that it were a needless task to repeat them who so unanimously assert the sufficiency unalterableness and perfection of that Faith which is contained in the Creed making it the summe of all necessary Doctrines the Foundation of the Catholick Faith and of the Church the first and sole Confession of Evangelical Doctrine Of all which and many more expressions to the same purpose produced not only by our Writers but by yours too no tolerable sense can be made without asserting that whatever was judged necessary to be believed by all by the Catholick Church of that Age they lived in or before them was therein contained Besides what account can be given why any such Summaries of Faith should at all be made either by Apostles or Apostolical persons but only for that end that necessary Articles of Faith might be reduced into such a compass as might become portable to the weakest capacities If the rise of Creeds were as most probable it was from the things propounded to the Catechumens to be believed in order to Baptism can we reasonably think that any thing judged necessary to be believed should be left out If the Apostolical Creed be a summary comprehension of that Form of sound Doctrine which the Apostles delivered to all Christians at their first conversion as it is generally supposed either we must think the Apostles unfaithful in their work or the Creed an unfaithful account of their Doctrine or that such things which were supposed universally necessary to be believed are therein comprehended Which is sufficient for my purpose that nothing ought to be looked on as a necessary Article of Faith or was so esteemed by the Catholick Church which is not contained in the Ancient Creeds 2. Nothing ought to be judged a necessary Article of Faith but what was universally believed by the Catholick Church to be delivered as such by Christ or his Apostles So that it is not the judgement but the testimony of the Catholick Church which must be relyed on and that testimony only when universal as delivering what was once infallibly delivered by Christ or his Apostles From whence it follows that any one who will undertake to make out any thing as a necessary Article of Faith by Catholick Tradition meerly must do these things 1. He must make it appear to be universally embraced at all times and in all places by such who were members of the Catholick Church 2. That none ever opposed it but he was presently disowned as no member of the Catholick Church because opposing something necessary to Salvation 3. That it be delivered by all those Writers of the Church who give an account of the Faith of Christians or what was delivered by Christ and his Apostles to the Church 4. That it was not barely looked on as necessary to be believed by such as might be convinced it was of Divine Revelation but that it was deliver'd with a necessity of its being explicitly believed by all 5. That what is deliver'd by the consent of the Writers of the Catholick Church was undoubtedly the Consent of the Church of those ages 6. That all those Writers agree not only in the Belief of the thing it self but of the Necessity of it to all Christians 7. That no Writers or Fathers of succeeding Ages can be supposed to alter in the belief either of the matters believed before or the necessity of them 8. That no oppositions of Hereticks or heats of Contention could make them judge any Article so opposed to be more necessary than it was judged before that Contention or they themselves would have judged it had it not been so opposed 9. That when they affirm many Traditions to be Apostolical which yet varied in several Churches they could not affirm any Doctrine to be Apostolical which they were not universally agreed in 10. That when they so plainly assert the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith they did yet believe something necessary to Salvation which was not contained therein When you or any one else will undertake to make good these conditions I shall then begin to believe that something may be made appear to be a necessary Article of Faith which is not clearly revealed in Scripture but not before but till then this Negative will suffice that nothing ought to be embraced as the judgement of the Church concerning a necessary Article of Faith but what appears to be clearly revealed in Scriture and universally embraced by the Catholick Church of all Ages 3. Nothing ought to be looked on as a necessary Article of Faith by the judgement of the Catholick Church the denyal of which was not universally opposed and condemned as Heresie For otherwise the Catholick Church was very little sensible of the honour of Christian Faith if it suffered dissenters in necessary things without putting a mark of dishonour upon them Therefore we may conclude that whatever was patiently born with in such as dissented from the generality of Christians especially if considerable persons in the Church were the authors or fomenters of such opinions however true the contrary Doctrine was supposed to be yet it was not supposed necessary because then the opposers would have been condemned of Heresie by some open act of the Catholick Church But if beyond these Negatives we would enquire what was positively believed as necessary to Salvation by the Catholick Church we shall hardly find any better way than by the Articles of the Ancient Creeds and the universal opposition of any new Doctrine on its firsts appearance and the condemning the broachers of it for Heresie in Oecumenical Councils with the continual disapprobation of those Doctrines by the Christian Churches of all Ages As is clear in the cases of Arrius and Pelagius For it seems very reasonable to judge that since the necessary Articles of Faith were all delivered by the Apostles to the Catholick Church since the foundation of that Church lyes in the belief of those things which are necessary that nothing should be delivered contrary to any necessary Article of Faith but the Church by some evident act must declare its dislike of it and its resolution thereby to adhere to that necessary Doctrine which was once delivered to the Saints And withall it seems reasonable that because Art and Subtilty may be used by such who seek to pervert the Catholick Doctrine and to wrest the plain places of Scripture which deliver it so far from their proper meaning that very few ordinary capacities may be able to clear themselves of such mists as are cast before their eyes the sense of the Catholick Church in succeeding ages may be a very useful way for us to embrace the true sense of Scripture especially in the great Articles of the Christian Faith As for instance in the Doctrine of the Deity of Christ or the Trinity though the subtilty of such Modern Hereticks who oppose either of these may so far prevail on persons either not of sufficient
which supposing it never so great is not shewed to the Councils but to your Church For the reason of that Reverence cannot be resolved into the Councils but into that Church for whose sake you reverence them And thus it evidently appears That the cunning of this device is wholly your own and notwithstanding these miserable shifts you do finally resolve all Authorities of the Fathers Councils and Scriptures into the Authority of the present Roman-Church which was the thing to be proved The first Absurdity consequent from hence which the Arch-Bishop chargeth your party with is That by this means they ascribe as great Authority if not greater to a part of the Catholick Church as to the whole which we believe in our Creed and which is the Societie of all Christians And this is full of Absurdity in nature in reason in all things that any part should be of equal worth power credit or authority with the whole Here you deny the Consequence which you say depends upon his Lordships wilfully mistaken Notion of the Catholick Church which he saith Is the Church we believe in our Creed and is the Society of all Christians which you call a most desperate extension of the Church because thereby forsooth it will appear that a part is not so great as the whole viz. that the roman-Roman-Church in her full latitude is but a piece or parcel of the Catholick Church believed in our Creed Is this all the desperate Absurdity which follows from his Lordships Answer I pray shew it to have any thing tending to an Absurdity in it And though you confidently tell us That the Roman-Church taken as comprizing all Christians that are in her Communion is the sole and whole Catholick Church yet I will contentedly put the whole issue of the cause upon the proof of this one Proposition that the Roman-Church in its largest sense is the sole and whole Catholick Church or that the present Roman-Church is a sound member of the Catholick Church Your evidence from Ecclesiastical History is such as I fear not to follow you in but I beseech you have a care of treading too near the Apostles heels That any were accounted Catholicks meerly for their Communion with the Roman-Church or that any were condemned for Heresie or Schism purely for their dissent from it prove it when you please I shall be ready God willing to attend your Motions But it is alwaies your faculty when a thing needs proving most to tell us what you could have done This you say You would have proved at large if his Lordship had any more than supposed the contrary But your Readers will think that his Supposition being grounded on such a Maxim of Reason as that mentioned by him it had been your present business to have proved it but I commend your prudence in adjourning it and I suppose you will do it as the Court of Areopagus used to do hard causes in diem longissimum It is apparent the Bishop speaks not of a part of the Church by representation of the whole which is an objection no body but your self would here have fancied and therefore your Instance of a Parliament is nothing to the purpose unless you will suppose that Councils in the Church do represent in such a manner as Parliaments in England do and that their decision is obligatory in the same way as Acts of Parliament are if you believe this to be good Doctrine I will be content to take the Objecters place and make the Application The next Absurdity laid to your charge is as you summe it up That in your Doctrine concerning the Infallibility of your Church your proceeding is most unreasonable in regard you will not have recourse to Texts of Scripture exposition of Fathers propriety of Language Conference of Places Antecedents and Consequents c. but argue that the Doctrine of the present Church of Rome is true and Catholick because she professeth it to be such which saith he is to prove idem per idem To this you answer That as to all those helps you use them with much more candour than Protestants do And why so Because of their manifold wrestings of Scriptures and Fathers Let the handling the Controversies of this Book be the evidence between us in this case and any indifferent Reader be the Judge You tell us You use all these helps but to what purpose do you use them Do you by them prove the Infallibility of your Church If not the same Absurdity lyes at your door still of proving idem per idem No that you do not you say But how doth it appear Thanks to these mute persons the good Motives of Credibility which come in again at a dead lift but do no more service than before I pray cure the wounds they have received already before you rally them again or else I assure you what strength they have left they will employ it against your selves You suppose no doubt your Coleworts good you give them us so often over but I neither like proving nor eating idem per idem But yet we have two Auxiliaries more in the field call'd Instances The design of your first Instance is to shew That if your Church be guilty of proving idem per idem the Apostolical Church was so too For you tell us That a Sectary might in the Apostles times have argued against the Apostolical Church by the very same method his Lordship here uses against the present Catholick Church For if you ask the Christians then Why they believe the whole Doctrine of the Apostles to be the sole true Catholick Faith their Answer is Because it is agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ. If you ask them How they know it to be so they will produce the words sentences and works of Christ who taught it But if you ask a third time By what means they are assured that those Testimonies do indeed make for them or their cause or are really the Testimonies and Doctrine of Christ they will not then have recourse to those Testimonies or Doctrine but their Answer is They know it to be so because the present Apostolick Church doth witness it And so by consequence prove idem per idem Thus the Sectary I know not whether your faculty be better at framing Questions or Answers to them I am sure it is extraordinary at both Is it not enough to be in a Circle your selves but you must needs bring the Apostles into it too at least if you may have the management of their Doctrine you would do it The short Answer to all this is That the ground why the Christians did assent to the Apostles Doctrine as true was because God gave sufficient evidence that their Testimony was infallible in such things where such Infallibility was requisite For you had told us before That the Apostles did confirm their words with signs that followed by which signs all their hearers were bound to submit themselves unto
all opportunities to disgrace it and infringe the liberties of it Thence came the rage of Leo against Anatolius the Patriarch of Constantinople in the time of Martianus thence the feud between Simplicius and Felix 3. of Rome and Acacius of Constantinople for defending the Priviledges of his See in opposition to the Pope's insomuch that Felix fairly excommunicates him because he would not submit to the Pope's tryal in the case of the Patriarch of Alexandria which continued so long that Euphemius who succeeded Acacius though he excommunited Petrus Moggus of Alexandria yet could not be received into the Communion of the Roman Church by Felix because he would not expunge the name of Acacius out of the Diptychs of the Church and afterwards Gelasius refused it on the same grounds which Euphemius still denying to do the Schism continued And although afterwards the Emperour Anastasius and the Greek Church desired the making up of this difference yet no other terms of communion would be accepted by Hormisdas without the expunging the name of Acacius So implacably were they bent against the very memory of Acacius for defending the Priviledge of his See that they would rather continue that lamentable Schism than not avenge themselves upon him and consequently make all future Patriarchs fearful of opposing the Pope's Authority If we look yet further we shall still find the ambition of the Popes to have caused all the disturbance in the Greek Churches although some of the Patriarchs of Constantinople cannot be excused from the same faults In the time of the second Council at Nice Pope Adrian not only contends for the enlargement of his Jurisdiction but threatens to pronounce them Hereticks who did not consent to it which makes Petrus de Marcâ say That he supposeth that the first time ever any were charged with Heresie on such an account The same pretence we find still in all the Schisms which after happened as that in the time of Photius that afterward in the time of Michael Cerularius and in the successive ages still the terms of communion were Submission to the Church of Rome and acknowledgledging the supremacy of that See which the Greeks did then and do still constantly deny so that it was not the Greeks Levity but the Romanists ambition and usurpation which gave occasion to that fearful Schism But for all this It must still be lawful for your Church to add and Anathematize too which his Lordship thought a little unreasonable but it seems you do not For say you The Church did rightly Anathematize all such denyers why so Because the meaning of the Latin Church being understood by the Addition of Filioque and that whosoever denyed must be supposed to deny the Procession then it became Heresie to deny it and the Church did rightly Anathematize all such denyers So you say indeed but you would do well 1. To shew that the understanding the meaning of the Latin Church is sufficient to make the denyers of what she affirms to be Hereticks 2. How any one that denies the Filioque must be supposed to deny the Procession if you mean the Procession à Filio you speak very wisely but prove nothing for some might grant the Procession and yet deny the lawfulness of your Churches adding to the Creed 3. All this while we are to seek how the Latin Church can make any thing to be a Heresie which was not so before And therefore if your Anathema's have no better grounds the Greeks need not much fear the effects of them That your Church on any occasion is apt enough to speak loud words we may very easily believe but whether she had just cause to speak so big in this cause is the thing in question and we have already manifested the contrary His Lordship sayes It ought to be no easie thing to condemn a man of Heresie in foundation of Faith much less a Church least of all so ample and large a Church as the Greek especially so as to make them no Church Heaven Gates were not so easily shut against multitudes when S. Peter wore the Keyes at his own Girdle To this you answer Neither is the Roman-Catholick Church justly accusable of cruelty though the Bishop taxes her of it because she is quick and sharp against those that fall into Heresie But if she hath power to pronounce whom she please Hereticks and on what account she please as Hadrian I. in case of his Patrimony and then it be commendable in her to deal with them as Hereticks it must needs be dangerous opposing her in any thing for such who dread her Anathema's But his Lordship was not speaking of what was to be done in case of notorious Heresie but what tenderness ought to be used in condemning men for Heresie and much more in condemning whole Churches for it on such slender accounts as you do the Greek Church You should shew When S. Peter or any of the Apostles did exclude Churches from communion for denying such Articles as that you charge the Greek Church with And it would be worth your enquiry why those in the Corinthian Church who at least questioned the Resurrection those in the Galatian and other Churches who asserted the Necessity of the Ceremonial Law under the Gospel both which errours are by the Apostle said to be of so dangerous a nature are not Anathematized presently by the Apostle and thrown out of the Church at least to prevent the infection of other Christians if not for the good of the Libertine Hereticks as you speak Your mentioning S. Peters proceeding with Ananias and Sapphira must be acknowledged a very fit resemblance for your Churches dealing with Hereticks only they whom you are pleased to account Hereticks have cause to rejoyce that since your Churches good will is so much discovered she hath not the same miraculous Power For then she would be sure to have few left to oppose her But do you really think Anania's and Sapphira's fault was no greater than that of the Greek Church that you produce this instance and do you think the Church enjoyes still the same power over offenders which S. Peter then had If not to what purpose do you mention such things here unless to let us see that it is want of some thing else besides will which makes you suffer any whom you call Hereticks to live That S. Paul chastised his untoward Children indeed you tell us from 1 Cor 5.5 1 Tim. 1.20 but if you bring this to any purpose you must make the Greeks Errour as bad as Incest or a denying the Faith and when you have done so you may hear of a further answer On what account your Church punisheth Delinquents will be then necessary to be shewed when you have a little further cleared what Power your Church hath to make Delinquents in such cases as you condemn the Greek Church for But as long as your Church is Accuser Witness and Judge too you must never
her Sons for Peace sake not to oppose them And in another place more fully We do not suffer any man to reject the thirty nine Articles of the Church of England at his pleasure yet neither do we look upon them as Essentials of Saving Faith or Legacies of Christ and his Apostles but in a mean as pious Opinions fitted for the preservation of Vnity neither do we oblige any man to believe them but only not to contradict them By which we see what a vast difference there is between those things which are required by the Church of England in order to Peace and those which are imposed by the Church of Rome as part of that Faith extra quam non est salus without belief of which there is no Salvation In which she hath as much violated the Vnity of the Catholick Church as the Church of England by her Prudence and Moderation hath studied to preserve it 2. Nothing ought to be imposed as a necessary Article of Faith to be believed by all but what may be evidently propounded to all persons as a thing which God did require the explicit belief of It being impossible to make any thing appear a necessary Article of Faith but what may not only be evidently proved to be revealed by God but that God doth oblige all men to the belief of it in order to Salvation And therefore none of those things whose obligation doth depend on variety of Circumstances ought in reason be made the Bonds of that Communion which cannot take notice of that variety as to mens conditions and capacities There are many things in Christian Religion which whosoever believes the truth of it cannot but easily discern to be necessary in order to the profession and practice of it in most of which the common sense and reason of mankind is agreed Not only the Existence of a Deity the clear discovery of the Wisdom Goodness and Power of God with his Providence over the world and the Immortality of Souls being therein most evidently revealed but the way and manner of the restitution of mens souls by Faith in Jesus Christ as our only Saviour and Obedience to his Commands is so fully laid down in the clearest terms that no rational man who considers the nature of Christian Religion but must assert the profession of all these things to be necessary to all such who own Christian Religion to be true But there are many other things in Christian Religion which are neither so clearly revealed in the Scriptures nor unanimously assented to in any age of the Christian Church and why any such things should be made the conditions of that Communion in the Catholick Church whose very being depends only on necessary things would puzzle a Philosopher to understand As if none should be accounted Mathematicians but such as could square circles and none Naturalists but such as could demonstrate whether quantity were infinitely divisible or no much so it is if none should be accounted members of the Catholick Church but such as own the truth and necessity of some at least as disputable Points as any in Religion Let therefore any Romanist tell me whether the Pope's Supremacy be as clear in Scripture as that Christ is Saviour of the world whether Purgatory be as plain as Eternal Life Transubstantiation as evident as that the Eucharist ought to be administred whether Invocation of Saints be as manifest as the Adoration of God the Doctrine of Indulgences as Repentance from dead works and if there be so great a clearness in the Revelation of the one and so far from it as to the other let them give any just account why the belief of the one is made as necessary to Salvation as the other is Certainly such who take in things at least so disputable as all these are and enforce the belief of them in order to their Communion cannot otherwise be thought but to have a design to exclude a great part of the Christian world from their Communion and to do so and then cry out of them as Schismaticks is the most unreasonable proceedings in the world 3. Nothing ought to be required as a necessary Article of Faith but what hath been believed and received for such by the Catholick Church of all Ages For since necessary Articles of Faith are supposed to be so antecedently to the Being of the Catholick Church since the Catholick Church doth suppose the continual acknowledgement of such things as are necessary to be believed it is but just and reasonable to admit nothing as necessary but what appears to have been so universally received Thence it is that Antiquity Vniversality and Consent are so much insisted on by Vincentius Lerinensis in order to the proving any thing to be a necessary Article of Faith But the great difficulty of this lyes in finding out what was received for a necessary Article of Faith and what was not by the Catholick Church which being a subject as necessary as seldom spoken to I shall not leave it untouched although I must premise that Rule to be much more useful in discovering what was not looked on as a necessary Article of Faith than what was and therefore I begin with that first 1. It is sufficient evidence that was not looked on as a necessary Article of Faith which was not admitted into the Ancient Creeds Whether all those Declarations which were inserted in the enlargements of the Apostolical Creed by the Councils of Nice and Constantinople and in that Creed which goes under the name of Athanasius were really judged by the Catholick Church of all Ages to be necessary to Salvation is not here my business to enquire but there seems to be a great deal of reason for the Negative that what was not inserted in the Ancient Creeds was not by them judged necessary to be believed by all Christians I know it is said by some of your party That the Apostolical Creed did only contain those Articles which were necessary to be believed in opposition to the present Heresies which were then in the Church As though the necessity of believing in Christians came only by an Antiperistasis of the opposition of Hereticks And if there had been no Hereticks to have denyed God's being the Creatour and Christ's being the Saviour it had not been necessary to have believed either of them so explicitly as now we do But when we speak of all things necessary to be believed by all I mean not that all circumstances of things contained in those Creeds are necessary to be believed in order to Salvation but that all those things which were judged as necessary to be believed by all were therein inserted will appear to any one who either considers the expressions of the Ancients concerning the Creeds then in Use or the primary reason why such Summaries of Faith were ever made in the Christian Church The testimonies of the Fathers to this purpose are so well known in this subject
