now calling our Religion and disputing of though this Religion teach us to obey Parents Pastors and Princes and that obedience may be consequentially and reductively called Religious if you please But if really your Religion be not Divine but Humane let us know it For by the word Religion we essentially mean that which is Divine P. Men were the speakers and writers of the Scriptures and so far they are humane as well as the Decrees of the present Church R. The Decalogue was witten by God and delivered by the Ministry of Angels Christ was owned by a Voice from Heaven And himself spake and did most recited by the four Evangelists And the Prophets and Apostles spake by the immediate Infallible Inspiration of the Holy Ghost So that the Holy Ghost is the Author of the Scriptures But the present Pastors of the Church instead of that Immediate Revelation from God by the Spirits Inspiration have but the ordinary help of the Spirit to understand those same Revelations and that proportioned to the measure of their diligence natural parts and helps of Art as the knowledge of Theologie is attained by other Students who are none of them perfect or free from error P. I will tell you what our Religion is It is Gods Word concerning things to be Believed and Done delivered partly in the Canonical Scriptures and partly by Oral Tradition and received by the Church and by it delivered to us The Trent Catech. Prefac q. 12. saith Omnis doctrinae ratio quae fidelibus tradenda sit verbo Dei continetur quod in Scripturam Traditionesque distributum est The Reason of every doctrine which is to be delivered to the faithful is contained in the Word of God which is distributed into the Scripture and Traditions Vide Concil Senonens in Bin. Decr. 5. p. 671. Concil Tridentini Sess 4. p. 802. Perspiciensque hanc Veritatem disciplinam contineri in libris sacris sine scripto Traditionibus quae ex ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptae ab ipsi Apostolis Spiritu sancto dictante quasi per manus traditae ad nos usque pervenerunt orthodoxorum patrum sententiam sequuta omnes libros tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti nec non Traditiones ipsas tum ad fidem tum ad mores pertinentes tanquam vel ore tenus a Christo vel a Spiritu sancto dictaâ—as continua successione in Ecclesia Catholica conservatas pari pietatis affectu reverentia suscipit ac veneratur Bellarmin de Verbo Dei lib. 4. c. 2 3. sheweth the divers sorts of unwritten Traditions which are part of Gods Word some de side as the perpetual Virginity of Mary that there are but four Gospels c. and some of Manners as Crossing Fast-dayes c. Easter Whitsontide and other Festivals Veron de Reg. fid cap. 2. saith The total and only Rule of the Catholick faith to which all are obliged under pain of Heresie and Excommunication is Divine Revelation delivered to the Prophets and Apostles proposed by the Catholick Church in her General Councils or by her Universal practice to be believed as an Article of Catholick faith All that is of this nature is an Article or doctrine of faith And no other doctrine can be of faith if either the first Condition fail viz. Divine Revelation or the second which is a Proposal by the Universal Church p. 5. No doctrine grounded on Scripture diversly interpreted either by the antient Fathers or our Modern Doctors is an Article of faith For such a doctrine though it may be revealed yet the revelation is not ascertained to us nor proposed by the Church Nor any Proposition which can be proved only by consequence drawn from Scripture though the consequences were certain and evident and deduced from two propositions of Scripture Yet these doctrines are Certain when the premises are so Gratians decrees the Papal decrees contained in the body of the Canon Law none of them do constitute an Article of saith Nor that which is defined in Provincial Councils though the Pope preside in person for the second condition is alwayes wanting in this case and very often the first p. 11. I did not say that such definitions were not of faith but they are not of Catholick faith or which all as Catholicks are bound to hold as of faith and the contrary to which is heretical and removeth from the bosome of the Church p. 12 13. The Practice even of the Vniversal Church is no sufficient ground for an Article of Catholick faith by reason the object of faith is Truth and oft times the Church proceeds in matter of practice upon probable Opinions and this probability is sufficient to justifie the practice which the Church on just cause may change As e. g. as Vasquez teacheth the Church did antiently pray in the Mass for Infidels alive and Catechumens dead and the Sacrifice of the Mass was offered for them and yet he rather inclineth to the contrary that the Sacrifice of the Mass ought not to be offered but for the faithful living and dead by which Opinion the Church seemeth guided at present But Vasquez answers that the Church following a probable opinion did practise that which she did not declare to be of faith p. 15. So General Councils when they mention any thing in this manner by way of simple assertion and do not properly define For as Bellarmine affirms it is necessary that General Councils properly define the thing in question as a Decree which ought to be held as of Catholick faith Hence Bellarmine adds they are not properly Hereticks who hold the Pope not to be above all Councils though he say the last Laterane Council under Leo the tenth Ses 11. expresly and professedly teacheth that the Pope is above all Councils and rejects the contrary Decree of the Council of Basil because it is doubtful whether the Laterane Council defined that doctrine properly as a Decree to be believed with Catholick faith The same Bellarm. de Concil l. 2. c. 19. also requireth that the definition be made Conciliarly Pope Martin the fifth said he only confirmed those Decrees of faith which were made in the Council of Constance Conciliariter that is after the manner of other Councils the question being first diligently examined But its clear saith he that this Decree that a General Council hath immediate authority from Christ which all even the Pope are bound to obey was made without any examining p. 17. The object defined must be truly and properly an object of faith and a Decree ought to be on a thing universally proposed to the whole Church Vasquez holds It is not at all erroneous to affirm that a General Council may err in Precepts and in particular Judgements and p. 19. in framing Laws not necessary to salvation or making superfluous Laws Without all doubt a General Council may err in a question of fact which depends on testimony and
information of men So the sixth General Council condemned Honorius of Heresie by false Information and misunderstanding his Epistles p. 20. The Pope saith Suarez to a particular action belonging to humane Prudence hath no infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost As that such or such an excommunication is valid or that such or such a Kingdom is disposable by the Pope for such and such causes So far Veron who is most favourable to you in narrowing our faith R. Thus far you have resolved me but I must crave somewhat more Qu. I. Are there no Essential Constitutive parts of your Religion more necessary than the Integrals and Accidentals Have you no description for it but that It is Divine Revelation proposed by the Church The Doctrine of Sacrificing was a Divine Revelation to Adam and the difference of clean and unclean Beasts to Noah and the Jewish Law was Gods Revelation to Moses and them And yet I suppose Christianity is somewhat different from all these Is not Christianity your Religion Hath Christianity no Constitutive special Essence but only the Genus of Divine Revelation which is common to that with all other Divine Revelations And what if you add to a Prophet or Apostle Was Agabus Prophesie of Paul or Pauls of the event of the shipwrack c. essential to Christianity Hath Christianity no Essence Or is all Divine Revelation essential to it P. You take advantage of the disagreement of our Doctors You know that some few acknowledg distinct fundamentals and some deny the distinction in your sense And most of us say that no man can enumerate the things necessary to all but that it dependeth upon mens various capacities educations and means of knowing And in sum that no more is necessary to all to be explicitly believed but that Gods Revelations are true and that All are Gods Revelations which the Church proposeth as such You may take our judgement much from him that cometh nearest to you whom I have heard you much praise as most moderate and judicious viz. Dr. H. Holden Anal. fid l. 1. c 5. Lect. 2. p. 53. Divines disputing of the necessity of points to be believed do commonly tend this way to denote the Articles of things revealed the explicite and express belief whereof is as they opine altogether necessary to all Christians The resolution of which question is among them so doubtful and uncertain as that they are in this as ☞ they are in all things else distracted and divided into various Opinions which they that care for them may seek To me they are as Nothing while the Authors of them profess that they have nothing of Certainty Yea to one that meditateth the matter it self laying by all preoccupation it is most clearly manifest that the Resolution of this question is not only unprofitable that I say not pernicious as it is handled by Divines but also vain and impossible It is unprofitable because no good accrueth by it to souls ☞ It is pernicious while Divines for the most part assert that only One or Two Articles yea as some say no singular Article at all is necessary to be believed of all by an explicite faith For hence however the truth of the matter be the colder Christians taking occasion do little care to obtain that degree of Knowledge in the Mysteries of faith which they might commodiously and easily attain It is Impossible seeing it is Manifest that no particular Rule or Points to be believed or Number of Articles can in this Matter be given or assigned which shall be wholly common and necessary to all Christians For this dependeth on every individual mans natural capacity means of instruction and all the other circumstances of each mans life and disposition which are to each man so special that we can determine of nothing at all that is common to all But I handle the Necessity of points to be Believed in a far other sense For the Articles of the Christian faith which I now call necessary I do not at all understand to be such as all and every one must distinctly know or hold by explicite assent But I mean only such the belief of which is accounted universally by the whole Catholick Church so substantial and essential as that he that will deservedly be esteemed and truly be a member of it must needs adhere to them all at least Implicitely and Indirectly that is by believing whatsoever the holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of divine faith And therefore he is for that cause to be removed from its Communion and Society who shall pertinaciously and obstinately deny the least of them much more if he maintain the contrary while he knoweth and seeth that it is the Universal sentence of that Church that we must adhere to that as an Article of faith And in this sense I will henceforth use the word Necessity R. This might have been said in fewer and plainer words viz. That your Divines herein do commonly err and that perniciously and yet that indeed he is of the same mind viz. that It is impossible to name the Articles necessary to be believed explicitely of all because each mans divers capacity means and circumstances diversifie them to each But that only this one thing is explicitely to be believed That whatsoever the Holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of faith is true And therefore that no man must pertinaciously deny any thing which he knoweth the Church so holdeth So that nothing is necessarily to be believed actually and indeed but Gods and the Churches Veracity P. Another of ours that cometh as near you as most openeth this more fully Davenport alias Fr. a Sancta Clara De. Nat. Grat. p. 111 c. As to the Ignorance of those things that are of necessity of Means or End there is difference among the Doctors For Soto 4. d. 5. q. 5. l. de Nat. Grat. c. 12. Vega l. 6. c. 20. sup Trid. hold that now in the Law of Grace there is no more explicite faith required than in the Law of Nature Yea Vega ib. Gabriel 2. d. 21. q. 2. ar 3. 3. d. 21. q. 2. think that in the Law of Nature and in Cases in the Law of Grace some may be saved with only natural knowledge and that the habit of faith is not required Whom Horantius terms men of great name and will not accuse of heresie I would this great mans modesty were more frequent with modern Doctors Yea Alvarez de aux disp 56. with others seemeth to hold that to justification there is not at all required the knowledge of a supernatural object or the supernatural knowledge of the object Others hold That both to Grace and Glory is required an explicite belief of Christ Bonav 3. d. 25 c. Others that at least to salvation is an explicite belief of the Gospel or
