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
Luthers of spring was the Divell who but himself must be his damme Is Almighty God wont to send such furies to preach the Gospell And yet further which makes most directly to the point in hand Luther in his Book of abrogating the Private Masse exhorts the Augustine Friers of Wittemberg who first abrogated the Masse that even against their conscience accusing them they should persist in what they had begun acknowledging that in some things he himself had done the like And Ioannes Mathesius a Lutheran Preacher saith Antonius Musa the Parish Priest of Rocklitz recounted to me that on a time he heartily moaned himself to the Doctor he meanes Luther that he himself could not believe what he preached to others And that D. Luther answered praise and thanks be to God that this happens also to others for I had thought it had happened only to me Are not these conscionable and fit Reformers And can they be excused from Schisme under pretence that they held themselves obliged to forsake the Roman Church If then it be damnable to proceed against ones conscience what will become of Luther who against his conscience persisted in his division from the Roman Church 44 Some are said to flatter themselves with another pernicious conceit that they forsooth are not guilty of sinne Because they were not the first Authors but only are the continuers of the Schisme which was already begunne 45 But it is hard to believe that any man of judgment can think this excuse will subsist when he shall come to give up his finall accompt For according to this reason no Schisme will be damnable but only to the Beginners Whereas contrarily the longer it continues the worse it growes to be and at length degenerates to Heresy as wine by long keeping growes to be Vineger but not by continuance returnes again to his former nature of wine Thus S. Augustine saith that Heresy is Schisme in veterate And in another place We obiect to you only the crime of Schisme which you have also made to become Heresy by evill persevering therein And S. Hierom saith Though Schisme in the beginning may be in some sort understood to be defferent from heresy yet there is no Schisme which doth not feigâ—e to it self some Heresy that it may seem to haue departed from the Church upon iust cause And so indeed it falleth out For men may begin â—poÌ„ passioÌ„ but afterward by instinct of corrupt nature seeking to maintain their Schisme as lawfull they fall into some Heresy without which their Separation could not be justified with any colour as in our present case the very affirming that it is lawfull to continue a Schisme unlawfully begun is an error against the main principle of Christianity that it is not lawfull for any Christian to live out of Gods Church within which alone Salvation can be had Or that it is not damnable to disobey her decrees according to the words of our Saviour If he shall not hear the Church let him be to thee as a Pagan or Publican And He that despiseth you despiseth mee We heard above Optatus Milevitanus saying to Parmenianus that both he and all those other who continued in the Schisme begun by Majorinus did inherit their Forefathers Schisme and yet Parmenianus was the third Bishop after Majorinus in his Sea and did not begin but only continue the Schisme For saith this holy Father Caecilianus went not out of Majorinus thy Grand-Father but Majorious from Caecilianus neither did Caecilianus depart from the Chaire of Peter or Cyprian but Majorinus in whose Chaire thou fittest which before Majorinus Luther had no beginning Seing it is evident that these things passed in this manner that for example Luther departed from the Church and not the Church from Luther it is cleere that you be HEIRES both of the givers up of the Bible to be burned and of SCHISMATIQVES And the Regall Power or example of Heâ—ry the Eight could not excuse his subjects from Schisme according to what we have heard out of S. Crysostome saying Nothing doth so much provoke the wrath of Almighty God as that the Church should be divided Although we should doe innumerable good deeds if we divide the full Ecclesiasticall Congregation we shall be punished no lesse then they who did rend his naturall Body for that was done to the gaine of the whole world though not with that intention but this hath â—o good in it at all but that the greatest hurt riseth from it These things are spoken not only to those who bear office but to such also as are governed by them Behold therefore how liable both Subjects and Superiours are to the sinne of Schisme if they breake the unity of Gods Church The words of S. Paul can in no occasion be verified more then in this of which we speak They who doe such things are worthy of death and not only they that doe them but they also that consent with the doers In things which are indifferent of their own nature Custome may be occasion that some act not well begun may in time come to be lawfully continued But no length of Time no Quality of Persons no Circumstance of Necessity can legitimate actions which are of their own nature unlawfull and therefore division from Christs mysticall body being of the number of those Actions which Divines teach to be intrinsecè malas evill of their own nature and essence no difference of Persons or Time can ever make it lawfull D. Potter saith There neither was nor can be any cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more then from Christ himselfe And who dares say that it is not damnable to continue a Separation from Christ Prescription cannot in conscience runne when the first beginner and his Successors are conscious that the thing to be prescribed for example goods or lands were unjustly possessed at the first Christians are not like straies that after a certain time of wandring from their right home fall from their owner to the Lord of the Soile but as long as they retaine the indelible Character of Baptisme and live upon earth they are obliged to acknowledge subjection to Gods Church Humane Lawes may come to nothing by discontinuance of time but the Law of God commanding us to conserve Vnity in his Church doth still remain The continued disobedience of Children cannot deprive Parents of their paternall right nor can the Grand-child be undutâ—full to his Grand-Father because his Father was unnaturall to his own parent The longer Gods Church is disobeyed the profession of her Doctrine denied her Sacraments neglected her Liturgy condemned her Vnity violated the more grievous the fault growes to be as the longer a man with-holds a due debt or retaines his neighbours goods the greater injustice he commits Constancy in evill doth not extenuate but aggravate the same which by extension of time receiveth increase of strength and addition of greater
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
forgive a private offender seventy seven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of Trespasses and thou how dare we alleage his command that we must not pardon his Church for errors acknowledged to be not fundamentall Ans. He that commands us to pardon our Brother sinning against us so often will not allow us for his sake to sinne with him so much as once He will have us doe any thing but sinne rather then offend any man But his will is also that we offend all the World rather then sinne in the least matter And therefore though his will were and it were in our power which yet is false to pardon the errors of an erring Church yet certainly it is not his will that we should erre with the Church or if we doe not that we should against conscience professe the errors of it 71 Ad § 24. But Schismatiques from the Church of England or any other Church with this very Answer that they forsake not the Church but the errors of it may cast off from themselves the imputation of Schisme Ans. True they may make the same Answer and the same defence as we doe as a murtherer can cry not guilty as well as an innocent person but not so truly nor so justly The question is not what may be pretended but what can bee proved by Schismatiques They may object errors to other Churches as well as we doe to yours but that they prove their accusation so strongly as we can that appeares not To the Priests and elders of the Iewes imposing that sacred silence mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles S. Peter and S. Iohn answered they must obey God rather then men The three Children to the King of Babylon gave in effect the same answer Give me now any factious Hypocrite who makes religion the pretence and cloke of his Rebellion and who sees not that such a one may answer for himselfe in those very formall words which the holy Apostles and Martyrs made use of And yet I presume no Christian will deny but this answer was good in the mouth of the Apostles and Martyrs though it were obnoxious to be abused by Traitors and Rebels Certainly therefore it is no good consequence to say Schismatiques may make use of this Answer therefore all that doe make use of it are Schismatiques But moreover it is to be observed that the chiefe part of our defence that you deny your communion to all that deny or doubt of any part of your doctrine cannot with any colour be imployed against Protestants who grant their Communion to all who hold with them not all things but things necessary that is such as are in Scripture plainly delivered 72 But the forsaking the Roman Church opens a way to innumerable Sects and Schismes and therefore it must not be forsaken Ans. We must not doe evill to avoid evill neither are all courses presently lawfull by which inconveniences may be avoided If all men would submit themselves to the chiefe Mufty of the Turkes it is apparent there would be no divisions yet unity is not to be purchased at so deare a rate It were a thing much to be desired that there were no divisions yet difference of opinions touching points controverted is rather to be chosen then unanimous concord in damned errors As it is better for men to goe to heaven by diverse waies or rather by divers paths of the same way then in the same path to goe on peaceably to hell Amica Pax magis amica Veritas 73 But there can be no iust cause to forsake the Church so the Doctor grants who notwithstanding teacheth that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall therefore neither is the Roman Church to be forsaken for such errors Ans. There can be no just cause to forsake the Church absolutely and simply in all things that is to cease being a member of the Church This I grant if it will doe you any service But that there can be no just cause to forsake the Church in some things or to speak more properly to forsake some opinions and practices which some true Church retaines and defends this I deny and you mistake the Doctor if you think he affirmes it 74 Ad § 26. 27. What prodigious doctrines say you are these Those Protestants who belieue that your Church erred in points necessary to salvation and for that cause left her cannot be excused from damnable Schisme But others c. Prodigious doctrines indeed But who I pray are they that teach them Where does D. Potter accuse those Protestants of damnable Schisme who left your Church because they hold it erroneous in necessary points What Protestant is there that holds not that you taught things contrary to the plaine precepts of Christ both Ceremoniall in mutilating the Communion and Morall in points of superstition Idolatry and most bloody tyranny which is without question to erre in necessary matters Neither does D. Potter accuse any man of Schisme for holding so if he should he should call himselfe a Schismatique Only he saies such if there be any such as affirm that ignorant soules among you who had no means to know the truth cannot possibly be saved that their wisdome and charity cannot be justified Now you your selfe haue plainly affirmed That ignorant Protestants dying with contrition may bee saved and yet would be unwilling to be thought to say that Protestants erre in no points necessary to salvation For that may be in it selfe and in ordinary course where there are meanes of knowledge necessary which to a man invincibly ignorant will proue not necessary Again where doth D. Potter suppose as you make him that there were other Protestants who believed that your Church had no errours Or where does hee say they did well to forsake her upon this ridiculous reason because they judged that she retained all means necessary to salvation Doe you think us so stupid as that wee cannot distinguish between that which D. Potter sayes and that which you make him say He vindicates Protestants from Schisme two waies The one is because they had just and great and necessary cause to separate which Schismatiques never haue because they that haue it are no Schismatiques For schisme is alwaies a causelesse separation The other is because they did not joyn with their separation an uncharitable damning of all those from whom they did divide themselves as the manner of Schismatiques is Now that which he intends for a circumstance of our separation you make him make the cause of it and the motiue to it And whereas he saies though we separate from you in some things yet we acknowledge your Church a member of the body of Christ and therefore are not Schismatiques You make him say most absurdly we did well to forsake you because we iudged you a member of the body of Christ. Iust as if a brother should leaue his Brothers company in some ill courses and should say
change the state of the Question but you mistake it For the Question was not whether they might forsake the corruptions of the Church and continue in her externall communion which we confesse impossible because these corruptions were in her communion But the Question was whether they might forsake the corruptions of the Church and not the Church but continue still the Members of it And to this Question there is not in your whole discourse one pertinent syllable 50 We doe not confound internall Acts of understanding with externall deeds but acknowledge as you would have us that we cannot as matters now stand separate from your corruptions but we must depart from your Externall communion For you have so ordered things that whosoever will Communicate with you at all must communicate with you in your corruptions But it is you that will not perceive the difference between being a part of the Church and being in externall Communion with all the other parts of it taking for granted that which is certainly false that no two men or Churches divided in externall communion can be both true parts of the Catholique Church 51 We are not to learn the difference between Schisme Heresy for Heresy we conceive an obstinate defence of any Errour against any necessary Article of the Christian faith And Schisme a causelesse separation of one part of the Church from another But this we say That if we convince you of errors and corruptions professed and practised in your Communion then we cannot be Schismatiques for refusing to joyne with you in the profession of these Errors and the practise of these corruptions And therefore you must free your selves from Error or us from Schisme 52 Lastly whereas you say That you have demonstrated against us that Protestants divided themselves from the externall communion of the Visible Church adde which externall communion was corrupted and we shall confesse the accusation and glory in it But this is not that Quod erat demonstrandum but that we divided our selves from the Church that is made ourselves out-lawes from it and no members of it And moreover in the Reason of your separation from the externall communion of your Church you are mistaken for it was not so much because she your Church as because your Churches externall communion was corrupted and needed Reformation 53 That a pretence of Reformation will acquit no man from Schisme we grant very willingly and therefore say that it concernes every man who separates from any Churches communion even as much as his Salvation is worth to looke most carefully to it that the cause of his separation be just and necessary For unlesse it be necessary it can very hardly be sufficient But whether a true Reformation of our selves from Errors superstitions and impieties will not justify our separation in these things our separation I say from them who will not reforme themselves and as much as in them lies hinder others from doing so This is the point you should have spoken to but have not As for the sentences of the Fathers to which you referre us for the determination of this Question I suppose by what I have said above the Reader understands by alleaging them you have gain'd little credit to your cause or person And that if they were competent Iudges of this controversy their