Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
cause_n faith_n grace_n justify_v 4,538 5 8.7378 4 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A26931 Full and easie satisfaction which is the true and safe religion in a conference between D. a doubter, P. a papist, and R. a reformed Catholick Christian : in four parts ... / by Richard Baxter. Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691. 1674 (1674) Wing B1272; ESTC R15922 117,933 211

There are 5 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

But they must be so many as are suited to every ones capacity and means during his life And no man living can know that he understandeth and believeth as much as his capacity and means were in their kind sufficient to Nay there is no man that hath not been culpably ignorant of somewhat which he might have known 2. Mens Sacramental receptions and comforts depend on the Intention of the Priest which no man knoweth 3. Almost all Godly men must expect the fire of Purgatory and consequently none of them can be rationally willing to dye Because this life is better than Purgatory and no man will desire to go from hence into the fire And so by making all men unwilling to dye it destroyeth a heavenly mind and killeth faith and hope and love and holy joy and tempteth men to be worldlings and to love this life better than the next Yea it tempteth men to be afraid of Martyrdom lest dying in Venial sins as all do they go to a Purgatory fire more terrible than Martyrdom XXIII Reason Their Doctrine is not only contrary to many express Texts of Holy Scripture but also contrary to it self One Pope and one Council having decreed one thing and another the clean contrary XXIV Reason All this evil is made more pernicious by that professed Impenitence which is included in the conceit of their Churches Infallibility For they that hold themselves Infallible do profess never to Repent of any thing in which they suppose themselves to be so And as Repentance is the great evidence of the pardon of sin so Impenitency is that mortal sign of an unpardoned soul without which no sin doth qualifie the sinner to be Excommunicated by man or damned by God And a sin materially less is more Mortal unrepented of than a greater truly lamented and forsaken XXV Reason Every honest godly Protestant may be as sure that Popery is false as he is that he is himself sincere and Loveth God and is truly willing to obey him And no man can turn Papist without self-contradiction who is a true Christian and an honest man For by turning Papist he confesseth himself to be before a false-hearted hypocrite who neither Loved God nor sincerely desired to obey him nor was true to his Baptismal Covenant For it is a part of Popery to believe that none are in a state of salvation but the Subjects of the Pope or members of the Papal Church And consequently that no others have true Faith Repentance or Love to God Or else that God is false in promising salvation to all that have true Faith Repentance and Love to God All therefore that know their own hearts to be truly devoted to God are safe from Popery And seeing it is agreed on both sides that none can or ought to turn Papists but ungodly hypocrites or Knaves no wonder if such are deluded by the most palpable deceits and forsaken of God whom they perfidiously forsook I will name you no more If I make these or any one of these good as I undertake to prove them all you will see that I refuse not my self to be a Papist without sufficient cause And yet by this charge you will see that I am none of their extream adversaries I pass by abundance of Doctrinal differences wherein by many they are most deeply charged Not as Justifying them against all or most so charged on them but 1. As giving you those Reasons which most move my self and which I am most able to make good and leaving every one to his proper work 2. And as one that have certainly found out that in many doctrinals seeming to be the matter of our widest difference we are thought by many to differ much more than we do 1. The difference lying most in Words and Logical Notions and various wayes of mens expressing their conceptions 2. And the animosity of men engaged in Parties and Interests against each other causing most to take all in the worst sense and to make each other seem far more erroneous than they are and to turn differing names into damnable heresies And 3. Few men having Will and Skill to state controversies aright and cut off mistaken seeming differences 4. And few having honesty and self-denyal enough to incurr the censure of the ignorant Zealots of their own party by seeming but impartial and just to their adversaries I mean in such points as 1. The Nature of Divine faith Whether it be a perswasion that I am pardoned c. 2. Of Certainty of salvation 3. And Certainty of perseverance 4. Of Sanctification 5. Of Justification 6. Of Good works 7. Of Merit 8. Of Predestination 9. Of Providence and the Cause of Sin 10. Of Free-will 11. Of Grace 12. Of Imputation of Righteousness 13. Of Universal Redemption 14. Of Original Sin and divers others In all which I cannot justifie them but am sure that the difference is made commonly to seem to be that which indeed it is not In the true impartial stating whereof Lud. Le Blanck hath begun to do the Christian Churches most excellent service worthy our great thanks and his bearing all the Censures of the ignorant PART IV. The First Charge made good against Transubstantiation In which Popery is proved to be the Shame of Humane Nature Contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTURE and