annexed to any peculiar Men or Company of Men distinct from others by Prerogative of Place Preheminence of Succession and from him or them to be derived unto all others set apart for this Ministerie or whether the Ministerie of any men of what Place or Societie soever whom God hath called to this Function and enabled for the same be sufficient for the begetting of true Faith without any others Confirmation or Approbation of their Doctrine 9 Secondly it is questioned how this Ministery of Man which is necessarily supposed ordinarily both for knowing the Word of God and the true Meaning of it becomes available for the begetting of true Belief in either point In whomsoever the Authoritie of this Ministerial Function be the Question is whether it perform thus much only by Proposing or Expounding the Word which is Infallible or by their Infallible Proposal or Exposition of it that is whether for the attaining of true Belief in both Points mentioned we must relie infallibly upon the Infallible VVord of God only or partly upon it and partly upon the Infallibility of such as expound it unto us Or in other words thus whether the Authoritie or Infallibilitie of any Mans Doctrine or Asseveration concerning these Scriptures or their true Sense be as infallibly to be Believed as those Scriptures themselves are or that Sense of them which the spirit of God hath wrought in our Hearts by sure and undoubted Experience 10 These are the principal Roots and Fountains of Difference between us concerning our present Controversie whence issue and spring these following First Whether Christ whose Authoritie both acknowledge for Infallible hath left any Publick Judge of these Scriptures which both receive or of their right Sense and Meaning from whose Sentence we may not appeal or whether all to whom this Ministrie of Faith is committed be but Expositors of Divine Scriptures so as their Expositions may by all faithful Christians be examined Hence ariseth that other Question whether the Scriptures be the Infallible Rule of Faith If Scripture admit any Judge then is it no Rule of Faith If all Doctrines are to be examined by Scripture then is it a perfect Rule 11 Our Adversaries especially later Jesuites Positions are these The Infallible Authoritie of the present Church that is of some visible Companie of living Men must be as absolutely Believed of all Christians as any Oracle of God and hence would they bind all such as proâ—esse the Catholick Faith in all Causes concerning the Oracles or Word of God to yield the same Obedience unto Decrees and Constitutions of the Church which is due unto these Oracles themselves even to such of them as all Faithful Hearts do undoubtedly know to be Gods written Word 12 The Reasons pretended for this absolute Obedience to be performed unto the Church or visible Company of Men are drawn from the Insufficiency of Scripture either for notifying it self to be the Word of God or the true Sense and Meaning of it self Consequently to these Objections they stifly maintain That the Infallible Authority of the present Church is the mosâ— sure most safe undoubted Rule in all Doubts or Controversies of Faith or in all Points concerning these Oracles of God by which we may certainly know Both without which we cannot possibly know either which are the Oracles of God which not or what is the true Sense and Meaning of such as are received for his Oracles one of the especial Consequents of these Assertions is That this Churches Decisions or Decrees may not be examined by Scriptures 13 Our Churches Assertions concerning the knowledge of Gods Word in general is thus As Gods Word is in it self Infallible so it may be infallibly apprehended and Believed by every Christian unto whom he vouchsafeth to speak after what manner soever he speak unto him Yea whatsoever is necessary for any man to Believe the same must be infallibly written in his heart and on it once written there he must immediately relie not upon any other Authoritie concerning it 14 Or if we speak of Gods written Word our former general Assertion may be restrained thus 15 We are not bound to Believe the Authority of the Church or visible Companiâ— of any living men either concerning the Truth or true Sense of Divine Oracles written so stedfastly and absolutely as we are bound to Believe the Divine written Oracles themselves Consequently to this Assertion we affirm 16. The the Inâ—allible Rule whereupon every Christian in matters of written Verities absolutely and finally without all appeal condition or reservation is to relie must be the Divine written Oracles themselves some of which every Christian hath written in his Heart by the finger of Gods Spirit and Believes immediately In and For themselves not for any Authoritie of Men and these to him must be the Rule for examining all other Doctrines and trying any Masters of Faith But because most in our daies in Matters of Faith and Christian Obedience misse the Celestial Mean and fall into one of the two extreams It shall not be amisse while we seek to divert their course from Sylla to admonish lest they make shipwrack in Charybdis CAP. IV. Shewing the Mean betwixt the two Extremities the one in Excesse proper to the Papists the other in Defect proper to the Anti-papist 1 IT is a Rule in Logick that Two contrary Propositions for their form may be both False And hence it is that many Controversers of our times either in love to the Cause they defend or heat of contention not content only to Contradict but desirous to be most Contrarie to their Adversaries fal into Errour with them No Controversie almost of greater moment this day extant but yields Experiments of this Observation though none more plentiful then this in hand concerning the visible Churches Authoritie or Obedience due to Spiritual Pastours 2 The Papists on the one side demand Infallible Assent and illimited Obedience unto whatsoever the Church shall propose without examination of her Doctrine or appeal which is indeed as we shall afterwards prove to takeaway all the Authority of Gods Word and to erect the present Churches Consistorie above Moses and S. Peters Chair On the other side sundrie by profession Protestants in eagernesse of opposition to the Papists affirm that the Church or Spiritual Pastors must then only be Believed then only be Obeyed when they give Sentence according to the Evident and Expresse Law of God made evident to the Hearts and Consciences of such as must Believe and Obey them And this in one word is to take away all Authoritie of Spiritual Pastors and to deprive them of all Obedience unto whom doubtlesse God by his written Word hath given some special Authoritie and Right to exact some peculiar Obedience of their Flock Now if the Pastor be then only to be Obeyed when he brings evident Commission out of Scripture for those particulars unto which he demands Belief or Obedience
heard or learned from his godly Ancestors doth but trace out the Print of Moses footsteps almost obliterate and overgrown by the sloth and negligence of former Times wherein every man had trod what way he liked best And though the same Prophet descend to later Ages as low as Davids Yet he proceeds still by the same Rule relating nothing but such Historical Events or Experiments as confirm the Truth of Moses divine Predictions such as are yet extant in Canonical Scriptures So perfect and absolute in his judgement was that Part of the Old Testament which then was written to instruct not only the Men such as he was but every Child of God that he presumes not to know or teach more them in It was written And thus much this people should have done by Moses Precept without a Prophet for their Remembrancer And these Words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart And thou shalt rehearse them continually unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou tarriest in thine house and as thou walkest by the way and when thâ—… liesi down and when thou risest up And thou shalt bind them for a Sign upon thine hand and they shall be as Frontlets between thine eyes Also thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine house and upon thy gates And again Sâ—t your hearts unto all the Words which I command you this day that you may command them unto your children that they may observe and do all the Words of this Law For it is no vain Word concerning you but it is your Life and by this Word you shall prolong your dayes 2 Questionlesse they that were bound to observe and do this Law were bound to know it and yet Moses refers them not to his Successor as if it were so obscure that it could not possibly be known without his Infallibility but on the contrary he supposeth it so plain and easie that every Father might instruct his Son in it and every Mother her Daughter It was their own daily Experience of the fruits and benefits in Obeying of their harms and plagues in Disobeying his Precepts which was to seal their Truth unto their Consciences For without such Observation without squaring their Lives and comparing their Thoughts and Actions unto this streight and plain Rule all other Testimonies of men or Authorities of their most infallible Teachers were in vain The Miracles which they had seen to day were quite forgotten ere nine dayes after Nor could their Perswasions or conceit of Moses Infallibility serve them for any Rule when they had shaken off these inward Cogitations and measured not the Truth of his Predictions by Experiments In their Temptations they were as ready to disclaim Moses as alwayes they were to distrust God whose mighty Wonders they had seen To what use then did the sight of all Gods Wonders or of Miracles wrought by Moses serve Motives they were necessary and excellent to incline their stubborn hearts to use this Law of God for their Rule in all their Actions and proceedings and to cause them set their hearts unto it as Moses in his last Words commands them For this Law as he had told them before was in their Hearts 3 Would any man that doth fear the Lord or reverence his Word but set his heart to read over this Book of Deuteronomy or the one hundred and nineteenth with sundry other Psalms but with ordinary Observation or attention that so the Character of Gods Spirit so lively imprinted in them might be as an Amulet to prevent the Jesuites Inchantments It would be impossible for all the wit of Men or Angels ever to fasten the least suspicion on his thoughts whether the Ancient Faithful Israelites did take this Law of Moses for their Infallible Rule in all their proceedings For nothing can be made more evident then this Truth is in it self That the Israelites Swarving from this Rule was the Cause of their departure from their God and the Occasion or Cause of their Swarving from it was this devilish Perswasion which Satan suggested to them then as the Jesuites do unto the Christian People now That this Law was too Obscure too Hard too Difficult to be understood no compleat Rule for their actions without Traditions or relying upon their Priests or Men in chief Authority This Hypocrisie Moses did wel foresee would be the beginning of all their Miseries the very Watch-word to Apostasie For which Cause he labours so seriously to prevent it Deut 30. 14. For this Commandment which I set before thee this day is not hid from thee neither far off but the Word is very near unto thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart to do it How was it in their Mouthes and in their Hearts when it was so obscure and difficult unto them after Moses Death It was in their Hearts and in their Posterity too had they set their hearts to it But as it is true Pars sanitatis est velle sanari It is a part of Health to be willing to be healed so was it here Pars morbi nolle sanari more then a part of this their grievous Disease their Blindnesse of heart was their pronenesse to be perswaded that this Word or Doctrine which Moses here taught was too Obscure and Difficult for them to follow They first began as the Jesuites do to pick Quarrels with God for which their Stubbornnesse he gave them over to their hearts desire And this his Sacred Word which should have been a Lantern unto their feet and a Light unto their paths as it was to Davids became a stumbling Block and a Stone of offence 1 Cor. 1. 23. What was the reason By their swarving from this plain and straight Rule their wayes became crooked and their actions unjust And it is the Observation of the wise Son of Sirach As Gods wayes are right and plain unto the just so are they stumbling Blocks unto the wicked Not Moses himself had he been then alive could have made this or any other true Rule of Faith plain unto these Jews whilest they remained perverse and stubborn And had they without Moses or any infallible Teachers help cast off this Crookednesse of heart Moses his infallible Doctrine had stil remained easie streight and plain unto them For it was in their Hearts though hid and smothered in the Wrinkles of their crooked Hearts In our Saviours time they wil not assent unto the Word written nor unto the Eternal Word unto which all the Writings of the Prophets gave Testimony unlesse they may see a Signe What was the Cause They had not laid Moses Commandments to their hearts For had they from their hearts Believed Moses they had Believed Christ For all whose Miracles wrought for their good in their sight and presence they cannot or wil not see that his Words were The Words of Eternal Life as Peter confesseth John 6. 68. Nor would any Jesuite
with other stand mutually affected how both subordinate to the absolute immutability of that one everlasting decree Want of resolution in these points as far as my observation serves me hath continually bred an universal threefold want of care and vigilancie for preventing dangers in themselves avoidable of alacrious indeavors to redeem time in part surprized by them of patience of hearty submission to Gods will and constant expectation of his providence after all hope of redemption from temporal plagues long threatned by his messengers is past For here we suppose what out of the fundamental principles of Christian religion shall in good time be made evident that in all ruinated states or forepast alterations of religion from better to worse there was a time wherein the possibility of misfortunes which afterwards befel them might have been prevented a time wherein they might have been recovered from eminent dangers wherewith they were encompast a time after which there was no possibility left them of avoyding the day of visitation never brought forth but by the precedent fulness of iniquity but alwaies necessarily by it In the discussion of these and other points of like nature because more depending upon strict examination of consequences deduced from the undoubted rules of Scripture then upon authorities of antiquitie skill in the tongues or any other learning that required long experience or observation I laboured most whilest those Arts and Sciences which are most conducible to this search were freshest in my memory And could I hope to satisfie others in all or most of these as fully as I have long since done my self I should take greatest pleasure in my pains addressed to this purpose But would it please the Lord in mercy to raise up some English writer that could in such sort handle these points as their use and consequence or necessity of present times requires succeeding ages I am perswaded should have more cause to bless the day of his nativity then of the greatest States-mens or stoutest Warriors this land hath yielded since the birth of our Fathers this day living It shall suffice he to begin the offering with my mite in hope some learned Academicks for unto them belongs the conquest of this golden fleece will employ their Talents to like publick use What I conceive shall be by Gods assistance unfolded in as plain and unoffensive terms as the nature of the subject will bear or my faculties reach unto partly in the Article of Gods providence partly in other discourses directly subordinate unto it Lastly for the full and perfect growth at least for the sweet and pleasant flourishing of lively Faith one of the most effectual means our industry that can but plant or water attains unto would be to unfold the harmony betwixt Prophetical predictions and Historical events concerning the Kingdom of Christ and time of the Gospel a point for ought I know not purposely handled by any modern writer except those whose success cannot be great until their delight in contention and contradiction be less Notwithstanding whatsoever I shall find good in them or any other without all respect of persons much more without all desire of opposition or occasion of contention a matter alwaies undecent in a Christian but most odious and lothsom in a subject so melodious and pleasant I will not be afraid to follow intending a full Treatise of the divers kindes of