it and for the Pope I have heard that Bellarmin reckons up the several opinions and amongst others that the Pope if he be without a general Council may be an Heretick and teach Heresie and this saith he is the opinion of divers Papists and is determined by a Pope himself Adrian the 6th by name in his question about Confirmation Is this true or is Bellarmin bely'd Pop. It is true Bellarmin doth say so much and moreover that this opinion is not heretical and is tolerated by the Church but withall he tells you that he is of another opinion which is also the common opinion Prot. However that is sufficient for my purpose This one difference among you being far more considerable than all those points wherein Protestants differ among themselves for though they differ in other and lesser things they all agree in this great means of Union that they own the Holy Scriptures to be the Iudge or more properly the Rule of Controversies and therefore if you please let this pass and let me hear what further you have to say against us or for your selves Pop. This further I say the true Church must needs remain visible perpetually to the end of the world such our Church hath been whereas yours was invisible and as I said before unheard of in the world till Luthers dayes Prot. I do not well understand you Do you think the Church must needs be visible at all times to the whole world Pop. I cannot say so for she was not always visible to many great and famous parts of the world as China and America it may suffice that she is visible in some Kingdom or part of the world and that she remains so in all ages Prot. Then the Church may remain invisible to the greatest part of the world and so your argument reacheth but a small part of the world How I pray you must the Church be always visible Pop. There must be in all ages in some eminent place a great company of Christians visibly united together in the worship of God in one body and Congregation and governed by their successive Pastors under the Pope Prot. Very well now I know your mind and first I deny that it is necessary for the true Church to be so visible in all ages Do you prove it Pop. That I shall easily prove from those many and glorious promises made to the Church the Church is called a great Mountain and said to be exalted above other mountains Isa. 2. She is a City set upon a hill that cannot be hid Mat. 5. Christ hath promised to be with her to the end of the world Mat. 28. The gates of Hell shall not prevail against her Christs Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom Psal. 88. Dan. 2. A few invisible and dispersed Christians cannot make a Kingdom Prot. Your proofs are impertinent Isa. 2. doth prove that the Church under the New Testament should be glorious that is spiritually and prevalent so it was and we trust will be but he saith not the Church should always continue in that condition which is the point that you should prove Mat. 5. If it speak of the Church Christ only tells us what the Church then was not that it should always remain such besides he speaks of their duty not their condition and Mat. 28. proves that Christ will be with his Church but not so as that it shall always be illustrious and united in a great body this neither that nor any of your other Texts prove nor can you But suppose that Christ had made such a promise that his Church should be visible in all Ages in a considerable body How do you prove that our Church hath not been so visible in all ages Pop. If you affirm that it hath been visible in all Ages you are bound to produce a Catalogue of your Churches in all successive Ages Prot. That is not necessary neither If I did positively affirm that our Church had been visible in such manner in all Ages then I confess I am bound to prove it But if I leave it in doubt as a thing which for ought you or I know might be true or false he that affirms it was not so is bound to make it good and if I deny your Proposition by all Laws of dispute you must prove it I will shew by an instance how unconvincing your argument is There are several Prophesies and Promises in Scripture the execution whereof is not recorded there nor any where else suppose an Atheist comes to you and offers this Argument against the Scripture If the Scripture be true and the Word of God then all its Prophesies and Promises were accomplisht but there are several Prophesies and Promises there which never were accomplished within the time appointed therefore it is not true What would you answer Pop. I would deny this Proposition viz. That there are any such Prophesies or Promises there which were not accomplisht Prot. Suppose then he urge it thus If they were accomplisht then you must shew when and how they were accomplisht either in Scripture or other Stories if you cannot I shall conclude they never were accomplisht Pop. I should tell him That he is obliged to shew they were not accomplisht not I to shew that they were accomplisht I should tell him that they might be accomplisht though the accomplishment of them were never put into any writing and being but an Historical Tradition might easily be lost or if it were put into writing that also might be lost by the injury of time as thousands of other Books have been so that no prudent man will believe this mad Proposition That nothing was done in former Ages that was not mentioned in the Records which we have But if it were possible that some particular things were not recorded or wâ—re lost yet it is probable that so eminent and publick a matter as a Succession of Churches should lie hid Prot. I confess it is not so probable