sentence is against you much rather then for you 54 Lastly whereas you desire D. Potter to 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 and pretend that you have shewed that Luther did so The Doctor remembers his words very well and hath no reason to be ashamed of them Only he desires you to remember that hereafter you doe not confound as hitherto you have done departing from the Church i. e. ceasing to be a member of it with departing from the Churches externall communion and then he is perswaded it will appeare to you that against Luther and his followers you have said many things but shewed nothing 55 But the Church Vniversall remaining the Church Vniversall according to D. Potter may fall into error And from hence it cleerely followes that it is impossible to leave the externall communion of the Church so corrupted and retain externall communion with the Catholique Church Ans. The reason of this consequence which you say is so cleere truly I cannot possibly discern But the conclusion inferr'd methinkes is evident of it selfe and therefore without proofe I grant it I meane that it is impossible to leave the externall communion of the Catholique Church corrupted and to retain externall communion with the Catholique Church But what use you can make of it I doe not understand Vnlesse you will pretend that to say a man may forsake the Churches corruptions and not the Church is all one as to say he may forsake the Churches externall Communion and not forsake it If you mean so sure you mistake the meaning of Protestants when they say They forsook not the Church but her corruptions For in saying so they neither affirme nor deny that they forsooke the externall communion of the Church nor speake at all of it But they mean only that they ceased not to be still members of the Church though they ceased to believe and practise some things which the whole Church formerly did believe and practise And as for the externall Communion of the Visible Church we have without scruple formerly granted that Protestants did forsake it that is renounce the practise of some observances in which the whole visible Church before thē did communicate But this we say they did without Schisme because they had cause to do so and no man can have cause to be a Schismatique 56 But your Argument you conceive will bee more convincing if we consider that when Luther appeared there were not two distinct Visible true Churches one Pure the other Corrupted but one Church only Ans. The ground of this is no way certain nor here sufficiently proved For whereas you say Histories are silent of any such matter I answer there is no necessity that you or I should have read all Histories that may be extant of this matter nor that all should be extant that were written much lesse extant uncorrupted especially considering your Church which had lately all power in her hands hath been so pernitiously industrious in corrupting the monuments of Antiquity that made against her nor that all Records should remain which were written nor that all should be recorded which was done Neither secondly to suppose a Visible Church before Luther which did not erre is it to contradict this ground of D. Potters that the Church may erre Vnlesse you will have us believe that May be and Must be is all one and that all which may be true is true which rule if it were true then sure all men would be honest because all men may be so and you would not
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
Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter day And yet I beleiue you will confesse that God had not then declared himselfe about Easter nor hath now about Christmasse Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would faine know on which side was the sufficient proposall The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point of predetermination as a matter of faith I would knowe in this thing also which way God hath declar'd himselfe whether for Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of faith Apostolique tradition That Heretiques gaue true Baptisme Others there were and they as good Catholiques as hee that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus held the doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of faith and though Iustin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirme that some good Christians held the contrary St Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolique tradition as the Baptising of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of faith that the Bishops of Rome were Iudges of Appeales from all parts of the Church Catholique no not in Major causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary doe you resolve me but now I am resolv'd they doe so In all these differences the point in question is esteem'd and propos'd by one side at least as a matter of faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of faith or you will have no meanes to shew that we doe disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the foundation is on which the whole fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer mee briefly to this Dilemma Eyther in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts err'd damnably and denyed Gods truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which doe deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded may goe to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of faith one should deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are prov'd false Yet though they were as true as Gospell and as evident as Mathematicall Principles the conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can inferre either as the immediat production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I doe not understand unlesse you will pretend that this consequence is good such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sinnes upon repentance and consequently to ruine the Gospell of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinalls to determine For if against this it be alleadged that no man can repent of the sinne wherein he dies This muche I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sinne of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 11 To the fourth You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your Adversary Pretending his objections are mean and vulgar and such as have been answered a thousand times But if your cause were good these Arts would be needlesse For though some of his objections have been often shifted by men that make a profession of devising shifts and evasions to save themselves and their Religion from the pressure of truth by men that are resolv'd they will say something though they can say nothing to purpose yet I doubt not to make it appear that neither by others have they beene truly and really satisfied and that the best Answere you give them is to call them Mean and vulgar objections 12 To the Fift But this paines might have been spared For the substance of his discourse is in a Sermon of D. Vshers and confuted four yeares agoe by Paulus Veridicus It seemes then the substance of your Reply is in Paulus Veridicus and so your paines also might well have been spared But had there been no necessity to help and peece out your confuting his Arguments with disgracing his person which yet you cannot doe you would have considered that to them who compare D. Potters Book the Arch-Bishops Sermon this aspersion will presently appear a poore detraction not to be answered but scorn'd To say nothing that in D. Potter being to answere a book by expresse Command from Royall Authority to leave any thing materiall unsaid because it had been said before especially being spoken at large and without any relation to the Discourse which he was to Answere had been a ridiculous vanity and foule prevarication 13 To the sixt In your sixt parag I let all passe saving only this That a perswasion that men of different Religions you must mean or else you speak not to the point Christians of divers Opinions and Communions may be saved is a most pernitious heresy and even a ground of Atheisme What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would inferre this conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain in Logick then you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it And whether contradictions will flow from the same fountaine let the Learned judge Perhaps you will say you intended not to deliver here a positive and measur'd truth and which you expected to be call'd to account for but only a high and tragicall expression of your just detestation of the wicked doctrine against which you write If you mean so I shall let it passe only I am to advertize the lesse-wary Reader that passionate expressions and vehement asseverations are no arguments unlesse it be of the weaknesse of the cause that is defended by them or the man that defends it And to remember you of what Boethius saies of some such things as these Nubila mens est haec ubi regnant For my part I am not now in Passion neither will I speak one word which I think I cannot justify to the full and I say and will maintaine that to say That Christians of different Opinions
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
from presuming upon the absolute puritie and perfection even of this best Translation that S. Hierome thought it necessary to make a new Translation of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew fountain which himselfe testifies in his Book de Viris illustribus And to correct the vulgar version of the New Testament according to the truth of the Originall Greek amending many errors which had crept into it whether by the mistake of the Author or the negligence of the Transcribers which work he undertook performed at the request of Damasus Bishop of Rome You constraine mee saith he to make a new work of an old that after the Copies of the Scriptures haue been dispersed through the whole world I should sit as it were an Arbitratour amongst them and because they vary among themselues should determine what are those things in them which consent with the Greek verity And after Therefore this present Preface promises the foure Gospels only corrected by collation with Greek Copies But that they might not be very dissonant from the custome of the Latine Reading I haue so tempered with my stile the Translation of the Ancients that those things amended which did seem to change the sense other things I haue suffered to remain as they were So that in this matter Protestants must either stand or fall with the Primitiue Church 60 The Corruption that you charge Luther with and the falsification that you impute to Zwinglius what haue we to doe with them or why may not we as justly lay to your charge the Errours which Lyranus or Paulus Brugensis or Laurentius Valla or Cajetan or Erasmus or Arias Montanus or Augustus Nebiensis or Pagnine haue committed in their Translations 61 Which yet I say not as if these Translations of Luther and Zwinglius were absolutely indefensible for what such great difference is there between Faith without the Works of the Law and Faith alone without the Works of the Law or why does not Without Alone signifie all one with Alone Without Consider the matter a little better and obserue the use of these phrases of speech in our ordinary talke and perhaps you will begin to doubt whether you had sufficient ground for this invectiue And then for Zwinglius if it bee true as they say it is that the language our Saviour spake in had no such word as To signifie but used alwaies to be insteed of it as it is certain the Scripture does in a hundred places then this Translation which you so declaim against will prove no falsification in Zwinglius but a calumny in you 62 But the faith of Protestants relies upon Scripture alone Scripture is delivered to most of them by Translations Translations depend upon the skill and honesty of Men who certainly may erre because they are Men and certainly doe erre at least some of them because their Translations are contrary It seemes then the Faith and consequently the Salvation of Protestants relies upon fallible and uncertaine grounds 63 This Objection though it may seeme to doe you great service for the present yet I feare you will repent the time that ever you urged it against us as a fault that we make mens salvation depend upon uncertainties For the objection returnes upon you many waies as first thus The salvation of many millions of Papists as they suppose and teach depends upon their having the Sacrament of Pennance truly administred unto them This again upon the Minister's being a true Priest That such or such a man is Priest not himselfe much lesse any other can haue any possible certainty for it depends upon a great many contingent and uncertain supposals He that will pretend to be certain of it must undertake to know for a certain all these things that follow 64 First that he was baptized with due Matter Secondly with the due forme of words which he cannot know unlesse he were both present and attentiue Thirdly he must know that hee was baptiz'd with due Intention and that is that the Minister of his Baptisme was not a secret Iew nor a Moore nor an Atheist of all which kinds I feare experience giues you just cause to feare that Italy and Spaine haue Priests not a few but a Christian in heart as well as Profession otherwise believing the Sacrament to be nothing in giving it he could intend to giue nothing nor a Samâ—satenian nor an Arrian but one that was capable of having due intention from which they that belieue not the doctrine of the Trinity are excluded by you And lastly that he was neither drunk nor distracted at the administration of the Sacrament nor out of negligence or malice omitted his intention 65 Fourthly he must undertake to know that the Bishop which ordained him Priest ordained him compleatly with due Matter Form and Intention and consequently that he againe was neither Iew nor Moore nor Atheist nor lyable to any such exception as is unconsistent with due Intention in giving the Sacrament of Orders 66 Fiftly he must undertake to know that the Bishop which made him Priest was a Priest himselfe for your rule is Nihil dat quod non habet And consequently that there was again none of the former nullities in his Baptisme which might make him incapable of Ordination nor no invalidity in his Ordination but a true Priest to ordaine him again the requisite matter and forme and due intention all concurring 67 Lastly he must pretend to know the same of him that made him Priest and him that made Him Priest even untill he comes to the very fountain of Priesthood For take any one in the whole train succession of Ordainers suppose him by reason of any defect only a supposed not a true Priest then according to your doctrine he could not give a true but only a supposed Priesthood and they that receive it of him again they that derive it from theÌ„ can give no better then they received receiving nothing but a name and shadow can give nothing but a name and shadow and so from age to age from generation to generation being equivocall Fathers beget only equivocall Sons No Principle in Geometry being more certain then this That the unsuppliable defect of any necessary Antecedent must needs cause a nullity of all those Consequences which depend upon it In fine to know this one thing you must first know ten thousand others whereof not any one is a thing that can be known there being no necessity that it should be true which only can qualify any thing for an object of Science but only at the best a high degree of probability that it is so But then that often thousand probables no one should be false that of ten thousand requisites whereof any one may faile not one should be wanting this to mee is extreamly improbable and even cosen german to Impossible So that the assurance hereof is like a machine composed of an innumerable multitude of pieces of which it is strangely