Prophecies with the manner of their interpretations before the Articles of Christs Incarnation Passion and Ascension These are the especial points which for the better confirmation of true Christian faith and rectifying perswasions in matters of manners or good life are principally aimed at in these meditations The main obstacle the Atheist stumbles at is the Article of the bodies resurrection Whose passive possibility shall by Gods assistance be evidently demonstrated against him by the undoubted rules of nature whose Priest or Minister he professeth himself to be That de facto it shall be the Scriptures whose truth ere then will appear Divine must assure us Nature cannot though thus much were in some sort known and believed by many natural men from traditions of the ancient or suspected from some notions of the law of nature not quite obliterated in all sorts of the heathen as shall in that Article God willing be observed But why our Assent unto this and all other Articles in this Creed being in good measure established the momentary hopes or transitory pleasures of this world should with most in their whole course of life with all of us in many particular actions in private and secret temptations more prevail then that exceeding weight of glory which Christian hope would fasten on our souls to keep unruly affections under hath often enforced me to wonder and wonderment hereat first moved me to untertake these labors if by any means I may attain unto the causes of this so grievous an infirmity or find out some part of a remedy for it Doubtless had the heathen Philosophers but known or suspected such joyes as we profess we believe and hope for or such a death or more then deadly torments as after this life ended we fear their lives and manners would as far have surpassed the best Christians now living as their knowledge in supernatural mysteries came short of the most learned that are or have been in that profession and yet whatsoever helps any Christian or heathen had for encreasing knowledge or bettering manners are more plentiful in this then any precedent age so that the fault is wholly in our selves that will not apply medicines already prepared as shall God prospering these proceedings be declared in the last Article of this Creed For controversies betwixt us and the Romish Church besides such are directly opposite to the end and method proposed I purposely meddle with none of that rank some as that of the Churches infallibility undermine the very foundation others as the doctrine of merit and justification the propitiation of the Mass unroof the edifice and deface the walls of Christian faith leaving nothing thereof but altarstones for their idolatrous sacrifices For this reason have I built with one hand used my weapon with the other laying the positive or general grounds of Faith against the Infidel or Atheist in the first Book and gaurding them in the second by the sword of the Spirit against all attempts of Romish Sanballats or Tobiahs who still labor to perswade our people the walls of Christs Church here erected since our fore-fathers redemption from captivity unless supported by their supposed infallibility are so weak That if a Fox should go upon them he should break them down In the third which was at this time intended but must stay a while to bring forth a fourth I batter those painted walls whose shallow foundations are discovered in the second The other controversies about the propitiatory sacrifices of the Mass Merits and Justification I prosecute in the Articles of Christs Passion and
God said unto him by a dream I know that thou didst this even with an upright minde and I kept thee also that thou shouldest not sin against me therefore suffered I not thee to touch her Now then deliver the man his wife again for he is a Prophet and he shall pray for thee that thou mayest live but if thou deliver her not again be sure that thou shalt die the death thou and all that thou hast And Moses witnesseth the ordinarie Prophecie of Ancient times to have consisted of dreams and visions Numb 12. 6 7. If there be a Prophet of the Lord amongst you I will be known unto him by a vision and will speak unto him by a dream My servant Moses is not so that is he is no ordinary Prophet unto him will I speak mouth to mouth and by vision and not in dark words but he shall see the similitude of the Lord. 3 These allegations sufficiently prove that night-dreams and visions were frequent and their observation if taken in sobriety to good use in Ancient times even amongst the Nations until they forgot as Joseph said That interpretations were from God and sought to finde out an Art of interpreting them Then night-visions did either cease or were so mixt with delusions that they could not be discerned or if their events were in some sort fore seen yet men being ignorant of Gods providence commonly made choice of such means for their avoidance as proved the necessary occasions or provocations of the events they feared 4 Much better was the temper of the Nations before Homers time They amongst other kindes of prophecyings and Sooth-sayings held dreams and their interpretations as all other good gifts to be from God As no evil was done in the Grecian Camp which the Gods in their opinion did not cause so Homer brings in Achilles advising Agamemnon to consult their Gods interpreters with all speed for what offence committed against them they had sent the Pestilence into their Camp 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But to what Priest or Prophet shall we wend Or Dreamer for even Dreams from Jove descend All those kindes of Predictions had been in use amongst the Heathens as they were amongst the Israelites albeit in later times they grew rare in both for the encrease of wickednesse throughout the World the multiplicity of businesse and solicitude of Humane affairs and mens too much minding of politick means and other second causes of their own good did cause the defect of true dreams and other divine admonitions for the welfare of mankinde 5 This cause the Scriptures give us 1 Sam. 28. 6. Saul who had followed the Fashions of other Nations not the prescripts of Gods Word asked counsel of the Lord but the Lord answered him not neither by dreams nor by Urim nor by Prophets His sins had made a separation between him and the God of Israel who for this cause will not afford his presence to his Priests or Prophets that came as mediators betwixt Saul and him much lesse would he vouchsafe his Spirit unto such Priests or Prophets as were carnally minded themselves This was a rule so well known to the people of God that Strabo from the tradition of it for Moses his story he had not read reckons up this as a special point of Moses his doctrine concerning the worship of the God of Israel his words are to this effect Moses taught that such as lived chastly and uprightly should be inspired with true visions by night and such men it was meet should consult the Divine Powers in the Temple by night-visions but others who were not so well minded ought not to intrude themselves into this sacred businesse or if they would they were to expect no true visions but Illusions or idle Dreams from God they were not to expect any Yet may it not be denied but that the Heathens were oft-times by Gods permission truly resolved by Dreams or Oracles though ministred by Devils of events that should come but seldome were such resolutions for their good So the Witch which Saul most Heathen-like consulted when God had cast him off did procure him a true prediction of his fearful end This is a point wherein I could be large but I will conclude As the Heathens relations of sundry events usual in Ancient times confirm the truth of the like recorded in Scripture so the Scriptures give the true causes of their Being Ceasing or Alteration which the corrupt and Polypragmatical disposition of later Ages without revelation from the cause of causes and disposer of times could never have dreamed of as may partly appear from what hath been said of Dreams more fully from that which follows next of Oracles CAP. X. Of Oracles I Have often and daily occasion for the satisfaction of my minde in sundry questions that might otherwise have vext me to thank my God that as he made me a Reasonable Creature and of a Reasonable Creature a Student or Contemplator so He did not make me a meer Philosopher though Plato thought this deserved the greatest thanks as being the greatest benefit bestowed upon him by his God but never was I more incited in this respect to blesse the day wherein I was made a Christian then when I read Plutarchs Tract of the causes why Oracles ceased in his time Whether Heathen Oracles were all illusions of Devils or some uttered by God himself for their good though oft-times without successe by reason of their curiosity and superstition I now dispute not That Oracles in ancient times had been frequent that such events had been foretold by them as surpassed the skill of humane reason all Records of unpartial Antiquity bear uncontrollal le evidence Nor did the Heathen Philosophers themselves which lived in the Ages immediately following their decay call the truth of their former use in question but from Admiration of this known change they were incited to search the cause of their ceasing Plutarch after his acute search of sundry causes and accurate Philosophical disputes refers it partly unto the Absence of his Demoniacal Spirits which by his Philosophy might dy or flit from place to place either exiled by others more potent or upon some other dislike and partly unto the alteration of the soyl wherein Oracles were seated which yeelded not Exhalations of such a divine temper as in former times it had done and without a certain temperature of exhalations or breathing of the Earth the Demoniacal Spirits he thought could not give their Oracles more then a Musitian can play without an Instrument And this decay or alteration of the soyl of Delphi and like places was in his judgement probable from the like known experience in sundry Rivers Lakes and hot-Baths which in some places did quite dry up and vanish in others much decay for a long time or change their course and yet afterwards recover their former course or strength either in the same places
had been often consulted it is evident and that oftentimes the Devils deluded such as consulted them is as manifest But since that saying of the Prophet was fulfilled I will put my law in their inward parts and write in their hearts since the knowledge of Truth hath been so plenteously made known and revealed and the principles of Religion so much dilated and enlarged by discourse the Devil hath chosen proud hearts and busie brains for his Oracles seeking by their subtilty of wit and plausibility of discourse to counterfeit and corrupt the form of wholesome Doctrine as he did of old the truth of Gods visible Oracles by his Apish Imitations 3 This conclusion then is evident both from the joynt authority of all Ancient Writers as well prophane as sacred That God in former times had spoken unto the world by Dreams Visions Oracles Priests and Prophets and that such revelations had been amongst the Israelites as the Stars or Night-Lamps amongst the Heathen as Meteors fiery Apparitions or wandering Comets for their direction in the time of darknesse and ignorance But when both the sensible experience of our times and the relations of former Ages most unpartial in this case have sufficiently declared unto us That all the former Twinckling Lights are vanished the reason of this alteration I see men might seek by Natural Causes as Plutarch did but this doubt is cleared and the question truly resolved by our Apostle in these words At sundry times and in diverse manners God spake in the old time to our Fathers by the Prophets in these last dayes he hath spoken unto us by his Son whom he hath made Heir of all things by whom also he made the world who being as the Apostle there saith the Brightnesse of his glory hath put the former lights which shined in darknesse to flight The consideration hereof confirms that truth of our Apostle to all such as are not blinded in heart where he saith That the night was past and the day was come For the suddain vanishing of all former lights about this time assigned by Christians of our Saviours Birth abundantly evince That this was the Sun of Righteousnesse which as the Prophet had foretold should arise unto the world It was the light which had lately appeared in the Coasts of Jurie then approaching Italy Greece and other of these Western Countreys which did cause these sons of darknesse the demoniacal Spirits to flit Westward as Darknesse it self doth from the face of the Sun when it begins to appear in the East And Plutarch tels us That after they had forsaken the Countrey of Greece they hanted little desart Islands near adjoyning to the coasts of this our Britanie where they raised such hideous storms and tempests as Navigators report they have done of late in that Island called by their own Name Both reports had their times of truth and the like may be yet true in some places more remote from commerce of Christians But the Heathen as Heathenish minded men do even to this day sought the reasons of such alterations from sensible Agents or second Causes which have small affinity with those effects or if they had yet the disposition of such causes depends wholly upon his will who though most Immutable in Himself changeth times and seasons at His pleasure And wheresoever the light of his Gospel cometh it verifieth that saying of our Apostle Ecce vetera transierunt nova facta sunt omnia And new times yield new observations which cannot be taken aright nor their causes known without especial directions from this rule of Life By which it plainly appeareth that the second main Period of the World since the Floud whose beginning we account from the promulgation of the Law and the distinction of the Israelites from other people until the time of Grace yields great alteration and matter of much different observation from the former And in the declining or later part of this second age we have described unto us as it were an Ebbe or stanch in the affairs of the Kingdom of Israel going before the general Fulnesse of Time After which we see the Tenor of all things in Jurie and of other Kingdoms of the world quite changed But the particulars of this change I intend to handle hereafter I now would prosecute my former observations of the old world 4 Continually whilest we compare Ancient Poets or stories with the Book of Genesis and other volumes of sacred Antiquity these sacred books give us the pattern of the waking thoughts of Ancient times And the Heathen Poems with other fragments of Ethnick writings whose entire bodies though not so aged as the former being but the works of men have perished contain the dreams and fancies which succeeding ages by hear-say and broken reports had conceived concerning the same or like matters So no doubt had God disposed that the delight which men took in the uncertain Glimpse of truth in the one should enure their mindes the better to observe the light which shineth in the other and that the unstable variety of the one should prepare mens hearts more stedfastly to imbrace the truth and stability of the other when it should be revealed unto them And as any man almost if he be observant of his former actions cogitations and occurrents may find out the occasion how dreams though in themselves oftentimes prodigious absurd and foolish come into his Brain or Fancie so may any judicious man from the continual and serious observation of this Register of truth find out the Original at least of all the principal heads or common places of Poetical fictions or ancient Traditions which cannot be imagined they should ever have come into any mans fancy unlesse from the Imitation of some Historical truth or the Impulsion of real events stirring up admiration I or Admiration as shall afterward appear did breed and Imitation spoil the divine Art of Poetry CAP. XI Of the Apparitions of the Heathen Gods and their Heroicks 1 WEre all the works of Ancient Poets utterly lost and no tradition or print of their inventions left so as the art of Poetrie were to begin anew and the Theatre to be raised from the ground the most curious wits in this or near adjoyning Countreys might for many generations to come Beat their Brains and sift their Fancies until they had run over all the formes and compositions which the whole Alphabet of their Fantasmes could afford before they could ever dream of bringing the gods in visible shape upon the Stage or interlacing their Poems with their often apparitions And unlesse ensuing times should yield matter of much different observations from that which these present do this invention would be accounted dull and find but sorry and unwelcome entertainment of the auditors or spectators That the like invention findes some acceptation now it is because mens mindes have been possessed with this conceit from the tradition of their forefathers For many