TRADITION or the judgement of the Antient and Present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels CHAP. I. The First Reason to prove Transubstantiation false R. THe Papists Belief of Transubstantiation is that There is a change made of the whole substance of the Bread into the body of Christ and of the whole substance of Wine into his blood Their opinion called their faith hath two parts The first is that There is no more true Proper Bread and Wine after the words of Consecration Hoc est Corpus meum The second is that There is the true proper Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ under the species as they call them of Bread and Wine It is the first that I shall now prove false And you must not forget the state of the Question which is not Whether Christs Body and Blood be present But Whether there remain any Bread and Wine Arg. I. If there remain no Bread and Wine after the Consecration then all the senses of all the sound men in the world are deceived or all mens perception of these sensible things deceived though there be due magnitude site distance of the object a due abode and a due medium and no depravation of the sense or intellect But this Consequent is notoriously false as shall be proved Therefore Popery is false 1. That all mens senses perceive Bread and Wine or all mens Intellects by their senses will not be denyed Not only Protestants but Greeks Mahometans Heathens Papists all persons perception by sense is here the same Therefore it is sound senses or else there are none sound in the world 2. It is not one
God to be Cruel to Mankind and that under pretence of Grace Even to put such hard Conditions of salvation on man which seem to us impossible to any but mad men or those who by faction have cast their minds into a dream If these be Gods Conditions that no man shall be saved that doth not believe that all his senses and all the senses of all the world are deceived when they perceive Bread and Wine or substance many may take on them to believe it but few will believe it and be saved indeed Reason XI Hereby you make the Gospel or New Covenant to be far harder and more rigorous than either the Law of Moses or the Law of Innocency For neither of these did damn men for believing the agreeing senses of all mankind Perfect Obedience to a perfect nature was fit to be a delight The burdensome Ceremonies had no such Impossibilities in them None of them obliged men to renounce all their senses and to come to Heaven by so hard a way Reason XII You seem to me to Contradict Gods Law and terms of life and to forge the clean contrary as his He saith He that cometh to God must Believe that God is c. and He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned But you seem to me to say in plain effect He that Believeth Gods Natural Revelations to all mens senses shall be damned and that believeth that the said Revelations are false may be saved caeteris paribus Reas XIII And what a thing by this do you mak● Gods Grace to be Whereas true Grace is the Repaire● and perfecter of Nature you make it to be the destroye● and deceiver of Nature The use of Grace according to your faith is to cause men to believe that Gods natural Revelations are false and that all the senses of th● world in this matter are deceived Whereas a mad ma● can believe this without Grace Reas XIV By this doctrine you abominably corrupt the Church with hypocrisie while all that will hav● Communion with you must be forced to profess tha● all mens senses are thus deceived And can you thin● that really they can all believe it or rather you● Church must be mostly made up of gross hypocrites who falsly take on them to believe it when they do not Reas XV. And by this means you make the Vnity of the Church to become a meer Impossibility For you● condition of union is that men all believe this among other Articles of your faith And that man hath lost o● vitiated his humanity who can believe and expect tha● all Christians in the world should ever believe that al● the senses of all the world are thus deceived You might as well say The Church shall never have Unity till all Christians do believe that David or Christ was a Worm and no man a door a Vine a thief a Rock in proper sense or we shall have no unity till we renounce both our humanity and animality and the light and Law of God in Nature And after this to cry up Vnity and cry down Schism what abominable hypocrisie is it Reas XVI And by this doctrine what bloody inhumanity is become the brand or Character of your Church When you decree Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. that all that will not thus renounce their senses and give the lie to Gods natural revelations shall be excommunicated and utterly undone in this World even banished from all that they have and from the Land of their Nativity Yea your Inquisition must torture and burn them and your Writ de hereticis comburendis must be issued out against them to fry them to death in flames if they will not renounce the common senses of mankind Reas XVII And it even amazeth me to think what horrid Tyrants you would thus make all Christian Princes When the said Canon determineth that they shall be first Excommunicate and then cast out of their Dominions which shall be given to others and their subjects absolved from their allegiance and fidelity except they will exterminate all these as hereticks from their Dominions who will not give the lye to all mens senses and to Gods natural Revelations The plain English is ☞ He shall not be the Lord of his own Dominions who will have men to be his subjects or such