saved whatsoever else he want But it is as true that he that Receiveth the Essentials will from the same principles and obligations receive more when it is aptly notified to him And he that truly Covenanteth will honestly keep the Covenant he maketh which bindeth him still to learn of Christ But if any man be saved without the Essentials he must be saved without Christianity D. But you know that they distinguish of faith Explicite and Implicite He may be Implicitely a Christian that believeth not the Essentials Explicitely as long as he believeth that which would infer them if they were made known to him to be indeed the Word of God R. Thus do Words abuse and cheat the ignorant Could you but read their own Dr. Holden before cited in his Analys fid you would find this distinction justly rendred by him shameful and ridiculous according to their common sense and use of it and the truer sense delivered and vindicated An Implicite faith or Knowledge we confess to be true as it is opposed to 1. A distinct or 2. To a well-expressed faith or Knowledge For it is Implicite ☞ 1. As to the Object when a man knoweth the whole matter but not by distinct parts As a man may know a Cup of water and not know how many drops or drams it is or he may know a sentence and not know how many letters are in it 2. Or it is Implicite as to the Act when it is yet but a crude imperfect conception and the thing is really known but not the Logical notions or Grammatical names either the verba oris or mentis by which it should be expressed So that the man cannot notifie his knowledge to another These two are called Implicite the first signifieth Confused and General Knowledge and the other Imperfect and undigested But to call that Implicite faith or knowledge which extendeth only to some Principles and not to the Conclusions themselves is 1. To Call No-knowledge and faith by the name of knowledge and faith 2. And by their application to confound the World and the Church and to make all the Infidels and Heathens to be Christians and every Fool a Philosopher For 1. All men of Reason know these two Principles who own a God 1. That God is not a lyer but all his Word is True 2. That all the Truths in the world are God's some way or other revealed by him Therefore if they knew that the Gospel were Gods word they would believe it or if they knew it to be one of those Truths that are in the world they would take it to be of God And thus all Infidels and Turks and Pagans may by such abuse be called Implicite Christians But why then do the Papists burn the Protestants when if their Religion were true we are all Implicitely Papists For we believe 1. That all Divine Revelations are True 2. And that all those are Infallible whom God hath promised to make Infallible 3. And that all those must be believed and obeyed whom God hath commanded us to believe and obey 4. And that we must not forsake that Church which God hath commanded us to adhere to 5. And that all our Lawful Pastors must be reverenced and submitted to 6. And all their lawful Precepts obeyed 7. And all Gods Sacraments holily used 8. And all Traditions from the Apostles to the Churches received with many more such Only we know not that the Pope is our Pastor or that his Councils are the Church or have a promise of Infallibility and so of the rest And yet we must burn for it if they can procure it And yet he is a true believer Implicitely who believeth not the Essentials of Christianity But the Design which is predominant here is too visible when this Implicite faith cometh to be described For it is not a Belief in God or in Christ only that will serve the turn but it must be a belief in the Church and their Church and their Pope too or else it will not do The Implicite faith is the explicite belief of these three Articles 1. All Gods Word is true 2. All that is Gods Word which the Church tells us is Gods Word 3. The Pope and his Council and Subjects are this Church And yet this man must be supposed if he know no more per impossibile not to know that there is a Christ or who he is as to his Person or Office or what he hath done or will do for us And yet that he hath a Vicar and a Church Or else they may know Christ and Christianity before they know that there is any Pope or Church and then the Pope hath lost the Game D. But if Popery be so senseless a thing as you make it how come so great a number of persons of all ranks and qualities Kings Nobles Learned men and Religiously-disposed persons to embrace it Have not they souls to save or lose as well as you and do they not lay all their hopes of Heaven upon it and can such persons and so many be so mad and senseless R. Do we need thus to ramble round about as if we would doubt of the thing till we know the Causes of it when we see and they all confess that they deny all our senses Will you not believe that there is a Sun till you know what it is made of Or whether the Sea ebb and flow till you know the Causes of it I pray you tell me Q. 1. Do you think that the Mahometan's is not a very foolish Religion and their foundation the pretended Mission of their Prophet without any shew of truth and his Alcoran if ever you read it a heap of Non-sense and Confusion D. Yes I think it deserveth no better thoughts R. And do you not know that though it arose not till about six hundred years after Christ much more of the world is Mahometan than Christian And are there not far Greater Emperours and Princes Mahometans than any that are Christians And have not all these souls to save or lose And do they not all venture their souls upon that Religion Why then is not your argument here as good for Mahometanism as for Popery D. Though the Emperours of Constantinople the Great Mogul the Persian Tartarian Mahometans c. be all Great as to their vast Dominions yet they are barbarous and unlearned in comparison of the Papists R. 1. It is not because they have not as much wit as we but because they think that our laborious wordy kind of learning is an abuse of wit and against true Policy ludicrously or contentiously diverting mens minds and time from those employments which they think more manly and profitable to the Common-wealth Though no doubt but they do err more unmanly on that extream But I further ask you Q. 2. Do you not think that the Common Religion of the Heathens is very unworthy for any wise man to venture his soul upon If you have but read
TRUE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES Here note 1. That our Religion hath its Essential parts And its Integral parts and Accidentals I. The Essentials of our Religion are contained in the Baptismal Covenant which is expounded in the CREED the LORDS PRAYER and the DECALOGUE as delivered and expounded by Christ and the Law of Nature II. Our Entire Religion in the Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals is contained wholly in the Law of Nature and the Canonical Scriptures The Essentials are delivered down to us two wayes 1. In Scripture with the rest 2. By the sure tradition of the Vniversality of Christians in actual Baptizings and the daily profession of Christianity This is all the Protestants Religion If you fasten any other on us we deny it we own no other And none know What is my Religion that is What I take for the Rule of my holy Faith Love and Life so well as my self P. This is meer craft you will make that only which is past controversie among us to be Your Religion that so your Religion may be past controversie too R. It is such Craft as containeth that naked truth which we trust all our own salvation on I say that I have no other Religion And if you know better than I disprove me P. I disprove you three wayes I. Because the Name Protestant signifieth no such Religion but somewhat else lately taken up II. Because the Angustane Confession the thirty nine Articles and such like are by your selves called The Articles of your Religion III. Because all your Writings declare that besides these you hold all those controverted points which are contrary to that which you call Popery R. I pray you mark D. that he would perswade you that he knoweth my Religion better than I do my self What if I should pretend the like as to his Religion Were I to be believed P. No but if you have an odd Religion of your own that proveth it not to be the Protestant Religion R. Remember D. that I come not hither to perswade you to any other Religion than this which I have mentioned Let him talk as long as he will what is other mens opinions I perswade you to nothing but this to take Gods Law of Nature and the Scripture for your Religion Either this is Right or Wrong If Right fix here and I have done If Wrong let that be disputed But yet I open to you all his three deceits I. The name Protestant doth not signifie our Religion but our Protesting against the Papists corruptions and additions I have no Religion but Christianity I am a Christian and that signifieth all my Religion I am a Catholick Christian that is of the Common Christian Faith and Church and not of any heretical dividing Sect And I am a Reformed Protestant Christian because I renounce Popery Therefore I rather say The Protestants than the Protestant Religion As if I were among Lepers If I say I am no Leper that signifieth not my Essence But if I say I am a Man and I am not a Leper I speak my Nature and my freedom from that disease So if I say I am a Christian Protestant I mean only that I am a Christian and no Papist or renouncing Popery as by the word Catholick I renounce all Sects and Schisms I tell you This is my meaning when I say I am a Protestant and can you tell my meaning better than my self II. And as to what he saith of the thirty nine Articles and other Church Confessions I answer None of these are our Religion in the sense now in question that is They are not taken by us to be the Divine Revealed-Rule of our Faith Love and Life which is our Religion now disputed of And that this is so I prove to you past all question For 1. Else should we have as many Religions as we have Church Confessions and should alter our Religion as oft as we alter our Confessions and our Religion should be as New as those Confessions All which the Protestants abhor 2. All those very Confessions themselves do assert that Gods Word is our only Religion and all mens Writings and Decrees are lyable to mistakes To pass by all the rest these are the words of our sixth Article Holy Scripture containeth all things Necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of faith or be thought Requisite or necessary to salvation What would you have more plain and full And in the Book of Ordination it is askt Are you perswaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ And are you determined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge and to teach Nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation but that which you shall be perswaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture Is not this plain P. Why then do you call the thirty nine Articles the Articles of your Religion And what is their use And why are all required to subscribe them R. 1. Their Use is to signifie how the Conjunct Pastors who use them do understand the Holy Scriptures in those points And that partly for the satisfaction of all forreign Churches who may hear us accused of Heresie or Error and partly to be a hedge to the Doctrine of young Preachers to keep them from vending mistakes in the Churches and also to try the soundness of their understandings 2. The Confessions and Articles and Catechisms are our Religion as the Writings of Perron Bellarmine Suarez c. or many of these agreeing are the Roman Religion They are not the Divine Revelation and Rule of faith and practice to us But they are the expression of our own conceptions of the sense of several chief matters in that Rule or Revelation So that they are the Expression of our faith or Religion taken subjectively for acts and habits and not our objective Rule it self Our Sermons and Prayers are our Religion in this sense that is The Expression of our own Religious Conceptions And so are your Sermons and your Writings also to you But if this were our Rule of Faith and Life and so our Divine Objective Religion then we should be of as many Religions as we are several persons For every one hath his several Expressions And every new Sermon or Book or Prayer would be a new part of Religion And so with you also So that this doubt is past all doubt Our Confessions are but the expressions of our personal belief and not our Rule of Faith III. And as to your third pretence that we have other Articles as opposite to Popery I answer Our Religion as a Rule of Faith and Worship is one thing And our Rejecting all Corruptions and Additions is another E. g. My Religion is that our God is only the true God
God to be Cruel to Mankind and that under pretence of Grace Even to put such hard Conditions of salvation on man which seem to us impossible to any but mad men or those who by faction have cast their minds into a dream If these be Gods Conditions that no man shall be saved that doth not believe that all his senses and all the senses of all the world are deceived when they perceive Bread and Wine or substance many may take on them to believe it but few will believe it and be saved indeed Reason XI Hereby you make the Gospel or New Covenant to be far harder and more rigorous than either the Law of Moses or the Law of Innocency For neither of these did damn men for believing the agreeing senses of all mankind Perfect Obedience to a perfect nature was fit to be a delight The burdensome Ceremonies had no such Impossibilities in them None of them obliged men to renounce all their senses and to come to Heaven by so hard a way Reason XII You seem to me to Contradict Gods Law and terms of life and to forge the clean contrary as his He saith He that cometh to God must Believe that God is c. and He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned But you seem to me to say in plain effect He that Believeth Gods Natural Revelations to all mens senses shall be damned and that believeth that the said Revelations are false may be saved caeteris paribus Reas XIII And what a thing by this do you mak◠Gods Grace to be Whereas true Grace is the Repaire◠and perfecter of Nature you make it to be the destroye◠and deceiver of Nature The use of Grace according to your faith is to cause men to believe that Gods natural Revelations are false and that all the senses of th◠world in this matter are deceived Whereas a mad ma◠can believe this without Grace Reas XIV By this doctrine you abominably corrupt the Church with hypocrisie while all that will hav◠Communion with you must be forced to profess tha◠all mens senses are thus deceived And can you thin◠that really they can all believe it or rather you◠Church must be mostly made up of gross hypocrites who falsly take on them to believe it when they do not Reas XV. And by this means you make the Vnity of the Church to become a meer Impossibility For you◠condition of union is that men all believe this among other Articles of your faith And that man hath lost o◠vitiated his humanity who can believe and expect tha◠all Christians in the world should ever believe that al◠the senses of all the world are thus deceived You might as well say The Church shall never have Unity till all Christians do believe that David or Christ was a Worm and no man a door a Vine a thief a Rock in proper sense or we shall have no unity till we renounce both our humanity and animality and the light and Law of God in Nature And after this to cry up Vnity and cry down Schism what abominable hypocrisie is it Reas XVI And by this doctrine what bloody inhumanity is become the brand or Character of your Church When you decree Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. that all that will not thus renounce their senses and give the lie to Gods natural revelations shall be excommunicated and utterly undone in this World even banished from all that they have and from the Land of their Nativity Yea your Inquisition must torture and burn them and your Writ de hereticis comburendis must be issued out against them to fry them to death in flames if they will not renounce the common senses of mankind Reas XVII And it even amazeth me to think what horrid Tyrants you would thus make all Christian Princes When the said Canon determineth that they shall be first Excommunicate and then cast out of their Dominions which shall be given to others and their subjects absolved from their allegiance and fidelity except they will exterminate all these as hereticks from their Dominions who will not give the lye to all mens senses and to Gods natural Revelations The plain English is ☞ He shall not be the Lord of his own Dominions who will have men to be his subjects or such as will not renounce both their humanity and animality or sense For to perceive substances in genere in specie by sense and to believe or trust the Common senses of all the World about things sensible as being the surest way that we have of perception is as necessary to a Man as Ratiocination is Choose then O ye Princes of the Earth whether you will be Papists and whether you will have no men to be your Subjects even none that believe the senses of themselves and all the world Reas XVIII Thus also your Idolatry exceedeth in absurdity the Idolatry of all the Heathens else in the World Even Canibals and the most barbarous Nations upon Earth For if they call men to Worship an Image the Sun the Moon an Ox or an Onion of which the Egyptians are accused they do but say that some spiritual or celestial numen affixeth his operative presence to this Creature But they never make men swear that there is no Image or Sun or Moon or Ox or Onion left but that the whole substance of it is turned into God or somewhat else Your Absurdities tend to make the grossest Idolatry seem comparatively to yours a very fair and tolerable errour Reas XIX By these means you expose Christianity to the scorn of humane nature and all the world You teach Heathens Mahometans and other Infidels to deride Christ as we do Mahomet and to say that a Christian Maketh and Eateth his God and his faith is a Believing that Gods supernatural Revelations are a lie and that God is like the Devil the great Deceiver of the world Wo be to the world because of offences and wo be to him by whom offence cometh Reas XX. Lastly by this means you are the grand pernicious hinderers of the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel world For you do as it were proclaim to them Never turn Christians till you will believe that Gods Natural Revelations are false and that all mens senses in the world are deceived in judging that there is Bread Wine or sensible substance after the words of Consecration These are the mischievous Consequents of your doctrine But one benefit I confess doth come by occasion of it that it is easier hereby to believe that there are Devils when we see how they can deceive men and to believe the evil of sin when we see how it maketh men mad and to believe that there is a Hell when we see such a Hell already on Earth as Learned Pompous Clergie men that have studied to attain this malignant madness to decree to fry men in the flames and damn them to Hell and
