which in short is this Athanasius being condemned by the Synods of Tyre and Antioch goes to Rome where he and Paulus are received into Communion by Julius who would not accept of the Decree of the Eastern Bishops which was sent after him to Rome For Pope Julius did not formally offer to restore Athanasius to his Church but only owned and received him into Communion as Bishop of Alexandria and that because he looked on the proceedings as unjust in his condemnation And all that Julius himself pleads for is not a power to depose or restore Patriarchs himself but only that such things ought not to have been done without communicating those proceedings to him which the Vnity of the Church might require And therefore Petrus de Marca saith that Baronius Bellarmin and Perron are all strangely out in this story when they would infer That the causes of the Eastern Bishops upon appeal were to be judged by the Bishop of Rome whereas all that Julius pleads for is that such things should not be done by the Eastern Bishops alone which concerned the deposition of so great a person in the Church as the Patriarch of Alexandria but that there ought to be a Council both of the Eastern and Western Bishops on which account afterwards the Sardican Synod was call'd But when we consider with what heat and stomack this was received by the Eastern Bishops how they absolutely deny that the Western Bishops had any more to do with their proceedings then they had with theirs when they say that the Pope by this usurpation was the cause of all the mischief that followed we see what an excellent instance you have made choice of to prove the Popes power of restoring Bishops by Divine right and that this was acknowledged by the whole Church The next thing to be considered is that speech of St. Augustine That in the Church of Rome there did alwayes flourish the Principality of an Apostolick chair As to which his Lordship saith That neither was the word Principatus so great nor the Bishops of those times so little as that Principes and Principatus are not commonly given them both by the Greek and Latin Fathers of this great and learnedst age of the Church made up of the fourth and fift hundred years alwayes understanding Principatus of their spiritual power and within the limits of their several jurisdictions which perhaps now and then they did occasionally exceed And there is not one word in St. Augustine that this Principality of the Apostolick chair in the Church of Rome was then or ought to be now exercised over the whole Church of Christ as Bellarmin insinuates there and as A. C. would have it here To all this you say nothing to purpose but only tell us That the Bishop by this makes way to some other pretty perversions as you call them of the same Father For we must know say you that he is entering upon that main Question concerning the Donatists of Africk and he is so indeed and that not only for clearing the meaning of St. Augustine in the present Epistle but of the whole Controversie to which a great light will be given by a true account of those proceedings Thus then his Lordship goes on And to prove that St. Augustine did not intend by Principatus here to give the Roman Bishop any power out of his own limits which God knows were far short of the whole Church I shall make it most manifest out of the same Epistle For afterwards saith St. Augustine when the pertinacy of the Donatists could not be restrained by the African Bishops only they gave them leave to be heard by forraign Bishops And after that he hath these words And yet peradventure Melciades the Bishop of the Roman Church with his Colleagues the transmarine Bishops non debuit ought not to usurp to himself this judgement which was determin'd by seventy African Bishops Tigisitanus sitting Primate And what will you say if he did not usurp this power for the Emperour being desired sent Bishops Judges which should sit with him and determine what was just upon the whole cause In which passage saith his Lordship there are very many things observable As first That the Roman Prelate came not in till there was leave for them to go to Transmarine Bishops Secondly That if the Pope had come in without this leave it had been an Vsurpation Thirdly That when he did thus come in not by his own Authority but by Leave there were other Bishops made Judges with him Fourthly That these other Bishops were appointed and sent by the Emperour and his power that which the Pope least of all will endure Lastly Lest the Pope and his Adherents should say this was an Vsurpation in the Emperour St. Austin tells us a little before in the same Epistle still that this doth chiefly belong ad curam ejus to the Emperours care and charge and that he is to give an account to God for it And Melciades did sit and judge the business with all Christian Prudence and Moderation So at this time the Roman Prelate was not received as Pastour of the whole Church say A. C. what he please nor had he Supremacy over the other Patriarchs In order to the better shaping your Answer to this Discourse you pretend to give us a true Narrative of the Donatists proceedings by the same figure that Lucians Book is inscribed De vera historia There are several things therefore to be taken notice of in your Narrative before we come to your particular Answers whose strength depends upon the matters of fact First You give no satisfactory account at all Why if the Popes Vniversal Pastourship had been then owned the first appeal on both sides was not made to the Bishop of Rome for in so great a Schism as that was between the different parties of Caecilian and Majorinus To whom should they have directly gone but to Melchiades then Bishop of Rome How comes it to pass that there is no mention at all of his judgement by either party till Constantine had appointed him to be one of the Judges St. Austin indeed pleads in behalf of Caecilian why he would not be judged by the African Synod of LXX Bishops that there were thousands of his Colleagues on the other side the Sea whom he might be tryed by But why not by the Bishop
of this cause as a thing not belonging to his Authority They who can believe such things as these and notwithstanding all the circumstances of this story can think the Popes Vniversal Pastourship was then owned the most I can say of them is that they are in a fair way to believe Transubstantiation there being nothing so improbable but upon equal grounds they may judge it true That the Pope had no Supremacy over other Patriarchs his Lordship saith That were all other Records of Antiquity silent the Civil Law is proof enough And that 's a Monument of the Primitive Church The Text there is A Patriarchâ non datur appellatio From a Patriarch there lyes no appeal No appeal Therefore every Patriarch was alike Supreme in his own Patriarchate Therefore the Pope then had no Supremacy over the whole Church Therefore certainly not then received as universal Pastor Two things you answer to this 1. That this reacheth not the difference between Patriarchs themselves who must have some higher ordinary Tribunal where such causes may be heard and determined Very well argued against the Pope's power of judging for in case of a difference between him and the other Patriarchs who must decide the difference Himself no doubt But still it is your way to beg that you can never prove for you herein suppose the Pope to be above all Patriarchs which you know is the thing in dispute Or Do you suppose it very possible that other Patriarchs may quarrel and fall out among themselves but that the Popes are alwaies such mild and good men that it is impossible any should fall out with them or they with others that still they must stand by as unconcerned in all the quarrels of the Christian world and be ready to receive complaints from all places If therefore a General Council must not be the Judge in this case I pray name somewhat else more agreeable to reason and the practice of the Church But you answer 2. What the Law saith is rightly understood and must be explicated of inferiour Clerks only who were not of ordinary course to appeal further than the Patriarch or the Primate of their Province For so the Council of Africk determines But 't is even there acknowledged that Bishops had power in their own causes to appeal to Rome This answer of yours necessarily leads us to the debates of the great case of appeals to Rome as it was managed between the African Bishops and the Bishops of Rome by which we shall easily discover the weakness of your answer and the most palpable fraud of your citation by which we may see What an excellent cause you have to manage which cannot be defended but by such frauds as here you make use of and hope to impose upon your Reader by Your Answer therefore in the general is That the Laws concerning appeals did only concern inferiour Clergy-men but that Bishops were allowed to appeal to Rome even by the Council of Africk which not only decreed it but acknowledged it in an Epistle to Pope Boniface And therefore for our through understanding the truth in this case those proceedings of the African Church must be briefly explained and truly represented Two occasions the Churches of Africa had to determine in the case of Appeals to Rome the first in the Milevitan the second in the Carthaginian Councils in both which we have several things very considerable to our purpose In the Milevitan Council they decree That whosoever would appeal beyond the Sea should not be received into Communion by any in Africa which decree is supposed by some to be occasioned by Coelestius having recourse to Pope Zosimus after he had been condemned in Africa No doubt those prudent Bishops began to be quickly sensible of the monstrous inconvenience which would speedily follow upon the permission of such appeals to Rome for by that means they should never preserve any discipline in their Churches but every person who was called in Question for any crimes would slight the Bishops of those Churches and presently appeal to Rome To prevent which mischief they make that excellent Canon which allows only liberty of appealing to the Councils of Africa or to the Primates of their Province but absolutely forbids all forein appeals All the difficulty is Whether this Canon only concerned the Inferiour Clergy as you say and which is all that the greatest of your side have said in it or Whether it doth not take away all appeals of Bishops too For which we need no more than produce the Canon it self as it is extant in the authentick collection of the Canons of the African Church In which is an express clause declaring that the same thing had been often determined in the case of Bishops Which because it strikes home therefore