Church upon pretence of her errors haue failed even in fundamentall points and suffered shipwrack of their Salvation ought to deter all Christians from opposing her in any one doctrine or practises as to omit other both ancient and modern heresies we see that divers chiefe Protestants pretending to reform the corruptions of the Church are come to affirm that for many Ages she erred to death and wholy perished which D. Potter cannot deny to be a fundamentall Errour against that Article of our Creed I believe the Catholique Church as he aâ—â—irmeth it of the Donatists because they confined the universall Church within Africa or some other smal tract of soile Least therefore I may fall into some fundamentall errour it is most safe for me to belieue all the Decrees of that Church which cannot errâ— fundamentally especially if we adde That according to the Doctrine of Catholique Divines one errour in faith whether it be for the matter it selfe great or small dâ—stroies faith as is shewed in Charity Mistaken and consequently to accuse the Church of any one Errour is to affirm that she lost all faith and erred damnably which very saying is damnable because it leaues Christ no visible Church on earth 21 To all these arguments I adde this demonstration D. Potter teacheth that there neither â—as nor can be any iust cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more then from Christ himselfe But if the Church of Christ can erre in some points of faith men not only may but must forsake her in those unlesse D. Potter will haue them to believe one thing and professe another and if such errours and corruptions should fall out to be about the Churches Liturgy publique Service administration of Sacraments and the like they who perceive such errours must of necessity leaue her externall Communion And therefore if once we grant the Church may erre iâ— followeth that men may and ought to forsake her which is against D. Potters own words or else they are inexcusable who left the Communion of the Roman Church under pretence of Errours which they grant not to be fundumentall And if D. Potter think good to answer this argument he must remember his own doctrine to be that even the Catholique Church may erre in points not fundamentall 22 Another argument for the universall Infallibility of the Church I take out of D. Potters own words If saith he we did not dissent in some opinions from the present Roman Church we could not agree with the Church truly Catholique These words cannot be true unlesse he presuppose that the Church truly Catholique cannot erre in points not fundamentall For if she may erre in such points the Roman Church which he affirmeth to erre only in points not fundamentall may agree with the Church truly Catholique if she likewise may erre in points not fundamentall Therefore either he must acknowledge a plain contradiction in his own words or else must grant that the Church truly Catholique cannot erre in points not fundamentall which is what we intended to proue 23 If Words cannot perswade you that in all Controversies you must rely upon the infallibility of the Church at least yeeld your assent to Deeds Hitherto I haue produced Arguments drawn as it were ex naturâ rei from the Wisdome and Goodnesse of God who cannot faile to haue left some infallible meanes to determine Controversies which as we haue proved can be no other except a Visible Church infallible in all her Definitions But because both Catholiques and Protestants receive holy Scripture we may thence also proue the infallibility of the Church in all matters which concern Faith and Religion Our Saviour speaketh clearly The gates of Hell shall not prevail against her And I will aske my Father and he will giue you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever the Spirit of truth And But when he the Spirit of truth commeth he shall teach you all truth The Apostle saith that the Church is the Pillar and ground of Truth And He gaue some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the Saints unto the work of the Ministery unto the edifying of the body of Christ untill we meet all into the unity of faith and knowleâ—ge of the Sonne of God into a perfect man into the measure of the age of the â—ulnesse of Christ that now we be not Children wavering and carried about with every winde of doctrine in the wickednesse of men in craftinesse to the circumvention of Errour All which words seem cleerly enough to proue that the Church is universally infallible without which unity of faith could not be conserved against every winde of Doctrine And yet Doctor Potter limits these promises and priviledges to fundamentall points in which he grants the Church cannot erre I urge the words of Scripture which are universall and doe not mention any such restraint I alleadge that most reasonable and receaved Rule that Scripture is to be understood literally as it soundeth unlesse some manifest absurdity force us to the contrary But all will not serue to accord our different interpretations In the mean time divers of Doctor Potters Brethren step in and reject his limitation as over large and somewhat tasting of Papistry And therefore they restrain the mentioned Texts either to the Infallibility which the Apostles and other sacred Writers had in penning of Scripture or else to the invisible Church of the Elect and to them not absolutely but with a double restriction that they shall not fall damnably and finally and other men haue as much right as these to interpose their opinion and interpretation Behold we are three at debate about the selfe same words of Scripture We conferre divers places and Text We consult the Originalls We examine Translations We endeavour to pray heartily We professe to speak sincerely To seek nothing but truth and salvation of our own soules and that of our Neighbours and finally we use all those meanes which by Protestants themselues are prescribed for finding out the true meaning of Scripture Neverthelesse we neither doe or haue any possible meanes to agree as long as we are left to our selues and when we should chance to be agreed the doubt would still remain whether the thing it selfe be a fundamentall point or no And yet it were great impiety to imagine that God the Lover of soules hath left no certaine infallible meanes to decide both this and all other differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion Our remedy therefore in these contentions must be to consult and heare God's Visible Church with submissiue acknowledgment of her Power and Infallibility in whatsoever she proposeth as a revealed truth according to that divine advice of S. Augustine in these words If at length thou seem to be sufficiently tossed and hast a desire to put an end to
but seldom qualifies them or declares whether they be or be not absolutely necessary to salvation Yet not so seldome but that out of it I could giue you an abstract of the Essentiall part of Christianity if it were necessary but I haue shewed it not so by confuting your reason pretended for the necessity of it at this time I haue no leasure to doe you curtesies that are so troublesome to my selfe Yet thus much I will promise that when you deliver a particular Catalogue of your Church Proposals with one hand you shall receiue a particular Catalogue of what I conceiue Fundamentall with the other For as yet I see no such faire proceeding as you talke of nor any performance on your own part of that which so clamorously you require on ours For as for the Catalogue which heâ—e you haue given us in saying You are obliged under pain of damnation to belieue whatsoever the Catholique visible Church of Christ proposeth as revealed by Almighty God it is like a covey of one Patridg or a flock of one sheep or a Fleet compos'd of one ship or an Army of one man The Author of Charity mistaken demands a particular Catalogue of Fundamentall points And We say you again and again demand such a Catalogue And surely if this one Proposition which here you think to stop our mouthes with be a Catalogue yet at least such a Catalogue it is not and therefore as yet you haue not perform'd what you require For if to set down such a PropositioÌ„ wherein are compriz'd all points taught by us to be necessary to salvation will serue you insteed of a Catalogue you shall haue Catalogues enough As we are oblig'd to belieue all under pain of damnation which God commands us to belieue There 's one Catalogue We are oblig'd under pain of damnation to belieue all whereof we may be sufficiently assured that Christ taught it his Apostles his Apostles the Church There 's another We are oblig'd under pain of damnation to belieue Gods word all contained in it to be true There 's a third If these generalities will not satisfie you but you will be importuning us to tell you in particular what they are which Christ taught his Apostles and his Apostles the Church what points are contained in Gods word Then I beseech you doe us reason and giue us a particular and exact Inventory of all your Church Proposalls without leaving out or adding any such a one which all the Doctors of your Church will subscribe to if you receiue not then a Catalogue of Fundamentals I for my part will giue you leaue to proclaim us Banckrupts 54 Besides this deceitfull generality of your Catalogue as you call it another main fault we finde with it that it is extreamly ambiguous and therefore to draw you out of the clouds giue me leaue to propose some Questions to you concerning it I would know therefore whether by believing you mean explicitely or implicitely If you mean implicitely I would know whether your Churches infallibility be under pain of damnation to be believed explicitely or no Whether any other point or points besides this be under the same penalty to be believed explicitely or no And if any what they bee I would know what you esteem the Proposalls of the Catholike visible Church In particular whether the Decree of a Pope ex Cathedra that is with an intent to oblige all Christians by it be a sufficient and an obliging proposall Whether men without danger of damnation may examine such a Decree and if they think they have just cause refuse to obey it Whether the Decree of a Councell without the Popes confirmation be such an obliging proposall or no Whether it be so in case there be no Pope or in case it be doubtfull who is Pope Whether the Decree of a generall Councell confirm'd by the Pope be such a Proposall and whether he be an Heretique that thinks otherwise Whether the Decree of a particular Councell confirm'd by the Pope be such a proposall Whether the Generall uncondemn'd practise of the Church for some ages be such a sufficient Proposition Whether the consent of the most eminent Fathers of any age agreeing in the affirmation of any doctrine not contradicted by any of their Contemporaries be a sufficient Proposition Whether the Fathers testifying such or such a doctrine or practise to be Tradition or to bee the Doctrine or practise of the Church be a sufficient assurance that it is so Whether we be bound under pain of damnation to belieue every Text of the vulgar Bible now authoriz'd by the Roman Church to bee the true translation of the Originalls of the Prophets and Evangelists and Apostles without any the least alteration Whether they that lived wheÌ„ the Bible of Sixtus was set forth were bound under pain of damnation to believe the same of that And if not of that of what Bible they were bound to believe it Whether the Catholique visible Church be alwaies that Society of Christians which adheres to the Bishop of Rome Whether every Christian that hath ability and oportunity be not bound to endeavour to know explicitely the Proposalls of the Church Whether Implicite Faith in the Churches Veracity will not saue him that Actually and Explicitely disbelieves some doctrine of the Church not knowing it to be so and Actually belieues some damnable Heresie as that God has the shape of a man Whether an ignorant man be bound to believe any point to be decreed by the Church when his Priest or Ghostly Father assures him it is so Whether his Ghostly Father may not erre in telling him so and whether any man can be oblig'd under pain of damnation to belieue an Errour Whether he be bound to believe such a thing defined when a number of Priests perhaps ten or twenty tell him it is so And what assurance he can haue that they neither erre nor deceive him in this matter Why Implicite Faith in Christ or the Scriptures should not suffice for a mans salvation as well as implicit faith in the Church Whether when you say Whatsoever the Church proposeth you meane all that ever she propos'd or that only which she now proposeth and whether shee now proposeth all that ever she did propose Whether all the Books of Canonicall Scripture were sufficiently declared to the Church to be so and propos'd as such by the Apostles And if not from whom the Church had this declaration afterwards If so whether all men ever since the Apostles time were bound under paine of damnation to believe the Epistle of S. Iames and the Epistle to the Hebrews to be Canonicall at least not to disbelieve it believe the contrary Lastly why it is not sufficient for any mans salvation to use the best meanes he can to inform his conscience and to follow the direction of it To all these demands when you haue given faire and ingenuous answers you shall heare further from me 55 Ad
their communion and divide himselfe from all other Communions from which they were divided which was a condition both unnecessary and unlawfull to be required and therefore the exacting of it was directly opposite to the Churches Catholicisme in the very same nature with their Errours who required Circumcision and the keeping of the Law of Moses as necessary to salvation For whosoever requires harder or heavier conditions of men then God requires of them he it is that is properly an Enemie of the Churches Vniversality by hindering either Men or Countries from adjoyning themselves to it which were it not for these unnecessary and therefore unlawful conditions in probability would haue made thē members of it And seeing the present Church of Rome perswades men they were as good for any hope of Salvation they haue not to be Christians as not to be Roman Catholiques believe nothing at all as not believe all which they impose upon them Be absolutely out of the Churches Communion as be out of their Communion or be in any other whether they be not guilty of the same crime with the Donatists those Zelots of the Mosaicall Law I leave it to the judgement of those that understand reason This is sufficient to shew the vanity of this Argument But I adde moreover that you neither haue named those Protestants who held the Church to haue perished for many ages who perhaps held not the destruction but the corruption of the church not that the true Church but that the pure Church perished or rather that the Church perished not from its life and existence but from its purity and integrity or perhaps from its splendour and visibility Neither have you proved by any one reason but only affirmed it to be a fundamentall Errour to hold that the Church militant may possibly bee driven out of the world and abolished for a time from the face of the earth 65 But to accuse the Church of any Errour in faith is to say she lost all faith For this is the Doctrine of Catholique Divines that one Errour in faith destroyes faith To which I answer that to accuse the Church of some Errour in faith is not to say she lost all faith For this is not the doctrine of Catholique Divines But that he which is an Heretique in one Article may haue true faith of other Articles And the contrary is only said and not shewed in Charity Mistaken 66 Ad § 21. D. Potter saies We may not depart from the Church absolutely and in all things and from hence you conclude Therefore we may not depart from it in any thing And this Argument you call a Demonstration But a Fallacy à dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid was not used heretofore to be called a Demonstration D. Potter sayes not that you may not depart from any opinion or any practise of the Church for you tell us in this very place that he saies even the Catholique may erre and every man may lawfully depart from Errour He only sayes you may not cease to be of the Church nor depart from those things which make it so to be and from hence you inferre a necessity of forsaking it in nothing Iust as if you should argue thus You may not leaue your friend or brother therefore you may not leave the Vice of your friend or the Errour of your brother What he saies of the Catholique Church p. 75. the same hee extends presently after to every true though never so corrupted part of it And why doe you not conclude from hence that no particular Church according to his judgement can fall into any Errour and call this a Demonstration too For as he saies p. 75. That there can be no just cause to depart from the whole Church of Christ no more then from Christ himselfe So p. 76. He tells you that whosoever forsakes any one true member of this body for sakes the whole So that what he saies of the one hee saies of the other and tells you that neither Vniversall nor Particular Church so long as they continue so may bee forsaken hee meanes Absolutely no more then Christ himselfe may be forsaken absolutely For the Church is the body of Christ and whosoever forsakes either the Body or his coherence to any one part of it must forsake his subordination and relation to the Head Therefore whosoever forsakes the Church or any Christian must forsake Christ himselfe 67 But then he tells you plainly in the same place That it may be lawfull and necessary to depart from a Particular Church in some Doctrines and Practises And this he would haue said even of the Catholike Church if there had been occasion but there was none For there he was to declare and justifie our departure not from the Catholique Church but the Roman which we maintain to be a particular Church But in other places you confesse his doctrine to be that even the Catholique church may erre in points not Fundamentall which you doe not pretend that he ever imputed to Christ himselfe And therefore you cannot with any candor interpret his words as if he had said We may not forsake the Church in any thing no more then Christ himselfe but only thus We may not cease to be of the Church nor forsake it absolutely and totally no more then Christ himselfe And thus we see sometimes a mountain may travail and the production may be a mouse 68 Ad § 22. But D. Potter either contradicts himselfe or else must grant the Church infallible Because he saies if we did not differ from the Roman we could not agree with the Catholique which saying supposes the Catholique Church cannot erre Answer This Argument to giue it the right name is an obscure and intricate nothing And to make it appeare so let us suppose in contradiction to your supposition either that the Catholique Church may erre but doth not but that the Roman actually doth or that the Catholique Church doth erre in some few things but that the Roman erres in many more And is it not apparent in both these cases which yet both suppose the Churches Fallibility a man may truly say unlesse I dissent in some opinions from the Roman Church I cannot agree with the Catholique Either therefore you must retract your imputation laid upon D. Potter or doe that which you condemne in him and be driven to say that the same man may hold some errours with the Church of Rome and at the same time with the Catholique Church not hold but condemne them For otherwise in neither of these cases is it possible for the same man at the same time to agree both with the Roman and the Catholique 69 In all these Texts of Scripture which are here alleaged in this last Section of this Chapter or in any one of them or in any other doth God say cleerly and plainly The Bishop of Rome and that Society of Christians which adheres to him shall bee ever
