part therefore of this Doctrine is manifestly untrue The other not only false but impious for therein you plainly give us to understand that in your judgement a resolution to avoid sinne to the uttermost of our power is no necessary meanes of Salvation nay that a man may resolve not to doe so without any danger of damnation Therein you teach us that we are to doe more for the love of our selves and our own happinesse then for the love of God and in so doing contradict our Saviour who expresly commands us to love the Lord our God withall our heart withall our soule and withall our strength and hath taught us that the loue of God consists in avoiding sinne and keeping his commandements Therein you directly crosse S. Pauls doctrine who though he were a very probable Doctor and had delivered his judgement for the lawfulnesse of eating meats offered to Idols yet he assures us that he which should make scruple of doing so and forbear upon his scruple should not sinne but only be aweak brother whereas he who should doe it with a doubtfull conscience though the action were by S. Paul warranted lawfull yet should sinne and be condemn'd for so doing You pretend indeed to be rigid defenders and stout champions for the necessity of good workes but the truth is you speak lies in hypocrisy and when the matter is well examin'd will appear to make your selves and your own functions necessary but obedience to God unnecessary Which will appear to any man who considers what strict necessity the Scripture imposes upon all men of effectuall mortification of the habits of all vices and effectuall conversion to newnesse of life and universall obedience and withall remembers that an act of Attrition which you say with Priestly absolution is sufficient to salvation is not mortification which being a work of difficulty and time cannot be perform'd in an instant But for the present it appears sufficiently out of this impious assertion which makes it absolutely necessary for men either in Act if it be possible or if not in Desire to be Baptiz'd and Absolv'd by you and that with Intention and in the mean time warrants them that for avoding of sinne they may safely follow the uncertain guidance of a vain man who you cannot deny may either be deceiv'd himselfe or out of malice deceive them neglect the certain direction of God himselfe and their own consciences What wicked use is made of this Doctrine your own long experience can better informe you then it is possible for me to doe yet my own litle conversation with you affords one memorable example to this purpose For upon this ground I knew a young Scholar in Doway licenc'd by a great Casuist to swear a thing as upon his certain knowledge whereof he had yet no knowledge but only a great presumption because forsooth it was the opinion of one Doctor that he might doe so And upon the same ground whensoever you shall come to have a prevailing party in this Kingdome and power sufficient to restore your Religion you may doe it by deposing or killing the King by blowing up of Parliaments and by rooting out all others of a different faith from you Nay this you may doe though in your own opinion it be unlawfull because Bellarmine a man with you of approved vertue learning and judgement hath declared his opinion for the lawfulnesse of it in saying that want of power to maintaine a rebellion was the only reason that the Primitive Christians did not rebell against the persecuting Emperors By the same rule seeing the Priests and Scribes and Pharisees men of greatest repute among the Iewes for vertue learning and wisdome held it a lawfull and a pious work to persecute Christ and his Apostles it was lawfull for the people to follow their leaders for herein according to your Doctrine they proceeded prudently and according to the conduct of opinion maturely weighed and approved by men as it seem'd to them of vertue learning and wisdome nay by such as sate in Moses chaire and of whom it was said whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and doe which universall you pretend is to be understood universally and without any restriction or limitation And as lawfull was it for the Pagans to persecute the Primitive Christians because Truian Pliny men of great vertue and wisdome were of this opinion Lastly that most impious detestable Doctrine which by a foule calumny you impute to me who abhorre and detest it that men may be saved in any Religion followes from this ground unavoidably For certainly Religion is one of those things which is necessary only because it is commanded for if none were commanded under pain of damnation how could it be damnable to be of any Neither can it be damnable to be of a false Religion unlesse it be a sin to be so For neither are men saved by good luck but only by obedience neither are they damned for their ill fortune but for sin and disobedience Death is the wages of nothing but sin and S. Iames sure intended to deliver the adequate cause of sin and death in those words Lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Seeing therefore in such things according to your doctrine it is sufficient for avoiding of sin that we proceed prudently by the conduct of some probable opinion maturely weighed approv'd by men of learning vertue and wisdome and seeing neither Iews want their Gamaliels nor Pagans their Antoninus'es nor any sect of Christians such professors and maintainers of their severall sects as are esteem'd by the people which know no better and that very reasonably men of vertue learning and wisdome it followes evidently that the embracing their religion proceeds upon such reason as may warrant their action to bee prudent and this is sufficient for avoiding of sin and therefore certainly for avoiding damnation for that in humane affaires and discourse evidence and certainty cannot be alwaies expected I haue stood the longer upon the refutation of this doctrine not only because it is impious and because bad use is made of it and worse may be but only because the contrary position That men are bound for avoiding sin alwaies to take the safest way is a faire and sure foundation for a cleer confutation of the main conclusion which in this Chapter you labour in vain to prove and a certain proof that in regard of the precept of charity towards ones selfe and of obedience to God Papists unlesse ignorance excuse them are in state of sin as long as they remain in subjection to the Roman Church 9 For if the safer way for avoiding sin be also the safer way for avoiding damnation then certainly whether the way of Protestants must be more secure and the Roman way more dangerous take but into your consideration these ensuing controversies Whether it be lawfull to worship
THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS A SAFE VVAY TO SALVATION OR AN ANSVVER TO A BOOKE ENTITLED MERCY AND TRVTH Or Charity maintain'd by Catholiques Which pretends to prove the Contrary By WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the Vniversity of OXFORD Isaac Casaubon in Epist. ad Card. Perron Regis IACOBI nomine scriptâ Rex arbitratur rerum absolutè necessariarum ad salutem non magnum esse numerum Quare existimat ejus Majestâ—s nullam ad ineundam concordiam breviorem viam fore quà m si diligentèr sepatentur necessaria à non necessariis ut de necessariis conveniat omnis opera insumatur in non necessariis libertati Christianae locus detur Simpliciâ—er necessaria Rex appellat quae vel expresse verbum Dei praecipit credenda faciendave vel ex verbo Dei necessariâ consequentiâ vetus Ecclesia elicuit Si ad decidendas hodiernas Controversias haec distinctio adhiberetur jus divinum à positivo sen Ecclesiastico candidè separaretur non videtur de iius quae sunt absolutè necessaria inter pios moderatos viros longa aut acris contentio futura Nam paucailla sunt ut modò dicebamus fere ex aequo omnibus probantur qui se Christianos dici postulant Atque istam distinctionem Sereniss Rex tanti putat esse momenti ad minuendas Controversias quae hodie Ecclesiam Dei tantopere exercent ut omnium pacis studiosorum judicet officium esse diligentissimè hanc explicare docere urgere OXFORD Printed by LEONARD LICHFIELD and are to be sold by Iohn Clarke under St Peters Church in Corn-hill Anno Salutis M.DC.XXXVIII TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE CHARLES By the Grace of God KING of great Britaine France Ireland Defendor of the Faith c. May it please your most excellent Majesty I Present with all humility to Your most sacred hands a Defence of that Cause which is ought to be infinitely dearer to you then all the world Not doubting but upon this Dedication I shall be censur'd for a double boldnesse both for undertaking so great a Work so far beyond my weak abilities and againe for presenting it to such a Parton whose judgement I ought to fear more then any Adversary But for the first it is a satisfaction to my selfe and may be to others that I was not drawn to it out of any vain opinion of my selfe whose personall defects are the only thing which I presume to know but undertook it in obedience to Him who said Tu conversus confirma fratres not to S. Peter only but to all men