Perron and others have no other shift but to say That this clause was not in the original Milevitan Canons but was inserted afterwards But why do not they who assert such bold things produce the true authentick Copy of these Milevitan Canons that we may see What is genuine and what not But suppose we should grant that this clause was inserted afterwards it will be rather for the advantage than prejudice of our cause For which we must consider that in the time of Aurelius Bishop of Carthage there had been very many Councils celebrated there no fewer than seventeen Justellus and others reckon But a general Council meeting at Carthage A. D. 419. which was about three years after that Milevitan Council which was held 416. as appears by the Answer of Innocentius to it A. D. 417. at the end of the first Session they reviewed the Canons of those lesser Councils and out of them all composed that Codex Canonum Ecclesiae Africanae as Justellus at large proves in the preface to his edition of it So that if this clause were inserted it must be inserted then for it is well known that the case of Appeals was then at large debated and by that means it received a more general authority by passing in this African Council And hence it was that this Canon passed with this clause into the Greek Churches for Balsamon and Zonaras both acknowledge it and not only they but many ancient Latin Copies had it too and is so received and pleaded by the Council of Rhemes as Hincmarus and others have already proved But Gracian hath helped it well out for he hath added a brave Antidote at the end of it by putting to it a very useful clause Nisi forte Romanam Sedem appellaverit by which the Canon makes excellent sense that none shall appeal to Rome unless they do appeal to Rome for none who have any understanding of the state of those Churches at that time do make the least Question but the intent of the Canon was to prohibit appeals to Rome but then say they They were only the appeals of the Inferiour Clergy which were to be ended
by the Bishops of their own Province But this Answer is very unreasonable on these accounts 1. If Appeals do of right belong to the Bishop of Rome as Vniversal Pastor of the Church then Why not the Appeals of the Inferiour Clergy as well as Bishops Indeed if Appeals were challenged only by virtue of the Canons and those Canons limit one and not the other as the most eager pleaders for Appeals in that age pleaded only the Canons of the Church for them then there might be some reason Why one should be restrained and not the other but if they belong to him by Divine Right then all Appeals must necessarily belong to him 2. If Appeals belong to the Pope as Vniversal Pastor then no Council or persons had any thing to do to determine who should appeal and who not For this were an usurping of the Pope's priviledge for he to whom only the right of Appeals belongs can determine Who should appeal and who not and where and by whom those Controversies should be ended So that the very act of the Council in offering to limit Appeals implies that they did not believe any such Vniversal Pastorship in the Pope for had they not done so they would have waited his judgement and not offered to have determined such things themselves 3. The Appeals of the upper and inferiour Clergy cannot be supposed to be separate from each other For the Appeal of a Presbyter doth suppose the impeachment of the Bishop for some wrong done to him as in the case of Apiarius accusing Vrban the Bishop of Sicca for excommunicating him So that the Bishop becomes a party in the Appeal of a Presbyter And if Appeals be allowed to the Bishop it is supposed to be in his favour for clearing of his right the better and if it be denied to the Presbyter it would savour too much of injustice and partiality 4. The reason of the Canon extends to one as well as the other which must be supposed to prevent all those troubles and inconveniencies which would arise from the liberty of Appeals to Rome and would not these come as well by the Appeals of Bishops as of Inferiour Clergy Nay Doth not the Canon insist on that that no Appeals should be made from the Council of Bishops or the Primates of Africa but in case of Bishops Appeals this would be done as well as the other and therefore they are equally against the reason and design of the Canon 5. The case of Presbyters may be as great and considerable as that of Bishops and as much requiring the judgement of the Vniversal Pastor of the Church As for instance that very case which probably gave occasion to the Milevitan Canon viz. the going of Coelestius to Rome being condemned of Heresie in Africa Now What greater cause could there be made an Appeal to Rome in than in so great a matter of Faith as that was about the necessity of Grace And therefore Petrus de Marcá proves at large against Perron that in the Epistle of Innocent to Victricius where it is said That the greater causes must be referred to the Apostolick See is not to be understood only of the causes of Bishops but may referr to the causes of Presbyters too i. e. when they either concern matter of Faith or some doubtful piece of Church-discipline 6. The Pope notwithstanding this Canon looked on himself as no more hindred from receiving the Appeals of Presbyters than those of Bishops If therefore any difference had been made by any act of the Church surely the Pope would have remanded Presbyters back to their own Provinces again but instead of that we see he received the Appeal of Apiarius But for this a rare Answer is given viz. that though the Presbyters were forbidden to appeal yet the Pope was not forbidden to receive them if they did appeal But to what purpose then were such prohibitions made if the Pope might by his open incouragement of them upon their Appeals to him make them not value such Canons at all for they knew if they could but get to Rome they should be received for all them Notwithstanding all which hath been said you tell us That in the Council of Africk it was acknowledged that Bishops had power in their own cause to appeal to Rome for which you cite in your Margent part of an Epistle of the Council to Boniface But with what honesty and integrity you do this will appear by the story Apiarius then appealing to Zosimus he sends over Faustinus to Africa to negotiate the business of Appeals and to restore Apiarius for which he pleads the Nicene Canons an account of which will be given afterwards the Fathers all protest they could find no such thing there but they agree to send Deputies into the East to fetch the true Canons thence as hath been related already in the mean time Zosimus dyes and Boniface succeeds him but for the better satisfaction of the Pope the Council of Carthage dispatch away a Letter to Boniface to give him an account of their proceedings in which Epistle extant in the African Code of Canons after they have given an account of the business of Apiarius they proceed to the instructions which Faustinus brought with him to Africa the chief of which is that concerning Appeals to be made to Rome and then follow those words which you quote in which they say That in a Letter written the year before to Zosimus they had granted liberty to Bishops to appeal to Rome and that therein they had intimated so much to him Thus far you are right but there is usually some mystery couched in your c. for you know very well where to cut off sentences for had you added but the next words they had spoiled all your foregoing there being contained in them the full reason of what went before viz. that because the Pope pretended that the Appeals of Bishops were contained in the Nicene Canons they were contented to yield that it should be so till the true Canons were produced And is this now all their acknowledgement that Bishops might in their own causes appeal to Rome when they made only a Provisional decree What should be done till the matter came to a resolution But if you will throughly understand what their final judgement was in this business I pray read their excellent Epistle to Pope Celestine who succeeded Boniface after they had received the Nicene Canons out of the East Which being so excellent a Monument of Antiquity and giving so great light to our present Controversie I shall at large recite and render it so far as concerns this business After our bounden duty of Salutation we earnestly beseech you that hereafter you admit not so easily to your ears those that come from hence and that you admit no more into communion those whom we have cast out for your Reverence will easily perceive that this is forbid by the Council of
to the Catholick Church which had been most proper for him if Head of the Church but only to the dispersed Jews in some particular Provinces Can any one then imagine he should be Monarch of the Church and no act of his as such recorded at all of him but carrying himself with all humility not fixing himself as Head of the Church in any Chair but going up and down from one place to another as the rest of the Apostles for promoting the Gospel of Christ To conclude all Is it possible to conceive there should be a Monarch appointed by Christ in the Church and yet the Apostle when he reckons up those offices which Christ had set in the Church speak not one word of him he mentions Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastours and Teachers but the chief of all is omitted and he to whom the care of all the rest is committed and in whose Authority the welfare peace and unity of the Church is secured These things to me seem so incredible that till you have satisfied my mind in these Questions I must needs judge this pretended Monarchy in the Church to be one of the greatest Figments ever were in the Christian world And thus I have at large considered your Argument from Reason Why there should be such a Monarchy in the Church which I have the rather done because it is one of the great things in dispute between us and because the most plausible Argument brought for it is The necessity of it in order to the Churches peace which Monarchy being the best of Governments would the most tend to promote To return now to his Lordship He brings an evidence out of Antiquity against the acknowledgement of any such Monarchy in the Church from the literae communicatoriae which certified from one great Patriarch to another Who were fit or unfit to be admitted to their Communion upon any occasion of repairing from one See to another And these were sent mutually and as freely in the same manner from Rome to the other Patriarchs as from them to it Out of which saith his Lordship I think this will follow most directly that the Church-Government then was Aristocratical For had the Bishop