that a large and glorious Church should so lie hid but since it was sufficient for the making good of Christs promise of being ever with his Church if there were some few Congregations and Ministers though scattered in divers places that these should not be recorded is not at all strange nor improbable to any one who considers 1. How many matters of far greater note are recorded only in some single Author which if he had been lost and that he was as lyable to as they that were lost the memory of those things had perished with him 2. How wofully dark and ignorant some ages of the Church were as you all confess wherein there was not much reading but to be sure there was little or no writing and that little that was written was written by men of the times who would not do their Enemies that honour or right to put them into their Histories 3. If any did mention such things it is not at all improbable that such Book or
poor Elijah and so Michaiah were left alone nor those in Malachy's daies that the Priests caused them to stumble at the Law Malac 2. 8. nor the Crucifiers of Christ that they obeyed the decrees of their Priests and Rulers I list not to repeat what I have said elsewhere therefore read Nullity of Romish Faith ch 2. sect 12. And will you yet stumble at the same stone 2. The people will not be excused by their Priests misguidance because they neglect their duty If indeed there were no duty incumbent upon the people but to believe what your Priests say and do what they require then your Church speaks reason But that none but a mad man will say There are several duties required of the People no less than of the Priests the Law of God was not given only to the Priests but to all the People God publisheth this law in the hearing of all the people and speaks in the singular number to every one of the people thou shalt do or forbear this or that and the curse is threatned to the people Deut. 27. 26. Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them and all the people shall say Amen Which the Apostle repeats Gal. 3. 10. Cursed is every one not Priests only but the People too that continueth not in all things which are written in this book of the law to do them If the Priests then should have taught the Israelites as your Priests now teach you thou shalt worship a graven image when God saith thou shalt not worship a graven image can any serious man think this would have freed them from that curse and that it was safer for them to obey the Command of men than of God O the impudence of your Priests that dare say so O the blockishness of those people that will believe them when they say so your Pope may well contend with us for it seems your Priests will contest with God for Supremacy When the Priests and Prophets in Isaiahs daies were generally corrupt the people are not advised to believe all that they taught and to obey all that they decreed which is the strain of your Church but are commanded immediately to go to the law and to the testimony and if any speak not according to them they are to be rejected because there is no light in them Isa. 8. 20. Even people are required not to believe every spirit but to try the spirits 1 John 4. 1. Nor did the Apostles exempt themselves and their doctrines from this Tryal but allowed commended and required it in the people The Beraeans are not reproved and censured as they would certainly be that should tread in their steps at Rome but commended for examining the Doctrine of S. Paul by the Scripture Acts 17. 11. And the same Apostle allows the Galatians not only to try his Doctrines whether they were agreeable to what they had received but in case they find them contrary he gives them Commission to censure and anathemize him Gal. 1. 8 9. And he bespeaks the Corinthians in this language I speak to wise men judge you what I say 1 Cor. 10. 15. And he commands the Thessalonians to prove all things without exception as well as to hold fast that which is good 1 Thess. 5. 21. Consider these things I beseech you and do not wilfully cast away your precious souls upon trifles God hath given the Scripture as a rule to try things by and this was written for the Ignorant and the people as well as the learned and the Priests John 20. 31. he hath given people reason to try things with if you will hide these Talents in a Napkin at your peril be it The Prince was commanded to read and meditate in the Book of the Law that he might observe to do all that is written therein Iosh. 1. 8. Can you seriously think that if the corrupt Priests had agreed to teach him to do contrary to all that was written therein that this would have excused him before God then that Precept was both superfluous and dangerous and if you do not think so as you must needs if you have any Conscience then neither will it excuse your people for according to the Doctrine of your Church Prince and People are alike in this both tied to believe as your Church believes God commands every Christian to prove his own work and tells us that every man shall bear his own burden Gal. 6. 4 5. and that every man shall give an account of himself to God Rom. 14. 12. Do not think your Priests account shall serve turn and all the Christian people of Corinth are commanded to examine themselves whether they be in the faith 2 Cor. 13. 5. And dare you still live in the wilful breach of all these Commands and blindly give up your Souls and Consciences by an implicite faith to the conduct of your Priests to lead them whether they please 3. The Scripture hath given you full warning of your danger Read but two places Ezek 33. 