she declares was intus or extra in the nature and verity of the thing or out of it If it were extra without the nature of the thing declared then the Declaration of the thing is false and so far from being Fundamental in the Faith If it were intus within the nature and compass of the thing though not open and apparent to every eye then the Declaration is true but not otherwise Fundamental then the thing is which is declared for that which is intus cannot be larger or deeper than that in which it is if it were it could not be intus Therefore nothing is simply Fundamental because the Church declares it but because it is so in the nature of the thing which the Church declares In answer to this you seem more ingenuous than usual for you acknowledge that his expression is learnedly solid and good but yet you would seem to return some answer to this Argument viz. That although there be no alteration in the nature of the Articles by the Churches Declaration yet this doth not hinder them from becoming Fundamental in that sense in which we dispute i. e. such as cannot be denyed or doubted of under pain of damnation although they were not thus Fundamental before the Declaration as not being so clearly proposed to us as that we were bound to believe them Neither doth this take away any thing from their intus or that Being which they had of themselves but only gives a certainty of their being so and declares that they ought to be so quoad nos as well as quoad se and internally And it is no evasion but a solid distinction that the Declaration of the Church varies not the thing in it self but quoad nos in its respect to us The substance of your Answer lyes in this That though the Church by her Declaration doth not alter the nature of things yet she may and doth our Obligation to believe them so that such things which men might have been saved without believing before when once the Church hath declared them become necessary to be believed in order to Salvation And yet you would not have this called making new Articles of Faith But I pray tell us what you mean by Articles of Faith are not those properly Articles of Faith as distinct from Theological Verities which are necessary to be believed by all If therefore those things which the Church declares were before not necessary and by the Churches Declaration do become necessary than certainly those things which were not Articles of Faith do become Articles of Faith and what then doth the Church by her Declaration but make New Articles of Faith But though you assert the thing you like not the terms because they do not sound so pleasantly to the ears of Christians who believe all Obligation to Faith doth depend upon immediate Divine Revelation Setting aside therefore the terms let us examine the thing to see upon what grounds the Church can make that necessary to us which was not in it self In which case the Obligation not arising from the necessity of the Matter in it self to be believed it is no otherwise intelligible but that it must result from the supposition of some Immediate Revelation For nothing else can bind us to an Internal Assent which you require as necessary to the Churches Definitions but that unless you can shew how any Society of men considered as such have power to oblige all other men to believe what they declare on pain of damnation for not doing it I pray tell me whether the Apostles themselves had power to bind all Christians to the belief of something as necessary which the Spirit of God did not immediately reveal to them to be so If not what power can any Church have to do it without a greater measure of Infallibility than the Apostles ever pretended to For they never attempted to define any thing as necessary which was supposed unnecessary to be believed after the Doctrine of the Gospel was declared to the world Before then you can perswade us to believe that your Church can make any thing necessary which was not so you must prove an Absolute Infallible Divine Assistance of God's Spirit with your Church in whatever she shall attempt to declare or define as matter of Faith As for instance Supposing it not necessary to Salvation in it self to believe the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary how is it possible to conceive after your Churches Definition of it it should become necessary unless it be supposed that there was an Immediate Divine Revelation in that Definition For nothing but Divine Authority commanding our Assent the ground of Faith must be resolved into that now in this case besides the Immediate Assent to the thing declared as a truth there is a distinct Proposition to be believed which is That what was not before necessary to be believed doth now become necessary to be believed by all and shew us either that there is Divine Revelation for this or else excuse us that we cannot give an Internal Assent to it For we have not learnt to give an Assent of Faith to a meer humane Proposition or in our Saviour's words we call no man Master upon Earth so as to promise to believe it in the power of any Church whatsoever to make any thing necessary to be believed which was not so before Hence it appears that your Distinction of in se quoad nos is as insignificant as your pretence of the Churches Power to define matters of Faith is presumptuous and arrogant being the highest degree of Lording it over the Christian world Why your Church may not as well declare something not to be of Faith which before was of Faith as declare something to be of Faith which before was not of Faith it is not easie to apprehend if that thing might be supposed of Faith before without the Churches explicit Declaration For in that case the Church would not so apparently contradict her self for that Contradiction doth not lye in varying the respects of things but in one Declaration contradicting another For otherwise it is as great a contradiction to say That something which was not necessary is become necessary as that a thing which was necessary is become not necessary Therefore if there be a contradiction in one there is in the other If the Contradiction lyes in the Declaration you must say That nothing could be supposed necessary to be believed but what was declared by the Church to be so and as declared by the Church which is a Province as difficult as necessary to be undertaken to rid your hands of this difficulty For otherwise that Answer of yours cannot reach the Objection And now we come to that Testimony of S. Augustine which was produced to prove That all Points defined by the Church are Fundamental Which say It is a thing founded An erring Disputant is to be born with in
Doctrine is meant the adhering to that Doctrine which God hath revealed as necessary in his Word but by the Definitions of the teaching Church you understand a Power to make more things necessary to the Salvation of all than Christ hath made so that joyn these two together the Consequence is this If the Pastors of the Church may and ought to keep men from believing any other Doctrine then they have power to impose another Doctrine which things are so contradictious to each other that none but one of your faculty would have ventured to have set one to prove the other Therefore when you would prove any thing by this Argument your Medium must be this That the Pastors of the Church are a Foundation of constancy in Doctrine by laying New Foundations of Doctrines by her Definitions which is just as if you would prove That the best way to keep a House entire without any additions is to build another house adjoyning to it But say you further Were not the Apostles in their times who were Ecclesia docens by their Doctrine and Decrees a Foundation to the Church which was taught by them Doth not S. Paul expresly affirm it superaedificati supra Fundamentum Apostolorum c. To which I answer 1. That the Apostles were not therefore said to be the Foundation on which they were built who believed on that Doctrine because by virtue of their Power they could define or decree any thing to be necessary to Salvation which was not so before but because they were the Instruments whereby the things which were necessary to Salvation were conveyed to them And because their Authority by virtue of their Mission and the Power accompanying it was the means whereby they were brought to believe the Doctrin of the Gospel as in it self true But there is a great deal of difference between teaching what is necessary to Salvation and making any thing necessary to Salvation which was before meerly because it is taught by them 2. I grant that those things did become necessary to be believed which the Apostles taught but it was either because the things were in themselves necessary in order to the end declared viz. Man's Salvation or else it was on the account of that evidence which the Apostles gave that they were persons immediately imployed by God to deliver those Doctrines to them But still here is nothing becoming necessary by virtue of a Decree or Definition but by virtue of a Testimony that what they delivered came from God 3. When the Apostles delivered these things the Doctrine of the Gospel was not made known to the world but they were chosen by God and infallibly assisted for that end that they might reveal it to the world And this is certainly a very different case from that when the Doctrine of Salvation is fully revealed and delivered down to us in unquestionable records And therefore if you will prove any thing to your purpose you must prove as great and as divine assistance of the Spirit in the Church representative of all Ages as was in the Apostles in the first Age of the Christian Church 4. When you say from hence That the Apostles as the teaching Church laid the Foundation of the Church taught that can only be understood of those Christians who became a Church by the Apostles preaching the Doctrine of the Gospel to them but this is quite a different thing from laying the Foundation of a Church already in being as your Church taught and diffusive is supposed to be Can you tell us where the Apostles are said to lay further Foundations for Churches already constituted that they made or declared more things necessary to Salvation than were so antecedently to their being a Church But this is your case you pretend a power in your Church representative to make more things necessary to Salvation than were before to a Church already in Being and therefore supposed to believe all things necessary to Salvation You see therefore what a vast disparity there is in the case and how far the Apostles declaring the Doctrine of Christ and thereby founding Churches is from being an Argument that the representative Church may lay the Foundation of the Church diffusive which being a Church already must have its Foundation laid before all new Decrees and Definitions of the teaching Church So that still it unavoidably follows upon your principles That the Church must lay her own Foundation and then the Church must have been in absolute and perfect Being before so much as her Foundation is laid Your weak endeavour of retorting this upon the Bishop because of the Apostles teaching the Church of their Age only shews that you have a good will to say something in behalf of so bad a cause but that you want ability to do it as appears by the Answers already given as to the difference of the Apostles case and yours The subsequent Section which is spent in a weak defence of A. C's words hath the less cause to be particularly examined and besides its whole strength lyes on things sufficiently discussed already viz. the sufficient Proposition of matters of Faith and the Material and Formal Object of it That which follows pretending to something New and which looks like Argumentation must be more distinctly considered Cs. words are That if one may deny or doubtfully dispute against any one Determination of the Church then he may against another and another and so against all since all are made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation sufficiently applied by one and the same full Authority of the Church which being weakned in any one cannot be firm in any other To which his Lordship answers 1. That this is understood only of Catholick Maxims which are properly Fundamental by Vincentius Lirinensis from whom this Argument is derived 2. He denies that all Determinations of the Church are made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation 3. He denies that all Determinations of the Church are sufficiently applied by one and the same full Authority of the Church Of each of these he gives his reasons the examination and defence of which is all that remains of this Chapter To the first you answer three things for I must digest your Answers for you 1. That there is no evidence that A. C. borrowed this from Vincentius and you give an excellent reason for it because good wits may both hit on the same thing or at least come near it which had it been said of your self had been more unquestionable but to let that pass 2. You tell us That the Doctrine is true whosoever said it For which you give this reason For the same reason which permits not our questioning or denying the prime Maxims of Faith permits not our questioning or denying any other Doctrine declared by the Church because it is not the greatness or smalness of the matter that moves us to give firm Assent
do not therefore wonder at your sharpness and severity in your censures of all out of your Church when upon your Principles the denying your Churches Infallibility must needs be an offence of as high a nature as if one denied the Infallibility of the Sacred Scriptures But lest you should not think these any Absurdities at all we must come yet closer to the examination of your Proofs For which we must enquire into these two things 1. Whether the same Motives of Credibility belong to your Church by which Moses and the Prophets Christ and his Apostles shewed their Testimony to be infallible 2. Whether on supposition you had the same Motives there were the same reason to believe the Testimony of your Church Infallible as there was to believe Them to be so 1. Whether the same Motives of Credibility belong to your Church or no. And here again these things offer themselves to consideration 1. By what means their Testimony was proved infallible 2. Whether your Churches Testimony can be proved by the same Motives or no. For the first you are pleased to give us this account Why Moses was accounted infallible for the Israelites seeing Moses to be a person very devout mild charitable and chaste and endowed with the gift of working miracles were upon that ground obliged to receive him for a true Prophet and to believe him infallible by acknowledging as true and certain whatever he proposed to them from God All which I acknowledge to be very true but am much to seek how you will apply it to the proving your Churches Infallibility What kind of Miracles those are which your Church pretends to will be examined afterwards the other Motives of Credibility mentioned are Devotion Mildness Charity and Chastity and these I suppose you look on as those Motives which must induce men to believe the Infallibility of your Church But do you really think that every person who is devout mild charitable and chast is therefore infallible If not to what purpose do you produce them here if you do some out of your Church may be as infallible as those in it Especially if your superstitious Ceremonies be the greatest part of your devotion and your burning of Hereticks the Argument of your mildness and your damning all out of your Church be the best evidence of your Charity and the lives of your Popes the most pregnant Instances of your Churches Chastity The rest of your discourse wherein you endeavour after your way to prove tha there were sufficient Motives of Credibility to believe the Testimony of Christ and his Apostles I suppose no Christian will deny and that the Miracles wrought by them were Proofs that their Testimony was infallible I am so far from questioning that all your other Motives signifie nothing without them Which because it hath so great an influence on the present dispute I think it necessary to be a little further cleared than it is by you and chiefly for this end to let you see how much you have befooled your self in attempting to prove the Infallibility of your Church in the same manner that Christ and his Apostles Infallibility was proved in and yet insisting on that of Miracles as the great evidence of their Infallibility which your Church cannot with any face pretend to I acknowledge it then as a great Truth that it was necessary that the Testimony of all such who pretend to be infallible must be confirmed by such Miracles as Christ and his Apostles wrought Nay that it is impossible without such Evidence to prove any Testimony infallible where that Infallibility is pretended to independently upon Scripture as it is in your present case Which will be thus made evident Absolute Infallibility is not consistent with the shortness of the Humane Vnderstanding for such an Infallibility must suppose an infinity of Knowledge for where there is a defect in the Apprehension there is a possibility of deception therefore only an Infinite Being can be absolutely infallible Now man's Vnderstanding being so finite and limited in its Conceptions it is on that account apt to be imposed upon and to form false Notions of things so that supposing no Being in the world of greater Perfections than man is there never could be any such thing as Infallibility among men For though some mens Vnderstandings might outstrip others in the quickness of Conception and solidity of Judgement yet the Nature of Man being thus finite that presumption would lye against all pretence of Infallibility It being then impossible that mans understanding should be in it self infallible we must consider whether there be a possibility it should receive any Infallibility from that Infinite Being which is above it This then must be taken for granted that as an Infinite Vnderstanding cannot be deceived so Infinite Goodness cannot deceive And therefore whatever doth immediately proceed from a Being infinitely Wise and Good cannot but be infallibly True And there is no repugnancy at all in the nature of the thing but that this Infinite Being may in a way certain but imperceptible by us communicate to the Minds of Men such Notions of things which are the effects of his own Wisdom and Counsel and this is that we call Divine Inspiration But then we are still to consider That the understanding of a finite Creature cannot be any further infallible than as it receives those Notions which are imprinted upon it by the Infinite and Supreme Intellect of the world and such a person is no further infallible in what he speaks than as he delivers to the world those very Conceptions which are thus formed in his mind And this is that which the Apostle means when he sayes That Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost And so far as they were thus moved so far they were infallible and no further But this Infallibility being not intended meerly for the satisfaction of the mind of him that hath it but for the general good of the world it is necessary that there be some way whereby men may come to understand who are infallibly assisted and who not For otherwise the world would be more exposed to delusions under this pretext of Infallibility than if there were never any such thing in the world Either therefore every man must be infallibly assured in his mind that such a person is infallible in what he is to deliver which is a needless piece of Enthusiasm or else such external Evidences of it are to be used which may induce all rational and considerative persons to the belief of it Which is the way that God in his infinite Wisdom hath made choice of by making those very persons whose understandings are thus assisted by him to be the Instruments of doing some things above the power of nature And nothing can be more reasonable than to believe their Testimony True who are imployed as such immediate Instruments of Divine Power and if their Testimony be believed True
