is fallible Therfore the Belief founded on it is no better but Moral and fallible Mark well your own Argument 'T is thus 9. The Motives of Credibility for Christian Faith Because only known by Moral Certainty cannot ground a certain Belief of any Churches Infallibility Ergo I say The very Existency of God and his Revelation Because only known by a Moral Certainty cannot ground a firm Belief in God or any Christian Verity unles you say that These Motives for Christian Faith far surpasse in Certainty all the certain knowledge we can have of Gods Existency I know not what these men can answer My thought is They must make Faith a meer Opinion and allow it nothing of Certainty or Supernatural infallibility Though they seemingly speak otherwise as if Moral Certainty might be a sufficient Foundation for the most firm assent Would to God they would declare themselves intelligibly And say plainly whether this firm Assent here mentioned be only of the like Nature with probable firm Opinions taught in Schools Or contrarywise if this firm Assent be Faith whether it doth not Supereminently surpas the Certainty of All other obscure intellectual Operations which Christians now have on Earth This should be explicated but is not 10. Now to the Reply Though an exact Answer An Answer to the Reply cannot be well returned without entring upon an other question the Resolution of Faith which here lyes out of the way and Admit's not in this Place of a full and diligent Examination I say first No obscure intellectual Operation which preced's Divine Faith or is independent of it can arise to those Degrees of Certainty which this Supernatural Act requires Admit then that the Existency of God which is true can be Demonstrated by natural Reason Admit also that those strong Motives for Christian Religion Antecedently known by Humane Discours demonstratively convince the Verity of it yet because Faith as I now sayd Relyes upon a Superiour infallible Principle Gods own unerrable Veracity it far surmont's both these Certainties and much more would it go beyond them were they known as Moral Truths only Why A natural Discours wherby these Vetities are known is Science But no science gives the last or least Degree of intrinsick No Science gives the least Degree of certitude to Faith Certitude to Faith and Therfore Divines say Gods Supream Verity which ever supports Belief upholds it not as known by natural Reason For if it did Faith would be at last resolved into one natural Principle thus I believe God to be the Highest Verity imaginable not Because he saith so But because I know this great Truth Scientifically where you se the last Analysis rest's on an extrinsecal Principle of knowledge with which Faith as Faith meddles not 11. Thus much therfore is clear Although the Motives of Credibility manifest as they do most undoubtedly that God speak's to Christians yet when we bring an Act of Faith by a true Analysis to its Home and Center we find it ever Resting on Gods Veracity only as the last Stay and most certain Motive Notwithstanding Motives to Faith absolutly necessarly the Praeambulatory Motives avail infinitly to Faith Because they indubitably point out that Society of Christians wherin Gods Verities are certainly taught and make this Discernable from all other Haeretical Conventicles In a word They shew Christian Religion to be either evidently Credible or as some later Divines will have it evidently True in Attestante And if this be so the formal Object of Christian Faith is known as it were Scientifically either before or when we Actually Believe which seems grounded on those words of the Apostle Scio cui credidi certus sum I know and then believe certainly 12. At present I wave this Doctrin and say secondly It is one thing to know Scientifically and another Difference betwixt a Certain Belief and a Scientificall knowledge to Believe certainly Both intervene in the matter now handled Faith Prerequires a Science and Moreover essentially includes Certainty Thus it is While one of Prudence ponders those strong and pressing Motives which as Light doth the Sun gloriously evidence true Christian Religion such are Miracles the long continued Consent of Nations Sanctity of life Efficacy in Doctrin the blood sheding of Martyrs c. He knowes What and how these Motives convince that God cannot permit the world to be cheated into errour by them He knowes that his goodnes cannot proclaim as it were and publish to Christians a Religion manifested by such evident convincing Marks and Signs of Truth and afterward Signify a meer nothing It cannot be that God speak's in so powerful a Language and deceives us For who can perswade himself That all the Miracles done by Christ and his Blessed Apostles the eminent Sanctity They showed and admirable Conversion wrought by them open to mens eyes and senses were permitted like Charms to Delude the world Yet this followes if either no Religion answered to these great visible wonders or if such palpable convincing Signs could make a false Religion as Speciously Credible as Gods true Religion is Therfore Rich. de S. Victor lib. 1. de Trin. c. 2. with just Reason Exclaims Si error est quem credidimus à te decepti sumus If it be Errour we Believe it is you O God who have deceived us and He gives this Reason Iis enim signis c. For by such forcible Signs the Doctrin we believe is confirmed which could not proceed from any but from you alone Observe now well Two Judgements may ensue upon the Consideration of these exteriour Iudgements upon these Signs Signs which manifest Christianity The one after this manner God certainly Delivered his Eternal Truths by the Preaching of Christ and his Blessed Apostles who had no other Exteriour Testimony for their Doctrin but Miracles Sanctity Conversions of Nations c. I now see saith this prudent Man as evidently the like Miracles the like Conversions with great Sanctity c. in the Roman Catholick Church If therfore it was Evident that God spoke to the first Christians by the wonderful works of Christ it is as Evident that he Speaks now to me by the Still continued Miracles of this Church This Discours or Judgement wherby he affirms There are These wonders Faith and Science Tend differently God speak's by his Church is not Faith but Science Because it Relyes on Motives which Reason knows evidently enough Now further When He is thus disposed and prepared to Believe by so firm an Evidence The other Judgement of Elicite Faith followes which tend's not into the Evidence of those Motives for if it did so under that Notion it would not be Faith For Faith as Faith totally Relyes on Gods Sole Revelation and for this as the only Formal Object a Christian Believes what ever mystery is Revealed after a due Proposal as is already Declared 13. Some will say The Elicite Act of Faith Scientifically
of Fierce and cruel hath made Tractable of an Extortioner Liberal of a filthy Speaker fair spoken and of an unchast liver shamefast And I will shew you many who are grown Wors then they were before Thus Erasmus 15. Miracles the most glorious marks of Truth Miracles the most glorious Marks of Christs Church manifested in our Saviour Iohn 15. 24. wrought by his Apostles Mark 16. 17. and amply promised to those who Believe in Christ Iohn 14. 12. The Roman Catholick Church hath from Age to Age undeniably Evidenced and she only if we speak of clear and undoubted Miracles I mean of such as answer in Analogy and Proportion to our Saviours works The Blind se the Lame walk The Lepers are cleansed the Deaf hear the Dead rise c. These are the Churches Miracles Never had our Protestants or other Haereticks any like them Read Coccius and Bellarmin of Martin Luthers and Calvins famous Miracles The story is notoriously known I wave it 16. Of Ancient Miracles se Irenaeus advers Haeret. Of ancient Miracles lib. 2. cap. 57. St. Ambros Serm. 91. St. Austin lib. 22. de Civit. cap. 8. Theodoret in his 8. Books de curan Graec. Affect St. Hierom against Vigilantius Ruffinus St. Gregory with Of Modern Miracles others And for the more Modern be pleased only to read Iustus Lipsius a man of Credit and Reputation in his 3. Tome Antwerpe print anno 1637. towards the end with these Titles Diva Virgo Hallensis Diva Sichemiensis It is but time cast away to say more on this Subject most largely handled by our Writers who produce their Proofs answer to all contrary Cavils and cite their Authors of unquestioned Authority Both for pass't and present Miracles 17. And here because we mention Cavils read first I beseech you those Sacred Words of our Saviour Iohn 14. 12. Amen Amen I say unto you he that Believes in me the works that I do shall he do also Cavils of Sectaries against Miracles and greater works then those shall he do c. Next he pleased to say whether he Cavils not that Asserts these great Works and Wonders to have ceased after the time of Christ and his Apostles when not only approved History relates them but Reason also pleads strongly for their Continuance in ensuing Ages For had these Glorious marks of Truth failed in the Church as our Protestants would have it Because they have none Why Miracles continue in the Church Christian Faith ere this day believe it would have grown cold in the Harts of thousands and thousands Therfore to prevent Incredulity the Wise Providence Miracles still necessary of God rowseth them up and quickens their Belief with these forcible Incitements which neither Infidels can Deny nor Haereticks Own Again Miracles were necessary in the Beginning of the Church to demonstrate the Verity of Christian Religion against Iewes and Infidels But there is the like Necessity of them still for these mens Conversion All are not yet Reclaimed nor will Believe Scripture without farther Evidence 18. The Cavils of Sectaries against Miracles are Objection answered briefly reduced to these Heads Some say They are done by the help of the Devil First how know they that 2. Such was the cours and untrue Language of the Iewes against Christ Luk 11. v. 15. He cast out Devils and Devils help't him 3. Why are not such Miracles wrought by Arians or other Haereticks who surely come neerer Devillish Doctrin then Catholicks They object again We know not by Infallible and Certain Faith that these Miracles recounted in history were done I answer No more did the Primitive Christians who beheld Christs Miracles know them by Faith For they first saw them and afterward Believed We have therfore Indubitable moral Assurance of these wonders and that 's enough They say 3. Many Miracles are Fained and perhaps not truly related To the first I answer Gentils might have in like manner Cavilled at Christs The Gentils might have Cavilled at Christs Miracles as Sectaries do at the Churches own Miracles and said they were Fained yea and at true Scripture also Because counterfeit Gospels have been writ Know then we speak not here of either Fained or Doubtful Miracles But of such as are Clear Visible most