being encouraged also to it by the goodnesse of the Cause which is able to make a weak man strong To the belief hereof I was not led partially or by chance as many are by the preiudice and prepossession of their Country Education and such like inducements which if they lead to truth in one place perhaps lead to error in a hundred but having with the greatest equality and indifferency made enquiry and search into the grounds on both Sides I was willing to impart to others that satisfaction which was given to my selfe For my inscribing to it your Maiesties sacred Name I should labour much in my excuse of it from high presumption had it not some appearance of Title to your Maiesties Patronage protection as being a Defence of that Book which by special order from your Maty was written some years since chiefly for the generall good but peradventure not without some aime at the recovery of One of your meanest Subiects from a dangerous deviation so due unto your Maty as the fruit of your own High humility and most Royall Charity Besides it is in a manner nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction upon that blessed Doctrine where With I have adorn'd arm'd the Frontispice of my Book which was so earnestly recommended by your Royall Father of happy memory to all the lovers of Truth Peace that is to all that were like himselfe as the only hopefull meanes of healing the breaches of Christendome whereof the Enemy of soules makes such pestilent advantage The lustre of this blessed Doctrine I have here endeavoured to uncloud and unveile and to free it from those mists and fumes which have been rais'd to obscure it by that Order which envenomes even poison it selfe and makes the Roman Religion much more malignant and trubulent then otherwise it would be whose very Rule and Doctrine obliges them to make all men as much as lies in them subjects unto Kings and servants unto Christ no farther then it shall please the Pope So that whether Your Maiesty be considered either as a Pious Sonne towards your Royall Father K. IAMES or as a tender hearted compassionate Sonne towards your distressed Mother the Catholique Church or as a King of your Subiects or as a Servant unto Christ this worke to which I can give no other commendation but that it was intended to doe you service in all these capacities may pretend not unreasonably to your Gracious acceptance Lastly being a defence of that whole Church and Religion you professe it could not be so proper to any Patron as to the great Defendor of it which stile your Maiesty hath ever so exactly made good both in securing it from all dangers and in vindicating it by the well ordering and rectifying this Church from all the foule as persions both of Domestick Forraine enemies of which they can have no ground but their own malice and want of Charity But it is an argument of a despairing lost cause to support it selfe with these impetuous out-cries and clamors the faint refuges of those that want better arguments like that Stoick in Lucian that cried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O damn'd villaine when he could say nothing else Neither is it credible the wiser sort of them should believe this their own horrid assertion That a God of goodnesse should damne to eternall torments those that love him and love truth for errors which they fall into through humane frailty But this they must say otherwise their only great argument from their daÌ„ning us our not being so peremptory in damning them because we hope unaffected Ignorance may excuse theÌ„ would be lost therefore they are engag'd to act on this Tragicall part only to fright the simple and ignorant as we doe litle children by telling them that bites which we would not have them meddle with And truely that herein they doe but act a part and know themselves to doe so and deale with us here as they doe with the King of Spain at Rome whom they accurse and Excommunicate for fashion sake on Maundy-Thursday for detaining part of S. Peters Patrimony and absolve him without satisfaction on Good-Friday methinkes their faltring and inconstancy herein makes it very apparent For though for the most part they speak nothing but thunder and lightning to us damne us all without
this function the same exceptions at least if not more and greater lying against them as doe against Scripture And then what you object against the holy Ghost speaking in Scripture to exclude him from this office The same I returne upon them and their decrees to debarre them from it that they speaking unto us only in their decrees are no more intelligible then the decrees in which they speak And therefore if the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture may not be a judge for this reason neither may they speaking in their decrees be judges for the same Reason If the Popes decrees you will say be obscure he can explain himselfe and so the Scripture cannot But the holy Ghost that speaks in Scripture can doe so if he please and when he is pleas'd will doe so In the mean time it will be fit for you to wait his leasure and to be content that those things of Scripture which are plain should be so and those which are obscure should remain obscure untill he please to declare them Besides he can which you cannot warrant me of the Pope or a Councell speak at first so plainly that his words shall need no farther explanation and so in things necessary we believe he has done And if you say the Decrees of Councells touching Controversies though they be not the Iudge yet they are the Iudges sentence So I say the Scripture though not the Iudge is the sentence of the Iudge When therefore you conclude That to say a Iudge is necessary for deciding controversies about the meaning of Scripture is as much as to say he is necessary to decide what the holy Ghost speakes in Scripture This I grant is true but I may not grant that a Iudge such a one as we dispute of is necessary either to doe the one or the other For if the Scripture as it is in things necessary be plain why should it be more necessary to have a judge to interpret them in plain places then to have a judge to interpret the meaning of a Councell's decrees and others to interpret their Interpretations and others to interpret theirs and so on for ever And where they are not plaine there if we using diligence to finde the truth doe yet misse of it and fall into errour there is no danger in it They that erre and they that doe not erre may both be saved So that those places which containe things necessary and wherein errour were dangerous need no infallible interpreter because they are plaine and those that are obscure need none because they contain not things necessary neither is errour in them dangerous 13 The Law-maker speaking in the Law I grant it is no more easily understood then the Law it selfe for his speech is nothing else but the Law I grant it very necessary that besides the Law-maker speaking in the Law there should be other Iudges to determine civill and criminall Controversies and to giue every man that Iustice which the Law allowes him But your Argument drawn from hence to shew a necessitie of a visible Iudge in Controversies of Religion I say is Sophisticall and that for many Reasons 14 First Because the variety of Civill cases is infinite and therefore there cannot be possibly Lawes enough provided for the determination of them and therefore there must be a Iudge to supply out of the Principles of Reason the interpretation of the Law where it is defectiue But the Scripture we say is a perfect Rule of Faith and therefore needs no supply of the defects of it 15 Secondly To execute the Letter of the Law according to rigour would be many times unjust and therefore there is need of a Iudge to moderate it whereof in Religion there is no use at all 16 Thirdly In Civill and Criminall causes the parties haue for the most part so much interest and very often so little honesty that they will not submit to a Law though never so plaine if it bee against them or will not see it to be against them though it be so never so plainly whereas if men were honest and the Law were plaine and extended to all cases there would be little need of Iudges Now in matters of Religion when the Question is whether every man bee a fit Iudge and chooser for himselfe we suppose men honest and such as understand the difference between a Moment and Eternity And such men we conceiue will think it highly concernes them to be of the true Religion but nothing at all that this or that Religion should be the true And then wee suppose that all the necessary points of Religion are plaine and easie consequently every man in this cause to be a competent Iudge for himselfe because it concernes himselfe to judge right as much as eternall happinesse is worth And if through his own default he judge amisse he alone shall suffer for it 17 Fourthly In Civill Controversies we are obliged only to externall passiue obedience and not to an internall and actiue Wee are bound to obey the sentence of the Iudge or not to resist it but not alwaies to belieue it just But in matters of Religion such a judge is required whom we should be obliged