8. where God assures us that the wicked shall die in his iniquity though he perished through the Watchmans fault and Matth. 15. 14. where Christ confutes this very opinion of yours which was also the opinion of the Jews that they were safe enough while they folowed their Priests Decrees and Counsels and tells them If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the Ditch and doubt of this if you can or dare In a word if this senceless Doctrine were true not only Men would have dominion over our Faith contrary to express Scripture Be not ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ Matth. 23. 10. Not that we have dominion over your faith said the great Apostle but also Christ should lose his dominion and have no authority in his Church but as your Priests please and it seems he shall not have this favour from you to continue in his Office quamdiu bene se gesserit but quamdiu vobis placuerit and Christs power is apparently limited to your Interpretation but the power of your Church is absolute and unlimited and the People obliged to believe them quamcunque sententiam tulerint whatsoever they shall decree as Gretser expresseth it If this be not to make the word and Authority of God and Christ void through your Traditions I know not what is I will trouble you no further If you be capable of Counsel take warning and suffer not your selves to be lead hoodwinckt to Hell to serve a Carnal Interest of some among you but quit your selves like men and by the grossness of this delusion learn to suspect the rest and with humble and honest hearts read what is here proposed to you for your Souls good and God give you light Let my Soul prosper no otherwise than I heartily wish the good and salvation of you all but if you will still persist in your blindness and add further obstinacy to your
denying of the reading of Scriptures to the people and others And will you yet brag of the Antiquity of your Religion 3. These Doctrines wherein we differ from you have been not only proved from Scripture but from the plain testimony of Antient Fathers as I think none can doubt that laying aside prejudices shall read what our Iewel and Morton and Field and others have written How then can you have the confidence to charge us with Novelty Pop. Your Church is new in this respect that although some others before you might own some of your Doctrines there was no Church that owned all your Doctrines both positive and negative Prot. That is not necessary I hope every alteration of Doctrines of less moment doth not make the Church new if it doth it is most certain that your Church is new also for nothing can be more plain than that the Catholick Church nay even your own Church of Rome did not antiently in former ages hold all these Doctrines which now she owns as your own greatest Authors confess this is sufficient that the Church of God in most former ages hath owned all our Substantial Doctrines But what have you further to say Pop. It is sufficient against you that your Church is Schismatical and you are all guilty of Schism in departing from the true Catholick Church which is but one and that is the Roman Prot. I desire to know of you Whether in no case a man may separate from the Church whereof he was a member without Schism Pop. Yes certainly if there be sufficient cause for it for the Apostles did separate from the Church of the Jews after Christs death and the Orthodox separated from the Arrian Churches and all Communion with them yet none ever charged them with Schism Prot. Since you mention that instance I pray you tell me Why they separated from the Arrians Pop. Because they held this Heresie That Christ was a Creature and not the true God Prot. Very well hence then I conclude That if your Church do hold any Heresie and require all her members to own it too it is no Schism for us to separate from you Pop. That must needs be granted but this is but a slander of yours for our Church holds no such Heresies Prot. Your Church doth not hold one but many dangerous Errours and Heresies as I do not doubt to manifest e're you and I part And if you please we will leave the present Argumeut to this issue if I do not prove your Church guilty of Heresie and the imposition of it too I am content you should charge us with Schism if I do you shall mention it no more Pop. You speak reason let it rest there Prot. Besides methinks you deal barbarously with us you drive us out from you by your tyranny and then you blame us for departing as if Sarah had call'd Hagar a Schismatick for going out of Abraham's family from which she forced her Tell me I pray you if the case be so that I must depart from the Roman Church or from God What must I do Pop. The case is plain you must rather depart from that Church Prot. This is the case If I do not depart from your Church she will force me to live in many mortal sins I must believe a hundred lies I must worship the Cross and Relicks and Images which God commands me under pain of his highest displeasure not to worship I must worship the Sacrament with divine worship which I am assured is no other for substance than bread for your Church is not content to hold these opinions but she enjoyns these practices to all her members And if things be thus I think you will not have the confidence any more to charge us with Schism for obeying the command of God to come out of Babylon since you force all your members to partake with you in your sins Rev. 18. 