left them is and hath been the only fountaine of all the Schismes of the Church and that which makes them continue the common incendiary of Christendome and that which as I said before teares into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Iudae◠Take away these Wals of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaime it disclaime it likewise in their actions In a word take away tyranny which is the Divels instrument to support errours and superstitions and impieties in the severall parts of the world which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage runne all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by Gods blessing that Vniversall Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendome to Truth and Vnitie These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to his blessing I commend them and proceed 18 Your fift and last obiection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it selfe nothing else but a Doctrine Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great ones among you stick not to professe in plaine tearmes who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrine is Catholique and Apostolique So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibetaetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to All So that every age hath its proper verities which the former age was ignorant of Disp. 57. In Ep. ad Rom And againe in the Margent Habet Vnumquodque saeculum peculiares revelationes divinas Every age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he gives us a little before in these words Vnius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrine of Augustine only hath brought in to the Church the Worship of the Assumption of the Mother of God c. Others againe mince and palliate the matter with this pretence that your Church undertakes not to coyne new Articles of faith but only to declare those that want sufficient declaration But if sufficient declaration be necessary to make any doctrine an Article of Faith then this doctrine which before wanted it was not before an Article of faith and your Church by giving it the Essentiall forme and last complement of an Article of faith makes it though not a Truth yet certainly an Article of faith But I would faine know whether Christ and his Apostles knew this Doctrine which you pretend hath the matter but wants the forme of an Article of faith that is sufficient declaration whether they knew it to be a necessary Article of the faith or no! If they knew it not to be so then either they taught what they knew not which were very strange or else they taught it not and if not I would gladly be informed seeing you pretend to no new Revelations from whom you learn't it If they knew it then either they conceal'd or declar'd it To say they conceal'd any necessary part of the Gospell is to charge them with farre greater sacriledge then what was punished in Ananias and Saphira It is to charge these glorious Stewards and dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ with want of the great vertue requisite in a Steward which is Fidelity It is to charge them with presumption for denouncing Anathema's even to Angels in case they should teach any other doctrine then what they had received from thē which sure could not merit an Anathema if they left any necessary part of the Gospell untaught It is in a word in plaine tearmes to give them the lye seeing they professe plainly and frequently that they taught Christians the whole doctrine of Christ. If they did know and declare it then was it a full and formall Article of faith and the contrary a full and formall Heresie without any need of further declaration and then their Successours either continued the declaration of it or discontinued If they did the latter how are they such faithfull depositaries of Apostolique Doctrine as you pretend Or what assurance can you give us that they might not bring in new and false Articles as well as suffer the old and true ones to be lost If they did continue the declaration of it and deliver it to their Successours and they to theirs and so on perpetually then continued it still a full and formall Article of faith and the repugnant doctrine a full and formall Heresie without and before the definition or declaration of a Councell So that Councells as they cannot make that a truth or falshood which before was not so so neither can they make or declare that to be an Article of Faith or an Heresie which before was not so The supposition therefore on which this argument stands being false and runious whatsoever is built upon it must together with it fall to the ground This explication therefore and restriction of this doctrine whereof you make your advantage was to my understanding unnecessary The Fathers of the Church in after times might have just cause to declare their judgmēt touching the sense of some generall Articles of the Creed but to oblige others to receave their declarations under paine of damnation what warrant they had I know not He that can shew either that the Church of all Ages was to have this Authority or that it continued in the Church for some Ages and then expired He that can shew either of these things let him for my part I cannot Yet I willingly confesse the judgment of a Councell though not infallible is yet so farre directive and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sinne to reject it at least not to afford it an outward submission for publique peace-sake 19 Ad § 7. 8. 9. Were I not peradventure more fearefull then I need to be of the imputation of tergiversation I might very easily rid my hands of the remainder of this Chapter For in the Question there discussed you grant for ought I see as much as D. Potter desires and D. Potter grants as much as you desire and therefore that I should
not deny I presume that S. Peter preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Marke wrote all 42 Our next inquiry let it be touching S. Iohns intent in writing his Gospell whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to eternall life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much lesse then the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justify what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. Neither will I deny but S. Iohns secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary doctrine is in S. Iohn which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should doe before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospell what that was certainly no Father in the world understood it better then himselfe Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signes saith he also did Iesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Iesus is Christ the sonne of God and that believing you may have life in his name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signes are written Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. Iohn wrote in his Gospell or lesse then all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively faith would certainly bring them to eternall life 43 This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justify my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the foure Evangelists has in his book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. But for S. Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospell in my judgement it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospell where he declares what he intends to write in these words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed Adde to this place the entrāce to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Iesus began both to doe and teach untill the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke does not undertake the very same thing which he saies many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospell of Christ and every necessary doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and ministers of the word from the begining delivered not the whole Gospell of Christ 5. Whether he does not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospell of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Iesus began to doe and teach must not at least imply all the Principall and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the Principall and most necessary things which Iesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospell be not lesse principall and lesse necessary then all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposalls I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not choose but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonicall Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these Propositiōs which without Controversy are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresy thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44 Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule seeing the Doctrine of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the deniall of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himselfe in supposing a man may belieue all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45 To the first I answere what I conceive he would whose words I here justify that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Vniversality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those severall Professions of Christiany that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words he excludes from the universality here spoken of the denyers of the Doctrine of the Trinity as being but a handfull of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these professions which maintain it And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your objection or else negligently to oversee them Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophisticall Pamphlet against B. Vshers Sermon
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
the foundation is strong enough to support all such unnecâ—ssary additions as you terme them And if they once weighed so heavy as to overthrow the foundation they should grow to fundamentall errors into which your selfe teach the Church cannot fall Hay and stubble say you and such unprofitable stâ—ff laid on the roofe destroies not the house whilest the main pillars are standing on the foundatioâ— And tell us I pray you the precise number of errors which cannot be tolerated I know you cannot doe it and therefore being uncertain whether or no you have cause to leave the Church you are certainly obliged not to forsake her Our blessed Saviour hath declared his will that we forgive a private offender seaventy seaven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of trespasses and why then dare you alleadge his command that you must not pardon his Church for errors acknowledged to be not fundamentall What excuse can you faine to your selves who for points not necessary to salvation have been occasions causes and authors of so many mischiefes as could not but unavoidably accompany so huge a breach in kingdomes in commonwealths in private persons in publique Magistrates in body in soul in goods in life in Church in the state by Schismes by rebellions by war by famine by plague by bloudshed by all sorts of imaginable calamities upon the whole face of the earth wherein as in a map of Desolation the heavinesse of your crime appeares under which the world doth pant 24 To say for your excuse that you left not the Church but her errors doth not extenuate but aggravate your sinne For by this devise you sow seeds of endles Schismes and put into the mouth of all Separatists a ready answere how to avoid the note of Schisme from your Protestant Church of England or from any other Church whatsoever They will I say answer as you doe prompt that your Church may be forsaken if she fall into errors though they be not fundamentall and further that no Church must hope to be free from such errors which two grounds being once laid it will not be hard to infer the consequence that she may be forsaken 25 From some other words of D. Potter I likewise prove that for Errors not fundamentall the Church ought not to be forsaken There neither was saith he nor can be any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more then from Christ himselfe To depart from a particular Church and namely from the Church of Rome in some doctrines and practises there might be just and necessary cause though the Church of Rome wanted nothing necessary to salvation Marke his doctrine that there can be no iust cause to depart from the Church of Christ and yet he teacheth that the Church of Christ may erre in points not fundamentall Therefore say I we cannot forsake the Roman Church for points not fundamentall for then we might also forsake the Church of Christ which your selfe deny and I pray you consider whether you doe not plainly contradict your selfe while in the words aboue recited you say there can be no iust cause to forsake the Catholique Church and yet that there may be necessary cause to depart from the Church of Rome since you grant that the Church of Christ may erre in points not fundamentall and that the Roman Church hath erred only in such points as by and by we shall see more in particular And thus much be said to disprove their chiefest Answer that they left not the Church but her corruptions 26 Another evasion D. Potter bringeth to avoid the imputation of Schisme and it is because they still acknowledge the Church of Rome to be a Member of the body of Christ and not cut off from the hope of salvation And this saith he cleeres us from the imputation of Schisme whose property it is to cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates 27 This is an Answere which perhaps you may get some one to approve if first you can put him out of his wits For what prodigious doctrines are these Those Protestants who believe that the Church erred in points necessary to salvation and for that cause left her cannot be excused from damnable Schisme But others who believed that she had no damnable errors did very well yea were obliged to forsake her and which is more miraculous or rather monstrous they did well to forsake her formally and precisely because they iudged that she retained all meanes necessary to salvation I say because they so iudged For the very reason for which he acquitteth himselfe and condemneth those others as Schismatiques is because he holdeth that the Church which both of them forsooke is not cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvations whereas those other Zelots deny her to be a member of Christs body or capable of salvation wherein alone they disagree from D. Potter for in the effect of separation they agree only they doe it upon a different motive or reason were it not a strange excuse if a man would think to cloak his rebellion by alledging that he held the person against whom he rebelled to be his lawfull Soveraign And yet D. Potter thinks himselfe free from Schisme because he forsook the Church of Rome but yet so as that still he held her to be the true Church and to have all necessary meanes to Salvation But I will no further urge this most solemne foppery and doe much more willingly put all Catholiques in mind what an unspeakeable comfort it is that our Adversaries are forced to confesse that they cannot cleere themselves from Schisme otherwise then by acknowledging that they doe not nor cannot cut off from the hope of Salvation our Church Which is as much as if they should in plain termes say They must be damned unlesse we may be saved Moreover this evasion doth indeed condemne your zealous brethren of Heresy for denying the Churches perpetuity but doth not cleere your selfe from Schisme which consists in being divided from that true Church with which a man agreeth in all points of faith as you must professe your selfe to agree with the Church of Rome in all fundamentall Articles For otherwise you should cut her off from the hope of salvation and so condemne your selfe of Schisme And lastly even according to this your own definition of Schisme you cannot cleere your selfe from that crime unlesse you be content to acknowledge a manifest contradiction in your own Assertions For if you doe not cut us off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation how come you to say in another place that you judge a reconciliation with us to be damnable That to depart from the Church of Rome there might be iust and necessary canse That they that have the understanding and meanes to discover their error and neglect to use them we dare