are such warnings usually sent immediately g upon the principal 〈◊〉 act but rather after continuance in the like And the vicinitie of this h places name which was a second witnesse of Crassus sins might have put him in minde of his former misdeeds in Jerusalem with whose sacred treasure he had dealt just so as Plutarch saith he did with the treasurie of that Goddesse of â—…rapolis Which makes me supect that Plutarch did mistake the storie For as Josephus tels us he took away the two thousand Talents which Pompey left untoucht and eight thousand besides But such was the Heathens prejudice of the Jews that the least injurie offered to their Idol-Gods was more then the most grievous sacriledge that could be devised against the God of Israel The worst that could be done against his Temple was in many of their opinions but as reprochful words which can bear no Action because not easily appliable to any determinate person with many of them it was all one Non esse Does non apparere represented in some visible shape or image Thus Polybius otherwise an ingenuous writer imputes the cause of Antiochus Epiphanes suddain and fearful death unto his intended pillage of the Goddesse Artemis Temple when as this misereant was guilâ—e of that actual crime before for ransacking the Temple of Jerusalem See Joseph Antiq. l. 12. c. 13. But as the plenarie cause of Crassus miserable and shameful death was his shamelesly miserable and Sacrilegious Mind in geral so in the means or manner of His end the Almighty would have his particular offences against his Priest and Temple to be most Fminent and Conspicuous Fleazar the high Priest seeing him wholly bent to make a golden Harvest of the Parthian expedition feared lest he should rake all the sacred Treasure into his cossers For preventing of which misehief he presents him with a Golden Beam whereon the Hangings of the Temple hung hoping thereby to redeem the rest of the sacred Treasure but he having gotten this into his hands which otherwise he could not have found being covered with wood contrarie to his Oath most agreeable to his Humour seazed upon all the residue Yet gold which he thus greedily sought as to his seeming the onely sure Nerve of war by the Almighties disposition became the indissoluble chain of his dismal Fates As love to it had made him perjure himself to circumvent Gods Priest so did it expose him to circumvention by a Perjured Villain who having found out his appetite prepared a sit Bait for his Bane For by feeding this greedy thirst of gold he insinuated himself into the societie of his Secrets which he disclosed unto the Parthian Had Crassus wits naturally been â—o dull or had he usually shewed himself so grosse and sottish as he proved in this expedition he had never born any place amongst the Remans much less had they ever permitted him to manage any for rain Wars But 〈◊〉 partly from his prodigious Stupiditie uncapable of any warning by so many Ominous Signs and tokens as did stupisie his whole Armie besides partly from his more then brutish Facilitie in taking an uncouth way as if he had been a tame beast before the drover until he came to the very Stand where his enemies stood with their bowes bent and their arrows of death made readie upon the string for his destruction all the Roman writers agree that He was lead awry by Sinister Fates Now if they had but once read what God he was that had blinded Absalom to disclaim Achitophels good counsel and ratisie Hushais plot for his Overthrow 2 Sam. 17. they would easily have granted that the same God and no other had infatuated Crassus heart to renounce Cassius and other grave experienced Roman Warriors wholsome advise and betake himself wholly to the Barbarous Fugitive Augarus directions suborned by the Parthian to betray him 4 But Cassius much wiser then his General in this one particular of mistrusting Forainers was afterwards as far over-seen in the main chance and overtaken with that sin which had caused Crassus blindnesse First polluted with like Sacriledge and cruel oppression of these Jews then with his own bloud shed by his servant at his commandment upon as grosse an over-sight as Crassus had committed So shall they all sooner or later be Infatuate that robbe God of His Honour and put their trust in Wrong and Violence And thus till this time did they perish all as many as bare ill will to Sion for Hierusalems Hour was not yet come because the Day-spring had not visited her from on High The glorie of her Temple was not as yet revealed unto whom after Her children had offered greater disgrace then the Romans had done to their Temple the Staff of her wonted Stay begins to break the bonds of her former peace untwine and onely one part of her double Fates remain if then she fall she riseth not again she hath no inclination left but to destruction The burthen of the Fathers sins and the yoke of captivitie due thereto grows heavier and heavier in the descent upon posteritie without all hope of recoverie much lesse of revenge upon such as offer her greatest violence but rather happy shall that man be thought and highest earthly honour shall be the wages of his service that rewards her children as they had served their Lord and Saviour But these times were not come in Crassus or Cassius dayes in which some Reliques of her Ancient Hopes remained to see the rods and scourges of her correction consume and wither after once the Almighty had taken off his punishing Hand And if unto these Three above mentioned we adde the like destinie of Antonie and Scipio and the ill successe of the other Romans who had ought to do with these Jews before our Saviours time we may conclude that although the Romans were then Lords of the earth yet This People whom they held as Base retained the priviledge of Gods Royal Priests Although the souls of all flesh were the Lords who for this cause revenged the oppressed in every Nation yet Israel onely as the Prophet speaks was as A Thing Hallowed unto the Lord His First Fruits all such as devoured them did offend evil should come upon them although inflicted by their own or their servants hands at their appointment Lastly if we call to mind the former distinction of Ages and the divers manner of Gods dealing with them before and after the Baby Ionish Captivitie the contraction or Abridgment of their large Priviledges in the long succession of times foretold by Ancient and acknowledged by their own later Writers we cannot mistrust the Amplitude of their Fundamental Charter or their Historical Narrations of what the Lord had done of old unto Jabin Sisera and Sâ—…herib would we allowing some different condition of times compare theirs with Pompeys and his Complices unusual Fates Gods Power was more immediately manifested in the one his
the knowledge of the truth And as the Philosopher said of his moral Auditors Indocilitie that it skilled not whether he were Young or of Youthful affections so is it not the difference of Sex but resolution that makes a good Scholler or non proficient in the School of our Saviour JESUS CHRIST Many men have weak and Womanish and many women Manly and Heroick resolutions towards God and godlinesse 5 The infirmitie which vexed the religious Hanna was not so grievous as that of Naamans she was in our corrupt language as many honest women at this day are by nature Barren or if we would speak as the Prophet did in the right language of Canaan the Lord had made her barren weary she was of her own and according to the ordinary course of nature she saw no hope of being the author of life to others Yet in this her distresse she prayed unto the Lord her God and he granted her desire From this Experiment of Gods Power though not altogether so remarkable in ordinarie estimation as Naamans cure she fully conceives not only the truth of the former Oracle acknowledged by Naaman but more Emphatically expressed by her There is none Holy as the Lord yea there is none besides thee and there is no God like our God nor that other Attribute only of Wounding or making whole so lively uttered vers 6. The Lord killeth and maketh alive bringeth down to the grave and raiseth up but Gods Word planted in her heart by her fresh Experience grows up like a grain of Mustard-seed and brancheth it self into a faithful acknowledgement of most of his Attributes The Lord is a God of knowledge and by him enterprises are established the Bowe and the mighty men are broken and the weak have girded themselves with strength they that were full are hired forth for bread and the hungry are no more hired so that the barren hath born seven and she that hath born many children is feeble the Lord maketh poor and maketh rich bringethlow and exalteth he raiseth up the poor out of the dust and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill to set them among Princes and to make them inherit the seat of glory for the Pillars of the earth are the Lords and he hath set the world upon them He will keep the feet of his Saints and the wicked shall be silent in darknesse for in his own Might shall no man be strong Nor doth it contain it self within the bounds of ordinary Belief but works in her heart like new wine filling it not only with Songs of Joy and Triumph over her envious Enemies Mine heart rejoyceth in the Lord my mouth is enlarged over my enemies because I rejoyce in thy salvation but also with the Divine Spirit of Prophecy The Lords adversaries shall be destroyed and out of Heaven shall he thunder upon them the Lord shall judge the ends of the world and shall give power unto his King and exalt the horn of his Anointed verse 10. 6 The like docilitie was in the blessed Virgin of whom perhaps Annah was the Type both of them verified that saying Verbum sapientisat est One Experiment taught them more then five hundred would do most of us The reason was because their hearts were so much better prepared For as heat in some bodies by reason of the indisposition of the matter causeth heat and nothing else in some scarce that in others brings forth life and fashioneth all the Organs and Instruments thereof so Experiments of Gods power in some mens hearts breed onely a perswasion of his Might or operation in that particular as in those foolish Aramites who vanquished in Battel by the Israelites whom he favoured questioned whether he were a God as well of the Vallies as of the Mountains in others the same or lesse Apprehension of his Power or Presence begetteth life and fashioneth this image in their hearts which thence will shew it self unto others in such ample and entire Confession of his Attributes as Hannah and the blessed Virgin uttered Some again are so ill disposed and indocile that the whole Moral Law of God might sooner be engraven in hardest Marble or Flint then any one precept imprinted in their hearts by such wonderful Documents of his Power as would teach the godly in an instant both the Law and Prophets Imagine some men in our dayes had been cured by like means of such a maladie as Naaman was or some women blessed from above with fruit of their wombes after so long sterilitie as Hannah endured Who could expect that one of ten in either Sex should return to give like thanks to God in the presence of his Priests or Prophets Were Elisha now living he must be wary to work his cure by his bare word and so perhaps he should be censured for a Sorcerer in any case he might not use the waters of Jordan or other like second causes otherwise curious wits would find out some hidden or secret vertue caused in them at least for the time being by some unusual but Benign â—â—â—ect of some Planet or Constellation in whose right they should be entitled either ful Owners or Copartners of that glory which Naaman ascribed wholly unto God And poor Hannah in this Politick Age should not be so much praised for her devotion or good skill in divine Poesie as pitied for a good Hâ—â—â—st wel-meaning silly Soul that did attribute more to God then was his due upon ignorance of Alterations wrought in her Body by natural causes For it is not the custome of our Times to mark so much the ordering or disposition as the particular or present operation of such Agents If any thing fall out amisse we bid a Plague upon ill Fortune or curse mischance if ought aright we applaud our own or others Wits that have been employed in the businesse or perhaps thank God for Fashion sake that we had Good Luck He is to us in our good successe as a friend that lives far off who we presume wisheth well to such projects as he knows in general we are about being unacquainted with the particular means that must effect them or no principal Agent in their contrivance Hence do not I marvel though many do if such men in our times as reap the fruits of the fields which God hath blest in greatest Abundance make no conscience of returning the Tenth part to him that gave the whole when as not one of a thousand either in heart or deed or out of any distinct or clear apprehension of his power or efficacie or true resolution of all effects into the First Fountain whence they flow doth attribute so much as the Tenth nay as the Hundreth part to Gods doing in any Event wherein the industrie of man or operation of second Causes are apparant We speak like Christians of matters past recorded in Scripture but in our discourses of modern affairs our Paganismes and more then Heathenish Solecismes bewray the
III. That The continual practise of Hereticks in urging Scriptures to establish Heresie and the diversity of opinions amongst the Learned about the Sense of Them is no just Exception why They should not be acknowledged as the Sole Entire and Compleat Rule of Faith OUt of the former Discourse their other Objections are almost answered already and they be especially Two The first If the Scriptures be plain and easie how comes it to passe that there should be such Contentions amongst the Learned about them Or whence is it that every Heretick is so forward to urge Scriptures for his Opinion even to the Death The Second lies as it were in the womb of this as this did in the former's and drawn out in its proper shape is thus There can be no certain Means of taking up controversies or contentions in the Church but only by admitting an Infallible Authority for deciding all controversies viva voce seeing the Scripture is alwayes made a party on all sides in such contentions 2 In the former Objection they indict the Scriptures as the Principal in the later our Church as an Abetter of such Quarrels and Contentions as it breeds For our Church we shall answer in the next for Gods Word in this present Section CAP. XIX Containing the true State of the Question with the Adversaries General Objections against the Truth 1 IT cannot be denied that alwayes there have been and alwayes will continue Contentions amongst learned men in Points of Faith or Doctrine or about the true Sence or Meaning of Scriptures in these other Cases For thus much these Scriptures themselves do plainly witnesse Oporâ—… esse haereses For there must be Heresies even among you that they which are approved among you might be known But the Question is not whether there have been now are or alwayes shall continue many Contentions about the Sense of Scripture but First Whether the Scriptures have not plainly set down the original Causes and nurses of such Contentions and the Means how to avoid them so men will be ruled by them most plain for this purpose or Secondly Whether not submitting their wils desires and affections unto these plain and perspicuous Rules of life this supposed Infallible Rule of the Romish Church can prevent remove or compose all such Contentions according to the Truth and cause men stedfastly hold the Unity of Faith in the Bond of Peace 3 The Causes of Contentions about the Sence of Scriptures are the very same with the fore-mentioned which made the Scriptures unto sundry seem Obscure or the same which make men to mistake their true Sence and Meaning For even these Wars and Contentions whereof we speak specially these arise from Lusts which sight in our members †we lust and have not we envy and have indignation and cannot obtain we fight and war and got nothing not the Truth which we seek because we ask it not Do not such as contends most about the true Sence ask it most doth not every Heretick the earnester he is professe that he prayes for the Truth so much the more servently yea but such men receive not that which they so earnestly ask because they ask it amisse They desire skill in Scripture to advance their own Conceits and maintain their foolish and carnal Affections otherwise asking they should have and seeking they should find especially the true Sence and Meaning of Gods Word which must instruct us how to frame