Ignoramus and Impostor if he doth not make your Church infallible I have told you often before how much your Doctrine of Infallibility tends to Atheism and now you speak out For the meaning of your words plainly is If God hath not entrusted your Church with a full and absolute power to declare what is his will and what not Christ was an Ignoramus and Impostor For that is the substance of your next words For had he not framed think you a strange and Chimerical Common-wealth were it alone destitute of a full and absolute power to give an authentical and unquestionable declaration which is the true and genuine Law Now it is evident from all your discourse foregoing you only plead for this full and absolute power in your Church and judge you then what the consequence is to all those who cannot see any shadow of reason for this your pretended Infallibility neither more nor less than that Christ is liable to be accounted by all the world an Ignoramus and Impostor Nay that they are fools who account him not so if they do not believe this present Infallibility of your Church for it is apparent say you that he hath ordered his Common-wealth worse than ever any one did And now let any that consider what pitiful silly proofs you have produced for this present Infallibility nay such that I am confident that you cannot think your self you have in the least measure proved it then judge what thoughts of Christ you are forced to entertain your self upon your own Argument viz. as of an Ignoramus and Impostor Hath not your Infallibility lead you now a fine dance Is not this the way to make Faith certain and to reclaim Atheists I had thought it had been enough for your Canonists to have charged Christ with indiscretion if he had not left a Vicar on earth but now it seems the profound Philosophers learned Divines and expert Historians for such a one you told us your discoursing Christian was supposed by you to be in whose name these words are spoken do charge Christ with folly and imposture if he hath not made your Church infallible For shift it off as you can you cannot deny but that must be the aim of these words for you are proving the necessity of an infallible Declaration by the present Church in order to a sufficient Proposition of the Scripture to be believed and it is notorious you never pretend that any Church hath any share in this Infallibility but your own And therefore the consequence unavoidably follows that since there can be no sufficient Proposition that the Scripture is to be believed without this infallible Testimony since no Church pretends to this Infallibility but yours since without such provision for the Church Christ would have been esteemed by all the world not a wise Law-giver but a meer Ignoramus and Impostor What then follows but that if your Church be not infallible He must be accounted so And if you dread not these consequences I hope all Christians do and have never the better thoughts of your Infallibility for them 6. Let us see how he comes closer to the matter it self and examines how this Light should be Infallible and Divine supposing the Churches Testimony to be humane and fallible The substance of which is this If the Church may erre we may suppose she hath erred in testifying some Books to be God's Word in that case Books that were not God's Word would be equally recommended with those that were And that it would be impossible for any particular person by reading them to distinguish the one from the other To which I answer 1. It is all one with you to suppose a Church fallible and suppose that she hath erred To put a case of a like nature The Testimony of all mankind is fallible May you therefore suppose that all mankind hath erred in something they are agreed in The Testimony of all those persons who have seen Rome is fallible May I therefore question whether they were not all deceived But of this afterwards 2. When you speak of the Church erring Do you mean the Church in every Age since Christ's Coming concerning all the Books of Scripture or the present Church concerning only some Books of Scripture If you suppose the Church of all Ages should be deceived you must suppose some who were infallible should be deceived those were the Apostles in writing and delivering their Books to the Churches of their time or else you must suppose all the Apostolical Churches deceived in taking those Books to have come from the Apostles which did not And is not this a congruous Supposition Well then if it be unreasonable to suppose the Apostolical Churches deceived and impossible to imagine the Apostles deceived in saying They writ what they did not Where then must such an universal-errour as this come in Or Is it not equally unreasonable to suppose all the Christian Churches in the world should be deceived without any questioning of such a deceit supposing but the goodness and common providence of God in preserving such records and the moral industry used by Christians in a matter of such importance It is therefore a very absurd and unreasonable thing to imagine That all the Churches of Christ in all Ages should erre in receiving all the Books of Scripture Let us then see as to the present Churches erring as to particular Books 1. Either the Records of former Ages are left to judge by or no If they be as certainly they are we thereby see a way to correct the errour of the present Church by appealing to these records of the Church in former times if they be not left how could any of these Books be derived from Apostolical Tradition when we have no means to trace such a Tradition by 2. Supposing only some Books questioned or that the present Church erres only in some particular Books then it appears that there remains a far greater number of such Books whose Authority we have no reason at all to question and by comparing the other with these we may easily prevent any very dangerous errour for if they contain any Doctrine contrary to the former we have no reason to believe them if they do not there can be no very dangerous errour in admitting them Thus you see how easily this errour is prevented supposing the Churches testimony not only fallible but that it also should actually erre in delivering some Books for Canonical which are not so but supposing a Church pretends to be Infallible and is believed to be so and yet doth actually erre in delivering the Canon of Scripture what remedy is there then for while we look on the Churches testimony as fallible there is scope and liberty left for enquiry and further satisfaction but if it be looked on as Infallible all that believe it to be so are left under an impossibility of escaping that errour which she is guilty of And the more dangerous such
speaks of i. e. that act of the Apostles whereby they delivered the Doctrine of Christ upon their Testimony to the world If you mean this Tradition for my part I do not understand it as any thing really distinct from the Tradition of the Scripture it self For although I grant that the Apostles did deliver that Doctrine by Word as well as Writing yet if that Tradition by Word had been judged sufficient I much question whether we had ever had any written Records at all But because of the speedy decay of an oral Tradition if there had been no standing Records it pleased God in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness to stir up some fit persons to digest those things summarily into writing which otherwise would have been exposed to several corruptions in a short time For we see presently in the Church notwithstanding this how suddenly the Gnosticks Valentinians Manichees and others did pretend some secret Tradition of Christ or his Apostles distinct from their writings When therefore you can produce as certain evidence any Apostolical Tradition distinct from Scripture as we can do that the Books of Scripture were delivered by the Apostles to the Church you may then be hearkened to but not be before 2. We have other waies to judge of the Identity of the Copies of Scripture which we have with those delivered by the Primitive Church besides the Testimony of the present Church And the judgement of the present Church considered meerly as such can be no argument to secure any man concerning the integrity and incorruption of the Books of Scripture We do therefore justly appeal to the ancient Copies and M. SS which confirm the incorruption of ours But say you What infallible Certainty have we of them besides Church Tradition Very wisely said in several respects as though no Certainty less than infallible could serve mens turn as to ancient Copies of Scripture and as though your Church could give men Infallible certainty which Copy's were ancient and which were not But for our parts we should not be at all nearer any certainty much less Infallibility concerning the authenticalness of any ancient Copy's because your Church declared it self for them neither can we imagine it at all necessary in the examination of ancient Copy's to have any Infallible certainty at all of them For as well you may pretend it as to any other Authours when all that we look after in such Copy's is only that evidence which things of that nature are capable of But you make his Lordship give as wise an answer to this question of yours They may be examined and approved by the authentical Autographa's of the very Apostles Where is it that this answer is given by his Lordship If you may be allowed to make questions and answers too no doubt the one will be as wise as the other But I suppose you thought nothing could be said pertinent in this case but what you make his Lordship say and then by the unreasonableness of that answer because none of these Autographa's are supposed extant and because if they were so all men could not be Infallibly certain of them you think you have sufficient advantage against your adversary because thereby it would appear there can be no certainty of Scripture but from the authority of your Church To which because it may seem to carry on your great design of rendring Religion uncertain I shall return a particular answer 1. Supposing we could have no certainty concerning the Copy's of Scripture but from Tradition this doth not at all advantage your cause unless you could prove that no other Tradition but that of your Church can give us any certainty of it Give me leave then to make this supposition That God might not have given this supernatural assistance to your Church which you pretend makes it Infallible Whether men through the Vniversal consent of persons of the Christian Church in all Ages might not have been undoubtedly certain That the Scripture we have was the same delivered by the Apostles i. e. Whether a matter of fact in which the whole Christian world was so deeply engaged that not only their credit but their interest was highly concerned in it could not be attested by them in a credible manner Which is as much as to ask Whether the whole Christian world was not at once besotted and infatuated in â—he grossest manner so as to suffer the records of those things which concerned their eternal welfare to be imbezeled falsified or corrupted so as to mistake them for Apostolical writings which were nothing so If it be not then credible that the Christian world should be so monstrously imposed upon and so grosly deceived then certainly the Vniversal Tradition of the Society may yield unquestionable evidence to any inquisitive person as to the integrity and incorruption of the body of Scriptures And if it may yield such evidence why doth it not so when we see this was the very case of the Christian world in all Ages Some writings were delivered to the Church of the Age they lived in by the Apostles these writings were so delivered as that the Christians understood they were of things of more concernment to them than the whole world was these writings were then received embraced and publickly read these writings were preserved by them so sacred and inviolable that it was accounted a crime of the highest nature to deliver the Copy's of them into the hands of the Heathen persecutors these writings were still owned by them as Divine and the rule and standard of Faith these were appealed to in all disputes among them these were preserved from the attempts of Hereticks vindicated from the assaults of the most learned Infidels transcribed into the Books of the most diligent Christians transmitted from one Generation to another as the most sacred depositum of Heaven And yet is it possible to suppose that these writings should be extorted out of their hands by violence abused under their eyes by fraud or suffered to be lost by negligence Yet no other way can be imagined why any should suspect the Books of Scripture which we have are not the same with those delivered by the Apostles All which are such unreasonable suppositions that they could hardly enter into any head but yours or such whose cause you manage in these disputes the most profligate Atheists or most unreasonable Scepticks If then we entertain but mean and ordinary thoughts of the Christians of all Ages if we look upon them as silly men abused into a Religion by fraud and imposture yet we cannot doubt but that these persons were careful to preserve the records of that Religion because they were so diligent in the study of it so venturous for it such enemies to the corrupters of it so industrious in propagating the knowledge of it to their friends and Posterity Do you think our Nation did ever want an Infallible Testimony to preserve the Magna Charta supposing no authentick
written and seek not the things that are not written Is it not the same St. Basil who saith That every word and action ought to be confirmed by the testimony of Holy Scripture for confirmation of the Faith of the good and confusion of the evil Is it not he who urgeth that very place to this purpose Whatsoever is not of Faith is sin then whatsoever is without the Holy Scripture being not of Faith is sin Which at least must be understood of such things which men have an opinion of piety and necessity in the doing of These and many other places may be produced out of his genuine writings attesting the clean contrary to what you produce this place for What then must we think of him Must we say of him as he did of Gregory Thaumaturgus that he spoke some things not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not as though he believed them but for disputation sake because they served his purpose well Or rather have we not much greater reason considering the contrariety of â—he Doctrine as well as inequality of style to follow Erasmus his judgement concerning this Book Especially considering that Bellarmin himself who slights Erasmus his judgement herein yet when he is pinched with a citation out of his Asceticks calls the sincerity of that Book into question because he doth not therein seem to admit of unwritten Traditions which saith he ad Amphilochium he doth strenuously defend If therefore he may question another Book for not agreeing with this we may more justly question this for disagreeing with so many others Thus you see it is not meerly the style and that only on the judgement of Erasmus which makes this Book suspicious And from those citations produced out of other writings of St. Basil the 3. thing evidently appears viz. That he so makes the Scripture the touchstone of all Traditions as that Scripture must be incomparably of greater force and superiour dignity than any unwritten Tradition whatsoever But Whether Stapleton in his testimony meant primarily Apostolical Traditions or others is not worth the enquiring Concerning what follows as to the sincerity and agreement of ancient Copies of Scripture and the means to be assured of the integrity of them I have sufficiently expressed my self already Only what you add concerning the integrity of Traditions above the Scripture being new deserves to be considered For say you universal Traditions are recorded in Authours of every succeeding age and it seems much more incident to have errours sâ—ip into writings of so great bulk as is the Bible which in their Editions pass only through the hands of particular men then that there should be errours in publick universal and immemorial Traditions which are openly practised throughout Christendom and taken notice of by every one in all ages And from hence you instance in St. Johns Epistle or St. Lukes Gospel which being originally written to particular persons must be at first received as authentical upon their credit but on the other side Apostolical Traditions for which you instance in the Observation of the Lords day Infant-baptism use of Altars c. in their prime Institution and practise being publickly practised and owned by the Apostles it was incomparably harder morally speaking to doubt in the beginning of these Traditions then whether St. Johns Epistle or St. Lukes Gospel were really theirs or no. Whence we see some Books that were written by Apostles were questioned for some time but these and such like Traditions were alwayes owned as truely and really descending from the Apostles To which I answer 1. If you prove not some Tradition thus universally owned and received which we have no record of or ground for the observation of from Scripture you speak nothing at all to the purpose but two of those you instance in Observation of the Lords day and Paedobaptism we have as much as is requisite for the Churches practise from Scripture it self for the other Of the Vse of Altars it were a work becoming you to deduce the History of them from the Apostolical times beginning at the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or upper room where the Apostles met after Christs Ascension and so tracing them through all the private houses and Synagogues in which the Christians in the Apostles times had their solemn Assemblies for Divine worship thence bringing down the History of them carefully through all the persecutions and producing evidences to that purpose out of Tertullian Origen Minutius Felix and Arnobius only blotting out non where they speak of Altars and Temples among Christians and telling us that some Protestants had corrupted their Books that where they utterly disown them they did highly magnifie them that where they seemed to speak most against them it was not to let the Heathens know that they had them By this means indeed you are like to acquaint us with some Vniversal Tradition less lyable to corruption and alteration than the Scriptures For this of Altars is the only thing by you mentioned which seems any thing to your purpose the other two being sufficiently proved from Scripture which acquaints us so much with Apostolical practise as to yield abundant reason for the practise of following Ages You do well therefore to wrap up all other such Traditions as might vye with the Scriptures for integrity with a prudent c. For you cannot but know that this game of Tradition is quite spoiled if we offer to come to particulars But it is a fine thing in general to talk of the impossibility of corrupting such a Tradition as had its rise from the practise of the Apostles and was by them delivered to succeeding ages and so was universally practised by all Christians as derived from the Apostles but when we put but that sullen demand that such a thing as hath no evidence in Scripture may be named which was so universally received and owned as the Scriptures are how many put off's and c.'s do we meet with all For fear of being evidently disproved in the particular instanced in 2. If there be so much greater evidence for Tradition than Scripture whence came the very next ages to the Apostles to be so doubtful as to Traditions which yet were agreed in receiving the Scripture I speak not of such things which we have not the least evidence the Apostles ever thought of much less universally practised such as we contend the things in controversie between you and us are but in such things which undoubtedly the Apostles did practise so as that the Christians of that Age could not but know such a practise of theirs As in that Controversie which soon rise in the Church about the day of the Observation of Easter what contests soon grew between the Asian and Roman Christians about this both equally pretending Apostolical Tradition and that at the least distance imaginable from the Apostolical times For Polycarpe professed to receive his Tradition from St. John as those