c. and tell me if you could excuse such Reformers from Schisme Sedition Rebellion Apostasie c what would you say of such Reformers in your Colledge or tumultuous persons in a kingdome Remember now your owne Tenets and then reflect how fit a similitude you have picked out to prove your self a Schismatique You teach that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall but that for all fundamentall points she is secured from error You teach that no particular person or Church hath any promise of assistance in points fundamentall You and the whole world can witnesse that when Luther began he being but only One opposed himself to All as well subjects as superiours and that even then when he himself confessed that he had no intention of Reformation You cannot be ignorant but that many chief learned Protestants are forced to confesse the Antiquity of our doctrine and practice and doe in severall and many Controversies acknowledge that the Ancient Fathers stood on our Side Consider I say these points and see whether your similitude doe not condemne your Progenitors of Schisme from God's visible Church yea and of Apostasie also from their Religious Orders if they were vowed Regulars as Luther and divers of them were 32 From the Monastery you are fâ—ed into an Hospitall of persons vniversally infected with some disease where you find to be true what I supposed that after your departure from your Brethren you might fall into greater inconveniences and more infectious diseases then those for which you left them But you are also upon the point to abandon these miserable needy persons in whose behalf for Charities sake let me set before you these considerations If the disease neither were nor could be mortall because in that Company of men God had placed a Tree of life If going thence the sick man might by curious tasting the Tree of Knowledge eate poyson under pretence of bettering his health If he could not hope thereby to avoid other diseases like those for which he had quitted the company of the first infected men If by his departure innumerable mischiefs were to ensue could such a man without sencelesnesse be excused by saying that he sought to free himself from the common disease but not forsooth to separate from the society Now your self compare the Church to a man deformed with superfluous fingers and toes but yet who hath not lost any vitall part you acknowledge that out of her society no man is secured from damnable errour and the world can beare witnesse what unspeakable mischiefs and calamities ensued Luthers revolt from the Church Pronounce then concerning them the same sentence which even now I have shewed them to deserve who in the manner aforesaid should separate from persons universally infected with some disease 33 But alas to what passe hath Heresy brought men who terme themselves Christians and yet blush not to compare the beloved Spouse of our Lord the one Dove the purâ—hase of our Saviours most precious blood the holy Catholique Church I mean that visible Church of Christ which Luther found spread over the whole world to a Monastery so disordered that it must be forsaken to the Gyant in Gath much deformed with superfluous fingers and toes to a society of men universally infected with some disease And yet all these comparisons and much worse are neither injurious nor undeserved if once it be granted or can be proved that the visible Church of Christ may erre in any one point of Faith although not fundamentall 34 Before I part from these similitudes one thing I must observe against the evasion of D. Potter that they left not the Church but her Corruptions For as those Reformers of the Monastery or those other who left the company of men universally infected with some disease would deny themselves to be Schismatiques or any way blame-worthy but could not deny but that they left the said Communities So Luther and the rest cannot so much as pretend not to have left the visible Church which according to them was infected with many diseases but can only pretend that they did not sinne in leaving her And you speak very strangly when you say In a society of men universally 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 themselves from the Society of the infected persons how doe they free themselves and depart from the common disease Doe they at the same time remain in the company and yet depart from those infected creatures We must then say that they separate themselves from the persons though it be by occasion of the disease Or if you say they free their owne persons from the common disease yet so that they remain still in the Company infected subject to the Superiours and Governours thereof eating and drinking and keeping publique Assemblies with them you cannot but know that Luther and your Reformers the first pretended free persons from the supposed common infection of the Roman Church did not so for they endeavoured to force the Society whereof they were parts to be healed and reformed as they were and if it refused they did when they had forces drive theÌ„ away even their Superiours both spirituall and temporall as is notorious Or if they had no power to expell that supposed infected Community or Church of that place they departed from them corporally whom mentally they had forsaken before So that you cannot deny but Luther forsook the externall Communion and company of the Catholique Church for which as your self confesse There neither was nor can be any just cause no more then to depart from Christ himself We doe therefore infer that Luther and the rest who forâ—ook that visible Church which they found upon earth were truely and properly Schismatiques 35 Moreover it is evident that there was a division between Luther and that Church which was Visible when he arose but that Church cannot be said to have divided her self from him befoâ—e whose time she was and in comparison of whom she was a Whole and he but a part therefore we must say that he divided himself and went out of her which is to be a Schismatique or Heretique or both By this argument Optatus Milevitanus proveth that not Caecilianus but Par menianus was a Schismatique saying For Caecilianus went not out of Maiorinuâ— thy Granaâ—ather but Maiorinus from Caecilianus neither did Caecilianus depart from the Chayre of Peter or Cyprian but Maiorinus in whose Chayre thou sittest which had no beginning beâ—ore Maiorinus Since it manifestly appeareth that these things were acted in this manner it is cleare that you are beyres both of the deliverers up of the holy Bible to be burned and also of Schismatiques The whole argument of this holy Father makes directly both against Luther and all those who continue the division which he begun and proves That going out convinceth
in the face of all Christian Churches as if indeed they were not Reformers but Schismatiques and Heretiques or as Pagans Publicans I thank you for your ingenuous confession in recompence whereof I will doe a deed of Charity by putting you in mind into what labyrinths you are brought by teaching that the Church may erre in some points of faith yet that it is not lawful for any man to oppose his judgement or leave her Communion though he haue evidence of Scripture against her Will you have such a man dissemble against his conscience or externally deny a truth known to be coÌ„tained in holy Scripture How much more coherently doe Catholiques proceed who believe the universall infallibility of the Church and from thence are assured that there can be no evidence of Scripture or reason against her definitions nor any just cause to forsake her Communion M. Hooker esteemed by many Protestants an incomparable man yeelds as much as we haue alleaged out of you The will of God is saith he to haue them doe whatsoever the sentence of judiciall and finall decision shall determine yea though it seeme in their private opinion to swarve utterly from that which is right Doth not this man tell Luther what the will of God was which he transgressing must of necessity bee guilty of Schisme And must not M. Hooker either acknowledge the universall infallibility of the Church or else driue men into the perplexities and labyrinths of dissembling against their conscience whereof now I speake Not unlike to this is your doctrine delivered elsewhere Before the Nicene Councell say you many good Cotholique Bishops were of the same opinion with the Donatists that the Baptisme of Heretiques was ineffectuall and with the Novatians that the Church ought not to absolve some grievous sinners These errours therefore if they had gone no further were not in themselves Hereticall especially in the proper and most heavy or bitter sense of that word neither was it in the Churches intention or in her power to make them such by her declaration Her intention was to silence all disputes and to settle peace and unitie in her government to which all wise and peaceable men submitted whatsoever their opinion was And those factious people for their unreasonable and uncharitable opposition were very justly branded for Schismatiques For us the Mistaker will never proue that we oppose any declaration of the Catholique Church c. and therefore hee doth uniustlie charge us either with Schisme or Heresie These wordes manifestly condemne your Reformers who opposed the visible Church in many of her declarations Doctrines and Commands imposed upon them for silencing all disputes and setling peace and Vnity in the government and therefore they still remaining obstinately disobedient are justly charged with Schisme and Heresie And it is to be observed that you grant the Donatists to haue been very justly branded for Schismatiques although their opposition against the Church did concern as you hold a point not fundamentall to the Faith and which according to S. Augustine cannot be proved out of Scripture alone and therefore either doth evidently convince that the Church is universally infallible even in points not fundamentall or else that it is Schisme to oppose her declarations in those very things wherein she may erre and consequently that Luther and his fellowes were Schismatiques by opposing the visible Church for points not fundamentall though it were untruely supposed that she erred in such points But by the way how come you on the suddaine to hold the determination of a Generall Councell of Nice to be the declaration of the Catholique Church seeing you teach That Generall Councels may erre even fundamentally And doe you now say with us that to oppose the declaration of the Church is sufficient that one may be branded with Heresie which is a point so often impugned by you 43 It is therefore most evident that no pretended scruple of conscience could excuse Luther which he might and ought to have rectified by meanes enough if Pride Ambition Obstinacy c. had given him leave I grant he was touched with scruple of conscience but it was because he had forsaken the visible Church of Christ and I beseech all Protestants for the loue they beare to that sacred ransome of their soules the Blood of our blessed Saviour attentiuely to ponder and unpartially to apply to their owne Conscience what this Man spoke concerning the feelings and remorse of his How often saith he did my trembling heart beat within me and reprehending me obiect against me that most strong argument Art thou only wise Doe so many worlds erre Were so many ages ignorant What if thou errest and drawest so many into hell to be damned eternally with thee And in another place he saith Dost thou who art but One and of no account take upon thee so great matters What if thou being but one offendest If God permit such so many all to erre why may he not permit thee to erre To this belong those arguments the Church the Church the Fathers the Fathers the Councels the Customes the multitudes and greatnes of wise men Whom doe not these Mountaines of arguments these clouds yea these seas of Examples overthrow And these thoughts wrought so deep in his soule that he often wished and desired that he had never begun this businesse wishing yet further that his Writings were burned and buried in eternall oblivion Behold what remorse Luther felt and how he wanted no strength of malice to crosse his own conscience and therefore it was no scruple or conceived obligation of conscience but some other motives which induced him to oppose the Church And if yet you doubt of his courage to encounter and strength to master all reluctations of conscience heare an example or two for that purpose Of Communion under both kinds thus he saith If the Councell should in any case decree this least of all would we then use both kinds yea rather in despight of the Councell and the Decree we would use either but one kind only or neither or in no case both Was not Luther perswaded in Conscience that to use neither kind was against our Saviours command Is this only to offer his opinion to be considered of as you said all men ought to doe And that you may be sure that he spoke from his heart and if occasion had been offered would have been as good as his word mark what he saith of the Elevation of the Sacrament I did know the Elevation of the Sacrament to be Idolatricall yet neverthelesse I did retain it in tâ—e Church at Wittemberg to the end I might vexe the divell Carolostadius Was not this a conscience large and capacious enough that could swallow Idolatry Why would he not tolerate Idolatry in the Church of Rome as these men are wont to blaspheame if he could retain it in his own Church at Wittemberge If Carolostadius