as will not renounce both their humanity and animality or sense For to perceive substances in genere in specie by sense and to believe or trust the Common senses of all the World about things sensible as being the surest way that we have of perception is as necessary to a Man as Ratiocination is Choose then O ye Princes of the Earth whether you will be Papists and whether you will have no men to be your Subjects even none that believe the senses of themselves and all the world Reas XVIII Thus also your Idolatry exceedeth in absurdity the Idolatry of all the Heathens else in the World Even Canibals and the most barbarous Nations upon Earth For if they call men to Worship an Image the Sun the Moon an Ox or an Onion of which the Egyptians are accused they do but say that some spiritual or celestial numen affixeth his operative presence to this Creature But they never make men swear that there is no Image or Sun or Moon or Ox or Onion left but that the whole substance of it is turned into God or somewhat else Your Absurdities tend to make the grossest Idolatry seem comparatively to yours a very fair and tolerable errour Reas XIX By these means you expose Christianity to the scorn of humane nature and all the world You teach Heathens Mahometans and other Infidels to deride Christ as we do Mahomet and to say that a Christian Maketh and Eateth his God and his faith is a Believing that Gods supernatural Revelations are a lie and that God is like the Devil the great Deceiver of the world Wo be to the world because of offences and wo be to him by whom offence cometh Reas XX. Lastly by this means you are the grand pernicious hinderers of the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel world For you do as it were proclaim to them Never turn Christians till you will believe that Gods Natural Revelations are false and that all mens senses in the world are deceived in judging that there is Bread Wine or sensible substance after the words of Consecration These are the mischievous Consequents of your doctrine But one benefit I confess doth come by occasion of it that it is easier hereby to believe that there are Devils when we see how they can deceive men and to believe the evil of sin when we see how it maketh men mad and to believe that there is a Hell when we see such a Hell already on Earth as Learned Pompous Clergie men that have studied to attain this malignant madness to decree to fry men in the flames and damn them to Hell and
The words could not come down to us without some to deliver them We have the Bible by Tradition and we have practical Tradition of Baptism and the Creed by it self and that in many languages where we are sure we have all the necessary sence But do you remember that this is Vniversal Tradition and not meer Roman Tradition such as is certain by moral Evidence even the consent of all that are yet of cross opinions and Interests as to matter of fact Historical Evidence and not the pretended certainty of a Pope and his favourites phanatically claiming a spirit of Infallibility But I am not now disputing with you I am only telling you that the Protestant Religion is nothing but Christianity and the Scriptures And all our Confessions are our Religion besides Consent but as our Sermons and Treatises are which vary as they are various expressions of mens various subjective faith while Gods word varyeth not P. If the Bible be your Religion then the Ceremonial Law of Moses is your Religion For that is part of the Bible R. You study what to say against another and never think how it concerneth your selves 1. Is not the Bible at least Part of your Religion You dare not deny it And is the Ceremonial Law of Moses therefore your Religion 2. I told you that as a perfect man hath hair and nails which are but Accidents so the Bible hath more than the Integrals of our Religion 3. The Ceremonies of Moses in that sense as now they are delivered to us in the Bible are parts or appurtenances of our Religion That is the historical narrative of those Abrogated Laws which now bind us not as Laws but tell us as the Prophesies what was heretofore and how Christ was fore-typified and what intimations of Gods will we may gather from the history And the abrogated Laws are no otherwise delivered to us and so we must use them P. If the ten Commandments be your Religion you must keep the Jewish seventh day Sabbath so that neither there can you fix R. The same answer will serve 1. The ten Commandments are no otherwise part of our Religion th●n they are of yours 2. They are a Law to us as delivered and expounded by Christ and in Nature and the seventh day is an abrogated part of Moses Law P. If the Creed be your Religion you must take the Article of Christs descent into Hell to be necessary to salvation R. 1. Is the Creed no part of your Religion As you answer so may we 2. I did not tell you that the Creed had no more than the Essentials I told you that all the Essence of Christianity is in the Baptismal Covenant And he that understandeth that understandeth it all And that the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Christian Decalogue are the exposition of it But the Exposition may have somewhat more than the Essentials 3. The Creed was not written first in English nor Latine And Christs descent to Hades is more needful to be believed than his descent to Hell as the word is commonly taken in English But to conclude remember 1. That I profess here to own and plead for no other Religion as we explained the word but Gods Law of Nature and Scripture 2. That I profess to perswade D. to no other And you cannot