all our other Petitions unto God aright 4 These and infinite like places we acknowledge plainly declaring the Causes of Contentions and as many more some of which shall be here and there inserted directing us how to avoid all occasions of striâ—e and debate Both which if we observe Contentions will quickly cease Which those not observed must increase as a just punishment of Truth neglected coâ—…icted or low esteemed notwithstanding the best indeavours of any Authority upon earth imaginable to the contrary 5 But some perhaps will demand Is there no use of Humane Authority in this Case yes As for the begetting of true and lively Faith we supose the live-voice of an Ordinary Ministery as the Organ whereby the written Word must be conveyed to our Spirits so for retaining the Unity of this Faith in the Bond of Peace for suppressing or preventing all Occasions of Schismes Heresies or Contentions we acknowledge the necessary Use of a Lawfull Magistracie yet no infallibilitie in either The proper end and use of Both is to espouse mens Souls with an indissoluble knot of Love and Loyaltie unto the written Word the only Infallible Rule of that Faith whereby they live The One by unfolding the generall Points or Maximes of Christian Faith The other by constraining them at least to a civil Practise of undoubted Principles acknowledged by all and inhibiting such Courses as the Moral Precepts of this Canon have defected for Causes and Nurses of Contention Our Adversaries whether out of wilfull malice or oversight or out of both according to the diversities of their tempers have taken occasion to traduce our Churches Doctrine as if it admitted no Means for preventing or composing Contentions but onely the bare letter of Scripture Whereas we all teach that the written Word is the onely Means Infallible not the onely Means Simplie for effecting Both. Nor doth it skill how necessary either Ministerial Expositions or Juridical Decisions be for bringing us unto or retaining us in the Unitie of the Truth professed for not Necessity of Means but Infallibility of Direction is the proper unseparable Condition of the Rule of Faith And seeing Gods Word only endures for ever and therefore onely is Infallible it must be the Sole Rule of Faith how many or how necessary soever the Means be that must bring us to the true Knowledge of it 6 Valentian and Saero-boscus think it all One to acknowledge no Ecclesiasticall Authority or use of Ministerie and not to acknowledge an Infallibility in Both. But this is a Position devoid both of Sense and Reason For As our Senses though of themselves onely capable of particular and Material Objects subject to change and contingencie are the necessary and onely ordinary Means whereby our Intellective Facultie is brought to apprehend Universal and immaterial Principles whose Truth is necessary everlasting and immutable So may the Ministery and Magistracie though both in themselves fallible and obnoxious to Errors be the necessary and onely ordinary Means whereby we are brought as it were by a sensible Induction to the infallible Acknowledgement of the supernatural divine eternal Truths which are the proper Object of the illuminated or spiritual as immaterial and universal Principles are of the natural understanding which shall God willing be declared hereafter In this place I onely thought good to forewarn the Reader of this Hiatus in our Adversaries Collections whereunto the blind and ignorant English Papist led by such blinded forraign Guides as Valentian and Sacro-â—osâ—â—â— who either
in all Points necessary to salvation without any such infallible Authority For it is a matter of far lesse Difficulty for any man of sense and reason to deduce particular Conclusions from general and evident Principles then to finde out the general and fundamental Principles by natural Notions or other Principles And therefore more easie for any such man to resolve his Conscience in particular Points of Faith or Christian Obedience after he hath found out the Foundation of Christian Faith to wit Chrâ—… Jesus crucified raised from the dead and other general Dictates of Faith in the Apostolical Writings then to come unto the acknowledgement and Belief of these fundamental Points themselves from the broken knowledge such as the Jews have of the Old Testament And thus it evidently follows that if the Old Testament be a Rule unto the Jews for finding out the Truth of the New much more may the New once acknowledged by them and admitted of equal Authority with the Old be a perfect Rule for them in matters of Salvation And if these Scriptures are or may be a Rule to the Jews if they will believe them then must they be a Rule to all Christians that Believe them No Christian I hope wil deny but that the Old Testament is the Rule of the Jews For the unbelieving Jews shal be condemned in what part of the world soever for not following this Rule which God hath commended and made known unto them not for not acknowledging the Popes Infallibility of which many of them never heard And if the Old Testament be such to them much more must the whole Canon be unto us such a Rule and if we die in misbelief or infidelity we shall be judged by this Rule of Gods Law and Gospel which we transgressed not by the Popes Decrees or Expositions of it That many Christians by profession erre in Points of Faith or mistake the true Sense and Meaning of it or pervert it to their Destruction proceeds from their Ingratitude towards God that gave it and for their delight in Falshood Which is the reason why these Jews mistake the true Meaning of the Old Testament 9 If any of our Adversaries here demand how chanceth it so many Jews erre in the Foundation of Faith if the Scripture be such an infallible Rule he must be content to resolve me in the like Question How chanceth it so many Jews live unconverted in Spain and Italy and other places either in the Popes Dominions or where his Authority is established if the Infallibility of his Authority or their Church be such an excellent Rule If they reply the Jews might believe all Points of Roman-Catholick Faith aright so they would admit their Church as Judge or Mistresse of Faith the Jews might with as good reason rejoyn so might the Romans believe all Points of Judaism would they acknowledge this supposed Infallibility of Doctrine to be in their Rabbinical Expositions not in the Popes Determinations But the Romanist I suppose would desire a Sign ere he believed them herein and are we lesse bound by the Rule of Faith to desire some tolerable satisfaction to these reasons following ere we believe them in this Point as prejudicial in our judgement to Religion in general as Subscription to Rabbinical Doctrine is unto Chistian Verity 10 The Jews admit the Old Testaments Authority as undoubtedly as the Jesuites do the Popes yet it enlightens not their hearts What is the Reason Because that Part of Scripture is so obscure So Valentian and such as follow him in all congruity must say yea he hath said it That Veil which Saint Paul saith is put before the hearts of Jews that they cannot behold the Glory of the Gospel as the Apostle there argues is woven for the most part of the Difficulties of Scriptures Nor do the Jews only deny the New Testament to be infallible but bitterly inveigh against it as erroneous and contradictory to the Old What is the Cause Is it not that which Valentian elsewhere assigns The Scripture alone that is in his language without the infallible Avouchment of their Church is so far from ending all Controversies of Faith that it rather occasions Controversies and Dissentions in Doctrines of Faith If to the Jew through his default the Writings of Moses and the Prophets be so obscure adde your infallible Key to open his heart to them or them to it If by this obscurity they minister matter of Contentation or their Sense mistaken exasperate Jewish malice against Christians Interpose your Humane Authority inspired from above to allay the fervency of their distempered Zeal 11 You acknowledge this Obscurity and other objected Insufficiencies disinabling the Scripture for ruling or judging mens Faith to arise from the frailty or viciousnesse of Humane Nature and hence you plead your Churches Infallibility as necessary and al-sufficient to supply these defects incident unto Scripture not in it self but in respect of us Your Churches Authority then at the least adjoyned to Scripture should make men otherwise subject to the former Infirmities or vitious Dispositions capable of Heavenly Doctrine Tell us then distinctly Can it or can it not make all or most or such as the Scriptures do not Believe aright If this it cannot do adjoyning to Scriptures it is by your own Objections against them a Rule as unsufficient as you would make them without it If it can make all or most or such as Scripture alone doth not Believe aright this it must effect either by removing or not removing those Diseases or Infirmities of Humane Nature which Scriptures without it cannot cure 12 First if it could remove that Temper which makes the Jew a more unprofitable Hearer of Scripture then young Gallants are of stoical moral discipline your Church is guilty of wilful malice and murther of souls that will not apply this infallible Key able of it self to open that Veil of Adamant wherewith the Jews hearts are so masked that neither the light of Mosaical Prophetical Apostolical or Evangelical Writings can find entrance unto them Secondly albeit this supposed infallible Authority could remove the former Veil yet were it not in this respect to be acknowledged an infallible Rule of Faith but rather an ordinary necessary Means such as we acknowledge the lawful Magistracy or Ministry to be for squaring or proportioning mens frail or exorbitant Affections the better to parallel with Gods word the most exact inerrable and al-sufficient Rule of Faith even by your consent were it not for this Infirmitie or vitious Disposition of mans Nature which as you likewise acknowledge is the sole Cause why the Scriptures are Obscure and minister matter of Contention 13 But our Adversaries attribute not any such vertue to their infallible Rule as to make a fool wise the lascivious chaste the drunkard sober a knave honest the impudent modest or ambitious lowly for even the Pope himself in whose bosome this Rule lodgeth may harbour these and like vices in his
brest He may by his own followers Consession be as incorrigible for bad Life and Manners as infallible for matters of Doctrine Seeing then their supposed Rule cannot remove those Impediments which detain the Jews with other Infidels and Hereticks from the Truth can it make men Believe aright whilest They remain If it can it is of greater force then either our Saviours Authority or skil in Scriptures Neither of which not all his travels and best endeavours here on earth though infinitely surpassing any pains the Pope is willing to take could instruct the Jews in the Doctrine of Faith whilest their carnal Affections remained in strength How can ye Believe saith he who spake as never man spake and had wrought those Works none other could which receive honour one of another and seek not the honour that cometh 〈◊〉 God alone 14 To conclude then If the Infidelity of the Jews be any just exception why Scriptures cannot be the perfect Rule of Faith this Exception will disinable the Roman Churches infallible Authoritie for being such a Rule But if the general Error of the Jews in the very main Foundation of Religion be no just Exception why either the Scripture according to us or the Churches Authority according to them should not be the Rule of Faith then cannot the Errors of Hereticks or varietie of Opinions about the sense and Meaning of particular places of lesse moment impeach the sufficiencie of Scripture for performing all that is required by either Partie in their supposed absolute Rule For it shall God willing be made evident in due place that the self same Affections onely different in degree sometimes not so much which caused the Jews Insidelitie in our Saviours time are the onely roots and fountains of Heresies and Dissentions throughout all Ages 15 And as elsewhere is already proved wheresoever the habitual Affection for degree and qualitie is the Heresie or Insidelitie is likewise the same even in such as hold contrary Opinions and would perhaps maintain their contrarietie unto death for as many strongly perswaded of their Belief in Christ shall go for Infidels in that last day so may such as think themselves Orthodoxes be tainted with the contrarie Heresie which they impugne if subject to the same Affections which did breed it But for us to account such as make profession of Christianitie Insidels or such as subscribe to Orthodoxal Doctrine Hereticks would be injurious and unlawfull not because the former Assertion indesinitely taken is not warrantable but because no man can precisely discern the Indentitie of inward Affection save he alone that knoweth the secrets of all hearts Thus all the Blasts of vain Doctrine they can oppose unto the Truth we maintain do in the issue fasten the roots of Faith once rightly planted howsoever they may shake the timerous or faint-hearted Christian or cause the weak in Faith not cleaving to Scripture as their onely infallible Rule and sure Supporter dangerously to reel and stagger But though they fall yet Gods Word shall never fail to approve it self a most perfect Rule besides others in these Two respects First in that none can fail in that course which it prescribes or fall away from Faith but by such means as the Jew hath done the true Causes of whose Apostacie and incredulitie it hath expresly foretold and fully registred to Posterity Secondly because such as it doth not no other Rule Means or Authority possible either in the earth or in the region below the earth shall ever win to true Christian Faith CAP. XXIII The Suffficiencie of Scriptures for Final Determination of Controversies in Religion proved by our Saviours and his Apostles Authority and Practise 1 NOr will They be ruled by an Angel from Heaven That will not obey the live Voice of the Son of God whose Miracles whilest he lived here on earth joyned with his Doctrine we will suppose were of as much force if the Jesuite will grant no more as the Popes Proposal of Scriptures to beget Faith or convince gain-sayers of Truth The Jews were of diverse Opinions about his Doctrine Some said he was a good man Others said No but he deceiveth the People he gives them a Rule as you heard before how to discern it If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrine c. This contents them not albeit he had done many and good works amongst them sufficient to have manifested his Divine Authority unto such as had never heard of Moses or a Messias to come Nay they go about to kill him for those works which bare Testimonie of his Worth and as they thought had Warrant of Scripture for so doing because he did them on the Sabbath day Here Christ is of one Opinion the Jews of another concerning the Sense of Scripture Who shall judge or by what Rule must their contrary Doctrine be tried By Christs infallible Authoritie they admit it not By extraordinary and miraculous Works they persecute him for his Miracles already wrought for their peoples good Doth Christ here leave them because destitute of a Rule to recall them If he had none how shall the Pope by his own challenge but his Vicar have any to convince his Adversaries It Christ submit his Divine Doctrine to any other Rule how dare the Pope deny submission of his to the same What Rule then was left Onely the Scripture which both 〈◊〉 acknowledge They pretend Moses Law concerning Sabbath-breach why he should die unto their false interpretation of this our Saviour opposed the true meaning of another Mosaical Scripture Moses forbad Murther as well as Sabbath-day-breaking and yet they seek to kill Christ only for Fealing a man upon the Sabbath-day so forgetfull are they of the One and so partially addicted to the Other But how shall they know that to make a man whole upon the Sabbath was not to break it and violate Moses Law This our Saviour makes evident unto them by exposition of that Law and their own Custom which continued from the first promulgation was a good interpretation of it Moses saith our Saviour gave unto you Circumcision not because it is of Moses but of the Fathers and ye on the Sabbath-day circumcise a man If a man on the Sabbath-day receive Circumcision that the Law of Moses should not be broken be ye angrie with me because I have made a man every whit whole 〈◊〉 the Sabbath-day Judge not according to the appearance but judge righteous judgement Thus was Scripture applied to their Conscience the last and finall Rule by which they stand or fall and is alwayes a Light either bringing men to see their own Salvation or putting out their wonted sight in token of their Condemnation to utter darknesse And Christs last words in that Controversie Judge not according to the appearance are likewise a written Rule of Scripture so absolute a Rule is this Sacred Word of God by our Saviours consent and practise both to inform the
