the Character will be farr too short It is in you and onely you my Lord to set him out truely and to resemble him to the life and that will be by taking that Evangelicall Counsell Tu autem fac similiter Do like him live like him and pardon me if I add one thing more like him Love My Lord Your Lordships most humble and affectionately devoted Servant TRIPLET OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME A discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND TO him that doubteth whether the Church of Rome hath any errors they answer that she hath none for she never can have any this being so much harder to beleeve then the first had need be proved by some certainer Arguments if they expect that the beleefe of this one should draw on whatsoever they please to propose yet this if offered to be proved by no better wayes then we offer to prove by that she hath erred which are arguments from Scripture and ancient Writers all which they say are fallible for nothing is not so but the Church Which if it be the onely infallible determination and that can never be believed upon its owne authority we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible for these other waies of proofe may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to beleeve them If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine Faith why are they offended with the Protestants for beleeving every part of their Religion upon that ground upon which they build all theirs at once And if following the same Rule with equall desire of finding the Truth by it having neither of those qualities which Isid. Pelus saith are the cause of all Heresie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pride and Prejudication why should God be more offended with the one then with the other though they chance to erre They say the Church is therefore made infallible by God that all men may have some certain Guide yet though it be infallible unlesse it both plainly appeare to be so for it is not certaine to whom it doth not appeare certaine and unlesse it be manifest which is the Church God hath not attained his end and it were to set a ladder to Heaven and seem to have a great care of my going up whereas unlesse there be care taken that I may know this ladder is here to that purpose it were as good for me it never had been set If they say we may know for that generall Tradition instructs us in it I answer that ignorant people cannot know this and so it can be no Rule for them and if learned people mistake in this there can be no condemnation for them For suppose to know whether the Church of Rome may erre as a way which will conclude against her but not for her I seek whether she have erred and conceiving she hath contradicted her self conclude necessarily she hath erred I suppose it not damnable though false because I try the Church by one of the touch-stones which herself appoints me Conformity with the Ancients For to say I am to beleeve the present Church that it differs not from the former though it seem to me to do so is to send me to a witnesse and bid me not beleeve it now to say the Church is provided for a guide of Faith but must be known by such markes as the ignorant cannot seek it by and the learned may chance not find it by can no way satisfie me If they say God will reveale the Truth to whomsoever seeks it these waies sincerely this saying both sides will without meanes of being confuted make use of therefore it would be as good that neither did When they have proved the Church to be Infallible yet to my understanding they have proceeded nothing farther unlesse we can be sure which is it For it signifies onely that God will have a Church alwaies which shall not erre but not that such or such a succession shall be in the right so that if they say the Greek Church is not the Church because by its own confession it is not Infallible I answer That it may be now the Church and may hereafter erre and so not be now infallible and yet the Church never erre because before their fall from Truth others may arise to maintaine it who then will be the Church and so the Church may still be infallible though not in respect of any set persons whom we may know at all times for our Guide Then if they prove the Church of Rome to be the true Church and not the Greek Church because their opinions are consonant either to Scripture or Antiquitie they run into a Circle proving their Tenets to be true First because the Church holds them And then theirs to be the Church because the Church holds the Truth Which last though it appears to me the onely way yet it takes away its being a Guide which we may follow without examination without which all they say besides is nothing Nay suppose that they had evinced that some succession were Infallible and so had proved to a learned man that the Roman Chruch must be this because none else pretends to it yet this can be no sufficient ground to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation for their beleefe that the Church of Greece pretends not to the same and even to the Learned it is but an accidentall Argument because if any other Company had likewise claimed to be Infallible it had overthrown all The chiefest reason why they disallow of Scripture for Judge is because when differences arise about the interpretation there is no way to end them And that it will not stand with the goodnesse of God to damne men for not following his Will if he had assigned no infallible way to find it I confesse this to be wonderfull true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and let them excuse themselves that think otherwise yet this will be no Argument against him that beleeves that to them who follow their reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures God will either give his Grace for assistance to find the Truth or his pardon if they misse it And then this supposed necessitie of an infallible Guide with the supposed damnation for want of it fall together to the ground If they command us to beleeve infallibly the contrary to this they are to prove it false by some infallible way for the conclusion must be of the same nature and not conclude more then the premisses set down Now such a way Scripture and Reason and infused Faith cannot be for they use to object the fallibility of these to those that build their Religion upon them nor the authority of the Church for this is part of the Question and must it self be first proved and that by none of the former waies for the former reasons The Popes Infallibility can be no infallible ground of Faith being it self no
in any point of Religion yet to be in a readinesse to cry To the fire with him to Hell with him as Polybius saith in a certaine furious faction of an army of severall nations and consequently of severall languages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They all joyned onely in understanding this word throw at him These I say in my opinion were chiefly the causes which made so many so suddenly leave the Church of Rome that indeed to borrow the same Authors Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They needed no perswasion to do it but onely newes that others had done it For as this alone if beleeved makes all the rest to be so too so one thing alone disliked where infallibility is claimed overthrowes all the rest If it were granted that it agreeth not with the goodnesse of God to let men want an infallible Guide and therefore there must be one and that the Church of Rome were it yet if that teach any thing to my understanding contrary to Gods goodnesse I am not to receive her Doctrine for the same cause for which they would have me receive it it being as good an argument this guide teacheth things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore this is not appointed by God as to say it is agreeable to his goodnesse there should be one therefore there is one and sure it is lawfull to examine particular Doctrines whether they agree with that Principle which is their foundation and for that me thinks to damn him that neither with negligence nor prejudication searches what is Gods will though he misse of it is as contrary as the first can be supposed Next I would know whether he that hath never heard of the Church of Rome shall yet be damned for not beleeving her infallible I have so good an opinion of them as to assure my self they will answer he shall not I will then ask whether he that hath searched what Religions there are and finds hers to be one and her infallibility to be a part of it if his reason will not assent to that shall be damned for being inquisitive after Truth for he hath committed no other fault greater then the other and whether such an ignorance I mean after impartiall search be not of all other the most invincible Nay grant the Church to be infallible yet me thinks he that denies it and imploies his reason to seek if it be true should be in as good case as he that beleeveth it and searcheth not at all the truth of the Proposition he receives For I cannot see why he should be saved because by reason of his parents beleef or the Religion of the Country or some such accident the Truth was offered to his understanding when had the contrary been offered he would have received that And the other damned that beleeves falshood upon as good ground as the other doth truth unlesse the Church be like a Conjurers Circle that will keep a man from the Divell though he came unto it by chance They grant no man is an Heretick that beleeves not his Heresie obstinately and if he be no Heretick he may sure be saved It is not then certain damnation for any man to deny the Infallibility of the Church of Rome but for him onely that denies it obstinately And then I am safe for I am sure I do not Neither can they say I shall be damned for Schisme though not for Heresie for he is as well no Shcismatick though in Schisme that is willing to joyne in Communion with the true Church when it appears to be so to him as he is no Heretick though he holds Hereticall opinions who holds them not obstinately that is as I suppose with a desire to be informed if he be in the wrong Next Why if it be not necessary alwaies to beleeve the Truth so one beleeve in generall what the Church would have beleeved for so they excuse great men that have held contrary opinions to theirs now before they were defined or knew them to be so why I say shall not the same implicite assent serve to whatsoever God would have assented unto though I mistake what that is when indeed to beleeve implicitely what God would have beleeved is to beleeve implicitely likewise what the Church teacheth if this Doctrine be within the number of those which God commands to be beleeved I have the lesse doubt of this opinion that I shall have no harme for not beleeving the Infallibility of the Church of Rome because of my being so farr from leaning to the contrary and so suffering my will to have power over my understanding that if God would leave it to me which Tenet should be true I would rather chuse that that should then the contrary For they may well beleeve me that I take no pleasure in tumbling hard and unpleasant Books and making my self giddy with disputing obscure Questions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If I should beleeve there should alwaies be whom I might alwaies know a society of men whose opinions must be certainely true and who would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 labour to discusse and define all arising doubts so that I might be excusably at ease and have no part left for me but that of obedience which must needs be a lesse difficult and so a more agreeable way then to endure endlesse Volumes of Commenters the harsh Greek of Epiphanius and the harder Latin of Irenaeus and be pained by distinguishing between different sences and various Lections and he would deserve not the lowest place in Bedlem that would preferr these studies before so many so more pleasant that would rather imploy his understanding then submit it and if he could think God imposed upon him onely the resisting temptations would by way of addition require from himself the resolving of doubts yet I say not that all these Books are to be read by those that understand not the languages for them I conceive their seeking into the Scripture may suffice but he who hath by Gods grace skill to look into them cannot better use it then in the searching of his will where they say it is to be found that he may assent to them if there he find reason for it or if not they may have no excuse for not excusing him For whereas they say it is pride makes us doubt of their Infallibilitie I answer That their too much lazinesse and impatience of examining is the cause that many of them do not doubt Next what pride is it never to assent before I find reason since they when they follow their Church as infallible pretend reason for it and will not say they would if they thought they found none and if they say we do find reason but will not eonfesse it then pride hinders not our assent but our declaration of it which if it do in any one he is without question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 con demned by himself and it must be a very partiall Advocate that would strive to
of Salvation But how would he have the Church speake which speaketh in common but abstracting from such particular cases as may change wholly the nature of the question For example sake hath not the Church reason to say he that denyeth the blessed Trinity is an Heretique It hapneth one who hath conversed among the Tritheites hearing them use the word Trinity for three Gods meaning to speak against them denyeth there is any Trinity shall this man be comprehended in the foresaid condemnation Or was the sentence ill pronounced Neither as I think For bo h was it well done by the Church to condemne denyers of the Trinity because per se loquendo as the Phylosophers speak that is according to the ordinary course and nature of things who denyeth a thing in words denyeth it in heart yet the man forespoken did not so and was not condemned in that sentence In like manner when the Church condemneth all such as are not in actuall union and communion with her she doth well because according to the ordinary course this doth not fall out without either presumption and damnable pride or else culpable eitherignorance or feare and love of private interest before God and his Church But it followeth not thence that by accident no man may sometime be excused The words of our Saviour concerning Baptisme and Eucharist their necessity are very precise yet the Church doubteth not to excuse those who have it in voto But to proceed unto the point The corrent of Catholique Doctors holdeth that no man shall be damned for infidelity but he who wilfully doth mis-beleeve and that to doe so it is required that faith be sufficiently proposed unto him And what is to be sufficiently proposed is not determined amongst them There wanteth not Divines that teach that even ignorantia affectata doth excuse from Herisie On the other side it is most certaine that no man is damned for not professing what he is not damned for not beleeving Wherefore profession being that which engrafteth a man exteriorly in the Church of God according unto the ordinary opinions of Catholiques it followeth that no man is condemned for not being of the Church who is not for infidelity for which it is a very uncertaine case who be damned and who not So that the Catholique position is not so crude as peradventure the Author understood it to be though the words be rough and ought to be so as being of what is according to the course of nature not what chance and accideuts may invent The other point was of puting Heretiques to death which I think he understandeth to be done Vindicatively not Medicinally I meane imposed as a punishment and not in way to prevent mischeife or oppresse it in the head If the Circumcellians were the first that is ancient enough for the justification of the fact although for banishment which also he seemeth to reprehend we know the first that could suffer it did suffer it Arrius I meane by the hand of Constantine whom he praiseth for a speech he uttered before he knew the consequence of the danger and seemeth to reprehend for his after and better wits Saint Augustine justifieth such proceeding against Here tiques Saint Gregory advised the like against Pagans if I remember and the Church laterly hath rather increased then decreased in the practise of it Mores's speech I beleeve is mistaken the force of it being that the banishment of Bishops shewed his faith because the banished were Catholiques which shewed Lucius to be none But what can be said if the Church useth that for the prevention of a greater and more dangerous evill which all politique Estates use for the remedies of lesse and lesse dangerous evils and are commended for it For if Faith be the way of Salvation and hereby the bane of Faith if Salvation be the greatest good then the danger of a Countries being over runne with Heresie is the greatest of dangers greater then the multiplying of Theeves greater then the unsurety of the wayes greater then a Plague or Invasion Why then doth not reason force us to use the meanes to prevent it which the same reason and experience teacheth us to be most efficacious in this and all other contagious and gangrening maladies of the Common-wealth I hope reason it selfe and the zeale of the Author to his own and Countries Salvation will supply my shortnesse in this point For supposing a Church be assured she is in the right and that the doctrine preached by another leadeth to damnation I know not why Caipha's words should not be propheticall in this case and that truly it doth not expedire that unus moriatur pro populo non tota gens pereat He urgeth afterwards against the unity of the Church that it is none such as we brag off And I confesse we brag of it and thinke we have reason too And if it please him to look into the difference of our Country of England and some Land of Barbarians as Brasile or such other where they live without Law or Government I thinke he will find that our bragging is not without ground For wherein is the difference betwixt a civill Government and a barbarous Anarchie Is it either that in a civill Estate there be no quarrels or amongst Barbarians there is no quiet The former would prejudice our Courts and Justice the latter is impossible even in nature What is then the goodnesse of Government but that in a well govern'd Country there is a meanes to end quarrels and in an Anarchy there can be no assured peace This therefore is that we brag of that amongst us if any controversie rise there is a way to end it which is not amongst them who part from us And secondly that there is no assured agreement amongst those who are parted from us for although to day they agree there is no bond nor tye why to morrow they may not disagree These two things we brag of and I think the Author will not deny it For he confesseth we all agree in that the Church is an infallible Mistresse Then it is evident that if in any controversie she interposeth her judgement the controversie is ended He likewise confesseth that who part from us have no such definitive authority amongst them and that Scripture whereon they relie hath not this vertue to take up controversies clearly Againe I doe confesse most English men confesse a Trinity the Incarnation and Passion of our Saviour but if to morrow any one or more of them light upon some book of an Arrian Trinitarian or other Sect so wittily written that he putteth probable solutions for the places of Scriptures sheweth slight wayes how our well-meaning fore-fathers may have slipped into such an error what is there to retaine these men from disagreeing with the rest of their brethern and betake themselves to the Arrians And when the heat is passed light upon some Rabbi who shall cunningly exaggerate the absurdities as he shall terme
been any we know no force was equal to the courage of the Christians of those times Their lives were then at command for they had not then learnt to fight for Christ but their obedience to any thing against his Law was not to be commanded for they had perfectly learn't to dye for him Therefore there was no power then to command this change or if there had been any it had been in vain SECT 9. What device then shall we study or to what fountain shall we reduce this strange pretended alteration Can it enter into our hearts to think that all the Presbyters and other Christians then being the Apostles Schollers could be generally ignorant of the Will of Christ touching the necessity of a Presbyterial Government Or dare we adventure to think them so strangely wicked all the World over as against knowledge and conscience to conspire against it Imagine the spirit of Diotrephes had entered into some or a great many of the Presbyters and possessed them with an ambitious desire of a forbiddden superiority was it possible they should attempt and atchieve it once without any opposition or contradiction and besides that the contagion of this ambition should spread it self and prevail without stop or controul nay without any noyse or notice taken of it through all the Churches in the World all the watchmen in the mean time being so fast asleep and all the dogs so dumb that not so much as one should open his mouth against it SECT 10. But let us suppose though it be a horrible untruth that the Presbyters and people then were not so good Christians as the Presbyterians are now that they were generally so negligent to retain the government of Christ's Church commanded by Christ which we now are so zealous to restore yet certainly we must not forget nor deny that they were men as we are And if we look upon them but as meer naturall men yet knowing by experience how hard a thing it is even for policy arm'd with power by many attempts and contrivances and in a long time to gain upon the liberty of any one people undoubtedly we shall never entertain so wild an imagination as that among all the Christian Presbyteries in the World neither conscience of duty nor love of liberty nor aversenesse from pride and usurpation of others over them should prevail so much with any one as to oppose this pretended universal invasion of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the liberty of Christians SECT 11. When I shall see therefore all the Fables in the Metamorphosis acted and prove stories when I shall see all the Democracies and Aristocracies in the World lye down and sleep and awake into Monarchies then will I begin to believe that Presbyterial Government having continued in the Church during the Apostles times should presently after against the Apostles doctrine and the will of Christ be whirl'dabout like a scene in a masque and transformed into Episcopacy In the mean time while these things remain thus incredible and in humane reason impossible I hope I shall have leave to conclude thus Episcopal Government is acknowledged to have been universally received in the Church presently after the Apostles times Between the Apostles times and this presently after there was not time enough for nor possibility of so great an alteration And therefore there was no such alteration as is pretended And therefore Episcopacy being confessed to be so Ancient and Catholique must be granted also to be Apostolique Quod erat demonstrandum FINIS The Preface to the READER THe eminent abilities in the most noble Author of the ensuing learned Discourse and learneder Reply can scarcely be imagined unknown to any whom this language can reach But if any such there be I shall desire them to learne the perfections of that most excellent Person rather from the Dedication then this Preface the designe of which is onely to give the Reader some satisfaction concerning the nature of this Controversie in it selfe and of these Dissertations in particular The Romish Doctrine of their owne Infallibility as it is the most generall Controversie betweene them and all other Churches excluded by them from their Communion So it is of such a comprehensive nature that being proved and clearely demonstrated it would without question draw all other Churches so excluded to a most humble submission and acknowledgement nay to an earnest desire of a suddaine Reconciliation upon any Termes whatsoever For howsoever they please to speak and write of our Hereticall and obstinate persistance in manifest Errors yet I hope they cannot seriously thinke we would be so irrationall as to contradict him whom we our selves think beyond a possibillity of erring and to dispute perpetually with them whom onely to heare were to be satisfied But when they have propounded their Decisions to be beleeved and imbraced by us as Infallibly true and that because they propound them who in their own opinion are Infallible if notwithstanding some of those Decisions seeme to us to be evidently false because clearely contradictory to that which they themselves propound as infallibly true that is the Word of God surely we cannot be blamed if we have desired their Infallibility to be most clearly demonstrated at least to a higher degree of evidence then we have of the contradiction of their Decisions to the infallible Rule Wherefore The great Defenders of the Doctrine of the Church of England have with more then ordinary diligence endeavoured to view the grounds of this Controversie and have written by the advantage either of their learning accurately or of their parts most strongly or of the cause it selfe most convincingly against that darling Infallibility How clearely this Controversie hath been managed with what evidence of truth discussed what successe so much of reason hath had cannot more plainly appeare then in this that the very name of Infallibility before so much exalted begins now to be very burthensome even to the maintainers of it Insomuch as one of their latest and ablest Proselytes Hugh Paulin de Cressy lately Dean of Laghlin c. in Ireland and Prebendary of Windsor in England in his Exomologesis or faithfull Narration of the occasion and motives of his Conversion hath dealt very clearly with the World and told us that this Infallibilitie is an unfortunate Word That Mr. Chillingworth hath cumbated against it with too too great successe so great that he could wish the Word were forgotten or at least layd by That not onely Mr. Chillingworth whom he still worthily admires but we the rest of the poore Protestants have in very deed very much to say for our selves when we are pressed unnecessarily with it And therefore Mr. Cressy's advise to all the Romanists is this that we may never be invited to combat the authority of the Church under that notion Oh the strength of Reason rightly managed O the power of Truth clearly declared that it should force an emnient member of the Church of Rome whose
necessary part of Faith and we can be no surer of any thing proved then we are of that which proves it and if he be fallible no part is the more infallible for his siding with them So if the Church be divided I have no way to know the true Church but by searching which agrees with Scripture and Antiquitie and so judging accordingly but this is not to submit my self to her opinions as my Guide which they tell us is necessarie which course if they approve not of as fit for a learned man they are in a worse case for the ignorant who can take no course at all nor is he the better at all for his Guide the Church whilst two parts dispute which is it and that by arguments he understands not If I grant the Pope or a Councell by him called to be infallible yet I conceive their decrees can be no sufficient grounds by their own axioms of divine Faith For first of all no Councell is valid not approved by the Pope for thus they overthrow that held at Ariminum and a Pope chosen by Simony is ipso facto no Pope I can have then no certainer grounds for the infallibility of those decrees and consequently for my beleefe of them then I have that the choice of him is neither directly nor indirectly Simoniacall Secondly suppose him Pope and to have confirmed their decrees yet that these are the decrees of a Councell or that he hath confirmed them I can have but an uncontradicted confession of many men for if another Councell should declare these to have been the Acts of another former Councell I should need againe some certain way of knowing how this declaration is a Councell which is no ground say they of Faith I am sure not so good and generall a one as we have that the Scripture is Scripture which yet they will not allow any to be certaine of but from them Thirdly For the sence of their decrees I can have no better expounder then reason which if though I mistake I shall not be damned for following why shall I for mistaking the sence of the Scripture or why am I a lesse fit Interpreter of the one then of the other and when both seeme equally cleare and yet contradictory shall not I affoon beleeve Scripture which is without doubt of as great authority But I doubt whether Councells are fit deciders of Questions for such they cannot be if they beget more and men are in greater doubts afterwards none of the former being diminished then they were at ffrst Now I conceive there arise so many out of this way that the learned cannot end all nor the ignorant know all As besides the fore-named considerations who is to call them the Pope or Kings who are to have voices in them Bishops onely or Priests also whether the Pope or Councell be superiour and the last need the approbation of the first debated amongst themselves Whether any Countries not being called or not being there as the Abissines so great a part of Christianitie and not resolvedly condemned by them for Hereticks were absent at the Councell of Trent make it not generall Whether if it be one not every where received as when the Bishops sent from some places have exceeded their Commission as in the Councell of Florence it be yet of necessitie to be subscribed unto Whether there were any surreption or force used and whether those disanull the Acts Whether the most voices are to be held the Act of the Councell or those of all required which never yet agreed Or whether two parts will serve as in the Tridentine Synod A considerable doubt because Nicephorus Callistus relalating the resolution of a Councell at Rome against that of Ariminum makes him give three reasons One That the Pope of Rome was not present The Second That most did not agree to it The third That others thither gathered were displeased at their resolutions Which proves that in their opinions if either most not present agree not to it or all present be not pleased with it a Councell hath no power to bind All these doubts I say perswade me that whatsoever brings with it so many new Questions can be no fit end of the old Then if before a generall Councell have defined a Question it be lawfull to hold either way and damnable to do so after I desire to know why it is so Scripture and Tradition seem to me not to say so but if they did so I suppose you will grant they do this Doctrine That the Soules of the blessed shall see God before the day of Judgement and not be kept in secret Receptacles for without this the Doctrine of Prayers to Saints cannot stand and yet for denying this Bellarmine excuseth Pope John the 22 th because the Church he meanes I doubt not a generall Councell had not then condemned it I desire to know why he should not be condemned as well without one as many Hereticks that are held so by their Church yet condemned by none which if he make to be the Rule of Heresie it had been happy to have lived before the Councell of Nice when no opinion had been damnable but some against the Apostles Councell at Hierusalem because there had yet been no other generall Councell at least why should not I be excused by the same reason though I beleeve not a Councell to be infallible since I never heard that any Councell hath decreed that they are so neither if it hath can we be bound by that decree unlesse first made certaine some other way that it selfe is so If you say we must beleeve it because of Tradition I answer Sometimes you will have the not beleeving any thing not declared by a Councell to have power enough to damne that is when against any of us at other times the Church hath not decreed unlesse a Councell have and their error is pardonable and they good Catholicks Next as I have asked before how shall an ignorant man know it For he in likelihood can speak but with a few from whom he cannot know that all of the Church of Romes part do now and in past ages have beleeved it to be Tradition so certaine as to make it a ground of Faith unlesse he have some revelation that those deceived him not neither indeed can those that should inform him of the opinions of former times be certainely informed themselves For truely if the relation of Pappias could cozen so far all the prime Doctors of the Christian Church into a beleefe of the celebration of a thousand yeeres after the resurrection so as that no one of those two first ages oppose it which appeares plainly enough because those that after rise up against this never quoated any thing for themselves before Dionysius Alexandrinus who lived at least two hundred and fifty yeares after Christ nay if those first men did not onely beleeve it as probable but Justine Martir saith he holds it and so