a Monument of unspeakable concernment to the good of mankind and you must conceive the Christians in all ages to be stupendiously careless and negligent either in transcribing or reading the Scriptures which could suffer errours to slip into them without discovery of them Do you think that the Christians had no higher esteem of the Scriptures than of the Vse of Altars or any other of your immemorial Traditions but say you The one were publick and the other passed through the hands of particular men It should seem then their Altars were upon high places but the Scriptures were only read in corners never any such thing being publickly read as the Bible so that any alteration might be there and no notice at all taken of it The poor African Bishop found the contrary to his sorrow who was in such danger from the people for altering but one word according to S. Hieroms Translation as S. Austin reports the story But suppose it passed through the hands of particular men Was it therefore more liable to be corrupted I should think just the contrary unless you could suppose all those particular men to agree in corrupting it which considering the difference of opinions capacities and interests is a most unreasonable supposition that some verbal and literal mistakes might slip in you might rationally imagine but that therefore any great corruptions should creep into it argues your mean thoughts both of Gods Providence and the care of the Christian world Well but still it is impossible to corrupt your Traditions It were a much harder matter to free your Traditions from being corruptions themselves of the purity of the Christian Church And why so hard for them to be corrupted Because recorded in Authours of every succeeding age I had thought all Books of equal or much bigger bulk than the Scripture had been as liable to corruption as that but it seems not If a Book be written of Traditions the very Traditions will preserve it pure though as big as that Livy Quem mea vix totum bibliotheca capit But that is not all it seems these Traditions are recorded in Authours of every succeeding age Unhappy men we that cannot find them there I wish instead of writing Controversies you would write the history of these Traditions but be sure to deduce them through the Authours of every succeeding age and I suppose you mean ever since the Apostles I shall then indeed believe Popish Traditions to be no Novelties but not before But let us grant this Were not the Scriptures attested by the same Authours No It seems they were agreed about all Traditions but not so about the Scripture And the reason is Because the Scriptures were first delivered to private men as S. John 's Epistle and S. Luke 's Gospel but Traditions had an universal practice But Can you suppose it otherwise but that particular Books must be first delivered to private men Would you have them delivered only to General Councils or the Pope and his Cardinals It seems S. John was to blame for not directing his Epistle to the Pope instead of Gaius and S. Luke his Gospel to a General Council instead of Theophilus for then we might have had Infallible Certainty of them but now it is a plain case we can have no more than Moral Certainty that ever they were theirs But for this trick it seems they fared the worse for some Books were doubted of for many years in particular Churches It is well yet they were not discarded by your Catholick Church because the Apostles did not put their Books into your hands to recommend them But what if some Books by some men were for some time doubted of which yet were afterwards universally received upon sufficient evidence Why then say you Tradition hath much advantage of Scripture How so Was no Tradition which would be accounted universal doubted of by any men at any time No say you it is impossible it should for universal Traditions were universally practised at all times Now you speak home and nothing wants to the proof of it but only to let us know What these Vniversal Traditions are which were so universally practised in all ages containing things different from Scripture which are recorded in the Authours of every succeeding Age. Your offer is so fair that my request shall be very short name them and prove them and I will believe you but not before So much for this which though a digression in this Chapter yet is not from the design of this discourse Setting aside therefore your discourse about A. C ' s. Pen being troubled in which is nothing worth our notice I come to the main dispute of this Chapter which is Whether the Promises of Infallibility made to the Apostles are to be restrained to their own times or to be extended to the present Church in all ages We assert the former and you the latter For which you produce this argument That from these very places Christians do inferr that the Church shall never fall away and perish For if the assistance be not to preserve the succeeding Church at least from some kind of errours infallibly it may notwithstanding all the assistance he allows it here fall into all kind of errours one after another and so by degrees the whole Church might fall into a general Apostacy and thereby perish There must therefore be some kind of infallible assistance in the Apostles successors by virtue of these Promises But 1. Is it all one to say There shall alwaies be a Church and to say That Church shall alwaies be infallible Those who from the places in question do prove that the Church shall never quite fall away do not dream of a present Infallibility in your sense but that there alwaies shall be a number of men professing Christianity in the world And Cannot you possibly conceive that there should be such a number of men professing Christianity without Infallibility To help therefore your understanding a little suppose that all the members of the Roman Church should in one age be destroyed and according to your former Principle that if a Church may erre we cannot be certain but that it doth erre because this may be we cannot be certain but that it is but we only make the supposition Do not you think that there would be still a number remaining who profess Christianity of the Greek and Protestant Churches yet I hope you will not say that these were infallible There may be then a number of Christians who are not infallible and that is all which is meant by saying That the present Church is infallible in Fundamentals viz. that there shall alwaies be a Church for that which makes them a Church is the belief of Fundamentals and if they believe not them they cease to be so That therefore which being supposed a Church is and being destroyed it ceaseth to be is the formal constitution of it but thus it is as to the Church the
formal guilt of Schism it being impossible any person should have just cause to disown the Churches Communion for any thing whose belief is necessary to salvation And whosoever doth so thereby makes himself no member of the Church because the Church subsists on the belief of Fundamental truths But in all such cases wherein a division may be made and yet the several persons divided retain the essentials of a Christian Church the separation which may be among any such must be determined according to the causes of it For it being possible of one side that men may out of capricious humours and fancies renounce the Communion of a Church which requires nothing but what is just and reasonable and it being possible on the other side that a Church calling her self Catholick may so far degenerate in Faith and practise as not only to be guilty of great errours and corruptions but to impose them as conditions of Communion with her it is necessary where there is a manifest separation to enquire into the reasons and grounds of it and to determine the nature of it according to the justice of the cause which is pleaded for it And this I hope may help you a little better to understand what is meant by such who say There can be no just cause of Schism and how little this makes for your purpose But you go on and I must follow And to his calling for truth c. I Answer What Hereticks ever yet forsook the Church of God but pretended truth and complain'd they were thrust out and hardly dealt with meerly because they call'd for truth and redress of abuses And I pray what Church was ever so guilty of errours and corruptions but would call those Hereticks and Schismaticks who found fault with her Doctrine or separated from her Communion It is true Hereticks pretend truth and Schismaticks abuses but is it possible there should be errours and corruptions in a Churches Communion or is it not if not prove but that of your Church and the cause is at an end if it be we are to examine whether the charge be true or no. For although Hereticks may pretend truth and others be deceived in judging of it yet doubtless there is a real difference between truth and errour If you would never have men quarrel with any Doctrine of your Church because Hereticks have pretended truth would not the same reason hold why men should never enquire after Truth Reason or Religion because men have pretended to them all which have not had them It is therefore a most senseless cavil to say we have no reason to call for truth because Hereticks have done so and on the same grounds you must not be call'd Catholicks because Hereticks have been call'd so But those who have been Hereticks were first proved to be so by making it appear that was a certain truth which they denyed do you the same by us prove those which we call errours in your Church to be part of the Catholick and Apostolick Faith prove those we account corruptions to be parts of Divine worship and we will give you leave to call us Hereticks and Schismaticks but not before But say you He should have reflected that the Church of God is stiled a City of Truth by the Prophet and so it may be and yet your Church be a fortress of Errour And a pillar and foundation of Truth by the Apostle but what is this to the Church of Romes being so And by the Fathers a rich depository or Treasury of all Divine and Heavenly Doctrines so it was in the sense the Fathers took the Church in for the truly Catholick Christian Church And we may use the same expressions still of the Church as the Prophets Apostles and Fathers did and nevertheless charge your Church justly with the want of truth and opposition to the preaching of it and on that ground justly forsake her Communion which is so far from being inexcusable impiety and presumption that it was only the performance of a necessary Christian duty And therefore that Woe of scandal his Lordship mentioned still returns upon your party who gave such just cause of offence to the Christian world and making it necessary for all such as aimed at the purity of the Christian Church to leave your Communion when it could not be enjoyed without making shipwrack both of Faith and a good Conscience And this is so clear and undeniable to follow you still in your own language that we dare appeal for a tryal of our cause to any Assembly of learned Divines or what Judge and Jury you please provided they be not some of the parties accused and because you are so willing to have Learned Divines I hope you will believe the last Pope Innocent so far as not to mention the Pope and Cardinals What follows in Vindication of A. C. from enterfeiring and shuffling in his words because timorous and tender consciences think they can never speak with caution enough for fear of telling a lye will have the force of a demonstration being spoken of and by a Jesuite among all those who know what mortal haters they are of any thing that looks like a lye or aequivocation And what reason there is that of all persons in the world they should be judged men of timorous and tender consciences But whatever the words were which passed you justifie A. C. in saying That the Protestants did depart from the Church of Rome and got the Name of Protestants by protesting against her For this say you is so apparent that the whole world acknowledgeth it If you mean that the Communion of Protestants is distinct from yours Whoever made scruple of confessing it But because in those terms of departing leaving forsaking your Communion you would seem to imply that it was a voluntary act and done without any necessary cause enforcing it therefore his Lordship denyes that Protestants did depart for saith he departure is voluntary so was not theirs But because it is so hard a matter to explain the nature of that separation between your Church and Ours especially in the beginning of it without using those terms or some like them as when his Lordship saith that Luther made a breach from it It is sufficient that we declare that by none of these expressions we mean any causeless separation but only such acts as were necessarily consequential to the imposing your errours and corruptions as conditions of Communion with your Church To the latter part his Lordship answers That the Protestants did not get that name by Protesting against the Church of Rome but by Protesting and that when nothing else would serve against her errours and superstitions Do you but remove them from the Church of Rome our Protestation is ended and our Separation too This you think will be answered with our old put off That it is the common pretext of all Hereticks when they sever themselves from the Roman Catholick
the one signifies Vniversally the other indefinitely undique relating properly to the circumference as undique aequalis on all sides it is equal so that qui sunt undique fideles are those which lye upon all quarters round about And so it doth not imply that all persons were bound to come but that from all quarters some did come as Herodian speaks of Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that it was very populous and did receive them which came from all parts which doth very fitly explain the sense of Irenaeus that to Rome being the Imperial City men came from all quarters But the sense of this will be more fully understood by a parallel expression in the ninth Canon of the Council of Antioch in which it is decreed that the Metropolitan should have the care of all the Bishops in his Province 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because all persons who have business from all parts resort to the Metropolis here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the very same with the undique convenire in Irenaeus so that it relates not to any Obligation on Churches to resort thither but that being the Seat of the Empire all believers from all parts did make their recourse thither Which is most fully expressed by Leo speaking of S. Peter's coming to Rome Cujus nationis homines in hâc Vrbe non essent aut quae uspiam gentes ignorarent quod Roma didicisset And so if I grant you that it extends to all parts I know not what advantages you will get by it for Irenaeus his design is to shew that there was no such secret Tradition left by the Apostles as the Valentinians pretended And for this he appeals to the Church of Rome which being seated in the Imperial City to which Believers from all parts did resort it is impossible to conceive that the Apostles should have left such a Tradition and it not to be heard of there which is the plain genuine meaning of Irenaeus his words Not as you weakly imagine That all Churches in all doubts of Faith were bound to have their recourse thither as to their constant guide therein For Irenaeus was not disputing What was to be done by Christians in doubts of Faith but was enquiring into a matter of fact viz. Whether any such Tradition were ever left in the Church or no and therefore nothing could be more pertinent or convincing than appealing to that Church to which Christians resorted from all parts for it could not be conceived but if the Apostles had left such a Tradition any where it would be heard of at Rome And you most notoriously pervert the meaning of Irenaeus when you would make the force of his argument to lye in the necessity of all Christians resorting to Rome because the Doctrine or Tradition of the Roman Church was as it were the touchstone of all Apostolical Doctrine But I suppose you deal in some English Logicians as well as English Lexicons and therefore I must submit both to your Grammar and Logick but your ingenuity is as great as your reason for you first pervert his Lordships meaning and then make him dispute ridiculously that you might come out with your triumphant language Is not this fine Meandrick Logick well beseeming so noble a Labyrinth Whereas his Lordships reasoning is so plain and clear that none but such a one as had a Labyrinth in his brains could have imagined any Meanders in it As appears by what I have said already in the explication of the meaning of Irenaeus But that I may see the strength of your Logick out of this place of Irenaeus I will translate undique and semper as fully as you would have me and give you the words at large in which by those who come from all places the Apostolical Tradition is alwaies conserved What is it you inferr hence From the Premises you argue thus All the faithful every where must of necessity have recourse to the Church of Rome by reason of her more powerful principality This is S. Irenaeus his proposition But there could be no necessity they all should have recourse to that Church by reason of her more powerful principality if her said power extended not to them all This is evident to reason Ergo this more powerful principality of the Roman Church must needs extend to all the faithful every where and not only to those of the Suburbicary Churches or Patriarchal Diocese of Rome as the Bishop pleads Now I see you are a man at arms and know not only how to grapple with his Lordship but with Irenaeus to boot But we must first see How Irenaeus himself argues that we may the better understand the force of what you deduce from him The Question as I have told you already was Whether the Apostles left any such Tradition in the Church as the Valentinians pretended Irenaeus proves they did not because if there had been any such the Apostolical Churches would certainly have preserved the memory of it but because it would be too tedious to insist on the succession of all Churches he therefore makes choice of the most famous the Church of Rome in which the Apostolical Tradition had been derived by a succession of Bishops down to his own time and by this saith he we confound all those who through vain glory or blindness do gather any such thing For saith he to this Church for the more powerful principality all Churches do make resort i. e. the believers from all parts in which by those who come from all parts the Apostolical Tradition is alwaies preserved We must now see How Irenaeus argues according to your sense of his words If all the faithful every where must of necessity have recourse to the Church of Rome for her more powerful principality then there is no secret Tradition left by the Apostles But Where lyes the connexion between these two What had the Valentinians to do with the power of the Church of Rome over other Churches That was not the business they disputed their Question was Whether there were no such Tradition as they pretended And Rome might have never so great power over all Churches and yet have this secret Tradition too For now we see when she pretends to the greatest power nay to Infallibility she pretends the highest to Traditions Where then lyes the force of Irenaeus his argument Was it in this that the Valentinians did acknowledge the Infallibility of the Church of Rome then in Traditions This were indeed to the purpose if it could be proved Or Doth Irenaeus go about to prove this first But by what argument doth he prove it so that the Valentinians might be convinced by it Yes say you he saith That all the faithful must of necessity have recourse to the Church of Rome This is your way of proving indeed to take things for granted but How doth this necessity appear because say you she hath the more powerful principality But
by divers rather than by one Vice-Roy And I believe saith he this is true For so it was governed for the first three hundred years and somewhat better the Bishops of those times carrying the whole business of admitting any new consecrated Bishops or others to or rejecting them from their Communion And this his Lordship saith He hath carefully examined for the first six hundred years even to and within the time of S. Gregory the Great Now to this you answer 1. That though A. C. urgeth the argument in a similitude of a Kingdom only yet it is of force in any other kind of settled Government as in a Common-wealth But by this A. C. seems a great deal the wiser man for he knew what he did when he instanced in in a Kingdom for he foresaw that this only would tend to his purpose concerning the Popes Supremacy but though there be the same necessity of some Supreme Power in a Common-wealth yet that would do him no good at all for all that could be inferred thence would be the necessity of a General Council And by this you may see How little your similitude will hold any other way than A.C. put it Therefore 2. You answer That the Government of the Church is not a pure but a mixt Monarchy i. e. the Supream Government of the Church is clearly Monarchical you confess yet Bishops within their respective Dioceses and Jurisdictions are spiritual Princes also that is chief Pastors and Governours of such a part of the Church in their own right How far this latter is consonant to your principles I have already examined but the former is that we dispute now concerning the Supreme Government of the Church Whether that be Monarchical or no and this is that which his Lordship denies and for all that I see we may continue to do so too for any argument you bring to the contrary Although you produce your Achilles in the next paragraph viz. that since the Government of one in chief is by all Philosophers acknowledged for the most perfect What wonder is it that Christ our Saviour thought it fitter to govern the Church by one Vice-Roy than Aristocratically or by many as he would have it But Are you sure Christ asked the Philosophers opinions in establishing a Government in the Church The Philosophers judged truly that of all Forms of Civil Government Monarchy was the best i. e. most conducing to the ends of Civil Government for the excellency of such things must be measured by their respect to the ends Now if we apply this to the Church we must not measure it by such ends as we fancy to our selves or such as are only the ends of meer Civil Societies but all must be considered with a respect to the chief design of him who first instituted a Church And from thence we must draw our Inferences as to what may tend most to the Peace and Vnity of it Now it appearing to be the great design of Christ that mankind should be brought to eternal Happiness we cannot argue from hence as to the necessity of any manner of Government unless one of them hath in it self a greater tendency to this than another hath For in Civil Governments the whole design of the Society is the Civil Peace of it but it is otherwise in the Church the main end of it is to order things with the greatest conveniency for a future life Now this being the main end of this Society and no manner of Government having in it self a greater tendency to this than other It was in the power of the Legislator to appoint what Government he pleased himself But when we consider that he intended this Church of his should be spread all over the world and this to be his immediate errand he sent his Apostles upon to preach to every creature and to plant Churches in the most remote and distant places from each other we can have the least ground to fancy he should appoint an Vniversal Monarchy in his Church of any Government whatsoever For if we will take that boldness you put us upon to enquire What form is fittest for a Society dispersed into all parts of the world and that are not bound upon their being Christians to live nearer Rome than Mexico or Japan Could any one imagine it would be to appoint one Vice-Roy to superintend his Church at such a place as Rome is Suppose all the East and West-Indies consisted of Christian Churches What advantage in order to the Government of those Churches could the Popes Authority be What Heresies and Schisms might be among them before his Holiness could be acquainted with them These are therefore very slender and narrow Conceptions concerning Christs Institution of a Government over his Catholick Church as though he should only have regard to these few adjacent parts of Europe without any respect to the good of the whole Church But since we see Christ designed such a Church which might be in most remote and distant places from each other and yet at such a distance might equally promote the main ends wherefore they became Churches it is very unreasonable to think he should appoint one Vice-Roy to be Head over them all For which let us suppose that Europe might be as the Eastern Churches have been over-run with the Turkish Power and only some few suffering Christians left here and the Pope much in the same condition with the Patriarch of Constantinople But on the other side that Christianity should largely spread it self in China and the East Indies and the Christian Church flourish in America Could any Philosopher think that fixing a Monarchy at Rome or elsewhere were the best way to Govern the Catholick Church which consists of all these Christian Societies For that is certainly the best Government which is suited to all conditions of that Society which it is intended for now it is apparent the Christian Church was intended to be so Catholick that no one Vice-Roy can be supposed able to look to the Government of it If Christ had intended meerly such a Church which should have consisted of such persons which lay here near about Rome and no others the supposition of such a Monarchy in the Church would not have been altogether so incongruous though liable to very many inconveniencies but when he intended his Religion for the universal good of the world and that in all parts of it without obliging them to live near each other it is one of the most unreasonable suppositions in the world that he should set up a Monarchical Government over his Catholich Church in such a place as Rome is But now if we suppose only an Aristocratical Government in the Church under Christ as the alone Supreme Head nothing can be more suitable to the nature of the Church or the large extent of it than that is For where-ever a Church is there may be Bishops to govern it and other Officers of the Church