to belieue to haue judged right So that in Civill Controversies every honest understanding man is fit to be a Iudge But in religion none but he that is infallible 18 Fiftly In Civill Causes there is meanes and power when the Iudge has decreed to compell men to obey his sentence otherwise I belieue Laws alone would be to as much purpose for the ending of differences as Lawes and Iudges both But all the power in the world is neither fit to convince nor able to compell a mans conscience to consent to any thing Worldly terrour may prevaile so far as to make men professe a Religion which they belieue not such men I meane who know not that there is a Heaven provided for Martyrs and a Hell for those that dissemble such truths as are necessary to bee professed But to force either any man to belieue what he belieues not or any honest man to dissemble what he does beleiue if God commands him to professe it or to professe what he does not belieue all the Powers in the World are too weak with all the powers of Hell to assist them 19 Sixtly In Civill Controversies the case cannot be so put but there may be a Iudge to end it who is not a party In Controversies of Religion it is in a manner impossible to bee avoided but the Iudge must be a partie For this must be the first whether hee be a judge or no and in that he must be a partie Sure I am the Pope in the controversies of our time is a chiefe partie for it highly concernes him even as much as his Popedome is worth not to yeeld any one point of his Religion to be erroneous And hee is a man subject to like passions with other men And therefore we
conceived that she needed Reformation But whether this pretence of Reformation will acquit them of Schisme I referre to the unpartiall judges heretofore alleaged as to S. Irenaeus who plainly saith They cannot make any so important REFORMATION as the Evill of the Schisme is pernicious To S. Denis of Alexandria saying Certainly all things should be endured rather then to consent to the division of the Church of God those Martyrs being no lesse glorious that expose themselues to hinder the dismembring of the Church then those that suffer rather then they will offer sacrifice to Idols To S. Augustine who tells us That not to heare the Church is a more grievous thing then if he were striken with the sword consumed with flames exposed to wild beasts And to conclude all in few words he giveth this generall prescription There is no just necessity to divide unity And D. Potter may remember his own words There neither was nor can be any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more then from Christ himselfe But I haue shewed that Luther and the rest departed from the Church of Christ if Christ had any Church upon earth Therefore there could be no just cause of Reformation or what else soever to doe as they did and therefore they must be contented to be held for Schismatiques 18 Moreover I demand whether those corruptions which moved them to forsake the Communion of the visible Church were in manners or doctrine Corruption in manners yeelds no sufficient cause to leave the Church otherwise men must goe not only out of the Church but out of the world as the Apostle saith Our blessed Saviour foretold that there would bee in the Church cares with choice corne and â—inners with just men If then Protestants wax zealous with the Servants to pluck up the weeds let them first harken to the wisdome of the Master Let both grow up And they ought to imitate them who as S. Augustine saith tolerate for the good of Vnity that which they detest for the good of equity And to whom the more frequent foule such scandals are by so much the more is the merit of their perseverance in the Communion of the Church and the Martyrdome of their patience as the same Saint calls it If they were offended with the life of some Ecclesiasticall persons must they therefore deny obedience to their Pastors and finally break with Gods Church The Pastour of Pastours teacheth us another lesson Vpon the Chaire of Moyses haue sitten the Scribes and Pharisees All things threfore whatsoever they shall say to you obserue yee and doe yee but according to their works doe yee not Must people except against lawes and revolt from Magistrats because some are negligent or corrupt in the execution of the same lawes and performance of their office If they intended Reformation of manners they used a strange means for the achieving of such an end by denying the necessity of Confession laughing at aufferity of pennance condemning the vowes of Chastity poverty obedience breaking fasts c. And no lesse unfit were the Men then the Meanes I loue not recrimination But it is well known to how great crimes Luther Calvin Zwinglius Beza and other of the prime Reformers were notoriously obnoxious as might bee easily demonstrated by the onely transcribing of what others haue delivered upon that subject whereby it would appeare that they were very farre from being any such Apostolicall men as God is wont to use in so great a work And whereas they were wont especially in the beginning of their revolt malitiously to exaggerate the faults of some Clergy men Erasmus said well Epist ad fratres inferior is Germaniae Let the riot lust ambition avarice of Priests and what soever other crimes be gathered together Heresie aâ—one doth exceed all this filthy lake of vices Besides nothing at all was omitted by the sacred Councell of Trent which might tend to reformation of manners And finally the vices of others are not hurtfull to any but such as imitate and consent to them according to the saying of S. Augustine We conserve innocency not by knowing the ill deeds of men but by not yeelding consent to such as we know and by not judging rashly of such faults as we know not If you answer that not corruption in manners but the approbation of them doth yeeld sufficient cause to leaue the Church I reply with S. Augustine that the Church doth as the pretended Reformers ought to haue done tolerate or beare with scandals and corruptions but neither doth nor can approue them The Church saith he being placed betwixt much chaffe and cockle doth beare with many things but doth not approue nor dissemble nor act those things which are against faith and good life But because to approue corruption in manners as lawfull were an errour against Faith it belongs to corruption in doctrine which was the second part of my demand 19 Now then that corruptions in doctrine I still speak upon the untrue supposition of our Adversaries could not afford any sufficient cause or colourable necessity to depart from that visible Church which was extant when Luther rose I demonstrate out of D. Potters own confession that the Catholique Church neither hath nor can erre in points fundamentall as wee shewed out of his own expresse words which he also of set purpose delivereth in divers other places and all they are obliged to maintain the same who teach that Christ had alwaies a visible Church upon earth because any one fundamentall error overthrowes the being of a true Church Now as Schoolmen speak it is implicatio in terminis a contradiction so plain that one word destroyeth the other as if one should say a living dead man to affirm that the Church doth not erre in points necessary to salvation or damnably yet that it is damnable to remain in her Communion because she teacheth errors which are confessed not to be damnable For if the error be not damnable nor against any fundamentall Article of Faith the beliefe thereof cannot bee damnable But D. Potter teacheth that the Catholique Church cannot and that the Roman Church hath not erred against any fundamentall Article of Faith Therefore it cannot bee damnable to remaine in her Communion and so the pretended corruptions in her doctrine could not induce any obligation to depart from her Communion nor could excuse them from Schisme who upon pretence of necessity in point of conscience forsook her And D. Potter will never bee able to salve a manifest contradiction in these his words To depart from the Church of Rome in some Doctrine and practises there might be necessary cause though she wanted nothing necessary to salvation For if notwithstanding these Doctrines and practises shee wanted nothing necessary to salvation how could it be necessary to salvation to forsake her And therefore wee must still conclude that to forsake her was properly an act of Schisme 20