of Christ though not to Grace or Justification And this is common in the Schools as Ferera shews that followeth it And for this Opinion Scotus is cited But I think he holdeth that explicite belief of Christ or the Gospel is not of necessity of means as to Grace or Glory as 4. d. 3. q. 4. What is plainer than that now men may be saved without the explicite belief of Christ And I plainly think its Scotus's and the common opinion which Vega followeth and Faber 4. d. 3. and Petigianis very well and of the Thomists Bannes 2.2 q. 2. a. 8. Canus and others Yea the Trent Council seemeth to favour it Sess 6. c. 4. p. 114. So Corduba Medina Bradwardine ☞ And such as have no explicite faith in Christ are not formally without the Church This way go Victoria in 4. Relect. 4. tit Richard de Villa med 3.25 a. 3. q. 1 c. Well saith Petigianis 2. d. 35. q. 1. a. 9. that if there were a simple old woman to whom some false Opinion were preached by a false Prophet e. g. that the substance of Bread remaineth with the body of Christ in the Sacrament and she believe it Doth she sin by this No. p. 119. Yea if she so err through piety thinking that the Church so believeth perhaps she should merit p. 120. For my part I think that the Vulgar committing themselves to the instruction of the Pastors trusting of their knowledge and goodness if they be deceived it will be taken for invincible ignorance or at least probable as Herera which excuseth from faultiness Yea some Doctors give so much to the Instruction of Pastors that have the care of the Sheep that if they should teach that ☞ hic nunc God would be hated the rude Parishioner were bound to believe him which yet I think false p. 123. It seemeth at this day to be the common judgement of the Schools and Divines that the Laity erring with their Doctors or Pastors are altogether excused from all fault ☞ Yea oft times so materially erring do merit for the act of Christian obedience which they owe their Pastors as you may see in Valent. To. 3. disp 1. q. 2. p. 5. and others So Angles 2. d. 22. q. 2. dub 7. Vasqu p. 2. disp 121. In case they never doubted of the Veracity of their Prelates Much more saith Sancta Clara there to prove that the ignorant Protestants here may be saved citing further to his end Zanchez in Decal l. 2. c. 1. n. 8. Alph. a Castro Simanca Argon Tanner Faber Emanâ—sa Rozell And out of Argon tells us when Faith is sufficiently proposed viz. When faith is so confirmed by Reasons holiness of life the confutation of the contrary errors and by some signs as that Reason it self beginneth prudently to prescribe that the matters of faith heard are to be believed and the contrary Sect is false p. 125. And probl 16. p. 127. Whether men may be blamelesly ignorant of the Law of Nature and the Decalogue The common opinion is that they may not of the first principles but 1. Of the easie conclusions for some time and of the remoter conclusions for a longer time Such are the Commandments of the Decalogue as to the substance of the act as in some lying theft fornication manslaughter in Will at least c. R. Qu. II. But do you think that men may not as invincibly and inculpably be unacquainted with the Authority of the Pope and Roman Councils or Church as you say they may be ignorant of Christ and the Law of Nature I instance in the millions of the Abassme Christians who for above a thousand years never heard from the Pope or his emissaries P. That cannot be denyed For they have not the necessary means R. How then do you make your Churches proposal to be the necessary point to be Explicitely believed of all P. We do not mean it of all that Will be saved For you hear that some may be saved without any explicite belief of Christ But we mean it of all that will be in the Church and be saved there R. But do you not hold and say that out of the Church there is no salvation P. Some say so and some say that It is rare out of the Church R. But are the Ethiopian Christians out of the Church P. They are out of the true Church being Schismaticks R. Why said your Author before that Infidels were not formally out of the Church who are invincibly ignorant P. But other Doctors are of another opinion R. But Christ is the Saviour of his body Are not those of the Church who are saved or in a state of salvation What hold you of that P. Some say They are all of the Church and others that Christ saveth more than his Church And some say that They are of the Church Regenerate but not of the Church Congregate But few own this because it is your distinction as of a visible and invisible Church R. Qu. III. But above all I would know of you what you mean by the Catholick Church whose proposal is necessary to the being of faith P. We mean the Roman Catholick Church that is the Pope and his Subjects R. Do you mean the Pope without a General Council or a General Council without the Pope or only both agreeing and conjunct R. You take advantage of our differences but those do but shew that this is no point of faith Some hold that the Pope alone may serve and some that the Pope in a Provincial Council and some that a General Council without him But you heard Veron taketh in the Council and it is no true Council without the Pope And therefore the surest opinion saith that it must be both in Concord R. But what is the Vniversal Church whose Practice is made sufficient instead of or without a General Council P. It is the whole Roman Church real distinct from the Representative R. Is it the Clergy only or the Laity only or must it be both P. Both but not equally but in their several places R. Must it be All the Church without any excepted Or only the greater part P. These are points not agreed of and therefore not of faith Some say that it must be so many as that the dissenters be not considerable But how many are considerable or inconsiderable is undetermined Others say It may be the minor part that practise so be it the rest do not contradict it or do contrarily R. I will trouble you with no more such questions though I have a multitude which should be here resolved for I perceive that we must expect nothing but a Maze of uncertainties and confusion We are next in order to Agree upon our common principles which must be supposed in our following Dispute For they that Agree in nothing are uncapable of disputing of any thing seeing all conclusions of which we doubt must be drawn from more evident truths of which we
things unseen and above sense And this is their meaning We see not God Christ Heaven Angels c. But faith hath alwaies Intelligible Evidence of Verity and as our Mr. R. Hooker saith can go no further than it hath such Evidence However I appeal to any that have not been disputed out of their wits whether If God would give us as full a sight of Heaven and Hell and Angels and Blessed souls as we have of the Bread and Wine before us and as full a Hearing of all that they say in justification of Holiness or Lamentation of sin and as full sensible acquaintance with the world we go to and our title to it as we have with this world I say whether this would not be more ascertaining and satisfactory to us and banish all doubts more than our present faith doth I love not to hear men lie as for God and talk and boast against their experience as if the interest of faith required it Things revealed to faith Are Certain and Infallible But that is because we have certain evidence 1. That God cannot lie 2. And that God revealed them and so that they are True But if we did see feel taste c. we should be more certain Else why is it said that we now know but enigmatically and as in a glass and as children but hereafter shall see as face to face and know as we are known when faith is done away as being more Imperfect than Intuition We have evidence to prove that the Revelation made to David Isaiah Jeremiah Peter Paul c. were of God and that their words are by us to be believed c. But to see hear taste feel c. would be a more quieting Assurance Therefore when all the sound senses of all men living perceive after consecration that there is Bread and Wine this Certainty is 1. in order antecedent to that of faith and 2. by Evidence more satisfying and assuring than that of meer faith as to a prophets Revelation And therefore to reject it on pretence of faith is a subversion of all natural methods of assurance and is but pretended I think by your selves The sixth Principle That except those Immediate Inspirations which none but the Inspired do Immediately and clearly perceive we have no Revelations from God but by signes which are created beings and have their several Natures and so may be called Physical though signifying Moral things And thus far our natural and supernatural Revelations agree R. Every being is either Vncreated which is God only or Created in a large sense that is Caused What God Revealed to Christ Peter Paul c. we have knowledge of but by signes In Scripture these signes are Words These words signifie partly the mind of God and the speakers or writers and partly the matter spoken or written When it is said that It is impossible for God to lye it can mean nothing to us but that it is impossible that God should make us a deceitful sign of his will The voice of an Angel Prophet Apostle a thousand Miracles c. are but signes of the matter and of Gods will And if God can ordinarily make false natural signes we are left unassured that he cannot make false signes by an Angel or a Prophet or a Miracle And so all faith is left uncertain P. Then you will make God a lyar or deceiver whenever any man is deceived by natural signes R. Not so For men may deceive themselves by taking those for signes of a thing which are none and so by misunderstanding them And the Devil and bad men may promote this deceit But whenever God giveth man so plain a sign of the Matter and his Will as that no errour of an unsound sense an unqualified object a culpable or diseased fantasie or Intellect interveneth then if we are deceived it can be none but God that doth deceive us which cannot be because he cannot lye And as it is an unresistible argument against the Dominican doctrine of Physical Predetermination as absolutely necessary to all acts of natural or free agents that If God physically predetermine every lyar to ivery lye that is mentally conceived or uttered then we have no certainty but he might do so by the Prophets and Apostles so is it as good an argument against Papists that if he ordinarily deceive the senses of all sound men by a false appearance of things seeming sensible he may do so also by the audible or legible words of a prophet The seventh Principle That he that will confute sense and prove that we should not Judge according to its perceptions must prove it by some more certain evidence that contradicteth it R. I suppose you will not question this P. No The word or Revelation of God is a more certain evidence R. How know you that there is any word of God but by your senses P. But yet by sense I may get a certainty which is above that of things sensible As I know by the world that there is a God by a certainty above that of sense R. 1. If that were so yet if things sensible be your media you destroy your Conclusion by denying them and undermine your own foundation 2. But it is not true The knowledge of the Conclusion can be no stronger than that of the principles even of the weaker of them If you are in any uncertainty whether there be Sun Moon Heaven Earth Man Beast Heat Cold or any Created sensible being you must needs be in as much doubt whether there be a God that made them The eighth Principle That Believing or Assenting is Intellection of the Truth of something revealed and therefore must have Intelligible Evidence of Truth in the thing believed R. I know that Assiance or Trust as it is the act of the Will reposing it self quietly on the Believed fidelity of God is not Intellection But the Assenting act is an Intellection or an Act of Knowledge of a Verity not as Science is narrowly confined to principles but as Knowledge is taken in genere for notitia So to believe is no other than to know that this is true because God saith it Joh. 6.69 We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ c. Joh. 3.2 We know that thou art a Teacher come from God for no man could do such works c. Joh. 21.24 We know that his testimony is true See Rom. 7.14 8.28 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if this earthly house c. 1 Tim. 1.8 1 Joh. 3.2 Joh. 8.28 32. 1 Cor. 15.58 We know that our Labour is not in vain c. Therefore your denying the certainty where the evidence is most notorious and telling men of Meriting if they will but believe your Church without any Evidence of certainty is a meer cheat The ninth Principle That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the World and that Christianity is the true Religion and Gods appointed sufficient way to Heaven