hard to go that way to Heaven especially to them that have had the truth manifested and a little after But we have not so learned Christ as either to return evil for evil in this heady course or to deny salvation to some ignorant silly souls whose humble peaceable obedience makes them safe among any part of men that profess the Foundation Christ. And in another place I do indeed for my part leaving other men free to their own judgement acknowledge a possibility of salvation in the Roman Church But so as that which I grant to Romanists is not as they are Romanists but as they are Christians that is as they believe the Creed and hold the Foundation Christ himself not as they associate themselves wittingly and knowingly to the gross Superstitions of the Roman Church And I am willing to hope there are many among them which keep within that Church and yet wish the superstitions abolished which they know and which pray to God to forgive their errours in what they know not and which hold the Foundation firm and live accordingly and which would have all things amended that are amiss were it in their power And to such I dare not deny a possibility of salvation for that which is Christs in them though they hazzard themselves extreamly by keeping so close to that which is superstition and in the case of Images comes too near Idolatry The substance then of what his Lordship saith is that the Protestant way is a safe and secure way to salvation that in the Roman Church there is extream hazzard made of it which all who love their souls ought to avoid but yet for such who by reason of ignorance see not the danger and by reason of honesty keep close to Christ the Foundation and repent of all miscarriages known or unknown he dares not deny a possibility of salvation for them But he is far from asserting it of those who either know the corruptions of that Church and yet continue in them or such who wilfully neglect the means whereby they may be convinced of them So that you strangely either mistake or pervert his Lordships meaning when you would inferr from these passages That he asserts a possibility of being saved to those who joyn with the Roman Church though their ignorance be not invincible and though all or the chief motives which the Protestants bring against you be never so sufficiently proposed to them For he still speaks either of such whose meer ignorance doth excuse them where the Fundamentals are held and a life lead according to them or else of such who condemn your superstitions as far as they are discovered to them and sincerely desire to find impartially the way that leads to Heaven Of such as these he dares not deny a possibility of salvation And you are the most uncharitable persons in the world if you dare assert the contrary of Protestants You expresly grant a possibility of salvation to those who joyn with the Protestant Church in case of invincible ignorance and dare you deny it where there is a preparation of mind to find out and embrace the most certain way to Heaven where all endeavours are used to that end and where there is a conscientious obedience to the Will of God so far as it is discovered If you dare peremptorily deny a possibility of salvation to such persons meerly because not of the Roman Church this prodigious uncharitableness would make us question the possibility of your salvation more while you persist in it For What is there more contrary to the design and spirit of the Gospel then this is From whence must we gather the terms of salvation but only from thence But it seems by you although men give never so hearty an assent to the Doctrine of the Gospel and live in the most universal obedience to it and abound in the fruits of the spirit of God of which Charity is none of the least yet if they be not in the Communion of your Church there is no hopes of salvation for them But Who is it the mean while that hath the disposal of this salvation Is it in your hands or Christs If it be in His we dare rely on His promise although you pretend to know His mind better than He did himself For notwithstanding a sincere endeavour to know and obey the will of God be the great Fundamental in order to salvation which is delivered us by the Doctrine of Christ yet it seems by you there may be this where there may be not so much as possibility of salvation By which assertion of yours you are so far from working upon any but very weak persons to bring them over to your Church that nothing can more effectually prejudice it among all such who dare believe Christ to be more Infallible then the Church of Rome For what is this else but to make heaven and eternal salvation stalk to the interess of your Church and to lay more weight upon being in your communion then upon the most indispensable precepts of Christianity But when we consider how many among you dispute for the possibility of the salvation of Heathens and yet deny it to those who own all the Fundamentals of Christianity when we see how much you lay the weight of salvation upon being in your Church and what wayes you have for those who are in it to reconcile the hopes of salvation with the practise of sin What can we otherwise imagine but it is the Interess of your Church that you more aim at than the salvation of mens-souls For you have so many wayes to give indulgence in sin to those who desire it and yet such ready wayes of pardon and such an easie task of repentance and so little troublesome means of obtaining grace by the Sacraments ex opere operato that it is hard conceiving what way a man should sooner take who would live in his sins and come to heaven at last then to be of your Church And yet you who are so soft and gentle so kind and indulgent to the sons of your Church are not more ready to send those who are out of it to the fire in this world than to eternal flames in another But we have not so learned Christ we dare not deal so inhumanely with them in this world much less judge so uncharitably as to another of those who profess to fear God and work righteousness though they be not of the same opinion or communion with us Yet we tell men of the danger of hazzarding their salvation by erroneous doctrines and superstitious practises and suppose that sufficient to perswade such who sincerely regard their future happiness to avoid all such things as tend so much to their eternal ruine And such who will continue in such things meerly because there is a possibility some persons may be saved in them by reason of Ignorance or Repentance are no wiser men then such who should split
and exhibit to us the nature of the grace of the Gospel as it cleanseth and purifieth and to confirm the truth of the Covenant on Gods part and to enstate the partakers of it in the priviledges of the Church of God now as to all these ends there is no incapacity in Infants to exclude them from Baptism because of them So that nothing can seem wanting of the ends of Baptism but that which seems most Ceremonial in it which is the personal restipulation which yet may reasonably be supplyed by Sponsors so far as to make it of the nature of a solemn Contract and Covenant in sight of the Congregation Thus far it appears from Scripture and Reason that no incapacity in Infants doth exclude them from Baptism 2. That there is no direct or consequential prohibition made by our Blessed Saviour to exclude them For granting that he had the power to limit and determine the subject of Baptism the question is Whether he hath so far done it as to exclude Infants And nothing of that nature is pretended before the last Commission given to the Apostles of Teaching and Baptizing all Nations Matth. 28.19 And that by this expression there is no exclusion of Infants will appear 1. If our Saviour had intended the gathering of Churches among the Gentiles according to the Law of Moses he could hardly have expressed it after another manner then thus Go Proselyte all Nations Circumcising them Now I appeal to any mans judgement and reason whether in such words it could be imagined that the Infants of such Gentile-Proselytes should be excluded Circumcision and what reason can there be then from these words to imagine that our Saviour did intend to exclude the Infants of Gentile-Converts from Baptism 2. We must consider what apprehensions those whom our Saviour directed these words to viz. the Apostles had concerning the Church-state of such as were in an external Covenant with God which they measured by the general reason of that Covenant which God made with the Jews Can we then think that when our Saviour bid the Apostles gather whole Nations into Churches they should imagine the Infants were excluded out of it when they were so solemnly admitted into it in that dispensation which was in use among them 3. The Gentiles being now to be first Proselyted to Christianity the order of the words was necessary for whoever imagined but that such as were wholly strangers to Christianity as those were whom Christ there speaks of were to be first taught or discipled before they were to be Baptized For suppose it should be said to such persons among whom Infant Baptism is the most used Go and Disciple the Indians Baptizing them c. Could any one conceive the intention of such a Commission was to exclude the Infants of all those Indians from Baptism when it was well known that Infant-Baptism was used among those who came with that Commission And therefore neither these words here nor those Mark 16.16 He that believeth and is Baptized c. can in reason be so interpreted as to exclude Infants when the meer order of nature and necessity of the thing requires that those who first own Christianity by being Baptized ought before such Baptism not only to believe but to make profession of that Faith but this reacheth not at all to the case of such Infants as are born of those persons For if any one had said to Abraham He that believes and is circumcised shall be saved Could it have been so interpreted that the intention was to exclude his Children from Circumcision No more ought these words of our Saviour be strained to a greater prejudice of the right of Infants to Baptism then those other to their right of Circumcision And thus far we see there is no ground from Scriptures or Reason why Infants should be excluded And were it not too large a Digression I might further shew how suitable the Baptism of Infants is to the administration of things under the Gospel but I shall only propound some considerations concerning it 1. That if it had been Christs intention to exclude Infants â—here had been far greater reason for an express prohibition then of an express command if his intention were to admit them because this was suitable to the general grounds of Gods dispensation among them before 2. It is very hard to conceive that the Apostles thought Infants excluded by Christ when after Christs Ascension they looked on themselves as bound to observe the Jewish customes even when they had Baptized many thousand people 3. If admission of Infants to Baptism were a meer Relick of Judaism it seems strange that none of the Judaizing Christians should be charged with it who yet are charged with the observation of other Judaical rites 4. Since the Jewish Christians were so much offended at the neglect of Circumcision Acts 21.21 Can we in reason think they should quietly bear their Childrens being wholly thrown out of the Church as they would have been if neither admitted to Circumcision nor Baptism 5. Had it been contrary to Christs Institution we should not have had such evidence of its early practice in the Church as we have And here I acknowledge the use of Apostolical Tradition to manifest this to us In which sense I acknowledge what St. Austin saith That the custom of our mother the Church is not to be contemned or thought superfluous neither is it to be believed but as an Apostolical Tradition For that the words are to be read so and not as you translate them nor at all to be believed unless it had been an Apostolical Tradition from thence inferring that Infant-Baptism were not to be believed at all but for Tradition appears by three ancient Manuscripts at Oxford as well as the course of the sentence and St. Austins judgement in other places viz. that it ought to be read Nec omninò credenda nisi Apostolica traditio esse and not esset But we grant that the practice of the Church from Apostolical times is a great confirmation that it was never Christs intention to have Infants excluded from Baptism And thus much may suffice to shew what evidence we have from Scripture and Reason without recourse wholly to Tradition or building upon any more controverted places to justifie the Churches practice in Infant-Baptism which is as much as is necessary for us to do What follows concerning the founding Divine Faith on Apostolical Tradition will be fully considered in the succeeding Controversie concerning the resolution of Faith to which we now hasten CHAP. V. The Romanists way of Resolving Faith The ill consequences of the resolution of Faith by the Churches Infallibility The grand Absurdities of it manifested by its great unreasonableness in many particulars The certain Foundations of Faith unsettled by it as is largely proved The Circle unavoidable by their new attempts The impossibility of proving the Church Infallible by the way that Moses Christ and his Apostles
them and to acknowledge their words for infallible Oracles of Truth Was not here then sufficient ground for assent in the Primitive Christians to the Apostles Doctrine Not as you weakly imagine because the Doctrine of the Apostles was suitable to the Doctrine of Christ for the ground why they assented to the Doctrine of Christ was because of the Testimony of the Apostles And therefore to say They believed the Doctrine of the Apostles because it was agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ and then that they believed the Doctrine of Christ because it was suitable to the Testimony of the Apostles is a Circle fit for none but your self and that silly person of your own moulding whom you call the Sectary It were worth considering too How the works of Christ could prove the Doctrine of the Apostles suitable to his own I had thought Christs works had proved his own Testimony to be true and not the Apostles Doctrine to be consonant to his The works of Christ shew us the reason why he was to be believed in what he delivered and did not the works of the Apostles do so too What need then any rational person enquire further why the Apostles Doctrine was to be believed Was it not on the same account that the Doctrine of Christ was to be believed But say you How should you know their Doctrine was the same What do you want an infallible Testimony for this too or do you believe that God can contradict himself or that Christ should send such to deliver his Doctrine to the world and attest it with miracles who should falsifie and corrupt it Now you will say I am come over to you and answer as you do that the Apostles Testimony was to be believed because of the pregnant and convincing Motives of Credibility This I grant but must be excused as to what follows That these same Motives moved the Primitive Christians and us in our respective times to believe the Church Prove but that and I yield the cause But till then I pray give us leave to believe that still you prove idem per idem and your Answers are like your Proofs for this we have had often already and have sufficiently examined before as likewise your other Coccysm about the Formal Object of Faith and certain inducements to accept the Churches Infallibility which I shall not think worth repeating till you think what I have said against it before worth answering Your second Instance is ad hominem whereby you would prove That if he acknowledge the Church infallible in Fundamentals he must prove idem per idem as much as you do For say you if he be demanded a reason why he believes such Points as he calls Fundamental his Answer is because they are agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ. If he be asked How he knows them to be so he will no doubt produce the words sentences and works of Christ who taught the said Fundamental Points But if he be asked a third time By what means he is assured that these Testimonies do make for him then he will not have recourse to the words themselves i. e. to the Bible but his final Answer will be He knows them to be so and that they do make for him because the present Church doth infallibly witness so much from Tradition and according to Tradition which is say you to prove idem per idem as much as we Things are not alwaies just as you would have them If we allow you to make both Objections and Answers for us no doubt you are guilty of no Absurdity so great but we shall be equally guilty of it But it is the nature both of your Religion and Arguments not to be able to stand a Tryal but however they must undergo it I say then that granting the Church infallible in the belief of Fundamentals it doth not follow that we must prove idem per idem as you do For when we ask you Why you believe your Doctrine to be the sole Catholick Faith your final Answer is because your Church is infallible which is answering by the very thing in Question for you have no other way to judge of the Catholick Faith but by the Infallibility of your Church but when you ask us Why we believe such an Article to be Fundamental as for Instance That Christ will give Eternal Life to them that obey him we answer not because the Church which is infallible in Fundamentals delivers it to be so which were answering idem per idem but we appeal to that common reason which is in mankind Whether if the Doctrine of Christ be true this can be other than a Fundamental Article of it it being that without which the whole design of Christian Religion comes to nothing Therefore you much mistake when you think we resolve our Faith of Fundamentals into the Church as the infallible Witness of them for though the Church may be infallible in the belief of all things Fundamental for otherwise it were not a Church if it did not believe them it doth not thence necessarily follow That the Church must infallibly witness what is Fundamental and what not It is sufficient that the Church doth deliver from the consent of universal Tradition that infallible Rule of Faith which to be sure contains all things Fundamental in it though she never meddle with the deciding what Points are Fundamental and what not If you therefore ask me Why I believe any Point supposed Fundamental I answer By all the evidence which assures me that the Doctrine containing that Point is of Divine Revelation If you aske me How I know that this Point is part of that Doctrine I appeal to the common sense and reason of the world as to things plainly Fundamental and therefore by this means your third Question is prevented How I know this to be the meaning of those words for I suppose no one that can tell that two and two make four can question but if the Doctrine of Christ be true the belief of it is necessary to Salvation which is it we mean by Fundamental Either therefore prove it necessary that the Church must infallibly witness what is Fundamental and what not and that we must rely on such a Testimony in the belief of Fundamentals or you prove nothing at all to your purpose no more than your convincing Motives of Credibility which were they made into a grand Sallad would know the way to the Table they are served so often up But I have found them so dry and insipid already I have no encouragement to venture on them any more But still you are deservedly afraid we should not think worthily enough of your Churches Infallibility You therefore tell us very wisely that this Infallibility is not a thing that is not infallible For say you Which Infallibility must come from the Holy Ghost and be more than humane or moral and therefore must be truly supernatural c. It
cannot be owned as an Apostolical Tradition 2. That what you call an unwritten Word must be something doctrinal so you call them your self doctrinal Traditions i. e. such as contain in them somewhat dogmatical or necessary to be believed by us and thence it was this Controversie rose from the Dispute concerning the sufficiency of the Scriptures as a Rule of Faith Whether that contained all God's Word or all matters to be believed or no or Whether there were not some Objects of Faith which were never written but conveyed by Tradition 3. That what is thus doctrinal must be declared by the Church to be an Apostolical Tradition which you in terms assert According then to these Rules we come to examine the Evidences by you produced for such an unwritten Word For which you first produce several Instances out of S. Austin of such things which were in his time judged to be such i. e. doctrinal Traditions derived from the Apostles and have ever since been conserved and esteemed such in the whole Church of Christ. The first you instance in is that we now treat That Scripture is the Word of God for which you propose the known place wherein he affirms he should not believe the Gospel but for the Authority of the Church moving him thereto But this proves nothing to your purpose unless you make it appear that the Authority of the Church could not move him to believe the Gospel unless that Authority be supposed to be an unwritten Word For I will suppose that S. Austin or any other rational man might be sufficiently induced to believe the Gospel on the account of the Churches Authority not as delivering any doctrinal Tradition in the nature of an unwritten Word but as attesting that Vniversal Tradition which had been among all Christians concerning it Which Universal Tradition is nothing else but a conveying down to us the judgement of sense and reason in the present case For the Primitive Christians being best able to judge as to what Authentick Writings came from the Apostles not by any unwritten Word but by the use of all moral means it cannot reasonably be supposed that the successive Christians should imbezzle these Authentick Records and substitute others in the place of them When therefore Manichaeus pretended the Authenticalness of some other writings besides those then owned by the Church S. Austin did no more than any reasonable man would do in the like case viz. appeal to the Vniversal Tradition of the Catholick Church upon the account of which he saies He was induced to believe the Gospel it self i. e. not so much the Doctrine as the Books containing it But of this more largely elsewhere I can hardly excuse you from a falsification of S. Austin's meaning in the ensuing words which you thus render If any clear Testimony were brought out of Scripture against the Church he would neither believe the Scripture nor the Church whereas it appears by the words cited in your own Margin his meaning is only this If you can find saith he something very plain in the Gospel concerning the Apostleship of Manichaeus you will thereby weaken the Authority of those Catholicks who bid me that I should not believe you whose Authority being weakned neither can I believe the Gospel because through them I believed it Is here any like what you said or at least would seem to have apprehended to be his meaning which is plainly this If against the consent of all those Copies which the Catholick Christians received those Copies should be found truer which have in them something of the Apostleship of Manichaeus this must needs weaken much the Authority of the Catholick Church in its Tradition whom he adhered to against the Manichees and their Authority being thus weakned his Faith as to the Scriptures delivered by them must needs be much weakned too To give you an Instance of a like nature The Mahumetans pretend that in the Scripture there was anciently express mention of their Prophet Mahomet but that the Christians out of hatred of their Religion have erased all those places which spake of him Suppose now a Christian should say If he should find in the Gospel express mention of Mahomet's being a Prophet it would much weaken the Authority of the whole Christian Church which being so weakned it must of necessity weaken the Faith of all those who have believed our present Copies Authentick upon the account of the Christian Churches Authority Is not this plainly the case S. Austin speaks of and Is it any more than any man's reason will tell him Not that the Churches Authority is to be relyed on as judicially or infallibly but as rationally delivering such an Universal Tradition to us And might not S. Austin on the same reason as well believe the Acts of the Apostles as the Gospel when they were both equally delivered by the same Universal Tradition What you have gained then to your purpose from these three citations out of S. Austin in your first Instance I cannot easily imagine Your second Tradition is That the Father is not begotten of any other person S. Austin's words are Sicut Patrem in illis libris nusquam Ingenitum legimus tamen dicendum esse defenditur We never read in the Scriptures that the Father is unbegotten and yet it is defended that we must say so And had they not good reason with them to say so who believed that he was the Father by way of exclusion of such a kind of Generation as the Eternal Son of God is supposed to have But Must this be an Instance of a doctrinal Tradition containing some Object of Faith distinct from Scripture Could any one whoever believed the Doctrine of the Trinity as revealed in Scripture believe or imagine any other that though it be not in express terms set down in Scripture yet no one that hath any conceptions of the Father but this is implied in them If it be therefore a Tradition because it is not expresly in Scripture Why may not Trinity Hypostasis Person Consubstantiality be all unwritten Traditions as well as this You will say Because though the words be not there yet the sense is and I pray take the same Answer for this of the Father's being unbegotten Your third is Of the perpetual Virginity of the Virgin Mary This indeed S. Austin saith is to be believed fide integra but he saith not divinâ but Do you therefore make this a doctrinal Tradition and an unwritten Word If you make it a doctrinal Tradition you must shew us what Article of Faith is contained in it that it was not looked on as an unwritten Word will appear by the disputations of those Fathers who writ most eagerly about it who make it their design to prove it out of Scripture Those who did most zealously appear against the Opinion of Helvidius were S. Hierom and S. Ambrose of the Latin Church S. Austin only mentions it in