severely examined Attested upon oath And manifestly proved before they receive warrant from either Church or Prelate We We rely on no doubtful Miracles have innumerable of These 19. To the second I answer Though Miracles only recounted in History are les assured then others approved by the Church yet it is a degree of madnes to deny them all And if some only of those many be True we have our Intent By the way pray you observe a pretty Humor of our Protestants If these Sectaries believe fables and deny Credit to Authentick History men read a Story though never so Unauthentik to the disgrace of a Pope of a Prelate of the Clergy or Religious Praedicant Clamitant They noise it all abroad and vent it openly in Print as most pretious ware And all are bound to believe it But when a very Saint or a choise Historian writ's of a Miracle Tell 's the Time the Place the Circumstances and make it morally Indubitable That is decry'd as an Imposture a Dream a forg'd Tale a meer Fiction and what not Is this think ye Evangelical Sincerity They object 4. Both Heathens and Haereticks had Miracles amongst them Mr. Poole I think somewhere Triflles with the Wonders of Heathens and Apollonius Tyanaeus Ergo They are not Signs of Truths Observe first how the Argument if of any Strength strikes with equal force at Christs Miracles as it doth at the Churches I answer therfore with St. Austin The few seeming Miracles of Heathens or Haereticks The Miracles of Heathens and Haereticks not comparable with those of the Church are not comparable to those of the Church either in Power Greatnes Continuance splendor or Majesty These as far go beyond the other in Worth and Excellency as the raysing of a dead man to life surpasses the taking a little water in a sieve or cutting of a whetstone asunder with a Rasor all sleight work fesible by Conjurers and the Devils help and much of that nature of those Egyptian wonders done before Moyses Whence it is that Blessed St. Austin little esteem'd the Donatists Miracles and those of other Haereticks Aut falluntur aut fallunt saith the Saint they either are deceived or deceive Se him in his Hom. 13. in Ioannem and more de Civitat lib. 10. c. 16. and in his Book de Vtilit cred c. 16. Concerning the name of Catholick which Protestants never had nor Those they Nick-name Papists a word newly coyned with their Gospel ever yet lost Read St. Austin contra Epist fondam cap. 4. and de utilit cred cap. 7. Christianus mihi nomen est said the Ancient Pacianus Catholicus cognomen illud me nuncupat istud ostendit Christian is
they Preach and teach They only can shew to all the World their Popes their Bishops their Pastors their Doctors who successively have taught and governed Christs Flock since the Beginning of Christianity They and only And glorious Marks of a long standing Church they shew you a Church marked and made glorious by innumerable known and undoubted Miracles a Faith seal'd with the Blood of innumerable Blessed Martyrs Beautified with such eminent Sanctity and Holynes of life in thousands as hath caused Admiration to very Infidels and drawn in no few to follow the like Austerity Such are the Inducements which plead strongly for the Roman Catholick Religion and no other They fully convince Reason and prove That if God as I noted above can conquer Infidelity and Haeresy by the force of prudential Motives here they are seen If ever he spoke by As God spake anciently by his Prophets and Apostles he speak's now by the Church the mouth of his Prophets or Apostles he speak's now by the mouth of this one and only Society of Christians yea and he yet useth as I may say the same powerful Language For if the miracles of our Blessed Lord and of his Apostles if their efficacious Doctrin their Sanctity of life their Blood shedding were Conviction enough to Infidels in those days They are now as forceable in the Church and as manifest to our Senses Which caused that Blessed man Richard de S. Victore lib. 1. de Trin. c. 2. to exclaim Si error est quem credidimus à te decepti sumus If it be error we Believe it is you who have deceived us Iis enim signis c. For with such Signs this Doctrin is confirmed which can proceed from none but you only If we speak of unquestioned Miracles as are the Resuscitation of dead men More since the times of the Apostles have been raised from death to life then in the Primitive Age. To deny these miracles is is to deny all History which supplyes the want of senses in Those who saw them not To owm them to disown Protestancy and profess plain Popery Our new men Therfore speak at random when they talk of I know not what Abstracted Evidences for Christian Religion and Tell us that the Motives for Scripture are agreed on by all I answered above No Evidence for Christian Religion in general nor for Scripture but by the Church There neither are nor can be Motives for Christian Religion in general if the word Christian compriseth all professed Haereticks For were it so God would deceive us and make Falshood as credible as Truth No Motives can evidence Scripture unles they first evidence a Church that indubitably gives us certain Scripture Which is to say in other Terms All Motives as well for the verity of Christian Faith as Scripture are only to be found in the Roman Catholick Church and in no other Society of Christians If Protestants can prove their Faith or Scripture by so much as a likelyhood of either These now Named Sectaries are obliged in Conscience to make their Motives known or any better Inducements They are obliged in Conscience to make them known that men at last may se that clear Light of the Gospel wherof they endlesly talk in their Pulpits True Candor and Sincerity cannot but speak plainly to this Point without intricate Tergiversation if so much as a spark of zeal lives in their Harts and Rational Motives do not fail them We expect a candid answer CHAP. XIII Protestancy for want of Rational Motives dishonor's Christ and makes way for any new coyned Haeresy 1. I prove the Assertion That Religion highly Protestancy dishonor's Christ dishonors Christ which must of Necessity confess That a False erroneous Church is more eminently glorious and better marked with all evident Signs of Truth then that pure Orthodox Religion is which Christ hath now established in the world But Protestants must confess thus much And to prove my Minor ad hominem I need no more But two Proved by their owne Principles certain Principles of their own One is The Roman Catholick Religion hath been at least for a thousand years Erroneous yea some say Anti-Christian it still contradict's the Primitive Doctrin Holds an Unbloody Sacrifice Transubstantiation Purgatory c. contrary to Scripture Such Doctrins gave Sectaries just cause as they say to leave this Church and Lash us so severly as they have done to pull down our Monasteries to Bannish the Ancient Clergy to Ruin those who professed our Religion They were not meer Trifles nor petty mistakes which made our kind harted Countrymen to use us so unkindly Here is my first Principle granted by Protestants The second is as clear viz. That their new Religion of Protestancy as it stands now Reformed is the pure true and most Orthodox Christian Religion For set this and the Primitive Church aside of three or four hundred years continuance You never yet had say they any Society of men that taught purely Christs Doctrin No God wot a Deluge of Popish Errors overran Christianity for a thousand years together until these later men brought unto us the Joyful Tydings of their Refined Gospel 2. Upon these two undeniable Suppositions you shall plainly se what an Eternal Disgrace what Affronts Protestants will needs put upon our Dearest Saviour do what we can to hinder them He Blessed Lord founded a Church it cost him dear the Effusion of his Sacred Blood and promised us an Indeficient glorious Church to be raised out of all Nations yet after all these ample Promises he hath A glorious Church promised and an obscure one shewed us of Protestancy given us a pittiful one indeed no better a Thing then Protestancy which is utrerly disgraced obscur'd dishonor'd and quite put down by the Majesty the Miracles the Antiquity the Vnity the Sanctity of that Church which must now forsooth be stiled False Erroneous and Antichristian If this pass for current Doctrin you have with it sport enough for the How Christ is dishonored Devil and Protestants only make it Who upon their warrant may most justly reproach both Christ and his Church and thus powerfully plead at the bar of Reason Saviour of the world My false Popish Anti-Christian Church hath stood a thousand years in Error How the Devil may plead and most rationally if Protestants speak Truth yours of Protestancy only a hundred in Truth Mine both is and hath been Universally spread the whole World over yours yet see 's little out of some few corners in Europe My Church hath had most learned General Councils yours never any Mine produceth a long continued Succession of Popes of Bishops of Pastors yours not a man before Luther Mine is glorious with those very Notes and Marks of Truth which you manifested in your own Sacred Person and induced Infidels to Believe you Your late Congregation shewes nothing like them My false Church Fasteth Prayeth Contemplat's Converts more then
of Truth Reside in the late and hardly yet well known Congregation of Protestants Doth he Teach and Interpret Scripture by this Society The Spirit resides noâ— in Protestants of men No Most certainly no For that Society wherin This All-knowing Spirit Presides as Master is Taught infallibly Those He instructs to Interpret Scripture Both Teach and Interpret Infallibly For Truth it self can make none his Instruments and Interpret by them either falsly or fallibly But Protestants Because They profess to be Fallible profess themselves to be Fallible in what ever they Teach and interpret Therfore they ioyntly own themselves to be No Teaching or interpreting Instruments of the Holy Ghost Observe well the Reason This blessed Spirit when it learn's a whole Church what it is to Believe cannot but Interpret Infallibly by those He Teaches to interpret Our Sectaries deny this Grace of Interpreting infallibly to All Societies of Christians The Reason is convincing Therfore they deny it to Themselves For they are amongst These All And in doing so They Divorce their little Company from the Infallible interpreting Spirit of the Holy Ghost Consequently This Spirit leaves them For 't is most evident He Interprets not by such or for such as deny and Abjure his Infallible Interpretation God forbid may Sectaries Reply we Abjure it not But only modestly say We cannot Teach infallibly as he Interprets in our Harts No. To what purpose then doth this Divine Spirit lay up his infallible learning in your Harts if you can never utter it or Teach others after your Instructions secretly received as this Spirit speak's in you infallibly Here is Light indeed closely hid under a Bushel unseen by All Beneficial to None This short Discours can Protestants discover Sophistry in it let them speak totally Evert's their private Spirit And evidences That their Interpretation of Scripture finally comes to no more But to a Fallacy or a self-imagined Fancy All I would say here is summoned up in these few words Protestants confess that they neither Teach nor can Interpret Scripture infallibly Therfore by their own Confession They aro neither Oracles nor Instruments nor Interpreters of the Holy Ghost who Teaches and Interprets by none when â—e delivers Doctrin for a whole Church But by such as do it Infallibly Hence 9. I say 4. One only Society of Christians There is Hell One only Siciety that Teaches Infallibly gates shall not prevail against it or seduce it by Error which Teaches and interprets the Word of God Infallibly This one Dove is Chast This one Spouse is Loyal This one Oracle is Infallible He that Hear 's it hear's Christ He whâ— slight's it slight's Christ and draw's upon him the Malediction of a Separated Heathen and Publican Matt. 18. 