make me a Religion against my will CHAP. IV. What is the Papists Religion R. I Have plainly told you what my own and the Protestants Religion is viz. Nothing but Christianity contained Integrally in the holy Scriptures And the Essentials being the Baptismal Covenant explained in the Creed Lords prayer and Christian Decalogue are delivered to us both in the said Scriptures and by distinct Tradition which also hath brought down to us the Scripture it self Not a Tradition depending on the pretended Authority of the Roman Pope or party or on any other that shall pretend the like But that Historical Evidence of matter of fact which is surelier given us by all sorts of Christians taking in the Concord of many Hereticks Infidels and Enemies which evidence dependeth not on the credit of supernatural Revelation but on the natural credibility yea and certainty of such universal Circumstantiated Concordant testimony and is necessarily antecedent to the Belief of supernatural Revelations in the particulars as sight and hearing were in the auditors of Christ and the Apostles seeing these two Acts of Knowledge Whatever God saith is True and This God saith must necessarily go before our Belief or Trust that This is True because God saith it And so we run not in a circle and need not a supernatural faith for the founding of our first supernatural faith that is A first before the first Without fraud or obscurity this is our faith and Religion Now do you as honestly and plainly tell me What is Yours which D. must be perswaded to For I confess that I take it to be an unintelligible thing and despair that ever you give any man a certain notice what it is which may be truly called the Religion of your Roman-Catholick-Church P. I shall make you understand it if you are willing But 1. Note that Religion being a larger word than faith includeth also Practice or Manners we must give you a distinct account of each For they have not the same Causes Our Faith is Divine But our Manners or Practice must follow the Laws of the Church as well as the Immediate Laws of God These must not be confounded R. Man hath three faculties Intellective Volitive and Vitally Executive or Active Our Religion subjectively must be in all viz. The Sanctity of all by Holy Life Light and Love And therefore the Rule which is our objective Religion doth extend to all to Intellect Will and Practice And surely for All there is a Rule directly Divine given by Inspiration of the Holy Ghost or Christs own words and subordinate Rules by Christs Ministers which are directly Humane and no otherwise Divine than as God hath in General authorized them thereto Even as the Soveraign hath the only Vniversal Legislative power and Magistrates by Him are authorized to subordinate mandates and acts of Government And so we have a Divine Faith and Revelation and a subordinate Humane faith and Ministerial Revelation or Preaching We have Divine Perswasions and subordinate Perswasions of men We have Divine Laws yea and executions and we have Humane subordinate Laws and executions If you resolve to call the Humane Divine so far as they are indeed Authorized by God I will not quarrel about words But remember 1. That so you must do also on the same reasons by the Laws of Kings and the Commands of Parents who are as much authorized by God to their proper Government 2. And I hope you mean not to Confound these Humane Laws with Gods own Vniversal Laws nor humane faith with Divine faith And be it known to you It is the Divine Revelations and Laws as distinct from the Humane which we are
now calling our Religion and disputing of though this Religion teach us to obey Parents Pastors and Princes and that obedience may be consequentially and reductively called Religious if you please But if really your Religion be not Divine but Humane let us know it For by the word Religion we essentially mean that which is Divine P. Men were the speakers and writers of the Scriptures and so far they are humane as well as the Decrees of the present Church R. The Decalogue was witten by God and delivered by the Ministry of Angels Christ was owned by a Voice from Heaven And himself spake and did most recited by the four Evangelists And the Prophets and Apostles spake by the immediate Infallible Inspiration of the Holy Ghost So that the Holy Ghost is the Author of the Scriptures But the present Pastors of the Church instead of that Immediate Revelation from God by the Spirits Inspiration have but the ordinary help of the Spirit to understand those same Revelations and that proportioned to the measure of their diligence natural parts and helps of Art as the knowledge of Theologie is attained by other Students who are none of them perfect or free from error P. I will tell you what our Religion is It is Gods Word concerning things to be Believed and Done delivered partly in the Canonical Scriptures and partly by Oral Tradition and received by the Church and by it delivered to us The Trent Catech. Prefac q. 12. saith Omnis doctrinae ratio quae fidelibus tradenda sit verbo Dei continetur quod in Scripturam Traditionesque distributum est The Reason of every doctrine which is to be delivered to the faithful is contained in the Word of God which is distributed into the Scripture and Traditions Vide Concil Senonens in Bin. Decr. 5. p. 671. Concil Tridentini Sess 4. p. 802. Perspiciensque hanc Veritatem disciplinam contineri in libris sacris sine scripto Traditionibus quae ex ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptae ab ipsi Apostolis Spiritu sancto dictante quasi per manus traditae ad nos usque pervenerunt