those who goe out to be Schismatiques but not those from whom they depart That to forsake the Chaire of Peter is Schisme yea that it is Schisme to erect a Chaire which had no origen or as it were predecessouâ— before it self That to continue in a division begun by others is to be Heires of Schismatiques and lastly that to depart from the Communion of a particular Church as that of S. â—yprian was is sufficient to make a man incur the guilt of Schisme and consequently that although Protestants who deny the Pope to be supreme Head of the Church doe think by that Heresy to cleere Luther from Schisme in disobeying the Pope Yet that wâ—ll not serve to free him from Schisme as it importeth a division from the obedience or Communion of the particular Bishop Diocesse Church and Country where he lived 36 But it is not the Heresy of Protestants or any other Sectaries that can deprive S. Peter and his Successours of the authority which Christ our Lord conferred upon them over his whole militant Church which is a point confessed by learned Protestants to be of great Antiquity and for which the judgement of divers most ancient holy Fathers is reproved by them as may be seen at large in Brerely exactly citing the places of such chiefe Protestants And we must say with S. Cyprian Heresies have sprung and Schismes been bred from no other cause then for that the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest and Iudge is considered to be for the time in the Church of God Which words doe plainely condemne Luther whether he will understand them as spoken of the Vniversall or of every particular Church For he withdrew himselfe both from the obedience of the Pope and of all particular Bishops and Churches And no lesse cleere is the said Optatus Milevitanus saying Thou caust not deny but that thou knowest that in the City of Rome there was first an Episcopall Chaire placed for Peter wherein Peter the head of all the Apostles sate whereof also he was called Cephas in which one Chaire Vn was to be kept by all least the other Apostles might attribute to themselves each one his particular chaire and that he should be a Schismatique and sinner who against that one single Chaire should erect another Many other Authorities of Fathers might be alleaged to this purpose which I omit my intention being not to handle particular controversies 37 Now the arguments which hitherto I have brought prove that Luther and his followers were Schismatiques without examining for as much as belongs to this point whether or no the Church can erre in any one thing great or small because it is universally true that there can be no just cause to forsake the Communion of the Visible Church of Christ according to S. Augustine saying It is not possible that any may have just cause to separate their Communion from the Communion of the whole world and call themselves the Church of Christ as if they had separated themselves from the Communion of all Nations upon just cause But since indeed the Church cannot erre in any one point of doctrine nor can approve any corruption in manners they cannot with any colour avoid the just imputation of eminent Schisme according to the verdict of the same holy Father in these words The most manifest sacriledge of Schisme is eminent when there was no cause of separation 38 Lastly I prove that Protestants cannot avoid the note of Schisme at least by reason of their mutuall separation from one another For most certain it is that there is very great difference for the outward face of a Church and profession of a different faith between the Lutherans the rigid Calvinists and the Protestants of England So that if Luther were in the right those other Protestants who invented Doctrines far different from his and divided themselues from him must be reputed Schismatiques and the like argument may proportionably be applyed to their further divisions subdivisions Which reason I yet urge more strongly out of D. Potter who affirmes that to him and to such as are convicted in conscience of the errors of the Roman Church a reconciliation is impossible and damnable And yet he teacheth that their difference from the Roman Church is not in fundamentall points Now since among Protestants there is such diversity of beliefe that one denieth what the other affirmeth they must be convicted in conscience that one part is in errour at least not fundamentall and if D. Potter will speak consequently that a reconciliation between them is impossible daÌ„nable what greater division or Schisme can there be then when one part must judge a reconciliation with the other to be impossible daÌ„nable 39 Out of all which premisses this Conclusion followes That Luther his followers were Schismatiques from the universall visible Church from the Pope Christs Vicar on earth Successour to S. Peter from the particular Diocesse in which they received Baptisme from the Countrey or Nation to which they belonged from the Bishop under whom they lived many of them from the Religious Order in which they were professed from one another And lastly from a mans selfe as much as is possible because the selfe same Protestant to day is convicted in conscience that his yesterday's Opinion was an error as D. Potter knows a man in the world who from a Puritan was turned to a moderate Protestant with whom therefore a reconciliation according to D. Potters grounds is both impossible and damnable 40 It seemes D. Potters last refuge to excuse himselfe and his Brethren from Schisme is because they proceeded according to their conscience dictating an obligation under damnation to forsake the errours maintained by the Church of Rome His words are Although we confesse the Church of Rome to be in some sense a true Church and her errors to some men not damnableâ— yet for us who are convinced in conscience that she erres in many things a necessity lies upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those errors 41 I answer It is very strange that you judge us extreamly Vncharitable in saying Protestants cannot be saved while your selfe avouch the same of all learned Catholiques whom ignorance cannot excuse If this your pretence of conscience may serue what Schismatique in the Church what popular seditious brain in a kingdome may not alledge the dictamen of conscience to free themselves from Schisme or Sedition No man wishes them to doe any thing against their conscience but we say that they may and ought to rectifie and depose such a conscience which is easie for them to doe even according to your own affirmation that wee Catholiques want no meanes necessary to salvation Easie to doe Nay not to doe so to any man in his right wits must seem impossible For how can these two apprehensions stand together In the Roman Church I enjoy all meanes necessary to
answerable but already answered The memorandums I would commend to him are these 30 That not every separation but only a causelesse separation from the externall Communion of any Church is the Sinne of Schisme 31 That imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alleage to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome 32 That to leave the Church and to leave the externall Communion of a Church at least as D. Potter understands the words is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to haue those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publike worship of God This little Armour if it be rightly placed I am perswaded will repell all those Batteries which you threaten shall be so furious 33 Ad § 13. 14. 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austine against Donatus applied to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madnesse moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoid the Communion of bad men Whereunto one faire answer to let passe many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospell as it is not is impertinently applied to Luther and Lutherans Whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties And your not substituting Luther in stead of Donatus in the latter part of the Dilemma as well as in the former would make a suspicious man conjecture that you your selfe took notice of this exception of disparitie between Donatus and Luther 34 Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrine if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you doe understand it is a certain truth and it is easier for you to declaime as you doe then to dispute against it But these men you say must bee Heretiques because they separated from the Communion of the visible Church and therefore also from the Communion of that which they say was invisible In as much as the invisible Church communicated with the visible 35 Ans. I might very justly desire some proofe of that which so confidently you take for granted That there were no persecuted and oppressed maintainers of the Truth in the daies of our Fore-fathers but only such as dissembled their opinions lived in your Communion And truly if I should say there were many of this condition I suppose I could make my Affirmative much more probable then you can make your Negatiue We read in Scripture that Elias conceived There was none left besides himselfe in the whole kingdome of Israell who had not revolted from God and yet God himselfe assures us that he was deceived And if such a man a Prophet and one of the greatest erred in his judgement touching his own time and his own countrey why may not you who are certainly but a man and subject to the same passions as Elias was mistake in thinking that in former ages in some countrey or other there were not alwaies some good Christians which did not so much as externally bow their knees to your Baal But this answer I am content you shall take no notice of and thinke it sufficient to tell you that if it bee true that this supposed invisible Church did hypocritically communicate with the visible Church