17. Si Ecclesiam non audierit c. You do I know prevent my meaning For by this Spouse and Oracle I understand no other But that long standing Ancient Holy and Catholick Roman Church which Which is the Roman Church ever taught the World in foregoing Ages before our Sectaries seâ— footing in it Beside this faithful Oracle I do demonstrate in the 1. Chap. of the next Discours There never was is or shall be any thing like a Catholick Holy Church Now as it is Ecclesia Docens a Church Teaching and consists of Prelates united with one Head Directed by the Holy Ghost it Teaches and interprett Scripture infallibly As it is Ecclesia Discens or the Church Learning it receives and by virtue of the same blessed Spirit both Instruction and Interpretation infallibly 10. The Truth of my Assertion stand's firm upon the undeniable Grounds already laid no less well proved then presupposed Here is the summe of All. A summary of the precedent proofs The wise Providence of God hath left Sufficient means wherby we may know exactly the Sense of his Scripture in matters concerning Saluation whilst Learned men of different Sects are at endles Debates about this Sense and persist most obstinatly in what they have once laid hold on God therfore most assuredly will not have us run on thus in jarr's to the worlds end and conclude nothing There is means then of a Reconciliation afforded if we please But that 's not Scripture alone which cannot interpret it self but lyes still in that ancient darknes as it was first writ nor can it be mans Private Iudgement for that is both Various and Fallible Certainly it is not the Protestants Spirit For this we se changes every year And confessedly is Destitute of the Holy Ghosts Infallible directing Spirit It is no condemned Sect of Ancient Haereicks acknowledged for such both by Catholicks and Protestants Enthusiasm's no man believes Angels interpret not Scripture What then Remains but that we have recours to that One Ancient Holy and Vniversal Roman Church as wel for Instruction as Interpretation By this sole Oracle the Holy Ghost interpret's and teacheth or we must grant which is lamentable that we are turned loos into an inexplicable Labyrinth of Gods deep Secrets revealed in his Word without hope of finding any Exit 11. To prove my Assertion further positively by Scripture and the Authority of Fathers would be both tedious to a Reader and little avail with Sectaries And I wave as much as may be the useles Repetition of so often quoted Authorities who turn of Scripture by far-fetcht Glosses and undervalue Fathers as being fallible Yet while they do so know well enough their own misery at home within their brests which is nothing but a Spirit of Fallibility You find Proofs amply alleged out of Scripture Councils and Fathers to our present matter in our Polemical writers chiefly when they treat of the Iudge of Controversies However one Text though often quoted I will here give you Sectaries may tamper long enough with it before they return a probable Answer 12. The great Apostle of the Gentiles writing to A solid proof from Scripture the Ephesians Cap. 4. after he had warned them of keeping unity in Spirit and Faith also vers 11. Add's And he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other Pastors and Doctors c. And why gave he these Teachers The following words Answer For the consummation of the Saints unto the work of the Ministery unto the edifying of the Body of Christ How long are these to continue To the Worlds end until saith Scripture we meet into the unity of Faith and knowledge of the Son of God c. What intention had God in establishing These Apostles Evangelists and Pastors in his Church That now we be not Children fluctuating and carried away 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is turned about with every wind of Doctrin in the wickednes of men in craftines to the circumvention of error Thus the Hierarchy The Hierarchy of the Church that Teaches of Christs Teaching Church is constituted And by no other then Truth it self Now I say No Society of Christians
since St. Paul writ These words can so much as probably show it self permanently blessed with an Apostolical Teacher but our Ancient Roman Church only where the Prince of the Apostles St. Peter yet lives in every lawful succeeding Pope No Society of Christians can lay claim to such continued The Roman Catholick Church only shewes through every Age. Prophets as this Church hath had in it Age after Age whether by Prophets we understand with Scripture 1. Cor. 14. 1. Holy Men praying and Propâ—â—cying or such as Foretel Future things our Church hath had abundance of these if undoubted History may gain credit No Prophets laborious Evangelists Society of Christians can shew so many laborious Evangelists as this one Church alone and St. Paul points at 2. Timot. 4. 5. They are Those who have indefatigably through every Age without Cessation Preached and carried Christs Sacred Gospel to Vnconverted and most remote Nations Thus St. Austin sent by St. Gregory Pope Anciently was an Evangelist to our English St. Boniface to the Germans Blessed St. Francis Xavier and many other Evangelical men were so also to the furthest part of the world No Society of Christians But our Ancient Roman Church only can reckon up so long a perpetuated Hierarchy of lawful commissioned Pastors and profound Learned Doctors Pastors so many profound and learned Doctors who labored unto Death in Christs Sacred Vineyard and innumerable shed their Blood in Defense of it These being undeniable Truths 13. I Argue thus This known visible and never interrupted Society of Evangelists Pastors and Doctors This Ecclesia Docens or Teaching Church constituted The Argument by Christ himself was ever and is still Infallible and Becaus Directed by the Holy Ghost Teaches and Interpret's Scripture infallibly or It can err And cheat that ample Flock of Christians committed to its charge into damnable Falsities If the first be granted we have all we wish Viz. An infallible Hierarchy of living Pastors who shall Successively instruct us infallibly to the worlds end If contrarywise this whole Hierarchy can Deceive and lead us into damnable Error These two woful Sequels Undeniably Follow Fearful Sequels from Sectartes fals Doctrin The first That the Holy Ghost Directs not Teach's not that living Hierarchy of Pastors which Christ appointed to Teach us here on Earth For both This and every other Society of Christian Teachers may Beguile us with fals Doctrin and misinterpret Scripture Grant so much and it followes 2. That our Learned St. Paul Mistook himself and Uttered not one word of Truth in the place now cited For if these Pastors and Teachers appointed by Christ to Teach and so specifically here noted can Delude us yea and have de facto erred as Protestant Assert 'T is possible That They neither comply with the Work of their Ministery nor Edify the moral Body of Christ but destroy it nor persever in teaching Truth until we all meet together in a Vnity of Faith that happy day is not yet seen nor finally after all Their Endeavours Afford means to persever stedfast in Christs Sacred Doctrin They find yet a great Part of People called Christians like wilful Children resting on Self-opinion only They see them tossed and turned about with every wind of new Learning Such is the Fault and unlucky fate of Novellists who will be so wantonly Childish as to slight an Oracle Undeceivable Here then is the Conclusion The Apostles Words are True Therfore Sectaries vent a hideous The Conclusion Vntruth whilst they say these now named Evangelists Pastors and Doctors may Deceive and lead us into Errour CHAP. X. Objections are answered 1. PErhaps they will reply We mistake St. Pauls meaning For the Apostles Euangelists Prophets and Doctors c. Wherof he speaks are long since dead an gon They were those who Preached whilst Christ lived on Earth or soon after and Teach us still by the written Word now in our Hands Since those days we have had no Other Euangelists and Pastors continued in any Christian Society that either taught or interpreted Infallibly Roundly spoken But without book and as Falsly as fallibly Let Sectaries prove this gloss contrary to the express words and bring their proof to a received Principle For who see 's not the Obvious Sense of St. Pauls Testimony plainly perverted whilst He points at Teachers Successively abiding in the Church to the Consummation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to the coagmentation of Saints or until they be joyned together in one Faith and all meet in a Unity of Belief and knowledge of the Son of God The Deceased Apostles now in Heaven will 't is true se this last Day But are not now with us nor Teach until that Consummation be Therfore Others Succeed and teach in their Place so God hath ordered to the End of all things I have Answer'd to what is added of their present Instruction by the Written Word The Bible The written Word insufficient to reconcile differences I said cannot Because it interpret's not if self Reconcile our Differences And no deceased Euangelist appear's now either to Arian or Protestant to instruct them when they Fail or mistake Gods True Sense This very Scripture therfore requires an Interpreter in whom all must Acquiesce or we may run on in endles Dissentions to the day of Judgement But yo will ask Who is in fault Seing no man blames himself nor the Bible He read's Christ Answer 's He who hears not the Church is both the accused and faulty Person And upon this Occasion I answer to a second Objection 2. Our adversaries may say All Appellation from a Lower Tribunal to a Higher is lawful And they do so For they Appeal from the Church which only consists of men to God and his Word the Highest Sectaries by appealign from the Church to Scripture Tribunal imaginable therfore their Procedure is blameles I answer It were most blameles could They know Infallibly what God certainly saith in his Word But this they cannot know in controverted Points But by the Infallible Oracle of his Church To this Tribunal Christ sends us for Satisfaction in all In real Truth appeal not to Scripture but to Fancy only our Difficulties If we reject or forsake this Oracle in real Truth we appeal not to the undoubted Sense of Gods Word But to our own unsteedy Sentiments which are Fancies only and nothing like Gods Word Will you se this clearly Imagin only a new sort of Sectaries who will both Appeal from Church and Scripture to Gods interiour and eternall infallible This instance proves the Assertion knowledge of Truth They Appeal from the Church Becaus it is made up of men from Scripture because They understand it not in a hundred Passages Therfore they will rely on what God knows to be True and guess at it as well as they can Would you not esteem such Men mad and upon this Account That they cannot