Argument against us then against the Dominicans If they can prove though it be affirmed by the first of them that such a thing is Tradition and beleeved by all Christians and this assertion till a great while after uncontradicted yet they are not bound to receive it and upon lesse grounds we are If indeed any can prove by any infallible way the Infallibility of the Church of Rome and the necessity under paine of damnation for all men to beleeve it which were the more strange because Justin Martyr and Clements Alexandrinus among the Ancients and Erasmus and Ludovicus Vives among the Modernes beleeve some Pagans to be saved I will subscribe to it and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any man vouchsafe to think either this or the Authour of it of value enough to confute the one and informe the other I shall desire him to do it with proceeding to the businesse and not standing upon any small slip of mine of which this may be full and with that temper which is fit to be used by men that are not so passionate as to have the definition of reasonable Creatures in vaine remembring that Truth in likelyhood is where her Author God was in the still voice and not the loud wind and that Epiphanius excuseth himself if he have called any Hereticks in his anger Deceivers or Wretches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I request him also to help to bring me to the Truth if I be out of it not onely by his arguments but also by his Prayers which way if he use and I still continue on the part I am of and yet doe neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither am willfully blind nor deny impudently what I see then I am confident that he will neither have reason to be offended with me in this world nor God for that to punish me in the next AN ANSWER TO THE Lord FAULKLANDS DISCOURSE OF INFALLIBILITY CHAP. I. NAture being not able to perfect the work of humane kind which shee had begun and bursting at those throwes and springings which her timely child gave to see the light of eternall life whereof the distaste of all things experienced in this world and certain sparklings sowed in our soule had given it a dim notice expected from her mercifull Creator the aid whereof how much greater the wonder was to bee and the necessity now divers thousand yeers by lamentable experience was more deer so much the readier was he and it was to send from his eternall brest his only wisedome to recount us wonders and averre them under the seal of his immutable truth He knew all secrets and could not be touched with suspition of ignorance he was all goodness and free from all calumnie of jealousie or envie who knew him could not mistrust him for beside those great Verdicts alreadie expressed in his favour his works gave assurance of his words he fulfilling in deeds whatsoever he perswaded in words and working to himself what he wished unto others Lo here the high and sage Master of our faith whose Oracles we cannot mis-doubt so we be assured they are his and who hath in vain spent so much sweat and pains if after he passed from hence he hath left no meanes to assure mankind what it was hee taught and practised and for the teaching and practising of it eschewed not the stormie passage betwixt Bethlehem and Mount Calvarie but as in Bethlehem he multiplied the three drops of his Circumcision into the thousands of innocent Brooks so upon the Mount Calvarie he opened the great Source which hath now through 16. Ages irrigated the world with an infinitie of streames of proportionall examples of Blood and sufferance Now was his Legacie performed and hee from Mount Olivet triumphantly returned from whence he was come and the world left to be saved by faith that is by a constant perswasion of those things which he had taught The Conditions of this Faith were three First That it should be a means fitting for humane kind that is for learned and unlearned for yong and old for wise and fooles for Princes and peasants Rabbies and Ideots Secondly That it should be a tenent constant undoubted undisputable uncontroulable Thirdly That it should be a rule of our life and actions making but a passage of this present life to the following and teaching us to contemn the present and seen substance in hope of an unseen and absent fortune Certes a hard taske and which needeth to be well grounded and founded by God himself For who well considereth it cannot doubt it to be as great a miracle to make the whole Masse of mankinde to forsake what it seeth and take to obscure hopes or things it does not so much apprehend what they are as to force the strongest works of nature to hang the sea in the aire to alter the course of Moon and Starres and whatsoever else is strange and incredible in nature Besides that to make a way of knowledge common and indifferent to learned and unlearned to make the ignorant understand what the learned cannot reach unto and the learned die in defence of the truth he hath no other warrant for then because he hath learned it from an ignorant person was the work of him alone who framed them both and understood in what veins so different blouds doe run But done it was to be and how Those to whom during his life he had most fully declared his mind went and told it to others and all was done We cannot denie the way to have been fitting and expedient so it be found efficacious and powerfull to effect what the Author intended For if Faith must beleeve what Christ hath taught what better instrument to breed faith then who heard him speak If Faith must be common to learned and unlearned what better meanes then by hearing From which no unlearnednesse can excuse nor learnednesse be exempt Every man may have from whom to hear and learn if not a wiser then himselfe yet one who may have properties to be a better witnesse Children naturally beleeve what their parents tell them unlearned men what Doctors teach them absent men what those who were present doe report All this goeth very well so that this Expedient prove efficacious to the end intended But it hath the prejudice of humane fallibilitie for who for weaknesse that he doth not carry away what he hath heard who for vanity to seem to know more then his fellowes who to make some lucre of it or for some emulation to some other but seldome it hapneth that a multitude can carry away a thing all in the same manner and 1600 yeers are passed since so that it is not credible a Doctrine so delivered can persever incorrupted untill this day Yet if we look into the immediate progresse and joints of the descent we cannot finde where it can misse for the doctrine being supernaturall and not delivered by mans skill or
that any opinion which was not truly received from hand to hand should by such a community be accepted as received from hand to hand is to make it beleeve what it seeth clearly to be false to lye unto it's own soule against it's own soule and the soule of it's posterity Let us adde to this that the multitude of this Church is so dispersed through so many Countries and languages of so divers governments that it is totally impossible they should agree together or meet upon a false determination to affirme with one consent a falsity for truth no interest being able to be common unto them all to produce such an effect Wherefore as an understanding man cannot chuse but laugh at the self-weening Hampshire Clown who thinks in his heart there was no such Country as France and that all that was told of it were but Travellers tales because himselfe being upon the Sea shore had seen nothing but water beyond England so I think no wise man will accompt him lesse then phrentick that understandeth so little in humane wayes as to think whole Nations by designe or by hazard can agree together to professe and protest a thing which they know of their own knowledge to be a meer lye and a well known falshood to themselves and all their neighbours CHAP. III. THe force of the declared linke of succession is so manifest to a capable understanding that being compared with any objection made against it it will of it selfe maintain it's evidence and bear down the greatest oppositors and opposition if the understanding be left unto it selfe and not wrested by the prejudice of a some wayes interessed will Neverthelesse there is a deeper root which greatly strengthens and reduceth into action the former efficacity of the tradition And this is that Christian doctrine is not a speculative knowledge instituted for delight of man to entertain his un derstanding and hath no further end then the delectation which ariseth out of contemplation but it is an art of living a rule of attaining unto eternall blisse a practicall doctrine whose end is to informe our action that our life and actions squared by her directions may lead us to that great good the which God Almighty esteemed so highly of that he thought it reason enough for him to shade his Divinity under the misery of man to make us partakers of so great a blisse Hence it followeth that no error can fall even in a point which seemeth wholly speculative in Christian faith but soone it breedeth a practicall effect or rather defection in Christian behaviour What could seem more speculative then whether the second or third Persons of the Trinity were truly or participately God Yet no sooner was an error broached in these questions but there followed a great alteration in Christian action in their Baptismes in their manner of Prayer in the motives of Love and Charity toward Almighty God the very ground-work and foundation of all Christian life Whether man hath free-will or no seemeth a question belonging to the nature of man fit for a curious Phylosopher but upon the preaching of the negative part presently followed an unknowen Libertinage men yeilding themselves over to all concupiscence since they were perswaded they had no power to resist free-will being denyed I need not instance in prayer to Saints worshiping Images prayer for the dead and the like which is evident could not be changed without an apparent change in Christian Churches So that a doctrine contrary to faith is like a disease which although the cause be internall yet cannot the effects and symptomes be kept from the outward parts and view of the world The consequence which this note draweth is that it is not possible that any materiall point of Christian faith can be changed as it were by obreption whilst men are on sleepe but it must needs raise a great scandall and tumult in the Christian Common-weale For suppose the Apostles had taught the world it were Idolatry to pray to Saints or use reverence towards their Pictures How can we imagine this honour brought in without a vehement conflict and tumult in a people which did so greatly abhor Idolatry as the Apostles Disciples did I might make the like instance in other points if the whole History of the Church did not consist of the invasions made by Heretiques and the great and most violent waving of the Church to and fro upon those occasions We remember in a manner as yet how change came into Germany France Scotland and our own Country Let those be a signe to us what we may thinke can be the creeping in of false doctrine specially that there is no point of doctrine contrary to the Catholique Church rooted in any Christian Nation that the Ecclesiasticall History does not mention the times and combats by which it entred and tore the Church in peices Let it therefore remaine for most evidently constant that into the Christian Church can come no error but it must be seen and noted and raise scandall and opposition to shew it selfe as truly it is contrary to the nature of Piety and Religion And when it does come it cannot draw after it any others then such as first desert the root of Faith and Anchor of Salvation that is to be judged by what their fore-fathers taught them and affirmed to have received from their Ancestors as the Faith which Christ and his Apostles delivered to the whole world of their time and to such as ever claime and maintaine the right of succession as rule of what they beleeve Yet may this also be worthy of consideration that as in our naturall body the principall parts are defended by Bones Flesh Skinnes and such like defences in such sort that no outward Agent can come to offend them before having annoyed some of these so in the Catholique faith there are in speculation those we call Theologicall conclusions and other pious opinions and in practise many Rites and Ceremonies which stop the passage unto the maine principall parts of Christian beleife and action And about these we see daily such great motions in the Catholique Church that he must be very ignorant of the Spirit of God which quickneth his Church that can imagine any vitall part of his faith can be wounded while it lyes asleep and is insensible of the harm befalleth it for as in any Science a principle cannot be mistaken but it must needs draw a great shoale of false consequence upon it and lame the whole Science so never so little an error in faith can be admitted but in other Tenets and Ceremonies it must needs make a great change and innovation CHAP. IV. NOw let any discreet man consider what further evidence he can desire or peradventure what greater assurance nature can afford and not be of an awkward wilfulnesse to aske that which is not conformable to the lawes of nature Much like unto him who being sate in a chaire far from the chimney could not
I should forget what I had before said that satisfaction is to be given to every one according to his capacity It is sufficient for a Childe to beleeve his Parents for a Clown to beleeve his Preacher about the Churches Infallibility For Faith is given to mankind to be a meanes to him of beleeving and living like a Christian and so he hath this second it is not much matter in what termes he be with the first The good women and Clownes in Italy and Spaine trouble not themselves to seek the grounds of their faith but with a Christian simplicity seek to live according unto that their Preachers tell them and without question by perseverance come to the happinesse great Clearks by too much speculation may faile of Such therefore know no otherwise the Infallibility of the Church then because she telleth it them to whom they give credit as innocently as any child to his Mother The Church therfore was made infallible because so it was fitting for her Maker so it was fitting for her selfe so it was fit for that part of mankind that had more refined wits not because it was necessary for every one which was to come to her or live in her whereof the greatest part first commeth to her drawn by some of the meanes before delivered and beleeveth her about her infallibility Neither doe I remit him to a generall and constant tradition as if himselfe should climbe up every age by learned Writers and find it in every one I take it to be impossible Testimonies one may find in many ages but such as will demonstrate and convince a full tradition I much doubt Neither doe I find by experience that who will draw a man by a rope or chain giveth him the whole rope or chaine into his hands but onely one end of it unto which if he cleave hard he shall be drawn which way the rope is carried Tradition is a long chaine every generation or delivery from father to sonne being a link in it I send him therefore no further then to this present age where he shall beyond all doubtfulnesse find that this doctrine was delivered unto this age by the care of their Ancestors And if we seek upon what termes we find that upon a fixed opinion of damnation in failing and so that they had received it so from their fore-fathers upon the same termes with opinion that it had continued ever since Christ his time by this meanes And he who is able to look into the meanes how this can remaine constantly so many ages may find it not onely the far securer but an evidently infallible succession of doctrine inviolable as long as there is a Church And this doth not onely shew that there is one but which she is and that there can be no other For I suppose no man will be so senselesse as to say the Apostles preached one thing in one part and the contrary in another wherefore it will be agreed that once the Church agreed in her faith This supposed let us set the time when one part changed and will it not be evident that the changing Church being challenged cannot plead she received it from her Ancestors because it is manifestly false to both parties Then must needs one onely Church remain with that claime And although we did not know what the Greek Church doth by her History yet the force of consequence would tell us they cannot doe this which the Westerne Church doth because the doing of one is incompatible with the doing of the same by the other As for the two places concerning the Popes and Councels infallibility it is not to my purpose to medle of them because on the one side the way I have begun there is no need of those discourses and on the other I should engage my selfe in quarrels betwixt Catholique and Catholique obscure the matter I have taken in hand and profit nothing in my hearers more then to be judged peradventure to have more learning then wisedome to governe it withall Wherefore I shall omit those Paragraphes if I onely note concerning the tradition imposed upon Papius that the very narration of it sheweth that it is no tradition in the sence we speak of tradition but in the sence some Heretiques have pretended tradition as it were a doctrine secretly delivered and gathered out of private conference with the Apostles and not their publique preaching delivered to the Churches which is the way we exalt tradition in The witnesses also of ancient Fathers are no parts of tradition but signes and markes where it hath passed whereas the body of tradition is in the life and beleife of the whole Church For the Church as I have said is an essence composed as it were of interne and externe parts the interne being faith the externe the outward action which must needs be conformable to the internall faith nor can there be a materiall change in the action but it must argue the internall change of faith nor internall change in faith but it must draw with it an Iliad of altered actions As for the place of Fevardentius which alloweth many Fathers to have fallen into errors I thinke it will not trouble him who is acquainted with the course of the present Church wherein divers who be thought great Divines fall into errors for which their bookes sometimes are hindred from the print sometimes recalled or some leaves commanded to be pasted up The reason is the multiplicity of Catholique doctrine which doth not oblige a man to the knowledge of every part but to the prompt subjection to the instruction of the Church wherefore many men may hold false doctrine inculpably not knowing it to be such even now after the learned labours of so many that have strived to open and facilitate by method what is true and what is false much more in the Fathers times when there was great want of so many compilers as theso latter ages have produced As for the two points he saith avert him from Catholique doctrine I am mistaken if he be not mistaken in both The first is that Catholique doctrine damnes all who are not in the union of their Church He thinketh the sentence hard yet I thinke he will not deny me this that if any Church does not say so it cannot be the true Church For call the Church what you will the Congregation of the Elect the Congregation of the Faithfull the Congregation of Saints or Just call it I say or define it what you will doth it not clearly follow that whosoever is out of that Church cannot be saved for he shall not be Elect Just Faithfull c. without which there is no Salvation How then can any Church maintaine these two propositions I am the true Church and yet one may be saved without being in me But peradventure he is scandalized that the Catholique Church requireth actuall communion externall with her which he thinketh in some case may be wanting without detriment
with that indifference and equalitie which is fit for a Judge and with which I both began and continue it Yet least there might some un-mark't prejudice lye lurking in me and least I might harbour some secret inclination to those Tenets which I had first been raught I have ever lean'd and set my Byas to the other side and have both more discoursed of matters of Religion with those of the Church of Rome then with their Adversaries and read more of their writings though none either so often or so carefully as this which I am now answering both because it was intended for my Instruction and confutation as also because the beauty of the stile and language in which you have apparrelled your conceptions although Non haec Auxilio tibi sunt Decor est quaesitus ab istis yet showes the Author a considerable Person and I may say of the splendour and outside of what you have said for my opinion that it wants soliditie and that the Logick of it is inferiour to the Rhetorick is seen by my writing against it what Tacitus sayes of Vitellius his Armie Phalerae torquesque splendebant non Vitellio principe dignus exercitus for as he would have had that glorious Army been imployed in the defence of a better and braver Prince so I wish your eloquence had guilded the better cause 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And having learn't moreover from the Pagan Divinitie of Hierocles which in this is conformable to that of most Christians that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all our search is but the stretching forth of our hands and that our finding proceeds from Gods delivering the Truth unto us and that prayer is the best meanes to joyn the latter to the former I have not only with my utmost endeavours done my part but also besought God with my most earnest fervency to doe his and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joyning Prayer to search like form to Matter I doubt not but God who hath given me a will to seek his Will also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if I have not the truth already I shall be taught the truth by him and by you as his Instrument or shall be excused if I find it not assuring you that I was never more ready to part with my clothes when they were torn then with my opinions when they were confuted and appeared to me to be so To begin then with your Treatise you can say nothing for Tradition which I will not willingly allow Scripture it self being a Traditum and by that way comming to our knowledge for I am confident that those who would know it by the Spirit run themselves into the same Circle between Scripture and Spirit out of which some of your side have but unsuccessefully laboured to get out between Scripture and Church but that this way which you propound should be convenient to know what was Tradition at first I can by no means agree Which to consider the better I will comprehend all the strength of what you have said in a little room and shut up your Oration into the compasse of some 3. Sillogismes thus you argue What company soever of Christians alone pretend to teach nothing but what they have received from their Fathers as received from theirs as so come down from the Apostles that company alone must hold the truth But that company of Christians which are in communion with the Church of Rome only pretend this Therefore they alone hold the truth and the Church The Major you prove thus If such a company of Christians could teach falshoods then since it is granted that what was at first delivered was true some age must either have erred in understanding their Ancestors or have joyned to deceive their posterity But neither of these are beleevable Therefore neither is it beleevable that such a company of Christians should teach falshoods The Minor you prove thus I mean that they alone pretend it for that they I mean all they pretend it you take for granted If it be incompatible with the Church of Romes doing it that any else should doe it then she does it alone But it is incompatible which is denied and not yet proved Therefore she doth it alone The severall parts of this Argument I mean first to Answer and secondly Whatsoever lyes scatter'd in your discourse any thing to this purpose or any other unanswer'd in the first part and thirdly I will reply to those Answers which you have been pleased to make to part of that Nothing which I writ wishing that this last work might have bin longer I mean that by answering it all and in order you had given me occasion to have dwelt more upon my Reply Now if I doe not shew that all of the Church of Rome do not nor cannot pretend this that for two to pretend it is not incompatible as having been so heretofore that those who alone pretend this may pretend it falsely that some men and in time all may mistake their Ancestors and have a mind in some cases to deceive their posterity and that it is not necessary for a whole age at once to joyn in doing it though it be done if I say I shew not this then let me not bee beleeved and if you can shew me that I have not shewed it I will promise to beleeve you First That the Church of Rome doth not nor cannot pretend that all their doctrine was received by them from their fathers as come down from the Apostles it appeares because when questions have risen about such things whereof there was before no speech yet if a Councell have determined them they are received with the same assent as if they had come from the Apostles and they professe now the same readinesse to receive alwayes any such definition though about a question now unknown and it is likely they have done what they professe they are ready to doe at least they shew that yours is not the ground upon which they build And I pray aske your selfe whether those that teach the common people who are the greatest part of your Church use to be askt about it by them or use to tell them that this they received from their Fathers as descended from the Apostles by a continuall verball Tradition For suppose they told them that this Tradition tels us yet they are not able to distinguish between such as is but Ecclesiasticall and Apostolicall or whether this be known to them onely by deductions or from ancient bookes and no such uncontinued line of teaching and not rather perswade them in generall to beleeve it what by Arguments drawne from Scripture what from reason what from Fathers Councels or Decretals I am not certaine what is their course but I am sure the most ordinary amongst the Ancients whom they pretend to follow was that when they had told the people that such a proposition was true they added neither is it I that say so