of Rome been then accounted sole Monarch of the Church and been put into the definition of the Church as he is now by Bellarmin all these communicatory Letters should have been directed from him to the rest as whose admittance ought to be a rule for all to communicate but not from others to him at least not in that even equal brotherly way as now they appear to be written For it is no way probable the Bishops of Rome which even then sought their own greatness too much would have submitted to the other Patriarchs voluntarily had not the very course of the Church put it upon them To this you Answer That these literae communicatoriae do rather prove our assertion being ordained by Sixtus 1 in favour of such Bishops as were called to Rome or otherwise forced to repair thither to the end they might without scruple be received into their own Diocese at their return having also decreed that without such letters communicatory none in such case should be admitted But that these letters should be sent from other Bishops to Rome in such an even equal and brotherly way you say is one of his Lordships Chimaera's But this difference or inequality you pretend to be in them that those to the Pope were meerly Testimonial those from him were Mandatory witness say you the case of St. Athanasius and other Bishops restored by the Popes communicatory letters But supposing them equal you say it only shewed the Popes humility and ought to be no prejudice to his just authority and his right and power to do otherwise if he saw cause But all this depends upon a meer fiction viz. That these communicatory letters were ordained by Sixtus 1 in favour of such Bishops as were called to Rome than which nothing can be more improbable But I do not say that this is a Chimaera of your own Brains for you follow Baronius in it for which he produceth no other evidence but the Authour of the lives of the Popes but Binius adds that which seems to have been the first ground of it which is the second decretal Epistle of Sixtus 1 in which that Decree is extant But whosoever considers the notorious forgery of those decretal Epistles as will be more manifested where you contend for them on which account they are slighted by Card. Perron and in many places by Baronius himself will find little cause to triumph in this Epistle of Sixtus 1. And whoever reflects on the state of those times in which Sixtus lived will find it improbable enough that the Pope should take to himself so much Authority to summon Bishops to him and to order that none should be admitted without Communicatory letters from him It is not here a place to enquire into the several sorts of those letters which passed among the Bishops of the Primitive Church whether the Canonical Pacifical Ecclesiastical and Communicatory were all one and what difference there was between the Communicatory letters granted to Travellers in order to their Communion with forrain Churches and those letters which were sent from one Patriarch to another But this is sufficiently evident that those letters which were the tessera hospitalitatis as Tertullian calls it the Pass-port for Communion in forrain Churches had no more respect to the Bishop of Rome than to any other Catholick Bishop Therefore the Council of Antioch passeth two Canons concerning them one That no Traveller should be received without them another That none but Bishops should give them And that all Bishops did equally grant them to all places appears by that passage in St. Austin in his Epistle to Eusebius and the other Donatists relating the conference he had with Fortunius a Bishop of that party wherein St. Austin asked him Whether he could give communicatory letters whither he pleased for by that means it might be easily determined whether he had communion with the whole Catholick Church or no. From whence it follows that any Catholick Bishop might without any respect to the Bishop of Rome grant Communicatory letters to all forrain Churches And the enjoying of that Communion which was consequent upon these letters is all that Optatus means in that known saying of his that they had Communion with Siricius at Rome commercio formatarum by the use of these communicatory letters But besides these there were other letters which every Patriarch sent to the rest upon his first installment which were call'd their Synodical Epistles and these contained the profession of their Faith and the answers to them did denote their Communion with them Since therefore these were sent to all the Patriarchs indifferently and not barely to the Bishop of Rome there appears no difference at all in the letters sent to or
Authority and Jurisdiction given by Christ to one Bishop above another St. Hierom was not so sensless as not to see that the Bishops of Rome Constantinople and Alexandria had greater Authority and larger Jurisdiction in the Church then the petty Bishops of Eugubium Rhegium and Tanis but all this he knew well enough came by the custom of the Church that one Bishop should have larger power in the Church then another But saith he if you come to urge us with what ought to be practised in the Church then saith he Orbis major est urbe it is no one City as that of Rome which he particularly instanceth in which can prescribe to the whole world For saith he all Bishops are of equal merit and the same Priesthood wheresoever they are whether at Rome or elsewhere So that it is plain to all but such as wilfully blind themselves that St. Hierom speaks not of that which you call the Character of Bishops but of the Authority of them for that very word he useth immediately before Si authoritas quaeritur orbis major est urbe And where do you ever find merit applyed to the Bishops Character They who say It is understood of the merit of good life make St. Hierom speak non-sense For are all Bishops of the same merit of good life But we need not go out of Rome for the proper importance of merit here For in the third Roman Synod under Symmachus that very word is used concerning Authority and Principality in the Church ejus sedi primum Petri Apostoli meritum sive principatus deinde Conciliorum venerandorum authoritas c. where Binius confesseth an account is given of the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome the first ground of which St. Peters merit or principality apply now but this sense to S. Hierom and he may be very easily understood All Bishops are ejusdem meriti sive principatus of the same merit Dignity or Authority in the Church But you say he speaks not of the Pope as he is Pope good reason for it for St. Hierom knew no such Supremacy in the Pope as he now challengeth And can you think if St. Hierom had believed such an authority in the Pope as you do he would ever have used such words as these are to compare him with the poor Bishop of Agobio in Merit and Priesthood I cannot perswade my self you can think so only something must be said for the cause you have undertaken to defend And since Bellarmine and such great men had gone before you you could not believe there were any absurdity in saying as they did Still you say He doth not speak of that Authority which belongs to the Bishop of Rome as S. Peter 's Successor But if you would but read a little further you might see that S. Hierom speaks of all Bishops whether at Rome or Eugubium c. as equally the Apostles Successors For it is neither saith he riches or poverty which makes Bishops higher or lower Caeterùm omnes Apostolorum successores sunt but they are all the Apostles Successors therefore he speaks of them with relation to that Authority which they derived from the Apostles And never had there been greater necessity for him to speak of the Popes succeeding S. Peter in the Supremacy over the Church than here if he had known any such thing but he must be excused he was ignorant of it No that he could not be say you again for he speaks of it elsewhere and therefore he must be so understood there as that he neither contradict nor condemn himself But if the Epistle to Damasus be all your evidence for it a sufficient account hath been given of that already therefore you add more and bid us go find them out to see Whether they make for the purpose or no. I am sure your first doth not out of his Commentary on the 13. Psalm because it only speaks of S. Peters being Head of the Church and not of the the Popes and that may import only dignity and preheminence without authority and jurisdiction besides that Commentary on the Psalms is rejected as spurious by Erasmus Sixtus Senensis and many others among your selves Your second ad Demetriadem Virginem is much less to your purpose for that only speaks of Innocentius coming after Anastasius at Rome qui Apostolicae Cathedrae supradicti viri successor filius est Who succeeded him in the Apostolical Chair But Do you not know that there were many Apostolical Chairs besides that of Rome and had every one of them supreme authority over the Church of God What that should be on the 16. of S. Matthew I cannot imagine unless it be that S. Peter is called Princeps Apostolorum which honour we deny him not or that he saith Aedificabo Ecâ—lesiam meam super te But how these things concern the Popes Authority unless you had further enlightened us I cannot understand That ep 54. ad Marcellam is of the same nature with the last for the words which I suppose you mean are Petrus super quem Dominus fundaâ—it Ecclesiam and if you see what Erasmus saith upon that place you will have little cause to boast much of it Your last place is l. 1. Cont. Lucifer which I suppose to be that commonly cited thence Ecclesiae salus in summi Sacerdotis dignitate pendet but there even Marianus Victorius will tell you it is understood of every ordinary Bishop Thus I have taken the pains to search those places you nakedly refer us to in S. Hierom and find him far enough from the least danger of contradicting or condemning himself as to any thing which is here spoken by him So that we see S. Hierom remains a sufficient testimony against the Popes Monarchical Government of the Church His Lordship further argues against this Monarchy in the Church from the great and undoubted Rule given by Optatus that wheresoever there is a Church there the Church is in the Common-wealth and not the Common-wealth in the Church And so also the Church was in the Roman Empire Now from this ground saith his Lordship I argue thus If the Church be within the Empire or other Kingdom 't is impossible the Government of the Church should be Monarchical For no Emperour or King will endure another King within his Dominion that shall be greater than himself since the very enduring it makes him that endures it upon the matter no Monarch Your answer to this is That these two Kingdoms are of different natures the one spiritual the other temporal the one exercised only in such things as concern the worship of God and the Eternal Salvation of souls the other in affairs that concern this world only Surely you would perswade us we had never heard of much less read Bellarmin's first Book de Pontifice about the Popes Temporal Power which was fain to get license for the other four to pass at Rome and although he minces