including Godliness which is its final part R. By Christianity I mean both our Believing Loving and obeying Christ as the way to the Father and our Believing Loving and Obeying God our Father as the end of Christs Mediation The Knowledge of God and the Mediator being Eternal Life Joh. 17.3 And as Taking a man for my Physicion is taking him by his medicines to help me to my health and so Health is finally included so taking Christ for my Saviour is to take him by faith to be the means of bringing me to the Love of God and to Glory And so I include Godliness in Christianity and the Law of Nature in the Law of Grace P. We are agreed on the truth of this but not of the medium by which it must be made known to us R. At the present I ask no more than that we agree in Christianity as the true and sufficient Religion and way to life The tenth Principle That Baptizing is our Christening And that all that are truly Baptized are Christians and members of the visible Church untill they Apostatize or are justly excommunicate at least P. I grant you all this as a common Principle with Christians R. Then you grant us 1. That our Religion is the True Religion of Gods appointment sufficient to salvation For it is Christianity which you confessed to be such 2. You grant that we are baptized into the true Catholick Church which is the body of Christ The eleventh Principle That all that are truly Baptized have the pardon of all their sins and have present right to salvation if they so die R. I mean that they that are Internally true Consenters to the baptismal Covenant and are baptized have all these benefits of Baptism And that Infants have them as rightly dedicated to God and baptized Do not you Consent to this P. Yes you know we do R. Then you fully grant that all among the Protestants who in Infancy or at age are truly baptized are in a state of salvation Why then would you make people believe that there is no salvation in our Churches when you grant the right to all that are Baptized P. But you are not Baptized by lawful Ministers R. Take heed what you say Your party holdeth that even Schismaticks and Hereticks Baptism is valid if they have all that is essential to Baptizing in the doing of it Yea that a lay mans or womans baptizing is valid If you deny it I will shame you by producing the common consent of your Doctors and your censure of Cyprian and making the contrary doctrine to be a Heresie P. But you have not all that is essential to Baptism because you are not intentionally Baptized into the true Catholick Roman Church For while you are not subject to the Pope you are not baptized into the Church and therefore Bellarmine sheweth that indirectly we are obliged to the Pope by baptism which you intend not R. Come come strive not against your knowledge 1. If our Baptism have not all that is essential why do you never rebaptize Protestants when they turn to you Do you not find that you condemn your selves 2. Why do not you your selves put the name of the Pope into your words of baptism 3. Doth your Tradition tell you that the ancient Churches did baptize men into a subjection to the Pope 4. Did any of the Primitive Christians baptize men into the name or subjection of Peter or any Apostle 5. Doth not Paul expresly renounce it as to himself and Peter 1 Cor. 1.12 13 14 15. Every one of you saith I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ Is Christ divided Was Paul Crucified for you or were ye baptized in the name of Paul c. 6. Did not Christ himself tell us all that was Essential to baptism in his institution Matth. 28 without making any mention of Peter or the Pope P. I cannot deny but our doctrine inferreth that all that are baptized among you have a true Sacrament but not the Benefit of it and so are not in a state of pardon and salvation Or at least when you come to age by refusing the Pope you turn Hereticks and lose it R. I know some of your divided writers say that we have Sacramentum but not Rem Sacramenti But 1. You say that a Character is imprinted by Baptism and all sin done away and the person in a state of life unless he come feignedly which you will not charge on Infants nor can you prove it by those of the Anabaptists themselves that are baptized at age And saith Aquinas when the fiction ceaseth the fruits of baptism are obtained 2. And it will be long ere you will prove that to be baptized into the name of the Trinity is uneffectual if we leave out the Pope 3. And you will hardly make a man understand what you mean by the validity of the Baptism of Hereticks and Schismaticks if it neither take the Baptized into the true Visible Church nor the invisible or a state of saving grace And as to Infants losing it as you say at age by Heresie 1. Will you save all the Anabaptists that are baptized at age If their baptism put them into a state of salvation and they continue just of the same faith and mind that they were baptized in sure that faith which put them in a state of salvation will keep them in it or not be damning through defectiveness to morrow which made them heirs of Heaven to day But you cannot make your doctrines hang together 2. And they that are Baptized in Infancy are baptized into the same faith which they continue in at age The Minister intendeth no other The Parents Sponsors c. intend no other And will that prove defective even to Salvation after which was saving then 3. If Baptism make us Christians and if Christianity be the true Religion sufficient in suo genere to salvation then we that continue in the Christianity which we were baptized into by your confession continue in the true saving Religion And this is all our Religion P. It is not every one that owneth Christianity that shall be saved Hereticks own it in general and yet contradict it by their Heresies R. It is every one that truly owneth Christianity in mind and will that shall be saved else Christianity were not a saving sufficient Religion The question is not whether objective Christianity or faith be sufficient to save him that believeth not or is not subjectively a Christian nor whether the doctrine of faith be sufficient in omni genere But whether it be a sufficient doctrine or obâ—ective faith in suo genere If a Heretick deny any essential part of it he believeth not that which he really understandingly and prevalently denyeth It is but the Name of Christianity and not the Thing which he owneth who disowneth any of the essence Our question is now whether our professed objective Faith be true and sufficient
When you come to prove us heretical denyers of any of its essence we will give you a sufficient answer The twelfth Principle That the Essence of our Religion or Christianity as Active and Saving is Faith that worketh by Love Or such a Belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as is accompanied with a true devoting of our selves to him by Love and willingness to obey his Laws so far as we know them in opposition to the temptations of the world the flesh and the Devil And he that is truly such shall be saved P. I grant that he that truly Loveth God shall be saved But a Protestant cannot truly love God because he hath not true faith R. Do you not agree and confess then that If any Protestants do truly Love God and are sincerely willing to obey his will and to know it that they may obey it such are of the true Religion and shall be saved and that popery which denyeth their salvation is false P. If your false supposition were true these false consequents would be true But you are all deceived when you think that you sincerely Love God and are willing to know and do his will R. 1. Let all Protestants note this first that you grant that none but ☞ falshearted Hypocrites that are not what they profess to be and Love not God nor would obey him should turn Papists 2. And if a man cannot know his own Mind and Will what he Loveth and what he is willing of no not about his End and greatest concernments how can he know when he Believeth aright Why do you trouble the world thus with your noise about Believing the Proposals of your Church if a man cannot know whether he believe or not ☞ And he that cannot know what he Willeth Chooseth or Loveth can no more know what he believeth For the Acts of the Will are more plenary and easily perceived And do all Papists know their own Hearts or Minds but no Protestants What would you expect but indignation and derision by such arguing as this if you will go about the world and tell men You none of you know your own Minds and wills but we know them You think you Love God and are willing to obey him but you are all mistaken it is not so with you but you must believe our Pope and his Council and then you may know your own minds and hearts They that believe you on these rates deserve the deceit of believing you and punish themselves The thirteenth Principle That when Christ described all the Essence of Christianity by our Believing in and being baptized into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost the Apostles and first Pastors of the Churches instructed people to understand the meaning of these three Articles And the ancient Creed called the Apostles is the exposition of them as to Belief And that this Creed was of old the symbol of the true faith by which men were supposed sufficiently qualified for baptism and distinguished from Hereticks which after was enlarged by occasion of heresies to the Nicene and Constantinopolitane Creed To which that called Athanasius's was added as a fuller explication of the doctrine of the Trinity And he that believed all these was taken for one of the true Christian Religion which was sufficient in suo genere to salvation P. All that was then Necessary to be explicitely believed necessitate medii was expressed in the Creeds if not more But not all that is now necessary when the Church hath proposed more R. 1. Some of you say no more is necessary ut medium but to believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Others say that the chief articles of the Creed also are commonly necessary And in your discord we lay no great weight on your Opinions 2. But is not Christianity the same Thing now as it was at the beginning Is Baptism altered Hath not a Christian now the same definition as then Are not Christs promises and the Conditions the same Shall not he that was a Christian then be saved if he were now alive May not we be Christians and saved by the same Constitutive Causes which made men Christians and saved them in the primitive Churches Subvert not Christianity and confound not the Church and cheat not poor souls by labouring to hide the essence of Christianity and such plain important truths You cannot deny our faith to be true without condemning the ancient Church and Christianity it self While we aloud profess that the Christian faith explained in all the ancient Creeds is the faith which we own in its Essentials explicated The fourteenth Principle That the Books which the Protestants commonly receive as Canonical Scriptures are in the agreeing Original Copies as to the very words and in true Translations as to the sence the most true Infallible word of God R. I grant that where the Copies disagree by various Readings we are no more sure that any of them is the word of God than we are sure that such a Copy is righter than all that differ from it But as long as the essence of Christianity on which our Salvation is laid is in the Covenant of Grace explained in Credondis in the Creed and in Petendis in the Lords Prayer and in Agendis in the Decalogue as explained by Christ And no one Duty or material doctrine of our Religion dependeth on the various Lections but those texts that Agree are sufficient to establish them all yea as Franc. à Sancta Clara system fid professeth the ordinary Translations so agree as that no material point of Religion doth depend on any of their differences It is as much as we assert that the Agreeing Original Copies and the sound-Translations so far as they are such are the True Infallible word of God the former both as to words and sence and the later as to sence alone Do you not grant this P. We grant the Scripture as you say to be Gods Infallible word But 1. You cannot know it to be so because you take it not on the Roman Churches Authoritative Proposal 2. And you leave out part of it R. 1. Whether we can know it shall be tryed in due place 2. And whether we have All of it or enough is another question to be debated when you will You grant us expresly that which we now desire which is the Infallible Truth of our Canonical Scripture And this is All our Religion containing not only the Essentials but all the Integrals and Accidentals needful to be recorded So that All the Protestants Religion is confessed to be Infallibly True And from hence further note that in all our disputes you are obliged to be the defendants as to Truth For we deny the Truth of much of your Religion but you deny not the Truth of one word of ours but only the Plenitude or Sufficiency P. The name of a Protestant was never known till Luthers
of damnation to believe that there is no Bread and no Wine when all the soundest senses of any men in the world do perceive Bread and Wine by seeing it tasting it feeling it smelling it and by the notorious effects and all this built upon no Revelation of God no Reason at all nor any true consent of the Primitive Church but clean contrary to them all that I solemnly profess that I find it an utter Impossibility to believe it And it often puts me to a doubt Whether it be possible for any mortal man unfeignedly and fully to believe it and Whether there be really any such Papist in the world or Whether most do not for carnal respects take on them to believe it when they do not or rather the Vulgar understand their words as not really excluding the true being of Bread and Wine and the rest only somewhat overawing their own reason with a reverence of their Church so far as not to contradict or so far as notionally to own it when they do not from the heart believe the thing So many contradictions absurdities and impieties are to be by them believed with it that I am sure no man that understandeth them can possibly believe them all And all this must be done by Miracles stupendious miracles daily or common miracles which every Priest can do at his pleasure and never fail sober or drunken greater than raising a man from the dead so that every beastly sordid ignorant Priest shall do more miracles by far than ever Jesus Christ did in all his life on earth as far as we know by the holy Records if he live as long He that can believe all this may next believe that there is neither Earth under his feet nor the Firmament over his head nor Water nor Air nor any other Creature and that he hath no being himself II. Reason The Faith or Religion of the Papists as described by themselves is so far from Infallibility as that it is utterly uncertain unintelligible and meer contradiction and confusion and a changeable thing so that no man knoweth whether he have it or not and whether he have it all But whoever hath it he hath certainly a hodge-podge of truth and falshood III. Reason Their Papacy which essentiateth their Church is a horrid Usurpation of Christs own Prerogative and of an Office to do that which is incompaparably above the Natural Power or Capacity of any mortal man even to be the Apostle and Governour of the whole world of Christians at least To take Charge of all the souls on earth to teach and call those that are uncalled and to Rule those that are baptized even at the Antipodes and in all those unknown or inaccessible parts of the world which he hath no knowledge of A far more arrogant undertaking than to be the Civil Monarch of all the earth and utterly impossible for him to perform and which never was performed by him IV. Reason The said Papacy is an arrogant Usurpation of the Power of all the Christian Princes and Pastors upon earth or of a Power over them never given by Christ It setteth up a Kingdom in a Kingdom and taketh from Pastors the power which Christ gave them over their particular flocks V. Reason The said Papacy is a meer humane Institution They confess themselves that it is not of Divine faith that the Bishop of Rome is St. Peters Successor by Divine Right It is no article of their own faith But History fully