but the Apostle the Prophet or the Evangelist and mentioned the place where they thought such a doctrine was included seldome speak of any verball Tradition lesse of such a one upon which you wholly rely except urg'd to it when that was impudently claim'd by some Heretique and when they did as the Asian Bishops about Easter Justin Martir about the age of Christ Saint Austine about communicating Infants Papius and Iraeneus about the doctrine of the Chiliasts then as Lucian tels us that when that Jugler Alexander sent to a City a Verse to be set upon their doores to keepe away the Plague those houses which used the remedy were more visited then those that did not so those doctrines which the Fathers did grace by writing verball Tradition in their foreheads were not lesse perhaps more apt to be after disbeleeved then the other which were not in that kind taught Now if the Ignorant be not expresly instructed that upon this ground they are to think that true which they are bid to beleeve especially where their religion is easily enough received onely for being that of their Country you must allow that the greatest part of your Church cannot nor does not pretend to have received all they beleeve under that Notion and to know they did you must have spoke with them all or have heard them all instructed for what is in some places so taught may be delivered upon other grounds in the very next Parishes From the Ignorant let us come to the learned and see whether they doe not both beleeve more and require more to be beleeved then hath had any such pedigree as you imagine First then the great eloquent and judicious Cardinall Perron whom I preferre so much before all those of his side that have been Authors that if a Pigmy may be allowed to measure Giants I should think that the vast learning and industry of Bellarmine and Baronius might with most advantage to their party and no disgrace to them have been employ'd in seeking quotations for his large and monstrous understanding to have employ'd them he I say tels us and not from himselfe but from Saint Austine that the Trinity Pennance Free-will and the Church were never exactly disputed of before the Arrians the Novatians the Pelagians and the Donatists Now since without doubt the former ages disputed as well as they could and so could not instruct their Proselites better then they confuted their Adversaries I think it evident that more hath since been concluded then came from Tradition and that the way you speak of appeared not sufficient either to Cardinall Perron or Saint Austin But because Bellarmine being written in a more generall language is more generally though I thinke unjustly esteemed then Perron I will aske you a question of him when he excuseth Pope John the 22 th for denying that Saints enjoy the beatificall vision before the day of judgement in which he was lead by a Troop of Fathers because the Church had not then defined the contrary did Bellarmine beleeve that then Christians had received from their Fathers as from the Apostles a direct contrary Tradition to his doctrine If he did how could he think the Pope either possibly to be ignorant of it or excuseable if he stood against it If not then he thought our Age beholding to our Fathers for finding out some truths which had no such line to come down by nay which the Apostles either taught not or but obscurely and so as needs Arguments to deduce it out of their writings at least not so generally but that a Pope and many more chiefe Doctors of the Church knew not they had done so although you often put us in minde that Tertullian tels us how in that Church which he governed the Apostles poured out all their doctrines with their blood and in his time Fathers taught not their children so And this objectionlyes against you as often as any of your side confesse any of the Ancients accompted Orthodox to have delivered any doctrine contrary to that of the now Church of Rome which many of them often confesse and your selfe doe not deny for that they could not have done if an uninterrupted verball Tradition had been then the onely rule of true doctrine and they had known it to be so for then they had a way of information which you must confesse easie since they might soon have known whether generally Christians had been taught the contrary under such a Notion and in such a degree as you speak of or the Church of Rome had not since either deviated from the tradition of one part or introduced on the other But because you knew that the claime of Tradition could not serve your Churches turne if any other different from yours made the same you therefore affirme that none doth and prove it because two cannot doe it and in this you must give me leave to say that you imitate the Philosopher who made Arguments against Motion though one walked before him for though we see that the Greek Church does it as much as the Romane though apt to be deceived in the doing it by the same wayes yet you hope to perswade us beyond our eyes by a reason which indeed ends in an assertion for I pray why may not two companies of Christians both pretend to such a Tradition though opposing each other as well as the Asian Churches and the Roman did long together about the celebration of Easter But not onely that it may be so but that it is so you may find by Hieremy Nilus and Barlaam who professe to stand to the Scriptures the ancient Tradition of their Fathers and the seven first generall Councels and they can be disprov'd no way but by the same you may be so too over and above the confessions of your own men But suppose you did pretend and alone pretend to such a Tradition yet you might falsely doe it for I desire you to remember that the Apostles delivered as well Writings as verball Doctrine and whatsoever the first ages thought to be contained there that they might as well deliver to their posterity as taught them by the Apostles as what they received by word of mouth since we use to say I learnt this of such a man when we mean from his book and though you strive to joyne verball Tradition in commission with Scripture yet sure none of you can desire to thrust Scripture out quite from being at least a part of the Rule Now that they might erre in interpreting their writings and an error in the cheifest then might easily cause a generall one since I think you will not deny especially since to say that they left by Tradition every place of Scripture interpreted would be an evidently false assertion for how could the Fathers then have written upon it such differently-expounding Comments Secondly How shall it appeare that there were not once two contrary Traditions claimed by two Parts as the Asian Church and
one of your Party that if this opinion had indeed had Tradition it could never have been so totally extinguish'd I answer that I affirm not that it had but onely that if the rules of your part be good and valid then it had I am sure it hath better colour to plead upon then any of those other doctrines which you impose upon us Besides although it had yet when Doctors of great authority with the people had won upon many first not to think it Tradition and then not true and lastly their courage encreasing with their multitude for Saint Hierome durst not call it had made it accounted an Heresie it is not strange that none should rise to oppose it for by that time burning was come in fashion which was a ready way to answer all objections and end all controversies especiall Piety being grown more cold and so men lesse apt to suffer for opinions and the times more ignorant and so men lesse able to examine what had beleeved before them But you who affirm that your Church receives nothing but what hath come to her by Verball Tradition down from the Apostles must not onely destroy the Arguments which prove this to have had Tradition which you or any else will be never able to do but must affirm that the contrary hath such which yet their most ancient opposers never pretended too but scoft at the opinion as rediculous and savouring of Judaisme which as wise men and as good Christians as they before them beleeved to be Orthodox Let us next consider that controversie which more afflicted the Church and for a longer time then any other that between the Arrians and their Adversaries and let us see whether even against those there were any such Tradition as you speak of First then I pray mark what Cardinal Perron confesseth that an Arrian will be desirous to have his cause tried by those Authors we now have which lived before the Question arose for there saith he will be found the Son is the instrument of his Father The Father commanded the Son when things were to be made the Father and the Son are aliud aliud which who should at this day say now the language of the Church is better examin'd would be accompted an Arrian Now though there be no reason for you to disbelieve so learned a Prelate in a matter of Fact especially since 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet if you please to reconsider those Authors seriously if you have not mark't it before as Praejudication blinds extreamly you will then confesse it Sure then if Fathers in the first ages taught their Children that so they had receiv'd from theirs as the doctrine of the Apostles how could the chiefe Pillars of Christianity have been ignorant of it or if they knew it how would they ever have written so directly against their knowledge For that answer which Saint Hierome gives as Saint Austine to the Pelagians gians that before Arrius arose the Ecclesiasticall Writers spoke minus caute with lesse circumspection though it brings some salve to the present objection yet it is a weapon against Tradition in generall for if through want of care the best and wisest men vs'd to contradict Tradition as you must grant they did then sure much more likely when they taught by word of mouth when lesse care is alwaies us'd then in Bookes and how then can any age be sure that by this reason of minus caute loquuti sunt their Ancestors have not mistaken their Fathers and mislead their Posterity Look but into Athanasius and see but what he answers to what is brought against him out of Dionysius Alexandrinus truly in my opinion when he strives to make it Catholique Doctrine he doth it with no lesse pulling and halling then Sancta Clara useth to agree the articles of the English Church with the Tenets of the Roman Consider what eighty Bishops and those Orthodoxe decreed against Paulus Samosatenus and if you make it consent with Athanasius his Creed I shall believe that you have discouer'd a way how to reconcile both Parts of a Contradiction This I say not as intending by it to prove the Arrian opinion to be true but that the contrary Party insisted not upon your grounds but drew their beliefe out of Scripture for if there had been such a common and constant Verball Tradition the chiefe Christians would not through want of Caution have contradicted it neither could Constantine if it had been then as known a Part of the Christian Religion as Christ's Resurrection have ever so slightly esteemed the Question when it first arose neither would Alexander the Bishop of Alexandria have remain'd any while in suspence as Zozomen saith he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but this being then a Question newly started and spoken of before but by Accidents and so peradventure minus caute for the same Author saies that they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were therefore faine to try it by Scripture esteeming Written Tradition as sufficient a Rule as Verball as you may see by Constantine's own words at the Councel of Nice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Bookes of the Evangelists and the Apostles and the Oracles of the Ancient Prophets teach us clearly what we are to think of the Divinity Let us therefore out of these Divinity-inspir'd discourses seek the solutions of our Questions which being the Emperours Proposition and passing uncontradicted which the Bishops would not have suffr'd it to do if they had known yours to be so much the best and most certaine way and this so hazardous as you suppose we have reason to believe that they for want of your direction made the Scripture their Rule and sought out for Truth by the same way that we damnable Hereticks do and by that condemn'd the Arrians as not having such a Tradition as you speak of or if they had which is very unlikely counting it so insufficient as that they were not to conclude by that Neither did onely that ancient and not yours Councell but even your own Modern ones shew that they went upon other grounds since to have had every Bishop askt what he receiv'd from his Teachers as receiv'd from theirs as come downe from the Apostles would sure have been the shortest way to find Truth and if they had thought it the best too it would have sav'd the Friers at Trent many a long dispute out of Scripture Fathers and Reason and the Bishops many a weary sessron before any thing could be determined or the Parties brought to agree Besides there is another reason if I may be pardon'd a little insisting upon my digression which perswades me that your own Councels define not upon your grounds that is because suppose a thousand Catholique Bishops meet and define any thing yet wee know it is not among you believ'd de Fide without it be confirmed by the Pope which shewes plainly enough that you think not
sending his Apostles and Disciples to Preach the Gospel and after four of them writing his Gospel which shewes if the Books be true to the title that they writ all they preacht at least that was necessarie for else they were not Gospels but Parts of it that they should not rather leave out any thing else how important soever then not have imploied themselves about teaching us that the Churches Definitions are a Rule of our Faith and instructing us in Markes so proper to her that we might never need to doubt whether it be she that defines or no and whether their not having done this evince not in Reason that this your Doctrine is false Secondly I pray consider whether if there were any such continu'd Tradition about the Definitions of the Church whether that must not also have taught or else have been to small purpose when it is that the Church hath defin'd but yet that is a case not fully judged among you For some hold that the Church hath defin'd when a Councel hath although unapproved by the Pope which is denied by others Thirdly Consider whether supposing as was before suppos'd it must not also have taught certaine Notes to know the Church by but yet about those you are not agreed Salmeron putting Miracles among the false Signes of the Church and Bellarmine and many more among the True ones Fourthly Consider whether the Church have an eternall spring of Doctrines within her or but a finite number and onely those which the Apostles preacht and I believe you will pitch upon the latter Not then to ask how they come to know them nor if you answer by Tradition to ask you againe how come men then not to know before a Definition what it is they Preacht for if the Bishops of which a Councell is compounded know it not now how will they know it when they meet I will desire to know why the Church will not at once teach us all she knowes and not keep us in doubts which she may resolve and did the Apostles teach their Doctrines to be lockt up or taught to us And then having considered this you will find I believe that the Church do with Doctrines as Fathers with Estates never give their Children all that they may still have something to keep them in awe with because if she should she could never have after pretended a Power to end any new emergent controversie keeping in secret what she knowes any that ariseth she may still pretend is endable by her Fiftly Consider that it will appear but a shift if you say that there is a Tradition that all the Churches Definitions be true and so excuse the particular Doctrines for otherwise having none and yet avoid giving us any Rules to know the Church by at all times and answering those Questions which must be ended before we can know at any time when she hath defin'd Now I confesse if you had said Tradition teacheth that the particular Church of Rome is so the Admiral ship that we may know any other if it be of God's Fleet because then it must follow her that is be subject to her decrees theirs which joyn with her this would have bin plainly to let me know your mind and we might quickly have examin'd whether there were any Tradition for the Church in this sence to be alwaies obeyed when she Teaches and without you say this you say nothing and will never be able to give any such Note of the Church as the ignorant may without blushing pretend to know it by Because therefore I guesse that when not I but your Adversaries reasons for I am but one of the worst transcribers of them have driven you from your own Fort you must retire to that of your friends or like them which are drowning you will rather catch at a Twigg then sink I will consider this Assertion which I suppose you must lay hold of so far forth as to shew it to be indeed but an Assertion That there hath no such Verbal Tradition nor indeed any come downe seems to me for these reasons Saint Cyprian by opposing the Church of Rome and that with many Bishops about the Rebaptization shewes sufficiently that he and they knew of no such Tradition and then in what Cave must it have lain hid if the chiefe Doctor of that age was ignorant of it and even his Adversaries claim'd it not And that he knew no such appears not onely by his Actions but also by his words for to them who claim'd Tradition for the particular point propos'd though none for the Authority of the Church proposing he answers if it be contain'd in the Gospels Epistles or Acts let it be observed at one blow cutting off not onely that for sure this authority of the Church of Rome is no way taught in the Scriptures but all other unwritten Traditions which Cardinal Perron thought most skilfull in that kind of Fence was not able to ward but Du Plesis objecting it receiv'd no other answer then that the opinion of Cyprian was condemn'd and that Tradition although unwritten maintain'd Which answer though it be as far from befitting the Cardinall as from answering the objection since it is plaine that this opinion was once held by such as were of chiefe estimation among the Orthodox and consequently the contrary was not then the generall and necessary doctrine of Christians and the prevailing of the one since proves not the other false but rather unfortunate or the spreaders faulty yet I confesse I excuse him for as I have learnt from Aristotle that it is ridiculous to expect a Demonstration where the matter will beare but a probability so would it be in me to expect even a probable solution of an Argument the evidence of which will suffer none at all Neither was he I mean Cyprian the first that without blot of Heresie oppos'd the Tradition of the Church of Rome but that courage which he left to others after him when they saw the Christian World joyne in counting him a Saint and a Martyr whom the Bishop of Rome had stiled a false Christ and a false Apostle the same had he received by seeing that the Asian Bishop had also rejected and oppos'd her Tradition and yet Policrates ever had in great honour and the rest never branded with the crime of Heresie nay even the more neighbouring Bishops and who joyn'd with the Pope in the time of celebrating Easter as Iraeneus yet thought the difference not worth excommunication and for want of skill in the Canon Law transgrest so farre as to reprehend for it whereas if to that Church all else had been to conform themselves then Iraeneus ought therefore to have thought the matter of weight enough because she thought it so who were to small purpose made a Judge if she were not as well enabled to distinguish between slight and materiall as between False and Truth though that it seemes she was not for the
Church of Rome never refus'd their Communion before though she knew them to hold the same opinion and so as plainly appeares counted that materiall in one Age which she had not so esteemed in others and therefore in the degree at least of holding what she held contradicted herself and followed Traditions And as Cyprian imitated them so did the Affrican Bishop him for a Question hapning between them and the Bishops of Rome about Appeales though they absolutely oppos'd him and in vaine I confesse desired him that he would not bring into the Church Typhum hujus Saeculi the swelling pride of this World and though he laboured infinitely in the businesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might bring it to passe yet he and two of his successors were either so unready or so unskil'd in the present Roman Doctrine that Feed my sheeep and thou art Peter were either out of their knowledge or out of their memory and they alleadged not any power jure divino but onely pretended to a Cannon of the Councel of Nice which when the Affricans found not in their coppies for they would not believe the Church of Rome so farre as to trust to hers though now you generally think the Scripture it selfe to have its authority quoad nos onely for her definitions they sent to the East to enquire there and finding their coppies agreeing with theirs they then more resolutely withstood the Pretence which brought at that time nothing to the Popes but repulse and shame And indeed not to object that it is not numbered among any of the ancient Herisies that they differ'd from the particular Roman Church nor is this Rule of being sure at all times to joyne with her ever given by those Fathers who set us waies and Antidotes how to secure our selves against Heresie which could not have been left undone if they had known any such Tradition nor to speak of the Cannon of the Councell of Chalcedon which attributes the power of the Popes to the gift of their Fathers and that againe to Romes being the head City setting all this aside I will aske your selfe if it be not plain that those Fathers who upon the impudent pretence of some Hereticks send men to severall places to enquire after Tradition either send them to all the Apostolicall churches or to save their labour to that to which they were nearest as esteeming them all of equall authority though not jurisdiction for I may say of Rome and them as Tacitus doth of Caelius and the other Commanders Mutato nomine the name onely chang'd Pares jure Roma audendo potentior for what by watching all occasions to greaten herself whereof Cardinal D' Ossat is my witnesse what by abusing the respect all men had ever given her in respect of the chiefe Apostles which founded her of the Empire which was long seated in her and of her ancient Bishops whereof about thirtie together were martyr'd there what by interpreting what was given to her Authority as given to her Power and taking civilities aud complements of which no Court is now so full as the ancient Bishops were made to Popes for alleagiance sworn to them what by forging false decretall Epistles which the Tearmed Authors of them would not forgive them for if they knew it if it were onely for the barbarous language what by these and such other waies she is come at length to that passe that what Auitus a Roman Generall said to the Ansibarians who gave him reasons why he ought not in justice to disturbe their possessions Id Diis placitum ut Arbitrium penes Romanos maneret quid darent quidve adimerent neque alios Judices quam seipsos paterentur It is the will of Heaven that it be left to the Romans what they will please to give or take away and suffer not any Judges but themselves appeares now not so much a History of the Pride of the Roman Empire as a Prophecy of the generall doctrine of the Roman Church Having ever marked Error and Confidence to keep so much company that I seldome find the first but I mistrust the second makes me loath to affirme any thing over-dogmatically out of these objections or say that they cannot be answered Onely because I must not offend against Truth for feare of offending against Modesty I will take leave to say that if I could have answered them my selfe I would not have put you to the trouble of doing it which you might also have sav'd if by letting me know your name you would have enabled me to have found you out and so in a short discourse have tried whether I could have obtain'd that satisfaction from your words which I must now expect from your Pen. But supposing I had none of these objections yet two things besides would have kept me from assenting to what you say The first is that your men when they aske us how we know Scripture to be Scripture and this to be the sence of it tell us withall that unlesse we know it by some more infallible way then our owne Reason they mean their Church it will not serve for a beliefe of those things which are to be believ'd by a divine Faith Now this Argument of yours upon which you build all allowing that it appear'd good reason yet at most it is but reason and liable to the same exceptions unlesse the same thing be a wall when you leane upon it and a bulrush when we doe The second is that all you say for as yet you speak not of the Authority of the Particnlar Church of Rome though you must at length come to it though by that too little is to be gotten if it were granted would but prove those who adhere now to the Church of Rome to be now in the right but I asked for a guide which might without new search serve me the next yeer as well as this For for all that you have prov'd she may leave the way you say she now pretends to walk in and attempt to reform too which I wish were as probable as it is possible or there may arise a schisme between two parts of those Churches which now adhere to the Roman and both may claime Tradition for what hath been may be againe and how shall I know then which side to take since both will seem equally good by that Touchstone which you appoint me to try with And if I be then sent to try by Ancient Writers it is certaine that besides the fallibility of that way for the learned this cannot be done at all by the ignorant and it is probable that both Parties will fall into that absurdity into which the Church of Rome daily runs which is that although the evidence which she claimes by cannot well be exactlie read over in thirty yeares time yet she requires us under paine of Damnation to give our Verdicts for her by twenty yeeres old The Second Part. THe high and Sage Master
this title that she hath received it from his Apostles without interruption delivered from Father to Son untill this day and admits not any Doctrine for good and legitimate which he doth not receive in this manner What the Judicious of whom I am no member can do I know not but I not onely can but do deny it you meaning by that Congregation the Church of Rome for by seeing that not upon this but other kind of claim certaine Doctrines have arrived to the very brink of being defined I have cause to think that if they received none in upon other grounds these would not be suffered to stand so neer the doore And indeed there being between your selfe such differences that Erasmus tels us that he who is a Heretick among the Dominicans is Orthodox to the Scotists sure one side hath admitted of a Doctrine for Legitimate which hath not been so received and then me thinks this being easily endable which it is by seeing which claimes such a delivery for if both do it then two Parts may which you deny if neither do then your whole Church goes by some other Rule that which doth upon that which you call the Catholique Grounds me thinks should have obtained a definition for her and the other which resists that Principle upon which they ought onely to build should have been suddenly and absolutely condemned This will appeare plainer if we consider the opinions of your Church by the Actions of her Head in a notable and late Example A great controversie being risen between the Dominicans and the Jesuites it was heard before Pope Clement let us see then what course he took to find which Part held the Truth since he was not likely especially in a time wherein by being more opposed then usually he had reasons to be consequently more cautious to chuse a new way by which truth was not wont to be found out by your side upon like occasions Did he send for the wisest and best men from all nay from adjoyning Parts to enquire of them what they had been taught by their Fathers to have been received by them uninterruptedly from the Apostles did he examine with which of them the first and purest ages sided did he consider which opinion would make us have the more excellent conceit of God and work most towards the expelling of Vice None of all these were his course but he appointed both sides to prove which of them followed Saint Austine and according to them he intended to give sentence if the advice of Cardinall Perron had not prevailed to the contrary But many days they spent in examining what he thought who thought so variously concerning it that he scarce knew himself which whereas before him all the Ancients that I could ever meet with were with the Iesuites with an Vnanimous consent and by them if they must be tried by men as fallible as themselves it would have better agreed with their own Principles to have had both Parts judged After the Pope let us hear Bishop and allmost Cardinall Fisher who being one of your own Authors and Martyrs cannot be thought to praevaricate against that Church for whose defence he imployed not onely his Inke but his Blood His words are these There are many things of which was no enquirie in the Primitive Church which yet upon doubts arising are now become perspicuous by the diligence of after-times And that you may see that he speakes of points of Faith He addes No Orthodox man now doubts whether there be a Purgatory of which yet among the Ancients there is no mention or exceeding rarely It is not believed by the Greeks to this day Neither did the Latines conceive this Truth at once but by little and little And for an Epiphonema he closeth it thus Considering that Purg atory was a good while unknown after partly by Revelations partly by Scripture came little by little to be believed by some and so at last the beliefe of it was generally received by the Catholique Churches Who can wonder concerning Indulgencies that in the Priinitive Church there was no use of them Indulgences therefore began after men had trembled a while at the Torments of Purgatory See I pray how will you two agree You say the Church of Rome receives but what she claimes to be come down to her from the Apostles without interruption He saith some of her Doctrines were long unknown and came in by Revelations and Scripture you say new Doctrines cannot come into a Church that holds this Principle He saith Doctrines have come in by little and little So either she held not allwaies this Principle or for all that they might come in To be short all which he hath said seemes to me as if he had purposely intended to frame a Ram to batter down that fortification which you have built about the Roman Church Now though he be of so great an Authority that he needs no backing yet I will desire you to look into Alphonsus de Castro where he speakes of Indulgences and see if he mend the matter He confesseth that the use of them seemes to be late received into the Church yet would not have them contemned because many things are known to after-commers of which those ancient Writers were wholly ignorant Amongst whom there is rarely mention of Transubst antiation more rarely of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son of Purgatory almost none For though he speaks after as if he meant onely that the names of these were unmentioned and not the things yet it is plaine that if he brought them in to any purpose it was to prove that some Doctrines are after of necessity to be believed which once were not and Doctrines consist in the Things not in the Name I could next tell you of Erasmus his saying Res deducta est ad Sophisticas contentiones Articulorum Miriades proruperunt Religion is come down to Sophistry and a Miriad of Articles are broken out But knowing that his words will not find so much respect because he himself finds lesse favour as those of others more allowed among you let us mark these words of Sancta Clara The Church when it is said to define any thing she rests not upon any new Revelations but upon the ancient lying hid in writings and words of the Apostles which he sayes not as his private opinion but the constant beliefe of Doctors By which it appeares plainly that there are at least interpretations of what the Apostles taught drawn forth by Reason not received by Tradition which makes now a part of the present Roman Religion a sufficient Gappe for Errors to enter at when either mistakings or ends may become new opinions and stile them but interpretations of the old Salmeron a Voluminous Jesuite one neither by his order nor his inclination an enemy at all to the Roman Church being press'd by the opinions of the Ancients affirmes Doctores quò Juniores