yet the best your cause would bear And the greater you say the number of Bishopricks is in Italy the more friends I hope the Pope must make by disposing them and Could they do the Pope better service than to help him in this grand business at Trent wherein they sought to outvy each other by promoting the Popes Interest But not only the Protestants complained of this but the Emperour and other Princes and all impartial men in Germany France nay and in some part of Italy too But here his Lordship encounters an Objection of Bellarmine viz. that in the Council of Nice there were as few Bishops of the West present as were of the East at Trent and manifestly shews the great disparity between the the two Councils 1. Because it is not a meer disparity in number which he insists on but with it the Popes carriage to be sure of a major part but neither the Greek Church in general nor any Patriarch of the East had any private interest to look to in the Council at Nice 2. It was not so much a disparity between the Eastern and Western Bishops but that there were so many more Italians and Bishops obnoxious to the Popes Power than of all Germany France Spain and of all other parts of the West besides 3. Even in the comparison of those two Councils as to Eastern and Western Bishops there is this remarkable difference that Pope Sylvester with 275. Bishops confirmed the Council at Nice but the Council at Trent was never confirmed by any Council of Eastern Bishops To the two first of these you Answer with your best property silence Only you would fain perswade some silly people if there be any so weak in the world that enquire into such things That the Pope had no private interest at Trent but what was common to him with other Bishops You should have done well to have commended the excellency of an implicite Faith before you had uttered a thing so contrary to the sense of the whole Christian World To the third you confess It is some disparity but nothing to the purpose because if the Pope himself had ratified them the Council would have had as much Authority as by that accessory Assembly The more to blame was the Pope a great deal for putting so many Bishops to so needless a trouble But you say further This Council was not held just at the same time But Binius tells you it was held assoon as might be after the notice of what was done at Nice shew us the like of the Eastern Bishops at any time and we will not quarrel with you because it was not at the same time Though these Answers may pass for want of better they come not near your last which is a prodigious one the sense of it being That the Doctrine of Faith defined by the Council of Trent was more universally received in the Church then that of the Council of Nice For that of Trent you say was universally received by the whole Catholick Church and hath been more constantly held ever since whereas many Provinces either in whole or in part deserted the Faith defined at Nice and embraced the Arrian Heresie It seems then the twelve good Articles of Trent have been more generally received by the Catholick Church then the eternal existence of the Son of God and consequently that you are more bound to believe the Doctrine of Purgatory or Transubstantiation then that the Son is of the same substance with the Father For your grounds of Faith being resolved into the Churches Infallibility you cannot believe that which hath been so much questioned in the Church so firmly as that which hath been universally believed and constantly held But the universal reception of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent by the whole Catholick Church is so intolerable a falshood that you would scarce have vented it unless it were your design to write for the Whetstone To C's objection That neither French nor Spanish nor Schismatical Greeks did agree with the Protestants in those points which were defined by the Council his Lordship Answers That there can be no certainty who did agree and who not or who might have agreed before the Council ended because they were not admitted to a fair and free dispute And it may be too some Decrees would have been more favourable to them had not the care of the Popes Interest made them sowrer Here you complain of his Lordships falling again to his Surmizes of the Bishops being over-awed by the Popes Authority in the Council which you call an empty and injurious suspicion an unworthy accusation and arguing the want of Christian charity But usually when you storm the most you are the most guilty For if you call this an empty suspicion c. you charge many more with it besides his Lordship and those the greatest of your own Communion what meant else the frequent Protestations of the French and Spanish Ambassadours in which they often declared that as things were managed the Council was not Free What meant those words of the Emperour Ferdinand in his Letters to the Legats and the Pope That the Liberty of the Council was impeached chiefly by three causes one because every thing was first consulted of at Rome another because the Legats had assumed to themselves only the liberty of proposing which ought to be common to all the third because of the practises which some Prelats interested in the Greatness of the Court of Rome did make The French Ambassadour Monsieur de Lansac writ to the King his Master That the Pope was so much Master of this Council that his Pensioners whatsoever the Emperours or we do remonstrate to them will do but what they list Several of the like nature might easily be produced so that it is not his Lordship only is guilty of this want of charity as you call it but all impartial persons who were most acquainted with the Affairs of that Council Whose judgement is certainly much more to be taken then such who have sworn to defend it But you have an excellent Argument to prove the Council Free because the Bishops of the Council continued in the Faith and Doctrine of it as long as they lived And had they not good reason so to do when they were sworn before hand to defend the Pope and having secured him from danger of reformation by the Council and subscribed the Decrees of it they were as much bound to defend their own acts And although it is well enough known what practises were used to bring off the French and Spanish Bishops yet when they were brought off what a shame would it have been for them to have revolted from their own Subscriptions But what is this to that General freedom which was desired by the Roman Catholick Princes for Reformation of the Court of Rome and by Protestants both of the Court and Church Was the Council any thing
Judges of these things then the Fathers themselves Are they not the men who have bid us distinguish what comes from them in a heat from that which they deliver as the Doctrine of the Church Have not they told us that the popular Orations uttered in Churches are no rules of opinion Have not some of them when they have seemed extream vehement and earnest at last come off with this That they have been declaiming all that while Witness St. Hierome against Helvidius and if you make not use of the same rule to put a favourable construction on his Books against Jovinian Vigilantius Ruffinus and others you will as little be able to excuse him from strange Doctrines as from intemperate heats What put-off then is it for us to say that St. Basil in his Oration on Mammas and the forty eight Martyrs that S. Gregory Nazianzen in his Panegyrical Orations on St. Basil St. Athanasius St. Cyprian his sister Gorgonia St. Gregory Nyssen in his commendation of Theodorus do make use of their Rhetorick in Apostrophe's to the persons whom they praise without any solemn Invocation of them What is there herein unsuitable to their present purpose Is it any more then Oratours have commonly done What strange thing is it then that those great Masters of Rhetorick should make use of their art to raise the people not only to a high esteem of their persons but of those vertues which rendred them so illustrious Might not such expressions by way of Apostrophe be still used by such who are furthest from the Invocation of Saints although by their example we are taught how dangerous it is to indulge Rhetorick too much in such cases But as though they foresaw the ill use would be made of them they add such expressions as sufficiently tell us they made no solemn Invocation of them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the like Had these persons a mind to deliver a Doctrine of Invocation of Saints who speak with such hesitation and doubt as to their sense of what was spoken For it is a groundless shift to say that those expressions imply an affirmation and not doubt That which we say then is this That the Doctrine of the Church is not to be judged by such Encomiastick Orations wherein such Rhetorical flourishes are usual and when you bring us their plain and positive assertions we will by no means give you that Answer That those are flourishes of wit and Rhetorick But his Lordship very well knew how far you were from any such dogmatical assertions of the Fathers in this point and that the most plausible testimonies which you had were taken out of those three great Oratours in their Panegyricks in praise of their Friends or of the Martyrs and therefore it was he said Though some of the ancient Fathers have some Rhetorical flourishes about it for the stirring up devotion as they thought yet the Church then admitted not of the Invocation of Saints That is it we stand on that no such thing was admitted by the Church if we should yield that any particular though great persons were too lavish in their expressions this way must these be the standard which we must judge of the Doctrine of the Church by We must consider the Church was now out of persecution and ease and honour attended that profession of Christianity for which such multitudes had endured the flames and the people began to grow more loose and vain then when they still expected Martyrdoms This made these great men so highly commend the Martyrs in their popular Orations not to propound them as objects of Invocation but as examples for their imitation Thence they encouraged them to frequent the Memoriae martyrum that by their assemblies in those places they might revive