to believe as all Antiquity hath taught us That whosoever either beginnes or continues a division for the Roman Church which we haue proved to be Christs true Militant Church on earth cannot without effectuall repentance hope to be a member of his Triumphant Church in heaven And so I conclude with these words of blessed S. Augustine It is common to all Heretiques to be unable to see that thing which in the world is the most manifest and placed in the light of all Nations out of whose Vnity whatsoever they work though they seem to doe it with great care and diligence can no more availe them against the wrath of God then the Spiders web against the extremity of cold But now it is high time that we treat of the other sort of Division from the Church which is by Heresie THE ANSVVER TO THE FIFTH CHAPTER The separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon iust and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schisme 1 AD § 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. In the seaven first Sections of this Chapter there be many things said and many things supposed by you which are untrue deserue a censure As 2 First That Schisme could not be a Division from the Church or that a Division from the Church could not happen unlesse there alwaies had been and should be a visible Church Which Assertion is a manifest falshood For although there never had been any Church Visible or Invisible before this age nor should be ever after yet this could not hinder but that a Schisme might now be and be a Division from the present visible Church As though in France there never had been untill now a lawfull Monarch nor after him ever should be yet this hinders not but that now there might be a Rebellion and that Rebellion might be an Insurrection against Soveraigne authority 3 That it is a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath been a visible Congregation of faithfull people Which Proposition howsoever you understand it is not absolutely certain But if you mean by Faithfull as it is plain you doe free from all errour in faith then you know all Protestants with one consent affirm it to bee false and therefore without proof to take it for granted is to beg the Question 4 That supposing Luther and they which did first separate from the Roman Church were guilty of Schisme it is certainly consequent that all who persist in this division must be so likewise Which is not so certaine as you pretend For they which alter without necessary cause the present government of any state Civill or Ecclesiasticall doe commit a great fault whereof notwithanding they may be innocent who continue this alteration and to the utmost of their power oppose a change though to the former state when continuance of time hath once setled the present Thus haue I known some of your own Church condemn the Low-countrey men who first revolted from the King of Spain of the sin of Rebellion yet absolve them from it who now being of your Religion there are yet faithfull maintainers of the common liberty against the pretences of the K. of Spaine 5 Fourthly That all those which a Christian is to esteeme neighbours doe concurre to make one company which is the Church Which is false for a Christian is to esteeme those his neighbours who are not members of the true Church 6 Fiftly That all the members of the Visible Church are by charity united into one Mysticall body Which is manifestly untrue for many of them have no Charity 7 Sixtly That the Catholique Church signifies one company of faithfull people which is repugnant to your own grounds For you require not true faith but only the Profession of it to make men members of the visible Church 8 Seaventhly That every Heretique is a Schismatique Which you must acknowledge false in those who though they deny or doubt of some point professed by your Church and so are Heretiques yet continue still in the Communion of the Church 9 Eightly That all the members of the Catholique Church must of necessity be united in externall Communion Which though it were much to be desired it were so yet certainly cannot be perpetually true For a man unjustly excommunicated is not in the Churches communion yet he is still a member of the Church and divers times it hath happened as in the case of Chrisostome and Epiphanius that particular men and particular Churches have upon an overvalued difference either renounced Communion mutually or one of them separated from the other and yet both have continued members of the Catholique Church These things are in those seven Sections either said or supposed by you untruly without all shewe or pretence of proofe The rest is an impertinent common place wherein Protestants and the cause in hand are absolutely unconcern'd And therefore I passe to the eighth Section 10 Ad § 8. Wherein you obtrude upon us a double Fallacie One in supposing and taking for granted that whatsoever is affirmed by three Fathers must be true whereas your selves make no scruple of condemning many things of falsehood which yet are maintained by more then thrice three Fathers Another in pretending their words to be spoken absolutely which by them are limited and restrained to some particular cases For whereas you say S. Austine c. 62. l. 2. cont Parm. infers out of the former premises That there is no necessity to divide Vnity to let passe your want of diligence in quoting the 62. chapter of that Booke which hath but 23. in it to passe by also that these words which are indeed in the 11. Chapt. are not inferred out of any such premises as you pretend this I say is evident that he saies not absolutely that there never is or can be any necessity to divide Vnity which only were for your purpose but only in such a speciall cale as he there sets down That is When good men tolerate bad men which can doe thē no spirituall hurt to the intent they may not be seperated from those who are spiritually good Then saith he there is no necessity to divide Vnity Which very words doe cleerely give us to understand that it may fall out as it doth in our case that we cannot keep Vnity with bad men without spirituall hurt i. e. without partaking with them in their impieties and that then there is a necessity to divide Unity from them I mean to break off conjunction with them in their impieties Which that it was S. Austines mind it is most evident out of the 21. c. of the same book where to Parmenian demanding how can a man remain pure being joyned with those that are corrupted He answers Very true this is not possible if he be ioyned with them that is if he commit any evill with them or favour them which doe commit it But if he doe neither of these he is not ioyned with them
And presently after these two things retained will keep such men pure and uncorrupted that is neither doing ill nor approving it And therefore seeing you impose upon all men of your Communion a necessity of doing or at least approving many things unlawfull certainly there lies upon us an unavoidable necessity of dividing unity either with you or with God and whether of these is rather to be done be ye judges 11 Irenaeus also saies not simply which only would doe you service there cannot possibly be any so important Reformation as to justify a separation from them who will not reforme But only they cannot make any corruption so great as is the pernitiousnesse of a Schisme Now They here is a relative and hath an antecedent expressed in Irenaeus which if you had been pleased to take notice of you would easily have seene that what Irenaeus saies falls heavy upon the Church of Rome but toucheth Protestants nothing at all For the men he speaks of are such as Propter modicas quaslibet causas for trifling or small causes divide the body of Christ such as speak of peace and make warre such as straine at gnatts swallow Camels And these faith he can make no reformation of any such importance as to countervaile the danger of a division Now seeing the causes of our separation from the Church of Rome are as we pretend and are ready to justify because we will not be partakers with her in Superstition Idolatry Impiety and most cruell Tyranny both upon the bodies and soules of men Who can say that the causes of our separation may be justly esteemed Modicae quaelibet causae On the other side seeing the Bishop of Rome who was contemporary to Irenaeus did as much as in him lay cut off from the Churches unity many great Churches for not conforming to him in an indifferent matter upon a difference Non de Catholico dogmâ—te sed de Ritu vel Ritus potiùs tempore not about any Catholique doctrine but only a Ceremony or rather about the time of observing it so Petavius values it which was just all one as if the Church of France should excommunicate those of their own Religion in England for not keeping Christmas upon the same day with them And seeing he was reprehended sharpely and bitterly for it by most of the Bishops of the world as Eusebius testifies and as Cardinall Perron though mincing the matter yet confesseth by this very Ierenaeus himselfe in particular admonished that for so small a cause propter tam modicam causam he should not have cut off so many Provinces from the body of the Church and lastly seeing the Ecclesiasticall story of those times mentions no other notable example of any such Schismaticall presumption but this of Victor certainly we have great inducement to imagine that Irenaeus in this place by you quoted had a speciall aime at the Bishop and Church of Rome Once this I am sure of that the place fits him and many of his successors as well as if it had been made purposely for them And this also that he which finds fault with them who separate upon small causes implies cleerely that he conceived there might be such causes as were great and sufficient And that then a Reformation was to be made notwithstanding any danger of division that might insue upon it 12 Lastly S. Denis of Alexandria saies indeed and very well that all things should be rather indured then we should consent to the division of the Church I would adde Rather then consent to the continuation of the division if it might be remedied But then I am to tell you that he saies not All things should rather be done but only All things should rather be indured or suffered wherein he speaks not of the evill of sinne but of Pain and Misery Not of tolerating either Error or Sinne in others though that may be lawfull much lesse of joyning with others for quietnesse sake which only were to your purpose in the profession of Errour and practise of sinne but of suffering any affliction nay even martyrdome in our own persons rather then consent to the division of the Church Omnia incommoda so your own Christophorson enforced by the circumstances of the place translates Dionysius his words All miseries should rather be endured then we should consent to the Churches division 13 Ad § 9. In the next Paragraph you affirme two things but prove neither unlesse a vehement Asseveration may passe for a weake proofe You tell us first that the Doctrine of the totall deficiency of the visible Church which is maintained by divers chiefe Protestants implies in it vast absurdity or rather sacrilegious Blasphemy But neither doe the Protestants alleaged by you maintain the deficiency of the Visible Church but only of the Churches visibility or of the Church as it is Visible which so acute a man as you now that you are minded of it I hope will easily distinguish Neither doe they hold that the visible Church hath failed totally and from its essence but only from its purity and that it fell into many corruptions but yet not to nothing And yet if they had held that there was not only no pure visible Church but none at all surely they had said more then they could justify but yet you doe not shew neither can I discover any such Vast absurdity or Sacrilegious Blasphemy in this Assertion You say secondly that the Reason which cast them upon this wicked Doctrine was a desperate voluntary necessity because they were resolved not to acknowledge the Roman to be the true Church and were convinced by all manner of evidence that for diverse ages before Luther there was no other But this is not to dispute but to divine and take upon you the property of God which is to know the hearts of men For why I pray might not the Reason hereof rather be because they were convinced by all manner of evidence as Scripture Reason Antiquity that all the visible Churches in the world but aboue all the Roman had degenerated from the purity of the Gospell of Christ and thereupon did conclude there was no visible Church meaning by no Church none free from corruption and conformable in all things to the doctrine of Christ. 14 Ad § 10. Neither is there any repugnance but in words only between these as you are pleased to stile them exterminating Spirits and those other whom out of Curtesy you intitle in your 10. § more moderate Protestants For these affirming the Perpetuall Visibility of the Church yet neither deny nor doubt of her being subject to manifold and grievous corruptions and those of such a nature as were they not mitigated by invincible or at least a very probable ignorance none subject to them could be saved And they on the other side denying the Churches Visibility yet plainly affirme that they conceive very good hope of the Salvation of many of their ignorant
all in all and that for ought I see you never think of But if these rigid Protestants haue iust cause to cut off your Church from the hope of salvation How can the milder sort allow hope of salvation to the Members of this Church Ans. Distinguish the quality of the Persons censur'd and this seeming repugance of their censures will vanish into nothing For your Church may be considered either in regard of those in whom either negligence or pride or worldly feare or hopes or some other voluntary sinne is the cause of their ignorance which I feare is the case of the generality of men amongst you or in regard of those who owe their Errours from Truth to want of capacity or default of instruction either in respect of those that might know the truth and will not or of those who would know the truth but all things considered cannot In respect of those that haue eyes to see and will not see or those that would gladly see but want eyes or light Consider the former sort of men which your more rigid censurers seem especially to reflect upon and the heaviest sentence will not be too heavy Consider the latter and the mildest will not be too milde So that here is no difference but in words only neither are you flattered by the one nor uncharitably censur'd by the other 39 Your next blow is directed against the milder sort of Protestants who you say involve themselves in the sinne of Schisme by communicating with those as you call them exterminating Spirits whom you conceiue your selfe to have proved Schismatiques And now load them further with the crime of Heresie For say you if you held your selves obliged under pain of damnation to forsake the Communion of the Roman Church by reason of her Errours which yet you confesse were not fundamentall shall it not be much more damnable to liue in confraternity with these who defend an Errour of the fayling of the Church which in the Donatists you confesse to haue been properly Hereticall 40 Answ You mistake in thinking that Protestants hold themselves obliged not to communicate with you onely or principally by reason of your Errours and Corruption For the true reason according to my third observation is not so much because you maintaine Errours and Corruptions as because you impose them and will allow your Communion to none but to those that will hold them with you and haue so ordered your Communion that either we must communicate with you in these things or nothing And for this very reason though it were granted that these Protestants held this doctrine which you impute to them And though this Errour were as damnable and as much against the Creed as you pretend Yet after all this this disparity between you and them might make it more lawfull for us to communicate with them then you because what they hold they hold to themselues and refuse not as you doe to communicate with them that hold the contrary 41 Thus we may answer your Argument though both your former Suppositions were granted But then for a second answer I am to tell you that there is no necessity of granting either of them For neither doe these Protestants hold the fayling of the Church from its being but only from its visibility which if you conceive all one then must you conceive that the starres fayle every day and the Sunne every night Neither is it certain that the doctrine of the Churches fayling is repugnant to the Creed For as the truth of the Article of the Remission of sinnes depends not upon the actuall remission of any mans sinnes but upon Gods readinesse and resolution to forgive the sins of all that believe and repent so that although unbeleef or impenitence should be universall and the Faithfull should absolutely fayle from the children of men and the sonne of man should finde no faith on the earth yet should the Article still continue true that God would forgive the sinnes of all that repent In like manner it is not certain that the truth of the Article of the Catholique Church depends upon the actuall existence of a Catholique Church but rather upon the right that the Church of Christ or rather to speak properly the Gospell of Christ hath to be universally believed And therefore the Article may bee true though there were no Church in the world In regard this notwithstanding it remaines still true that there ought to be a Church this Church ought to be Catholique For as of these two Propositions There is a Church in America and There should bee a Church in America The truth of the latter depends not upon the truth of the former so neither does it in these two There is a Church diffused all the world over and There should be a Church diffused all the world over 42 Thirdly if you understand by Errours not fundamentall such as are not damnable it is not true as I haue often told you that we confesse your errours not fundamentall 43 Lastly for your desire that I should here apply an authority of S. Cyprian alleaged in your next number I would haue done so very willingly but indeed I know not how to doe it for in my apprehensiō it hath no more to doe with your present businesse of proving it unlawfull to communicate with these men who hold the Church was not alwaies visible then In nova fert animus Besides I am here again to remember you that S. Cyprians words were they never so pertinent yet are by neither of the parts litigant esteemed any rule of faith And therefore the urging of them and such like authorities serves onely to make Books great and Controversies endlesse 44 Ad § 17. The next Section in three long leaues delivers us this short sense That those Protestants which say they have not left the Churches externall Communion but only her corruptions pretend to doe that which is impossible Because these corruptions were inherent in the Churches externall Communion and therefore he that forsakes them cannot but forsake this 45 Ans. But who are they that pretend they forsooke the Churches corruptions and not her externall communion Some there be that say they have not left the Church that is not ceased to be members of the Church but only left her corruptions some that they have not left the communion but the corruptions of it meaning the internall communion of it and conjunction with it by faith and obedience which disagree from the former only in the manner of speaking for he that is in the Church is in this kinde of communion with it and he that is not in this internall communion is not in the Church Some perhaps that they left not your externall communion in all things meaning that they left it not voluntarily being not fugitivi but fugati as being willing to joyne with you in any act of piety but were by you necessitated and constrained to doe so because you