but the second wholly overthrowes His justice besides the direct contrariety of their Doctrine to Scripture they saying in effect that the Kingdome of Heaven is to take us by violence whereas that teaches us that we are to take it so But yet give me leave to say thus much for them that though it be true that ill life followes very consequently from that Principle and those who hold it must be ill Logicians if they be good men yet it is plaine that very many of them live as good lives as any who believe the contrary Besides this in my opinion concernes as neerely your Dominicans as our Calvinists since they use Free-will as Tully saith Epicurus did the Gods verbis asserunt re negant assert it in words but deny it in deed yet I think you will not say that they are the more licentious for by direct consequence denying Liberty If therefore an opinion which is so neerely tyed to action produce no more effects how much fewer would those other so much more unconcerning Tenets bring forth I need not instance in Prayer to Saints worshipping Images Prayer for the Dead c. which it is evident could not be changed without an apparent change in Christian Churches Without change which though it must be then apparent yet need it not be so to us I confesse they could not come in but with little opposition they might The doubtfull estate of the dead after this life before the day of Judgment-audit being much better that they should have our Prayers though they want them not then misse of them if they want them may not unlikely and peradventure not unreasonably have brought in that Custome without either giving scandale or being received by Tradition Though if it had you would have gotten little by it for unlesse such a Purgatory out of which Indulgences may deliver will follow out of it the Pope will not care for the other as being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing to profit And though he did establish a Purgatory yet it might be one after the Resurrection for such a one more then one Father speakes off But it need establish none no not any third place which is lesse for the Prayers might be first intended for the encrease of the happinesse of the Blessed and relaxation of the torment of the Cursed which latter effect that the Prayers for the dead have is said by Prudentius and confess'd to have been said both by him and others by your own Heroe Cardinall Perron Of the worship of Images I shall speake hereafter Praying to Saints may have come in upon consequences drawne out of mistaken places of Scriptures or others which inducing the opinion that they enjoy'd the beatificall vision before the day of judgement some might conclude that then they saw all in it and at first pray to them but conditionallie till their number increased and with it the degree in which they held the opinion till now to deny it is accounted Heresie though I know no Father which justifies our invocating of them although they speake of their interceding for us before Nazianzene whose example alone being of so great authoritie might spread it much though I pray remember who as saies Nicephorus Calistus it was that brought it first into the publick Liturgie It is not possible that any materiall point of Christian Faith can be changed as it were by obreption whilst men are on sleep but it must needs raise a great scandall and tumult For suppose the Apostles had taught the world it were Idolatry to pray to Saints or use reverence to their Pictures how can we imagine this honour brought in but by a vehement conflict and tumult in a people which did so greatly abhorre Idolatry as the Apostles and Disciples did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I spoke cheiflie not of changing a point of Faith but of creating one not of contradicting a doctrine delivered from the Apostles but of introducing one of which they were wholly silent either as theirs at first as yee must say Pappias did or onely as True till being rooted and spread it be beleeved Apostolicall upon Tertullian's Argument that else how could so many Churches errare in unam fidem erre into the same beleife which because lesse time had then been allowed error to disperse it selfe in was then though no concluding proofe yet a better then it was the next Age and so still grew the worse for the wearing till now it is worth just nothing But as Himerius saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I say t is most easie to answer that which is not imputed for I am so farre from saying that the Apostles taught these two things to be Idolatrie since on my Conscience they spake not of them directlie at all that I my selfe will not say they are For Prayer to Saints set aside your Idolatrie-like Expressions seeming to beg that of them which you professe you meane onely to have them beg for you I suppose the Question to be but this whether they heare us or no which Martyrs might possiblie doe and yet no other how holy and canoniz'd soever because many Fathers held that none else see God yet If they doe I beleeve you may as well or better because you are more sure of their being in favour with God desire them to intercede for you as you may desire the Prayers of any living Friend but if they doe not then I will not say in Chrysostomes phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what Thunder-bolts doth it not deserve but how unreasonable is it to cast men out of the Church and send them out of the world for not assenting to an opinion which you cannot prove For reverence to the Pictures of Saints if you meane onely some outward civill respect to testifie the great honour and love which you beare the Prototypes It is I beleeve no more Idolatrie then keeping off our hats in the Presence-Chamber to the Cloth of Estate Yet this I am so farre from esteeming necessarie that I thinke they had better never come in then have occasion'd so much un-christian turmoile about so indifferent a thing The first and purest Ages did well enough without these Pictures we heare onely of a Parabolicall one of Christ in a Chalice after they came to be made after to be set in Churches afterto be prayed before nay at last they are come to so great an excesse that not onely against Scripture but all Antiquitie they are now come to picture God the Father himselfe Upon a Popes Letter to an Emperour wherein he defends the picturing of Saints and Christ and speakes improbablie of the Antiquitie of their Pictures and addes the reason why they pictured not God the Father Baronius saies in the Margent Yet it hath after happened that they pictured him as he hath appeared a way which the Church of that time could easily have found out had they thought it lawfull as it is plaine
how they can serve to preserve the rest certainly from all corruption indeed to secure any Truth But I believe many may be miscounted Hereticks for onely opposing some of these what through the over-caution and too much ardor of some Primum mobile and of the greater part lead by a few such what through their being come having been long from pious opinions to be matters of Faith as in great Families Servants who haue waited long in meaner places are rewarded with higher Besides I verily believe that many Doctrines which you account necessary have no such redoubts about them or at least have not alwaies had and indeed you onely affirming it by Tullies Rule who was no small Master of Reason Sat erit verbo negare It will be enough for me barelie to deny it And for Rites and Ceremonies which you suppose guard your Doctrines many used among the Ancients being not now in use amonst you either some Tenets which those did guard and they did hold yee hold not or if you do still at least they are now unguarded But still I speaking most of the easinesse that false and new Doctrines not contradicting the old may be brought into the Church what answer is it to tell me how the Principall of Christian Religion are sure guarded since so they may be and yet such other may be brought in As Christs Promises and chiefe injunctions may be retained and yet praying to Saints and Purgatory and such like be superinduct Let any discreete man consider what further evidence he can desire or peradventure what greater assurance Nature can afford Sir I wish you so well that I cannot but give you warning that this saying of yours doth Sapere Haeresin since it seemes as if you disclaimed any absolute Infallibility and pretend onely to grounds of most possibility which the Protestants doing too use yet to be accused for making nothing certaine and having no firm foundation to build any thing upon But as you claime lesse then by your own Rules you should so you claim still more then either you are able to prove or we likely to grant The Philosophers say it is indisciplinati ingenii to expect in any Science more exactnesse then the Nature of it affords I confesse this to be true but I desire you also to remember that as it is absurd to expect as exact a proof in the Politicks as in Geometry so it is absurd to expect as high a degree of Assent to the first as to the second of my objections being intended against those who will be infalliblly believed to be infallible upon probable grounds for they themselves give them no higher a Title and indeed that it self in my opinion is more then they deserve What shall we expect then in Religion to see a main advantage on the one Party we cast our selves upon Truely such Advantage on your part I cannot see Neither if I did could I in reason joyn with you A maine advantage it is to have more Truth then any other Society of Christians but supposing you had so which is but a supposition for I verily believe if the Question were but who had most Title to so much yee would appear to a dispassionate man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither third nor fourth according to the answer of the Ancient Oracle yet you withall require not onely that I should believe you erre in nothing but that you never can and then I had rather remaine in their communion I say not who themselves erred not but whose conditions of Communion were lesse rigorous and exacted not of me to professe they could not erre when I believe they do And if you answer that it would necessarily follow that if they had fewest errors they must have none because some society of Christians must be allwaies free from all this I shall absolutely deny and the more earnestly because I know this is a trappe wherein many have been caught who taking this for granted have examined the Doctrines of the most known Churches of Protestants and finding as they thought and peradventure truely some errors in them some Doctrines no way to be proved but upon Popish grounds and by that justifying those and some imputations imposed upon their Adversaries wherein their Tenets or the consequences from them were mistaken they then by the Doggs Logick have run over without smelling to the Church of Rome as knowing no other Society but these and being praepossest that one of necessity must be free from all error Whereas for my part as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those who bound not themselves to believe absolutely the whole Doctrines of any Sect but pickt out what they thought accorded with reason out of them all were a wise sort of Philosophers so they seem to me reasonable Divines who speak Gods will as they did Truth for it is not to chuse by reason and Scripture or Tradition received by Reason which makes a Hereticke but to chuse an opinion which will make most either for the chusers Lust or Power and Fame and then seeking waies how to entitle God to it For since it would be a Miracle if the Errors of the Roman Church being long gathering could have been all discovered in a Day or if it had been possible for the first Reformers who having their eyes but newly open it is not strange if like the man in the Gospel they saw at first men walking like Trees and had but an imperfect apprehension of Truth especially being in Tullies state Quem fugio habeo Quem sequar non habeo I see whom to fly but not whom to follow not to have left some opinions untaxt which yet were errors nor to have expurged others which yet were none I cannot see why we may not in some points joyn with the one and with others in other and besides find some Truths which ly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 well in the mid-way betweene the Parties 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nay in some points differ wholly from both Which Liberty if it were generally allowed and generally practised if particular interests were trod wholly under foot especially by the greatest and if such spirits as those of Cassander and Melancton were more common no considerable things would in a short time be left but all would flow againe in the same Chanell whereas this opinion that allwaies one part erres not is both prejudiciall to Truth and the best Unity which is that of Charity for it perswades them who have fewest errors to believe those to be none and to hate all opposers as Hereticks and of this your Church is most guilty which not onely affirmes that there is such a one but that she is it and prophesies as much of her selfe allwaies for the future as she promiseth for the present and upon this ground like him who having won nineteene games at Tables threw the Dice in the fire for not winning him the twentieth though we should
yeeld to her in all points but one and that the least considerable she would yet throw us into the fire as Hereticks for dissenting from her in that You are bidden to put what yeare or age such an error entered and it is evidently true that then that yeare or age the Church conspired to tell a lie and deceive their Posterity You would never be loved if you were a Poser and used to aske such hard questions for either you must mean by an opinion entering when first any man pofessed it or when first by all in communion with your Church it was assented unto If you mean the first it is impossiible to be answered for if one should ask who taught first that Christ was not begotten by God before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary through his power and the over-shadowing of the Holy Ghost one who knew little of Antiquity would answer Socinus a more learned Person would say Photinus another Paulus Samosatenus another might find before him Artemon and another yet before him Theodorus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with whom curious Logicians and great Readers of Euclid Aristotle Galen and Theophrastus were joyned and yet that he was the first we have no certainty for if a little of Eusebius had been lost Theodorus and Artemon had not been now heard of which may as well have happened to others before them either by want of being taken notice of by an Historian or by the losse of the History and not onely is this so in this but in all other points If you mean the second for so you must by your Inference though the words of the Question will bear both sences it is as impossible for you to receive an answer For how shall I know when all it is granted For suppose no Author to have been lost and me to have read and remembred them all yet as in England when the Calvinists opinion prevailed most as wise and learned men as those who writ though differing in opinion from the Authors yet opposed them not so publiquely but that many might believe the more generall Tenet to be received by all how should I know that the opinions of the Authors of severall Ages did agree with that of all equally wise and learned in the same times for if there be no greater certaintie of the opinions of all of one Kingdome in our owne Age think what Infallibilitie can we have concerning an absolute generall consent a thousand years agoe And of this France may as well be an example as England wherein many called Cassandrians dissent from the publiquely received Doctrines though with so little stirr that our Posterity will not know that there now are such So that all which any man can answer to this Question is that such a one was the first that he knowes of who taught such a Doctrine and such a time the first wherein he knowes not that any contradicted it or that your Church defines it for a necessary opinion and exacted assent to it as a condition of their Communion which answer will be nearer to Truth or Falshood according to the measure of the answerers learning And indeed if you please to remember that when learning rose againe and the Reformation began most Manuferipts of considerable Books had long layn unreguarded by the generallity in Popish Libraries and out of them onely had some few been Printed you must confesse that it was in the power of your Church what answer we should be able to make to that Question which you propose which then it is no wonder if it were not answered for your willingnesse to keep men in darknesse concerning this even in times of most light is to be seen by your expurgatory Indexes For there though you professe to meddle with none but Moderne Authors whereas it is plaine you go as high as Bertram yet both that will serve to deceive our posterity concerning the generall opinions of these times and if your Church in former Ages used any course somewhat Analogicall to this upon those Authors who then were moderne too as likely enough they did or you have cause to hope they did for your more justification then how can I know when any opinion entered that is either first was at all or first by all taught since in all times how little mention soever be made of it there may have been some Doctors of that opinion though either no Authors or allthough Authors yet by this Stratageme may be kept from us Neither indeed can you answer this Question your self for you know not in what Year or Age did either the giving the Eucharist to Infants begin or end at least Saint Austine knew not the first who believed it an Apostolical Tradition Neither was this a bare Custome but implyed an opinion of good which Children received which the change shewes plainely to have altered and certainely either the first opinion was a Superstition or the latter a Sacriledge But howsoever your Consequence followes not for though your Church conspired and deceived their Posterity yet it might not conspire to deceive their Posterity but to instruct it being themselves deceived And therefore when you reckon up the Motives which men have to speak false I wonder to see Hopes and Feares put in and error left out It is Gods course deeplier to root and strengthen those things which he would have most flourish Now Christians know that he made mankind for his Elect the world for mankind and therefore he hath rooted those things which more immediately belong to his Elect as his Church Faith and Holy Spirit in it then the principles either of mans nature or of the world which was made for it himselfe assuring us of it when he told us That one tittle should not perish of the holy Writ though Heaven and Earth should be dissolved and so seeing the latter principle relyeth upon the not failing of God to his Church which should ever watch upon their actions that nothing should creepe into Christian life which presently the Zeale of the faithfull should not startle at I thinke it needlesse to seeke further to qualifie the strength of that part which receiveth it from the quality of so good a workman as the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I must therefore observe that this word Church hath so many significations even among your selves that it seldome comes into the mouth of a Romane Arguer but there comes withall foure Termes into his Sillogisme I could wish therefore that you would still set downe your Definition of it and put that instead of the word Church into what you say least what your late Graecian Defender Cariophilus saies of Hereticks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they delight in doubtfull expressions may seem more properly to belong to you Certainlie in some sence the Elect are Gods Church and in that sence the Church belongs not to his Elect but is it
of his and their Collection passe for his Doctrine which shewes the great advantage which we have by Gods Word being written since if it had not we could not alwaies have gone to a new examination of the very words which Christ or his Apostles taught and consequently a consequence of them spread in the place of them would have been more incurable then now it is I will also desire you to look in the five hundered eighty fourth Page of the Florentine Councell set out by Binius and there you will find that the Latines confesse that they added the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son to the Creed because the contrary opinion seemed to them by consequence contrary to a confessed Tradition of Christs eternall Divinity to which yet it will appear out of what Cardinall Perron hath excellently showne though upon another occasion that it doth not contradict but that this consequence was ill drawne which may have been in other points too and have brought in no small multitude of Errors since neither was their Logick certaine to conclude better nor were they lesse apt to add to their Creeds accordingly at any other times then they were at that I doubt not but whosoever shall have received satisfaction in the discourse past will also have received in the point we seek after that is in being assured both that Christ hath left a Directory in the World and where to find him there being no doubt but it is his holy Church upon Earth Nor can there be any doubt which is his Church since there is but one that doth and can lay claime to have received from hand to hand his holy Doctrine That which makes you expect that your Reader should have received satisfaction by what you have said is that since Christ hath a great care of his Elect he must consequently most strongly of any thing have rooted his Church Now I having shewed that by your own confession men may be of his Elect that are out of your Church I seemed to my selfe to have likewise proved that there is no necessity of any Churches being their Director I know you generally think this the more convenient way to have left such a guide that because otherwise Dominus non fuisset Discretus or in Epicttus his Phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you conclude that he hath but we though indeed in such cases where our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common Notions concerning God teach us that such a Thing were contrary to Gods maine Attributes to do some of us conclude upon that ground that this he hath not done in these cases which onely concerne convenience of which we have much lesse certaintie begin at the other end and considering first what he hath done conclude that to be sufficiently convenient and so finding no infallible guide by him instituted suppose it convenient that there should be none Truely if convenience were the measure and our Understandings the measurers we should resolve that God hath made every Particular man at least every Pious man Infallible and so to need no outward guide which yet it is plain that he hath not done Though in my opinion in some sence he hath made every man who pleaseth Infallible in respect of his journys end though not of all Innes by the way certaine to find Heaven though he may misse many Truthes in Divine matters For the beliefe which God requires of being to be thought true of his word and that man be ready to believe and obey what he saies as soon as it shall appear to him that he hath said it and every man being able according to his meanes to examine what he hath said It followes unlesse God should damne a man for weaknesse of understanding which were as strange as if he should damne him for a weak sight or afeeble arme that every man is Infallible in his way to Heaven so he lay no blocks in it himself at least is undoubtedly secur'd of any danger of Hell For if they neither desire to avoide the trouble of enquiry through unwillingness to find that to be true which is contrary to what he now thinks and so to hazard either the affection of deare Friends or the favour of great Friends or the feare of some other humane Inconvenience as want of present meanes Improbability to get more or of that disparagement so terrible to flesh and blood of descending to confesse that they have so long erred like Frobenius qui potuisset vivere nisi puduisset aegrotare who might have lived but that he was ashamed to confesse himself sick If I say none of these or the like things either keep him from seeking what is Gods will or from daring to professe it when he hath found it then such an Error having no reference to the will which is the onely fountaine of sin cannot by a just God be punished as a sin and the proofe of the necessity of an Infallible Director drawn from Gods care of his Church for his Elects sake is easily avoided But say you if there be a director it must be the Church and againe because you know that all congregations of Christians pretend to that Title in some sence as even the worst men call themselves by better Names then they deserve as Aristotle saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I may mistake our enemies Camp for our friends and serve against Christ whilst I think I fight under his Banner though even then I beleeve I should have a share in that prayer of his to whom none is denied Father forgive them for they know not what they doe unlesse you gave me some certaine marks to know the Church by you therefore say what you have before said that yours is it because that alone pretends to Tradition to which I answer what I before answered that the Greeks serve me to disprove the sufficiency of this Mark who professe that they hold the constant Tradition and that under that Notion they have both received what you deny and not received what you propose Let us consider in her Presence or Visibility Authority Power As for the first her multitude and succession make the one that she is ever accessible ever knowne What you now say is not to prove your Church a Directresse but having as you think and I think not proved that already you now mean to shew that she hath the Conditions requisite in a Directresse But this I deny for neither is her presence or Visibility for all her multitude and succession such as were in a Directresse required For she besides that she must bring notice and proofes with her to prove that she is instituted by God to direct men and those plain and evident if she require meerly but our assent but if she require us to assent Infallibly then those Infallible which yours cannot do must also be so visible as to be known to all men if not as
a Directresse at least as a Company of men which yours sure was not to those Nations which were lately discovered by Columbus But if you except and say she need onely be visible to all Christians though this exception need a proofe yet even this Condition your Church hath not allwaies had for I believe to those Christians whom Xaverius found in the East-Indies your Church had been as little visible as to those Pagans whom Columbus discovered in the West Besides beyond the Abissins how farre Christian Religion may be propagated and yet your Church unknown who can tell Besides even to most of them for any credible Testimony that appeares she may not be very visible But above all that reason being answered upon which you conclude that there is some Director and that ground being taken away upon which you build that yours is that me thinks it will be unnecessary to dispute long upon the Conditions required to that which hath no entity at all For Authority her very claime of Antiquity and Succession to have been that Church which received her beginning from Christ and his Apostles and never being all united under the universall government of ver fore-went it giveth à great reverence to her among those who believe her and amongst those who with indifferency seek to inform themselves a great Prejudice above others And if it be true it carrieth an infinite Authority with it of Bishops Doctors Martyrs Saints Miracles Learning Wisedome Venerable Antiquity and such like There is no Question but any Church true or false which claimes to have ever kept the Apostles Doctrines uncorrupted and is infallibly believed to have done so must among those Christians who thus beleeve have even equall Authority with the Apostles But me thinks that this claime before proofe should to others be any prejudice for her especially to those who have great Arguments against her is unreasonable and if after consideration it appears otherwise she hath then onely helpt to weaken her Testimony and hath destroyed her Infallible Authority in any thing else There remaineth Power which no man can doubt but he hath given it most ample who considereth his words so often repeated to his Apostles But abstracting from that who doth not see that the Church hath the nature and proportion of ones Country to everyone As in a mans Country he hath Father and Mother Brothers Sisters Kinsfolkes and Allies Neighbours and Country-men anciently called Cives and Concives and of these are made his Country So in the Church finds he in way to spirituall Instruction and Education all these digrees nearer and further off till he come unto that furthermost of Christ his Vicar and as he in his Country finds Bearing Breeding Settling in Estates and Fortunes and lastly Protection and Security So likewise in the way of Christianity doth he find this much more fully in the Church So that if it be true that a man oweth more to his Master then to his Father Bene esse is better then esse certainly a man also as farr as Church and Country can be separated must owe more to the Church then to his very Country Wherefore the Power which the Church hath to Command and instruct is greater then the Power of the Temporall Community of which he is part I wish you would have set down these words of Christ so often repeated to his Apostles in which Power to the Church I mean such a one as yours pretends is undoubtedly given For my Part Truely I remember none For I suppose not that the Power given to the Apostles can reasonably be claimed by any Society of men now no not though you should extend the Definition as largely as Erasmus who saies Ecclesiam voco totius Populi Christiani concensum I call the Church the Consent of the whole Christian People unlesse that be meant too in all Ages and so the Aposiles would come in They were so signed and sealed to as I may say from Heaven by having most conversed with Christ and been most beloved by him and chosen especially to teach the World his Will that it is impossible any men could be indeed Christians and not receive their Doctrine as that of Christ without any other Proofe but there is no other Church that hath such a Priviledge The Power of proposing she hath and so have you and without Question if you can convince any Christian that what you said Christ said first he is bound both to believe and obey it and againe let all Churches joyne in proposall yet till he be so convinced unlesse his own fault hinder it it binds him not neither is it sufficiently proposed allowing it true which it is not alwaies necessary that it should be although so attested For as a Naturall Foole is not bound to obey any Doctrine or Precept taught or imposed by God himself because his understanding cannot discover it to be so so in my opinion whose understanding soever is not convinc'd of the same how plain soever to others the thing be he is for as much as concernes this point in the state of a Naturall Foole and no more to be condemned Neither see I what you prove out of the Proportion between the Church and every mans Country for if any Church be intended by God to be so our Director that her propositions are to be received because they are hers then indeed we owe her much more obedience then to our Country which if it should require of us to believe an opinion true because that hath defined it I believe no man would obey and he who should press us to it would be accounted so mad that we should send him not to a Doctor of Divinity but to a Doctor of Physick to be confuted And that any Church is so intended appeares not at all by this proposition since the same is even amongst the Church of the Turkes which is Ecclesia malignantium for there they find their Metaphoricall Fathers Mothers Brothers Sisters Kinsfolks Allies Neighbours which all Hereticks do too among themselves all these degrees neerer and further of till at last they come to that furthermost of being united under the Universall Government of Mahomets Vicar the Mufty But to them you would say that this proves not Truth but at most Concord and that is Factio inter Malos which is Amicitia inter Bonos therefore the same we answer you since Pyrats and Theeves have as strict bonds among themselves as the honestest persons and often gerater conspiracies and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to destroy these then they make to defend themselves And whereas you say that we owe more gratitude and obedience to the Church then to our Country I have told you that this may be true without owing obedience to all she teaches But yet even this in some sence is True To the generall Tradition of Christians of the first Ages who lived with the Apostles and could not in any