something of that pristine heat of devotion which was now so much abated among them But the event was so far from answering their expectation that by this means they grew by degrees to place much of their Religion rather in honouring the former Martyrs and Saints then in striving to imitate them in their vertues and graces And from the frequenting the places where the Martyrs were enshrined through the pretence of some extatical dreams and visions or some rare occurrences which they say happened at those places they began to turn their real honour into superstitious devotion which at last ended in solemn Invocation To which no small encouragement was given when such persons as S. Hierom and others were so far from putting a stop to the growing evil that though they confessed many miscarriages committed yet they rather sought to palliate them and make the best construction of them still hoping that this zeal in the people to the honour of the Martyrs would promote devotion among them whereas it sunk gradually into greater superstitions This I take to be the truest and most faithful account of those first beginnings and tendencies to Invocation of Saints which appeared in the latter end of the fourth Century For before that time we meet with nothing that can bear the face of any positive and plain assertions instances examples histories or reports tending that way Which is so clear that Cardinal Perron after the best use of his wit and diligence to find out something to this purpose within the three first Centuries at last confesses that in the Authours who lived nearer the Apostles times no footsteps can be found of the Invocation of Saints But when he gives this account of it That most of the writings of that time are lost it makes us see what poor excuses bad causes will drive the greatest wits to For are not the writings of Justin Martyr Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Origen Tertullian Cyprian Arnobius Lactantius and others still extant who were pious and learned men And is it possible that such men should all of them conceal such a Doctrine as this which would so easily appear in the face of the Church But it is well we have the confession of so great a man for the best ages of the Church and not only so but he acknowledges withall That there is neither precept nor example for it in the Scripture Which others not only assert but offer to give reasons for it for the Old Testament Because the Fathers were not then admitted to the beatifical vision and for the New Testament Because the Apostles were men of such piety and humility that they would not admit of it themselves and therefore made no mention of it in their writings and withall Because in the beginning of Christianity there would have been a suspicion that they had only changed the names of Heathen Deities and retained the same kinds of worship These for the new Testament we admit of not as Rhetorical flourishes but as plain and positive assertions which contain a great deal of truth and reason in them So that here is a confessed silence as to this Doctrine throughout all the story of Scripture and for three
Church because that was the root and matrix of the Catholick Church his advice had signified nothing for the Question was not between the Church of Rome and other Churches in which case it might have been pertinent to have said they should adhere to the Church of Rome because that was the root c. But when the difference was at Rome it self between two Bishops there this reason had been wholly impertinent for the only reason proper in this case must be such as must discriminate the one party from the other which this could not do because it was equally challenged by them both And had belonged to one as well as the other in case Novatianus had proved the lawful Bishop and not Cornelius And therefore the sense of Cyprian's words must be such as might give direction which party to joyn with at Rome on which account they cannot import any priviledge of the Church of Rome over other Churches but only contain this advice that they should hold to the Vnity of the Catholick Church and communicate only with that party which did it This reason is so clear and evident to me that this place cannot be understood of any priviledge of the Church of Rome above other Churches that if there were nothing else to induce me to believe it this were so pregnant that I could not resist the force of it But besides this his Lordship proves that elsewhere S. Cyprian speaks in his own person with other Catholick Bishops nos qui Ecclesiae unius caput radicem tenemus we who hold the head and root of one Church by which it appears he could not make the Church of Rome the root and matrix of the Catholick this being understood of the Vnity and Society of the Catholick Church without relation to the Church of Rome and S. Cyprian writes to Cornelius that they had sent Caldonius and Fortunatus to reduce the Church of Rome to the Vnity and Communion of the Catholick Church and because no particular Church can be the root of the Catholick and if any were Jerusalem might more pretend to it than Rome and because S. Cyprian and his Brethren durst not have suspended their communion at all if they had looked on the Church of Rome as the root and matrix of the Catholick as Baronius confesses they did all which things are largely insisted on by his Lordship and do all confirm that hereby was not meant any Authority or Priviledge of the Church of Rome above other Apostolical Churches which in respect of the lesser Churches which came from them are called Matrices Ecclesiae by Tertullian and others But you are still so very unreasonable that though no more be said of the Church of Rome than might be said of any other Apostolical Church yet because it is said of the Church of Rome it must import some huge Authority which if it had been said of any other would have been interpreted by your selves into nothing For so do you deal with us here for because it is said that they who joyned with Cornelius did preserve the Unity of the Catholick Church therefore it must needs be understood that the Roman Church is the root of the Catholick But he must have a very mean understanding that can be swayed by such trifles as these are For Was there not a Catholick and Schismatical party then at Rome and if they who joyned with Novatianus did separate from the Catholick Church then they who were in communion with Cornelius must preserve the Vnity of it And Would not this Argment as well prove the Catholick party at Carthage to be the root and matrix of the Catholick Church as well as at Rome But such kind of things must they deal with who are resolved to maintain a cause and yet are destitute of better means to do it with So that I cannot find any thing in all your Answer but what would equally hold for any other Church at that time which was so divided as Rome was considering the great care that then was used to preserve the Vnity of the Catholick Church And what particularly S. Cyprian's apprehension was concerning the Nature and Vnity of the Catholick Church we have at large discoursed already to which place we referr the Reader if he desires any further satisfaction Your whole N. 5. depends on personal matters concerning the satisfaction of the Lady's conscience but if you would thence inferr That she did well to desert the Protestant Communion you must prove that it can be no sin to follow the dictates of an erroneous conscience For such we say it was in her and you denying it all this discourse signifies nothing but depends on the truth of the matters in controversie between us But you most notoriously impose on his Lordship when because he asserts the possibility of Salvation of some in your Church you would make him say That it is no sin to joyn with your Church You might as well say Because he hopes some who have committed Adultery may be saved therefore it is no sin to commit Adultery So that while you are charging him falsly for allowing dissimulation you do that which is more in saying that which you cannot but know to be a great untruth If our Religion be not the same with yours as you eagerly contend it is not let it suffice to tell you that our Religion is Christianity let yours be what it will And if it please you better to have a name wholly distinct from us yours shall be called the Roman Religion and ours the Christian. If you judge us of another Religion from yours because we do not believe all that you do we may judge you to have a different Religion from the Christian because you impose more by your own confession to be believed as necessary in order to Salvation than ever Christ or the Apostles did And certainly the main of any Religion consists in those things which are necessary to be believed in it in order to eternal happiness In your following discourse you are so far from giving us any hopes of peace with your Church that you plainly give us the reason why it is vain to expect or desire it which is that if your Church should recede from any thing it would appear she had erred and if that appears farewell Infallibility and then if that be once gone you think all is gone And while you maintain it we are so far from hoping any peace with you that the Peace of Christendom may still be joyned in the Dutchmans Sign with the quadrature of the circle and the Philosophers Stone for the sign of the three hopelesse things How far we are bound to submit to General Councils hath been so fully cleared already that I need not go about here to vindicate his Lordships Opinion from falsity or contradiction both which you unreasonably charge it with and that still from no wiser a