implicitly if it be of Faith Though He yet know's not so much yea and may sometimes rationally Doubt whether the Church Proposeth it or no as a Matter of Faith So Schoolmen of different Judgements often Dispute whether such and such Points are de Fide And becaus They are contrary in their Positions either These or Those Contendents light where it will err Materially yet I say The Erring Party who Admits of All that the Church Proposes as Faith to be de Fide Believes Implicitly upon his Universal Assent to All The very A man may believe Implicitly what by Error he denyes Explicitly Matter which He by Error Explicitly Denyes yea and hath as True Faith as the Other That Hitt's on Truth Neither is there so much as a seeming Contradiction between These two Judgements of True Implicit Faith and an Untrue Material Explicit Error For the one is No Contradiction between true implicit Faith and untrue material Explicit Error so far from Opposing the other That the Erroneous Judgement in Actu exercito yeilds to Truth and resolved into all the strength it Hath saith no more but This by a Conditional Tendency If what I Affirm be not contrary to the Churches Doctrin And hence it is that Catholicks God be ever Blessed do not only easily lay down their material Errors when the The Reason Church Declares against them But most usually also in Their learned Volumes submit All They write to Learned Catholicks submit to the Churches Censure Sectaries submit to nothing but Fancy the Judgement of the Church which Implyes a tacite Retractation or an unsaying of whatever shall be Censured or Sentenced to be Amiss O would our Protestants Acknowledge such a Living Judge of Controversies They might make excellent good Vse of Their Bible But to snatch that Pure Book from Catholicks as they have Don And afterward to Debase it to Prostitute it to every Wild Fancy That shall pleas to meddle with it is plainly to Abjure and Renounce all Possibility of either knowing what Fundamentals are Or of ever Arriving to better Settlement in Faith then now we se which indeed is none at all Therfore though they Protest a Thousand times That they Believe every Thing in Scripture with the like Implicit Faith as we do the Church it Avail's nothing whilst every Private man makes that Book to speak what he would have it That is what his Fancy Pleases 2. Others finally have Recours to the Apostles Creed and say All things there as They Relate to The Belief of the Apostles Creed not Sufficient for Salvation Scripture and no more are Fundamental Points of Faith First Admit of the Assertion without any likelyhood of Proof Protestants have little to glory in For There is not so much as One Article of their Religion as Protestancy Observe it well contained in the Apostles Nothing of Protestancy in the Apostles Creed Creed Therfore nothing of their Religian as Protestancy can be Accounted Fundamentally Necessary to Salvation 2. One may Admit of All those Express Words in the Creed I Believe in Iesus Christ His only Son and be an Haeretick For the Arians grant this and yet are Haereticks Becaus They Deny the High Godhead of Christ and Consubstantiality likewise with his Father which are not evidently deduced out of those Words And Here I would gladly know of Protestants when either Arian Let it please Sectaries to answer this Question plainly or any Sectary That doth not only Abstract from Christs supream Divinity But Positively also Abjures it yet in some manner frigidly own 's Christ for the only Son of his Father whether I fay such an One may be Reckoned of as a True Believer in Fundamentals 3. Though the Creed Compriseth much in that One Article I believe the Holy Catholick Church And therfore some Ancient Fathers most Deservedly Magnify the Protestants cannot plainly point at the Church which the Creed Call's Catholick compleatnes of it as an Excellent Summary of Christian Faith yet Protestants for their lives cannot say what or where this Catholick Church is And it is very hard to oblige me to the Belief of a Church which is neither known nor can be Pointed out Now were it known a great Difficulty yet remain's to be Examined Viz. Whether God will ever Preserve this Church Infallible in the Delivery of Fundamental Doctrin or supposing His present Decree Whether He can so leave it to a Possibility of Erring in Fundamentals That Christians may absolutely loos all Faith both of Christ and Creed If This Second be Sectaries are pressed whether They grant or Deny a Church infallible in Fundamentals Granted We have no Assurance after all Christs Promises to the contrary But that Christianity may totally Perish before the Worlds End If they Say God will ever Preserve a Church Infallible in Fundamentals They must joyntly Acknowledge a Continued Vnextinguished Society of Christians wherof some are Pastors and Teach Infallibly these Fundamentals and some Sectaries must solve their own Difficulties Hear them also Infallibly I would have these plainly Marked out And withall have Sectaries know That All their Difficulties Proposed against an Infallible Church must be solved by them if they grant such Infallible Teachers of Fundamentals as is largely Baptism and the Eucharist not in the Creed Proved Above 4. To Omit that the Creed Delivers no Explicit Doctrin concerning Baptism and the Eucharist Though the Belief of these are also Necessary to Salvation Thus much I observe That Catholicks Catholicks Admit of the Creed without Glosses without Glosses and Interpretations own the candid and plain Obvious Expressions of the Creed in All and Every particular Article of it Therfore They are at least if not more as good Believers of the Creeds Fundamentals as Sectaries And if which we Deny They Err by Ignorance in lesser Matters as Protestants May and Do Err in Greater They must yet grant that the Belief of Fundamentals is Faith enough to save both Parties This Supposed 3. I must Needs have a word with my long forgotten Friend Mr. Poole and Ask why He Deem's it such A word with Mr. Poole a Strict piece of Justice to chafe as He Doth at a converted Captain upon the Account of his changing Religion as if he were a Lost and Perished Soul An Instrument forsooth He will Prove Append. p. 2. if not of Gods Mercy to reduce him to the Truth from which he is revolted At least of Gods Iustice And a Witnes on Gods Behalf to leave him without Excuse What needed I say so much Ado about Nothing For both the Captain and all Catholicks whilst they Believe the Creed Relating to Scripture are very secure and Confessedly right in Fundamentals Which being Supposed It is more then Impertinent in the Protestant to Keep such a Coyl about lesser Matters Protestants keep a Coyl to no Purpose about matters not Essential or to Reduce the main
inconsequent Proceeding of Protestants who must Trust our Church for the Handing down to them Gods written Word Sectaries ill Consequences whilst most Vnreasonably They Reject Her Authority when she Declares what the unwritten Word is I say most Vnreasonable For if it can Deceive in this later it may as well have deceived Christians in the first and given them fals Scripture Wherof se more in the second Discours 6. 'T is true There is Another way of Defining Another way called by Divines Asseveration called by some Divines Asseveratio or The Asserting of a Truth not so Explicitly at least Believed before as when the Church Defines against open Haereticks what was Antecedently of Faith And Herein the Church Proceeds not so much upon a Previous Known Act of Faith as upon the General Owned Principles of Catholick Belief wherunto Theological Discourses drawn from sound Divinity And other Principles partly Evident and partly in a high Measure Morally Certain have Access And are most Prudently Ioined Not That the Definition in it self Relies on those lower Principles But on Gods Gracious Assistance ever with his Church in the Delivery of Truth However Providence will have this way followed as a Vsual and Necessary Condition Because men of Reason in so weighty Matters are not as Sectaries do to Define at random but industriously to use Reason And Proceed on rational Principles But This belongs more to Divinity then to Controversy For I think the Church never yet Defined any thing against Haereticks that was not Antecedently a known and owned Truth of Faith Though not so fully expressed as it often is by the Churches clearer Proposition Thus we say The Real Doctrin of Transubstantiation The Real Doctrin of Transubstantiaton as old as that of the Trinity c. is as old as the Doctrin of The Trinity or the Consubstantiality of the Son with His Eternal Father Though the Words Expressing these Mysteries more significantly and clearly are of a later Date 7. Now to the Objections And one Hinted at above is The Church was solidly Founded in the An Objection Apostles time in all Things necessary to Salvation Therfore These Post-nate Definitions of it are to no Purpose To confirm This Our young Antagonist Ask's Whether the Apostolical Declarations of the Ancient Primitive Of Apostolical Declarations lost Faith were lost in the intermediate Ages or no If not lost Shew them saith He And There is no Need of new Definitions If they were lost in their Passage down the Church now wants them And therfore can Define nothing Were the Play worth the candle I might here Demand of Protestants whether Their Declared Sense This is a Sign of my Body Added Is retorted to Christs Words This is my Body which Sense They suppose to be Apostolical was lost in the intermediate Ages or no If not lost shew us that Apostolical Declaration and 'T is enough But this is impossible If 't was lost or rather never in Being How dare Sectaries make such a Declaration on their own Heads without Producing the Apostles Warrant I Answer The Answer The Church was solidly founded as 'T is now That which is sufficient in one Age Serves not always briefly to the Objection The Church then was solidly Founded