Delusions and Appearances as well as the true their divine Illuminations whence the Contention amongst the professed Prophets themselves was as great as any now amongst the learned Interpreters of Prophecies or other Scriptures And from this Contention amongst the Prophets the unlearned or rather all in that people not Prophets were by the Romanist Objections against us were they pertinent to waver and halt between the contrariety of Illuminations and Visions professed as well by the false Prophets as the true Nor will any Jesuite I think be so bold as to deny lest every man might perceive him to deny more then possibly he could know that those lying Spirits in the mouthes of Ahabs Prophets were then as cunning in imitating true Revelations as now in counterfeiting Orthodoxal Interpretations of Truth revealed Or if this they cal in question let them resolve us why Idolatry in those Ages wherein true Prophets flourished most should be as frequent and various as Heresies in later times wherein the preaching of the Gospel is most plentiful The true Reason whereof as we suppose is this These lying Spirits were alike apt to imitate Gods several manner of speaking whether by means ordinary or extraordinary in divers Ages At all times if we compare either their native Capacity or acquired skil with our own though in matters wherein we have been most conversant if to their sagâ—…y we adde their malicious Temper and eager Desires of doing ill which alwayes adde an Edge unto Wit in mischievous Invention In all these they so far exceed the sons of seduced Adam that unlesse the Almighty did either 〈◊〉 us by his Holy Spirit or restrain them in the exercise of their skil especially in Spiritual matters wherewith the natural man hath no acquaintance who could in any Age be able to discern their Jugling much less to avoid their snares alwayes suited to the present season Notwithstanding most evident it is that in Ahabs as in all other times tainted with the like or a quivalent Sins the Almighty gives them leave to do their worst to practise with such cunning in every kind as leaves men so disposed as these false Prophets were until they amend no more possibility of distinguishing Devilish Suggestions from Divine Oracles then Ahab had without repentance to escape his doom read by Elias and Michaiah For he had not fallen unlesse his Prophets had been first seduced Their Errour therefore was by Gods just judgement as Fatal as his Fall both absolutely inevitable upon supposition of their obstinate Disobedience to the undoubted Mandates of Gods written Law Thus no one tittle of our Adversaries Objections how the learned should be sure of their interpretations when others as learned as they are as strongly perswaded to the contrary but is as directly opposite unto the Certainty of true Prophets Revelations seeing many yea most of that Profession and in the judgement of man men of better gifts and places then such as proved true Prophets were otherwise perswaded usually such as the people esteemed best strangeliest deluded 3 That from this Variety of Opinions amongst the Prophets about their Illuminations others not endued with the gift of Prophesie were in the self same case the unlearned people throughout the Christian world are in wheresoever or whensoever Dissentions arise amongst the learned admits no question but amongst wranglers For albeit the excellent Brightness of Divine Truth did necessarily imprint an infallible Evidence in their apprehension to whom it was immediately by Means extraordinary revealed yet could they not communicate this Evidence or Certainty unto the people but by preaching the Word revealed after the self same manner we do Yea sometime it was only communicated unto them by the Ministery of others no Prophets Here let any Jesuite or other Patron of the Romish Churches Cause answer me to these Demands First whether the People were not bound to believe the true Prophesies either delivered by the Prophets own mouthes or read by others or directed to them in writing to be the Word of GOD and to reject the contrary Doctrine of false Prophets as Delusions Secondly whether if the ordinary People of those times could by any Christians though private men in later may not by the same Means distinguish the Word of God being in like sort read or expounded or preached unto them from the Word of Man The Word remains stil the same the Truth of it better confirmed unto the World by the continuance of it in power and strength throughout all Ages intermediate wherein Gods Spirit by which it was first manifested to the Prophets and written in the Peoples hearts hath been more plentiful then before especially since the Revelation of the Gospel most plentiful in this present if I may so speak the second time of Grace Our Argument then stands good A fortiori If every private man amongst GODS People of Old might and ought Believe and believing Obey his Word revealed to others only read or expounded unto him rejecting all contrary or erroneous Doctrines the People of this Age must do the like and all Objections possible against the judgement of modern private Spirits conclude as much against all private persons of Ancient times For their Means of knowing the Prophets Illuminations or Visions were ordinary such as we have now liable to all exceptions that can be made against our knowledge or perswasion of the true Sense of Scripture But neither theirs nor our Imbecillity in knowing or Facility of erring was or is any just Exception why the Scripture should not be a Rule to both Albeit all the Papists Arguments might be urged with far greater probability against them who were to Believe Prophetical Writings first For more easie it is to Assent unto Particulars contained in a general Canon already established by the approbation of former Ages and confirmed by joynt consent of Parties most adverse and contrary in the interpretation of several parcels then to admit the general Canon it self for the undoubted Word of GOD or yield obedience to the Particulars therein contained Yet were the Ancient people bound to admit the Prophesie of Isaias Jeremiah as the undoubted Word of God albeit unknown to their Ancestors but only in the generality of Moses doctrine much more as we conclude may Christians now living assent unto the true expositions or particular contents of these Prophesies or other Scriptures of whose absolute Truth in general they do not doubt and of whose 〈◊〉 articulars they may now behold the sundry Opinions and Expositions of divers Ages 4 To presse the former Arguments more fully parallel'd to our present Controversie a little farther I would demand of any Jesuite whether the Word of God taught by the Prophets who were to win credit by their skil not presumed skilful for their Authority in the Church or credit in Common-weal or the definitive sentence of the High-Priests or others in eminent place were to be the Rule of Israels Faith Whether the
at least which this Counterfeit exacts to be Believed as true to wit that he himself is a man of excellent parts and one that wil use Fidelity as wel in his Doings as Sayings and in a word one whose proposal in matters of State or War is as infallible as the Popes in matters of Faith Yet notwithstanding that this Counterfeits Proposal or Asseveration which must be Believed from the Princes commendation of him which must be believed again from his Proposal Non habent unum idem objectum sed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have not one and the same Object yet is the former resolution â—… and so is Valentians resolution of his Catholick Faith most ridiculously impious For what other issue of such dissolute resolutions can be expected but that men who know no better should hereby be driven to suspect the Scriptures for Counterfeit and the Catholick Church if the Roman were only the Catholick Church of villanous Forgery at the least in those places of Scripture which she pretends for Proof of her own Infallibilitie 19 As for Valentians later Exception why his Resolution should not be Circular it is more ridiculous then the former most ridiculously false to omit other points in this one that he dare deny the Churches proposal by their Doctrine to be the Cause why we Believe the Divine Revelation or rather that these Scriptures which we have are Divine Revelations For by their Positions we cannot assure our selves that the Scriptures are the Word of God by any other cause or reason besides the Churches Authoritie and therefore by their Doctrine the infallible Authoritie of their Church is the only Cause why we Believe this Sacred Canon of Scriptures which we enjoy to be Divine Revelations although it be no Cause by their Doctrine why we Believe that in general Divine Revelations are true For this is a dictate of Nature not controversed betwixt us and them or betwixt any who acknowledge a Divine Power And Valentian himself directly implies that which he impudently denies in the self-same period For he granteth that Propositio Ecclesiae est ratio credendi divinam revelationem ratio eredendi the Reason or Rule of Believing must needs include in it a precedent Cause of Belief it cannot be only a Condition annexed thereto but of this point God willing hereafter 20 Sacroboscus who hath followed Bellarmines and Valentians foot-steps as faithfully as any â—rish Foot-man could his Master though sometimes taking a more compendious and smoother way likely to entice pedestria ingenia wits either by nature dull or novices in Arts and smatterers in School-learning to follow him sooner then those great ones hath taken upon him to answer to this Circle in effect as Valentian doth save only that he hath put more Tricks of Art upon it either to confound the judicious or deceive the sample Reader Which here we shal not need to examin because we purpose to unrid his mystical Evasions in the next Dispute In the end of his tract in defence of Bellarmin he frames his Objection against both Valentian and his own Resolution Whether in Believing the Church by Scriptures and Scriptures By the Church the Belief of the one must in nature if not in time go before the other He thinks it not necessary that the one should be before the other Nam actus fidei fertur in suum objectum modo simplici ut visus in suum And therefore as we see colours per species visibiles by the visible shapes or resemblances which flow from them not by seeing the visible shape before the colours so do we Believe the Scriptures by the Church albe it we do not expresly and formally Believe the Church before we believe the Scriptures Quo teneam vultus mutantem Protea nodo In the former part of this his discourse the Visible Church was unto Scriptures as the Light was unto Colours now it is unto Scriptures as visible Shapes are unto Colours What then Do we not see visible shapes before Colours nor Colours before them no. For we see no visible shapes at all but by them Colours only are brought into our sight and we cannot see one before the other if the one we see not at all And in like sense it were true that we should not Believe the Church before Scriptures not Scriptures before we Believe the Church if we were not bound to Believe the one at all But if we see one thing by another which we likewise see we must needs see that first by which we see the other and so if either we Believe the Scriptures by Believing the Church or Believe the Church by believing Scriptures we must of necessitie Believe the one before the other For that by which we Believe a thing is the Means of Belief and the Means of Belief must needs in nature and order go before Belief it self And if the Church be the Means of believing only in as much as we believe it or to speak more distinctly if the believing the Church be the very Meanes of believing the Scriptures then must we needs believe the Church before we believe the Scriptures If our Adversaries affirm that their Church is the only infallible Means of believing Scriptures in any other sort then by believing it let them in the name of God assign by what Means they wil she can make us believe the Scriptures we shal not much contend so they wil not bind us to believe this their Churches Decisions Sacroboscus his comparison of the Visible Church and visible Shapes we admit thus far for good that as unlesse there were such visible Shapes no Colours could be seen so likewise unlesse God had some Visible Church on earth men ordinarily could not see the Light of the Gospel For it is not ordinarily communicated to any but by the Ministery of others but being communicated we believe it in it self and for it self not by believing others as we see Colours in themselves and for themselves not by seeing the visible Shapes by which they are presented or communicated unto our eyes But whether there be any Propriety between the belief of these two Church and Scriptures according to our Adversaries Doctrine or whether the belief of the one be the cause of the Belief of the other or in what sort the cause and what Inconveniences wil follow thereon we shal dispute hereafter 21 Let them in the mean time illustrate the Manner how we believe Scriptures by the Church as they please Let it have the same proportion to Scriptures which the Light or visible Shapes have unto Colours they themselves make the belief of Scriptures most uncertain and for this reason seek to establish the Infallibility of their Church for to assure us of the Truth of Scriptures We demand how â—… of their Churches Infallibility can possibly be proved By Reason that is impossible as you heard before By Tradition of whom of such as may erre that is
severe unpartial execution of known Lawes might easily restrain usually eclipse or hide it from us Such as are not so Eagle-sighted as to behold the brightnesse of every Divine Truth in it proper Sphere might yet safely behold the reflexion of it in one part or other of the sacred Fountain were it not troubled with the muddy conceipts of unsetled and unquiet Frains or were not such men oftentimes in great places as minding nothing but earthly things alwayes mingle filth and clay with the Chrystal-streams of the Water of Life Happie is that man of God that in this turbulent Age can in points of greatest moment see the Divine Truth himself small hope have any of causing others to see it whilest carnal mindes may every where without fear of Punishment but not without terrour of such Ecclesiastick Power as shall controul them foam out their own shame and overcast the face of Heaven whence Light should come unto their Souls with blasphemous unhallowed Breath whilest dunghill-Sinks may be suffered to evaporate the abundance of that inward Filth which is lodged in their hearts as it were of purpose to choak the good Spirit of God whilest it seeks to breath in others Mouthes whose Breasts it hath inspired with Grace 14 In brief lest my Adversary should challenge me of Partialitie As the Means which our Church from Gods Word prescribes for establishing mens hearts in the Unity of true Faith were the execution of known Lawes any way correspondent might as is said infallibly effect what the Papists falsely pretend so in truth it cannot without Hypocrisie be dissembled that whiles our Practise is so dissonant to our Doctrine and our Publick Discipline so loose though in detestation of their Errours we have turned our backs upon them with Protestation to follow a contrary Rule yet for the most part we jump with them at the journeys end To omit more finall agreements of our Contrarieties elsewhere shewed They wholly permit the Keyes of the Well of Life to ones mans hands who for his own advantage we may be sure will lock it up so close as none shall look upon it but with Spectacles of his making For as the Head is such we must expect the Eyes will be if the one the other must be universall too such as will leave nothing to be seen by private or particular eyes but what they have seen before or in one word if we admit one absolute visible Head his must be the onely Eyes of the Church We not through default of publick Constitutions nor so much by connivence of Ecclesiastick Magistrates as by presumptuous disobedience of Inferiours are so far from committing the custodie of this Sacred Fountain into one or few mens hands that the Flock for the most part never expect the Pastors marshalling but rushing into it without order trample in it with unclean feet If any Beam of Truth have found entrance into one of their Souls though quickly eclipsed or smothered by earthly cogitations he straight-way presumes Gods Word more plentifully dwels in him then in all his Teachers whence