likelyhood but know their writings I owe the knowledge of the Scripture and to that the knowledge of Gods will and to that Heaven if I conforme carefully to it both my Life and my Beliefe and to the Church in this sence I owe both as much gratitude as you please and believe whatsoever this as generally witnesseth to have received from the Apostles But this concerning any present Church doth as little concerne your present purpose For let us mean by the Church that company of men which hath kept Tradition wholly uncorrupted and suppose there is such a one yet to know that she hath done so I must examine her Doctrine and compare it either with Scripture or the first Antiquity and so rather receive her for it then it for her Besides that the whole Church teaches nothing and if she did yet by the same waies from any single learned Orthodox man I may receive the same instruction to whose commands neverthelesse except when he delivers Gods I owe no obedience Thustoo when the Orthodox company commands as they are Orthodox that is something of the will of God then they are to be obeyed and so am I and so againe when the chosen governours for that purpose command indifferent Things but if they exceed their Commission in commanding no man is longer bound to obey no more then if a Mayor of a Town should command the People to make his Hay they were bound to obedience since commanding more then his Magistracy authorizeth him he in that case is no Magisttate This Church can satisfie both learned and unlearned For in matters of Faith above the reach of learning whose spring is from what Christ and his Apostles taught what learned man can refuse in his inmost soule to bow to that which is testified by so great a multitude to have come from Christ and what unlearned man can require more for his faith then to be taught by a Mistresse of so many prerogaives and advantages above all others The learned cannot reasonablie be satisfied with this especiallie so farre forth as to beleeve it infalliblie true First because they see great multitudes have and doe testifie contrarie things Secondlie because they must have observed with Salmeron that a multitude of some opinion may proceed from some one Doctor especiallie if he be Illustrious and some againe taken with a pious and an humble feare chuse rather against their mind to approve what hath come from others then to bring forth any new thing out of their own understanding least they may seem to bring some thing unwonted into the Church This they must needs see may bring an undelivered opinion to be generall and then the generallitie may bring it to be thought to come from Tradition according to Tertullians rule Quod apud multas ecclesias unum invenitur non est erratum sed Traditum and that of Saint Austine that of whatsoever no beginning is known and yet is generall is to be beleeved to have its originall from the Apostles By this way supposing that all your Church did witnesse all their doctrines to have had such a lineall succession which they know to be false they see that opinions falslie and illogicallie deduct from true Traditions may be equallie beleeved to be such themselves Vincentius Lirinensis allowing the following Church to give light to the former which they might mistake in doing at least the certaintie of her Illustrations cannot have their force from Tradition By this way they see that in time such doctrines may come to have such a generall attestation which had their first spring from Scripture mis-interpreted either by publicke mistakes or by Councels mislead either by feare error or partialitie and what proceeded either from consent or definition may seem to have been deduct from Tradition In this they will be confirmed by seeing plainlie that more is now required to be beleeved by the Church of Rome then in all times hath been that now among you contrarie parties urge for or expect a generall Councell to end questions concerning which neither side claimes any continued verball Tradition and that the greatest part are ready to receive such a definition in as high a degree as any Tradition whatsoever They will be also confirmed by your denying Infallibilitie to a Councell how generall soever unapproved by the Pope by seeing that if as you say no man can be ignorant what he was taught when he was a childe as the ground and substance of his hopes for all eternitie and if in this all your Religion were comprised or else to what purpose say you this then no man bred in the Orthodox Church could erre or ever have erred in matter of Faith without knowing that he had departed from the very Basis of Christianitie and for Instructions in these points not onely all Authors as Commenters upon Scripture and the like were wholly uselesse but it were also a vaine thing to goe for instruction even to Christs Vicar and S. Hierome might have resolved his own question about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every whit as well as Damasus or Saint Peter himselfe And for the same reason it were wholly impossible that at the same time the Popes and most notable and most pious and most learned Papists living should have justified and applauded Erasmus for the same workes the one by his printed Diplomas and the rest by their Letters for which at the same instant the greatest part of the Monkes counted and proclaimed him a more pestilent Heretick then Luther if they had all weighed heresie in the same ballance and more impossible if in yours which the learned will yet lesse approve of when they see how soon the worse opinion and lesser authoritie may prevaile as how that of the Monkes hath done against that of the Popes and Bishops and that so much that Erasmus is now generallie disavowed as no Catholicke and given to us whom wee accept as a great present that Bellarmine will allow him to be but halfe a Christian and Cardinall Perron which I am sorry for gives a censure upon him which would better have become the pen of a Latomus a Bedda a Stunica or an Egmundane then of so learned and judicious a Prelate Now for the Ignorant I am sure you will never be able to prove infalliblie to them that your Church hath any prerogatives above others the ordinarie way cannot be taken with them because they not understanding the languages in which the Fathers and Councels are written cannot be press'd by what they cannot construe and your way as little because they are not more though totallie ignorant of the Authors of past Ages then they are of the state opinions and claimes of the present time so that I know not how you can attempt them if they have but a moderate understanding to their no knowledge The body of our Position shoots forth the branches of divers Questions or rather the Solutions of
them And first how it happened that divers Heretickes pretended to Tradition as the Chiliasts Gnosticks Carpocratians and divers others yet they with their Traditions have been rejected and the Church onely leftin claime of Tradition For if we looke into what Catholicke Tradition is and what the Herelicks pretended the question will remaine voided For the Catholicke Church cals Tradition that Doctrine which was publiquely delivered and the Hereticks called Tradition a kinde of secret Doctrine either gathered out of private conversation with the Apostles or rather pretended that the Apostles besides what they publiquely taught the world had another mysticall way proper to Schollers more endeared which came not to publique view whereas the force and energie of a Tradition residing in the multitude of hearers and being planted in the perpetuall life and actions of Christians it must have such a publicity that it cannot be unknown amongst them Of the Carpocratians and Gnosticks I have spoke before but sure for the Chiliasts this is onely said and not proved Howsoever this undeniablie appeares that either Pappias and Irenaeus thought not this Tradition to have come such a way as you speake of or else they thought it no hereticall way but such a one as was at least reasonablie to be assented to and both what was the way by which Traditions ought to come and by which this came they were more likely to know then those of following ages which proves that this Objection as much as concernes them especiallie remaines still so strong that in spite of Fevardentius it will be better to answer it Scalpello quam Calamo with a Pen-knife then with a Pen and no Confuter will serve for it but an Expurgatory Index no non si tuus afforet Hector if Cardinally Perron were alive I must by the way take notice of what yon say here that Tradition must have such a Publicity as cannot be unknown among Christians and desire you to agree this with what you say in the next Paragraph that the Apostles may not have preached in some Countries some Doctrines which we now are bound to receive as Traditions for sure those Doctrines were then unknown among many Christians and if they had been necess ry sure the Apostles would no where have forgot wich so good a Prompter as the Holy Ghost to have taught them If they were not then necessary how have they grown to be so since Besides I appeal to your Conscience whether it appeart that the doctrine of the Exchequer of Superabundant merits of which the Pope is Lord Treasurer and by vertue of which he dispenseth his pardons to all the Soules in Purgatory appear to have been known evern to any of the best Christians and whether if it had been known to them as a Tradition being a Doctrine which necessitates at least Wisdome and Charity a continuall practice of sueing for them and of giving them it were possible that of what they knew such infinite Volumes of Authors should make no mention Suppose some private Doctrine of an Apostle to some Disciple should be published and recorded by that Disciple and some others this might well be a Truth but never obtain the force of a Catholique Position that is such as it would be a damnation to reject because the descent from the Apostle is not notorious and fit to sway the body of the whole Church I confesse that to have been no more generally delivered will prove that the Apostles thought not such a Doctrine necessary else their Charity would not have suffered them to have so much concealed it but yet to any such Doctrine it is impossible that any Christian who believes the testimony that it came from the Apostles should deny his assent because it were to deny the Authority upon which all the rest is grounded for the Church pretends to her Authority from them and not they from her and howsoever such a Doctrine although not necessary could not be damnable as you make this Besides here will first arise a Question not easie to be decided how great a multitude of Witnesses will serve to be notorious and fit to sway the body of the Church especially so many having not for a long while been thought fit even by Catholiques though attesting doctrines since received by you all and considering that multitude of your Church which believe the immaculate Conception in as high a degree as it is possible without excommunicating the deniers who either walk not by that which you count the onely Catholique Rule or else claime such a Tradition who yet are not thought fit to sway the rest Secondly I pray observe how easie it was for the two first Ages at least the chiefe of them and all that are extant to have given assent to Traditions so unsufficiently testified or to have mistaken Doctrines under that notion for so they did to this of the Chiliasts and then after for it to spread till it were generall land last as long as men last upon their authority and when once it is so spread how shall we then discover how small an Originall it had when peradventure the head and spring of it will be as hard to find as that of Nilus so that the greatest part of what you receive might possibly appear to be no certainer nor better built if we could digg to the foundation Wherefore since the delivery of a Tradition by subsequent Ages hath its validity onely from the authority of the first me thinks you should either think that they received none but upon better grounds or else think these grounds good Thirdly I know not why you resolve this opinion of the Chiliasts to have had onely such a private Tradition for though they name John the Disciple and mention certaine Priests who heard it from him yet they deny not a moregeneraldelivery of it but peradventure least men might think that the generall opinion that it came from the Apostles might arise from places of Scripture which fallacie their testimony when not so fully expressed was still in danger of concerning any point but that these books were written by these men they therefore thought it fit to name to us their witnesses that it came from Christs owne mouth and in what words And if they had done so much on your side for the differences between us I believe you would now have few Protestant adversaries left for you would have converted the greater part and by that have been enabled to burn the smaller The second Question may be How it cometh to passe that some things which at first bindes not the Churches beliefe afterwards commeth to bind it For if it were ever a Tradition it ever must needs be publique and ever bind the Church and if once it were not it appears not how ever it could come to be for if this age for example have it not how can it deliver it to the next that followeth But if we consider that the
scope of Christian Doctrine being great and the Apostles preaching in so great varieties of Countries it might happen some point in one Country might be lesse understood or peradventure not preacht which in another was often preacht and well both understood and retained we may easily free our selves from these brambles For the Spirit of Tradition residing in this that the testimony be exceptione majus and beyond all danger of deceit It is not necessary to the efficaciousnesse of Tradition that the whole universall Church should be witnesse to such a truth but so great a part as could be a warrant against mistaking so that if all the Churches of Asia Greece or Affrick or AEgypt should constantly affirm such a Tradition to have been delivered them from the Apostles it were enough to make a Doctrine exceptione majorem Whence it ensueth that if in a meeting of the universall Church it were found that such a part hath such a Tradition concerning some matter whereof the rest had either no understanding or no certainty such a Doctrine would passe into a necessary bond of Faith in the whole Church Your sword is so sharp and your shield so weak that I can hardly believe they came out of the same forge but when I observe how much you have a better right hand then a left and that not onely you have raised an objection which you cannot lay but your answer to it multiplies more I cannot but compare you to him in Lucian who travelling with a Magician that had no servant and instead of one was daily wont to say to a Pestle Pestle be thou a man and it would be so and when his occasions were served would bid it return to be a Pestle and was obeyed thought one time to imitate the Magitian he being abroad and made indeed the Pestle a man and draw water but could not make it return to the former state but it continued still to draw wherefore angry and afraid he took up an axe and clove the Pestle-man in two whereupon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in stead of one water-drawer there lept up two For first I pray consider what could you have found more certaine to destroy all which you had before laboured to settle about the Infallibilitie of your Tradition then this distincton of Exceptione Major since if not a generall one but one which seemed such were required how easie was it for false opinions to get in under that colour testified but by a few reputed honest men and so received by and transmitted from others of great and generall authoritie Secondlie how could you have found a better way to answer your owne Objection against the Chiliasts Tradition for want of being sufficientlie publique since if that had not seemed to them to have had this condition I mean if they had thought they should for this cause have excepted against it it had been impossible these Saints should have received it and concerning the publicitie of it and the number and authoritie of the deliverers they must of necessitie have been the best Judges who then lived and who were the more considerable Doctors of the most considerable Ages so that you must either confesse that a Tradition bindes not unlesse indeed generall or confesse that this doth supposing this not to have been generall which you cannot prove A likely example of this may be drawn from the Canonicall Bookes I deny it to be now necessarie to Salvation to admit of any Bookes for Canonicall which it was lawfull for Christians in past ages to doubt of and which had no generall Tradition and againe this answer helpes against your selfe for it is plaine by Saint Hieromes Testimonie that the Roman Church received not the Epistle to the Hebrewes which the Easterne Churches received whose Testimonie according to your grounds she then should have beleeved to be beyond exception and it is plaine by Perrons Testimonie that the Easterne Churches received not the Macchabees when he saies the Church of Rome did Now it is plaine that the Receivers pretended to Tradition because nothing else could make a booke thought Canonicall whereas other opinions might be brought in by a false Interpretation of Scriptures and after being spread might be thought to come from Tradition So that according to your grounds and these testimonies not onely the Westerne Church ought to have beleeved the Easterne about the Epistle to the Hebrewes and the Easterne the Westerne about the Macchabees but also they ought to have required this assent from each other which they not doing as they would have done if they had thought their testimonie so valid as you doe it followes that you doe differ from the Churches of the fifth and sixth age about what is exceptione majus you thinking that to be so which they thought not and againe from all the extant Doctors of the two first ages you thinking that not so which they thought was as also those two times agreed about it as little with each other as you with them both The third question may be how Christian Religion consisting of so many points is possible to be kept uncorrupted by Tradition which depending upon Memory and our memory being so fraile it seemeth cannot without manifest miracle conserve so great a diversity of points unchanged for so many ages But if we consider that Faith is a Science a thing whose parts are so connexed that if one be false all must needs be false we shall easily see that contrarily the multitude of divers points is a conservation the one to the right the other wherein we doubt As in Judges when a battell was to be fought between the children of Israel and the Midianites the Midianites destroyed each other and left nothing to doe for Israel but onely to pursue them so truly your Objections worke so strongly upon your own Party that I have nothing left me to presse and much to applaud For for this very reason I beleeve that all necessarie points were given in writing and onely the witnessing that these were the Apostles writings was left to Tradition which was both much lesse subject to error as being but one point and that a matter of fact and could no other way be done because no writing could have witnessed for it selfe so sufficientlie that we should have had reason to have beleeved it upon no other certificates and to this your answer seemes to me no way satisfactorie since first I deny Faith to be a Science it being nothing but an assent to Gods Revelations neither are those so connexed as you liberallic affirme and sparinglie prove Nay suppose they were yet though errors would be the lesse likely to enter yet when any one by any meanes were got in ' then this connexion would be a ready way to helpe it to let in all its fellowes Besides those opinions which may be superinduct as Traditions which such a connexion could not hinder if they were not
make out of it Arguments to perswade them to revolt from you It is no wonder if your Church be like the Congregation in the Acts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most part know not why they are come together And truely if thus it were not if all had liberty to seek Truth and if all who sought it were indifferent in their seeking and their judgments were absolutely unbridled by their affections and unswaied by prejudice I cannot perswade my self that so many could meet in thinking it fit to receive for so they seem to me such impossible Doctrines upon such improbable grounds or to require a more then probable assent to but probable Doctrines allowing them to be such and should not see what is grounded upon them if not impossible is at least much more improbable then the Motives are probable which kind of Assent cannot be expected by God who as he requires onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable service so also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a reasonable Faith Here followeth the Third Part of this Discourse which is a Reply to such Answers as you have been pleased to make to a little of that little which I at first opposed SPeaking of the Church Rome as this day it is the true Church of God I answer the doubter she neither hath nor can have any error which he need to feare and be shie of The which two limitations I adde for avoiding Questions impertinent unto our businesse The first for those which concerneth the connexion of the Sca of Rome to the Universall The latter to avoide such Questions as touch that point whether the Church may erre in any Philosophicall or other such matter which Questions are not so pertinent to our Matter Meaning by the true Church a companie of men which hold all and no more that Christ taught for other interpretation I beleeve you will not give it then there is no question but that not onely it hath no dangerous error but none at all but that yours is such remaines unproved and I beleeve manet aeternumque manebit For upon examination I doubt not it will appeare that as I have read of a Cohort of Persians which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Immortall Cohort which all died in one battell so your infallibe Church will be found to abound in errors and to belie equallie hertitle being troubled her selfe with what she undertakes to secure others from like the Apothecary in Lucian who undertaking to cure all men of the Cough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could himselfe scarce prescribe his Medicine for coughing the while Besides of what sort soever the error be yet since the Condition of her Communion is to professe a beleife that she hath none such a one as to them who indeed beleeve so would not be dangerous yet to me who cannot professe this but against my Conscience how slight a one soever may be an occasion of damnation Againe as to me your answer appeares false so to those of your own side it will appeare hereticall to me it would give no satisfaction though you had proved what you but affirme because I desire to know an eternall not a temporarie Guide whereas if in your Church there should happen any Schisme your answer then would give me no meanes to resolve my selfe which part were the guide that is the true Church without a new and peradventure by the way an endlesse search To them it will give scandall because first you presuppose that we must know the Church by the Doctrine and the Doctrine by the Church and secondlie you imply a possibilitie that the Church of Rome is now but by accident and may come not to be the true Church and so all their confidence built upon her as the Directresse of all Churches and the eternall Admirall of Gods Fleet will appeare to have a very fallible foundation Besides in the cause of your Limitation I find more reason to commend your Discretion then your Ingenuitie for for the first if you had said that the Universall Church of Christ must alwaies be connected to the particular one of Rome which were to allow her Infallibilitie you knew Antiquitie to have said much against you and besides that this being not yet de fide among your selves nor evident in it selfe could not serve for a foundation to the whole bodie of our faith if you had absolutelie denied it you knew that you should incurre the displeasure of the most prevailing part of your own men and that then the maine and to the Ignorant the onely visible signe would bee taken away For the second if you had affirmed that the Church could erre in nothing how slight soever you would both have contradicted many of your own side as Stapleton by name and have asserted more then there were any coloun of proofe for and would have wanted this distinction to retire to if you were confuted in any particular if you had restrained her Infallibilitie to things necessarie or weightie or the like then the question would again have risen which are those for many errors which we lay to her charge concerne not things indeed necessarie though she adde to the error that other of thinking that whatsoever she holds becomes necessarie by her holding it and then for all you have said the doctrine of Purgatorie might be false and yet she the Church and that infallible as farre as by your Doctrine her Infallibilitie had need to be extended Neither doe I remit the questioner to Scripture for his satisfaction although I hold Scripture a very sufficient meanes to satisfie the man who goeth to it with that preparation of understanding and will which is meet and required Howsoever this I may answer for them who prove it out of Scripture that because they dispute against them who admit of Scripture and deny the authority of the Church if they can convince it they doe well though they will not themselves admit generally of a proofe out of Scripture as not able to prove every thing in foro contentioso If you hold Scripture to be so sufficient a mean I wonder Sir why you thinke not fit to remit me to it unlesse you thinke that you have severall sufficient waies to prove so evidenta Truth by or thinke me not to come with meet preparation Indeed if that be as among you it is counted to come resolved not to judge of what the Roman Church holds by what the Scriptures say but to beleeve that they say whatsoever she holds then I confesse I come not with the Conditions required but if it be to come desirous to finde the Truth and to follow and professe it when I have found it in spite of all temporall respects which might either fright or allure me from so doing then I suppose that Charitie which hopeth all things will encline you to beleeve that I come as I ought to come untill some evident reason perswade you to the