habit should be worn all over the world will you say That any number of men who found this habit extremely inconvenient for them and therefore should disuse it did on that account separate from humane nature and ceased to be men by it Such is the case of any particular Churches laying aside some customes or ceremonies which in some one age of the Church or more the greatest part of Christian Churches were agreed in the practice of for although this general practice should make men more diligent in enquiry and careful in what they did yet if such a Church having power to govern it self see reason to alter it it doth not separate from the Communion of the Catholick Church therein and therefore doth not cease to be a Church For there is no culpable separation from the Church Catholick but what relates to it properly as Catholick now that doth not relate to it as Catholick which it may be Catholick without now certainly you cannot have so little reason as to assert that the Church cannot be Catholick without such extrinsecal and accidental agreements And from hence it follows That no Church can be charged with a separation from the true Catholick Church but what may be proved to separate it self in some thing necessary to the Being of the Catholick Church and so long as it doth not separate as to these essentials it cannot cease to be a true member of the Catholick Church If you would therefore prove that the Church of England upon the Reformation is separated from the true Catholick Church you must not think it enough to say which as weakly as commonly is said That no one particular Church can be named which in all things agreed with it for that only proves that she differed from particular Churches in such things wherein they differed from each other but that she is divided from all Christian Churches in such things wherein they are all agreed and which are essential to the Being of the Catholick Church when you have proved this you may expect a further Answer This then can be no cause why your Church should expel the Protestants out of her Communion but it shews us sufficient cause to believe that your Church had separated her self from the Communion of the Catholick For which we must further consider that although nothing separates a Church properly from the Catholick but what is contrary to the Being of it yet a Church may separate her self from the Communion of the Catholick by taking upon her to make such things the necessary conditions of her Communion which never were the conditions of Communion with the Catholick Church As for Instance Though we should grant Adoration of the Eucharist Invocation of Saints and Veneration of Images to be only superstitious practices taken up without sufficient grounds in the Church yet since it appears that the Communion of the Catholick Church was free for many hundred years without approving or using these things that Church which shall not only publickly use but enjoyn such things upon pain of excommunication from the Church doth as much as in her lyes draw the bounds of Catholick Communion within her self and so divides her self from the true Catholick Church For whatever confines must likewise divide the Church for by that confinement a separation is made between the part confined and the other which separation must be made by the party so limiting Christian Communion As it was in the case of the Donatists who were therefore justly charged with Schism because they confined the Catholick Church within their own bounds And if any other Church doth the same which they did it must be liable to the same charge which they were The summ then of this discourse is That the Being of the Catholick Church lyes in Essentials that for a particular Church to disagree from all other particular Churches in some extrinsecal and accidental things is not to separate from the Catholick Church so as to cease to be a Church but still whatever Church makes such extrinsecal things the necessary conditions of Communion so as to cast men out of the Church who yield not to them is Schismatical in so doing for it thereby divides it self from the Catholick Church and the separation from it is so far from being Schism that being cast out of that Church on those terms only returns them to the Communion of the Catholick Church On which grounds it will appear that yours is the Schismatical Church and not ours For although before this imposing humour came into particular Churches Schism was defined by the Fathers and others to be a voluntary departure out of the Church yet that cannot in reason be understood of any particular but the true Catholick Church for not only persons but Churches may depart from the Catholick Church and in such cases not those who depart from the Communion of such Churches but those Churches which departed from the Catholick are guilty of the Schism These things I thought necessary to be further explained not only to shew how false that imputation is of our Churches departing from the true Catholick Church but with what great reason we charge your Church with departing from the Communion of it and therefore not those whom you thrust out of Communion but your Church so thrusting them out is apparently guilty of the present Schism But still you say Your Church had sufficient cause for the expulsion of Protestants out of her Communion and for this you barely repeat your former assertions and offer not at the proof of one of them as though you intended to carry your cause by the frequent repeating your Declaration But Sir it is the proof of what you say that we expect from you and not the bare telling us That Protestants are Schismaticks because they are Schismacicks When you will be at leisure to prove that the Protestants were guilty of Heretical Doctrine or Schismatical proceedings that they raised a new separate and mutinous faction of pretended Christians distinct from the one Catholick body of the Church by chusing new Pastors instituting new rites and ceremonies not in their power to do by Schismatical convening in several Synods and there broaching new heretical Confessions of Faith when I say You shall think good to prove all or any one of these you shall receive so full an Answer as will make it evident that the Protestants did not depart from the Catholick Churches Doctrine and Communion but that the Church of Rome is departed thence first by imposing erroneous Doctrines and superstitious practices as conditions of Communion and then by thrusting out all such as would not consent to them His Lordship disputing the terms on which a Separation in the Church may be lawful saith That corruption in manners only is no sufficient cause to make a separation in the Church And saith he This is as ingenuously confessed for you as by me For if corruption in manners were a
but his Lordship objects a shrewd Consequence from this Universal Pastourship that this brings the necks of Princes under the Roman Pride And if Kings be meant his Lordship saith yet the command is pasce feed them but deponere or occidere to depose or kill them is not pascere in any sense Lanii id est non Pastoris that 's the Butchers not the Shepheards part This you call his Lordships winding about and falling upon that odious Question of killing and deposing Kings An odious Question indeed whether we consider the grounds or the effects and consequents of it But yet you would seem to clear your selves from the odium of it First By saying that it is a gross fallacy to argue a negatione speciei ad negationem generis which is a new kind of Logick It is indeed for it is of your own coyning for his Lordship argues ab affirmatione generis ad affirmationem speciei and I hope this is no new Logick unless you think he that saith He hath power over all living creatures hath not thereby power over men too His Lordship therefore doth not argue against the Popes Vniversal Supremacy from the denyal of that but deduces that as a consequence from your assertion and explication of what you mean by Sheep and Lambs But this is but a sleight Answer in comparison of what follows Secondly we answer That the point of Killing Kings is a most false and scandalous Imputation scandalous enough indeed if false and though your Popes have not given express warrant for the doing it yet it is sufficiently known How the Pope in Consistory could not contain his joy when it was done in the case of Henry 3. of France And it hath been sufficiently confessed and lamented by persons of your own communion How much the Doctrine of the Jesuits hath encouraged those Assassinations of those two successive Henryes of France Will you or dare you vindicate the Doctrines of Mariana and others which do not obscurely deliver their judgement as to that very thing of Killing Haeretical Princes But if we should grant you this That the Pope may not command to kill What say you to that of deposing Princes which seldome falls much short of the other As to this you dare not cry It is a false and scandalous imputation as you did to the other but you answer 'T is no point of your Faith that the Pope hath power to do it and therefore you say it is no part of your task to dispute it Is this all the security Princes have from you that it is no point of your Faith that the Pope hath power to do it Is it not well enough known that there are many things which are held undoubtedly by the greatest part of your Church which yet you say are no points of Faith And yet in this you are directly contradicted by one who knew what were points of Faith among you as well as you and that was Father Creswell whose testimony I have cited already and he saith expresly Certum est de fide It is a thing certain and of Faith that the subjects of an Haeretical Prince are not only freed from Allegiance but are bound ex hominum Christianorum dominatu ejicere to cast him out of his power which certainly is more than the deposing of him And Sanders plainly enough saith That a King that will not submit to the Popes Authority is by no means to be suffered but his subjects ought to do their utmost endeavour that another may be placed in his room Indeed he saith not as the other doth That this is de fide but that is the only reserve you have when a Doctrine is odious and infamous to the world to cry out It is not de side when yet it may be as firmly believed among you as any that you account de fide And if you believe the Duke of Alva in his Manifesto at the siege of Pampelona when the Pope had deposed the King of Navarre to whom that City belonged he saith That it is not doubted but the Pope had power to depose Heretical Princes And if you had been of another opinion you ought to have declared your self more fully than you do If you had said that indeed some were of that opinion but you abhorred and detested it you had spoken to the purpose but when you use only that pitiful evasion That it is not of Faith c. you sufficiently shew What your judgement is but that you dare not publickly own it It seems you remember what was said by your Masters in reference to Emanuel SÃ Non fuit opus ad ista descendere There was no need to meddle with those things It seems if there had been there was no hurt in the Doctrine but only that it was unseasonable I pray God keep us from that time when you shall think it needful to declare your selves in this point But you conclude this with a most unworthy and scandalous reflection on Protestants in these words But what Protestants have both done and justified in the worst of these kinds is but too fresh in memory But Were those the practices and principles of Protestants Were they not abhorred and detested in the highest manner by all true Protestants both at home and abroad It will be well if you can clear some of your selves from having too much a hand in promoting both those principles and practices I suppose you cannot but have heard Who it was is said to have expressed so much joy at the time of that horrid execution What counsels and machinations are said to have been among some devoted Sons of the Church of Rome abroad about that time Therefore clear your selves more than yet you have done of those imputations before you charge that guilt on Protestants which they express the highest abhorrence of And let the names of such who either publickly or privately abett or justifie such horrid actions be under a continual Anathema to all Generations After all this discourse about the Popes Authority A. C. brings it at last home to the business of Schism For he saith The Bishop of Rome shall never refuse to feed and govern the whole Flock in such sort as that neither particular man nor Church shall have just cause under pretence of Reformation in manners of Faith to make a separation from the whole Church This his Lordship saith by A. C 's favour is meer begging the Question For this is the very thing which the Protestants charge upon him namely that he hath governed if not the whole yet so much of the Church as he hath been able to bring under his power so as that he hath given too just cause of the present continued Separation And as the corruptions in the Doctrine of Faith in the Church of Rome were the cause of the first Separation so are they at this present day the cause why the Separation continues