4. Besides all this let me ask you upon what account you charge us with Schism Pop. For departing from the Catholick Church and from your Mother Church of Rome and from the Pope whose Subjects once you were Prot. If then I can prove that we are not departed from the Catholick Church nor from our Mother Church nor from any of that subjection we owe to the Pope I hope you will acquit us from Schism Pop. That I cannot deny Prot. Then this danger is over For 1. We never did depart from the Catholick Church which is not your particular Roman Church as you most ridiculously call it but the whole multitude of Believers and Christians in the world Nay the truth is you are the Schismaticks in renouncing all Communion with all the Christian Churches in the world except your own which are equal to yours in number and many of them far superiour in true piety Next we do not own you for our Mother Ierusalem which is above not Babylon that is beneath is the Mother of us all If we grant now you are a true Church yet you are but a sister Church Pop. You forget that you received the Gospel from our hands Prot. Suppose we did really so Doth that give you authority over us If it did not Rome but Ierusalem should be the Mother Church from whom you also received the Gospel This you deny which shews that you do not believe your own Argument to be good And for the Popes Universal and Infallible Authority which he pretends over all Christians I have diligently read your Arguments for it and I freely profess to you I find your pretences both from Scripture and Fathers so weak and frivolous that I durst commend it to any understanding and disinterested person as a most likely means to convince him of the vanity and falseness of that Doctrine that he would peruse any of your best Authors and the very sight of the weakness and impertinency of your Arguments would abundantly satisfie him of the badness of your cause Pop. You have no Ministers because you have no uninterrupted succession from the Apostles as we have and therefore you have on Church and therefore no Salvation Prot. I observe you take the same course that the Adversaries of the Gospel ever did who when they could not reprove the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles they quarrelled with them for want of a Calling as you may see Iohn 1. 25. Mat. 21. 23. Act. 4. 7. But the good Christians of that time took another course and examined not so much the Call of the persons as the truth of the Doctrine Act. 8. 17. It seems to me a secret confession of your guilt and the Error of your Doctrine that you are so careful to turn off mens eyes from that to a far meaner point But tell me Do you believe that such an uninterrupted Succession of Ministers from the Apostles is absolutely necessary to the being of a Church Pop. Yes verily or else this Argument signifies nothing Prot. How then can you convince me
Books wherein they were recorded might either be lost by the injury of time as thousands of other Books were which was much more easie before Printing was found out or suppressed by the tyranny of your Predecessors who made it their business as Israels enemies of old that the name and remembrance of true Christians might be blotted out of the earth So then if Christ did indeed promise the perpetual visibility of his Church I will conclude he made it good though History be silent in the point nor will I conclude it was not done because it is not recorded But I pray you let me further ask you Is it true that I am told that in the former ages there were many Christians and Ministers whom your Church did persecute and burn for Hereticks Pop. That cannot be denyed Prot. This shews there were not wanting even in former ages some that testified against your corruptions and this was a sign they were the true Church whose office it is to contend for the Faith delivered to the Saints for these things were not done in a corner I am told that your great Bellarmine when is was objected against him that the Church was obscure in St. Hilaries dayes answers that though the true Church may be obscure by multitude of Scandals yet even then it is visible in its strongest members as then it was in Athanasius Hilary Eusebius and two or three more whom he mentions whence I gather that some few eminent Preachers and Professors of the Truth are sufficient to keep up this Visibility I remember I have read in the History of the Waldenses who though your Predecessors branded them with odious names and opinions yet do sufficiently appear to have been a company of Orthodox and serious Christians and indeed true Protestants these began about 500 Years ago saith your Genebrard and your Reinerius who was one of their cruel Butchers otherwise called Inquisitors writeth thus of them This Sect saith he is the most pernicious of all others for three causes 1. Because it is of long continuance some say that it hath endured from the time of Silvester others from the time of the Apostles The 2. is because it is more general for there is almost no Land in which this Sect doth not creep 3. That whereas all others by the immanity of their blasphemies against God do make men abhor them these having a great shew of godliness because they do live justly before men and believe all things well of God and all the Articles which are contained in the Creed only the Church of Rome they do blaspheme and hate Behold here out of your own mouths a plain Confutation of your Objection and a testimony of the perpetuity amplitude visibility and sanctity of our Church for it is sufficiently known that our Church and Doctrine is for substance the same with theirs Now tell me I pray you if this History of them had been lost and no other mention of them made in other Records Had it been a truth for you to