to him Herein I forsake you yet I leave you not absolutely for I acknowledge you still to be my brother and shall use you as a brother And you perverting his speech should pretend that he had said I leaue your company in these ill courses and I doe well to doe so because you are my Brother so making that the cause of his leaving him which indeed is the cause that he left him no farther 75 But you say The very reason for which hee acquitteth himselfe from Schisme is because he holds that the Church which they forsook is not cut off from the Body of Christ. Ans. This is true But can you not perceive a difference between justifying his separation from Schisme by this reason and making this the reason of his separation If a man denying obedience in some unlawfull matter to his lawfull Soveraign should say to him herein I disobey you but yet I am no Rebell because I acknowledge you my Soveraign Lord and am ready to obey you in all things lawfull should not he be an egregious sycophant that should accuse him as if he had said I doe well to disobey you because I acknowledge you my lawfull Soveraign Certainly hee that joynes this acknowledgment with his necessitated disobedience does well but he that makes this consideration the reason of his disobedience doth ill Vrge therefore this as you call it most solemn foppery as far as you please For every understanding Reader will easily perceiue that this is no foppery of D. Potters but a calumny of yours from which he is as far as he is from holding yours to bee the true Church whereas it is a sign of a great deal of Charity in him that he allowes you to be a Part of it 76 And whereas you pretend to finde such unspeakable comfort here in that we cannot cleare our selues from Schisme otherwise then by acknowledging that they doe not nor cannot cut off your Church from the hope of salvation I beseech you to take care that this false comfort cost you not too deare For why this good opinion of God Almighty that he will not damne men for errour who were without their owne fault ignorant of the truth should be any consolation to them who having the key of knowledge will neither use it themselves nor permit others to use it who haue eyes to see and will not see who haue cares to heare and will not heare this I assure you passeth my capacity to apprehend Neither is this to make our salvation depend on yours but only ours and yours not desperatly inconsistent Nor to say wee must be damn'd unlesse you may be saved but that we assure our selues if our lives be answerable we shall be saved by our knowledge And that wee hope and I tell you again Spes est reiincertae nomen that some of you may possibly bee the rather saved by occasion of their unaffected Ignorance 77 For our Brethren whom you say we condemn of heresie for denying the Churches perpetuity we know none that doe so unlesse you conceive a corrupted Church to be none at all and if you doe then for ought I know in your account we must be all Heretiques for all of us acknowledge that the Church might be corrupted even with errors in themselves damnable and not only might but hath been 78 But Schisme consists in being divided from that true Church with which a man agreeth in all points of faith Now we must professe you agree with the Church of Rome in all Fundamentall Articles Therefore we are Schismatiques Ans. Either in your Major by all points of faith you mean all fundamentall points only or all simply and absolutely If the former I deny your Major for I may without all schisme divide from that Church which erres in any point of faith Fundamentall or otherwise if she require the profession of this Errour among the conditions of her Communion Now this is our case If the latter I deny the syllogisme as having manifestly foure termes and being cosen German to this He that obeys God in all things is innocent Titius obeys God in some things Therefore he is innocent 79 But they who judge a reconciliation with the Church of Rome to be damnable they that say there might be iust and necessary cause to depart from it and that they of that Church which haue understanding means to discover their Errour and neglect to use them are not to bee flattered with hope of salvation they doe cut off that Church from the body of Christ and the hope of salvation and so are Schismatiques But D. Potter doth the former therefore is a Schismatique Ans. No he doth not not cut off that whole Church from the hope of salvation not those members of it who were invincibly or excusably ignorant of the truth but those only who having understanding and meanes to discover their errour neglect to use them Now these are not the whole Church therefore he that supposing their impenitence cuts these off from hope of salvation cannot be justly said to cut off that whole Church from the Body of Christ and the hope of salvation 80 Ad § 28. 29. Whereas D. Potter saies There is a great difference between a Schisme from them and a Reformation of our selves this you â—ay is a quaint subtilty by which all Schisme and sinne may be as well excused It seems then in your judgement that theeves and adulterers and murtherers and traytors may say with as much probability as Protestants that they did no hurt to others but only reforme themselves But then me thinks it is very strange that all Protestants should agree with one consent in this defence of themselves from the imputation of Schisme and that to this day never any Theefe or Murtherer should haue been heard of to make use of this Apologie And then for Schismatiques I would know whether Victor Bishop of Rome who excommunicated the Churches of Asia for not conforming to his Church in keeping Easter whether Novatian that divided from Cornelius upon pretence that himselfe was elected Bishop of Rome when indeed he was not whether Felicissimus and his Crew that went out of the Church of Carthage and set up altar against altar because having fallen in persecutioÌ„ they might not be restored to the peace of the Church presently upon the intercession of the Confessours whether the Donatists who divided from and damned all the world because all the world would not excommunicate them who were accused onely and not convicted to haue been Traditors of the sacred Books whether they which for the slips infirmity of others which they might and ought to tolerate or upon some difference in matters of Order Ceremony or for some errour in doctrine neither pernitious nor hurtfull to faith or piety separate themselves from others or others from themselves or lastly whether they that put themselves out of the Churches unity and obedience because their opinions are
generally used as if it may be justly used in any place by those that haue power and think they haue truth certainly they cannot with reason deny but that it may bee used in every place by those that haue power as well as they and think they haue truth as wel as they what could follow but the maintenance perhaps of truth but perhaps onely of the profession of it in one place the oppression of it in a hundred What will follow from it but the preservation peradventure of unity but peradventure only of uniformity in particular States Churches but the immortalizing the greater and more lamentable divisions of Christendome and the world And therefore what can follow from it but perhaps in the judgement of carnall policie the temporall benefit and tranquillity of temporall States and Kingdomes but the infinit prejudice if not the desolation of the kingdome of Christ And therefore it well becomes thē who haue their portions in this life who serve no higher State then that of England or Spain or France nor this neither any further then they may serue themselves by it who thinke of no other happinesse but the preservation of their own fortunes and tranquillity in this world who think of no other meanes to preserve States but humane power and Machiavillian policie and belieue no other Creed but this Regi aut Civitati imperium habenti nihil iniustum quod utile Such men as these it may become to maintaine by worldly power and violence their State instrument Religion For if all be vain and false as in their judgement it is the present whatsoever is better then any because it is already setled and alteration of it may draw with it change of States and the change of State the subversion of their fortune But they that are indeed servants and lovers of Christ of truth of the Church and of man-kinde ought with all courage to oppose themselves against it as a common enemy of all these They that know there is a King of Kings and Lord of Lords by whose will and pleasure Kings and Kingdomes stand and fall they know that to no King or state any thing can be profitable which is unjust and that nothing can be more evidently unjust then to force weak men by the profession of a religion which they believe not to loose their owne eternall happinesse out of a vain and needlesse feare least they may possibly disturb their temporall quietnesse There is no danger to any state from any mans opinion unlesse it be such an opinion by which disobedience to authority or impiety is taught or licenc'd which sort I confesse may justly be punished as well as other faults or unlesse this sanguinary doctrine bee joyn'd with it that it is lawfull for him by humane violence to enforce others to it Therefore if Protestants did offer violence to other mens consciences and compell them to embrace their Reformation I excuse them not much lesse if they did so to the sacred Persons of Kings and those that were in authority over them who ought to be so secur'd from violence that even their unjust and tyrannous violence though it may be avoided according to that of our Saviour When they persecute you in one Citty fly into another yet may it not be resisted by opposing violence against it Protestants therefore that were guilty of this crime are not to be excused and blessed had they been had they chosen rather to be Martyrs then murderers and to dye for their religion rather then to fight for it But of all the men in the world you are the most unfit to accuse them hereof against whō the soules of the Martyrs from under the Altar cry much lowder then against all their other Persecutors together Who for these many ages together haue daily sacrificed Hecatombes of innocent Christians under the name of Heretiques to your blind zeal and furious superstition Who teach plainly that you may propagate your Religion whensoever you haue power by deposing of Kings and invasion of Kingdomes think when you kill the adversaries of it you doe God good service But for their departing corporally from them whom mentally they had forsaken For their forsaking the externall Cōmunion company of that part of the unreformed part of the Church in their superstitions impieties thus much of your accusation we embrace glory in it And say though some Protestants might offend in the manner or the degree of their separation yet certainly their separation it selfe was not Schismaticall but innocent and not only so but just and necessary And as for your obtruding upon D. Potter that he should say There neither was nor could be iust cause to doe so no more then to depart from Christ himselfe I haue shewed divers times already that you sdeal very injuriously with him confounding together Departing from the Church and Departing from some generall opinions and practises which did not constitute but vitiate not make the Church but marre it For though he saies that which is most true that there can be no iust cause to depart from the Church that is to cease being a member of the Church no more then to depart from Christ himself in as much as these are not divers but the same thing yet he no where denies but there might be iust and necessary cause to depart from some opinions and practises of your Church nay of the Catholique Church And therefore you doe vainly to infer that Luther and his followers for so doing were Schismatiques 97 Ad § 35. I answer in a word that neither are Optatus his sayings rules of Faith and therefore not fit to determine Controversies of Faith And then that Majorinus might well be a Schismatique for departing from Ca cilianus and the Chayre of Cyprian Peter without cause and yet Luther and his followers who departed from the Communion of the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of their own Diocesse be none because they had just and necessary cause of their departure For otherwise they must haue continued in the profession of known Errours and the practise of manifest corruptions 98 Ad § 36. In the next Section you tell us that Christ our Lord gaue S. Peter his successors authority over his whole Militant Church And for proof hereof you first referre us to Brerely citing exactly the places of such cheefe Protestants as haue confessed the antiquity of this point Where first you fall into the Fallacy which is called Ignoratio elenchi or mistaking the Question for being to proue this point true you onely prove it ancient Which to what purpose is it when both the parties litigant are agreed that many errors were held by many of the ancient Doctors much more ancient then any of those who are pretended to be confessed by Protestants to haue held with you in this matter and when those whom you haue to doe with and whom it is vain to dispute against but