contrarie That the Scripture cannot prove every thing in foro contentioso I beleeve but all necessarie Truths I beleeve it can for onely those which it can are such I denie not but that a contentious person may denie a thing to be proved when his own Conscience contradicts his words but so he may Arguments drawn from any other ground as well as Scripture so that if for that cause you refuse to admit of proofes from thence you might as well for the same refuse to admit of any by any other kinde of Arguments And certainlie if the Scriptures I meane the plaine places of it cannot be a sufficient ground for such and such a point surelie it cannot be a sufficient ground to build a ground upon as the Churches Infallibilitie and therefore though it it seemes you desire so much that this be beleeved that so it be you care not upon what proofe yet a considering Protestant who is not as hot to receive your Religion as you are that he should may presentlie say when he is press'd by you with Scripture to this since this is a way of proofe which your selves admit not of an Argument from hence may bring me from my own Religion but never to yours because it is a beame which that relies much upon that by any other way then the authoritie of the Church no man can be sufficientlie sure of the meaning of Scripture That they say the Church is made infallible that we may have some guide I thinke it very rationall for Nature hath given ever some strong and uncontroulable Principle in all Natures to guide the rest The Common-wealth hath a Governour not questionable our Understanding hath Principles which she cannot judge but by them judgeth of all other verities If there should not be some Principle in the Church it were the onely maimed thing God had created and maimed in its Principall part in the very head Andif there be such a Principle the whole Church is Infallible by that as the whole man seeth by his eyes toucheth by his hands Christ is our unquestionable and infallible Governour and his Will the Principle by which we are guided and the Scripture the place where this Will is contained which if we endeavour to find there we shall be excused though we chance to misse and therefore want not your guide who either is not or as hard to find as the way and againe when he hath defined the certaine meaning of that definition as hard to find as herfelf Neither is a company of men thus beleeving maimed in the head though having no other more uncontroulable Principle If your guide were evident of her self as those Principles are by which we judge all things else then your Similitude would hold a little whereas being neither knowable in her self nor proveable by ought else what you have said onely shewes what an ill match is made when Witt is set against Truth It is sufficient for a Child to believe his Parents for a Clown to believe his Preacher about the Churches Infallibility For Faith is given to mankind to be a meanes of believing and living like a Christian and so he hath this second it is not much matter in what tearmes he be with the first To what you say I answer that I confesse that it is not possible that without particular Revelations or Inspirations the ignorant even of the Orthodox party should receive their Religion upon very strong grounds which makes me wonder that even from them you should exact an assent of a higher nature and a much greater certaintie then can be ministred to them by any arguments which they are capable of yet if they believe what they receive with an intention of obedience to God and supposall that their opinions are his Revelations and use those meanes which they in their Conscience think best to examine whether they be or no though it be when they find themselves unable to search by trusting others whom they count fittest to be trusted I beleeve they are in a very saveable estate though they be farr from having of the truth of their Tenets any Infallible certaintie and the same I think of those which are in error for since you cannot deny but that a Child or a Clown with the same aptnesse to follow Gods will may be taught by his Parents or his Preacher that what God forbids he commands that Christ's Vicar is Antichrist or the Church Babylon and scarce teacheth any truth though it could not teach the least error why should such a one be damned for the misfortune of having had Hereticall Parents or a deceiving Preacher For no more it seemes is required of such then to give his beliefe to those And indeed the same reason extended will excuse him who though learned impartially aimeth at Gods will and misseth it for though you seeme to insinuate by the cause you give of what you say that so men believe and do what they heare God command he careth not upon what grounds yet I who know that God hath no other gaine by our so doing then that in it we sacrifice to him our soules and affections cannot believe but that they shall be accepted who give him that which he most cares for and obey him formally though they disobey him materially God more considering and valuing the Heart then the Head the end then the actions and the fountaine then the streames And truely else he who through stupidity or impotence abstained from any vice or through negligence or prejudice miss'd some error would be as well accepted of by God as he that by a care of his waies and of obedience to him who should rule them did avoide the first and by a studious search the second I cannot part from this Theame without one consideration more and that is that if so Fallible a Director as you speak of may be cause enough of assent to one Truth why may they not be so to another and why shall not the beleefe of our ignorants upon their testimonie that the Scripture is the Word of God be as well founded as that of yours to the Infallibility of the Church upon the same And yet it is daily objected to us that this beleefe of ours is not surely enough founded since not received from their Church although the unlearned among us receive it from their Parents and Preachers and the learned from Tradition as from the first of those your unlearned do and from the second of which your learned pretend they do receive the authority and infallibility of the Church it self Although we be so much more reasonable then you that we require them not to be so sure upon it as they are of what they know by sence but onely to give them so much credit that they may give up their hearts to obedience Neither do I remit him to a generall and constant Tradition as if himself should climbe up every age by learned
when a Childe as the substance of his hopes for all eternitie and so cannot in reason have his books either forbidden or pasted up for delivering any thing contrary to it Secondly Who are these Censors who forbid and paste up books certainly not the Universall Church nor yet the Representative the latter is not alwaies in being nor when it is at leasure to consider and judge all authors and of the first these Authors are a part if then they be fallible as they must be if they be not the Church why may not they erre and the Martyr-books speake truth which yet will easily by this meanes be kept from Posteritie if those in the Dictatory Office dissent from it as they will be sure to do if the opinion contradict never so little the power or greatnesse of the Pope upon whose favour these Oecumenicall Correctors must depend or they not longremaine in their places and yet you expect that your adversary should produce succession of their opinions in all ages though nothing be let passe but what a few please and though when in time all of you are agreed as you will soon be or appear to be if one side appear to be gag'd then this consent though thus brought about becomes the consent of the Church and a very notable Motive And since you say that what all are bound to is onely a prompt subjection to the Church why leave you it so in doubt what is the Church as if men were tyed to be subject but must not know to what you say indeed that the adherers to the Church of Rome are now the Church but what they may be you will not plainely declare So that if a Schisme among them should happen we are all as farr to seek as if you had been wholly silent for since the infallibility lies not in the particular Church of Rome and consequently the adhering to her is not ever a sufficient note of the Church as you will not say nor is it among your selves de fide since the Universall Church whatsoever she be can never define any thing and of the authority of the definitions of the Representative and of what constitutes both her and her decrees you refuse to speak what remaines there to which this prompt subjection is to be the onely everlasting Note of the true Church but onely the Truth whensoever she appeares Thus as the Priests of Apollo therefore peradventure called Loxias used to spread lies and secure his reputation the first by the antiquity and the second by the darknesse of his Oracles so doth your Religion gaine upon many men and secure her seflf rom many objections by the manyfold acceptions and consequently difficulty of this tearme Church For whatsoever is said in Scripture concerning her being free from all spot or prevailing against the gates of Hell or their danger who resist her the first meant as I believe and the place denies not by any circumstance of the Church Triumphant the second of the Church of the Elect and the third of the Professors of Christianity in generall or at most of those who are in all necessary points Orthodox among them That they without sufficient proofe resolve to be spoken of the Church in their sence they have fancied That is some ever known body of Christians which must be still guide to the rest and then claime to be that because no other all else being more ingenious claimes it besides themselves whereas if considering that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Oraculous truth of my great Lord Bacon's observation that unlesse men in the beginning of their disputes agree about the meaning of their tearmes they must end about words where they ought to have begun they had marked what other sence these words were capable of for if it will here beare another then this cannot hence be concluded but by leave they would then soon have seen the weaknesse of their building by the slightnesse of their foundation Againe they prevaile much by working upon mens assents by the meanes of their modesties and presse it to be an intollerable pride to oppose their opinions to the consent of the Catholick Church whereas if it be weighed how small a part of it they mean by that word and yet of them how many follow blindly the decrees of one and how soon those prevaile against that few not backed by any power who do not it will then appeare that not onely other Churches but even a John or a Thomas have as much reason to be lead by their own understandings as by the opinions and decrees of and Vrban or a Gregory upon which that consent is so often founded And as they make their advantage of this word in their offensive warres so do they in their defensive for when they are press'd unto the absurdity of their Tenets then though indeed they be generall yet they pretend that they are the opinions but of private though many men and not of the Church and againe when any Fathers who yet sometimes they say are wholly theirs are shewed to contradict some of their Doctrines so plainely that none of those subterfuges which in one of their expurgatory Indexes they consesse they often use will serve to palliate it then they strive to scape by answering that the Church had not then defined it whereas if it be examined how farre they consent about what is the Church and what are her Definitions whereof they are not yet agreed for some say she hath defined what others say she hath not this onely will be certainlie found that it never can be certainlie found what are her opinions of any point or when she hath declared her selfe As besides manie other Arguments some press'd by my selfe and others by other Pens more fit to treat of so weightie a matter appeares by your refusing to leave your Latibula and declare plainlie your opinion concerning it which if you saw defensible and you were all agreed about it you would quicklie have done and not incurred the reprehension of that Axiome which teacheth that Dolosus versatur in generalibus which makes me thinke that if this were generallie enough mark'd you would no longer be able to dazle any mans eyes with the splendid title of Somes to the Catholique Church as Alexander hoped to doe those of the Barbarians with stiling himselfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Sonne of Jupiter although indeed he was so much the more moderate then the second as never to denie that any other could be Sonne to the same Father whereas you will not allow that any may have interest in your Mother besides your selves To conclude this Paragraph give me leave to aske one question and that is how your saying that Truth is more easie to finde now then in the Fathers times will agree either with the way which you say is the onely Catholique one to finde Truth by for sure such a Tradition was alwaies equallie easie to finde and if the first
ages had erred in it we must of necessitie following your advice have followed their error too or with the saying of so many of your side that if I should reckon them up I should make a Catalogue of Authors equall to those of Photius or Gesner or Possevine who all joyne that Truth was most likelie to be most certainlie known that time which was in Campians words Christo propior ab hac lite remotior neerer to Christ and consequentlie to Tradition and to which for that cause all thinke fit to appeale against us or with that custome of your Church which suffers none to take Orders before they have vowed to interpret Scriptures according to the Fathers which if men now adaies be more likelie to find the Truth then at that time they were as they must be if truth in this age be more easie to be found whether through greater abundance of Compilers or what else soever then this Vow is as much as if they had vowed to leave the best way of Interpretation and teaching to follow the worst As for the two points he saith avert him from Catholique doctrine I am mistaken if he be not mistaken in both The first is that the Catholiques doe damne all who are not in the Union of their Church He thinkes the sentence hard yet I thinke he will not deny me this that if any Church does not say so it cannot be the true Church For call the Church what you will the Congregation of the Elect the Congregation of the Faithfull the Congregation of Saints or Just call it I say or define it what you will doth it not clearly follow that whosoever is out of the Church cannot be saved for he shall not be the Elect Just Faithfull c. without which there is no salvation How then can any Church maintain these two Propositious I am the true Church and yet one may be saved without being in me This is by your favour a meere Paralogisme for though those who define the Church by qualities which both Parts agree to be the conditionall Keyes to the Kingdome of Heaven must needs affirme that none out of the Church can be saved yet what is this to them who meane by the Church the Companie of the Orthodox in all points and by them your selves out of which allowing that there be such a one which I doubt of and that to be yours I shall beleeve that some may be saved till I see some more cause to thinke all error in Religion alwaies damnable which it is plaine by what after you say that you thinke not your selfe and the Church taken in this sence which is your sence may maintaine both Propositions or to shew you how much what you say would make against your selfe thus I argue The true Church must hold that none can be saved out of her but your Church denies not but that some out of her may be saved therefore yours is not the Church My Major is included in your own saying that those two Propositions are not maintainable together My Minor though false yet is also your confession where you say that the Churches Proposition is not so cruell as it seemes though the words be rough and therefore so ought you to make my conclusion too Besides those who exclude all from Salvation who are out of the Church in the other sence meaning by it the Elect as they are not like them in the wrong so they are not occasion of much harme like them who stiling the Church a companie of men of such a beleife and under such a government affirme an impossibilitie of being saved out of it for they giving no visible signe of who is in the Church for who can know the Elect but the Electer cause no want of Charitie nor frequencie of Warre and persecutions by it as the others doe who having made first a visible partition least those who are out of it may draw others out too they send them out of the world by way of prevention But per adventure he is scandalized that the Catholick Church requireth actuall Communion externall with her which he thinketh may in some case be wanting without detriment of Salvation But how would he have the Church speake which speak eth in common but abstracting from such particular eases as may change wholly the Nature of the Question I am scandalized not because you require to Salvation joining with you in Communion but because also you require joyning with you in opinions and if it were onely this yet am not I any whit satisfied with what you say for it for with the true Church that is the Commpany of true believers in points any way materiall or rather the truest I conceive it not damnation sometimes not to communicate For if they have any never so slight errors and which appeares so to me which yet they will force me to subscribe to if I Communicate with them my assent would be damnable or if they require the same subscription to some truths which yet after my reall indeavours in inquiry appear errors to me I doubt not but my refusall is no way damnable Neither can I absolve your Church concerning this her saying for your reason because she speakes in generall wholly abstracting from particulars which change the nature of the Question for why doth she so why doth she not expresse her exceptions or at least tell us that the rule is not so generall but that it will beare some and not make men who know not that she intends to restraine at all what she so absolutely pronounceth and who will find no cause to take your bare word for her intentions many times at least to hate them as Gods enemies whom he loves as his friends and beleeve them to fry in Hell who shine in Heaven Howsoever if she use to expresse herself in rougher words then her meaning is how apt may she be to be mistaken in severall of her resolutions and consequently how easie is it for some age to have misunderstood the past and deceive the following Neither do I like your example because that is not to differ from the Church but to mistake her meaning though even he who should denie that there were three Gods if he thought that by the Trinitie your Church so meant must consequently think her not infallible and so by your grounds be consequently a Heretick The current of Catholick Doctors that no man shall be damned for infidelity but he who doth wilfully misbeleeve and that to do so it is required that Faith be sufficiently proposed unto him and what is to be sufficiently proposed is not determined amongst them There wanteth not Divines who teach that even ignorantia affectata doth excuse from Heresie On the other side it is most certaine that no man is damned for not professing what he is not damned for not believing Wherefore profession being that which engrafteth a man exteriorly in the Church
fit to be left Howsoever the long doubt of some and opposall of other Orthodox to this course and that arising not from their Policie or Compassion but their Conscience not as thinking it unprofitable or unfit but unlawfull shews that there was then no Tradition that the Apostles taught it to be lawfull so to use Hereticks upon which onelie all the Infallibilitie which you claime for any beliefe or custome of your Church is founded Saint Austine justifieth such proceedings against Hereticks Truely for putting them to death unlesse when they first assaulted which makes a wide difference for then it was not done as to Hereticks but as to Assassines from whom Nature teaches us to defend our selves and consequentlie to re-offend them whensoever Religion barres it not experience shewing us the danger of meerly defending to be neer to that too of not doing it at all I know not that ever he did nor do I beleeve it That some degree of punishment should be inflicted upon them I confesse he at last consented but chiefly to force them to come and see what the Church did whose actions the Hereticks impudently belied as if they set pictures upon the altar and did what you both doe and defend and they did not i. e. denied it Howsoever we have Saint Austine against Saint Austine and not onely his authority but his reasons more valid by much then that when he saith that such oppressions would make them think themselves vi victos non veritate convictos overcome by force not convicted by Truth and consequently dislikes it ne fictos Catholicos habeamus quos apertos Hereticos novimus least they become from open Hereticks but fained Catholicks Reasons which though these be not all we have in my opinion it was as impossible for him reasonably to answer when he was living as it would be now for him to do it when he was dead Besides as he useth these strong arguments against it so he is himself a strong example against it for the Church had lost this her so notable Champion if they then had been as severe to the Manichees as you are to us Saint Gregory vseth the like against Pagans if I remember and the Church laterly hath rather encreased then decreased in the practice of it I believe your memory deceives you in this which you have cause to hope it doth for else the Church of Rome differs from that of Saint Gregories times it being now with her a judged case that Infidels may not be compelled to the Faith as I am told is shewed by Vaelentia Saint Thomas Hartado and others the Church having no power over those who are out of it and therefore they please to say that like them who among the Romans were onely Cives ad onera liable to the taxes of Citizens without Interest in their Priviledges Baptisme hath made us of the Church enough to be liable to her Punishments though not to be benefitted by her Communion Though indeed the same cause why you would have Hereticks put to death for feare of harming others with their opinions me thinks should extend to their punishment too unlesse you believe us to be as bad as Malefactors and not them or that their opinions are so irrationall as not likely to spread and ours so reasonable that against them the sword is the best shield and therefore as Brennus did his you put that into the scales for want of weight it being of giving Reasons as the Poet saith it is of giving Requitalls Irasci quam donari vilius constat Another reason which perswades me that you are mistaken in what you say of Gregory as this mistake facilitates my beliefe that you are so about Austines too is that Bede tells that some Romanists having converted the King of Kent that King did not yet force any to become Christians for saith he he had learned of these his Masters that the service of Christ WHICH REASON EXTENDS FARTHER THEN TO PAGANS must be voluntary and not forced Now if these received what they taught from Gregory as you often tell us then either he did not as you often say or thought that unlawfull which himself did And howsoever this Custome hath encreased since is very unconsiderable for unlesse it have its authority explicitely or implicitely from the Apostles it can give none since and unlesse it be proved to be well done at first no continuance can give this or any other action more justification then at first it had Moses speech I believe is mistaken the force of it being that the banishment of Bishops shewed his faith because the banished were Catholickes which shewed Lucius to be none If Moses had meant as you would have him he should not have said onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not indefinitelie the banishing of Bishops but the banishing of Orthodox Bishops the leaving therefore of that out wherein according to you the whole sence of his Argument lay seemes to me plainlie enough to shew that he meant what they and you denie especiallie he adding as you may see in Zozomon their being punish'd by labour as well as punishment and then saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which things are whollie abhorring from Christ and all right Beleevers concerning God and in Socrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Gods servant ought not to fight for so he counted to punish But what can be said if the Church useth that for the prevention of a greater and more dangerous evill which all politique Estates use for the remedies of lesse and lesse dangerous evils and are commended for it For if Faith he the way to Salvation and Heresie be the bane of Faith if Salvation the greatest good then the danger of a Countries being over-runne with Heresie is the greatest of dangers greater then the multiplicity of Theeves greater then the unsurety of the wayes greater then a Plague or Invasion why then doth not reason force us to use meanes to prevent it which the same reason-and experience teacheth us to be most efficacious in this and all other contagious and gangrening maladies of the Common-wealth I hope reason it selfe and the Zeale of the Author to his own and Countries salvation will supply my shortnesse in this point for supposing a Church be assured she is in the right and that the doctrine preach'd as then leadeth to damnation I know not why Caiphas his words should not be propheticall in this case and that truly it doth expedire that Unus moriatur pro populo non tota gens pereat I wish heartilie you were as good a Caterer as a Cooke I meane that you brought as good reasons as you dresse artificiallie what you bring For I finde there is in your words a verie notable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 able to steale a man into your opinion before he hath askt himselfe why but if he stay to doe so then all your excellent
as you inflict when you have for though you will say that none should punish but the Church yet every divided companie of Christians thinking themselves to be that that is to be the orthodox will use your own custome to your harme and you will be short like the Eagle in Esope 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with your own feathers and so Truth weresoever she be if all follow this way will by force by many parties be opposed and but by one propagated and defended so that not onely in consideration of Christianity but even of Policy I mislike this course as being alwaies wicked and often hurtfull and more often uneffectuall And for my part I desire so much that good be done for evill that though you be most fit of any to be so used who use us so where your power extends and whose cruelty will extend with your acquisition if you make any and you hold your selves that impendens periculum is cause enough for a warr yet I heartily wish all lawes against you repealed and trust that disarmed Truth would serve to expell Falshood whereas now they being in force against you give you the honour of a persecution and not being executed give you not the feare of one It is truely said Militia Christiana est Haereses expellere but it needs this limitation sed armis Christianis that Christian warfare employ onely Christian armes which are good arguments and good life else if they use such a course as is more properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and go to force that part of man which is liable to no power but that of perswasion which if it do not beget a true and pious assent in likelyhood it will a damnable dissimulation and which if Christ had meant for a prop for his Doctrine he would as soon have at first made it a part of the foundation and have charged his Apostles not to shake the dust off their feet but to draw their swords out of the scabbard at those who rejected what they taught then it often though sometimes by reason of the different dispositions which reigne at severall times among men and may happen otherwise misseth of the intended end and works not often so much as upon mens tongues and never upon their Heads and Hearts A great example of which happened not long since Calvin with all his works since the time they were written having scarce made so many Protestants in France as I have credibly heard it reported that the Massacre made in a Night which act though I impute not to all those of your Religion for many of them I know did and do mislike it yet it both had its fountaine from the Popes Legate and consequently in all likelyhood from the Pope who gave God publick thanks for it as one of his successors confess'd to Cardinall D' Ossat Page 432 and it may be justified as well as any judiciall proceeding upon that reason which you give why Heresie may be stopped with the sword least they who are wrought upon by it may work upon others To conclude I should be better contented with this course if the opinions were infallibly errors and infallibly damnable and this were alwaies an effectuall way and no other could be found more mercifull to stop their spreading but since you have no infallible way of knowing the Church to be infallible in her definitions and consequently that the contrary opinions are false since you know not infallibly which is she for you pretend but prudentiall Motives since your knowledge having defined is likewise fallible as depending upon many uncertaine circumstances since not onely the matter of Heresie is thus uncertaine but the form too for you confesse you doubt whether Ignorantia affectata be it or no and since though the form were certaine yet in whom it is by no meanes plaine but rather impossible to be known as who is obstinate and consequently to whom it is damnable since this course often gives growth and strength to that from which it would take even Being and Subsistance I cannot but think you have cause to change your proceedings least not onely you expell not but least you encrease Heresie and againe least you oppose it not but mistake the Truth for it and applaud your self for cutting off a Gangren'd member when you destroy a sound one and instead of ending a Heretick make a Martyr and againe least allowing this to be the Truth yet you put to death innocent persons instead of guilty especially since if the opinions were damnable in whomsoever they were yet some better way might be found as close imprisonment or the like to keep them from harming with them rather then as you do by putting them to death when else they might live to be converted to damne them certainly least they may possibly damne some others Againe for Protestants who joyne with me in beleeving that there is no way to know the true Church but by true Doctrine nor to know that but by the Scripture for Universall Tradition seemes to us to deliver nothing but what is so plainly contained there that it is agreed upon in them I beleeve it must be intollerable Pride and rashnesse and the same in Papists concerning those places out of which they would prove the Churches infallibility To conclude this seemes to me the sence of this place of Scripture therefore this infallibility it is and no man can denie it who either gainsaies not his Conscience or hath it not mislead by some sinfull passion or affection and therefore the deniers must be damned and therefore least they damne others we will send them through one fire to another And this though it be an equall fault in both Protestants and Papists to say and do yet it is more Illogicall in the former as contradicting at first sight all their Principles and destroying the whole Platforme upon which the Reformation was built He urgeth afterwards against the Unity of the Church that it is none such as we brag of And I confesse we brag of it and think we have Reason And if it please him to look into the difference of our Country of England and some land of Barbarians as Brasile or such other where they live without Law or Government I think he will find our bragging is not without ground For wherein is the difference betwixt a Civill Government and a Barbarous Anarchie Is it either that in a Civill Estate there be no Quarrells or amongst Barbarians there is no Quiet The former would prejudice our Courts and Justice the latter is impossible even in Nature What is then the goodnesse of a government but in a well Governed Country there is a means to end Quarels and in Anarchie there can be no assured peace This therefore is it we brag of that amongst us if any controversie arise there is a way to end it which is not amongst them who parted from us And Secondly That there is no assured agreement