affirm that there never were any such men and Churches in that time Pop. No surely for the recording of things in History doth not make them true nor the silence of Histories about true Occurrences make them false Prot. Then there might be the like Companies and Congregations in former ages for ought you or I know nor can you argue from the defect of an History to the denial of the thing And all this I say not as if there were no Records which mention our Church in former Ages for as I said before it is sufficiently evident that all our material Doctrines have been constantly and successively owned by a considerable number of persons in several Ages but only that you may see there is a flaw in the very foundation of your Argument Moreover I finde in Scripture several instances of such times when the Church was as much obscured and invisible as ever our Church was as when Israel was in Egypt so oft-times under the Judges Iudg. 2. 3. and so under divers of the Kings as Ahab when Elijab complained he was left alone and the 7000. which were reserved though known to God were invisible to the prophet and under Ahaz and Manasseh and so in the Babylonish captivity and so under Antiochus read at my desire 2 Chr. 15. 3. 28. 24. 29. 6 7. 33. 3 4. so in the New Testament how obscure and in a manner invisible was the Christian Church for a season Nay let me add this perpetual visibility and splendour is so far from being a note of the true Church that on the contrary it is rather a sign that yours is not the true Church as appears thus Christ hath foretold the obscurity and smallness of his Church in some after ages he tells us that there shall be a general Apostasie and defection from the faith 2 Thess. 2. 1 Tim. 4. I read of a woman Rev. 12. and she is forced to flee into the Wilderness and I am told your own Expositors agree with us that this is the Church which flees from Antichrist into the Wilderness and secret places withdrawing her self from persecution Is this true Pop. I must confess our Authers do tâ—ke it so Prot. Then it seems you do not believe your selves when you plead the necessity of perpetual visibility and splendour for here you acknowledge her obscurity and really this place and discourse of yours does very much confirm me that that obscurity which you object against us is an argument that ours is the true Church though according to this Prediction the Pope this Antichrist did drive our Predecessors into the Wilderness I read of a Beast rising out of the Sea Revel 13. which your own Authors Menochius Tirinus and almost all Expositors as Riberus saith acknowledge to be Antichrist and this Beast all the Inhabitants of the World do worship except those whose names are written in the Book of life verse 8. that is excepting only the invisible Church if any Church be visible and glorious at that time it must be the false and Antichristian Church and now I speak of that I have heard that you your selves confess that in the time of Antichrist the Church shall be obscure and all publick Worship in the Churches of Christians shall be forbidden and cease Is it so Pop. It is true it shall be so i. e. during the time of Antichrists reign as Bellarmine acknowledgeth but that is only for a short moment for three years and a half which is all the time that Antichrist shall reign Prot. I thank you for this for now you have exceedingly confirmed me in the truth of my Religion for since you grant that the Church shall be obscured durings Antichrist reign I am very well assured that your opinion of the Triennial reign of Antichrist is but a meer dream and that he was to reign in the Church for many hundred of years for 1260 dayes Rev. 11. 3.
and that the Atheist ought to yield to them Pop. Yes doubtless for every man is bound to receive the truth especially when it is so proposed and proved to him Prot. It seems then by this when you list you can prove the Scripture to be the Word of God without taking in the Churches Authority I hope you will allow me the same benefit But again let me ask you your Church that you talk of which believes the Scripture to be the Word of God Doth she believe it to be the Word of God upon solid grounds or no Pop. Yes doubtless our Church is not so irrational as to believe without grounds nor do we pretend Revelation but she believes it upon solid Arguments Prot. I wish you would give me a list of their Arguments But whatever they be that are sufficient to convince your Church why should they not be sufficient to convince any private man Popish or Protestant or Atheist And therefore there is no need of the Churches testimony Or will you say the Church hath no other sufficient reason to believe the Scriptures but her own testimony that is she believes because she will believe Pop. God forbid that I should disparage the Church or give Atheists that occasion to scoff at the Stripture Prot. Then I also may be satisfied without the Churches testimony that the Scriptures are the Word of God and I am so by such Arguments as your self mentioned but really I cannot but smile to see what cunning sophisters you are how you play at fast and loose The same Arguments for the Scriptures are strong and undeniable when you talk with an Atheist and are all of a sudden become weak as water when a Protestant brings them Pop. But if you can prove in the General That the Scriptures are the Word of God yet you cannnot without the Churches Authority tell what Books of Scripture or which are Canonical and so you are never the nearer Prot. Here also I must ask you again How doth your Church know which Books are Scripture and Canonical doth she know this by Revelation Pop. No we leave such fancies to your Church Prot. How then doth she know this and why doth she determine it Is it with reason or without it Pop. With reason doubtless being induced to believe and determine it upon clear and undoubted Evidences Prot. I pray you tell me what are those Evidences upon which she goes Pop. I will be true to you our great Bellarmine mentions these three The Church saith he knows and declares a Canonical Book 1. From the testimonies of the Antients 2. From its likeness and agreement with other Books 3. From the common sense and taste of Christian people Prot. Since a private man especially one that besides learning and experience hath the Spirit of God to guide him which is that anointing given to all Believers which teaches them all things 1 Joh. 2. 