assureth us that it was but in the Roman Empire that the Roman Bishop was made Supream as the Archbishop of Canterbury is in England And that he standeth on the same humane foundation as the other four Patriarchs of the Empire did And that their General Councils were called by the Emperours and were called General only with respect to that Empire And there never was such a thing as a General Council of all the Christian world nor ever can be And that there never was such is most notorious yet by the Names subscribed to all the Councils But they abuse the world and claim that power over all the Christians on earth which one Prince gave his subject-Prelates in his Empire As if the General Assembly of Scotland or France should pretend to be a General Council of the world and the Archbishop of Canterbury should call himself Archbishop of all the Church on earth and claim the government of it VI. Reason The said Papacy hold their claim of Supream Government as by Gods appointment though they confess as before said that it is not de fide that the Pope succeedeth Peter by Divine right and this notoriously Contrary to the Judgement and Tradition of the far greatest part of the Churches in the world General Councils such as they had and the sense of the greatest part of Christians have determined against the Papal claime And Tradition condemneth them to this day while they plead Tradition VII Reason It is Treason against Christ for the Papists who are but a Sect and not the third part of the Christians in the world to call themselves the whole Church and unchurch all the rest and seek to rob Christ of the far greatest part of his Kingdom by denying them to be such As if they would deny two third parts of this Kingdom to be the Kings They are Sectaries and Schismaticks by this arrogant dividing from all the rest and appropriating the name and priviledges of the Church to themselves alone VIII Reason By making an unlawful and Impossible Condition and Center of Church Vnion they are the greatest Schismaticks in all the world The greatest Dividers of the Church upon pretence of Vnity As he would be a divider of this Kingdom who would set up a Vice-King without the Kings authority and say that none that subject not themselves to him shall be taken for subjects of the King IX Reason They studiously brand themselves with Satans mark of malice or uncharitableness and cruelty to mens souls while they sentence to damnation two third parts of the Christian world because they will not be the subjects of their Pope And they think their way to Heaven is safest because they are bolder than us in damning other Christians Whereas Love is the mark by which Christs Disciples must be known to all X. Reason They are inhumanely cruel to mens bodies And this is their very Religion For the Council at the Laterane under Innocent the third decreed that those that believe not or deny Transubstantiation are Hereticks and all Temporal Lords shall exterminate them from their Dominions That is no man shall be suffered to live under any Christian Lord that will not renounce all his senses and profess that he believeth that they are all deceived by God himself which is not only to renounce their Humanity but their Animality or sense it self So that no men indeed are to be suffered to live but only such as deny themselves to be men What Heathens
what Turks did ever exercise such Inhumane fury Besides their burning and tormenting men as Hereticks that will not do all this and more and will not say as they require them XI Reason Their Church indeed is invisible while they deny it and an unknown thing For 1. Men are forced into it by such bloody Laws as that they cannot rationally be known to be Consenters 2. And they have no certain faith to constitute a Church-member For they hold that his obligation to believe is according to his inward and outward means of which no man can possibly judge And so no man can know whether himself or another have that faith which is required as necessary to salvation And many of them say That they that believe not in Christ have saving faith and are in the Church if they had not sufficient means XII Reason The Papacy doth intolerably tyrannize over Kings and teach such Doctrines of Perjury and Rebellion as their very Religion as is not in the practice of it to be endured in any Kingdom nor dare they fully practise it The Crowns and Lives of Princes being at the mercy of the Pope As the said Laterane Council sheweth XIII Reason Their Church is oft Essentially unholy heretical and wicked because the Pope is often so who is an Essential part of it And therefore it is not the holy Catholick Church General Councils have upon examination judged their Popes to be Hereticks Schismaticks Adulterers Murderers Simonists yea guilty of Blasphemy or Infidelity it self And the Church cannot be Holy whose Essential part is so unholy XIV Reason Their Churches succession is so notoriously interrupted and their Papacy so often altered in its causes as that it is become a confounded and a meer uncertain thing So many notorious or judged Hereticks Simonists Murderers Sodomites Adulterers have possessed the Seat who were therefore uncapable that the line of succession must needs be interrupted by them And so many wayes have they been made or elected sometimes by the people sometimes by the City-Presbyters sometimes by Emperours sometimes by Cardinals sometimes by Councils that if any one way of Election be necessary they have lost their Papacy long ago If no one way be necessary then the Turk may make a Pope XV. Reason Their Church called One is really two in specie one Headed by a Pope and another by a General Council For while the Head or Supream Ruler is an Essential part and one part of the people own one Head and another part own another Head as they do the Churches thus constituted cannot be One. And also de individuo there have been long two or three Popes at once and consequently two or three Churches And to this day none knoweth which was the right XVI Reason They plead for a Church which never had a being in the world that is All Christians Headed by one Pope When all the Christian world did never take him for their Head nor were governed by him to this day XVII Reason They dreadfully injure the holy Scriptures as if Jesus Christ and all the Prophets and Apostles in all those Sacred Records had not had skill or will to speak intelligibly and plainly to deliver us the doctrines necessary to salvation But they make their Voluminous Councils more intelligible and sufficient as if they had done better than Christ and his Apostles And when men must only Discern Gods Laws and Judge Causes by the Law they make themselves Judges of the Law it self that is of God the Judge of all and of the Law by which they must be judged XVIII Reason There is no other Sect of Christians under Heaven which hath so many differences among themselves or have written so many Books against one another as the Papists And though many of them are of great importance yea some are about the very Essence or Constitutive Head of their Church yet have they no handsomer way to palliate all by than by saying that these are but Opinions and no Articles of faith and the Infallible Judge dare not decide them No though it be diversity of Expositions of Gods own Word yet Commentators still differ without any hope of a decision as if Gods Word were not to be believed but were only the matter of uncertain Opinion till the Pope and Council have expounded it and no more Scripture is de fide than they expound XIX Reason Perjury is made the very Character of their Church or the brand by which it is stigmatized As is visible 1. In the Trent Oath imposed on their Clergy which whoever taketh he is immediately perjured and 2. By their disobliging men from Oaths and Vows even the Subjects of Princes from their Oaths of Allegiance whenever the Pope shall excommunicate them and give their Dominions to others as is decreed Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. XX. Reason They are guilty of Idolatry in their ordinary Worship by the Mass while they worship Bread as their Lord God Nor will it justifie them to say that if they thought it to be Bread they would not worship it Any more than it would justifie Julian to say that he would not worship the Sun if he thought not that it was God And they confess that if it prove to be still Bread their Worship will prove Idolatry and we desire no other proof And I am not able to justifie their sending God his Worship by a Cross Crucifix or other Image as a medium cultum from being a gross Violation of the second Commandment which they leave out XXI Reason Their Religion greatly tendeth to Mortifie Christianity and turn it into a dead Image by destroying much of its life and power 1. By befriending Ignorance and hiding the holy Scripture forbidding all the people to read them in a known tongue without a special license blaspheming Gods Word as if so read it had more tendency or likelihood to hurt men than to profit them to damn them than to save them when they will say otherwise of all their own Vulgar postils and such like writings 2. And by teaching the people a blind devotion viz. to pray in an unknown tongue and to worship God by words not understood 3. And by making up a Religion much if not far most of external formalities and a multitude of ceremonies and the opus operatum of their various Sacraments As if God delighted in such actions as befit not the acceptance of a grave and sober man or as if Guilt and Sin would be wiped off and charmed away into virtue and holiness by such corporeal motions shews and words XXII Reason Their Religion though it thus tend to gratifie the ungodly by deceitful remedies and hopes yet is very uncomfortable to the godly For 1. By it no man can know that he is a true believer and not a child of Hell much less that he shall be saved For they teach that no Divine can tell them what Articles are necessary to be believed to salvation
But they must be so many as are suited to every ones capacity and means during his life And no man living can know that he understandeth and believeth as much as his capacity and means were in their kind sufficient to Nay there is no man that hath not been culpably ignorant of somewhat which he might have known 2. Mens Sacramental receptions and comforts depend on the Intention of the Priest which no man knoweth 3. Almost all Godly men must expect the fire of Purgatory and consequently none of them can be rationally willing to dye Because this life is better than Purgatory and no man will desire to go from hence into the fire And so by making all men unwilling to dye it destroyeth a heavenly mind and killeth faith and hope and love and holy joy and tempteth men to be worldlings and to love this life better than the next Yea it tempteth men to be afraid of Martyrdom lest dying in Venial sins as all do they go to a Purgatory fire more terrible than Martyrdom XXIII Reason Their Doctrine is not only contrary to many express Texts of Holy Scripture but also contrary to it self One Pope and one Council having decreed one thing and another the clean contrary XXIV Reason All this evil is made more pernicious by that professed Impenitence which is included in the conceit of their Churches Infallibility For they that hold themselves Infallible do profess never to Repent of any thing in which they suppose themselves to be so And as Repentance is the great evidence of the pardon of sin so Impenitency is that mortal sign of an unpardoned soul without which no sin doth qualifie the sinner to be Excommunicated by man or damned by God And a sin materially less is more Mortal unrepented of than a greater truly lamented and forsaken XXV Reason Every honest godly Protestant may be as sure that Popery is false as he is that he is himself sincere and Loveth God and is truly willing to obey him And no man can turn Papist without self-contradiction who is a true Christian and an honest man For by turning Papist he confesseth himself to be before a false-hearted hypocrite who neither Loved God nor sincerely desired to obey him nor was true to his Baptismal Covenant For it is a part of Popery to believe that none are in a state of salvation but the Subjects of the Pope or members of the Papal Church And consequently that no others have true Faith Repentance or Love to God Or else that God is false in promising salvation to all that have true Faith Repentance and Love to God All therefore that know their own hearts to be truly devoted to God are safe from Popery And seeing it is agreed on both sides that none can or ought to turn Papists but ungodly hypocrites or Knaves no wonder if such are deluded by the most palpable deceits and forsaken of God whom they perfidiously forsook I will name you no more If I make these or any one of these good as I undertake to prove them all you will see that I refuse not my self to be a Papist without sufficient cause And yet by this charge you will see that I am none of their extream adversaries I pass by abundance of Doctrinal differences wherein by many they are most deeply charged Not as Justifying them against all or most so charged on them but 1. As giving you those Reasons which most move my self and which I am most able to make good and leaving every one to his proper work 2. And as one that have certainly found out that in many doctrinals seeming to be the matter of our widest difference we are thought by many to differ much more than we do 1. The difference lying most in Words and Logical Notions and various wayes of mens expressing their conceptions 2. And the animosity of men engaged in Parties and Interests against each other causing most to take all in the worst sense and to make each other seem far more erroneous than they are and to turn differing names into damnable heresies And 3. Few men having Will and Skill to state controversies aright and cut off mistaken seeming differences 4. And few having honesty and self-denyal enough to incurr the censure of the ignorant Zealots of their own party by seeming but impartial and just to their adversaries I mean in such points as 1. The Nature of Divine faith Whether it be a perswasion that I am pardoned c. 2. Of Certainty of salvation 3. And Certainty of perseverance 4. Of Sanctification 5. Of Justification 6. Of Good works 7. Of Merit 8. Of Predestination 9. Of Providence and the Cause of Sin 10. Of Free-will 11. Of Grace 12. Of Imputation of Righteousness 13. Of Universal Redemption 14. Of Original Sin and divers others In all which I cannot justifie them but am sure that the difference is made commonly to seem to be that which indeed it is not In the true impartial stating whereof Lud. Le Blanck hath begun to do the Christian Churches most excellent service worthy our great thanks and his bearing all the Censures of the ignorant PART IV. The First Charge made good against Transubstantiation In which Popery is proved to be the Shame of Humane Nature Contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTURE and TRADITION or the judgement of the Antient and Present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels CHAP. I. The First Reason to prove Transubstantiation false R. THe Papists Belief of Transubstantiation is that There is a change made of the whole substance of the Bread into the body of Christ and of the whole substance of Wine into his blood Their opinion called their faith hath two parts The first is that There is no more true Proper Bread and Wine after the words of Consecration Hoc est Corpus meum The second is that There is the true proper Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ under the species as they call them of Bread and Wine It is the first that I shall now prove false And you must not forget the state of the Question which is not Whether Christs Body and Blood be present But Whether there remain any Bread and Wine Arg. I. If there remain no Bread and Wine after the Consecration then all the senses of all the sound men in the world are deceived or all mens perception of these sensible things deceived though there be due magnitude site distance of the object a due abode and a due medium and no depravation of the sense or intellect But this Consequent is notoriously false as shall be proved Therefore Popery is false 1. That all mens senses perceive Bread and Wine or all mens Intellects by their senses will not be denyed Not only Protestants but Greeks Mahometans Heathens Papists all persons perception by sense is here the same Therefore it is sound senses or else there are none sound in the world 2. It is not one