Tradition thus If the Light of the Scripture be insufficient to shew it self unless it be introduced by the recommendation of the Church How came Luther Calvin Zuinglius Husse c. to discover this Light in it seeing they rejected the Authority of all visible Churches in the world c Sure your Discourser was not very profound in this that could not distinguish between the Authority of Vniversal Tradition and the Authority of the present visible Church or between the Testimony of the Church and the Authority of it Shew us where Luther Calvin c. did ever reject the Authority of an uncontrouled Vniversal Tradition such as that here mentioned concerning the Scriptures being the Word of God Shew us where they deny that Vse of the Testimony of those Churches whose Authority in imposing matters of Faith they denied which his Lordship asserts viz. to be a means to introduce men to the knowledge and belief of the Scritures and unless you shew this you do nothing 4. He argues against that Light in Scripture because it is not sufficient to distinguish Canonical Books from such as are not so For saies he Had not the Ancient Primitive Fathers in the first three hundred years as much reason and ability to find this Light in Scripture as any particular person Yet many Books which do appear to us to be God's Word by their Light did not appear to be so to them by it till they were declared such by the Catholick Church I answer 1. Where doth his Lordship ever say or pretend that any person by the Light contained in the Books can distinguish Books that are Canonical from such as are not All that can be discovered as to particular Books in question is the examination of the Doctrine contained in them by the series of that which is in the unquestionable Books for we know that God can never speak contradictions but still this will only serve to exclude such Books as contain things contrary but not to admit all which have no Doctrine contrary to Scripture 2. The reason why the Primitive Fathers questioned any Books that we do not was not because they could not discover that Light in them which we do for neither can we discover so much Light in any particular Book as meerly from thence to say It is Canonical but there was not sufficient evidence then appearing to them that those Copies did proceed from Apostolical persons and this was therefore only an Argument of that commendable care and caution which was in them lest any Book should pass for Canonical which was not really so 3. When the Catholick Church declared any controverted Book to be Canonical Did not the Church then see as much Light in it as we do but that Light which both the Church and we discover is not a discriminating Internal Light but an External Evidence from the sufficiency and validity of Testimony And such we have for the Canonical Books of the Old Testament and therefore you have no cause to quarrel with us for receiving them from the Jewish Synagogue For who I pray are so competent witnesses of what is delivered as they who received it and the Apostle tells us That to the Jews were committed the Oracles of God 5. Hence your discoursing Christian argues That if one take up the Scripture on the account of Tradition then if one should deny S. Matthew 's Gospel to be the written Word of God he could not be accounted an Heretick because it was not sufficiently propounded to him to be God's Word Whether such a person may be accounted a Heretick in your sense or no I am sure he is in S. Paul's because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self-condemned and that for the very contrary reason to what you give because this is sufficiently propounded to him I pray tell me What way you would have such a thing sufficiently propounded as a matter to be believed that this is not propounded in Would you have an unquestionable evidence that this was writ by one of Christ's Apostles called S. Matthew so you have Would you have all the Churches of Christ agreed in this Testimony in all Ages from the Apostles times so you have Would you have it delivered to you by the Testimony of the present Church so you have What then is or can be wanting in order to a Proposition of it to be believed Why forsooth some infallible authoritative sentence of the present Church which shall make this an Object of Faith See what a different mould some mens minds are of from others For my part should I see or hear any Church in the world undertaking such an office as that I should be so far from thinking it more sufficiently propounded by it that I should not scruple to charge it with the greatest presumption and arrogance that may be For on what account can it possibly be a thing credible to me that S. Matthew's Gospel contains God's written Word any further than it is evident that the person who wrote it was one chosen by Christ to deliver the summe of his proceedings as an Apostle to the world And therefore I have no reason to think he would deceive men in what he spake or writ The only Question then is How I should know this is no counterfeit name but that S. Matthew writ it Let us consider what possible means there are to be assured of it I cannot imagine any but these two Either that God should immediately reveal it either to my self or to some Church to propound it to me or else that I am to believe those persons who first received those Copies from his hands by whose means they were dispersed abroad in the world from whence they are conveyed by an unquestionable Tradition down to us Of these two chuse whether you please if the first then particular immediate Revelations are necessary to particular persons to have such an Object of Faith sufficiently propounded to them and then the Church cannot authoritatively pronounce any Books of Scripture to be Canonical without immediate Revelation to her that this Book was written by such a person who was divinely assisted in the writing of it And this you have denied before to belong to the Church If you take up with the second the unquestionable Testimony of all Ages since the Apostles then judge you whether S. Matthew's Gospel be not sufficiently propounded to be believed and consequently Whether any one who should question or deny it be not guilty of the greatest peevishness and obstinacy imaginable From hence we may see with what superfluity of discretion the next words came from you Nay hence it follows that even our blessed Saviour who is Wisdom it self would have been esteemed by all the world not a wise Law-giver but a meer Ignoramus and Impostor For shame man forbear such insolent expressions for the future and repent of these For Must Christ's Wisdom be called in question and he liable to be accounted an
an errour is the worse the condition is of all such who believe the Churches Testimony Infallible Now this is that we justly charge your Church with that while she pretends to Infallibility she hath actually erred in delivering such Books for Canonical which are not so as hath been abundantly manifested by the worthies of our Church The remainder of this discourse of yours concerning knowing Canonical Books by the light in them is vacated by our present answer and so is the other concerning Apostolical traditions by our former upon that subject As to that Scruple How the light should be Infallible and Divine when the Churches Testimony is humane and fallible it signifies nothing unless the light be only supposed to rise from the Testimony which his Lordship denies 7. The judgement of the Fathers is inquired into concerning the present subject out of whom only Irenaeus and St. Augustin are produced as affirming in many places That the Tradition of the Church is sufficient to found Christian Faith even without Scripture and that for some hundreds of years after the Canon of Scripture was written But must we stand only to the judgement of these two concerning the sense of the Primitive Church in this present Controversie We may easily know the judgement of the Fathers if two such lame Citations as these are are sufficient to discover it But your unhappiness is great in whatever you undertake If you meddle with reason you soon find how little it becomes you if you fly to the Fathers they prove the greatest witnesses against you as will appear in this debate if we first examine the citations you produce and then shew how fully and clearly these very persons whom you have picked out of all the Chorus do deliver themselves against you The first citation is that known one out of Irenaeus concerning those barbarous nations who believed without the Scriptures adhering to the Tradition of the Apostles having salvation written without Paper and Ink. But what it is you would hence inferr I cannot imagine unless it be one of these two things 1. That if we had no Scriptures left us it would be necessary for us to believe on the account of Apostolical Tradition that is that the grounds of our Faith were so clear and evident of themselves that though they had never been written yet if they had been conveyed by an unquestionable Tradition from the Apostles there had lain an obligation on us to believe the Doctrine of Christ. But is this our case hath not God infinitely better provided for us when as your other witness St. Augustine speaks Whatever our Saviour would have us read of his actions or speeches he commanded his Apostles and Disciples as his hands to write Christian Religion is now no Cabala to us God hath consigned his will over to us by Codicills of his own appointing and must we then be now in the like case as if his Will had never been written at all 2. But what if the barbarous Nations did believe without the Books of Scripture what doth that prove but only this that there may be sufficient reason to believe in Christ where the Scriptures are not known Is that contrary to us who say The last resolution of Faith is into the Doctrine of Christ as attested by God now if that attestation be sufficiently conveyed there is an obligation to believe but withall we say that to us who enjoy the Scriptures as delivered down to us the only certain and infallible conveyance of Gods Word to us is by them So that the whole Christian world is obliged to you for your civil comparison of them with those Barbarians who either enjoyed not the Scriptures or in probability were not able to make use of them as being probably ignorant of the use of letters 3. Doth Irenaeus in these words say that even these Barbarians did believe upon the Infallible Testimony of the present Church No he mentions no such thing but that they believed that Tradition of Doctrine which was delivered them from the Apostles I ask you then Suppose at that time some honest but fallible persons should have gone into Scythia or some such barbarous places and delivered the Doctrine of the Gospel and attesting the matters of fact as being eye-witnesses of Christs Miracles Death and Resurrection whether would these Barbarians have been bound to believe or no If not then for all I know Infidelity is a very excusable sin If they were I pray tell me what it was their Faith was resolved into was it an infallible testimony of fallible men And the same case is of such who should preach the same Doctrine from these eye-witnesses in another Generation and so on for although there might be no reason to question their testimony yet I suppose you will not say It is Infallible so that still this makes nothing for your purpose 4. Who better understood Irenaeus his mind than himself let us therefore see what he elsewhere tells us is the foundation and pillar of our Faith who have received the Scriptures Doth not he tell us but three Chapters before this That we have received the method or Doctrine of our Salvation from those persons who preached it which by Gods command they after delivered in the Scriptures which were to be the foundation and pillaâ— of our Faith Could any thing be more fully spoken to our purpose than this is Whereby he shews us now the Scriptures are consigned unto us what that is which our Faith must stand upon not the Infallibility of the Church but that Word of God which is delivered to us This therefore he elsewhere calls the Vnmoveable Canon of our Faith as S. Augustine calls it Divinam stateram the Divine ballance we must weigh the grounds of our Belief in By which we may guess what little relief you are like to have from your second witness St. Augustin Two citations you produce out of him and I question not but to make it appear that neither of those Testimonies do make for you and those very Books afford us sufficient against you The first is out of his Books of Christian Doctrine which lest we should think not pertinent you care not to produce it but we must A man who strengthens himself with Faith Hope and Charity and retains them unshaken needs not the Scriptures but only to instruct others for by these three many live without Books in a desert His meaning is that he who hath a principle of Divine life within him which discovers it self in the exercise of those three Graces needs not so much the external precepts because that inward principle will carry him to actions suitable to it only for convincing or instructing others these Books are continually useful but for themselves those good men who first through the fury of their persecution were driven and after others who in imitation of that piety they shewed there did withdraw into remote
is so great integrity and incorruption in those Copies we have that we cannot but therein take notice of a peculiar hand of Divine Providence in preserving these authentick records of our Religion so safe to our dayes But it is time now to return to you You would therefore perswade us That we have no ground of certainty as to the Copies of Scripture but comparing them with the Apostles Autographa but I hope our former discourse hath given you a sufficient account of our certainty without seeing the Apostles own hands But I pray what certainty then had the Jews after the Captivity of their Copies of the Law yet I cannot think you will deny them any ground of certainty in the time of Christ that they had the true Copies both of the Law and the Prophets and I hope you will not make the Sanhedrin which condemned our Saviour to death to have given them their only Infallible certainty concerning it If therefore the Jews might be certain without Infallibility why may not we for if the Oracles of God were committed to the Jews then they are to the Christians now You yet further urge That there can be no certainty concerning the Autographa's of the Apostles but by tradition And may not every universal tradition be carried up as clearly at least to the Apostles times as the Scriptures by most credible Authours who wrote in their respective succeeding ages I answer We grant there can be no certainty as to the Copies of Scripture but from tradition and if you can name any of those great things in Controversie between us which you will undertake to prove to be as universal a tradition as that of the Scriptures you and I shall not differ as to the belief of it But think not to fob us off with the tradition of the present Church instead of the Church of all ages with the tradition of your Church instead of the Catholick with the ambiguous testimonies of two or three of the Fathers instead of the universal consent of the Church since the Apostles times If I should once see you prove the Infallibility of your Church the Popes Supremacy Invocation of Saints Veneration of Images the necessity of Coelibate in the Clergy a punitive Purgatory the lawfulness of communicating in one kind the expediency of the Scriptures and Prayers being in an unknown tongue the sacrifice of the Mass Transubstantiation to name no moâ—e by as unquestionable and universal a tradition as that whereby we receive the Scriptures I shall extoll you for the only person that ever did any thing considerable on your side and I shall willingly yield my self up as a Trophey to your brave attempts Either then for ever forbear to mention any such things as Vniversal Tradition among you as to any things besides Scriptures which carry a necessity with them of being believed or practised or once for all undertake this task and manifest it as to the things in Controversie between us Your next Paragraph besides what hath been already discussed in this Chapter concerning Apostolical tradition of Scripture empties it self into the old mare mortuum of the formal object and Infallible application of Faith which I cannot think my self so much at leasure to follow you into so often as you fall into it When once you bring any thing that hath but the least resemblance of reason more than before I shall afresh consider it but not till then What next follows concerning resolving Faith into prime Apostolical Tradition infallibly without the Infallibility of the present Church hath been already prevented by telling you that his Lordship doth not say That the infallible Resolution of Faith is into that Apostolical Tradition but into the Doctrine which is conveyed in the Books of Scripture from the Apostles times down to us by an unquestionable Tradition Your stale Objection That then we should want Divine Certainty hath been over and over answered and so hath your next Paragraph That if the Church be not infallible we cannot be infallibly certain that Scripture is Gods Word and so the remainder concerning Canonical Books It is an easie matter to write great Books after that rate to swell up your discourses with needless repetitions but it is the misery that attends a bad cause and a bad stomach to have unconcocted things brought up so often till we nauseate them Your next offer is at the Vindication of the noted place of S. Austin I would not believe the Gospel c. which you say cannot rationally be understood of Novices Weaklings and Doubters in the Faith This being then the place at every turn objected by you and having before reserved the discussion of it to this place I shall here particularly and throughly consider the meaning of it In order to which three things must be enquired into 1. What the Controversie was which St. Austin was there discussing of 2. What that Church was which St. Austin was moved by the Authority of 3. In what way and manner that Churches Authority did perswade him 1. Nothing seems more necessary for understanding the meaning of this place than a true state of the Controversie which S. Austin was disputing of and yet nothing less spoke to on either side than this hath been We are therefore to consider that when Manes or Manichaeus began to appear in the world to broach that strange and absurd Doctrine of his in the Christian world which he had received from Terebinthus or Buddas as he from Scythianus who if we belieue Epiphanius went to Jerusalem in the Apostles times to enquire into the Doctrine of Christianity and dispute with the Christians about his Opinions but easily foreseeing what little entertainment so strange a complexion of absurdities would find in the Christian world as long as the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists were received every where with that esteem and veneration Two waies he or his more cunning Disciples bethought themselves of whereby to lessen the authority of those writings and so make way for the Doctrine of Manichaeus One was to disparage the Credulity of Christians because the Catholick Church insisted so much on the necessity of Faith whereas they pretended they would desire men to believe nothing but what they gave them sufficient reason for But all this while since the Christians thought they had evident reason for believing the Scriptures and consequently none to believe the Doctrine which did oppose them therefore they found it necessary to go further and to charge those Copies of Scripture with falsifications and corruptions which were generally received among Christians But these are fully delivered by S. Austin in his Book de utilitate credendi as will appear to any one who looks into it but the latter is that which I aim at this he therefore taxeth them for That with a great deal of impudence or to speak mildly with much weakness they charged the Scriptures to be corrupted and yet