in her corruptions then Protestants had cause nay necessity to forsake their Communion also for otherwise they must haue joyn'd with thē in the practise of impieties and seeing they had such cause to separate they presume their separation cannot be schismaticall 36 Yes you reply to forsake the externall Communion of them with whom they agree in faith is the most formall proper sin of Schisme Ans. Very true but I would fain know wherein I would gladly be informed whether I bee bound for feare of Schisme to communicate with those that believe as I doe only in lawfull things or absolutely in every thing whether I am to joyn with them in superstition and Idolatry and not only in a common profession of the faith wherein we agree but in a common dissimulation or abjuration of it This is that which you would haue them do or else forsooth they must be Schismatiques But hereafter I pray remember that there is no necessity of communicating even with true Beleevers in wicked actions Nay that there is a necessity herein to separate from them And then I dare say even you being their judge the reasonablenesse of their cause to separate shall according to my first observation justifie their separation from being schismaticall 37 Arg But the property of Schisme according to D. Potter is to cut off from the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates And these Protestants haue this property Therefore they are Schismatiques 38 Ans. I deny the Syllogisme it is no better then this One Symptome of the Plague is a Feaver But such a man hath a Feaver Therefore he hath the Plague The true conclusiō which issues out of these Premisses should be this Therefore he hath one Symptome of the plague And so likewise in the former therefore they haue one property or one quality of Schismatiques And as in the former instance The man that hath one signe of the plague may by reason of the absence of other requisites not haue the plague So these Protestants may haue something of Schismatiques and yet not be Schismatiques A Tyrant sentencing a man to death for his pleasure and a just judge that condemnes a malefactor doe both sentence a man to death and so for the matter doe both the same thing yet the one does wickedly the other justly What 's the reason because the one hath cause the other hath not In like manner Schismatiques either alwaies or generally denounce damnation to them from whom they separate The same doe these Protestants yet are not Schismatiques The Reason because Schismatiques doe it and doe it without cause and Protestants haue cause for what they doe The impieties of your Church being generally speaking damnable unlesse where they are excus'd by ignorance and expiated at least by a generall repentance In fine though perhaps it may be true that all Schismatiques doe so yet universall affirmatiues are not converted and therefore it followes not by any good Logick that all that doe so when there is just cause for it must be Schismatiques The cause in this matter of separation is
make so bad Arguments unlesse you will pretend you cannot make better Nor thirdly is it to contradict these words The Church may not hope to triumph over all error till she be in Heaven For to triumph over error is to be secure from it to be out of danger of it not to be obnoxious to it Now a Church may be free from error and yet not secure from it and consequently in this sense not triumph over it Fourthly whereas you say it evacuateth the bragge of Protestants that Luther reformed the whole Church perhaps though I know not who they be that say so by a frequent synecdoche they may mean by the whole the greatest and most illustrious part of it the lustre whereof did much obscure the other though it were not wholly invisible Besides if their bragge be evacuated as you call it let it be so I see no harme will come of it Lastly whereas you say that supposing a visible pure Church Luther must be a Schismatique who separated from all visible Churches I tell you if you will suppose a visible Church extant before and when Luther arose conformable to him in all points of Doctrine necessary and profitable then Luther separated not from this Church but adjoyned himselfe to it Not indeed in place wich was not necessary not in externall communion which was impossible but by the Vnion of faith and charity Vpon these grounds I say that the ground of this Argument is no way made certaine yet because it is not manifestly false I am content to let it passe And for ought I see it is very safe for me to doe so for you build nothing upon it which I may not fairely grant For what doe you conclude from hence but that seeing there was no Visible Church but corrupted Luther forsaking the externall communion of the corrupted Church could not but forsake the externall communion of the Catholique Church Well let this also be granted what will come of it What that Luther must be a Schismatique By no meanes For not every separation but only a causeles separation from the communion of the Church we maintain to be Schismaticall Hereunto may be added that though the whole Church were corrupted yet properly speaking it is not true that Luther his Followers forsook the whole corrupted Church or the externall communion of it But only that he forsook that Part of it which was corrupted and still would be so and forsook not but only reformed another Part which Part they themselves were and I suppose you will not goe about to perswade us that they forsook themselves or their own communion And if you urge that they joyned themselves to no other part therefore they separated from the whole I say it followes not in as much as themselves were a part of it and still continued so and therefore could no more separate from the whole then from themselves Thus though there were no part of the people of Rome to whom the Plebeians joyned themselves when they made their Secession into the Aventine Hill yet they divided themselves from the Patricians only and not from the whole people because themselves were a part of this people and they divided not from themselves 57 Ad § 18. In the 18. § you prove that which no man denies that corruption in manners yeelds no sufficient cause to leave the Church yet sure it yeelds sufficient cause to cast them out of the Church that are after the Churches publique admonition obstinate in notorious impieties Neither doth the cutting off such men from the Church lay any necessity upon us either to goe out of the world or out of the Church but rather puts these men out of the Church into the world where we may converse with them freely without scandall to the Church Our Blessed Saviour foretold you say that there should be in the Church tares with choice corne Look again I pray and you shall see that the field he speaks of is not the Church but the world and therefore neither doe You obey our Saviours command Let both grow up till the harvest who teach it to be lawfull to roote these tares such are Heretiques out of the world neither doe Protestants disobey it if they eject manifest Heresies and notorious sinners out of the Church 58 Ad § 19. in the 19. you are so curteous as to suppose corruptions in your doctrine and yet undertake to prove that neither could they afford us any sufficient cause or colourable necessity to depart from them Your reason is because damnable errors there were none in your Church by D. Potters confession neither can it be damnable in respect of errour to remain in any Churches communion whose errors are not damnable For if the error be not damnable the belief thereof cannot Ans. D. Potter confesseth no such matter but only that he hopes that your errors though in themselves sufficiently damnable yet by accident did not damne all that held them such he meanes and saies as were excusably ignorant of the Truth and amongst the number of their unknown sinnes repented daily of their unknown errors The truth is he thinks as ill of your errors and their desert as you doe of ours only he is not so peremptory and presumptuous in judging your persons as you are in judging ours but leaves them to stand or fall to their own Master who is infinitely mercifull and therefore will not damne them for meere errors who desire to find the truth and cannot and withall infinitely just and therefore is it to be feared will not pardon them who might easily have come to the knowledge of the truth and either through Pride or obstinacy or negligence would not 59 To your minor also I answer almost in your own words § 42. of this Chap. I thank you for your curteous supposall that your Church may erre and in recompence thereof will doe you a charity by putting you in mind into what Labyrinths you cast your selfe by supposing that the Church may erre in some of her Proposalls and yet denying it lawfull for any man though he know this which you suppose to oppose her judgement or leave her communion Will you have such a man dissemble against his conscience or externally deny that which he knowes true No that you will not for them that doe so you your selfe have pronounced A. damned Crâ—w of dissembling Sycophants Or would you have him continue in your Communion and yet professe your Church to erre This you your selves have made to him impossible Or would you have him beleeve those things true which together with him you have supposed to be Errors This in such a one as is assur'd or perswaded of that which you here suppose that your Church doth erre and such only we say are obliged to forsake your communion is as Schoolemen speak Implicatio in terminis a contradiction so plain that one word destroieth another as if one should say a living dead man