orthodoxorum patrum sententiam sequuta omnes libros tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti nec non Traditiones ipsas tum ad fidem tum ad mores pertinentes tanquam vel ore tenus a Christo vel a Spiritu sancto dicta●as continua successione in Ecclesia Catholica conservatas pari pietatis affectu reverentia suscipit ac veneratur Bellarmin de Verbo Dei lib. 4. c. 2 3. sheweth the divers sorts of unwritten Traditions which are part of Gods Word some de side as the perpetual Virginity of Mary that there are but four Gospels c. and some of Manners as Crossing Fast-dayes c. Easter Whitsontide and other Festivals Veron de Reg. fid cap. 2. saith The total and only Rule of the Catholick faith to which all are obliged under pain of Heresie and Excommunication is Divine Revelation delivered to the Prophets and Apostles proposed by the Catholick Church in her General Councils or by her Universal practice to be believed as an Article of Catholick faith All that is of this nature is an Article or doctrine of faith And no other doctrine can be of faith if either the first Condition fail viz. Divine Revelation or the second which is a Proposal by the Universal Church p. 5. No doctrine grounded on Scripture diversly interpreted either by the antient Fathers or our Modern Doctors is an Article of faith For such a doctrine though it may be revealed yet the revelation is not ascertained to us nor proposed by the Church Nor any Proposition which can be proved only by consequence drawn from Scripture though the consequences were certain and evident and deduced from two propositions of Scripture Yet these doctrines are Certain when the premises are so Gratians decrees the Papal decrees contained in the body of the Canon Law none of them do constitute an Article of saith Nor that which is defined in Provincial Councils though the Pope preside in person for the second condition is alwayes wanting in this case and very often the first p. 11. I did not say that such definitions were not of faith but they are not of Catholick faith or which all as Catholicks are bound to hold as of faith and the contrary to which is heretical and removeth from the bosome of the Church p. 12 13. The Practice even of the Vniversal Church is no sufficient ground for an Article of Catholick faith by reason the object of faith is Truth and oft times the Church proceeds in matter of practice upon probable Opinions and this probability is sufficient to justifie the practice which the Church on just cause may change As e. g. as Vasquez teacheth the Church did antiently pray in the Mass for Infidels alive and Catechumens dead and the Sacrifice of the Mass was offered for them and yet he rather inclineth to the contrary that the Sacrifice of the Mass ought not to be offered but for the faithful living and dead by which Opinion the Church seemeth guided at present But Vasquez answers that the Church following a probable opinion did practise that which she did not declare to be of faith p. 15. So General Councils when they mention any thing in this manner by way of simple assertion and do not properly define For as Bellarmine affirms it is necessary that General Councils properly define the thing in question as a Decree which ought to be held as of Catholick faith Hence Bellarmine adds they are not properly Hereticks who hold the Pope not to be above all Councils though he say the last Laterane Council under Leo the tenth Ses 11. expresly and professedly teacheth that the Pope is above all Councils and rejects the contrary Decree of the Council of Basil because it is doubtful whether the Laterane Council defined that doctrine properly as a Decree to be believed with Catholick faith The same Bellarm. de Concil l. 2. c. 19. also requireth that the definition be made Conciliarly Pope Martin the fifth said he only confirmed those Decrees of faith which were made in the Council of Constance Conciliariter that is after the manner of other Councils the question being first diligently examined But its clear saith he that this Decree that a General Council hath immediate authority from Christ which all even the Pope are bound to obey was made without any examining p. 17. The object defined must be truly and properly an object of faith and a Decree ought to be on a thing universally proposed to the whole Church Vasquez holds It is not at all erroneous to affirm that a General Council may err in Precepts and in particular Judgements and p. 19. in framing Laws not necessary to salvation or making superfluous Laws Without all doubt a General Council may err in a question of fact which depends on testimony and
information of men So the sixth General Council condemned Honorius of Heresie by false Information and misunderstanding his Epistles p. 20. The Pope saith Suarez to a particular action belonging to humane Prudence hath no infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost As that such or such an excommunication is valid or that such or such a Kingdom is disposable by the Pope for such and such causes So far Veron who is most favourable to you in narrowing our faith R. Thus far you have resolved me but I must crave somewhat more Qu. I. Are there no Essential Constitutive parts of your Religion more necessary than the Integrals and Accidentals Have you no description for it but that It is Divine Revelation proposed by the Church The Doctrine of Sacrificing was a Divine Revelation to Adam and the difference of clean and unclean Beasts to Noah and the Jewish Law was Gods Revelation to Moses and them And yet I suppose Christianity is somewhat