blood which is shed for you 1 Cor. 11.25 This Cup is the new Testament in my blood And here no man denyeth a double Trope at least no man expoundeth it that the Cup or the Wine was the New Testament it self And yet it is as expresly said as it is that the Bread is the Body it self How then will they prove that one is spoken properly and the other figuratively III. There is no more found in these words to assert the Bread to be Christs Body than is found in a multitude of such phrases in Scripture asserting things which all men expound otherwise As in Joh. 15.1 I am the Vine and my Father is the husbandman Joh. 10.7 9. I am the door Joh. 10.14 I am the good Shepherd and know my Sheep Psal 22.6 I am a worm and no man which being a prophesie of Christ a Heretick imitating you might deny Christs humanity 1 Cor. 10.4 That Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 12.27 Ye are the body of Christ Mat. 5.13 14. Ye are the Salt of the earth Ye are the lights of the World Joh. 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are Life Abundance such are in the Scripture as All flesh is grass Christ is the Lamb of God the Lyon of the Tribe of Juda the bright Morning Star the head Corner Stone c. And it is yet more fully satisfactory that the Hebrew constantly putteth is for signifieth as you may find in all the old Testament having no other word so fit to express signifying by And as Christ spake after that manner so the New Testament ordinarily imitateth As Daniel and the Revelation agree in saying of the Visions This is such or such a thing instead of this signifieth it So Christ Matth. 13.21 22 23 37 38 39. He that soweth is the Son of man the field is the world the good seed are the Children of the Kingdom the tares are the children of the wicked one the enemy is the Devil the Harvest is the end The reapers are the Angels And thus ordinarily IV. Yea the same kind of phrase used before in the Passeover teacheth us how to expound this Exod. 12.11 Ye shall eat it in haste It is the Lords Passeover vers 27. It is the sacrifice of the Lords Passeover V. Yea the ordinary way and phrase of Christs teaching may yet farther put us out of doubt For he usually taught by Parables and expresseth his sense by such assertions As Matth. 13.3 Behold a sower went out to sow c. Luk. 15.11 12. A certain man had two sons and the younger said c. Luk. 12.16 The ground of a certain Rich man c. Luk. 16.19 There was a certain Rich man c. Mat. 21.28 A certain man had two sons c. Vers 33. There was a certain housholder which planted a Vineyard c. The Gospel aboundeth with such instances which teach us how to interpret these words of Christ VI. But most certainly all those forementioned texts teach it us which expresly call it Bread after the Consecration If we will not believe the Holy Ghost himself who so frequently calleth it bread it is in vain to alledge any text of Scripture in the Controversie Now to feign a course of ordinary Miracles Greater and more than Christs and this to every Priest how ignorant and impious soever to pretend that every Pope and Bishop can for money sell the Holy Ghost or the Gift of Miracles in Ordination and all this when no eye seeth the Miracles when it is confessed that Angels cannot naturally see it yea when all mens senses perceive the contrary and all this because that Christ said This is my Body while abundance such sayings in Scripture yea the words about the Cup it self are confessed to be tropical and when the Scripture expresly telleth us that there is Bread Judge whether it be possible for Satan to have put a greater scorn upon the Christian faith or a greater scandal before the enemies of it or a greater hinderance to the Worlds Conversion than to tell them you must renounce not only your Humanity but all common sense if you will be Christians and be saved or suffered to enjoy your estates and lives VII Lastly It is ordinary with their subtilest Schoolmen to confess that this their doctrine of Transubstantiation cannot be proved from Scripture and that they believe it only because their Church saith it which must be believed and because that by the same spirit which wrote the Scripture the Church is taught thus to expound it So that all their faith of this is by them resolved into a phanatick pretence of Inspiration As I have elsewhere shewed out of Durandus Paludanus Scotus Ockam Quodl 6. li. 5. q. 31. Rada vol. 4. Cont. 7. a. 1. pag. 164 165. And no General Council ever determined it till that at Rome under Innoc. 3. Where saith Matth. Paris many decrees were proposed or brought in by the Pope which some liked and some disliked And this was 1215 years after Christs birth And Stephanus Aeduensis is the first in whom the name of Transubstantiation is found about the year 1100. CHAP. VIII Arg. 6. From the Nature of a Sacrament Arg. 6. THat Doctrine which by consequence denyeth the Lords Supper to be a true Sacrament is false The Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation by consequence denyeth the Lords Supper to be a true Sacrament Therefore the Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation is false The Major I know no man that will deny that we have now to deal with The Minor needeth no other proof than the common definition of a Sacrament and Christs own description of this Sacrament in the Scripture I. Aquinas concludeth 3. q. 60. a. 1. that a Sacrament is a sign and a. 2. that it is a sign of a thing sacred as it sanctifieth men and a. 3. that it is a Rememorative sign of Christs passion a demonstrative sign of Gods Grace and a prognosticating sign of future Glory And a. 4. that it must be Res sensibilis a sensible thing it being natural to man to come to the knowledge of things intelligible by things sensible and the Sacrament signifieth to man spiritual and intelligible Goods and a. 5. that they must be things of Divine determination c. But 1. If the Bread and Wine be gone there is nothing left to be a sign a Real sensible sign to lead us to the knowledge of spiritual and intelligible things If they say that the species of Bread and Wine is the sensible sign what mean they by that cheating word species Not the specifying form or matter but only the outward appearance And is it a true or a false appearance If True then there is Bread and Wine If false it is a false sign And what is that false appearance which God maketh a Sacrament of It is plainly nothing but the Accidents of Bread and Wine without the substance But 1. When they take the Cup from the
Laity and deny them half the Sacrament sure there are then no Accidents of Wine Is there either Quantity Colour Smell Taste c. of Wine They will not say it So that here is no sensible sign as to one half 2. And herein they deal far more inhumanely with us than the Infidels themselves For when they plead against Christ and Scripture they grant that the common principles and Notitiae which all mankind acknowledge are the certain unquestionable light of Nature But the Papists deny not only the Notitias communes but common sense It is nothing with them to damn all the world that will not believe contradictions They say that the Quantity of Nothing endued with the Qualities the Actions the Passion the Relations the quando ubi situs of nothing is the Sacramental sign Inhumane contradiction 1. Gassendus and others say truly that an Accident is not properly Res but Modus Rei vel Qualitas as he calleth it 2. Quantity doth not Really differ a re quanta and to say The Length Breadth Profundity of Nothing is a notorious contradiction And so it is of the other Accidents There is no Real sensible sign and therefore no Sacrament where there is nothing but the quantity colour taste smell c. of Nothing 3. And they cannot they dare not say that Christs Real Flesh and Blood is the Sacramental sign For 1. It is not sensible 2. It should be then the sign of it self The sign and the thing signified cannot be the same II. The very substantiality or corporeity of the Bread and Wine as such is part of the sign As Christ saith Behold and handle me a spirit hath not flesh and blood as ye see me have So he taketh Corporeal bread and wine in their sight and breaketh it and poureth it out and giveth it them to see to feel to taste to eat that they may know it is true bread and wine the signs of his True Body and Blood So that to deny the Corporeity is to deny Christs Corporeity in its signs and tendeth to the old Heresie of them that held that Christ had but a phantastical body or was not indeed Crucified but seemed so to be They teach Hereticks to argue The sign was no Real substance Therefore neither the thing signified III. The nutritive use of the bread and wine was another part of the sign as all confess As bread and wine are the Nutriment of the body and life of man so is Christ crucified meritoriously and Christ glorified efficiently the life of the soul And he that denyeth the Nutritive sign denyeth the Sacrament But it is not the false appearance or phantasm or accidents of bread and wine that are the natural nourishers of man Therefore he that denyeth the nourishing substance denyeth the Real sensible Sacramental sign Saith Bellarmin de Euchar. l. 3. c. 23. In the Eucharist we receive not corporal food that the flesh may be thence nourished and made fat but only to signifie inward refection So that he acknowledged this to be part of the Sacramental sign So Gregor Valent. saith that The chief and essential signification of this Sacrament is that which by external nourishment is signified the internal spiritual refection of the soul by the body of Christ So that denying the nourishing sign is destroying the essence of the Sacrament IV. The breaking of the Bread and pouring out the Wine is confessedly another part of the Sacramental sensible sign But 1. When there is no Wine there is no pouring it out 2. And if there be no Bread neither there is no breaking it Can that be broken which is not They that deny as the Papists do that the Bread is broken saying that only the Quantity of Nothing is broken deny the sensible Sacramental sign And here I may note that we do not well to contend with them for denying the Cup only to the Laity and granting them only the Bread when indeed they grant neither but deny them both There is say they no more Bread than Wine but only a false appearance of it V. Lastly The Apostle 1 Cor. 10.16 17. sheweth that one Sacramental use of the Bread was to signifie the Vnity of Christians who are one Bread and one Body as one Loaf is made of many Corns But that cannot be One which is Nothing Ens Vnum Verum convertuntur To say with Greg. Valent. and Bellarmine that because it was Once bread and one bread therefore the accidents of it remaining now signifie that we are one bread is but to say that There was once a fit sign but then there wanted the form Now after Consecration there is no Sacramental sign but yet there is a Sacramental form And in what Matter is that form Doubtless it can be no where but in the Brain or Mind of man That is man can Remember that once he saw Bread This is the species of bread in his Intellect This species is the sign And so we have found out another sense of the species of bread than many think on viz. It is that which is called The species intentionalis or the Idea or conception of bread in a mans fantasie and mind And so indeed the Sacrament is with them an invisible thing for it is only in mens minds There is no Sacrament on the Altar but in the thoughts And so who hath a Sacrament and who not we know not And a man may by thinking make a Sacrament when he will CHAP. IX Of the Novelty of Transubstantiation R. I Once thought to have next proved out of the Current of Antiquity the Novelty of this inhumane doctrine of the Papists and that the Antients commonly confessed that there was true Bread and Wine remaining in the Sacrament after Consecration But 1. I should but tempt and weary ordinary Readers who neither need any such arguments having Sense and Scripture to give them satisfaction nor are able to try them For it is an indirect kind of dealing to expect that the unlearned or those that are strangers to the Writings of the Antients should believe this or that to be their mind and sayings meerly because I tell them so And if they read the plainest words they know not whether I rightly recite them but by believing me And it is as unreasonable on the other side that the Papists should expect either by their Citations or their general Affirmations that the Readers should believe them that the Antients were for Transubstantiation Till men can both read the Authors themselves and try the Copies they can have no sure historical notice what the Father 's held except by the common consent of credible Reporters or Historians Not while one side saith they say this and the other side saith they say the contrary and yet their Books are to be seen by all We may bid them believe us and the Papists may bid them believe them and a Priest may cheat them by saying that his word is the Churches But