27. may examine and apprehend these things as well as the Pope himself and better too considering what kind of creatures divers of your Popes are confest to have been he may therefore know without the Churches Authority what Books are indeed Canonical but I pray you tell me Do not you acknowledge those books to be the Word of God which we do that are in this Bible Pop. I must be true to you we do own every Book you have there but you should receive the Books which you call Apocryphal so that indeed your Bible is not compleat for you believe but a part of the written Word of God which I must tell you is of dangerous consequence Prot. If these Books be a part of Gods Word I confess we are guilty of a great sin in taking away from Gods Word and if they be not you are no less guilty in adding to it so that the only question is Whether these Books be a part of the holy Scripture or no Now that if you please we will try Bellarmines rules Pop. The motion is fair and reasonable Prot. First then for the judgment of the Antient Church let us try that I know you hold the Churches judgment infallible especially in matters of this moment and I suppose you think the Iewish Church was infallible before Christ as the Christian Church now is Pop. We do so and the Infallibility of the Iewish Church and High Priest Deut. 17. is one of our principal Arguments for the Infallibility of our Church Prot. Then only these Books of the old Testament were Canonical which the Jewish Church did own Pop. That must necessarily follow Prot. Then your cause is lost for it is certain the Jews rejected these Apocryphal Books which you receive and they reckoned only 22. Iosephus his words acknowledged for his by Eusebius are most express for us The Iews have only 22 Books to which they deservedly give credit which contains things written from the beginning of the World to the times of Artaxerxes other things were written afterward so the Apocryphal Books are granted to have been but they are not of the same credit with the former because There was no certain succession of Prophets and I am told divers of your learned Authors confess it as Catharinus Costerus Marianus Victor and Bellarmine himself whose words are these All those Books which the Protestants do not receive the Iews also did not receive and this is more considerable because to the Iews were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. And neither Christ nor his Apostles did accuse them of breach of trust in this matter Moreover I am told and surely in all reason it must needs be true that the Canonical Books of the Iewish Church were written in the Iewish or Hebrew language whereas these were written in Greek only Are these things so Pop. What is true I will acknowledge It is so The Jewish Church indeed did not receive them nor yet did they reject them as our Canus well answers Prot. Either that Church did believe them to be Canonical or they did not if they did then they lived in a mortal sin against Conscience in not receiving them if they did not they were of our opinion Pop. Well what soever the Jewish Church did I am sure the Antient Christians and Fathers did receive these Books as a part of the Canonical Scriptures Prot. I doubt I shall take you tardy there too I am told that the Council of Laodicea in the year of our Lord 364. drew up a Catalogue of the Books of the Scripture in which as in ours the Apocryphal Books are rejected Pop. It is true they did not receive them nor yet reject them Prot. If they did not receive them that undeniably shews that they did not believe them to be Canonical and yet they diligently scanned the point and the Books had then been extant some hundred of years and they were far more likely to know the truth than we at this distance having then
or any other Christian that you have had such an uninterrupted Succession in your Church You must produce and it seems I must read all those many hundreds of great Volumes wherein such passages are mentioned In those you must shew me a perfect catalogue of the several names of those Popes and others who have without interruption succeeded one another ever since the Apostles days and this catalogue must be such that all your Authors are agreed in whereas I am told for certain they differ very much in their reports therein and are not so much as agreed among themselves who was Peter's next Successor whether Linus or Clemens or some other person they know not who and those Historians that report these things you must assure me that they were infallible which you do not pretend they were or else they might mistake the things themselves and mis-report them to me and I have heard and read that there have been divers interruptions and Schisms even in your Church one Pope set up against another