if his Purse be strong it is with him as with an Horse when Provender pricks him he kicks against all Ecclesiastick Authority and spurns at his poor Overseer that should feed him like the wanton Asse in the Fable that seeing the Moon lately shining where she was drinking suddenly covered with a cloud upon imagination she had drunk it up ran winsing out ere her thirst was quenched and threw her Rider 15 Thrice happie is that Land and State where Civil Policie and Spiritual Wisdom grave Experience and profound Learning in whose right Commixture consists the perfect Temperature of every Christian State do rightly symbolize These where they mutually clasp in their Extreams without intermedling in the Essence of each others Profession are like the Side-postes or Arches in the Lords House and the awfull respect of Christ Jesus the Judge of both and that dreadfull Day continually sounding in their ears by the voice of Gods faithfull and sincere Ministers would be as the Binding-stone or Coupling to fasten them surely in the joyning But whilest these each jealous of other start asunder that Breach is made whereat the Enemies of the Church and State hope for speedy entrance to the utter ruine of both CAP. XXXII Brieflie Collecting the Summe of this second Book 1 TO draw a brief Map of these large Disputes As the Occasions that breed so the right Means to avoid all Contentions and Schismes are most perspicuously set down in Scriptures Amongst others most necessary for this purpose for the plantation increase and strength of true and lively Faith sincere Obedience to Spiritual Authoritie is the chief For more willing and chearful performance hereof Choice should be made of Pastors or Overseers qualified as Scripture requires men of so high a Calling should be men not given to Quarrels or strife men of mild and lowlie Spirits fearing God and hating Covetousnesse men esteeming the hidden treasure of a good Conscience at so high a rate as neither Fear of man nor Hopes of any Worldly favour can move them to hazard or adventure it Were these Rules by such as have the oversight of Gods Flock as faithfully practised as they are by Scripture plainly taught the knowledg of Gods Word should daily encrease Piety Devotion and Christian Charitie continually flourish all Strife and Dissention quickly fade 2 But if through the default of Princes or Potentates no fit choice be made of spiritual Governours if by their negligence worse be made of inferiour Ministers the cause comes not by devolution to be reformed by the Congregation What then must they be altogether silent at such abuse No the Scripture hath given as plain a Rule for their imployment as for the others The more or more often Higher Powers offend the more fervently frequent should the lower Sort be in pouring out supplications prayers and intercessions for Kings and for all that are in Authority that they may Rule according to Gods Word In the mean time albeit they Rule otherwise Inferiours should consider that GOD gives them such Superiours for their pronenesse to disobedience scurrilitie scoffing at lawfull Authoritie or other like sins expresly forbidden by his Word To every People as well as Israel he gives such Rulers in his wrath as shall not seek them but theirs not his Glory in their salvation but their own Glory by their harm 3 But as the Tongues of Inferiours must be tied from scoffing or jesting at men in Authorities bad proceedings so must not the Word of God be bound If their Consciences rightly and unpartially examined direct them otherwise then their Governours command they must notwithstanding their Superiours checks speak as they think until Death command them silence if for the freedom of their Speech upon good warrant of Conscience they be punished Vengeance is Gods he will repay Superiours for it unto whose lawfull Authority whilest Obedience is denied upon
universal or absolute amongst the Jews as the Papists make it but was to be limited by the former Rules 1 ONe especial place on which they stand is from that Law in Deuteronomy If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgement between bloud and bloud between plea and plea between plague and plague in the matters of controversie within thy gates then shalt thou arise and go up unto the place which the Lord thy God shall chuse And thou shalt come unto the Priests of the Levites and to the Judge that shall be in those dayes and ask and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgement and thou shalt do according to that thing which they of that place which the Lord hath chosen shew thee and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee According to the Law which they shall teach thee and according to the judgement which they shall tell thee sealt thou do thou shalt not decline from the thing which they shall shew thee neither to the right hand nor to the left And that man that will do presumptuously not hear kning unto the Priest that standeth before the Lord thy God to minister there or unto the Judge that man shall die and thou shalt take away evil from Israel so all the people shall hear and fear and do no more presumptuously 2 This precept admits of many restrictions any one of which doth take away all the force of our adversaries objections First it may without prejudice to our cause be granted although it cannot out of these words be necessarily inferred that God here prescribes obedience in the abstract such as was to be performed unto those Priests and Judges that lived according to that pattern which he had set them Thus may this precept of obedience for the extent be universal and concern all causes whatsoever spiritual or temporal doubts of conscience or matters of this life in all which such governours were to be obeyed but conditionally if they were such as God in his law required they should be unto such as you heard before he gave illuminations extraordinary such as the parties that were to obey might have perfect notice of But how great soever the extent of this precept be not one syllable in it makes more for absolute obedience unto spiritual then unto civil governours for it is said indefinitely vers 10. thou â—… do according to that thing which they either spiritual or temporal of that placâ—… which the Lord hath chosen shall shew thee And again the words are diâ—…ctive That man that will do presumptuously not hearkening unto the Prâ—… unto the Judge that man shall die whether the Priest were to be supream Judge or no it is not said at the least the High Priest was not the chief man alwayes in the Councel for he was not alwayes admitted into the supream Consistory or Sanhedrim which is established in this place yet Bellarmin will have the definitive sentence belong unto the Priest and the execution of it to the civil magistrate so indeed the present Romish Church in spiritual cases would be judge and mâ—ke Christian Princes her hang-men but their practise must not be taken for an infallible exposition of that Law whence they seek to justifie their practise quite contrary to the practise of the Jewish Church and Synagogue Nor doth Bellarmin or any other beside the base parasitical Canonists or the Popes trencher chaplains deny but that in many civil causes the Prince or temporal Magistrate hath a definitive sentence can he then gather out of any circumstance of this place that only spiritual causes are here meant nay he confesseth that the law is general concerning all doubts that might arise out of the law yet it is most probable that it only concerns civil controversies and Bellarmins reason to prove that it includeth spiritual causes or matters of Religion is most idle The occasion of this Law saith he was for them that did serve other Gods as appears out of the beginnning of the Chapter now the service of other Gods is a point of Religion But what though Moses in the former part of this Chapter speak of Idolaters must this law therefore concern Idolaters In the former part he speaketh only of Idolaters but this law is not only for them by Bellarmins confession Yet the circumstances of the place and the expresse law against Idolaters mentioned before evince that in this Chapter as in the former he first sets down laws concerning the true service of God and in the later part gives precepts for the observation of the second Table the maintaining of love by the final composition of all controversies that might arise betwixt neighbours In the former law Idolaters are sentenced to death and Idolatry saith Bellarmin is a point of Religion Was the Priest alone then to give sentence and the civil Magistrate only to execute it There is not the least pretence for it out of this Text. Any ordinary Magistrate might execute him that was lawfully convicted of this crime nor was it so hard a matter to judge who was an Idolater amongst the Jews as it is to determin what is an Heresie amongst the Romanists This was to be proved by witnesses not by Logical proof or force of speculative reason Had the cunningest Jesuite in the world been taken amongst them kneeling down before an Image and praying to it all the distinctions in the Master of sentences or Aquinas or both their Commentators could not have redeemed him against two honest men that had sworn he had done thus much there had been no appeal from any City in Judah unto any higher Court his doom had been read in the gates and without them he should as Homer speaks have put on a stony coat 3 That the Kings of Judah were only to execute the Priests definitive sentence in all hard controversies is a position well deserving execution without appeal at Princes hands And no doubt but it did so amongst the Jews The former Court as is most probable was to cease when they had a King amongst them And Moses in the former Chapter after he had given the other law for ending controversies gives the law for the election of their King if so be they would have one as if the former Court had then ceased to be the supream Tribunal seeing all Subjects might appeal unto the King from it in which this Soveraignty did before reside as being the supream Tribunal whence there could be no appeal 4 The King in the Law concerning his qualification is commanded to have the Law of his God written out And it shall be with him and he shall read therein all the dayes of his life that he may learn to fear the Lord his God and to keep all the words of his Law and these Ordinances for to do them that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and that he turn not from the commandment
another manner then the Lacedâ—monians did Lycurgus laws were from Apollo For when the Law which enjoyns the worship of one God was given unto the people it did appear as far forth as the divine providence did judge sufficient by strange signs and motions whereof the people themselves were spectators that the creature did perform service to the Creator for the giving of that Law But we must believe as firmly as this people did Moses that all the Popes injunctions are given by God himself without any other sign or testimony then the Lacedemonians had that Lycurgus laws were from Apollo Yet is it here further to be considered that the Israelites might with far lesse danger have admitted Moses laws then we may the Popes without any examination for divine seeing there was no written law of God extant before his time whereby his writings were to be tried No such charge had been given this people as he gives most expresly to this purpose Now therefore hearken O Israel unto the ordinances and to the Laws which I teach you to do that ye may live and go in and possesse the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you Ye shall put nothing unto the word which I command you neither shall ye take ought there from that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you But was the motive or argument by which he sought to establish their belief or assent unto these commandments his own infallible authority no but their own experience of their truth as it followeth Your eyes have seen what the Lord did because of Baal-Peor For all the men that followed Baal-Peor the Lord thy God hath destroyed every one from among you but ye that did cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day so gracious and merciful is our God unto mankind and so far from exacting this blind obedience which the Pope doth challenge that he would have his written word established in the fresh memory of his mighty wonders wrought upon Pharaoh and all his host The experiment of their deliverance by Moses had been a strong motive to have perswaded them to admit of his doctrine for infallible or at the least to have believed him in his particular promises When the snares of death had compassed them about on every side and they see no way but one or rather two inevitable wayes to present death and destruction the red sea before them and a mighty host of bloud behind them the one serving as a glasse to represent the cruelty of the other they as who in their case would not cry out for fear He that could have foretold their strange deliverance from this imminent danger might have gotten the opinion of a God amongst the Heathen yet â—… confidently promiseth them even in the midst of this perplexity the utter destruction of the destroyer whom they feared Fear ye not stand 〈◊〉 and behold the salvation of the Lord which he will shew to you this day for the Egyptians whom you have seen this day you shal never see again The Lord shal fight for you therefore hold you your peace Notwithstanding all this Moses never enacts this absolute obedience to be believed in all that ever he shall say or speak unto them without farther examination or evident experiment of his doctrine For God requires not this of any man no not of those to whom he spake face to face alwayes ready to feed such as call upon him with infallible signs and pledges of the truth of his promises For this reason the waters of Mâ—rah are sweetned at Moses prayer And God upon this new experiment of his power and goodnesse takes occasion to re-establish his former covenant using this semblable event as a further earnest of his sweet promises to them If thou wilt diligently hearken O Israel unto the voice of the Lord thy God and wilt do that which is right in his sight and wilt give ear unto his commandments and keep all his ordinances then wil I put none of these diseases upon thee which I brought upon the Egyptians for I am the Lord that healeth thee As if he had said This healing of the bitter waters shal be a token to thee of my power in healing thee Yet for all this they distrust Gods promises for their food as it followeth cap. 16. Nor doth Moses seek to force their assent by fearful Anathema's or sudden destruction but of some principal offenders herein For God wil not have true faith thunder-blasted in the tender blade but rather nourished by continuance of such sweet experiments for this reason he showres down Manna from heaven I have heard the murmuring of the children of Israel tell them therefore and say At evening ye shall eat flesh and in the morning you shall be filled with bread and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God For besides the miraculous manner of providing both Quails and Manna for them the manner of nourishment by Manna did witnesse the truth of Gods word unto them They had been used to grosse and solid meats such as did fill their stomacks distend their bellies whereas Manna was in substance slender but gave strength and vigour to their bodies and served as an emblem of their spiritual food which being invisible yet gave life more excellently then these grosse and solid meats did So saith Moses Therefore he humbled thee and made thee hungry and fed thee with Manna which thou knowest not neither did thy Fathers know it that he might teach thee that man liveth not by bread only but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord. 6 Yet in their distresse so frail is our faith until it be strengthned by continual experiments they doubt and tempt the Lord saying Is the Lord amongst us or no Nor doth Moses interpose his infallible authority or charge them to believe him against their experience of their present thirst under pain of eternal damnation or sufferance of greater thirst in hell such threats without better instruction in Gods word and the comfort of his spirit may bring distrusts or doubts to utter despaire and cause faith to wither where it was wel nigh ripe they never ripen and strengthen any true and lively faith Moses himself is fain to cry unto the Lord saying What shall I do unto this people for they be almost ready to stone me As the Papists would do to the Pope were he to conduct them thorow the wildernesse in such extremity of thirst able to give them no better assurance of his favour with God then his Anathema's or feed them only with his Court-holy-water or blessings of wind But even here again God feeds Israels faith with waters issuing out of the rock making themselves eye-witnesses of all his wonders that so they might believe his words and promises nay himself from their own sense