And the oppression of the Church of Rome he further adds is the great cause of all the errours in that part of the Church which is under the Roman Jurisdiction And for the Protestants they have made no separation from the General Church properly so called but their Separation is only from the Church of Rome and such other Churches as by adhering to her have hazarded themselves and do now miscall themselves the whole Catholick Church Nay even here the Protestants have not left the Church of Rome in her essence but in her errours not in the things which constitute a Church but only in such abuses and corruptions as work towards the dissolution of a Church Let now any indifferent Reader be judge Whether his Lordship or A. C. be the more guilty in begging the Question For all the Answer you can give is That his Lordship begs it in saying that the Roman Church is not the whole Catholick Church and that the Roman Catholick Church may be in an errour but the former we have proved already and I doubt not but the latter will be as evident as the other before our task be ended But as though it were not possible for you to be guilty of begging the Question after you have said that the Roman Church cannot erre you give this as the reason for it Because she is the unshaken Rock of Truth and that she hath the sole continual succession of lawfully-sent Pastors and Teachers who have taught the same unchanged Doctrine and shall infallibly continue so teaching it to the worlds end Now Who dares call this Begging the Question No it must not be called so in you it shall be only Taking it for granted Which we have seen hath been your practice all along especially when we charge your Church with errourâ— for then you cry out presently What your Church erre No you defie the language What the Spouse of Christ the Catholick Church erre that is impossible What the unshaken Rock of Truth to sink into errours the Infallible Church be deceived she that hath never taught any thing but Truth be charged with falshood she that not only never did erre but it is impossible nay utterly impossible nay so impossible that it cannot be imagined that ever she should erre This is the summ of all your arguments which no doubt sound high to all such who know not what confident begging the Question means or out of modesty are loath to charge you with it Much to the same purpose do you go on to prove that Protestants have separated not from the errours but the essence of your Church And if that be true which you say That those things which we call Errours are essential to your Church we are the more sorry for it for we are sure and when you please will prove it that they are not cannot be essential to a true Church and if they be to yours the case is so much the worse with you when your distempers are in your vitals and your errours essential to your Churches Constitution What other things you have here are the bare repetitions of what we have often had before in the Chapters you refer us to And here we may thank you for some ease you give us in the far greatest remaining part of this Chapter which consists of tedious repetitions of such things which have been largely discussed in the First part where they were purposely and designedly handled as that concerning Traditions chap. 6. that concerning necessaries to salvation chap. 2 3 4. that concerning the Scriptures being an Infallible Rule throughout the Controversie of Resolution of Faith and that which concerns the Infallibility of General Councils we shall have occasion at large to handle afterwards and if there be any thing material here which you omit there it shall be fully considered But I know no obligation lying upon me to answer things as often as you repeat them especially since your gift is so good that way It is sufficient that I know not of any material passage which hath not received an Answer in its proper place That which is most pertinent to our present purpose is that which concerns the necessity of a Living Judge besides the Scriptures for ending Controversies of Faith As to which his Lordship saith That supposing there were such a one and the Pope were he yet that is not sufficient against the malice of the Devil and impious men to keep the Church at all times from renting even in the Doctrine of Faith or to soder the Rents which are made For oportet esse Haereses 1 Cor. 11.19 Heresies there will be and Heresies there properly cannot be but in the Doctrine of Faith To this you answer That Heresies are not within but without the Church and the Rents which stand in need of sodering are not found among the true members of the Church who continue still united in the Faith and due obedience to their Head but in those who have deserted the true Church and either made or adhered to Schismatical and Heretical Congregations A most excellent Answer His Lordship sayes If Christ had appointed an Infallible Judge besides the Scripture certainly it should have been for preventing Heresies and sodering the Rents of the Church So it is say you for if there be any Heresies it is nothing to him they are out of the Church and if there be any Schisms they are among those who are divided from him That is he is an Infallible Judge only thus far in condemning all such for Hereticks and Schismaticks who do not own him And his only way of preventing Heresies and Schisms is the making this the only tryal of them that whatever questions his Authority is Heresie and whatever separation be made from him is Schism Just as Absalom pretended that there was no Judge appointed to hear and determine causes and that the Laws were not sufficient without one and therefore he would do it himself so doth the Pope by Christ he pretends that he hath not taken care sufficient for deciding Controversies in Faith therefore there is a necessity in order to the Churches Vnity he should take it upon himself But now if we suppose in the former case of Absalom that he had pretended he could infallibly end all the Controversies in Israel and keep all in peace and unity and yet abundance of Controversies to arise among them by what right and power he took that office upon him and many of them cry out upon it as an Vsurpation and a disparagement to the Laws and Government of his Father David and upon this some of the wiser Israelites should have asked him Whether this were the way to end all Controversies and keep the Nation in peace Would it not have been a satisfactory Answer for him to have said Yes no doubt it is the only way For only they that acknowledge my power are the Kings lawful subjects and all
this way If you say that experience shews Christ never intended this by the errours of particular men in all ages To the same purpose we answer you as to Councils that large experience shews that when Bishops have solemnly met in Council they have been grosly deceived as you confess in all the Arrian Councils If your argument would have ever held from the power and goodness of Christ Would it not have held at that time when so great a matter of Faith was under debate If Christ therefore suffered so many Bishops so grosly to erre in a matter of such importance wherein the Church was so highly concerned How can you inferr from his power and goodness that he will never suffer General Councils to erre If you answer That these erred for not observing the conditions requisite in order to Christs hearing them viz. that they were not met in the name of Christ did not come without prejudice nor rely on Divine Assistance I pray take the same Answer as to all other Councils that we cannot know that Christ hears them or that they are Infallible till we are assured of their performance of the conditions requisite in order to that Infallibility And when you can assure us that such a Council met together in the name of Christ and came meerly with a desire to find out truth and relyed wholly on his assistance for it we do not so much distrust the power and goodness of Christ as to think he will suffer them to be deceived For we know upon those conditions he will not suffer any good man to erre much less an Assembly of them met in a General Council But here you have the hardest task of all lying upon you which is to prove that a General Council hath observed all these conditions without which nothing can be inferred from this place as to Christs being in any sense in the midst of them The last place mentioned for the Infallibility of General Councils is that Act. 15.28 Where the Apostles say of themselves and the Council held by them It seems good to the Holy Ghost and to us And saith his Lordship they might well say it For they had infallibly the assistance of the Holy Ghost and kept close to his direction But there is a great deal of difference between them and succeeding Councils who never arrogated this to their definitions though they presumed of the assistance of the Holy Ghost and though that form might be used yet they did not assume such an Infallibility to themselves as the Apostles had And therefore it is little less than blasphemy in Stapleton to say That the Decrees of Councils are the very Oracles of the Holy Ghost And that all Councils are not so Infallible as was this of the Apostles nor the causes handled in them