and each pretending to be the true Pope and disannulling all the Acts of the other and that the Christian people were then wofully divided some cleaving to one others to another but it may be this was a mistake of our Ministers therefore tell me Was this true or no Pop. I confess it was true after the year of Christ 1300. there were several Popes at the same time one at Rome another at Avignon Prot. And how long did this difference last Pop. For about 50. years Prot. And is it true that I have heard that your great Baronius reports that for 150 years together the Popes were rather Apostates than Apostolicks and that they were thrust into the Papal Chair by the power of Harlots and the violences of the Princes of Tuscany Pop. I must be true to you Baronius doth say so at the year 897. Prot. Then never hence forward be so impudent to pretend to such a lawful clear and uninterrupted succession but blush that ever you mentioned it But besides I have heard that divers of our first reformed and reforming Ministers too were such as had received Ordination from and in the Church of Rome and from your Bishiops Is it true or is it not Pop. I will be ingenuous Our Doctors confess it but if your Ministers or some of them had a call from our Church yet they were only called to Preach not to overturn the world as they did and to undertake the Reformation of the whole Church Prot. You have said enough if they were called to the Ministry their Work and Office was to bear witness to the Truth and therefore to undeceive the world in those many Errors and Heresies which you had brought into the Church and Ministers are set for the defence of the Gospel they were therefore bound by their Office to edeavour the Reformation of the Church and salvation of Souls and as in a great Fire especially where the publick Officers neglect their Duty every man brings his Bucket to quench it so in that miserable estate into which you had brought the Church when the Pope and Bishops would not do their duty it was the duty of every Minister to endeavour and to stir up the Kings and Magistrates of the World to endeavour a Reformation Surely you cannot pretend to an higher priviledge than St. Paul and yet he gives all Ministers and Christians this leave and charge that if he himself should bring any other doctrine than what he had delivered any Minister though happily such a one as received his calling from him or Christian might not only forsake him but judge him accursed I shall only adde this our Ministers are in a very hard case I have discoursed with Anabaptists who have reasoned against our Ministers as no Ministers because they had their calling from Rome and now you will make them no Ministers because they had no Calling from Rome How shall they please you and them too But what have you further to say Pop. I have this further which is indeed unanswerable namely the horrible divisions of and in your Churches Here is Luther an and Calvinist Episcopal and Presbyterian Independent and Anabaptist and Quaker and Socinian and Familist and what not so that a man that would turn to your Church knows not which to turn to but our Church is one and entire at perfect unity in it self Prot. I pray you tell me in the first place are divisions a certain Argument to prove any Church not to be true Pop. I cannot say so for it is plain the Iewish Church in Christs time was full of Divisions there were Pharisees Sadduces Essenes c. And so was the Church of Corinth in St. Pauls time while some said I am of Paul others I of Apollo others I of Cephas and some denyed Pauls Ministry and Apostleship and some denyed the Resurrection Prot. Very well then you may blush to use such an Argument I am told that the old Heathens did use this very Argument against the Primitive Christians Pop. It is true they did Prot. What a shame is it that you are forced to defend your cause with such weapons as were used by the Pagans and wrested out of their hands by the Antient Fathers But besides you talk of our Divisions I pray you let me ask you will you allow me to father all the opinions of every Papist I read or talk with upon your Church Pop. No in no wise Let our Church speak for her self It is one great fault of your Ministers they catch up every particular Opinion of any Private Doctor and presently charge our Church with it though it be such as she hath condemned whereas they should judge of our Church only by her own Decrees and Councils Prot. Very well I desire only the same justice from you Do not father upon our Church those Opinions which she dislikes and abhors Socinians Quakers c. are yours rather than ours and joyn with you in abundance of your Doctrins Judge of our Churches by their publick Confessions and there also you would find that our divisions are generally inconsiderable being almost all about a Form of Government or oft-times but a manner of expression and none of them in fundamental Points But since you talk of Divisions let me ask you are all the Members of your Church of one mind I have been told otherwise We hear great talk every day of the difference between the Jansenists and the Jesuits and if we may believe either of them it is a Fundamental difference and such as concerns the very life of Religion I will not trouble you with other things But are you agreed in that which is the foundation of your unity I mean concerning the Supream Infallible Judge of Controversies I remember your self told me that some of you thought it was the Pope and others a Council And I have read that Popish Nations and Universities and Doctors are all together divided about