though this will produce a humane belief in the Hearers or Readers as by advantages it is most taking with them yet that fallible belief is all the Certainty that it can afford them Therefore I think it most ingenuous and reasonable to give men such arguments as they are capable of understanding and improving to certain satisfaction 2. Because they that can study such Authors as have gathered the sentences of the Antients in this Controversie may find it so fully done by Edmund Albertinus in his second Book that they can need no more P. You know that Albertinus is answered R. And I know that he is again Defended And who doubteth but you can answer me copiously if I did maintain that the Sun giveth light What is it that a man cannot talk for especially they that can hope to perswade all the Christian world that they must be damned unless they will believe that all mens senses are deceived and that God is the great Deceiver of the world P. But how can you think to please God and be saved if you be not of the same faith as the Church hath alwayes been of All the antient Fathers and Catholick Church were for Transubstantiation and are you wiser and in a safer way than they R. You have lost your credit with me so far as that your word is no oracle to me If I must not believe my own nor other mens senses I am not bound to believe you at least when I know you speak falsly But I pray tell me How know you that the Church and Fathers did so believe P. Because the present Church saith so which cannot err R. Do not your own Writers say that a General Council and Pope may err in matter of fact and that they did so in Condemning Pope Honorius and in other Cases P. Yes but this is a matter of faith R. Is it not a matter of fact what this or that man said and what doctrine the Church at such a time did teach and hold But how know you that the present Church doth say so that this was the faith of the antient Church P. By their testimony in a General Council R. Did you hear the Council say so P. No but the Church telleth me that the Council said so R. Who is it that you now call the Church which tells you so P. My Superiours who have it from the Pope and their Fathers R. Are your Superiours that told you so the Church Or is the Pope the Church If so What need you say a Council is the Church And how know you that the Pope and your Superiours err not in a matter of fact P. I know it by the Decrees of the Council yet extant R. 1. But if sense be deceitful how know you that you ever read such Decrees 2. How know you that they are not forgeries or since corrupted P. The Church is a safe keeper of its own Records R. Still what mean you by the Church The Vulgar neither keep nor understand your Councils The Council of Trent is long ceased No other General Council hath been since to tell you what are the true Decrees of that Council The Pope is not the Church And he may err in a matter of fact What then is the Church that tells you certainly what the Council of Trent decreed Tell me if you can P. We have such common historical Evidence and Tradition as you have for your Acts of Parliament when the Parliament is ended The present Governours preserve them R. Very good It is the Office of the Governours to take that Care but therein they are not indefectible and infallible but they and the published Laws and the notice of the whole Land and the Judicial proceedings by them in the Courts of Judicature make up a Certain Historical Evidence And so it may be in your Case And when you have talkt your utmost you can shew no more And have not we the same Writings of Fathers and Councils as you have You dare not deny it Why then may not we know what is in them as well as you And I pray you tell me Whether your Antiquaries such as Albaspinaeus Sixtus Senensis Petavius Sirmondus c. do prove what Cyprian Optatus Augustine c. held by the judgement of the Pope or Councils or by citing the words of the Authors themselves And do Crab Binnius Surius Caranza c. prove what one Council said by the authority of another or by the Records themselves yet visible to all P. Those Records themselves even the visible Writings of the Fathers and Councils are for Transubstantiation R. Till you have perswaded me out of my senses I will not believe you I pray you tell me if you can of any Author or Council that ever used the name Transubstantiation before Stephanus Aeduensis after the year 1100 de Sacram. Altar c. 13. P. Though the name be new the Doctrine is not R. Tell me next what General Council did ever determine it before the Council of Laterane under Innoc 3. an 1215. P. Not expresly for General Councils need not mention it till the Albigenses Hereticks gave them occasion by denying it R. Was it an Article of faith before If it were either the Councils are not the measure of your faith or it is very mutable P. Among all your questionings answer me this question if you can If that General Council decreed Transubstantiation what could move them so to do if it were not the faith of the Church before Were they not all of the same mind the day before they did it and so the day before that and the day before that c. Or do you think that they were against Transubstantiation the night before and awaked all of another mind the next morning What could make all the Pastors of the Church think that this was the true faith if they did not think it was the antient faith And what could make them think it the antient faith if it were not so Did not they know what their Fathers held And did not their Fathers know what their Fathers held The same I say of the Council of Trent also R. Thus men that must not believe the common sense of mankind can believe the dreaming conjectures of their brains and sit in a corner and thence tell the world what can and what cannot be done by publick assemblies at many hundred years and miles distance Who would not laugh at a Fryer that in his Cell would tell by moral conjectures all the thoughts and motions of an Army or Navy that never saw them and contrary to the experience of those that were on the ground and interessed in their Councils and actions Observe how many false suppositions go to make up your cheats 1. You suppose this a true General Council which is a pack of factious Prelates subject to the Pope and assembled at Rome in his own Palace under the awe of his presence and power And as if the small
no faithful History doth deny And then I need not prove that Transubstantiation is against the most General or Common Tradition For all these Christians the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. profess to follow the Religion which they have received from their Ancestors as well as the Papists do And if the Papists be to be believed in saying that this is the Religion which they received from their forefathers Why are not the other to be believed in the same case And if the Popish Tradition seem regardable to them Why should not the Tradition of twice or thrice as many Christians be more regardable And if in Councils the Major Vote must carry it Why not in the Judgement and Tradition of the Real body of Christs Church As for their trick of excepting against them as Schismaticks and Hereticks to invalidate their Votes and Judgement we despise it as knowing that so any Usurper that would make himself the sole Judge may say by all the rest of the world But as they judge of others they are justly judged by others themselves CHAP. X. The second part of the Controversie Whether it be Christs very Flesh and Blood into which the Bread and Wine are Transubstantiated R. OUr first Question was Whether there be any Bread and Wine left after Consecration Our second is Whether Christs Real Flesh and Blood be there as that into which the Bread and Wine are changed And herein 1. I do freely grant that the change of Christs Body by Glorification is so great as that it may be called though not a Spirit yet a spiritual body as Paul 1 Cor. 15. saith Ours when Glorified shall be that is A body very like in purity simplicity and activity to a Spirit And the general difference between a spirit and body was not held by many of the Greek Fathers as it is by us And if the second Council of Nice was Infallible no Angel or other Creature is Incorporeal Or as Damasus saith They are Corporeal in respect to God but Incorporeal in respect to gross bodies The perfect knowledge of the difference between Corpus and Spiritus except by the formal Virtues is unknown to mortal men 2. I grant therefore that our senses are no Competent Judges Whether Christs true body be in the Sacrament no more than Whether an Angel be in this room There are bodies which are Invisible 3. I grant that it is unknown to us how far Christs Glorified body may extend Whether the same may be both in Heaven and on earth I am not able nor willing to confute them that say Light is a Body nor them that say It is a spirit nor them that say It is quid medium as a nexus of both I mean Aether or Ignis visible in its Light And it is an incomprehensible wonder if Lumen be a real radiant or Emanant part of the Sun that it should indivisibly fill all the space thence to this earth and how much further little do we know So for the extensions of Christs body let those that understand it dispute for me 4. And I will grant that it is very probable that as in Heaven we shall have both a Soul and Body so the Body is not like to have so near an Intuition and fruition of God as the soul And whether the Glorified Body of Christ will not be there a medium of Gods Communication of Glory to our bodies yea and his glorified soul to our souls as the Sun is now to our eyes I do not well understand only I know that it is his prayer and will that we be with him where he is to behold his Glory and that God and the Lamb will be the Light of the Heavenly Jerusalem 5. And I am fully satisfied that it is not the signs only but the Real Body and Blood of Christ which are given us in the Sacraments both Baptism and the Eucharist But how given us Relatively de jure as a man is Given to a Woman in Marriage or as a house and land are delivered to me to be mine for my use though I touch them not Thus 1. A right to Christ is given us 2. And the fruits or benefits of his Crucified body and shed blood are actually given us that is Pardon and the Spirit merited for us thereby 6. And among the Benefits given us besides the Relative there are some such as we call Real or Physical terminatively and hyperphysical originally ut à Causa which are the spirit of Holiness or the Quickening Illuminating and Sanctifying influence of the spirit of Christ upon our souls And the Sacrament is appointed as a special means of communicating this 7. I have met with some of late who say that Indeed Christs Body and Blood in his humbled state were not really eaten and drunk by the disciples at his last supper For the flesh profiteth not to such a use But that his Glorified Body is spiritual and is extensively communicated and invisibly present under the form of Bread in the Sacrament and that as we have a Body a sensitive life and an Intellectual soul so Christ is the life of all these respectively viz. His Body is made the spiritual nourishment of our Bodies his sensitive soul for which the word Blood is put because it is in the blood in animals is the food or life of our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul of ours And to these uses they assert the Real presence and oral participation of Christs Glorified body To all which I say 1. Whether or how far an invisible spiritual Body is present sense is no judge nor can we know any further than Gods word telleth us 2. That Christ in his Glorified soul and Body is our Intercessour with God through whom we have all things we must not doubt 3. That Christ in his Humane and Divine Nature now in Heaven is that Teacher who hath left us a certain word and that King who hath left us a perfect Law of Life whom we must obey and a promise which we must trust we must not question 4. That the Holy Ghost who is our spiritual Life is given us by from and for Christ our Mediator we must take for certain truth But though in all these respects Faith apprehendeth and liveth upon Christ yet that moreover his Glorified Body in substance either feedeth or by contact purifieth our Bodies and his sensitive soul our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul our Intellectual souls as if in themselves and not in their effects only they were thus communicated to us I understand not either by any just conception of the thing it self or any proof of it from the word of God But if any can help me to see it I shall not refuse instruction Nor can I see why the soul of Christ should be said to be given in the Wine only and not in the Bread Nor why by this kind of Communication he may not as truly be said to be given us in
truly believed that Christ was the Messiah They erred that thought it lawful to eat things offered to Idols and yet they erred not in believing in Christ No two men in the world its like have the same degree of personal faith and knowledge as I oft said before But if our professed object of faith that is Gods word were false in one thing we could not be sure that it were true in any thing Yet here I told you before 1. That a man may be much surer that one part of Scripture is Gods word than another because some Copies are doubtful in the diverse Readings of some particular words or sentences and which of them that so differ is Gods word we oft know not But so much as we are sure is the word of God we are sure is true So if the Authority of some few books was once doubted of as 2 Pet. Jam. Jud. Heb. c. and yet be by any it followeth not that they doubt of the truth of any which they know to be the word of God 2. Or if any do hold that the Penmen might be left to their natural fallibility in some by historical circumstances or words it would not follow that one Article of the Gospel or Christian faith is doubtful which is plainly as the Kernel of it delivered in all the Scripture and also by infallible Universal Tradition by it self in the Sacrament Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue And our case also much differeth from the Papists in this For We profess that our objective faith Gods word is Infallible and we are Infallible so far as we believe it But we confess that we are lyable to misunderstand some parts of it and so far are fallible as being imperfect But the Papists say that their Pope and Councils and Universal Practicers are personally Infallible so as not to be lyable to any misunderstanding of any Article of faith say some or Article of Catholick faith say others And so they make their own Act of Believing to be Commensurate and equally certain with Gods word of faith and therefore they allow you to question them in all if they err in one as pretending to a gift of never erring in any D. But is it not a great reason to incline us to them rather than to you when They only pretend to Infallibility and You confess that you are all fallible in your Belief R. This is to be the subject of our next Conference and therefore not now to be anticipated only I shall tell you that It is a meer noise of ambiguous words to deceive the heedless that cannot search out the meaning of them 1. We not only Pretend but Profess and prove that our Christian Religion is altogether Infallible For which end I have written divers Treatises my self 2. And we profess that all the mystical Church of Christ that is all sincere Christians do truly and Infallibly believe all that is Essential to Christianity and as much of the Integrals as they can know 3. And we profess that the Catholick Church-Visible that is All professors of Christianity in the world do profess all these Essentials of Christianity and are Infallible in this profession But we hold withall that there is no particular Church or Bishop no Synod or Council that is so Infallible but that 1. They that hold to the Essentials may misunderstand and err about some Integrals 2. And those persons have no Certainty that they shall not err by Heresie or Apostacy from the Essentials themselves So that the Church is Infallible because it is essentiated by believing an Infallible Word which who ever believeth not ceaseth to be of the Church not Gods Word infallible because the Church or any number of men believe it or say Its true For Truth is before Knowledge and Faith As Aristotle was a Philosopher because he understood and taught the doctrine of real Philosophy and not that doctrine called Physicks or Philosophy because that Aristotle knew or taught