amongst those who parted from us for although to day they agree there is no bond or tie why to morrow they may not disagree These two things we brag of and I think the Author will not denie it For he confesseth that we all agree in that the Church is an infallible Mistresse Then it is evident that if in any controversie she interposeth her judegment the controversie is ended He likewise confesseth that who part from us have no such definitive authority amongst them and that Scripture whereon they rely hath no such vertue to take up Controversies clearely Supposing that we agreed much lesse then you yet a little all in earnest that is unforced is more considerable then much constrained and so peradventure much of that much but in appearance Besides that you all agree in those points wherein if any disagree he becomes none of you is no more then is so common to all Religions that even the very Anabaptists may say as much for themselves For either all the Parts of them remaine of assent insomuch that they are all still of the same Religion and so agree as well as your Dominicans and Jesuites or else their differences are such as to make them of severall Religions and then why is want of Unity objected to them any more then it is to Christians in generall among whom are so many divisions and yet not the whole but the faulty party taxed And truely in my opinion some Questions among your selves are as great not onely as any among your adversaries but as any between you and them I but you answer we have a way of being agreed we reply is it a way sure to lead to Truth as well as to Unity or else so might we have by going to most at three throwes and resolving to stand to that Besides if you have and make no more use of it it seemes there is no such need that Questions be ended as for that purpose to introduce a necessitie of an Ender But say you neither are all suits in the Common-wealth ended We reply that yet truely those Judges who should make no more haste to end them then your Judge doth these would deserve to loose his place but this they do as fast as the nature of the thing will permit which being or depending upon matter of Fact cannot be known erough to be judged before examination of witnesses and the like be ended and if they willingly deferre the ending they are confess'd to be in fault by all men but those who hold Perjury to be none But you seem to conceive our grounds faulty as not leading even to a possible Unity whereas to a possible one I am sure they do since what is concluded out of them by many may be by all nay indeed am confident that all who receive the Scripture for the onely rule and believe what is there plain to be onely necessarie would if they truely beleeved what they professe and were not lead aside either by prejudice or private ends or some Popish relicks of holding what they have long been taught or following the authority of some by them much esteemed persons either alive or dead soon agree in as much as is necessarie and in concluding no necessity of agreeing in more there being no doubt but it would soone appear plainly what is plaine Besides if no grounds be sufficient for Unitie which produce not the effect then it seemes the grounds of your grounds those Arguments by which you prove that there is a Judge and a generall Councell is it are insufficient since they are not able to make all Christians about this question Again although a Judge and this Judge be received yet this is still an insufficient ground for Unitie since the Greek Church agree thus farre with you which is as farre as you agree with one another and yet are not so bound by it to any universall Unitie with them but that they esteem you Hereticks and are esteemed so by you and if you say that it is not because the grounds upon which the Infallibilitie of the Church are built lead not sufficientlie to Unitie that we joyne not with you in beleeving them to be infallible not because the determination of generall Councels is not a sufficient meanes of Unitie that the Greek Church admitting their authoritie admits not of your opinions but it is the fault of us and of them hardening our hearts against the truth then we may as well say that some of those who agree in our grounds yet disagree from our doctrine not that the grounds lead not to Unitie but that our Adversaries will not be lead or if as you doe and some others of you sometimes you confesse that they through an innocent error dissent from you and doe this without any imputation in this respect to your grounds I hope it will be lawfull for us to allow the same possibilitie without any disadvantage or prejudice to ours Besides say you though we agree to day yet we may not to morrow which to prove were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 paines whollie lost we confesse For though Tully make it an expression of his contempt to Piso in an Epistle to Atticus Ita nihil est ut plane quid erit nesciat yet I take it to be a true saying of man in generall who knowes little of present things and nothing of future but this is common to us both for if we change not our opinions we shall agree as we doe and if you change yours you shall not which is possible for not onelie that opinion of the Infallibilitie of your judges decrees may it self be altered which holdeth together all the rest but some of you may holding that ground like the Greek either change their opinions concerning the authority of such or such a Councell as beleeving it unduelie called factiouslie carried or not generall as is pretended or not so consenting as is requisite or differ from the rest concerning the sence of the decrees for whereas you say you agree that the Church is an infallible Mistresse and when she interposeth her judgement the controversie is ended I answer that first some of you with whom I have spoken my selfe hold that the Churches authoritie in defining extends no further then to such points whereof Tradition is of one part as in many controverted there is I beleeve no such and that this rule she may transgresse and so erre Secondlie Neither the Dominicans nor their Adversaries are very readie to remain in suspence to await her decision but define all readie concerning her definitions Cum utraque pars tenax contendat suam non aliam posse definiri sententiam either part tenaciouslie urging that the contrarie opinion cannot be defined which if they did to fright the Pope from defining least the condemned partie being even before should after make a Schisme they obtained their end Thirdlie What are you the nearer to Unitie for your Infallible Mistresse the Church when
you say First Your saying as though there is nothing to retain a Protestant from being of any error when it shall appeare more probable to him then Truth therefore there were nothing to keep him from those errors whereas you should have considered that the greater probabilities may serve reasonably to hold him without a demonstration and the evidence of the thing without a guide and that if those be not ground enough for a man to fix upon in how ill estate are those of your Church in the Question concerning the Church in which they follow no guide nor have any demonstration but professe they yeeld to her authority but upon prudentiall motives which kind of arguments sure may as well and as fixedly preserve a Protestant in `n Orthodox opinion against a Heretick as the authoritie of the Church no surelier founded can you against us That every man should yeeld to that discourse which seemeeth fairest to him I confesse it is alwaies not onelie safe and fit but also necessarie even for them who receive the Infallibilitie of the Church since those who beleeve that beleeve it because that appeares fairest to them and as you object to us the possibilitie of being perswaded from the truth by some wittie Author why thinke you not the same Author may possiblie too appeare to you to destroy your prudentiall Motives and so consequentlie your whole Faith which is built upon the Church which is built upon them Secondlie I diflike your seeming to beleeve that any grounds which are not demonstrative are too slipperie to rest upon as not onelie being contrarie to reason but to your selfe who told me before that no more was required then a maine advantage on one side and that we had reason to be satisfied with Probabilities to guide our Actions in Religion or since by them we were content to regulate all the other Actions of our life Thirdlie I dislike in your own parties behalfe your saying that a Protestant is in good likelihood to turne Arrian for if you meane onelie that it is possible it concernes you as much as them since this seemes to inferre that the Scriptures doe make more probablie for them which if they did it is not Heresie and to contradict all those whom both parts call Fathers who thinke enough plaine in Scripture not onely to keepe but also to convert men from Arrianisme as it appeares by their employing so solelie those Armes against them that they needed the admonition of a Heretique to counsell them to the use of another Fourthlie I dislike your saying that after being made an Arrian he is not unlikelie to turne Jew especiallie that he is likelie to be perswaded by any exaggeration of the Absurdities in the Trinitie since both Grotius and other Authors seeme to say that the Jewes have their Trinitie too in the same Notion and howsoever the Arrian is so fullie perswaded alreadie that those are absurdities that perswasion being almost the forme of that opinion which constitutes him an Arrian yet the exaggeration of them can never worke upon him And for the Constellation you speak of it were so irrationall and so unprovable a Crotchet that no Oratorie could ever make it seeme to a reasonable man to have any inclination to sence and a foole may be made beleeve any thing how contrarie soever to his grounds unlesse he be of those who are given over to vaine imaginations because they love darknesse better then the light and the fault of no particular mens understanding or will is to lead any man to condemne his grounds for they are to be accused not of whatsoever he concludes who holds or rather in this case hath held them but onelie of what he concludes reasonablie according to them Besides for this cause it appeares strange to me that trusting to Scripture alone and without meaning the Church for my certaine guide should bring a man into danger of parting with his Christianitie since nothing can hold a man longer then he beleeves it and as long as our ground the Scripture is by him beleeved no man can possiblie turne either Atheist or Jew and he who leaves to beleeve your ground the Church cannot by that be any more with-held from either Besides that I thinke it is impossible I am sure it is irrationall that any of you should beleeve in Christ upon the authoritie of Christs Church since beleeving the latter which claimes no authoritie but from Christ praesupposeth the beleife of him and so Christianitie is not the apter to be overthrown through the absence of that upon which it is not built I feare rather least your doctrine known to be grounded it selfe upon Tradition by such a way according to which a Jew would have much advantage of a Christian may incline a man to Judaisme and your sides generall slighting all waies of knowing Gods will but onely by the Church and then neither proving her power stronglier nor teaching how to know her plainer may make men sinke into Atheisme by being perswaded by you in letting goe other strong holds upon Truth and receiving such weake ones from you Not to speake of your loading Christianitie with such impossibilities as the Pillars of it which are not absolute Demonstrations of which it may be scarce any thing is in nature capable but lines and numbers are able to beare and using all your Wits and Industries to perswade men that it is equallie unsafe to refuse any part of your Religion as to receive none and so instead of making these your beleefs admitted for the sake of Christianitie causing Christianitie to be rejected because of them But peradventure some may attribute Power to the Church without infallibilitie whom I would have consider but what himself saith For his Church by the Power it hath must either say I command you to believe or I command you to professe this whether you believe me or no. The second I think no enemy of equivocation will admit and the former it is as much as if it should say I know not whether I say true or no yet you must think I say true We having received a command that all things be done decently and in order and this being to be appointed by them whom either the Law of the Land if that consist of faithfull or the consent or custome of Christians hath appointed for Ecclesiasticall Rulers in this matter in every place the Church thus restrained to the Governours of the Church may have in some cases though not to your purpose power without the least Infallibilitie And for instruction which you aime at no Church can give it yours especially being too large a body ever to meet or joyn in doing it and if you restraine the Church to the Cleargie whereof yet many teach not and they too are too many for any man to be sure what they all agree in teaching and when they differ how shall I know which to follow otherwise then by your Rule
which I have answered their duty indeed but not theirs onely though Principally is to instruct us in the way to Heaven which they doing in the Persons of Embassadors between God and us and having no absolute Letters of Credence to bid us to beleeve that God saies whatsoever they say he saies as much as can be wrested out of Scriptures for any present Church being said of the Scribes and Pharisees who yet proved themselves not infallible our best way is in my mind to examine their Commission and if they can shew that they treat according to that to submit to them as in the same case we must to any of the Layetie or rather to God of whose commands they are but Organs and if not to beware of their Leaven Yet it may be that some man may hold that such an opinion is to be beleeved onelie because such a Church proposeth it and yet not believe her Infallible since he may think her authoritie by reason of her Learning Multitude Sanctitie Unitie and Libertie to be more probable then any contradicting argument and that men are to assent to what is most probable and truelie if he could prove to me his Major I am alreadie so much of the opinion of his Minor that I should joyne with him in his Conclusion So that if I understand any thing where there is no Infallibility there is no Power where no Power no Unity where no Unity no Entity where no Entity no Church How you tie Power to Infallibilitie I guesse but cannot how you tie Unitie to Power For how many things are all men even at Unitie about though one have no Power over another in them onelie cemented together by their clear evidence And how many more do whole Bodies and Sects of men agree about without any such power though they differ in other points as so do you too Do not Protestants agree with you about manie and the chiefest credenda and about almost all the meerely facienda Though not perswaded to this agreement by the Power of any Judge which they do acknowledge Nay if men could be at Unitie about no thing which were not proposed by some Guide or defined by some Judge endued with such a power how came all you to agree that there is some such Guide and Judge required since sure you receive not that upon its own authoritie and if men may find the necessitie of a Guide and Judge without any Guide or Judge and remain in Unitie about that why may they not also about whatsoever is clearly taught by God which reason assures us to be all that is necessarie and if you say that all things necessarie are not clearlie taught because we do not though it proves not that we might not agree upon them then I replie that I may as well say that neither is it cleare that there is a Guide because we dissent from you in it although receiving the authoritie of the Scripture out of which Cardinall Perron confesseth that Saint Austine saith that both the necessitie of your guide the Church and she her self are to be known and reason which as they may be plain in this point for you and yet perswade us not so may they be in all necessarie points and yet we who make theirs our ground not perswade one another As little see I why there can be no Entitie nor Church where there is no Unitie For the first though there be small Unitie among Christians yet certainly Christians and their Religion have some Entitie indeed if what you say were true there were no Entitie in yours For the second I know not why two parties over-valuing their differences may not conceive each other to be none of the Church and so declare even by excommunications and yet remain both Parts of it for if a Husband misse-suspecting his Wife of Adulterie declare her to be no longer his Wife this cannot make her give over being so if the bond be indeed not broken as well as chrysostome and Epiphanius both excommunicated by each other and yet both Saints or as particular men may by your own confession be interiorly in the Church although seeming out of it even to the Church her self and so those be both of the Church between whom there is no Unity For not onely in your own Cariophilus his words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but also though the persons have power yet if the cause have not sufficiencie I take you to agree that an excommunication is but a brutum fulmen as Victors of the Asian Bishops The best therefore and strictest definition and which I think you will not refute which I can give for the Church is especially in that sence as out of it there can be no salvation those who are desirous to know Gods Will or Christs at the strictest for I am not certaine nor I beleeve is it defined among you whether an explicite knowledge of Christ be absolutely necessarie to Salvation though I know no guiltlesse ignorance of him can bring unavoidably upon any man eternall torments and ready when known to beleeve and follow it and sure many of these may eternally disagree even in points which are necessarie abstracting from particular cases and yet their differences not exclude them from the Church and consequentlie a Church may be without Unitie Quod erat demonstrandum Now for the Controversies mentioned besides that there is a meanes to terminate them they be such as bring no breach of the ancient life and action of Christians which all those opinions do which for the most part are reputed to make Hereticks You saw verie well that if no Unitie no Church were a true Proposition yours hath in it differencies enough to destroy its being a Church and therefore are faine to applie what salves you can but all in vaine For your meanes to terminate them doth not make them not to be before they are terminated and consequently by your Rule yours is no Church till then Besides their bringing to breach of the ancient life and action of Christians proves not but one of them may be a Heresie since you say not your selfe that all Heresies are such but onelie for the most part and indeed to prove that you must be able to set down what those opinions are which before a definition may make a Heretick which I beleeve you will not venture to doe in haste though we much desire it at your hands that we may know if none of them be such That some controversies amongst us are not resolved is a thing necessarie amongst humane affaires where things must have a time to be born to encrease to fall and the greater things are the greater is their Period It is true that some time to be taken notice of must passe between an opinions rising and being condemned but that so long they should run on and many of your Councels having since been held is sure not necessarie and shewes
that you esteem not Unitie so necessarie as you pretend some opinions I am sure you can soon enough quash as that not long since risen in Spaine concerning Fornication being but a Veniall Sin And whereas you say the greater things are the greater their period though this be ture in some things yet not in this for sure the greater a difference is the greater necessitie is there that it be soon decided and so if your decision have power to effect it as you pretend among you it hath it must fall as soon as it is born like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Creatures that live but a day Wherefore I do not see why this may hurt the Church more then the suits which hang in our Courts prejudice the government of the Land If any of these opinions be of that importance as that though uncondemn'd the Holders are Hereticks as some may be and my definition being concluded of such among you some of these may be some of them then sure they hurt the Church much and more then the Suites hurt the Government which their hanging hurts not at all though it hurts sometimes unavoidablie the Parties But if where there is no Unitie there were no Common-wealth as you say where there is no Uuitie there can be no Church then the Government were much prejudic'd by the Suits as your Church by this rule is made no Church by the differences And indeed if men were not agreed about the power of the Governours as you are not about some of your questions it must be a maime to the government of any Common-wealth as consequentlie these are to the goverment of your Church The last point of the Authors discourse is to shew how errors might have crept in wherein I shall have no opposition with him for I doe not thinke the question is how they should creep in but how they should be kept out Here Sir I cannot but beleeve that you intended to refresh your selfe with some Mirth as with Musicke between the Acts for though both our ends be that errors should not creep in yet the question was whether it were possible that they might creepe in and to my affirmative part it conduced to shew those waies by which either they have entred or easilie might doe so this shewing how they may steale in teacheth how to keep them out as it is an aide to the saving of a Town to discover the breaches which cannot be guarded without they be first known For the Fluxibility of humane Nature is so great that it is no wonder if errors should have crept in the wayes being so many but it is a great wonder of God that none should have crept in This neverthelesse I may say if the Author will confesse as I thinke he will not deny but that it is disputable whether any error in sixteen Ages hath crept in this very thing is above Nature For if there were not an excellency beyond the nature of corruptible things it would be undeniably evident that not one or two but thousands of errors had quite changed the shape of the Church in so many yeares tempests dis-unions want of Commerce in the body of the Church The greater wonder it were if your Church had no error the greater it is to me that upon one at most but probable Reason you should require all men to beleeve she hath none Neither doth it appeare to me disputable whether she have or no but evident that she hath not by Demonstrations yet by Probabilities of that multitude and weight upon which you say and say trulie that in all other cases we relie and venture that we most esteem whereas indeed you as you are of the imposing Partie ought to bring at least such proofes that you are fallen into none and as you are of the Infallibilitie-pretending-partie your proofes are likewise to rise from probable to Infallible Neither doe I conceive it to be probablie argued it is disputable whether this bodie of men have ever let in any error therefore it can never let in any since it is at least as disputable whether the Grecians have let in any yet you will not allow that upon this we should adjudge to her Infallibilitie Nay if it were demonstrative that your Church had yet never erred yet it would but unwillinglie follow that she never could since all things necessarie are so plaine without the confession of which you seeme to tax God and it is naturallie so plaine what is plaine that I cannot but thinke it a miracle that some one bodie of Christians among so many should be free from any such dogmaticallie-defended error especiallic if Truth were so indifferentlie sought after as it ought to be and Passion were not often called to counsell and Reason shut out of doores But this one Maxime that she receiveth her Faith by Tradition and not from Doctors hath ever kept her entire And he that will shew the contrary must shew how it should come to passe that those who lived in such an Age would say unto our Children this we received from our fore-fathers as taught them by our fore-fathers to have been received from Christ and his Apostles from hand to hand which if it could not be the question is resolved that no error is in the Church of God which holdeth her faith upon that Tenure Not to repeat usque ad nauseam what I have heretofore answered as that others differing from you hold upon the same Tenure that your selves have not alwaies held nor hold not upon it c. I will onelie tell you what Cardinall Perron tels me of the Jewes out of Isidore and that is that they seeing in the book of Wisedome so cleare proofes of Christ plotted together to put it out of the Canon which serves not so much his turne if it were so as it makes against yours and shews how that might come to passe which you judge impossible the Posteritie of the Jewes having been deceived by this Complot although pretending at least and for ought appeares beleeving that the Tradition of their Church is still uncorrupted And truely if the Author desires to examine divers Religions let him look their maine ground wherein they relie and see whether that be good or no And I think amongst Christians he shall find but two Tradition and Scripture First I allow not of your division for not to say now that you relie not onely upon Tradition these Protestants whose part in this I take depend not onelie upon Scripture but upon Universall Tradition too from which they receive that and would more if more seemed as clearly to them so to be delivered Secondly I think it reasonable not onely to examine what their Principles are but whether they do constantly follow them for a man may write awrie that hath a streight Ruler if he observe it not carefully And the Catholiques onely to relie upon Tradition