you cannot that God can and what if he should expresly grant such authority as the Pope now challengeth would your arguments conclude him to be Antichrist or the Doctrine we teach to be blasphemous On the contrary seeing our Saviour Christ did never either practise or challenge seeing neither Moses nor the Prophets did ever so much as once intimate such absolute power should be acknowledged in that great Prophet of whom they wrote we suppose the imagination of the like in whomsoever cannot be without real blasphemie Yet suppose Christs infallibilitie and the Popes were in respect of the Church Militant the same The Popes authority would be greater or were their authority but equall his priviledges with God would be much more magnificent then Christs That which most condemned the Jews of infidelity in not acknowledging Christ as sent with power full and absolute from God his Father were his mighty signes and wonders his admirable skill in Gods Word already established but chiefly his sacred life and conversation as it were exhibiting unto the World a visible patern or conspicuous modell of that incomprehensible goodnesse which is infallible Now if we compare Christ his power fulnesse in words and wâ—… with the Popes imperfections in both or his divine vertues with the others 〈◊〉 strous viâ—es to equalize their infallibilities were to imagine God to be like man and Christ at the best but as his faithfull servant the Pope his â—inâ—on his Darling or Son of his age For such is our partiality to our own flesh that oft-times though the Wise man advise to the contrary a lewd and naughty son in that he is a son hath greater grace and priviledges then the most faithfull servant in the Fathers house So would the Jesuites make God dote upon the Pope whose authority be his life never so ungracious if they should deny to be lesse then Christs in respect of us their practises enjoyned ex Cathedra would confute them For much sooner shall any Christian though otherwise of life unspotted be cut off from the Congregation of the faithfull for denying the Popes authority or distrusting his decrees then the Jews that saw Christs miracles for contradicting him in the dayes of his flesh or oppugning his Apostles after his glorification Nor boots it ought to say They make the Popes authority lesse then Christs in respect they derive it from his rather because they evidently make it greater then Christs was it cannot be truly thence derived or if it could this onely proves it to be lesse then the other whilest onely compared with it not whilest we consider Both in respect of us for Christs authority as the Son of Man in respect of us is equall to his Fathers whence it is derived For the Father judgeth no man but hath ommitted all judgement unto the Son 2 But wherein do they make the Popes authority greater then Christs First in not exempting it from trial by Christs and his Apostles doctrine neither of which were to be admitted without all examination of their truth for as you heard before Gods Word was first uttered in their audience established by evident signes and wonders in their sight and presence of whom Belief and Obedience unto particulars was exacted And it is a rule most evident and unquestionable that Gods Word once confirmed and sealed by Experience was the onely rule whereby all other spirits and doctrines were to be examined that not Prophetical visions were to be admitted into the Canon of Faith but upon their apparent consonancie with the Word already written The first Prophets were to be tried by Moses the latter by Moses and their Predecessors Christs and his Apostles by Moses and all the Prophets for unto him did all the Prophets â—… The manifest experiments of his life and doctrine so fully consonant to their predictions did much confirm even his Disciples Belief unto the former Canon of whose truth they never conceived positive doubt 3 Again there had been no Prophet no signes no wonders for a long time in Iudah before our Saviours birth yet he never made that use either of his miracles or more then Prophetical spirit which the Papists make of their imaginary publick spirit he never used this or like argument to make the people relie upon him How know ye the Scriptures are Gods Word How know ye that God spake with Moses in the wildernesse or with your Fathers in Mount Sinai Moses your Fathers and the Prophets are dead and their writings cannot speak Your present Teachers the Scribes and Pharisees do no wonders Must you not then believe him whom daily you may behold doing such mighty works as Moses is said to have done that Moses as your fathers have told you was sent from God that Gods Word is contained in his writings otherwise you cannot infallibly believe that there was such a man indeed as you conceive he was much lesse that he wrote you this Law least of all can you certainly know the true meaning of what he wrote He that is the onely sure foundation of faith knew that faith grounded upon such doubts was but built upon the sand unable to abide the blasts of ordinary temptations that thus to erect their hopes was but to prepare a Rise to a grievous Downfall the ready way to Atheisme presumption or despair For this cause he doth not so much as once question how they knew the Scriptures to be Gods Word but supposing them known and fully acknowledged for such he exhorts his hearers to search them seeking to prepare their hearts by signes and wonders to embrace his admirable expositions of them And because the corruption of particular moral doctrines brought into the Church by humane tradition would not suffer the generality of Moses and the Prophets already believed to fructifie in his hearers hearts and branch out uniformely into lively working faith he laboured most to weed out Pharisaisme from among the heavenly seed as every one may see that compares his Sermon upon the Mount with the Pharisees glosses upon Moses If the particular or principal parts of the Law and Prophets had been as purely taught or as clearly discerned as the generall and common principles His Doctrine that came not to destroy but to fulfill the Law in words and works had shined as brightly in his hearers hearts at the first proposal as the Sun did to their eyes at the first rising For all the moral duties required by them were but as dispersed rayes or scattered beams of that divine light and glory which was incorporate in him as splendor in the body of the Sun Nor was there any possibility the Jews Belief in him should prosper unlesse it grew out of their general assent unto Moses Doctrine thus pruned and purged at the very root Had all believed Moses saith our Saviour 〈◊〉 would have believed me for he wrote of me but if ye believe not his writings how soâ—â—l ye believe my words For
it self would rather have held the Negative For if we believe as the Papists generally instruct us that we our selves all private spirits may erre in every perswaâ—on of faith but the Church which onely is assisted by a publick spirit cannot possibly teach amisle in any We must upon terms as peremptory and in equal degree believe every particular point of faith because the Church so teacheth us not because we certainly apprehend the truth of it in itself For we may erre but this publick spirit cannot And consequently we must infallibly believe these propositions ‖ Christ is the Redeemer of the world not Mahomet ‖ There is a Trinity of persons in the divine nature for this reason only that the Church commends them unto us for divine revelations seeing by their arguments brought to disprove the sufficiency of Scriptures or certainty of private spirits no other means possible is left us Nay were they true we should be only certain that without the Churches proposal we stil must be most uncertain in these and all other points because the sons are perpetually obnoxious to errour from which the mother is everlastingly priviledged The same propositions and conclusions we might conditionally believe to be absolutely authentick upon supposal they were Gods word but that they are his word or revelations truly divine we cannot firmly believe but only by firm adherence to the Churches infallible authority as was in the second Section deduced out of the Adversaries principles Hence it follows that every particular proposition of Faith hath such a proper causal dependance upon the Churches proposal as the conclusion hath upon the premisses or any particular upon it universal Thus much Sacroboscus grants 3 Suppose God should speak unto us face to face what reason had we absolutely and infallibly to believe him but because we know his words to be infallible his infallibility then should be the proper cause of our belief For the same reason seeing he doth not speak unto us face to face as he did to Moses but as our adversaries say reveals his will obscurely so as the Revealer is not manifested unto us but his meaning is by the visible Church which is to us in stead of Prophets Apostles and Christ himself and all the several manners God used to speak unto the world before he spake to it by his only son this Panthea's infallibility must be the true and proper cause of our Belief And Valentian himself thinks that Sarah and others of the old world to whom God spake in private either by the mouth of Angels his son or holy spirit or by what means soever did not sin against the doctrine of saith or through unbelief when they did not believe Gods promises They did herein unadvisedly not unbelievingly Why not unbelievingly because the visible Church did not propose these promises unto them 4 If not to believe the visible Churches proposals be that which makes distrust or dissidence to Gods promises infidelity then to believe them is the true cause of believing Gods promises or if Sarah and others did as Valentian faith unadvisedly or imprudently in not assenting to divine truths proposed by Angels surely they had done only prudently and advisedly in assenting to them their assent had not been truly and properly belief So that by this assertion the Churches proposal hath the very remonstrative note and character of the immediat and prime cause whereby we believe and know matters of saith For whatsoever else can concur without this our aslent to divine truths proposed is not true Catholick belief but firmly believing this infallibility we cannot erre in any other point of faith 5 This truth Valentian elsewhere could not dissemble howsoever in his prosessed resolution of Faith he sought to cover it by change of apparel Investing the Churches proposal only with the title of a Condition requisite and yet withal so dislonant is falsity to it self making it the Reason of believing divine Revelations If a reason it be why we should believe them need must it sway any reasonable minde to embrace their truth And whatsoever inclines our minds to the embracement of any truth is the proper efficient cause of belif or assent unto the same Yea Efficiency or Causality it self doth Formally consist in this inclination of the minde Nor is it possible this proposal of the Church should move our minds to imbrace divine Revelations by any other means then by believing it And Belief it self being an inclination or motion of the mind our minds must first be moved by the Churches proposal ere it can move them at all to assent unto other divine truths Again Valentian grants that the orthodoxal or catechistical answer to this interrogation Why do you believe the doctrine of the Trinity to be a divine revelation is because the Church proposeth it to me for such He that admits this answer for sound and Catholick and yet denies the Churches proposal to be the true and proper cause of his Belief in the former point hath smothered doubtlesse the light of nature by admitting too much artificial subtilty into his brains For if a man should ask why do you believe there is a fire in yonder house and answer were made Because I see the smoak go out of the Chimney should the party thus answering in good earnest peremptorily deny the sight of the smoak to be the cause of his Belief there was a fire he deserved very wel to have either his tongue scorched with the one or his eys put out with the other Albeit if we speak of the things themselves not of his Belief concerning them the fire was the true cause of the smoak not the smoak of the fire But whatsoever it be Cause Condition Circumstance or Effect that truly satissieth this demand Why do you believe this or that it is a true and proper cause of our belief though not of the thing believed If then we admit the Churches proposal to be but a condition annexed to divine revelations yet if it be an infallible medium or mean or as our adversaries all agree The only mean infallible whereby we can rightly believe this or that to be a divine revelation it is the true and only infallible cause of our Belief That speech of Valentian which to any ordinary mans capacity includes as much as we now say was before alledged That Scripture which is commended and expounded unto us by the Church is eo ipso even for this reason most authentick and clear He could not more emphatically have expressed the Churches proposal to be the true and prime cause why particular or determinate divine revelations become so credible unto us His Second Sacrobosâ—us hath many speeches to be inserted hereafter to the same effect Amongst others where Dâ— Whittaker objects that the principal cause of faith is by Papists ascribed unto the Church he denies it only thus far What we believe for the Churches proposal we
punishment 427 Spirit of God not to be known but by his fruits 150 Betwixt the Spirit of God and that of the Papacy the opposition is Diametral 449 c Christ would not suffer unclean spirits to publish the Gospel 354 Spirit of Antichrist 355 Spirits see Triall Proper sorcery in Jesuiticall doctrine 502 Sodom Straboes report of it 50. Circumference sixty furlongs Thirteen populous cities in that soyl destroyed by earthquake sayes he ib. Lots sons in law their wives Lots other daughters probably all destroyed in Sodom 49 Salt-sea might season the Atheist 50 Scriptures truth hath greater and surer tradition then any other Writings 10 Incitement to search the script 9 Madness not to search the script 9 Scripture miracles proved true 11 Script divine truth proved by its prevailing without outward help 11 Script confirmed by the solid marks of Historical truth 13 ad 17 Script divine truth proved by harmony of sacred Writers 17. script divine truth proved from its drift and scope 17 Script Authority proved from the vehemency and sincerity of spirituall affections 19 ad 25 Script truth proved by Poeticall fables 27 ad 30 Some scripture relations confirmed by the apparition of Heathen gods 34 ad 37 Scripture truths transformed into Poeticall fables 46 ad 57. scriptures relation of the Suns standing still misapplied to Atreus 48 Scripture relation of the fiery serpents changed into Cadmus his Dragon ib. Scripture relation of Sodom and Gomorâ—ha proved true by reason and sense 50 Scripture genealogies agree with the names of Nations 52. scriptures relations of the first inhabited parts how proved 53 Scriptures truth proved by Gods proceeding with the Iews 61 ad 90 Scriptures proved by the Iews desolation 137 Scriptures truth how to be confirmed by experiments in our selves 140 ad 145 Scriptures how to be read and heard 142 Many good qualifications required in Readers of scriptures that they may understand them 210 to 219 223 to 229 233 c. 248 256 258 c 261 264 270 Scriptures why so ineffectual in their Readers and Hearers 142 script ineffectivenesse in some no derogation to their power 142. script truth confirmed by the consent of Papists Protestants Jews 146. scripture truth to be known by practise 150. scriptures how unreasonably neglected and distrusted ib. script writ by Moses a perfect rule to the Israelites 229 to 233 255 263 Agreements and Differences betwixt Papist and Protestant about script 163 Obscurity pretended by Papists hinders not script from being that Rule 201 How Protestants grant ' script obscure 201 to 206 Unto what men and for what causes scriptures be obscure 206 to 210 Roâ—ish objections against perspicuity of script flye at God and the Pen-men of holy Writ as much as us 219 220 to 222 S. John and other Evangelists intended plainnesse 220. Pretences of Obscurity are vapours of fleshly corruption 223 233. Bellarmins darkning Lucerna 223 224 225 211. and Valentians 225 m. 226 c. yet this qualified 234. m. He sets a Candlestick upon the light 228 Papists sometimes made the holy Bible the holy Mount that might not be touched 229 m. But now may 257 upon condition m. ib. The Devil made the Jews depart from God by perswading them that Gods Law was too Obscure 230 What Protestants mean by scripture is the Rule of Faith 198 206 268 282 283. See Faith Scripture a rule of Faith even to the unlearned 199 Two Romish objections against scripture being Rule of Faith 155. The former answered 156 c Their other objections Hereticks urge scripture The Learned differ about sence of scripture private spirits uncertain answered 235 c Prove aut nihil aut nimium 266 c conclude against all science as much as against us 266 c See Hereticks Devil and Hereticks cunning in scripture Christ â—…inger and more ready to help 241 Scripture a slumbling block and snare to the unwise so Valent. 