promise of divine assistance which being not ordinarily irresistible but temper'd to the nature of the Receivers may be neglected and therefore withdrawn but by the Repugnance of any errour in this sense fundamentall to the essence and nature of a Church So that to speak properly not any set known company of men is secur'd that though they neglect the meanes of avoiding error yet certainly they shall not erre which were necessary for the constitution of an infallible guide of faith But rather they which know what is meant by a Church are secur'd or rather certain that a Church remaining a Church cannot fall into fundamentall error because when it does so it is no longer a Church As they are certain that men cannot become unreasonable creatures because when they doe so they are no longer men But for fundamentall errors of the former sort which yet I hope will warrant our departure from any Communion infected with them and requiring the Profession of them from such fundamentall errors we doe not teach so much as that the Church Catholique much lesse which only were for your purpose that your Church hath any protection or security but know for a certain that many errors of this nature had prevailed against you and that a vain presumption of an absolute divine assistance which yet is promised but upon conditions made both your present errors incurable and exposed you to the imminent danger of more greater This therefore is either to abuse what we say or to impose falsely upon us what we say not And to this you presently adde another manifest falsehood viz. that we say that no particular person or Church hath any promise of assistance in points fundamentall Whereas crosse to this in diameter there is no Protestant but holds and must hold that there is no particular Church no nor person but hath promise of divine assistance to lead them into all necessary truth if they seeke it as they should by the meanes which God hath appointed And should we say otherwise we should contrary plain Scripture which assures us plainly that every one that seeketh findeth and every one that asketh receiveth and that if we being evill can give good gifts to our children much more shall our heavenly Father give his spirit to them that aske it and that if any man want wisdome especially spirituall wisdome he is to aske of God who giveth to all men and upbraideth not 89 You obtrude upon us thirdly That when Luther began he being but one opposed himselfe to all as well Subjects as Superiors Ans. If he did so in the cause of God it was heroically done of him This had been without hyperbolizing Mundus contra Athanasium and Athanasius contra Mundum neither is it impossible that the whole world should so farre lye in wickednesse as S. Iohn speakes that it may be lawfull and noble for one man to oppose the world But yet were we put to our oathes we should surely not testify any such thing for you for how can we say properly and without streining that he opposed himselfe to All unlesse we could say also that All opposed themselves to him And how can we say so seeing the world can witnesse that so many thousands nay millions followed his standard as soone as it was advanced 90 But none that lived immediatly before him thought or spake as he did This is first nothing to the purpose The Church was then corrupted and sure it was no dishonour to him to beginne the Reformation In the Christian warfare every man ought to strive to be foremost Secondly it is more then you can justify For though no man before him lifted up his voice like a trumpet as Luther did yet who can assure us but that many before him both thought and spake in lower voice of petitions and remonstrances in many points as he did 91 Fourthly and lastly whereas you say that many chiefe learned Protestants are forced to confesse the Antiquity of your Doctrine and Practise I Answer of many Doctrines and Practises of yours this is not true not pretended to be true by those that have dealt in this Argument Search your storehouse M. Brerely who hath travailed as farre in this Northwest discovery as it was possible for humane industry and when you have done so I pray informe me what confessions of Protestants have you for the Antiquity of the Doctrine of the Communion in one kinde the lawfulnesse and expedience of the Latine service For the present use of Indulgences For the Popes power in Temporalties over Princes For the picturing of the Trinity For the lawfulnesse of the worship of Pictures For your Beades and Rosary and Ladies Psalter and in a word for your whole worship of the B. Virgin For your oblations by way of consumption therefore in the quality of Sacrifices to the Virgin Mary other Saints For your saying of Pater-nosters Creeds to the honour of Saints and of Ave-Maries to the honour of other Saints besides the Blessed Virgin For infallibility of the Bishop or Church of Rome For your prohibiting the Scripture to be read publikely in the Church in such languages as all may understand For your Doctrine of the Blessed Virgins immunity from actuall sinne and for your doctrine and worship of her immaculate conception For the necessity of Auricular Confession For the necessity of the Priests Intention to obtain benefit by any of your Sacraments And lastly not to trouble my selfe with finding out more for this very doctrine of Licentiousnesse That though a man live and dye without the practise of Christian vertues and with the habits of many damnable sinnes unmortified yet if he in the last moment of life have any sorrow for his sinnes and joyne confession with it certainly he shall be saved Secondly they that confesse some of your doctrines to have been the Doctrine of the Fathers may be mistaken being abused by may words and phrases of the Fathers which have the Roman sound when they are farre from the sense Some of them I am sure are so I will name Goulartius who in his Commentaries on S. Cyprian's 35. Ep. grants that the sentence Heresies haue sprung c. quoted by you § 36. of this Chapter was meant of Cornelius whereas it will be very plain to any attentive reader that S. Cyprian speaks there of himselfe Thirdly though some Protestants confesse some of your doctrine to be Ancient yet this is nothing so long as it is evident even by the confession of all sides that many errors I instance in that of the Millenaries and the communicating of Infants were more ancient Not any antiquity therefore unlesse it be absolute and primitive is a certain signe of true Doctrine For if the Church were obnoxious to corruption as we pretend it was who can possibly warrant us that part of this corruption might not get in and prevaile in the 5. or 4. or 3. or 2. age Especially seeing the A-Apostles
assure us that the mystery of iniquity was working though more secretly eveÌ„ in their times If any man aske how could it become universall in so short a time Let him tell me how the Error of the Millenaries and the communicating of Infants became so soone universall and then he shall acknowledge what was done in some was possible in others Lastly to cry quittance with you As there are Protestants who confesse the antiquity but alwaies post-naâ—e to Apostolique of some points of your Doctrine so there want not Papists who acknowledge as freely the novelty of many of them and the Antiquity of ours A collection of whose testimony we have without thankes to you in your Indices expurgatorij The divine Providence blessedly abusing for the readier manifestation of the Truth this engine intended by you for the subversion and suppression of it Here is no place to stand upon particulars onely one generall ingenuous confession of that great Erasmus may not be pass'd over in silence Non de sunt magni Theologi qui non verentur affirmare nihil esse in Luthero quin per probatos authores defendi possit There want not great Divines which stick not to affirme that there is nothing in Luther which may not be defended by good and allowed authors Whereas therefore you close up this Simile with consider these points and see whether your similitude doe not condemne your Progenitors of Schisme from Gods visible Church I assure you I have well considered them and doe plainly see that this is not D. Potters similitude but your owne and besides that it is wholly made up of mistakes and falsehoods and is at no hand a sufficient proofe of this great Accusation 92 Let us come now to the second similitude of your making in the entrance whereunto you tell us that from the Monastery D. Potter is fled to an Hospitall of persons Vniversally infected with some disease where he findes to be true what you supposed that after his departure from his