just as 'T is now the Doctrin is one and the Same And every Article of it was ever and is now still either explicitly or implicitly Believed Yet These new Declarations are Necessary Because the Proposition of a Doctrin sufficient in one Time or Age Serves not for all Times and Ages when New Difficulties occurr And Haeresies rise up against it The Church therfore ever vigilant and Desirous to quiet all speak's Again more clearly the old Received Verities Causlesly too often Bogled at by Sectaries I say more clearly For 't is one thing to Assert Such a Verity is not at all contained in Scripture or in the Ancient Deposited Different Circumstances require clearer and more ample Declarations Doctrin of the Church And another To say it is so clearly There That in order to us and different Circumstances it needs not at all a further Declaration Sectaries continually Declare Their Sense of Scripture For They have no other Deposited Apostolical Doctrin to Talk of And why may not the Church Authorized by Christ with Better Reason do so too To what is Added to Help on the Objection I have answered Deposited Doctrin following the Church through all Ages is securely preserved The Deposited Doctrin Orally Delivered without writing is not lost But still remain's in the Churches Treasury 'T is as it were Handed down from Age to Age and Inseparably accompanies the Church through all Ages Yea and is kept there Though not in Chists or Coffers as securely as if 't Had been engraven in Brass or Marble And Sectaries must say thus much Sectaries must grant This. if They own Scripture for Gods Word For are not They now as well Assured upon the Churches Testimony or Vnwritten Tradition That St. Iohns Gospel was Indited by the Holy Ghost As if the Church produced a Hand-writing to Evidence that Verity Yes most Assuredly Whoever therfore Dare call into Their urging for a hand writing of Apostolical Doctrin is proved frivolous Question the Churches Authority Asserting a Doctrin Though it Produce no Manual Writing For it May as easily Doubt if it show you One Whether that very Exhibited Evidence be Authentical or no. Let us only Imagin that the Apostle that writ the last Part of the New Testament had exactly set down the whole Canon of Scripture which the Church now Receives Let us Suppose again That very copy to be left in the Hands of some Pious Christians Living in those Days No hand-vvriting distinct from Scripture is comparable to the Churches ovvn Authority and so long Preserved Vntil After Haereticks excluded from the Canon such and such Books of Holy Scripture as Luther lately Did St. Iames Epistle Both they and Luther might more Rationally have doubted of that very written Instrument then any can now Doubt of a whole Churches Authority owning the Canon of Scripture to be as it is No Charter Therfore no written Instrument Though once truly made when the Author is gon can Parallel the Churches Testimony in what it Asserts The The Reason Reason is Because a Manuscript only Tell 's you what it Contains but not Whose it is and though it did so Men might yet question the Forgery of it unles an Authority beyond Exception extrinsecal to the writing take away all Fear of Cozenage and make it Vndoubted Tradition surer then any Manuscript This Reason proves Tradition Necessary in the Church as well for the owning of Scripture as other Verities 8. I have said thus much to show How neer to a Piece of Non-sense our Adversaries Draw when To Cancel the later Definitions of the Church They urge us to produce the old Apostolical Declarations whereby
Themselves and the evidence of the former that is of the Churches infallibility not only denyed and Disputed down by Protestants but also questioned by their own Authors You End This Question I chalenge the whole Club of Iesuits solidly to Answer I Answer very catagorically without Clubbing it and say first The Catholick hath more then meer probable Evidence of the Doctrin of the Curches infallibility The Sectary by his own Principles hath not so much as probable evidence of the Doctrin of the Scriptures infallibility Independent of the Church I say 2. Though the Sectary had probable evidence of the Scriptures infallibility yet it is a useles book in his hands 13. The first Assertion contain's two parts I prove the first The Catholick hath a Church evidenced by Vnparallel'd Miracles by conversions of whole Nations from Infidelity to our Christian Verities He hath a Church manifested by all those other Glorious Cognisances of Truth which the Apostolical Church shewed to the world not one is excepted as is proved Disc 1. c. 9. 10. If therfore that Apostolical Church was prudently believed to deliver infallible Doctrin and this before Scripture was writ by the inducements of those illustrious marks and Characters of Truth wherwith it was adorned our Roman Catholick Church that undeniably evidenceth the very like signs is proved upon that Reason to deliver also infallible Doctrin For where there are the same effects and signs of infallible Doctrin the Infallibility of it is as it were witnessed by them otherwise such Motives would be both inefficacious and useles whilst God shewes them for this end that all may give Assent to his infallible Verities taught by that Oracle where they evidently appear and I believe led on by the inducements yet must forsooth only believe uncertainties or fallible Doctrin that may be fals 14. The Doctrin therfore of the Roman Catholick Church is now as well made immediately Credible by vertue of these Motives as the Apostolical Church was before the writing of Scripture And These Motives in order to the Learned and those who prudently seek for Truth first and most immediatly Demonstrate the Church or Those persons that teach infallible Doctrin by whose Authority we learn what and where infallible Truth is professed That these marks and signs immediatly belong to the Persons that Teach infallibly and not to Scripture is undoubted Mark 16. 17. These signs shall follow in my name they shall cast out Divels c. Again not only the Doctor of the Gentils 2. Cor. 12. 12. call's the wonders He wrought Signa Apostolatus sui the marks of his Apostleship but a greater Doctor also Truth it self Iohn 10. 25. when the Jewes would not believe him remitted them to the evidence of his Miracles The works which I do in the name of my Father these give Testimony of me And vers 38. If you will not believe me believe the works Works therfore and wonders Annexed to the persons or Church that Teaches Forceably induce prudent men to believe the certain Doctrin Delivered by them who shew such wonders In a word here is all I would say No Religion is evidently true or fals ex Terminis upon the bare Affirmation of Him that sayes its true or fals Therfore it must have the Evidence of its Credibility manifested before Christians admit of the Doctrin But this Evidence is first manifested by such signs and Miracles as Christ and the Apostles personally shewed to the world and by vertue of them induced Aliens from Truth to believe it as Infallible Doctrin Therfore whatever Church shewes such Miracles the like signs and wonders as Christ and his Apostles manifested plead's as well for the Infallibility of its Doctrin witnessed by such Miracles as the Apostolical Church Did. But the Roman Catholick Church only and no other shewes these Miracles Efficacy of Doctrin Vniversality strange Conversions and other most Convincing Motives Therfore if the first Christians induced by such evidence firmly believed the Apostolical Doctrin to be infallible which was not ex terminis evidently infallible we may now upon the very like Inducements not for the inducements as the last Motive Believe as securely upon our Churches Authority the Doctrin taught by it to be infallible Deny this Evidence of our Motives and we force Sectaries to prove the Denial by as sure Principle as we Assert them Grant them and our Argument is concluding And here you have more them a meer probable Evidence of the Churches infallibility 15. An Other Argument for it besides those Scriptures cited Disc 2. C. 6. n. â— is not only probable but unanswerably Convincing hinted at Disc 1. C. 2. n. 9. Christ as is confessedly granted both by Catholicks and Sectaries sent Pastors up and down the world to teach Christian Doctrin But he never sent any to teach fallible Doctrin which may be fals Ergo He sent them to teach his own infallible Doctrin and Infallibly I prove it He sent none to teach any other Doctrin then that which may be ultimately resolved into Gods infallible veracity revealing Truth But that which is ultimatly resolved into an infallible Veracity can neither be fals nor fallible Doctrin because God as I now said ownes no fallible Doctrin that may be fals Therfore this Resolution of an Act tending fallibly into Devine Revelation is rather Non-sense then Faith I infallible believe Christ to be God and Man because Gods infallible Revelation will have me to believe so For No Infallible Motive applyed to my vnderstanding as it is infallible can draw from me a fallible belief of a Doctrin that 's meerly fallible But All Sectaries whether Arians Donatists or Protestants Teach only fallible Doctrin and fallibly Ex parte Docentis Ergo they Teach not that Doctrin which Christ sent his Ministers to teach or that can be resolved into Gods infallible Veracity revealing Truth Yet most certainly some Christian Pastors by vertue of Christ Mission teach his infallible Doctrin Infallibly and these are the Pastors of the Roman Catholick Church who only lay claim to Infallibility and prove it also as the Apostles Did by the Antecedent Evidence of those Motives which the Church shewes and manifesteth to the world as is now Declared I chalenge Mr. Poole directly and Catagorically to Answer this my Reason without talking any more of Clubbs or running into Generalities and in as few clear words as I Deliver it 16. Now to prove the other part of my Assertion Viz. Sectaries by their own principles have not so much as a probable Evidence of the Scriptures infallibility without Church Authority Here is my principle The infallibility of Scripture which contains many Difficulties tell 's strange stories and seemingly often speak's contradictions is not by it self or own light so evidently Credible to the Eyes of a Reader as the infallibility of the Apostolical Church was evident by Miracles and Conversions to the Primitive Christians who believed it infallibly At least S. Austin judged it