as there they were is manifest by the ingenuous confession of Ferus to that purpose This is the substance of his Lordships Answer to this place Which you think to take off by saying That there 's no essential difference between the certainty of the things determined by the Apostles and those decided by a General Council confirmed by the Roman Bishop and though after-Councils use not the same expression in terms yet they do it in effect by enjoyning the belief of their decisions under the pain of Anathema If this be the meaning of the Anathema's of Councils there had need indeed be no great difference between the Apostles Decrees and theirs But this had need be very well proved and so it is by you for you produce several expressions of Cyril Athanasius Austin Leo Gregory and some others out of Bellarmin in which they magnifie the Decrees of General Councils calling them a Divine Oracle a Sentence inspired by the Holy Ghost not to be retracted and some others to the same purpose by which you vindicate Stapleton and tell us he said no more than the Fathers had done before him Yet all this is far from any vindication of Stapleton or proving your assertion as to the equal certainty of the Decrees of Councils and of the Apostles For the ground of all those expressions and several others of the same nature was not the supposition of any inherent Infallibility in the Decrees of General Councils but their great assurance of the truth of that Doctrine which was determined by those first General Councils For although I am far enough from believing the Council of Trent Infallible yet if that had determined the same points of Faith which were determined in the first four General Councils and nothing else I might have said That the Decree of that Council was a Holy and Divine Oracle a Sentence inspired by the Holy Ghost c. not that I thought the Council in the least Infallible in determining these things but that they were of themselves Divine Truths which the Council determined And in this sense Athanasius might well term the definition of the Nicene-Council against Arius the word of our Lord which endureth for ever and Constantine stile it a coelestial mandate and Gregory might reverence the four first Councils as the four Gospels though Bellarmin tells you that expression must be taken in a qualified sense yet all these and any other of a like nature I say import no more than that they were fully assured the matters decreed by them were revealed by God in his Word and not that they believed that they became such holy and divine Oracles meerly by the Councils definition For the contrary might be abundantly manifested by many expressions in them quite to another purpose and if instead of all the rest you will but read Athanasius and Hilary concerning Councils you will find your self strangely deceived if you believed they ever thought them Infallible What you add afterwards that it is sufficient that there be a real Infallibility though not like to that of the Apostles will not be sufficient for me till you can shew me the degrees of Infallibility for I will promise you if you can once prove that Councils are really Infallible I shall not stick to say That they are alike Infallible with the Apostles As for your discarding Ferus as a prohibited Authour it only shews the great integrity of the man who spoke too much truth to be born by the tender ears of the Roman Inquisition Before I had proceeded any further I had thought because of a former promise to have looked back to the place where you speak in vindication of the decretal Epistles but because you only referr to Turrianus his defence of them I shall only return you an equal courtesie and referr you to the abundantly sufficient Answer to him by David Blondel One would have thought you should have been ashamed of so notorious an imposture as those decretal Epistles are but we see what shifts a bad cause puts you upon that such men as Ferus Cassander Erasmus are under an Index Expurgatorius but the
decretal Epistles must be still justified but he that doth not see the reasons of these proceedings wants a greater Index Expurgatorius for his brains than ever they did for their Books We return therefore to our present subject and having manifested how far the Infallibility of General Councils is from being grounded on the veracity of Divine promises as you pretend without ground we now proceed to the consent of the Church as to this subject which his Lordship speaks to in the next Consideration Which is That all agree that the Church in general can never err from the Faith necessary to salvation but there is not the like consent that General Councils cannot err Whether Waldensis asserting that General Councils may err speak of such Councils as are accounted unlawful or no is not much material since as his Lordship sayes The Fathers having to do with so many Hereticks and so many of them opposing Church authority did never in the condemnation of those Hereticks utter this proposition That a General Council cannot err And supposing that no General Council had erred in any matter of moment to this day which will not be found true yet this would not have followed that it is therefore Infallible and cannot err And to shew that St. Augustin puts a manifest difference between the rules of Scripture and the definitions of men he produceth that noted place in him wherein he so fully asserts the prerogative of Scripture above all the writings of men or definitions of Councils Which because it will be often refer'd to I have cited at large in the margin but his Lordship gives the sum of it in these words That whatsoever is found written in Scripture may neither be doubted nor disputed whether it be true or right But the letters of Bishops may not only be disputed but corrected by Bishops that are more learned and wise then they or by National Councils and National Councils by Plenary or General And even Plenary Councils themselves may be amended the former by the latter From whence he inferrs That it seems it was no news with St. Austin that a General Council might err and therefore be inferiour to the Scripture which may neither be doubted nor disputed where it affirms And if it be so with the definition of a Council too where is then the Scriptures Prerogative But his Lordship adds That there is much shifting about this place but it cannot be wraft off And therefore undertakes punctually to answer all the evasions of Stapleton and Bellarmin who have taken most pains about it But before you come to particular answers you are resolved to make your way through them by a more desperate attempt which is to prove that it cannot be St. Austins meaning in this place that general Councils may err in their definitions of Faith because then St. Austin must contradict himself because he delivers the contrary in other places This is indeed to the purpose if you go through with your undertaking but we must examine the places The first is l. 1. c. 7. de baptism c. Donatist where you say he expresly teacheth that no doubt ought to be made of what is by full decree established in a General Council But here a great doubt may justly be made Whether ever you searched this place or no for if you had you would have had little heart to produce it to this purpose For St. Augustin is there giving an account why he would not insist upon any humane authorities but bring certain evidence out of Scripture for what he said and the reason he gives for it is because in the former times of the Church before the Schism of Donatus brake forth the Bishops and particular Councils did differ from each other about the Question in hand viz. rebaptizing Hereticks untill that by a General Council of the whole world that which was most soundly held etiam remotis dubitationibus firmaretur was confirmed the disputes being taken away The utmost that can be drawn hence is that when this Controversie was decided by a General Council the disputes were ended among the Catholick Bishops But by what arts can you hence draw that St. Austin thought the Council Infallible in its definitions When the business came to be argued in a free Council by the dissenting parties and they more fully understood each other and agreed upon one sentence St. Austin sayes the former doubts were taken off that is the reasons and Scriptures produced on the other side satisfied them but he doth not say that no doubt is to be made of what is by full Decree established in a General Council but that no doubts were made after it But if you say There could be no agreement unless the Councils definition were supposed Infallible you speak that which is contrary to the sense and experience of the world and even of that general Council where this decree is supposed by Bellarmin to be made viz. the Council of Nice For Will you say the Council was Infallible in deciding the time of keeping Easter because after that Council the Asian Bishops submitted to the custom of other Churches Is there no way imaginable to convince men but by Infallibility If there be their doubts may be taken away by a General Council and yet that Council not be supposed Infallible For if St. Augustin had meant so nothing had been more pertinent then to have insisted on the decree of that Council and yet he there leaves it and calls all arguments of that nature humane arguments and therefore saith ex Evangelio profero certa documenta I bring certain evidences out of the Gospel Which words doubtless he would never have so immediately subjoyned to his former concerning a General Council if he had judged it Infallible or its decrees as certain as the Scripture In your second place l. 7. c. 5. there is nothing hath any shadow of pertinency to your purpose that which I suppose you may mean is l. 5. c. 17. where what he said before was decreed by a General Council he after saith was the judgement of the Holy Catholick Church from whence you may indeed infer that the Catholick Church did approve that decree of the Council but how it proves it Infallible I cannot understand Your last place is one sufficiently known to be far enough from your purpose Ep. 118. ad Januar. where he saith In case of indifferent rites it is insolent madness to oppose the whole Church but you are an excellent disputant who can hence infer that therefore General Councils are Infallible in their definitions in matters of Faith For any thing then you have brought to the contrary St. Austin is far enough from the least danger of contradicting himself But if you could prove that he were of your mind that the definitions of Councils are Infallible as well as the Scriptures never did any man more expresly contradict himself then St. Augustin must do in a multitude