it But alas What work shall I shew you when I come to open their bewildring uncertainties D. But to deal freely with you methinks their way of measuring out the Necessaries in Faith and Religion according to mens various parts and opportunities seemeth to me more satisfactory than yours who fix upon certain points as the Baptismal Covenant as Essentials For there is great diversity of mens Capacities R. This cometh from confounding several Questions as if they were all one 1. It is one Question What is the Christian Religion 2. ☞ It is another Question Whether the Christian Religion be absolutely necessary to the salvation of all those to whom it was never competently revealed 3. And it is another Question Whether more than the Essentials of Christian Religion be not necessary to the salvation of many who have opportunity to know more Alas what work doth Confusion make in the world To the first It is evident that as Mahometanism is a thing which may be defined so much more may Christianity Who that writeth of the several Religions of the world Ethnick Jewish Mahometan and Christian do not take them to be distinguishable and discernable Especially when Christ hath summed up Christianity into a Covenant and given it us in express words and affixed a flat promise of salvation to the true Covenanters and the Church hath ever called our Baptism our Christening Is Christianity Nothing If Something Why may it not be defined and differenced from all false Religions And if so It hath its Essential Constitutive parts All this is plain to Children that will see 2. And then as to the second question it concerneth not our Controversie at all It is but Whether any Infidels may be saved Or any that are no Christians And if it could be proved that any are saved that are no Christians do you thereby prove that they are Christians or members of the Christian Church or that Christianity is not a Religion which may be defined 3. And as to the third question We are on all sides agreed in it That they that have more than the naked Essentials of Christianity revealed to them aptly are bound to believe more Yea it is hardly conceiveable that any one should know and believe the Essentials only and no more It is not Essential to the Christian Covenant or Christianity to know that the Name of Christs Mother was Mary or that Pontius Pilate was the man that condemned him And if an Ignorant man thought that his continuance in the Grave was four dayes I do not think that this would damn his soul to Hell Much less the not believing that Mary dyed a Virgin And yet it is not like that any man should come to the Essentials of Christianity by any such way as should acquaint him with no one of these or any point besides the said Essentials And yet it is certain for all this that he that truly receiveth the Essentials and is true to the Baptismal Covenant shall be
Italians maintain that Christ is in the Sacrament when they do not believe that he is in Heaven 11. And many Nicodemites think that a man needs not expose himself to danger for his faith but may keep it to himself and do as his neighbours do especially where they have no other society to joyn with they think it better to joyn with the Popish Churches than none 12. And I have reason to think that it is but few among the multitude that understand indeed what the Papists hold while they go with them in the general Name and profession And in particular about Transubstantiation When even the subtle Schoolmen are not agreed of its proper sense as Durandus his instance for one doth prove I do not think that one of an hundred that receiveth their Eucharist doth in his heart believe that It is not Bread But some think that their Church it self meaneth otherwise And some say It is not for such as I to contradict them and dispute but I will leave every one to think as he will and so will I. 13. And as for Princes and Lords abroad Those that have once escaped Popery will take heed how they entertain it again unless lust and folly have sold them for a prey But they that live where their subjects are Papists dare not venture to shake so great a fabrick lest they overthrow themselves For 1. People are tumultuous 2. The Popish Clergie are rich and powerful and exceeding numerous 3. Religion is a thing that men are tender and tenacious of who are seriously of any 4. The Popish doctrine of deposing and killing excommunicate Kings maketh many Princes flatter the Priests for fear of losing â—heir lives They think that it is better make some advantage of the Popes friendship than to have such an enemy whose Knives and poison have easie access and whose armies we must watch against in peace as in a continued War and we know not when they are in our own houses or near us nor where nor when we are in safety 14. And alas the Great ones of the World have the greatest Temptations and not the weakest lusts and passions and have more of worldly and carnal Interest to carry them away 15. And the Papists Religion is notably suited to their lusts and carnal ends All which and much more may tell you that it no wonder that so many forreign Princes and States and Nobles can cleave to so sensless a way as Popery D. II. But how come so many among us in England to turn Papists of late years where Popery is discountenanced by the King Parliament and Laws R. Many of the same Causes do this which I need not reherse And 1. Too many both Noble and ignoble are prepared by their Lusts and by a vicious life There are many things in Popery which greatly accommodate a carnal mind and a debauched guilty Conscience which the Christian Protestant Religion affordeth not And a profligate flagitious person is likeliest to be forsaken of God and to be given up to believe a lye seeing they received not the truth in the love of it that they might be saved 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. I fear nothing so much as lest men turn Heart-Infidels and Tongue-Papists as the suitablest Reserve lest Christian Religion and the life to come should prove a truth And indeed great sins Cry for great Vengeance And what Greater than for Mind Will and Life to be forsaken of God 2. And alas except Lawyers Physicions and others bred up to Studies and Employments how few are there of Nobility or Gentry that are hard studying men And the great Mysteries of Religion will not be well learned and defended by a life of eating drinking playing jeasting gaming hawking hunting visitings of empty company lustfulness worldliness or vain-glorious pomp No men grow wise or Christians indeed by such a course 3. And indeed the Popish Priests are more industrious than too many of our Incumbent Ministers for which they are Commendable in their way The Erroneous are oft more zealous than the Orthodox And they that apprehend themselves between fear and hope are usually more industrious than they that by possession are secure which maketh the lower side so oft get up and the upper side go down And I would I might not say that our Ministers are too few of them able to deal with a trained Sophister Some are unable in this particular cause because they take it as a baffled pack of notorious Errors and thought that few sober persons were in danger of it And so they have honestly bent their studies and labours to the winning of sensual persons from their sins and are unfurnished in the Popish Controversies knowing that they can refer them to multitudes of Books which are unanswerable But alas too many also are unable through meer ignorance lowness of parts and gross insufficiency or negligence not only in this but other parts of their Ministerial work 4. And we have incurred no small dammage and danger by ignorant Over-doing against the Papists Partly with the self-wise Sectaries calling many laudable or blameless things by the Name of Popery Antichristianity and Idolatry because they are cross to their pre-judging partial conceits And partly by some unsound doctrines which some defend as parts of the Protestant Religion And partly by magnifying verbal differences and making a noise about them as if they were real and such as salvation lyeth on For want of skill to state a controversie and discern a verbal difference from a real And when a Papist can but shew their Novices one such palpable error in the Writings of a Protestant What sad work will he make with it and still harp upon that string and perswade the people that the rest of our differences are such like And thus many Overdoing well-meaning ignorant men both Ministers and people have unwittingly done as much to harden Papists and increase their numbers almost as if Satan had hired them as Spies to betray the Churches and Cause of Christ Yea and if one better studied in these points shall go a sounder and more successful way to work and take these weapons out of the Papists hands which some ignorant Protestants have given them the same mens blind zeal will rage against them as some did against Chillingworth Anthony Wotton and divers others our greatest Champions as if it were not themselves but these that were befriending Popery So that they neither can confute them soundly themselves nor will suffer others but zealous Protestants assault Christs ablest servants at their backs while their faces are towards the adversaries whom they oppose 5. But nothing among us except Ignorance and wickedness increaseth them more than the scandal of our numerous and some of them abominable Sects When the people see many zealous professors turn Quakers or Ranters or Seekers or Antinomians or Socinians or Familists and shall see the more tolerable parties Episcopal Presbyterian Independant Erastian Separatists and Anabaptists
and his own General Councils The Kings of France Spain c. may easily prove that they have more power to cast out the Pope than he hath to cast out half Christs Sacrament And they may better forbid their own Subjects to obey a forreign Usurper than he can forbid all the world to obey Christ 7. And for all this the wit of man can hardly devise What Reason they have to do it What point of their Religion What Interest of their own did engage them to it Unless it be their Interest to shew that they are Above Christ and the Scripture I do not yet discern their reason 8. And yet they have with Resolution and obstinacy persisted herein divers hundreds of years and denyed the requests of Emperours Nobles and great part of several Kingdoms in this point This and the leaving out the second Commandment seem to be of purpose to shew that they are above the Maker of the Ten Commandments and of the Gospel How long Lord shall Tyranny oppress the Nations of the Earth and the Honour and Domination and Wills of Rebels prevail to tread down Truth and Godliness and keep the notice of thy salvation from the sinful miserable world whilest yet we daily pray by thy Command that Thy Name may be Hallowed Thy Kingdome come and Thy Will be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven Whether the Pope be the Antichrist meant in the Scripture by that name or not you see that my passing it by doth shew my cautelousness in resolving as Zanchy and others before me have done because I am confessedly so far unstudyed or ignorant of the sense of the Revelations and some other Scripture Prophecies as that I must leave such cases to such as Bishop Downame and others that have deeper insight into them Every man should be best at that which he hath most studyed But I must needs say that though I take it to be indispensible duty to keep up all due charity to all professed Christians such instances as these which I have here opened do utterly disable me from confuting that man who shall assert that this pretended Vicar of Christ and King or Monarch of the world and so King of Kings and Lord of Lords is an abominable Usurper and insolent Traytor against God and the true King and Head of the Universal Church How long will Princes and Prelates Learned and Unlearned be deluded by him or fear Power And when shall he be restrained from hindering Christs Gospel and the Peace and Concord of the Christian world FINIS Johns Nov. Repr p. 426. Protestants formally such have not enough to be brought to the unfeigned Love of God above all things and special Love to his servants and unfeigned willingness to obey him I deny you have any certain knowledge or feeling that you love God or his servants or willingness to obey c. Knot against Chillingworth Ch. 2. p. 122. In no one doctrine Protestants would seem more unanimously to agree than in this That all things necessary to salvation are contained evidently in Scripture which they hold as the only foundation of the whole structure of their Faith and Religion Note this Confession See Dr. Holden Analys fidei Li. 1. c. 3. Lett. 1. He that would know what stress we lay on Tradition as the Medium may see it fully in my Reasons of Christ Relig. And Dr. Holden is more for us than for the Papists Cap. 3. Q. Was it from the Church that the first Church received it Or was it not the same Divine Religion which the first Church whether Council or Practicers received without the Tradition of Council or Practicers If so this cannot be essential to Religion If the Apostles words were to be believed their proved Writings are to be believed And their Writings were proved theirs before a General Council or Universal Practice witnessed it Even by each Church and person that received any Epistle from any one of them So that if the Doctors will but differ in their Expositions the Scripture is no more the sure Word of God or to be believed by Catholick faith Of the Pope without a General Council Mark then that it may be de fide divina though not of Catholick necessity without the proposal of Council or universal practice Johns Nov. Rep. p. 19. of the explication of Terms Know you not that Divines are divided what are the points necessary to be believed explicitely necessitate medii Some and those the more antient hold that the explicite belief of God of the whole Trinity of Christ his Passion Resurrection c. are necessary necessitate medii Others among the recentiors that no more than the belief of the Deity and that he is the rewarder of our works is absesolutely necessary with that necessary to be explicitely believed He doth better interpret the distinction of Explicite and Implicite on another occasion in another sense Holden l. 1. c. 9. p. 169. Queret an teneatur quispiam aâ— internum Divinae fidei actum quem nec semper fortasse in eius potestate situm novimus Quamdiu sane arbitretur quispiam hujusmodi fidei actum lumini naturali rationi oppositum contrarium esse nequaquam poterit ad illum eliciendum astringi Aquin. p. 3. q. 75. a. 5. ad 3. Fides non est contra sensum sed est dâ— eo ad quod sensus non attingit But doth not sense say Here is Bread and Wine Vid. Aquin. 3. q. 82. a. 7. c. Vid. Aquin. 3. q. 69. a. 9. Vid. Aquin. 3. q. 82. a. 8. 2 Cor. 12.12 Rom. 15.19 Act. 14.3 15.12 Matth. 21.15 So they do by forbidding to eat Flesh in Lent And yet say they eat Christs flesh in Lent When Irenaeus cited by Occumenius Com. in 1 Peâ— c. 3. bringeth in Blandina proving to the Heathens that Christians did not eat flesh and drink blood in the Eucharist because that they use even to abstain for exercise sake from Lawful flesh See my More Reasons for the Christian Religion and the Lord Herbert de Veritate Apply this to Mr. Johnsons Rejoynder on this Point and you will see his Vanity