Austin Learnedly Consider's lib. 22. Civitat Cap. 5. Chiefly at those words St. Austins Discourse Si rem credibilem crediderunt If men saith he Believed a thing credible he speaks of the Resurrection of the dead and the like is of any other Mystery in Faith videant quam sint stolidi se what fools Those are who will not believe Si autem res incredibilis est If the thing be incredible This is most incredible yea and the strangest miracle of all that That which was deem'd Incredible gained Belief the whole World over The Argument is convincing and proves as well that those after Conversions wrought upon Infidels by Roman Evangelical Preachers were Admirable and truely Miraculous Millions have been converted by them These numerous multitudes therfore of Believers were either drawn on by fooleries If so Fooleries could not induce Millions to contemn the world and become good Christians They were mad And here lyes the Miracles saith St. Austin Viz. That Fooleries could induce so many to Contemn the World and become good Christians Or Contrarywise They believed this Roman Catholick Church upon weighty rational Motives If so Why are not our Protestants obliged to believe as they did upon the same prudent Inducements If They Tell us The Church Taught an other Doctrin when these great Conversions were made then it Teaches now They do not only most unlearnedly Suppose what is to be Proved yea cannot be proved because utterly false But also speak not one Word to the Purpose For both our Progenitors in England and innumerable others were drawn from Error by Popish Preachers And even in this present Age the like glorious Conversions are and have been wrought by these Blessed mens Labours Why these Conversions are to be esteemed Miraculous and Theirs only Now if you ask upon what Account such Conversions are to be esteemed Miraculous This one Instance answers you Imagin you saw a little Flock of Sheep or Lambs sent into a Desert full of ravenous Wolves withall That these Lambs though at first many were devoured yet at length render'd the Wolves so Tame and so abated their Rage that they became like Lambs mild and submissive Would you not say that such a work were prodigious and above the force of nature This is our very case Behold saith our Saviour Luc. 10. I send you as Lambs amongst Wolves And these you must subdue It was done Behold saith the Roman Catholick Church I send my Preachers still abroad to the Remotest parts of the World and have changed Wolves into Lambs That is I have made Infidels once Rebellious to Christ Subject to his lawes the Vitious I have made Virtuous and brought thousands of them to no other Religion but Popery This work with the Assistance of Gods Grace is done Et est mirabile in oculis nostris and 't is admirable Had our Protestants made such Changes or drawn so many Infidels to their new Faith they would have talked of wonders But because Catholicks Why Protestants flight Miracles and Conversions gained them to the old Religion all is Nothing So it is They have no Miracles and therfore Slight them No Conversions and thersore undervalue them A Strange proceeding Those very wonders which induced the world to become Christian Because they yet eminently appear in the Roman Catholick Church must ly under Contempt Those Ancient Proofs of Christianity are now proofles Those Primitive Evidences of Miracles Conversions c. the Church is in fault for shewing them cannot be seen by these later Men who yet have Eyes to discern the Book of Scripture by its own Light and Majesty And by the way mark the Paradox The exteriour words of a Bible for of these A Paradox of Sectaries we only speak are Evidences enough for Scripture yet those glorious works now mentioned are forsooth no Evidence of this Church The very Majesty of the style Ascertain's these men that God Speak's by that Sacred Book yet all the perceptible miraculous Majesty which the Church shewes us cannot perswade them that he speaks by this visible audible and most known Oracle of Truth A Bible well known its true upon other Grounds to be most Sacred discouers its Divinity and immediatly proves who writ it Yet a Church so gloriously marked sayes nothing who Directs it Is this Reason or Religion think ye Can Reason produce this unreasonable Thought in any That the wise Providence of God hath permitted so eminent so numerous so pious so learned and so long standing a Multitude of Christians as Catholicks have been and yet are to be Cheated into Errour even whilst they evidence their Faith by such Proofs and Motives as Christ and his Apostles manifested Christian Religion What Shall we think that Miracles Conversions of Souls casting out of Devils Sanctity of life c. which were once convincing Arguments of Christianity are now showed to countenance a Falsity To judge so is the most improbable Sectaries judge improbably Thought that ever entred a Christians Hart yea and impossible unles we hold that God can leave of to be Goodnes it self or make Falshood more apparently evident then Truth the whole World over which is proved to be a gross errour 8. Other Arguments we have for a greater Certainty then moral previously Evidencing the Roman Catholick Religion before we Believe wherof more in the next Chapter It is now sufficient to say That our Protestants grant thus much First because Protestants grant Evidence of Credibility to the Roman Catholick Religion the more learned of them allow Salvation to those who live and dye in this Faith But most sure it is That Saving Faith hath at least moral Evidence and Certainty for it 2. Whilst They talk of no man knowes what Evidence manifesting Christian Religion in General They only plead for our Catholick Faith and speak not a word in behalf of Protestancy The Reason is If both these Religions are not True Motives Evidencing true Religion inseparably follow that but the One only The Motives which Evidence true Religion inseparably follow That and cannot belong as I have already proved to the Other which is false Therfore They or We are obliged to show them But Protestancy cannot show so much as one prudent Motive for it self as will most clearly appear in the 10. Chapter Ergo what Evidence there is for true Christian Faith Catholicks have it or there is none in the World for any Religion CHAP. IX A short Digression concerning the Shufling of Protestants in this matter 1. HEre I cannot but reflect on the slight endeavours of some later Sectaries who offer at Mr. Stillingfleets weak endeavours Much in an Empty Title called The Protestants way of resolving Faith yet in prosecuting the matter They handle it so unluckily that no man Hear 's a word more spoken in behalf of Protestanism then of Arianism or of what ever other Haeresy Motives and Reasons they give none for Protestant
yours it hath more Unity in Faith Yours is Rent and torn apieces with Divisions And Loe great God Here is that Glorious Edifice which you after all your perfect Idea's of a Church have erected For this you dyed and never shed your Blood to Establish my false erroneous Synagogue of Popery Permit Reason to judge in this case and say whether the Devil be an ill Advocate if Protestants avouch Truth And stand to their professed Doctrin That the Church of Rome drowned in a Deluge of Errors abandoned the first Verities of Christian Religion for a thousand years together And that their Church as it is now in Being is the most choise goodly and only refined Religion in the world 3. My last Argument hinted at in the Title is Foundations laid of new Haeresies thus A new coyned Haeresy without Motives of Credibility may be as well or better defended by plain speaking Scripture then Protestancy It is believe me the easiest thing in the world to draw Haeresy out of the Words of Scripture To make good my Assertion Read first St. Hierom in his Dialogue S. Hieroms Reflection Adversus Luciferianos Paris Print anno 1509. at the very end of the Dialogue This great Doctor then to reduce some beguiled by the Luciferians who held that a Bishop or Priest once Deserting their Faith could never again be admitted into the Church which they endeavored to prove by that text of St. Matthew cap. 5. v. 13. You are the Salt of the earth but if the salt hath lost its savor wherwith shall it be salted Ad nihilum valet ultra it is good for nothing hereafter c. St. Hierom I say to refute these hath an excellent Reflection Nec sibi blandiantur si de Scripturae Capitulis videntur sibi assumere c. Let them not flatter themselves if they seem to assume out of Scripture Of Errors drawn from Scripture what they say For the Devil hath spoken things out of Scripture Scripture God know's doth not consist in what we read but in the sense of it Otherwise saith the Saint Possumus nos c. I am able to coin a new Opinion out of Scripture and say That none are to be received into the Church that wear shoos or have two coats For that is Scripture 4. It were most easy to go on with this true Reflection of St. Hierom and draw new Haeresies every Particulars hour from Scripture One will say The Sabbath-day is to be kept Sacred in place of Sunday and bring Scripture for it Exod. 20. 8. Another That we are as well to abstain from Eating of Blood or things Strangled as from Fornication it is a Decree of the Apostolical Council and Scripture Actor 15. 29. A third That Infants aae not to be Baptized There is ground for it Matth. 28. A fourth That we are not to Contend in Law but quit our Coat if any man will take it and Cloak also Matt. 5. A fifth That no Euangelical Preacher is to carry Gold or Silver with him or have two Coats Matt. 10. 7. 5. Suppose that a new Sect of men should rise up A new Sect of men rising up this year in whole Multitudes and rigidly adhere to the exact letter of Scripture in these Particulars is it possible to convince them by Scripture It is impossible And have they not think ye more plain Text's of Gods Word for these Tenents then Protestants have for pure Protestancy Yea most evidently For they produce nothing but express Scripture without Glosses And do they not believe in Christ and admit of every jota in Scripture Yea and therfore are sound in Fundamentals Moreover Do they not acknowledge both Christ and Scripture upon the same Tradition or other Evidences as Protestants do Yea and are ready perhaps to joyn in Belief with them when they se Scripture as plain for any Protestant Doctrin They only add a Superstructure Have as good a Church as Luther had of these Articles And have They not as good a Church as Luther and Calvin had a year after their new Preaching Yes They swarm with multitudes of Followers and multitudes make a Church Why then is not the Belief of these men all grounded in Scripture as good as that of Protestants I think it is of two Evils the Better if more Words of Scripture can more advance the Worth of either Religion But I tell you and truly That neither of them is good because unreasonable and they are therfore unreasonable Because no mans Reason can in this present state of Christianity whilst God Govern's us by the Light of Prudence fall upon a Religion or Believe a Church which evidently Appears A Religion without prudent Motives is no Religion naked and destitute of all Rational motives inductive to True Belief Now Scripture alone without the Interpretation of a Church evidenced by forcible Motives is what you please to make of it And a Church