248 256. m Difficulty of scripture is the Jews vail so Valent. 209 252 Sufficiency of scripture 254 to 260. sine schola Simonis 259. m Christ submits his doctrine to scripture 255 Scriptures teach the remedy for the danger in reading scriptures 259 c The Objection Protestants permit all to use scripture and to take what sence they please ergo they have no means to end Controversies answered and retorted 271 Script must be understood by the same spirit by which they were written Bell. confesses this 286 Scripture supreme judge of Controversies in what sence 302. Councell of Trents Decree about interpreting scriptures 311 Scripture hath a Ruled Case for the successe of all State Business on foot in the World 144 About the Canon of scripture 146 T TAcitus his spleen against the Iews 70 c Against Christians 114 Tacitus objections against the Iews confuted 70 to 72. Tacitus a Tatler 76 Talmud seems to justifie the condemnation of Christ 396 Iesuites Tempt God 497 Templum Domini Templum Domini the Church the Church 374 422 508 Under the second temple no Bood added to the Canon Providence in it 59 Second Temple see Urim When the Temple was fired Titus kills the priests saying No need of them that being burnt 91 Tithes why so unwillingly payed 144 Titus dying expostulates with God 85 Tiberïus calls a Council about Pan 31 Ten Kings give power to the Beast 505 The word therefore imports not alwayes a cause of the thing but of our instruction to be taken from it 130 131 Testimony of Jesus spirit of prophesie 366 398 Testimony of Iews and papists usefull about Canon of scripture 146 147 c Thamous Egyptian 31 Thunder thought the Pythagoreans made to terrifie them in Hell 54 Turk partner with Ishmael in Circumcision A proselyt of Istmael Heir adopted to that promise Gen. 17. 20. 110 Turk signifies a wild man 110. Turks mad Historians Make Job and Alexander the Great Officers to Solomon 46 47. Under Turks and Saracens Christians suffer as Jews did under Greeks and Asiaticks 110 Tradition of parents how good for children 411 Traditions by Trent decree equal'd to script 487 Trajan in an earthquake drawn out at a window by miracle 96. Trajan shot in the shoulder 108 Trajans Army plagued with storms and flies 108 Traian pursues the Jews Enacts that if a Jew though driven by tempest set foot in Cyprus he is condemned ipso facto 111 Transubstantiation 328 Translation vulgar partly Lucians partly S Jeroms partly Theodotions the Heretick partly anothers may have scribe sâ—ps in it sayes Bellarm. yet no errata in iis quae ad Fidem mores pertinent 300 Forerius his defence and dealing for the vulgar translation 301 Trent decree for the vulgar translation 311 Tryall of spirits 150 c. 265 354 Christians in every Age tryed in tryall of spirits and in their love to God 265 Ignat. Loyola's way of tryall of spirits 151 Tryall of prophesies 434 c S Thomas Moors Jest 192 Ren. Tudelensis his visi ing and relation of the Jews his Countrey-mens
veâ—â—â—is qâ—am novi Testamenti câ—… urinâ—que â—… Deâ—…ctor neâ— non traditiones ipsas tùm ad sidem â—… res pertinentes tanquam vel ore 〈◊〉 Châ—… Vâ—l à Spiâ—itâ— Sancto dâ—ctatas â—… Ecclesia Cathâ—…a conservaras paâ—i 〈◊〉 aâ—â—â—ctâ— aâ—â—e verenâ—ia suscâ—â—it venetaâ—â—r Coâ—cil Tâ—â—dent Sâ—iâ— 4. Decretâ— de Canonicis Scripturis And a liâ—tle after having reckoned up the Apocryphal Books with the Caâ—…ical they thus conclude Si quis aâ—tem libros ipsos integros cum omnibus suis partibus prout in Ecclâ—sâ—a Catholica legi consueveâ—unt in veten vulgata Latina editione habentur pro Sacris Canouâ—â—â—s non susceperit traditiones praedictas sciens pâ—udens contempserit anaâ—hema sit Oâ—… inâ—â—lligaâ—t quo ordiâ—e via ipsa Synodus â—… fâ—dâ—â— confâ—ssionis fundamentum sit progrâ—… â—…mum testimoniis ac praesidiis in coâ—… dâ—gâ—â—atibus instaurandis in Ecclesia 〈◊〉 â—â—t usura The Councel was very wise in not expressing as well what unwritten traditions as written Books they meant to follow ‖ Râ—spondeâ— â—…â—â—nâ—s câ—â—â—â—s essâ— Ecclâ—sâ—â—m â—… â—… dubitare â—… Hâ—… caâ—eâ—a revâ—â—â—â—… ab ipâ—a mâ—â—â—e Eccleâ—â—a â—… â—… â—… ullâ—â— Noâ—… à Dâ—o 〈◊〉 â—… à â—… â—odi◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Novâ—… unus quidâ—â— aâ—… quâ— madmodumâ—evâ—lâ—tae 〈◊〉 â—… 〈◊〉 Aâ—… his mâ—llâ— iâ—… Moâ—e Pâ—… Sa â—… Senâ— Bell. â—… 〈◊〉 p. 109. The two maiâ— bâ—aâ—â—hes 〈◊〉 Râ—â—ish â—… â—… v. 5. * An objection which might be made in favour of the Romanists answered and retorted See Cap. 2. Cap. 29. * Nihil igitur afferunt qui Ecclesiae authoritatem non absolute sed ex conditione ponunt Si namque ad eum modum res habet mihi quoque fides habenda est quando pronunciavero secundum Scripturas rectè intellectas Id enim est non mihi sed Scripturae credere Caenus lib. 4. ca. 4. See cap. 1. parag 11. The greater Moral or Historical Belief the Romanist hath of the truth or true meaning of Scriptures the greater his condemnation by subscription to this doctrine of the Churches absolute infallibilitie * This argument holds as we say 〈◊〉 fortiori of saith insased 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can be so fully perswaded that be bath 〈◊〉 saith 〈◊〉 of any point but must renounce his perswasion when the Church defines the contrary whose definition or asseaeration be it a cause or condition of beleeving will fully perswadeâ—â— Romanist that he now hath divine iâ—sâ—â—â—d faith of the câ—ntrary to that be believed before For his divine inâ—â—ted saith and his habit of Theologie may not disagree and yet in this case his habit of Theologie may not yeeld unto the other because it hath the Churches testimony which it is supposed the other wanteth †See the notes out of Bellarmin Cap. 3. parag 9. That this doctrine 〈◊〉 â—dens such as eâ—brace it to glory in villany Quotiescunque Romanus Pontifex in fidei quaestionibus definiendis illa qua est praeditus authoritate utitur ab omnibus fidelibus tanquam doctrina fidei recipi divino praecepto debet ea sentententia quam ille decernit esse sententiam fidei Toties autem cum illa ipsa authoritate uti credendum est quoties in controversia fidei sic alterutram sententiam determinat ut ad eam recipiendam obligare velit universam Ecclesiam Valent. tom 3. in Aquin. Disp 1. Quaest 1. De object fidei Punct 7. parag 10. * Distinguendi sunt modi quibus potest contingere Pontificem aliquid asserere Primo enim potest sibi persuadere aut asserere aliquid ut privata persona quaedam vel doctor alius quispiam ut si nollet Ecclesiam universam ad recipiendam suam assertionem obligare sed tantum sententiam ipse suam reputaret veram Hoc modo Innocentius 3. nonnulli alij Pontifices opuscula varia ediderunt Ac illa quidem quae sic Pontisex asseverat communis sententia omnium Theologorum est non oportere esse onmia â—era infallibilia quasi à Pontificia authoritate profecta Quin imo à plerisque authoribus conceditur fieri posse ut Ponâ—sex tanquam quaedam privata persona in haeresim labatur Idem Ibidem Secundo modo potest Pontifex aliquid asserere obligando universaÌ„ EcclesiaÌ„ ut illud recipiat nec quisquaÌ„ audeat sibi persuadere contrariuÌ„ Et quaecunque Pontisex in aliqua de religione controversia sic asserit certa side credenduÌ„ est illum infallibiliter ac proinde ex authoritare Pontificia hoc est ex divina assistentia id asserere Ib. †Itaque quod ad Canonizationem Sanctorum attinet omnino nego id quod communiter doctores Catholici jure optimo negant videlicet posse Pontificem 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Qâ—amvis enim testimonia quae pro 〈◊〉 hominis sanctitare asseruntur sint humana ideâ—que natura sua fallibilia tameÌ„ posito quod Pontifexillis inducatur tandeÌ„ ad pronuncianduÌ„ quem piam sanctum atque beatuÌ„ jam esse certa fide credenduÌ„ est testimonia iâ—â—a quaâ—â—nus in genere salteÌ„ probant piè atque sanctè quenquaÌ„ ex hac vira excessisse vera esse homineÌ„ eju modi ex cotuÌ„ esse numero quos per revelationes scripturae generales in coÌ„muni coÌ„stat divinae gratiae beneficio coÌ„sequi aeternae vitae heatitudineÌ„ Quae sanè certitudo iisdeÌ„ illis Dei promissionibus nititur ex quibus coÌ„pertuÌ„ habemus nimquaÌ„ esse futuruÌ„ ut universa Eoclesia in rebus religionis fallatur Falleretur auteÌ„ graviter in negotio religionis si sanctuÌ„ reputaret ac pro tall veneraretur eum qui sanctus non est Hic auteÌ„ illud quod alias ab orthodoxis probatum atque defensum est tanquam ex fide certum pono nempe rem esse omnino quae ad Ecclesiae aedisicationem adeoque ad ossicium Pontisicis pertineat ut Sancti quidam aliquando Canonizentur ac proinde universam Ecclesiam debere ut sanctum venerari illum quem summus Pontifex nunâ—ero Sanctorum adscribit sicut etiam usus ipse perpetuus atque traditio Ecclesiae confirmat Valent. ibid. Parag. 41. * Psal 14. v. 1. The fearful manner of Jesuites tempting God in maintaining this argument * Lib. 2 c. 31. Parag. 6. †His words be cited Parag. 2. * Objicâ— potest quod ut postea dicturi sumus ut Pontifex in definiendo authoritate sua rectè utatur studio diligentia in inquirenda veritate opus habet Nihil autem obstâ—râ— videtur quo minus possit interduÌ„ ille ejusmodi diligentia praetermissa controversiam definite Poterit igitur tunc saltem errare Respondâ—o five Pontifex in definiendo studium adhibeat sive non adhibeat modo tamen controversiam definiat infallibiliter cerâ—è definiet atque adeo reipsa utetur authoritate sibi à Christo concessa Quod ex promissionibus divinis de veritate per magisteâ—…um unius pastoris Ecclesiae fact is
which cause they were in conscience bound to examine his doctrine by Moses and the Prophets otherwise they might have believed the saving truth but falsly and upon deceitfull grounds The stronger or more absolute credence they had given unto his words or works without such examination the more they had ensnared their souls and set their consciences upon the Rack by admitting a possibility of contradiction betwixt two doctrines both firmly believed without any evidence of their consonancy or Both conspiring to the same end The speedier and higher this edification in Christ had been the sooner it might have ruinated that foundation which God by Moses and the Prophets had reared in Israel unlesse this new work had been orderly squared well proportioned closely layed and strongly cemented unto the former In secular schooles he is held an unwise answerer that will admit Socraticall Interrogations for albeit there appear no difficulty in any one proposed apart yet in the processe a respondent may be easily brought to grant Conclusions from which he knows not what Consequences may be drawn because their Consonancie with the Problem whose defence he undertakes is not so evident nor immediate as upon a sodain may be fully examined And not examining the consonancie of every other proposition with the principles of that faculty whereto the Problem belongs the best answerer living may be made either grant what he should not or deny what should be granted Now Christs doctrine was to Mosaical and Prophetical as the Conclusion to the Promises or as the Corollary of greatest use unto the Speculative Theorem Suppose then a Jew well skilled in Moses and the Prophets should instantly upon the first hearing of our Saviours Sermons or sight of his miracles have admitted him for such an infallible teacher upon termes as absolute and irrevocable as the Jesuite would have the Pope acknowledged by all Christians a good disputant might easily have staggered him by these or 〈◊〉 Socratical demands Do you steafastly believe Moses writings for Gods word Gâ—â— forbid I should doubt of this Do ye believe this new doctrine confirmed by miracles as firmly What if I do Do you know as certainly whether both agree as well as one part of Moses writings with another What if I do not Untill you be fully resolved in this your belief in both cannot be sound for in case they should disagree the one must needs be false and if choice were given you whether in sooth would you disclaim Here a wise man that as the wise King speaks had eyes in his head and would not be led by a blind faith would have paused a while and thought with himself This is a point that should be looked to for if these new doctrines should prove incompatible as for any just examination hitherto made they may I cannot see whâ—ther deserves more credence Whiles I consider Moses writings and call to mind those mighty wonders our fathers told us with like continuall experiments of their divine truth nothing can seem more certain then they again whiles I behold these new miracles me thinks his authority that works them should be as great as Moses was yet if they should happen to disagree the one must be better believed then the other or else for ought I see there can be no certainty of either for if this mans possibly may be why might not Moses doctrine likewise be false or if our fathers were deceived by his signes and wonders why may not we be so served by this mans miracles But if upon just triall they shall be found fully to agree in every point as I trust they do then doubtlesse both are from God and I shall stedfastly believe this new doctrine to be divine if such as Moses had foretold and withall more evidently acknowledge then before I could that Moses spake by the Spirit of the all-seeing everliving God if this Jesus of Nazareth be in all points like to him and so qualified as he foretold the great Prophet should be But in the interim till the triali â—e made it is best to lay sure hold on Moses and the Prophets For prior tempore potior jure their writings doubtlesse were from God because hitherto they could not be destroyed time and they shall trie whether Jesus and his doctrine be so or no whether he be that great Prophet that should come or we are yet to look for some other 4 Thus when John Baptist sent his Disciples to our Saviour with this very question Art thou he that should come or shall we look for another The answer he returned again whether for confirmation of Iohns own faith or as the most interpreters think of his Disciples was this and no more Go and shew Iohn what things ye have seen and heard that the blind see the halt go the lepers are cleansed the deaf hear the dead rise again and the Gospel is preached to the poor and blessed is he that shall not be offended in me These or other of their fellow Disciples had enformed their Master Iohn before of Christs healing the Centurions servant by his word or command though absent of his raising the widows son from death to life of the rumours spread abroad of him thorowout all Judea and the regions round about and upon this report as Saint Luke tells us did John make the former solemne demand But some will yet demand how could he or his Disciples be confirmed by the answer given them wherein is little more then formerly both had heard for the raising up of the widowes son which especially occasioned their coming was the greatest of all in this Catalogue and yet as great as this some of the ancient Prophets had done how could it then prove him to be the Messias Had he told them as much in plain termes they might have beleeved him because this great work did witnesse him to be a Prophet and therefore one that could not lie But by this answer how could they gather more then the people upon the astonishment of that accident had said for when the dead man sate up and spake fear saith the Evangelist came on them all and they glorified God saying A great Prophet is raised up among us and God hath visited his people Luke 7. 16. 5 Yet this objection at least the solution confirms the truth of my former assertion that by his miracles alone considered they were not bound absolutely to believe he was the Messias but by comparing them with other circumstances or presupposed truths especially the Scriptures received and approved prophesies of the Messias though no one for the greatnesse of power manifested in it could of it self yet the frequencie of them at that time and the condition of the parties on whom they were wrought might absolutely confirme John and his Disciples because such they were in these and every respect as the Evangelical Prophet had foretold Messias should work for this reason our Saviour delivers his