Brethren he might fall into greater inconveniences and more infectious diseases then those for which he left them Thus you But to deale truly with you I finde nothing of all this nor how it is consequent from any thing said by you or done by D. Potter But this I finde that you haue composed this your similitude as you did the former of a heap of vaine suppositions pretended to be grounded on our confessions As first that your diseases which we for sook neither were nor could be mortall whereas we assure our selves and are ready to justifie that they are and were mortall in themselves and would haue been so to us if when light came to us we had loved darknesse more then light And D. Potter though he hope your Church wanted no necessary vitall part that is that some in your Church by ignorance might bee saved yet he nothing doubts but that it is full of ulcers without and diseases within and is so far from extenuating your errours as to make them only like the superfluous fingers of the gyant of Gath. Secondly that we had no hope to avoid other diseases like those for which wee forsook your company nor to be secure out of it from damnable errors whereas the hope hereof was the only motive our departure and we assure our selves that the meanes to be secured from damnable errour is not to be secure as you are but carefully to use those means of avoiding it to which God hath promised and will never fayle to giue a blessing Thirdly that those innumerable mischiefes which followed upon the departure of Protestants were caused by it as by a proper cause whereas their doctrine was no otherwise the occasion of them then the Gospell of Christ of the division of the world The only fountaine of all these mischiefes being indeed no other then your powring out a flood of persecutions against Protestants only because they would not sin be damn'd with you for company Vnlesse wee may adde the impatience of some Protestants who not enduring to be torne in peeces like sheep by a company of wolves without resistance chose rather to dye like souldiers then Martyrs 93 But you proceed and falling into a fit of admiration cry out say thus To what passe hath Heresie brought men who blush not to compare the beloved Spouse of the Lord the only Doue c. to a Monastery that must be forsaken to the gyant in Gath with superfluous fingers but this Spouse of Christ this onely Doue this purchase of our Saviours blood this Catholique Church which you thus almost deifie what is it but a Society of men whereof every particular and by consequence the whole company is or may be guilty of many sinnes daily committed against knowledge conscience Now I would faine understand why one errour in faith especially if not fundamentall should not consist with the holinesse of this Spouse this Dove this Church as well as many and great sinnes committed against knowledge and conscience If this be not to strain at gnats and swallow camels I would fain understand what it is And hereby the way I desire you to consider whether as it were with one stroke of a sponge you doe not wipe out all that you haue said to proue Protestants Schismatiques for separating from your Church though supposed to bee in some errours not fundamentall For if any such errour may make her deserue to be compared to a Monastery so disordered that it must be forsaken then if you suppose as here you doe your Church in such errours your Church is so disordered that it must and therefore without question may be forsaken I mean in those her disorders and corruptions and no farther 94 And yet you haue not done with those similitudes But must observe you say one thing and that is that as these Reformers of the Monastery and others who left the diseased company could not deny but that they left the said communities So Luther and the rest cannot pretend not to haue left the visible Church And that D. Potter speaks very strangely wheÌ„ he saies In a society of men vniversally infected with some disease they that should free themselves from the common disease could not be therefore said to separate from the society For if they doe not separate themselues from the society of the infected persons how doe they free themselues from the common disease To which I answer That indeed if you speak of the Reformers of a Monastery and of the Deserors of the diseased company as you put the cases that is of those which left these communities then is it as true as Gospell that they cannot deny but that they left the said communities But it appeares not to me how it will ensue hereupon that Luther and the rest cannot pretend not to haue left the visible Church For to my apprehension this Argument is very weak They which left some communities cannot truly deny but
Church were to be the Foundations of it and accordingly are so called in Scripture And therefore as in a building it is incongruous that foundations should succeed foundations So it may be in the Church that any other Apostle should succeed the first 101 Ad § 37. The next Paragraph I might well passe over as having no Argument in it For there is nothing in it but two sayings of S. Austine which I have great reason to esteeme no Argument untill you will promise me to grant whatsoever I shall prove by two sayings of S. Austine But moreover the second of these sentences seemes to me to imply the contradiction of the first For to say That the Sacriledge of Schisme is eminent when there is no cause of separation implyes to my understanding that there may be a cause of Separation Now in the first he saies plainly That this is impossible Neither doth any reconciliation of his wordes occurre to me but only this that in the former he speaks upon supposition that the Publique service of God where in men are to communicate is unpolluted and no unlawfull thing practised in their communion which was so true of their communion that the Donatists who separated did not deny it And to make this Answer no improbable evasion it is observable out of S. Austine and Optatus that though the Donatists at the beginning of their Separation pretended no cause for it but only that the men from whom they separated were defiled with the contagion of Traditors yet afterwards to make the continuance of it more justifiable they did invent and spread abroad this calumny against Catholiques that they set pictures upon their Altars which when S. Austine comes to Answer he does not deny the possibility of the thing for that had been to deny the Catholique Church to be made up of men all which had free will to evill and therefore might possibly agree in doeing it and had he denyed this the Action of after Ages had been his refutation Neither does he say as you would have done that it was true they placed pictures there and moreover worshipped them but yet not for their own sakes but for theirs who were represented by them Neither does he say as you doe in this Chapter that though this were granted a Corruption yet were they not to separate for it What then does he certainly nothing else but abhorre the thing and deny the imputation Which way of answering does not I confesse plainly shew but yet it somewhat intimates that he had nothing else to answer and that if he could not have denyed this he could not have denyed the Donatists separation from them to have been just If this Answer to this little Argument seem not sufficient I adde moreover that if it be applyed to Luthers separation it hath the common fault of all your Allegations out of Fathers impertinence For it is one thing to separate from the Communion of the whole world another to separate from all the Communions in the world One thing to divide from them who are united among themselves another to diuide from them who are divided among themselves Now the Donatists separated from the whole World of Christians united in one Communion professing the same Faith serving God after the same manner which was a very great Argument that they could not have just cause to leave them according to that of Tertullian Variasse debuerat error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unumest non est Erratum sed Traditum But Luther and his followers did not so The world I mean of Christians and Catholiques was divided and subdivided long before hee divided from it and by their divisions had much weakned their own Authority and taken away from you this plea of S. Austine which stands upon no other Foundation but the Vnity of the whole worlds Communion 102 Ad § 38. If Luther were in the right most certain those Protestants that differed from him were in the wrong But that either he or they were Schismatiques it followes not Or if it does then either the Iesuits are Schismatiques from the Dominicans or they from the Iesuits The Canonists from the Iesuites or the Iesuites from the Canonists The Scotists from the Thomists or they from the Scotists The Franciscans from the Dominicans or the Dominicans from the Franciscans For between all these the world knowes that in point of Doctrine there is plain and irreconcileable contradiction and therefore one Part must be in error at least not Fundamentall Thus your Argument returnes upon your selfe and if