yee offend against God by troubling his Church without iust and necessary cause Be it that there are some reasons inducing you to think hardly of our Lawes Are those Reasons demonstrative are they necessary or but meer probabilities only An argument necessary and demonstratiue is such as being proposed to any man and understood the minde cannot choose but inwardly assent Any one such reason dischargeth I grant the conscience and setteth it at ful liberty For the publique approbation given by the body of this whole Church unto those things which are established doth make it but probable that they are good And therefore unto a necessary proofe that they are not good it must giue place This plain declaration of his judgement in this matter this expresse limitation of his former resolution hee makes in the very same Section which affords your former quotation and therefore what Apology can bee made for you and your store-house M. Brerely for dissembling of it I cannot possibly imagine 111 D. Potter p. 131. saies That the errors of the Donatists and Novatians were not in themselves Heresies nor could be made so by the Churches determination But that the Churches intention was only to silence disputes and to settle peace and unity in her government which because they factiously opposed they were justly esteemed Schismatiques From hence you conclude that the same condemnation must passe against the first Reformers seeing they also opposed the commands of the Church imposed on them for silencing all disputes and setling Peace and Vnity in government But this collection is deceitfull and the reason is Because though the first Reformers as well as the Donatists and Novatians opposed herein the Commands of the Visible Church that is of a great part of it yet the Reformers had reason nay necessity to doe so the Church being then corrupted with damnable errors which was not true of the Church when it was opposed by the Novatians and Donatists And therefore though they and the Reformers did the same action yet doing it upon different grounds it might in these merit applause and in them condemnation 112 Ad § 43. The next § hath in it some objections against Luthers person but none against his cause which alone I have undertaken to justify therefore I passe it over Yet this I promise that when you or any of your side shall publish a good defence of all that your Popes have said done especially of them whom Bellarmin beleeves in such a long train to have gone to the Divell then you shall receive an ample Apology for all the actions and words of Luther In the mean time I hope all reasonable and equitable judges will esteeme it not unpardonable in the great and Heroicall spirit of Luther if being opposed and perpetually baited with a world of Furies hee were transported sometimes and made somewhat furious As for you I desire you to be quiet and to demand no more whether God be wont to send such Furies to preach the Gospell Vnlesse you desire to heare of your killing of Kings Massacring of Peoples Blowing up of Parliaments and have a minde to be ask't whether it bee probable that that should bee Gods cause which needs to bee maintained by such Divellish meanes 112 Ad § 44. 45. In the two next Particles which are all of this Chapter that remain unspoken to you spend a great deale of reading wit reason against some men who pretending to honour believe the Doctrine practice of the visible Church you mean your own and condemning their Forefathers who forsook her say they would not have done so yet remain divided from her Communion Which men in my judgement cannot be defended For if they believe the Doctrine of your Church then must they believe this doctrine that they are to returne to your Communion And therefore if they doe not so it cannot be avoided but they must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so I leave them only I am to remember you that these men cannot pretend to be Protestants because they pretend to believe your doctrine which is opposite in Diameter unto the doctrine of Protestants and therefore in a worke which you professe to have written meerly against Protestants all this might have been spared CHAP. VI. That Luther and the rest of Protestants have added Heresie unto Schisme BECAVSE Vice is best knowne by the contrary Vertue we cannot well determine what Heresie is nor who be Heretiques but by the opposite vertue of Faith whose Nature being once understood as farre as belongs to our present purpose we shall passe on with ease to the definition of Heresie and so be able to discerne who be Heretiques And this I intend to doe not by entring into such particular Questions as are controverted between Catholiques and Protestants but only by applying some generall grounds either already proved or else yeelded to on all sides 2 Almighty God having ordained Man to a supernaturall End of Beatitude by supernaturall meanes it was requisite that his Vnderstanding should be enabled to apprehend that End and meanes by a supernaturall knowledge And because if such a knowledge were no more then probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbeare our Will and encounter with human probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and blood It was further necessary that this supernaturall knowledge should be most certaine and infallible and that Faith should beleeue nothing more certainly then that it self is a most certain Beliefe and so be able to beat downe all gâ—y probabilities of humane Opinion And because the aforesaid Means and end of Beatificall Vision do farre exceed the reach of naturall wit the certainty of faith could not alwaies be joyned with such evidence of reason as is wont to be found in the Principles or Conclusions of humane naturall Sciences that so all flesh might not glory in the arme of flesh but that he who glories should glory in our Lord Moreover it was expedient that our belief or assent to divine truths should not only be unknowne or inevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it self and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernaturall evidence that so we might have occasion to actuate and testifie the obedience which we owe to our God noâ— only by submitting our Will to this Will and Commands but by subjecting also our Vnderstanding to this Wisdome and Words captivating as the Apostle speaks the same Vnderstanding to the Obedience of Faith Which occasion had been wanting if Almighty God had made â—â—â—ere to us the truths which now are certainly but not evidently presented to our minds For where Truth doth manifestly open it self not obedience but necessity commands our assent For this reason Divines teach that the Objects of Faith being not evident to humane reason it is in mans power not only to abstaine from believing by suspending our Iudgments or exercising no act one
of a more powerfull principality there is a necessity that all the Churches that is all the faithfull round about should resort in which the Apostolique Tradition hath been alwaies observed by those who were round about If any man say I have been too bold a Critick in substituting observata instead of conseruata I desire him to know that the conjecture is not mine and therefore as I expect no praise for it so I hope I shall be farre from censure But I would intreat him to consider whether it be not likely that the same greek word signifying observo and conservo the Translater of Irenaeus who could hardly speak Latine might not easily mistake and translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conservata est instead of observata est Or whether it be not likely that those men which ancienly wrote Books and understood them nor might not easily commit such an error Or whether the sense of the place can be salved any other way if it can in Gods name let it if not I hope he is not to be condemned who with such a little alteration hath made that sense which he found non sense 30 But whether you will have it Observata or Conservata the new sumpsimus or the old mumpsimus possibly it may be something to Irenaus but to us or our cause it is no way materiall For if the rest be rightly translated neither will Conservata afford you any argument against us nor Observata helpe us to any evasion For though at the first hearing the glorious attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Heretiques with her tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet hee that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rationall in Irenaeus having to doe with Heretiques who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholiques declining a tryall by Scripture as not contayning the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rationall in Iraeneus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit then their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contain'd in it and yet that it may be irrationall in you to urge us who doe not decline Scripture but appeale to it as a perfect rule of faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many wayes repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more generall then it self which gives Testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrines plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a far greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was Vnited with all other Apostolique Churches then now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be errour but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that foureteen hundred yeares may have made a great deale of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though neere the fountain they may retaine their native and unmixt syncerity yet in long progresse cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corrupt and impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus plaies the Historian only and not the Prophet and saies only that the Apostolique Tradition had been alwayes there as in other Apostolique Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be alwayes so he saies not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Anti-christ that the Roman Church in particular was forewarned that she also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they look not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appeares manifestly out of this book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his judgment Apostolique Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appeares to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgments in the point are any way recorded are for it and Iustine Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodoxe Christians of his time beleeved it and those that did not he reckons amongst Heretiques Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Irenaeus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Hereticall and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto Errour by holding contradictions Fiftly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noone that though Irenaeus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the doctrine which he there delivers and defends against the Heretiques of his time viz that there was one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witnesse of Tradition in generall Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaim'd the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon the Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Irenaeus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrine and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of his excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Heretiques though separated and cut off from the Roman Church Cardinall Perron to avoyd the stroak of this conuincing argument raiseth a cloud of eloquent words which because you borrow them of him in your Second part I will here insert and with short censures dispell and let his Idolaters see that Truth is
assuraneâ— whereon we rest b The whole Church that he speaks of seemes to be that particular Church wherein a man is bred and brought up and the authority of this he makes an argument which presseth a mans modesty more then his reason And in saying it seemes impudent to be of a contrary mind without cause he implyes There may be a just cause to be of a contrary mind and that then it were no impudence to be so c Therefore the authority of the Church is not the pause whereon we rest we had need of more assurance and the intrinsecall arguments afford it d Somewhat but not much untill it be back'd and inforced by farther reason it selfe therefore is not the farthest reason and the last resolution e Observe I pray our persuasion and the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture may be proved true therefore neither of them was in his account the farthest proofe f Naturall reason then built on principles common to all men is the last resolution unto which the Churches authority is but the first inducement a Neque enim sic pasuit integritas atque notitia literarum quamlibet illustris Episcopi custodiri quemadmodum scriptura Canonica tot linguarum literis ordine successione celebrationis Ecclesiasticae cusâ—oditur contra quam non defuerunt tamen qui sub nonâ—â—ibus Apostolâ—rum multa confingereâ—t Frustra quidem Quia illa sic commendata sic celebrata sic nota est Ferum quid poâ—sit adversus literas non Canonica authoritate fundaâ—as etiam hinc demonstrabit impiae 〈◊〉 audaciae quod adversus eos quae tanta notitiae mole firmatae sunt fese erigere non praetermisit Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent contra Donat Rogat b In hac Germani textâ—s pervestigatione satis perspicue inter omnes constat nullum argumentum esse certius ac famius quam antiquorum probatorum codicum latinorum fidem c. sic Sixtus in praefat Pro Edit vulg c. 21. p. 99. Bell. deverbâ— Deil. 2. c. 11. p. 120. a See Greg. Mor. l. 19. c. 13. b Thus he testifies Com in Esa. c. 6. in these words Vnde Paulas Apost in Epist. ad Heb. quam Latina consuetudo non recipit and again in c. 8. in these In Ep. quâ—e ad Hebâ—aeos scribitur licet eam Latina Consuâ— etudo inter Canoincas Scripturas no recipiat c. * Contra Parmâ—a l. 5. in Prin. Irenaeus l. 3. c. 3. Bellarm. de veâ—bo Dei l. 4. c 11. a Pag. 209. b Charity Mistaken cap. 8. Pagâ— 75. c Pag. 211 d Pag. 212 e Pag. 250 f Pag. 246. g Pag. 246. h Sub. Leon. â—0 Sess. 11. i Cap. 13. v. â— k Cap. ult v. 18. l Pag. 122. m Mar. 16. 18. n Ioan. 16. 13. o In his Sermons Serm. 2. pag. 50. p Pag. 150. q Ioan. c. 16. 13. c. â—4 16. r Pag. 151. 152. s Epist. 118. t Lib. 4. de Bapt. c. 24. u Lib. 10. de Gene â—i ad liter cap. 23. w Serm. 14. de verbis Apost c. 18. x See Protocoll Monâ—â—ch edit 2. p. 307. y Lib. 1. cont Crescon cap. 32. 34. z De â—nit Eccles c. 19. a De Bapt. cont Donat. lib. 5. cap. 23. b Hom. 4. c De Sacra Script p. 678. d â—p 119. e Instit. l. 4. Cap. 2 f Cent. Ep. Theol. ep 74. g In Assertionib art 36 h Tract 1. c. 2. Sect. 14. after F. i Cap. 1. v. 4. k Chark in the Tower disputation the 4. daies conference l Fox Act. Mon p. 402. m The Confession of Bohemia in the Harmony of Consessions pag. 253. n Tract 3. Sect. 7. vnder m. n. 15. o In his answer to a Popish pamphlet p. 68 p Vid. Gul. Reginald Calv. Turcis lib. â— c. 6. q Pag. 113. 114. Motton in his Treatise of the kingdome of Israel p. 94. r Pag. 121. s Pag. 122. t Comment in Mat. c. 16. u Pag. 123. w Pag. 253. x A moderate examination c. c. 1. paulò post initium y Pag. 126. a Pag. 241. b P. 215. c Pag. 75 d Pag. 97. e Mat. 16. f Ioan. 14. g Ioan. 16. h 1. Tim. c. 3. i Ephes. 4. k Pag. 151. 153. l Deutil cred cap. 8. a Prov. 16. 33. b Prov. 16. 10. c Prov. 21. 1. d Mat. 18. 20. e Mat. 2. 7. f Mat. 25. 2. g Mat. 28. 20. h Luk. 10. 16. i Heb. 13. 17. k Ephes. 4. 11. l 1. Tim. 3. 15. m Mat. 18. 17. n Mat. 7. 8. o Ia. 1. 5. p Isay. 59. 21. a Luk. 12. 48. b 6. Heb. 11. a 1. Cor. 11. 28. b 1. Cor. 14. 15. 16. 26. a De Corona Militis c. 3. 4. Where having recounted sundry unwritten Traditions then observed by Christâ—ans many whereof by the way notwithstanding the Councell of Trents profession to receive them and the written word with like affection of Piety are now rejected and neglected by the Church of Rome For example Immersion in Baptism Tasting a mixture of milke and honey presently after Abstaining from Bathes for a weeke after Accounting it an impiety to â—ray kneeling on the Lords day or between Easter and Pentecost I say having reckoned up these and other Traditions in the 3. chapt He addes another in the fourth of the Veiling of Women And then addes Since I find no law for this it followes that Tradition must have given this observation to custome which shall gaine in time Apostolique authority by the interpretation of the reason it By these examples therefore it is declared that the observing of unwritten Tradition being confirmed by custome may bee defended The perseverance of the observation being a good testimoâ—y of the goodnesse of the Tradition Now custome even in civill affaires where a Law is wanting passes for a law Neither is it materiall whether it be grounded on Scripture or reason seeing reason is commendâ—tion enough for a law Moreover if law be grounded on reason all that must be law which is so grounded A quocanq productum Whosoever is the producer of it Doe ye thinke it is not lawfull Omni fideli for every faithfull man to conceive and constitute Provided he constitute only what is not repugnant to Gods will what is conducible for discipline and available to salvation seeing the Lord sayes why even of our selves judge yee nor what is right And a little after This reason now demand saving the respect of the Tradition A quocunque Traditore ceâ—seâ—ur nec auctorem respiciens sed Auctoritatem From whatsoever Tradition it comes neither regard the Author but the Authority b Hier. * Perâ—on a Cap. 3. n. 3. b Pag. 216. c Pag 24â— e Pag. 216. f Pag. 216. g Pag. 216. h 2. 2 q. 1. Art 8. k Pag. 235 215. l 2 2. q. 1. art 8. ad 6 m Pag. 231. n De Peâ—cat Orig. lib. 2. c. 22 p Pap. 235. q Heb. 11. 6. r Pag. 35â— s