could not at so small a distance of time prove any corruption by any Copies which were extant For saith he if they should say They would not embrace their writings because they were written by such who were not careful of writing Truth their evasion would be more sâ—y and their errour more pardonable But thus it seems they did by the Acts of the Apostles utterly denying them to contain matter of Truth in them and the reason was very obvious for it because that Book gives so clear an account of the sending the Spirit upon the Apostles which the Manichees pretended was to be only accomplished in the person of Manichaeus And both before and after S. Austin mentions it as their common speech That before the time of Manichaeus there had been corrupters of the sacred Books who had mixed several things of their own with what was written by the Apostles And this they laid upon the Judaizing Christians because their great pique was against the Old Testament and probably some further reason might be from the Nazarene Gospel wherein many things were inserted by such as did Judaize The same thing St. Austin chargeth them with when he gives an account of their Heresie And this likewise appears by the management of the dispute between S. Austin and Faustus who was much the subtillest man among them Faustus acknowledged no more to be Gospel than what contained the Doctrine delivered by our Saviour and therefore denied the Genealogies to be any part of the Gospel and afterwards disputes against it both in S. Matthew and S. Luke And after this S. Austin notes it as their usual custom when they could not avoid a Testimony of Scripture to deny it Thus we see what kind of persons these were and what their pretences were which S. Austin disputes against They embraced so much of Scripture as pleased them and no more To this therefore S. Austin returns these very substantial Answers That if such proceedings might be admitted the Divine Authority of any Books could signifie nothing at all for the convincing of errours That it was much more reasonable either with the Pagans to deny the whole Bible or with the Jews to deny the New Testament than thus to acknowledge in general the Books Divine and to quarrel with such particular passages as pinched them most that if there were any suspicion of corruption they ought to produce more true Copies and more ancient Books than theirs or else be judged by the Original Languages with many other things to the same purpose To apply this now to the present place in dispute S. Austin in that Book against the Epistle of Manichaeus begins with the Preface to it which is made in imitation of the Apostles strain and begins thus Manichaeus Apostolus Jesu Christi providentià Dei Patris c. To this S. Austin saith he believes no such thing as that Manichaeus was an Apostle of Jesus Christ and hopes they will not be angry with him for it for he had learned of them not to believe without reason And therefore desires them to prove it It may be saith he one of you may read me the Gospel and thence perswade me to believe it But what if you should meet with one who when you read the Gospel should say to you I do not believe it But I should not believe the Gospel if the Authority of the Church did not move me Whom therefore I obey in saying Believe the Gospel should I not obey in saying Believe not Manichaeus The Question we see is concerning the proving the Apostleship of Manichaeus which cannot in it self be proved but from some Records which must specifie such an Apostleship of his and to any one who should question the authenticalness of those Records it can only be proved by the testimony and consent of the Catholick Church without which S. Austin professeth he should never have believed the Gospel i. e. that these were the only true and undoubted Records which are left us of the Doctrine and actions of Christ. And he had very good reason to say so for otherwise the authority of those Books should be questioned every time any one such as Manichaeus should pretend himself an Apostle which Controversies there can be no other way of deciding but by the Testimony of the Church which hath received and embraced these Copies from the time of their first publishing And that this was S. Austin's meaning will appear by several parallel places in his disputes against the Manichees For in the same chapter speaking concerning the Acts of the Apostles Which Book saith he I must believe as well as the Gospel because the same Catholick Authority commends both i. e. The same Testimony of the Vniversal Church which delivers the Gospel as the authentick writings of the Evangelists doth likewise deliver the Acts of the Apostles for an authentick writing of one of the same Evangelists So that there can be no reason to believe the one and not the other So when he disputes against Faustus who denied the truth of some things in S. Paul's Epistles he bids him shew a truer Copy than that the Catholick Church received which Copy if he should produce he desires to know how he would prove it to be truer to one that should deny it What would you do saith he Whither would you turn your self What Original of your Book could you shew What Antiquity what Testimony of a succession of persons from the time of the writing of it But on the contrary What huge advantage the Catholicks have who by a constant succession of Bishops in the Apostolical Sees and by the consent of so many people have the Authority of the Church confirmed to them for the clearing the validity of its Testimony concerning the Records of Scripture And after laies down Rules for the trying of Copies where there appears any difference between them viz. by comparing them with the Copies of other Countries from whence the Doctrine originally came and if those Copies vary too the more Copies should be preferred before the fewer the ancienter before the latter If yet any uncertainty remains the original Language must be consulted This is in case a Question ariseth among the acknowledged authentical Copies of the Catholick Church in which case we see he never sends men to the infallible Testimony of the Church for certainty as to the Truth of the Copies but if the Question be Whether any writing it self be authentical or no then it stands to the greatest reason that the Testimony of the Catholick Church should be relyed on which by reason of its large spread and continual Succession from the very time of those writings cannot but give the most indubitable Testimony concerning the authenticalness of the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists And were it not for this Testimony S. Austin might justly say He should not believe the Gospel i. e. Suppose those writings which
which had been in the world but knowing that the Christians did with the greatest resolution adhere to that Doctrine which was delivered by Christ and his Apostles they could not suppose that they should embrace these figments unless they could some way or other father them upon them Upon which they pretended that these very things which they delivered were really intended by Christ and the Apostles in their writings but because so few were capable of them they gave only some intimations of them there but delivered these great mysteries privately only to those who were perfect and that this was St. Pauls meaning when he said I speak wisdome among them that are perfect This Irenaeus gives us an account of in the beginning of all his discourse but is more fully expressed in the original Greek of Irenaeus preserved by Epiphanius in the heresie of the Valentinians On which account alone as Petavius saith Epiphanius hath well deserved of Posterity for preserving entire those original Fragments of Irenaeus his Greek therein being much more intelligible and smooth than the old harsh Latin version of him His words are All which things are not expresly declared in as much as all are not fit to understand them but are mysteriously couched by our Saviour in parables for such who are able to understand them Thus they said the 30. Aeônes were represented by the 30. years in which our Saviour did not appear publickly and by the parable of the works in the vineyard in which the 1 3 6 9 11 hours making up 30. did again denote their Aeônes and that St. Paul did most expresly signifie them when he used so often 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Duodecad of Aeôns by the 12 years at which our Saviour appeared disputing with the Doctors The raising of Jairus his daughter of 12 years represented Achamoth being brought to light whose passions were set forth by those words of our Saviour My God my God why hast thou forsaken me in which were three passions of Achamoth Sorrow Fear and Despair With many things of a like nature but hereby we sufficiently see what their pretence was viz. That there were deep mysteries but obscurely represented in Scripture but whose full knowledge was delivered down by an Oral Cabala from Christ and his Apostles Now we must consider what course Irenaeus takes to confute these pretensions of theirs First he gives an account what that Faith was which the Church dispersed up and down the world received from the Apostles and their Disciples viz. that thereby they believed in one God the Father Almighty who made Heaven and Earth the Sea and all in them and in one Jesus Christ the Son of God c. which was directly contrary to the Valentinian Heresies who supposed the Supream God and Demiurgus to be different and so Christus and Salvator and so in others This Faith which the Church hath received it unanimously keeps though dispersed through the whole world for although the languages be different yet the Tradition is the same among them whether they live in Germany France Spain the East Aegypt Libya or elsewhere And after in the first Book he hath shewed the many different opinions of the several broods of these Hereticks and in the second discovered the fondness and ridiculousness of them in his third Book he undertakes from Scripture to shew the falseness of them And begins with that excellent expression before cited For we have not known the disposition or oeconomy of our Salvation by others than by those by whom the Gospel came to us which they then first preached and after by the will of God delivered to us in writings to be the Foundation and Pillar of our Faith Which being laid down by him at his entrance as the grand principle on which he goes will lead us to an easie understanding of all that follows This therefore he not only asserts but proves for whereas some of the Adversaries pretended that the Apostles preached before they fully understood all they were to know he shews how false that was because after Christs Resurrection from the grave they were endued with the Spirit of God descending from on high upon them and were furnished with a perfect knowledge by which they went up and down preaching the Gospel which all and each of them had the knowledge of Thus Matthew in the Hebrew tongue set forth his Gospel when Peter and Paul at Rome preached the Gospel and founded a Church and after their departure Mark the Disciple and Interpreter of Peter writ those things which were preached Afterwards John published his Gospel at Ephesus in Asia And all these saith he delivered to us one God maker of Heaven and Earth and one Christ his Son To whom if one doth not assent he despiseth those who were our Lords companions and therefore despiseth our Lord Christ and likewise despiseth the Father and is condemned of himself resisting and opposing his own salvation which all Hereticks do Can any thing be more plain than that Irenaeus makes it his design to resolve Faith into the writings of Christ and his Apostles and saith That these writings were delivered as a Foundation of Faith that the reason why the Christians believed but one God and one Christ was because they read of no more in the Gospels published by them That he that despiseth them who were our Lords companions despise himself and God and condemn themselves He doth not say he that despiseth the lawfully sent Pastours of the Church meeting in General Councils nor them who have power to oblige the Church to believe as well as the Apostles had as you say but evidently makes the obligation to believe to depend upon that revelation of Gods will which was made by the Apostles and is by their writings conveyed down to us Would not the Valentinians have thought themselves presently run down by such wayes of confutation as yours are that they must believe the present Church infallible in whatever is delivered to be believed to the world But doth not Irenaeus himself make use of the Churches Tradition as the great argument to confute them by I grant he doth so and it is on that very account that he might confute them and not lay down the only sure Foundation of Christian Faith For he gives that reason of his doing so in the beginning of the very next Chapter For saith he when we dispute against them out of the Scripture they are turned presently to an accusing of the Scriptures as though they were not in all things right and wanted Authority and because of their ambiguity and for that truth cannot be found out by them without the help of Tradition I need not say that Irenaeus prophesied of you in this saying of his but it is as true of you as if he had Your pretences being the very same against the Scriptures being the rule of Faith with those of the Valentinians only
that you deny not the truth of what is therein contained for otherwise the want of Authority in themselves the ambiguity of them the impossibility of knowing the sense of them without Tradition are the very same arguments which with the greatest pomp and ostentation are produced by you against the Scriptures being the Rule whereby to judge of Controversies Which we have no more cause to wonder at than Irenaeus had in the Valentinians because from them we produce our greatest arguments against your fond opinions Now when the Valentinians pretended their great rule was on oral Tradition which was conveyed from the Apostles down to them to this Irenaeus opposeth the constant Tradition of the Apostolical Churches which in a continued succession was preserved from the Apostles times which was the same every where among all the Churches which every one who desired it might easily be satisfied about because they could number them who by the Apostles were appointed Bishops in Churches and their successors unto our own times who taught no such thing nor ever knew any such thing as they madly fancy to themselves We see then his appeal to Tradition was only in a matter of fact Whether ever any such thing as their opinion which was not contained in Scripture was delivered to them by the Apostles or no i. e. Whether the Apostles left any oral Traditions in the Churches which should be the rule to interpret Scriptures by or no And the whole design of Irenaeus is to prove the contrary by an appeal to all the Apostolical Churches and particularly by appealing to the Roman Church because of its due fame and celebrity in that Age wherein Irenaeus lived So that Irenaeus appealed to the then Roman Church even when he speaks highest in the honour of it for somewhat which is fundamentally contrary to the pretensions of the now Roman Church He then appealed to it for an evidence against such oral Traditions which were pretended to be left by the Apostles as a rule to understand Scripture by and were it not for this same pretence now what will become of the Authority of the present Roman Church After he hath thus manifested by recourse to the Apostolical Churches that there was no such Tradition left among them it was very reasonable to inferr that there was none such at all for they could not imagine if the Apostles had designed any such Tradition but they would have communicated it to those famous Churches which were planted by them and it was absurd to suppose that those Churches who could so easily derive their succession from the Apostles should in so short a time have lost the memory of so rich a treasure deposited with them as that was pretended to be from whence he sufficiently refutes that unreasonable imagination of the Valentinians Which having done he proceeds to settle those firm grounds on which the Christians believed in one God the Father and in one Lord Jesus Christ which he doth by removing the only Objection which the Adversaries had against them For when the Christians declared the main reason into which they resolved their Faith as to these principles was Because no other God or Christ were revealed in Scripture but them whom they believed the Valentinians answered this could not be a sufficient foundation for their Faith on this account because many things were delivered in Scripture not according to the truth of the things but the judgment and opinion of the persons they were spoken to This therefore being such a pretence as would destroy any firm resolution of Faith into Scripture and must necessarily place it in Tradition Irenaeus concerns himself much to demonstrate the contrary by an ostension as he calls it that Christ and the Apostles did all along speak according to truth and not according to the opinion of their auditours which is the entire subject of the fifth Chapter of his third Book Which he proves first of Christ because he was Truth it self and it would be very contrary to his nature to speak of things otherwise then they were when the very design of his coming was to direct men in the way of Truth The Apostles were persons who professed to declare truth to the world and as light cannot communicate with darkness so neither could truth be blended with so much falshood as that opinion supposeth in them And therefore neither our Lord nor his Apostles could be supposed to mean any other God or Christ then whom they declared For this saith he were rather to increase their ignorance and confirm them in it then to cure them of it and therefore that Law was true which pronounced a curse on every one who led a blind man out of his way And the Apostles being sent for the recovery of the lost sight of the blind cannot be supposed to speak to men according to their present opinion but according to the manifestation of truth For what Physitian intending to cure a Patient will do according to his Patients desire and not rather what will be best for him From whence he concludes Since the design of Christ and his Apostles was not to flatter but to cure mens souls it follows that they did not speak to them according to their former opinion but according to truth without all hypocrisie and dissimulation From whence it follows that if Christ and his Apostles did speak according to truth there is then need of no Oral Tradition for our understanding Scripture and consequently the resolution of our Faith as to God and Christ and proportionably as to other objects to be believed is not into any Tradition pretending to be derived from the Apostles but into the Scriptures themselves which by this discourse evidently appears to have been the judgement of Irenaeus The next which follows is Clemens of Alexandria who flourished A. D. 196. whom St. Hierome accounted the most learned of all the writers of the Church and therefore cannot be supposed ignorant in so necessary a part of the Christian Doctrine as the Resolution of Faith is And if his judgement may be taken the Scriptures are the only certain Foundation of Faith for in his Admonition to the Gentiles after he hath with a great deal of excellent learning derided the Heathen Superstitions when he comes to give an account of the Christians Faith he begins it with this pregnant Testimony to our purpose For saith he the Sacred Oracles affording us the most manifest grounds of Divine worship are the Foundation of Truth And so goes on in a high commendation of the Scripture as the most compendious directions for happiness the best Institutions for government of life the most free from all vain ornaments that they raise mens souls up out of wickedness yielding the most excellent remedies disswading from the greatest deceit and most clearly incouraging to a foreseen happiness with more of the same nature And when after he perswades men with so much Rhetorick and