it be good proves the Roman Church in a manner to bee made up of Schismatiques But the Answer to it is that it begges this very false and vain supposition That whosoever erres in any point of doctrine is a Schismatique 103 Ad § 39. In the next place you number up your victories and tell us that out of these premises this conclusion followes That Luther and his followers were Schismatiques from the Visible Church the Pope the Diocesse wherein they were baptized from the Bishop vnder whom they lived from the country to which they belonged from their Religious order wherein they were professed from one another and lastly from a mans selfe Because the selfesame Protestant is convicted to day that his yesterdaies opinion was an error To which I Answer that Luther and his followers separated from many of these in some opininions and practices But that they did it without cause which only can make them Schismatiques that was the only thing you should have prov'd and to that you have not urged one reason of any moment All of them for weight and strength were cosen-germans to this pretty device wherewith you will prove them Schismatiques from themselves because the selfesame Protestant to day is convicted in conscience that his yesterdaies opinion was an error It seemes then that they that hold errors must hold them fast and take speciall care of being convicted in conscience that they are in error for fear of being Schismatiques Protestants must continue Protestants and Puritans Puritans and Papists Papists nay Iewes and Turkes and Pagans must remain Iewes and Turkes and Pagans and goe on constantly to the Divell or else forsooth they must be Schismatiques and that from themselves And this perhaps is the cause that makes Papists so obstinate not only in their common superstition but also in adhering to the proper phancies of their severall Sects so that it is a miracle to heare of any Iesuite that hath forsaken the opinion of the Iesuites or any Dominican that hath chang'd his for the Iesuits Without question this Gentleman my Adversary knowes none such or else methinkes he should not have objected it to D. Potter That he knew a man in the world who from a Puritan was turned to a moderate Protestant which is likely to bee true But sure if this bee all his fault hee hath no reason to be ashamed of his acquaintance For possibly it
reason is alike for all erres in many things are of necessity to forsake that Church in the Profession and practice of those errors 105 But to consider your exception to this speech of the Doctors somewhat more particularly I say your whole discourse against it is compounded of falsehoods and impertinencies The first falsehood is that he in these words avoucheth that no learned Catholiques can be saved Vnlesse you will suppose that all learned Catholiques are convinc'd in conscience that your Church erres in many things It may well be fear'd that many are so convinc'd and yet professe what they believe not Many more have been and have stifled their consciences by thinking it an act of humility to doe so Many more would have beene had they with liberty and indifference of judgement examined the grounds of the Religion which they professe But to think that all the Learned of your side are actually convinc'd of errors in your Church and yet will not forsake the profession of them this is so great an uncharitablenesse that I verily believe D. Potter abhorres it Your next falsehood is That the Doctor affirmes that you Catholiques want no meanes to Salvation and that he judges the Roman errors not to be in themselves fundamentall or damnable Which calumny I have very often confuted and in this very place it is confuted by D. Potter and confessed by your selfe For in the beginning of this Answer you tell us that the Doctor avouches of all Catholiques whom ignorance cannot excuse that they cannot be saved Certainly then he must needs esteeme them to want something necessary to Salvation And then in the Doctors saying it is remarkable that he confesses your errors to some men not damnable which cleerely imports that according to his judgement they were damnable in themselves though by accident to them who lived and died in invincible ignorance and with repentance they might prove not damnable A third is that these Assertions the Roman Errors are in themselves not damnable and yet it is damnable for me who know them to be errors to hold and confesse them are absolutely inconsistent which is false for be the matter what it will yet for a man to tell a lye especially in matter of Religion cannot but be damnable How much more then to goe on in a course of lying by professing to believe these things divine Truths which he verily believes to be falsehoods and fables A fourth is that if we erred in thinking that your Church holds errors this error or erroneous conscience might be rectifyed and deposed by judging those errors not damnable For what repugnance is there between these two suppositions that you doe hold some errors and that they are not damnable And if there be no repugnance between them how can the beleefe of the latter remove or destroy or if it be erroneous rectify the belief of the former Nay seeing there is a manifest consent between them how can it be avoided but the belief of the latter will maintaine and preserve the belief of the former For who can conjoyne in one braine not crackt pardon me if I speake to you in your own words these Assertions In the Roman Church there are errors not damnable and in the Roman Church there are no errors at all Or what sober understanding would ever think this a good collection I esteeme the errors of the Roman Church not damnable therefore I doe amisse to think that she erres at all If therefore you would have us alter our judgements that your Church is erroneous your only way is to shew your doctrine consonant at least not evidently repugnant to Scripture and Reason For as for this device this short cut of perswading our selves that you hold no errours because we believe your errors are not damnable assure your selfe it will never hold 106 A fift falsehood is That we daily doe this favour for Protestants you must mean if you speak consequently to judge they have no errors because we judge they have none damnable Which the world knowes to be most untrue And for our continuing in their communion notwithstanding their errors the justification hereof is not so much that their errors are not damnable as that they require not the beliefe and profession of these errors among the conditions of their communion Which puts a main difference between them and you because we may continue in their communion without professing to believe their opinions but in yours we cannot A sixt is that according to the Doctrine of all Divines there is any difference between a speculative perswasion of conscience of the unlawfulnesse of any thing and a practicall Dictamen that the same thing is unlawfull For these are but diverse words signifying the same thing neither is such a perswasion wholly speculative but tending to practice nor such a dictamē wholly practicall but grounded upon speculation A Seventh is That Protestants did only conceive in speculation that the Church of Rome erred in some doctrines and had not also a practicall dictamen that it was damnable for them to continue in the profession of these errors An eighth is that it is not lawfull to separate from any Churches communion for errors not appertaining to the substance of Faith which is not universally true but with this exception unlesse that Church requires the belief and profession of them The ninth is that D. Potter teacheth that Luther was bound to forsake the house of God for an unnecessary light Confuted manifestly by D. Potter in this very place for by the house of God you mean the Roman Church and of her the Doctor saies that a necessity did lye upon him even under pain of damnation to forsake the Church of Rome in her errors This sure is not to say that he was obliged to forsake her for an unnecessary light The tenth is covertly vented in your intimation that Luther and his followers were the proper cause of the Christian worlds combustion Whereas indeed the true cause of this lamentable effect was your violent persecution of them for serving God according to their conscience which if it be done to you you condemne of horrible impiety and therefore may not hope to be excused if you doe it to others 107 The eleaventh is that our first reformers ought to have doubted whether their opinions were certain Which is to say that they ought to have doubted of the certainty of Scripture which in formall and expresse termes containes many of these opinions And the reason of this assertion is very vaine for though they had not an absolute infallibility promised unto them yet may they be of some things infallibly certaine As Euclide sure was not infallible yet was he certain enough that twice two were foure and that every whole was greater then a part of that whole And so though Calvin Melancthō were not infallible in all things yet they might and did know well enough that your Latine Service was condemned by S.