not at all manifested by rational motives is no Church and Therfore cannot interpret Scripture If you ask why we say That Protestancy is so bare of Motives and consequently no Church I have answered above Because this Religion never had nor shall have any such perswasive Inducements or the like Signs of Truth for it as Christ Iesus and his Blessed Apostles manifested when they first taught the World and by virtue of those Motives gained innumerable Souls to Christianity Look then about you and find me out a Society of Christians that is evidenced by such Signs as hold a strict Analogy with those of Christ and his Apostles and you have the True Church But this is the Roman Catholick Church What proved Christianity anciently proves now the Roman Catholick Church only and no other as I have largely proved Dare you therfore own the true Christ and his Blessed Apostles who wrought Miracles lived Holily preached Efficaciously upon such Motives You must also own this true Church upon the like grounded Proofs Were Miracles Sanctity Efficacious Doctrin c. Rational inducements to Believe in Christ They are now both powerful and perswasive to Believe this Church To Deny as I said above all Miracles to this Church even the greatest as is the Raysing of dead men to life is to Deny Sense Reason History The forceable Motives of Faith cannot be taken from our Church and all Authority And to appropriate These and other Motives to Protestants is only an attempted Plagiary which cannot be done It is true These men glory in a stolen Bible and 't is all they can pretend to besides the bare name of a fruitles and unevidenced Church but the marks and Characters of a true Church They shall never have nor take from us And thus much of infallible Teachers and the Motives of true Faith THE SECOND DISCOVRS OF SCRIPTVRE THE FIRST CHAPTER Scripture is useles if none declare infallibly the sense of it 1. WHen on the one side I consider
If the Churches Interpretation were as fallible as the Arians Christians might follow either as they please were as fallible as the Arians Christians might indifferently Adhere to Either yea and changeably now take one then the other as they please A greater Probability can ballance nothing in this or the like particulars as I shall largely prove hereafter In the mean while by what is now said we may learn first Though Scripture in this and other Mysteries hath its Darknes yet by the good Providence of Almighty God we are provided of a Sure Interpreter which is absolutely Necessary For if Every one interpret according to fancy Haeresy is easily Drawn out of Gods Word And if none interpret Faithfully the Scripture still lyes hid in Obscurity which makes it for that part a Useles Book to Christians The necssity of an infallible Interpreter Learn farther That None can ever know exactly by Human Industry or his Sole pondering the Bible let him be another Salomon for Wisdom what God hath Revealed in these difficil Mysteries of our Faith without an Infallible Interpreter To prove my Assertion I 'll give you one Instance 3. Suppose that two or three most learned Heathen Philosopher well versed in Languages and all Human Literature had this Book of Scripture put into their Hands and were perswaded by the extrinsecal An instance of Philosoohers reading the Bible Authority of all Christians that God here speak's his Eternal Verities Withall That if they read the Book and by their Sole reading without Recours to any Interpreter possess the True sense of it They have True Saving Faith Well They read it and with as much Humility as any Protestant can do yet If They ask of none but Their own Iudgement errour followes Ask of none But their own judgement what it means in the more difficil Passages Tell me I beseech you And here I appeal to the moderate Iudgement of every Christian whether Catholick Arian or Protestant What Faith or Religion would these Philosophers produce out of Sole Scripture Solely Read and pondered by them My Thought is 'T is no more but a Thought That the Result of their Reading would end in Coyning a Religion different from all Others now in Christendom I am very confident They would never pitch upon Protestancy no nor Their doubts would be Endles upon any Sect now extant Alas they would Doubt and Stagger at every hard passage in Scripture yea and by the very Instinct of Nature if they own'd Scripture for Gods Book would humbly Supplicate Those who gave them the Book to lay open the Mysteries therin and Assure them of its meaning in a hundred Places yet none can do this good office for them But One only Society of Christians that layes claim to Infallibility and proves it Demonstratively if Faith be in the World 4. Be it how you will thus much I conclude Our Protestants are in the very same Case without an infallible Interpreter as the Philosophers are with Sectaries are in the very same case without an Infallible Interpreter no Interpreter These make Scripture speak what They think it speaks right or wrong And Protestants do the like whilst They give their sentiment on Mysteries above their Reach without an Infallible Teacher Pray you Reflect Had Christ Iesus and his Apostles never Taught any thing by Word of Mouth But only thrown the Book of Scripture amongst Christians Strange Confusions Had Christ and his Apostles given to Christians a Bible without an Interpreter when They left the World and commanded them to make that use of it which every Private Iudgement thought best what a Religion think ye should we have had at this day in Christianity any or none or a thousand different ones as good as none God only knows I do not Yet will say This is out very present Condition if an infallible Interpreter of Scripture be Rejected We may wrangle to the Dissentions would have followed without hope of union Worlds end but agree in nothing Dispute but conclude nothing we may raise Difficulties one against another But allay none And thus the contest must run on without Redres or Remedy All Appellation here to Antiquity to Councils Fathers Appellation to Antiquity remedies nothing being fallible with Protestants and Tradition help 's nothing Becaus they are Fallible And were they otherwise we vary as highly about the Sentiments of Fathers in every debated point of Controversy as we do about Scripture it self 5. We se thirdly How utterly impossible it is for a Protestant to draw from the Objective Verities revealed in Scripture the True Sense and meaning of Gods Word in any controverted point of Religion The Reason is Scripture never speak's plainly and expresly the Protestants Sense in these debated Controversies observe it in All and you 'll find it so What do they therfore to help themselves They first Reject an Infallible Interpreter and next as the Arians do superadd their own Fallible glosses to make Sectaries make Scripture to speak what They would have it say not what God speak's Scripture speak not what it Truly says But what They would have it say And thus they think Scripture cleared and Their Work don Take here one Instance for many Catholicks and Protestants have been at Variance a hundred years and more about these Sacred Words Matt. 26. This is my Body The different Senses drawn from them are Contradictory And therfore cannot be True This is my Body Really saith the Catholick and here is my internal Faith No saith the Protestant This is my Body figuratively or a Sign of my Body And this is my Belief Arians and Protestants vitiate Scripture after the same manner Mark I beseech Just as the Arian saith I and my Father are one and superadds his Gloss of one in Affection so the Protestant here vitiates the Text by his Gloss and adds to Scripture what God never spoke a Trope a Figure a Sign and I know not what And after This Injury don to the Words He Believes not for Gods Express Word But for his own far-fetcht and dear bought Interpretations which are no more Scripture then if he should tell me That An Example That text of St. Matthew cap. 3. verse 17. This is my beloved Son were to be forcibly stript of its Verity and misinterpreted Thus This is only a Sign or Figure of my Beloved Son No more doth Scripture through the whole Gospel warrant in the least an Improperty of speech in the one Text now cited then in the other I little Regard The Protestant dscourses and glosses contrary to this Mystery of Faith let us have plain Scripture much les their Inferences which are all Human and Fallible O but to say that Christ Body is Really Present under the Species of Bread yea and in a thousand places at Once is an Vnintelligible Mystery Why more Unintelligible then a Trinity of Persons in one Essence
no Truth in that Article of Our Creed I Believe the Holy Catholick Church To Evidence further what I now Asserâ— Do no more But Forget as it were or cast out of your mind all Thought of Roman Catholicks from Luther upward to the fourth Age. Then Look About you And Consider Exclude the Roman Catholick Church Haereticks only remain well the Remainder of other Christians For that Vast Interval of Time You will find none but Professed Haereticks Schismaticks or Both as Arians Nestorians Pelagians and such a like Rabble of men Again Forget these as much as if They had never Been And only Think of the Roman Catholick Church Diffused the whole World over continued Age after Age Will you not have a Holy and Vniversal Church Presented Exclude Haereticks you yet have a glorious Church to your Thoughts Yea most assuredly And a Glorious Church too It is therfore Evident That the Roman Catholick Society was not only Necessary to make Vp the Church But was Moreover the Sole and only Essential Church of Christ as I have already Proved CHAP. III. The Pretended Reformation of Protestants is Vnreasonable if Faith in Christ Only Suffice for Saluation A more Explicit Faith is proved Necessary 1. I Must Needs have a Word more with our Adversaries upon this Subject and Note That if a General Belief in Christs Sacred Person Office and Dignity be Saving Faith enough for a Christian which some endeavour to Prove by that Text of St. Iohn 20. 