you are so fond of your unwritten Revelations pray prove the necessity of them as strongly against Atheists as his Lordship hath done the necessity of a written one In the last Consideration he musters up all the several arguments whereby men may be perswaded that this Revelation is contained in those Books we call the Scripture as the Tradition of the Church the Testimony of former Ages the consent of times the Harmony of Prophets and the Prophecies fulfilled the success of the Doctrine the constancy of it the spiritual nature and efficacy of it and lastly the inward light and excellency of the Text it self which with a great deal of Rhetorick is there set forth But to all this you say no more than what hath been abundantly disproved viz. That all these only justifie our belief when it is received as the ancients received it upon the Infallible Authority of Church-Tradition but never otherwise Whereas we have proved that the ancients received it only on the same grounds which are here mentioned and therefore certainly are sufficient not only to justifie our Faith but to perswade us to believe Your argument against what his Lordship saith of the necessity of the Spirit 's assistance with these Motives and the Light of Scripture for producing Divine Faith will equally hold against all those of your own side who hold the necessity of Gods Spirit for believing the Churches Infallibility and against all such of both sides who hold any necessity of Divine Grace for then you must say that either that Grace is not necessary in order to salvation or that those who want it are neither truly Christians nor capable of salvation And how horridly soever these consequences sound in the ears of the unlearned they can sound no worse than those multitudes of Scriptures do which tell men That without true Divine Faith and real Grace they are under eternal condemnation But it may be that the unlearned may not be affrighted with such sentences as those are you think it a great deal better to let them hear little or nothing of the Scripture and to let them be continually entertained with the sweet and melodious voice of the Church No doubt you thought your next argument had done the business effectually For say you to make them more sensible of the foulness of this errour viz. the danger of such who do not savingly believe Let them consider that when young and unlearned Christians are taught to say their Creed and profess their belief of the Articles contained in it before they read Scripture they are taught to lye and profess to do that which they neither do nor can do in his Tenet An excellent argument against making Children say their Creed but Will not the same hold against all publick using of the Creed because it is unquestionable but there are some who do not savingly or divinely believe it Nay Will it not much more hold against any in your Church saying their Creed at all unless they first believe your Church to be Infallible which is very well known that all do not For then according to you they do but lye and profess to do that which they neither do nor can do without the Churches Infallible Testimony And therefore you must begin a new work of Catechizing the members of your Church to know whether they believe the Churches Infallibility before they can say their Creed Unless you solve it among your selves by saying It is not a formal lye but only an aequivocation which many of you say is lawful in case of danger as you see apparently this is But if the aequivocation be said only to lye in the word Believe you might easily discern the weakness of your argument through it For if some may truly believe what they do not savingly believe there is no lye certainly told in saying They do believe as far as they do which is by a firm assent to the Truth of all the Articles of Faith by that which is call'd an historical or dogmatical Faith where there may be no saving Faith But that because Children are taught as a short systeme of the Articles of Faith to say their Creed we must be convinced of the foulness of our errour is an apparent evidence that either you apprehended our understandings to be very weak or that you sufficiently discover your own to be so The only quarrel which you have with his Lordships Synthetical way is That he confounds his Reader with multiplicity of arguments and weakens the authority of the Church without which if you may be believed he might tire himself and others but never be able to make a clear resolution of Faith How clear an account you have given of Faith in your Analytical way by the Authority of the Church hath been sufficiently laid open to you but I wonder not that you quarrel with multiplicity of arguments there being nothing which doth really weaken the authority of your Church so much as they do and they are men certainly of your temper who will be soon tired with too much reason What follows concerning the captiousness of the Question as first propounded and the vicious Circle you would free your selves of by the Motives of Credibility deserve no further answer Only when you would make A. C. go your way and both together prove the Church Infallible independently on Scripture you did not certainly consider that it is an Infallibility by Promise which you challenge and for that end in the precedent Chapter were those places of Scripture produced by A. C. and urged by you All that I shall return by way of Answer to your tedious discourse concerning Scriptures being a Principle supposed among Christians the main of it depending on the circumstances of the dispute between his Lordship and Mr. Fisher shall be in these following particulars 1. That in all Controversies among Christians whose decision depends upon the authority of Scripture the Scripture must be supposed as granted to be of Divine Authority by both parties 2. That in that Question Whether the Scripture contains all necessary things of Faith that necessity must be supposed to relate to the things which depend upon Scripture and therefore implies it believed on other grounds that this Scripture is of Divine Revelation For the Question is Whether God hath consigned his Will so fully to us in this Revelation of himself that nothing necessary to be believed is left out of it For men then to say That this is left out of it viz. to believe that this is a Divine Revelation is an unreasonable Cavil it being supposed in the very Question that it is so 3. That in this sense the Scripture may be said to be a supposed Principle because it hath a different way of probation from particular objects of Faith revealed in Scripture For to a rational Enquirer who seems to doubt of the Truth of Scriptures it is equally absurd to give him any
first because he is called by his private name Simon and not by his Apostolical name Peter 2. Because Christ immediately subjoyns after St. Peters answer his threefold denyal of him 3. The event it self makes it appear by the Apostles flight St. Peters temptation and fall his conversion and tears when Christ looked on him and by his confirming the Disciples after Christs resurrection But saith he if this place be taken as respecting the future times of the Church the same thing must be expected in St. Peters Successours which fell out in St. Peter himself viz. that either through fear or some other motive they may be drawn into the shew of Heresie or into Heresie it self but so as either in themselves or their Successours they should be restored to the Catholick Faith But what reason there is for this latter interpretation though destructive to the Popes infallibility neither doth that person acquaint us nor can I possibly understand All the evasion that you have to avoid the force of what ever is brought against you out of this place is by conjuring up that rare distinction of the Popes not erring when he defines any thing as matter of Faith But see what that same person saith of this distinction of yours Excipiunt aliqui saith he Papam posse esse haereticum sed non posse haeresim promulgare Adeò quidlibot effutire pro libidine etiam licitum est Some Answer that the Pope may be a Heretick but cannot promulge or define Heresie So far do men think it lawful to say what they please But can any man saith he be guilty of so much incogitancy as not to see that these things are consequent upon each other It is a Pear tree and therefore it will bear Pears It is a Vine and therefore it will bring forth Grapes Christ saith An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit but these say an evil tree cannot bring forth bad fruit The Apostle saith the wisdom of the Flesh cannot be subject to God but these say it cannot but be subject to God And then he further presseth That they would declare from what Authour they brought this contradiction into the Church of God lest men should believe they were inspired by the Father of lyes when they made it Nay he goes further yet in these stinging expressions An putatis licere in re quae totum Ecclesiae statum aâ—vivum tangit novitatem adeò inauditam adeò rationi adversantem adeò excedentem omnem fidem ex somniis cerebri vestri inferre Do you think it lawful in a matter which toucheth the whole state of the Church to the quick to produce so unheard of a novelty so repugnant to reason so far above all Faith out of the dreams of your own brain Go now and answer these things among your selves complain not that we account such evasions silly absurd and ridiculous you see they are accounted so by some of your own Communion or at least who pretend to be so and those no contemptible persons neither But such as have seen so much of the weakness and absurdity of your common doctrine that they openly and confidently oppose it and that upon the same grounds that Protestants had done it before them And I hope this is much more to our purpose to shew the insufficiency of these proofs than it was for you to produce the Testimonies of several Popes in their own Cause Which was all the proof that Bellarmin or you had that these words are extended to St. Peters Successours when we bring men from among your selves who produce several reasons that they ought not to be so interpreted But yet there is another place as pertinent as the former the celebrated Pasce oves agnos John 21.15 16 17. But sheep and Lambs say you are Christs whole flock So there are both these saith his Lordship in every flock that is not of barren Weathers and every Apostle and every Apostles successour hath charge to feed both sheep and Lambs that is weaker and stronger Christians not people and Pastours subjects and Governours as A. C. expounds it to bring the necks of Princes under the Roman Pride No say you no such charge is given to any other Apostles in the places his Lordship cites Matth. 28.19 Matth. 10.17 for these speak of persons unbaptized but that place of St. John of those who were actually Christs Flock and the words being absolutely and indefinitely pronounced must be understood generally and indefinitely of all Christs sheep and Lambs that is of all Christians whatsoever not excepting the Apostles themselves unless it appear from some other place that the other Apostles had the feeding of all Christs sheep as universally and unlimitedly committed to them as they were here to St. Peter But all this is nothing as Vigorius speaks about the solvere ligare pascere but dudum explosis cantilenis aures Christianorum obtundere to bring us those things over and over which have been answered as oft as they have been brought For how often have you been told that these words contain no particular Commission to St. Peter but a more vehement exhortation to the discharge of his duty and that pressed with the quickness of the question before it Lovest thou me How often that the full Commission to the Apostles was given before As the Father hath sent me so send I you And that as Christ was by his Fathers appointment the chief Shepheard of the Sheep and Lambs too so Christ by this equal Commission to all the Apostles gives them all an equal power and authority to govern his Flock How often that nothing appears consequent upon this whereby St. Peter took this office upon him but that afterwards we find St. Peter call'd the Apostle of the Circumcision which certainly he would never have been had he been looked on as the Vniversal Pastour of the Church we find the Apostles sending St. Peter to Samaria which was a very unmannerly action if they looked on him as Head of the Church How often that these indefinite expressions are not exclusive of the Pastoral charge of other Apostles over the Flock of Christ when they are not only bid to preach the Gospel to every creature but even those Bishops which they ordained in several Churches are charged to feed the Flock and therefore certainly the Apostles themselves had not only a charge to preach to unbaptized persons as you suppose but to govern the Flock of those who were actually Christs Sheep and Lambs as well as St. Peter How often I say have you been told all these and several other things in Answer to this place and have you yet the confidence to object it as though it had never been taken notice of without ever offering to take off those Answers which have been so frequently given But you must be pardoned in this as in all other things of an equal impossibility Well
specie panis vini Indeed in the late editions of the Councils by Binius a complaint is supposed to be made concerning the celebrating the Sacrament after Supper by some which he seems to take out of Cochlaeus as appears by his notes but in the Instrument it self nothing appears of that nature and since the Decree contains nothing against that custom as well as the other it seems probable that this was made use of the better to bring on the other But whether it were so or no is not very much material for however the Council confessing that Christ did so administer it and that it was the custom of the Primitive Church their prohibiting of it doth in its own nature imply a non obstante to the Institution of Christ. But this is that you stiffly deny in saying That neither the Decree of the Council nor the practise of the Church in administring under one kind is contrary to the Institution and ordination of Christ. For say you to shew this the Bishop should have made it appear that Christ did so institute this Sacrament of his last supper that he would not have one part to be administred without the other or that he would not have one part to be taken without the other And it cannot be proved that Laymen are bound to receive in both kinds from those words Drink ye all of this For if this were a command and not a Counsel it was given to the Apostles who all drunk of the Chalice So that the state of the Question is this Whether the Primitive Institution be universally obligatory to all Christians or no For you suppose that either it was only a Counsel or else it had particular reference to the Apostles For the clearing therefore of this Question there are but two wayes whereby we can judge of the obligatory nature of such Institutions either by an express declaration of the will of the first Institutor or by the Vniversal sense of the Church concerning the nature of that Institution And if these two appear evident in this present case you will have no cause to question but the communion in one kind is a violation of the Institution of Christ. There are two wayes whereby we may judge what the will of the Legislator is First by an express positive command Secondly by an unalterable reason on which the Institution is founded Now that both these are clear in the case of Communion in both kinds I now come to manifest First by a positive command For although we grant a difference between an Institution and a command in this respect that the Institution properly respects the thing and a command the person and that an Institution barely considered as such doth not bind all persons to the observance of it as we say Matrimony is Instituted by God but do not thence assert that all persons are bound to it but yet take an Institution as it referrs to persons and so it is aequipollent with a command And so Christs Instituting that all who believe should be baptized is of the nature of a command to that purpose But here is a great difference to be made between such things as were done at the Institution and such things as were Instituted to be done afterwards Thus Christ washed his Disciples feet administred after Supper and only to twelve but it doth not follow that these circumstances must be still observed because though they were done then at that celebration yet Christ doth not Institute or appoint the doing of them when ever that Sacrament should be administred afterwards For we are to consider that though there were some things peculiar to the first Institution yet the main of it was intended for the Church in all following times Or else we must make the celebration of the Eucharist it self to be a meer arbitrary thing Which if it be not there must lye an obligation on men for the participation of it now this obligation must suppose a Law and therefore we have gained this that the Institution of the Eucharist doth imply a command for its observation in the Church So that this action of Christ was not meerly a matter of Counsel but there is something in it perpetually obligatory Because it was not a peculiar rite appropriated to the present time but intended for the future ages of the Church This being proved in the General that there is a perpetually obligatory command implyed in the Institution we are now to enquire How far this command extends Whether it extended only to the Apostles or else to all believers That it was administred then to the Apostles only is granted but the Question is In what capacity it was administred to them Whether only as Apostles or as Believers and that must be judged by the intention of the Institution Whether it were of that nature as to respect their Apostolical office or else some thing which would be common with them to all other Believers to the worlds end If it were only and wholly proper to the Apostles there can be no reason given why the Institution of the Sacrament should continue after their times neither could any other but the Apostles have any right either to administer or to receive it It follows then that this Sacrament was not instituted meerly for the Apostles if not for them meerly then what was contained in the Institution doth concern others as well as them Now there are four things commanded in the Institution Take eat drink ye all of this and This do in remembrance of me If the Institution doth not meerly respect the Apostles as such but others also then some of these things at least must extend to others too considered as Believers And if some why not all of them Were the Apostles considered as Believers when they were bid to take and eat and as Apostles when Christ said drink ye all of this What reasonable pretext can be imagin'd for such a groundless fancy If they were not considered as Believers when Christ said take eat by what right can any Believers take and eat if they were then so were they likewise afterwards when Christ said to them Drink ye all of this As far therefore as I can possibly see you must either admit the people to drinking all of this or else deprive them of their right of taking and eating And if you did speak consistently you must say that the peoples being admitted at all to the Eucharist is an act of favour and indulgence in the Church but not necessary by any command of Christ the Eucharist being administred to the Apostles and not the people and therefore it being indulgence to admit them at all it is in the Churches power to admit as far and to what she pleases This is the only rational way I can imagine whereby you may defend the excluding the people from the Cup But this you dare not say and therefore are put to the weakest shifts
of Concomitancy that still both eating and drinking were supposed then even by the most unworthy receivers There were then no such fears of the effusion of the blood of Christ or the irreverence in receiving it and much less of the long beards of the Laity which are the worshipful reasons given by Gerson and others why the people should not be admitted to the use of the Chalice I do verily think the Apostles had as much care to preserve the due reverence of the Sacrament as ever the Councils of Constance or Trent had but they thought it no way to preserve the reverence of the Sacrament by shewing so little to Christ as not to observe his Institution But you very kindly grant that which you knew was impossible to be denied viz. That in ancient times when you say the number of Christians was small it was the ordinary custom for all that would the Laity as well as others to receive the Eucharist in both kinds but say you we averr this custom proceeded meerly out of free devotion and not out of any belief that it was absolutely necessary so to do by virtue of Christs precept It is no great matter what you averr since you averr so monstrous a Doctrine of Transubstantiation as confidently as you do this and with much alike reason For I have shewed already that the Institution of Christ in reference to this is perpetually obligatory and that the Apostles look upon that as an unalterable Rule and therefore your averring signifies nothing when you never offer to prove what you averr But I pray tell me By what means would you understand what precepts are perpetually obligatory which are not clear to our present purpose If positive command immutable reason universal practice of the Church may prove any thing so we have all these plain and clear for Communion in both kinds And not the least suspition or intimation given that they looked on it as a matter of free devotion but of indispensable necessity But What mean you in saying When the number of Christians was small they received it in both kinds Do Christs Institutions vary according to the numbers of Communicants Hath not Christ the same power to oblige many as a few or Do you think the numbers of breakers of his Institution make the fault the less But When was it the number of Christians was so small Only in the Apostles times or as long as the custom lasted of communicating in both kinds Do you think the number of Christians was so small in the Primitive times If you do you lamentably discover your ignorance in the History of those times Read the Christians Apologies over and you will believe the contrary But Did this small number continue in the time of the Christian Emperours even till after a thousand years after Christ For so long the Communion in both kinds continued so inviolably that neither you nor any before you are able to produce one Instance of a publick and solemn celebration of the Eucharist in the Church wherein the People did not communicate in both kinds And Could a matter so indifferent as you suppose this to be meet with no persons all this time who out of reverence to the blood of Christ should deny giving it to the People Nothing then but an unmeasurable confidence and a resolution to say any thing though never so false or absurd if it tend to the interest of your Church could make you say That communion in one kind was alwaies even in the first five or six hundred years allowed publickly as well in the Church as out of it Than which if you had studied it you could scarce have uttered a greater untruth and in which there are such multitudes of your own party bearing witness against you And Bellarmin is so far from helping you out in it that he is extremely at a loss to offer at any thing which hath any tendency that way But before we come to consider the Instances and Exceptions you make we must somewhat further see what the practice and sense of the Church was that we may the better judge Whether communion in both kinds were looked on as a matter only of free devotion or as something necessary by virtue of Christs Institution And for this I shall not insist on those multitudes of Testimonies which manifest the practice it self but briefly touch at some few which more directly prove that what they did was Because in doing otherwise they should have violated the Institution of Christ. To pass by therefore the Testimonies of Justin Martyr Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus Tertullian all clear for the practice the first I insist on is that of S. Cyprian against those who gave water in the Chalice instead of wine for whosoever doth but read the very entrance of that Epistle will soon find that he looked on Christs Institution in all the parts of it as unalterable For saith he although I know that most Bishops do keep to that which agrees with the truth of the Gospel and what our Lord hath delivered and do not depart from that which Christ our Master hath commanded and practised yet because some either through ignorance or simplicity in sanctifying the Cup of our Lord and delivering it to the people do not that which Jesus Christ our Lord and God the Authour and Teacher of this Sacrifice did and taught I have thought it a necessary part of my duty to write to you that if any one continue in that errour he may by discovering the light of truth return to the root and fountain of our Lords Tradition I insist on this Testimony not only for the clearness of it as to the custom of giving the Cup to the people but especially for the evidence contained in it of the unalterable nature of the Institution of Christ. For that he looks on as the great fault of them who ministred water instead of wine that they therein departed from the example and precept of Christ. Now there cannot be produced any greater evidence of any obligation as to this than there is as to the giving the Cup it self For here is Christs example and institution equally as to both of them and that in the same words Drink ye all of it If that were such a departing from the Institution to alter the Liquor Would it not have been accounted as great to take away the Cup wholly For afterwards he adds If men ought not to break the least of Christs commands How much less those great ones which pertain to the Sacrament of our Lords Passion and our Redemption or to change it into any thing but that which was appointed by him And if not to change the matter certainly neither can it be lawful to order the administration otherwise than Christ appointed I know Bellarmin saith The parity of reason will not hold because this is to corrupt the matter of the Sacrament but S. Cyprian doth not insist on that