different from all these Is not Christianity your Religion Hath Christianity no Constitutive special Essence but only the Genus of Divine Revelation which is common to that with all other Divine Revelations And what if you add to a Prophet or Apostle Was Agabus Prophesie of Paul or Pauls of the event of the shipwrack c. essential to Christianity Hath Christianity no Essence Or is all Divine Revelation essential to it P. You take advantage of the disagreement of our Doctors You know that some few acknowledg distinct fundamentals and some deny the distinction in your sense And most of us say that no man can enumerate the things necessary to all but that it dependeth upon mens various capacities educations and means of knowing And in sum that no more is necessary to all to be explicitly believed but that Gods Revelations are true and that All are Gods Revelations which the Church proposeth as such You may take our judgement much from him that cometh nearest to you whom I have heard you much praise as most moderate and judicious viz. Dr. H. Holden Anal. fid l. 1. c 5. Lect. 2. p. 53. Divines disputing of the necessity of points to be believed do commonly tend this way to denote the Articles of things revealed the explicite and express belief whereof is as they opine altogether necessary to all Christians The resolution of which question is among them so doubtful and uncertain as that they are in this as ☞ they are in all things else distracted and divided into various Opinions which they that care for them may seek To me they are as Nothing while the Authors of them profess that they have nothing of Certainty Yea to one that meditateth the matter it self laying by all preoccupation it is most clearly manifest that the Resolution of this question is not only unprofitable that I say not pernicious as it is handled by Divines but also vain and impossible It is unprofitable because no good accrueth by it to souls ☞ It is pernicious while Divines for the most part assert that only One or Two Articles yea as some say no singular Article at all is necessary to be believed of all by an explicite faith For hence however the truth of the matter be the colder Christians taking occasion do little care to obtain that degree of Knowledge in the Mysteries of faith which they might commodiously and easily attain It is Impossible seeing it is Manifest that no particular Rule or Points to be believed or Number of Articles can in this Matter be given or assigned which shall be wholly common and necessary to all Christians For this dependeth on every individual mans natural capacity means of instruction and all the other circumstances of each mans life and disposition which are to each man so special that we can determine of nothing at all that is common to all But I handle the Necessity of points to be Believed in a far other sense For the Articles of the Christian faith which I now call necessary I do not at all understand to be such as all and every one must distinctly know or hold by explicite assent But I mean only such the belief of which is accounted universally by the whole Catholick Church so substantial and essential as that he that will deservedly be esteemed and truly be a member of it must needs adhere to them all at least Implicitely and Indirectly that is by believing whatsoever the holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of divine faith And therefore he is for that cause to be removed from its Communion and Society who shall pertinaciously and obstinately deny the least of them much more if he maintain the contrary while he knoweth and seeth that it is the Universal sentence of that Church that we must adhere to that as an Article of faith And in this sense I will henceforth use the word Necessity R. This might have been said in fewer and plainer words viz. That your Divines herein do commonly err and that perniciously and yet that indeed he is of the same mind viz. that It is impossible to name the Articles necessary to be believed explicitely of all because each mans divers capacity means and circumstances diversifie them to each But that only this one thing is explicitely to be believed That whatsoever the Holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of faith is true And therefore that no man must pertinaciously deny any thing which he knoweth the Church so holdeth So that nothing is necessarily to be believed actually and indeed but Gods and the Churches Veracity P. Another of ours that cometh as near you as most openeth this more fully Davenport alias Fr. a Sancta Clara De. Nat. Grat. p. 111 c. As to the Ignorance of those things that are of necessity of Means or End there is difference among the Doctors For Soto 4. d. 5. q. 5. l. de Nat. Grat. c. 12. Vega l. 6. c. 20. sup Trid. hold that now in the Law of Grace there is no more explicite faith required than in the Law of Nature Yea Vega ib. Gabriel 2. d. 21. q. 2. ar 3. 3. d. 21. q. 2. think that in the Law of Nature and in Cases in the Law of Grace some may be saved with only natural knowledge and that the habit of faith is not required Whom Horantius terms men of great name and will not accuse of heresie I would this great mans modesty were more frequent with modern Doctors Yea Alvarez de aux disp 56. with others seemeth to hold that to justification there is not at all required the knowledge of a supernatural object or the supernatural knowledge of the object Others hold That both to Grace and Glory is required an explicite belief of Christ Bonav 3. d. 25 c. Others that at least to salvation is an explicite belief of the Gospel or