31. And these Things are written That ye might Believe that Iesus is the Christ the Son of God And that believing ye might have life in his Name If such a General Faith I say makes us all as well Catholicks as Christians without more Our Protestants need not to storm at us as They do for want of True Faith For we Catholicks Agree and Believe in Christ God and Man as firmly as They do And in this one Article only may we credit them All Necessary Essentials of Christian Faith are included It is true Catholicks say a more Explicit Faith is required as I shall presently Declare But Protestants who do not May rest Protestants slight work about things not Essentials contented And withall confess That the great Coyle They have kept in Reforming Catholick Doctrin comes to no more But to a slight Pidling about Non-Essentials which for ought is yet known Hath done more hurt then good And made Things wors then They May have don more hurt then Good were Before 2. To Drive the Difficulty home I Ask seriously Whether any one Article Peculiar to this Religion as If Protestants hold their particular Doctrin necessary to Salvation other Hareticks will pretend the like Protestancy That is beside the General Belief in Christ and owning Scripture c. Be necessary to Saluation If yes Then will Arians Pelagians Donatists and other Sectaries say also what they hold Particular is also Necessary And Therfore Doctrin Above or Beyond the Belief in Christ or not Vniversal is of like Necessity If Protestants answer No or Assert that nothing Particularly held by them because not Vniversal Catholick Doctrin implyes this And if not two strange Sâ—quâ—ls undeniably follow Necessity But a Belief in Christ only Two rhings follow The One is as I have now Noted That without Fruit at all They have made a shamfull stir with their Schism in Blustering all this while about non-Essentials and petty Differences which may be Believed or Not without Danger of loosing Saluation 2. It follows That as Protestants here Acknowledge a Church so Vniversal wherin all may be Saved that Believe in Christ in like manner Any one and upon as good Reason May make it Wider and allow Saluation A large Church must be allowed of by Protestants to all whether Iews or Turks that Believe in God only without Explicit Faith in Christ Vnus Deus Vna Fides Therfore in Place of Christs Church we may have a Gods Church more large and ample erected in the world 3. You will say Scripture is most Evident for a Belief in Christ Might a Defender of the now large Imagined Church which affords Salvation to all that Believe in God Answer He would tell you That the Explicit Belief in God implyes some kind of Implicite Belief in Christ And that is enough which He is ready to Make good when you have proved your Abstract Faith in Christs Sacred Person to be Sufficient to Salvation A better Answer is Scripture most Certainly Obligeth us to Believe in Christ Explicitly But doth it leave of there and not joyntly oblige us to More necessary to Salvation then Belief in Christ only Believe other Articles also Explicitly when they are plain in Scripture And sufficiently proposed Such are the Sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist c. Can we therfore after we Own these Truths Delivered in Gods Word hope for Salvation without an explicit Belief of them If so St. Iohn c. 6. 53. saith not True Vnles ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you have no Life in you Surely we cannot do this like Christians Unles we believe it The Belief of Sacraments necessary If no The Belief of these Sacraments constitute the Essentials of Saving Faith and so doth also the Belief of much Moral Doctrin set down in Scripture Read what St. Paul Writes Cor. 1. 6. 9. concerning the Vnrighteous Idolaters and Fornicators c. And tell me if you Own Gods Word whether the Apostle doth And of other Moral Doctrin not Disinherit all Vnbelievers of his Doctrin Therfore something more is Necessary for Christians united in one Faith to Assent to Then only to Believe in Christ 4. The true Fundamental Ground of my Assertion is This. What ever God Speaks in Scripture who never spake Idle word whether the Matter may seem to our weak Capacities little or great is after a Sufficient Proposal of the same Weight and Authority To Believe rherfore in Christs is a Fundamental Article and in one Sence Known to every One most Fundamental But to Reject or Abstract from His other Verities Revealed in Scripture or to make les Reckoning of them Becaus they Appear little to us is to Affront God And Tell him That we will Believe him so far as we pleas But no farther Wheras on the contrary side he Assures us That his Word is equally engaged in all He Saith And All Truths in Scripture are of equal Authority that his Eternal Truths whether little or great are not to be Valued of by what is spoken But by the certain Authority of him that Speak's them Hence Divins Assert and most Truely That no man can Believe so much as one Article of Christian Faith upon the Motive of Gods Revealed Testimony unles He readily Embrace All other alike as equally Proposed upon the same Authority For where we have the Same Motive we must yeild the Same
proves it in every place Of their Faith Spread abroad c. What Think ye was this not yet written Word of our Lord or the true Analogy of the Thessalonians Faith As well Dilated as Approved of What Finally was that Form of Doctrin commended in the Romans cap. 6. 17 Why Did the Apostle blame the unsetled Galatians for Being so soon Transferred into another Gospel and Denounce Anathema cap. 1. 6. if they believed an Angel Preaching contrary to his former Doctrin All these and many other Passages of Holy Writ manifestly Declare Before the writing of Scripture there was a plat-form of Christian Religion That there was Divine Doctrin Taught by the very Founders of Christianity before the Writing of Scripture There was a Plat-form of Christian Religion made by the very Apostles before they Separated Themselves and began their Preaching to several Nations And to comply with this Rule or Form of Faith Blessed St. Paul Though full of the Holy Ghost went to confer with St. Peter and the rest Gal. 2. 2. Act. 15. 36. Upon it The Apostles Held Councils yea Councils held upon that platform and Scripture writ and as some Grave and Learned Doctors Affirm by the Measure therof the Holy Scriptures were written Se the notes on the Rhems Testament Rom. cap. 12. v. 6. 3. Be it how Sectaries will There was Faith in the World before written Scripture The Apostles who taught it Had their Rule of Doctrin prescribed by a The Apostles had their Rule of Doctrin from a certain Master good Master the Holy Ghost for they Taught not Christian Doctrin upon their own frail Iudgements considered as Men. No they had ever the Guidance and Direction of this Blessed Spirit with them and as His Instruments Delivered so much as this Master according to Christs Promise gave Assistance to and neither more nor less Now those Pious Christians The first pious Christians had their Rule from the Apostles who heard this Apostolical Learning made it most certainly Their Rule Their Measure of Faith Their Analogy and Form of Doctrin Whence I argue This Form or Rule of Oral Doctrin First laid up in the Brests of the Apostles and afterward Delivered to different Nations was neither All set down in Holy Scripture for Volumes would not contain it nor All intierly lost 'T is pitty such a rich Depositum should Perish Therfore it yet Remains somewhere in safe Custody That Doctrin is yet preserved in the Church But no Place is fitter for it then that which the Fathers call Thesaurarium dives the Rich Treasury of the Church where 'T is still Preserved and Those Timothies I mean those Evangelists Those Pastors Those Doctors mentioned Ephes 4. 11. Appointed by Providence to Edify the Mystical Body of Christ The Chief Preservers of this Legacy and Noble Depositum are as Necessity Requires to impart it and make it known to the World by their Definitions Least like Children we be carried away with every Wind of fals Doctrin And The Ground of Tradition herein lyes the very Ground of all Apostolical Tradition This is not mine but the Great Vincentius Lirinensis own Doctrin now cited Where pondering that of the Apostle O Timothy Keep thy Depositum He Asks Quis Est bodie Timotheus nisi vel universa Ecclesia vel specialiter totum corpus Praepositorum c. Who is now or at this The whole Church or Rulers of it preserve this Depositum Day our Timothy But either the Vniversal Church or more specially the Whole Body of those Guides and Rulers set over it that are Themselves to have the intire knowledge of Divine Worship or to infuse it into others c Afterward Quid est hoc Depositum What is this Deposited Doctrin He Answers Id quod tibi creditum est 'T is that which is committed to Thee not that Thou Invent's that which thou hast Received not what Thou hath Fancied of thy own Head It is a thing not of Wit but of Doctrin Non usurpationis propriae not of thy Private Vse Fashion or Practise Sed The Church no Author but Keeper of Divine Doctrin publicae Traditionis But of publick and known Tradition brought to Thee handed to Thee wherof thou art not to be Author sed Custos But a Keeper and Preserver Then he goes on Depositum Custodi Catholicae Fidei Talentum c. 4. And thus you Se we have a Church a Catholik Principles wheron the Church proceed's Talent of Faith committed to it A Depositum of Apostolical Doctrin laid up in its Treasury We have a Moral body of Timothies of Teachers united with one Supream Head and Pastor That Assures us more Explicitly by its Definitions what the Ancient Deposited Doctrin is And Reclaim's us if we swerve from it We have Express Scripture that both A Mystical body of Teachers Gods written and unwritten word Sectaries want all Proves and Approves the Churches Proceeding in Doing so And this Sacred written Word faithfully Interpreted And the unwritten Deposited Word also most Infallibly Proposed is our Form our Rule and perfect Analogy of Faith O Had Sectaries but Half as much For what They boldly Assert contrary to us And because every Man is a Chutch with them They Define more then our Church Defines The Consecrated Host is Bread only a Figure of Christs Body only There are two Sacraments only Works Iustify not but Faith only c. Had I say These men but half Protestants have no Authority for their Definitions so much Authority for their Definitions How would they warble out the Notes of their Novelties But God hath Silenced them For they have neither Church nor Scripture nor Ancient Depositum nor Tradition nor Analogy nor Rule of Faith nor Motives to Make Talk only of a Nullity and an unproved Negative Religion what They Define probable nor Any other Thing to talk of But of a meer Nothing I mean the Nullity of Their unproved Negative Religion 5. What hitherto is said of Catholick Definitions made by Pope and Councils Chiefly Relates to such Matters as have been Anciently without Dispute Revealed yea And believed also Though not perhaps in order One way of Defining to all so Explicitly And this way of Defining some Divines call Propositionem That is a Reproposing of Mysteries formerly Believed whether clearly Deduced Gods unwritten word of equall Authority with his written word out of Gods Word or drawn from undoubted Tradition 'T is the very same For as the Oral Taught Doctrin of the Apostles was and is certain as Doctrin Registred in Scripture so all that really is Gods Vnwritten Word when proposed to us by the Church as such is in Substance of equal Authority and Credit with the Written For it is not the setting down of Truths in Velume or Partchment that Add's more Weight to them or makes them higher Verities And here by the way I cannot but Reflect on the