more Mercifull then Just who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Father of Mercies as that like a Pharaoh he should exact Brick when there is no possibilitie of getting Straw You may beleeve what you think fit but rather then I will beleeve that any mans Soule that hath done his endeavours not onelie shall but that it is possible it should perish although not illuminated by Angels which yet if Illumination were necessarie I know some way or other he should have rather then I will beleeve either that any be damned for what is no sin or that sin is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 somewhat out of our power which if we thought it would be soon out of our care rather then when God hath so often told us That he desires not the death of a sinner I will give him the lie and say that he desires his damnation even as a Creature without any reference to his sin by chalking out onelie such a way from Hell which it-was impossible for his search to lead him into and so make him as much a worse Father then Satan as to damne is worse then to devoure rather I say then this I will make yours or the Pagan Legend Ovids Metamorphosis my Creed nor would I be a member of the Christian Church if this beliefe were a necessarie part of Christian Religion but should crie out with Averroes whom Transubstantiation kept a Pagan Sit anima mea cum Philosophis for the excellencie and puritie of the doctrine in all other points tending wholly to the honour of God and the common happinesse of man the sanctified life constant sufferings and wonderfull Miracles of the Divulgers of it the wonderfull progress of it not a much lesse Miracle then they the weak things of the World confounding the strong and Fishermen confuting Philosothers that a Doctrine so strict and contrarie to humane desires and not onelie barring from so much pleasure and glory but also makeing the Sectators liable to such crueltie and contempt should perswade so manie and so wise persons to leave present things in hope of future all this and whatsoever else any Raimond Seband Vives Plesiis Charron or Grotius could either more sharply designe or more eloquentlie expresse would not reasonablie prevaile if such a block as such a Doctrine were laid in the way of which sort your Religion hath yet more and that one dead flie would corrupt the whole ointment the excellencie of the rest of the Doctrine of Christianitie would be thought the Art and the great and and manie miracles would be thought the Act of some evill Genius such as befriended Apollonius to ensnare men by those meanes into the beleef of that opinion which so much derogates from the Maker of things and the prevailing of it though a very probable argument would not serve for a Passe-Port to such an impossibilitie But farr more do I doubt whether ever man who had not the way of Christ or even of those who walked in it did ever do his best except some few and very few perhaps not two of Christ his greatest Favourites and was not so culpable that his Perdition would not have been imputed unto himself God of his mercie put us in the score of those of whom he saith He will take pittie upon whom he pleaseth and Compassion of them he pittieth How few their number is we will not dispute since Gods justice is in them vindicated and they not He the Author of their damnation But neither beleeve I that God is so rigorously just as to stand readie to catch at a slip like an Usurer for the forfeiture of a bond but is of long suffering and Patience and will as well accept our Repentance joyned with amendment for this neglect in our search as for other sinns Howsoever I am so farre from thinking your prayer needlesse that I both thank you for it humbly and joyne with you in it heartilie but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To conclude I am to make two very contrary excuses The one that my Paper hath left some things in yours unanswered The other that I have answered others too often Of the first I protest which the Reader will beleeve me in nothing is left out in which I conceived any weight of Argument lay but onelie such things as though they were superfluous for the Logick yet conduced to the Rhetorick of your work an eloquent Treatise being alwaies like a hopefull young Man in quo aliquid amputandum Of the Second My Method or rather my no Method was one and your own Repetitions another Reason so that you may the better pardon me that fault of which your self are a partie-cause But to seale up all I desire you that how little assent soever you give to my Arguments you will be pleased to give credit to my Assertions when I seriously professe my selfe Your very much obliged and thankfull Servant Mr. Walter Montague his Letter to the Lord of Faulkland My Lord AFter much debate concerning the fittest expression of my duty to your Lordship whether I ought by silence seek to suspend your beleife of the declaration of my selfe I have made here or by a clear profession of it assure you of what I may onely feare to present you with as apprehensive of a mis-interpreted affection I conclude what was most satisfactory to my first and immediate duty to God was most justifiable to my second and derivative to Nature Therefore I resolved so soone to give you this ingenious accompt of my selfe The greatest part of my life capable of distinction of Religions hath been imployed in places and conversant with persons opposite to the Faith I was bred in therefore it had been strange if Naturall curiosity without any spirituall provocation had not invited to the desire of looking with mine own eyes upon the foundation I stood upon rather there holding fast blindfold by my education to agree to be carried away alwayes after it insensible of all shocks I met to unfasten me and besides I was solicited with the reproaches Protestants presse upon Catholicks that they blindly beleeve all the Impostures of the Church without any illumination of the Judgements this my thoughts injoyned the clearest information of my selfe of the differences between us I could propose to my capacity So at my last journey into Italy I did imploy all my leasure to a more justifiable settlement of my beleife as I then imagined by a confirmation of my judgement in what had been introduced by my birth and education I began with this consideration that there were two sorts of questions between the Catholicks and Protestants the one of Right or Doctrine the other of Fact or Story As this whether Luther were the first Erector of the Protestants Faith whether it had a visible appearance of Pastors and Teachers before his time I resolved to begin my enquiry with the Question of Fact for these Reasons First Because they were so few and so
comprehensible by all capacities and the controversies of doctrine so intricate and so many as they required much time and learning for their disquisition onely I found my selfe unprovided for both those requisitions for this undertaking and for the decision of the other I needed not much presumption to beleeve my selfe a competent Judge when it consisteth onely in the perusall of authentique Testimonies Secondly I considered that there was no one point of controverted doctrine whereon all the rest depended but that this one Question of Fact was such as the dicision of it determined all the rest for if Luther could be proved to be the Innovatour of the Protestants faith it was necessary evicted of not being the true ancient Apostolicall Religion Therefore I began with this enquiry which Protestants are bound to make to answer to this Objection to find out an existence of some Professors of the reformed Doctrines before Luthers time for finding the Catholicks were not obligedto prove the Negative it was my part to prove to my selfe the Affirmative that our Religion was no innovation by some pre-existence before that but in the perusall of all the Stories or Records Eccesiasticall or Civill as I could choose I could finde no ancienter a dissention from the Roman Church then Waldo Wickliffe or Husse whose cause had relation to the now-professed Protestancy so as I found an intervall of about eight hundred yeares from the time that all the Protestants confesse a Unity with the Church of Rome down to those persons without any apparent profession of different Faith To answer my selfe in this point I read many of our Protestant Authors who treated of it and I found most of them reply to this sence in which I cite here one of the most authentique Doctor Whitaker in his Controversie 2. 3. pag. 479. where they aske of us where our Church was heretofore for so many Ages We answer that it was in secret solitude that is to say it was concealed and lay hid from the sight of men and further the same Doctor Chap. 4. pag. 502. our Church alwayes was but you say it was not visible doth that prove that it was not No for it lay hid in a solitary concealment to this direct sence were all the answers that ever I could meet to this Objection I repeat no more these places being so positive to our point This confession of Invisibilitie in our Church for so many ages did much perplex me it seemed to me even to offend Naturall reason such a derogation from Gods power or providence as the sufferance of so great an Ecclipse of the light of this true Church and such a Church as this is described to be seeming to me repugnant to the maine reason why God hath a Church on Earth which is to be conserver of the Doctrine Christs precepts and to conveigh it from age to age untill the end of the world Therefore I applyed my study to peruse such arguments as the Catholicks brought for the proofe of a continuall visibility of the true Church down from the Apostles time in all Ages and apparance of Doctors teaching and administring the Sacrament in proofe of this I found they brought many provisoes of the Scripture but this text most literall of the fourth of the Ephesians Christ hath placed in his Church Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the saints till we meet in the Unity of the Faith and next the discourse upon which they inferre this necessary visible succession of the Church seemed to me to be a most rationall and convincing one which is to this effect Naturall Reason not being able to proportion to a man a cause that might certainly bring him to a state of supernaturall happinesse and that such a cause being necessary to mankinde which otherwise would totally faile of the end it was created for there remained no other way but that it must be proposed unto us by one whose authority we could not of and that in so plaine a manner as the simplest may be capable of it as well as the learned This work was performed by our Saviour from whose mouth all our Faith is originally derived but this suceeding age not being able to receive it immediate from thence it was necessary it should be conveyed unto them that lived in it by those that did receive it from Christs own Mouth and so from Age to Age untill the end of the world and in what Age soever this thred of doctrine should be broken it must needs be acknowledged for the reason above mentioned that the light which should convey mankind through the darknesse of this world was extinguished and mankind is left without a Guide to infallible ruine which cannot stand with Gods providence and goodnesse which Saint Austine affirmes for his opinion directly in his book de Util. Cred. Cap. 16. saying If divine providence doe preside over humane affaires it is not to be doubted but that there is some authoritie constituted by the same God upon which going as upon certaine steps we are carried to God nor can it be said he meant the Scriptures onely by these steps sinoe experience shewes us the continuall alteration about the right sence of severall of the most important places of it that what is contained there cannot be a competent rule to mankind which consisteth more of simple then leanned men and besides the Scriptures must have been supposed to have been kept in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other thing then the Church in all Ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved the Scriptures free from all corruption then that it hath maintained it selfe in a continuall visibility which Saint Augustine concludeth to be a marke of the true Church in these words in his book Cont. Cecill 104. The true Church hath this certaine signe that it cannot be hid therefore it must be known to all Nations but that part of the Protestants is unknown to many therefore cannot be the true no inference can be stronger then from hence that the concealement of a Church disproves the truth of it Lastly not to insist upon the allegation of the sence of all the Fathers of the Church in every severall Age which seemed to me most cleare that which in this cause weighed much with me was the confession and testimony of the approved Doctors themselves of the Protestant Church as Hooker in his Book of Eccles. Pol. pag. 126. God alwaies had and must have some visible Church upon Earth and Doctor Field the first of Eccles. cap. 10. It cannot be but those that are the true Church must be known by the profession of truth and further the same Doctor sayes How should the Church be in the world and nobody professe openly the saving truth of God and Doctor White in his defence of the Way chap. 4. pag. 790. The providence of God hath left Monuments and Stories for the confirmation
this I answer by saying that if they would not appeale from the Right Tribunall or rather Rule which is the Scripture those many might casier be ended then this one we building our Faith onely upon plaine places and all reasonable men being sufficient of what is plain but if they appeal to a consent of Fathers and Councells where of many are lost many not lost not to be gotten many uncertaine whether Fathers or no Fathers and these which we have and know being too many for almost any industrie to read over and absolutely for any memory to remember which yet is necessarie because anyone clause of any one Father destroies a consent and being besides liable to all the exceptions which can be brought against the Scriptures being the Rule as difficulty want of an infallible Interpreter and such like and being denied to have any infallibility especially when they speak not as witnesses which a consent of them never doth against us by one partie which the Scripture is allowed to have by both then I wonder not if he think such a way so uncertaine and so long that he was willing to chuse any shorter cut rather then travell it Neither do I beleeve this other to be so short or so concluding as he imagines for if he consider the large extent of Christian Religion so that we know little from any indifferent Relator of the opinions of the Abissins so great a part of Christendome if he consider the great industry of his Church in extinguishing those whom they have called Hereticks and also their Books so that we know scarce any thing of them but from themselves who are too partiall to make good Historians if he consider how carefully they stop mens mouthes even those of their own with their Indices expurgatorii it will then appear to him both a long work to seek and a hard one to find whether any thought like Luther in all Ages and that he concludes very rashly who resolves that there was none because he cannot find any since they might have been visible in their times and yet not so to us for men are not the lesse visible when they are so for not being after remembered as a man may be a Gentleman though he know not his pedigree So that as I will not affirm that there were alwaies such because I cannot prove it so neither ought they to make themselves sure there were none without they could prove that which is impossible and therefore no Argument can be drawn from thence and if it could be proved that such a no-waies-erring Church must at all times be I had rather beleeve that there were still such though we know them not which may be true then that theirs is it which in my opinion cannot Thirdly He saies that he could find no one point of controverted Doctrine whereupon all the rest depended but that this one Question of Fact was such as the decision of it determined all the rest To this I answer That the Question of the Infallibilitie of the Pope at least of those who adhere to him which they call the Church is such a one as if determined must determine all the rest and not onely to us but to all men whereas this though granted necessarie and determined to his wish would indeed conclude against us but not for them since the Greek Church would put in as good a Plea upon the Title of Visibility as that of Rome and he would be to begin anew with them when he had ended with us Fourthly He gives his reason If Luther could be evicted to be the Innovator his Religio is then evicted of not being the true ancient an and Apostolicall To this I answer by confessing the consequence but he might be the Renovator and not the Innovator and then no such consequence followes Fifthly He saies we are bound to find an existence of some Professors of the reformed Religion before Luther which requirie is bound upon his supposition of the necessitie of a continuall succession of a visible and no-waies erronious Church Now I will first examine the sence of his tearms By the first I conceive by a place he cites out of Saint Austine that he meanes visible to all Nations but I pray hath his been alwaies so I mean at least for many Centuries to those Nations which Columbus hath not long since discovered By the second tearm Church I suppose he meanes a Company of Christians holding neither more or lesse then Christ taught for in a more large sence no man denies the Church to have been alwaies in some degrees visible and in this sence I not onely deny it necessarie that it should be alwaies visible but that it should alwaies be for I doubt whether there be or for a long while have been any such Next That such a one he meanes appeares because when Catalogues have been brought of some who in all Ages have differed from them in things which we hold his side would not accept of them because they agreed not with us in all things and yet when Campian intends to prove all the Fathers to be his he useth onely this course of instancing in some things wherein they agree with him though sometimes not so much but rather the contrary ought to be inferred as in the instance of Polycarpus for comparing his words with the Historie it will appear that he concluded him a Papist for not being perswaded by the Pope though they differed from them in many other as indeed all the notable Fathers did in more then one point I will therefore say that if this be required to shewing that a Church hath been ever visible it is more then either part can do and therefore I hope they will come upon better consideration to confesse that not necessarie for us to do which is impossible for themselves For let any man look into Antiquitie I will not say without all prejudice but without an absolute Resolution of seeing nothing in it that contradicts his present beleefe and if he find not some opinions of the Church of Rome as unknown unto Antiquity as either he or I as the Popes Indulgences having power to deliver out of Purgatorie confest by Bishop Fisher and Alphonsus de Castro where they treat of Indulgences if he find not others at first unknown after known but not held de fide which are so at Rome as Prayer to Saints their enjoying the Beatificall Vision before the day of Judgement the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and her being free from all actuall sin if he find not some wholly unknown and absolutely condemned which we condemne as the lawfullnesse of Picturing God the Father whereof the first is confest by Barronius in the Margent to an Epistle of a Pope which saies the same and the latter to be found in many places of Saint Austine Lactantius and others nay if he find not that all the Doctors Saints Martyrs of the two first Ages
which the simple are capable of understanding I mean as much as is plaine and more is not necessarie since other Questions may as well be suffered without harme as those between the Jesuites and the Dominicans about Praedetermination and between the Dominicans and allmost all the rest about the Immaculate Conception and those who are not neither are they capable out of Scripture to discerne the true Church much lesse by any of those Noteswhich require much understanding and learning as Conformity with the Ancients and such like Ninethly The same answer I give to this serves also to the following words of Saint Austine for whereas Mr. Mountague concludeth that he could not meane the Scriptures as a competent Rule to mankind which consisteth most of simple Persons because there hath been continuall alterations about the sence of important places I answer That I may as well conclude by the same Logick that neither is the Church a competent Guide because in all Ages there have also been disputes not onely about her authority but even which was she and to whatsoever reason he imputes this to the same may we the other as to Negligence Pride Praejudication and the like and if he please to search I verily beleeve he will find that the Scriptures are both easier to be known then the Church and that it is as easie to know what these teach as when that hath defined since they hold no decrees of hers binding de Fide without a confirmation of the Popes who cannot never be known infalliblly to be a Pope because a secret Simony makes him none no not to be a Christian because want of due intention in the Baptizer makes him none whereof the latter is alwaies possible and the first in some ages likely and in hard Questions a readinesse to yeeld when they shall be explained me thinks should serve as well as a readinesse to assent to the decrees of the Church when those shall be pronounced Tenthly He saith that the Scripture must be kept safe in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other then the Church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved that free from Corruption then it self in a continuall visibilitie I answer That neither to giving authority to Scriptures nor to the keeping of them is required a continuall visibility of a no-waies erring body of Christians the Writers of them give them their authority among Christians nor can the Church move any other and that they were the Writers we receive from the generall Tradition and Testimony of the first Christians not from any following Church who could know nothing of it but from them for for those parts which were then doubted of by such as were not condemned for it by the rest why may not we remain in the same suspence of them that they did and for their being kept and conveighed this was not done onely by their Church but by others as by the Greeks and there is no reason to say that to the keeping and transmitting of records safely it is required to understand them perfectly since the old Testament was kept and transmitted by the Jewes who yet were so capable of erring that out of it they looked for a Temporall King when it spoke of a Spirituall and me thinks the Testimony is greater of a Church which contradicts the Scripture then of one which doth not since no mans witnessing is so soon to be taken as when against himself and so their Testimonie is more receiveable which is given to the Scriptures by which themselves are condemned Besides the generall reverence which ever hath been given to these Books and the continuall use of them together with severall parties having alwaies their eyes upon each other each desirous to have somewhat to accuse in their adversaries give us a greater certaintie that these are the same writings then we have that any other ancient book is any other ancient Author and we need not to have any erring Company preserved to make us surer of it Yet the Church of Rome as infallible a Depositarie as she is hath suffered some variety to creep into the Coppies in some lesse materiall things nay and some whole Books as they themselves say to be lost and if they say how then can that be rule whereof part is lost I reply That wee are excused if we walk by all the Rule that we have and that this maketh as much against Traditions being the Rule since the Church hath not looked better to Gods unwritten Word then to his written and if she pretend she hath let her tell us the cause why Antichrists comming was deferred which was a Tradition of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and which without impudence she cannot pretend to have lost And if againe they say God hath preserved all necessary Tradition I reply so hath he all necessarie Scripture for by not being preserved it became to us not necessarie since we cannot be bound to beleeve and follow that we cannot find But besides I beleeve that which was ever necessary is contained in what remaines for Pappias saith of Saint Mark that he writ all that Saint Peter preacht as Irenaeus doth that Luke writ all that Saint Paul preacht nay Vincentius Lirinensis though he would have the Scripture expounded by ancient Tradition yet confesseth that all is there which is necessary and yet then there was no more Scripture then we now have as indeed by such a Tradition as he speakes of no more can be proved then is plainly there and almost all Christians consent in and truely I wonder that they should brag so much of that Author since both in this and other things he makes much against them as especially in not sending men to the present Roman Church for a Guide a much readier way if he had known it then such a long and doubtfull Rule as he prescribes which indeed it is impossible that almost any Question should be ended by Eleventhly He brings Saint Austines authority to prove that the true Church must be alwaies visible but if he understood Church in Mr Mountagues sence I think he was deceived neither is this impudent for me to say since I have cause to think it but his particular opinion by his saying which Cardinall Perron quoted that before the Donatists the Question of the Church had never been exactly disputed of and by this being one of his maine grounds against them and yet claiming no Tradition but onely places of Scripture most of them allegoricall and if it were no more I may better dissent from it then he from all the first Fathers for Dionysius Areopagita was not then hatcht in the point of the Chiliasts though some of them Pappias and Irenaeus claimed a direct Tradition and Christs owne words Secondly As useth this kind of libertie so he professeth it in his nineteenth Epistle where he saith that to Canonicall Scriptures he had
learnt to give the reverence as not to doubt of what they said because they said it from all others he expected proofe from Scripture or Reason Thirdly The Church of Rome condemnes severall opinions of his and therefore she ought not to find fault with them who imitate her example Twelfthly He addes two reasons more The consent of the Fathers of all ages And the confession of Protestants To the Frst I answer That I know not of any such and am the more unapt to beleeve it because Mr. Mountague vouchsafes not to insist upon it nor to quote any which I guesse he would have done but that he misdoubted their strength Secondly Suppose that all the Fathers which speake of this did say so yet if they say it but as private Doctors and claime no Tradition I know not why they should weigh more then so many of the now learned who having more helpes from Arts and no fewer from Nature are not worse searchers into what is Truth though lesse capable of being Witnesses to what was Tradition Thirdly They themselves often professe they expect not to be read as Judges but as to be judged by their and our Rule the Canonicall Scriptures Fourthly Let him please to read about the Immaculate Conception Rosa Salmeron and Wadding and he will find me as submissive to Antiquity even whilst I reject it as those of their own Party for they to prefer new opinions before old are faine to prefer new Doctors before old and to confesse the latter more perspicatious and to differ from those of former times with as little scruple as he would from Calvin whom Maldonat on purpose to oppose confesseth he chuseth a new Interpretation before that of all the Ancients which no witnesse but my eyes could have made me beleeve nay and produce other points wherein their Church hath decreed against the Fathers to perswade her to do so againe althoug Campian with an eloquent brag would perswade us that they are all as much for him as Gregory the thirteenth who was then Pope To the Second I answer That Infallibility is not by us denied to the Church of Rome with an intention of allowing it to particular Protestants how wise and learned soever Thirteenthly He saies next that he after resolved to inform himself in other points which seemed to him unwarrantable and superstitious and found onely his own mistakes gave him occasion of Scandall To this I answer That I cannot well answer any thing unlesse he had specified the points but I can say that there are many as picturing God the Father which is generally thought lawfull and as generally practised their offerings to the Virgin Mary which onely differs from the Heresie of the Colltridians in that a Candle is not a Cake their praying to Saints and beleeving de fide that they heare us though no way made certaine that they do so and many more which without any mistake of his might have given him occasion to be still scandalized For whereas he saith that those points were grounded upon the authority of the ancient Fathers which was refused as insufficient by Protestants I answer That none of these I name have any ground in the Ancientest nay the first is by them disallowed and if any other superstition of theirs have from them any ground yet they who depart from so many of the Ancients in severall opinions cannot by any reason be excused for retaining any error because therein they consent nor have the Protestants cause to receive it from them as a sufficient Apologie neither hath he to follow the Fathers rather then Protestants in a cause in which not the Persons but the Reasons were to have been considered For when Saint Hierome was by this way both brought into and held in a strange error though he speakes something like Mr. Mountague Patiaris me errare cum talibus Suffer me to erre with such men yet he could not obtaine Saint Austines leave who would not suffer him but answered their Reasons and neglected their Authorities Fourteenthly He speakes of his Religion super-infusing Loyalty and if he had onely said it destroied or weakned it not I who wish that no doubt of his alleagiance may once enter his mind to whom we all owe it but professe my self his humble Servant and no waies his enemy though his adversarie would then made no answer but since he speakes as if Popery were the way to obedience I cannot but say that though no Tenet of their whole Church which I know make at all against it yet there are prevailing opinions on that side which are not fit to make good subjects when their King and they are of different perswasions For besides that Cardinall D' Ossat an Author which Mr. Mountague I know hath read because whosoeuer hath but considered State matters must be as well skilled in him as any Priest in his Breviary tell us that it is the Spaniards Maxime That Faith is not to be kept amongst Hereticks and more that the Pope intimated as much in a discourse intended to perswade the King of France to forsake the Queen of England he saith moreover speaking in another place speaking about the Marquizat of Saluces that they hold at Rome that the Pope to avoid a probable danger of the encreasing of Heresie may take a Territory from the true Owner and dispose of it to another and many also defend that he hath power to depose an Hereticall Prince and of Heresie he makes himself the Judge So that though I had rather my tongue should cleave to the roofe of my mouth then that I should deny that a Papist may be a good Subject even to a King whom he accounts an Heretick since I veriy beleeve that I my self know very many very good yet Popely is like to an ill aire wherein though many keep their healthes yet many are infected so that at most they are good Subjects but during the Popes pleasure and the rest are in more danger then if they were out of it To conclude I beleeve that what I have said may at least serve if he will descend to consider it to move Mr. Mountague to a further search and for Memorandums in it which if it do he will be soone able to give as much better Reasons for my conclusion that such a Visible Church neither need nor can be shewed as his understanding is degrees above mine I hope also by comparing the body of their beleefe and the ground of their authority the little that can be drawn out of the fourth of the Ephesians with the Miriads of contradiction in Transubstantiation he will come to see that their Pillars are too weak to hold up any building be it never so light and their building is too heavie to be held up by any Pillars be they never so strong and trust he will return to us whom he will find that he hath causelessely left if he be which I doubt not so ingenuous as not to hold an opinion because he hath turned to it nor to stay onely because he went FINIS * See the Collection of Petitions for Episcopacy printed for Will. Shears * To whom two others also from Geneva may be added Daniel Chamierus in Panstratia tom 2. lib. 10. cap. 6. §. 24. and Nicol. Vedelius Exercitat 3. in epist. Ignatii ad Philadelph cap. 14. Exercit. 8. in epist. ad Mariam cap. 3. which is fully also demonstated in D. Hammonds dissertations against Blondel which never were answerd never will by the testimonies of those who wrote in the very next Age after the Apo stles Tacitus Object Answ. Synesius Ovid. Metamorph Xenophon Hist. 3. Euseb. Orat. de Laud. Const. * De Coroná Wadd Pag. 271. Wadding p. 124. Page 97. Page 90. Page 400. Page 57. Page 127. Page 275. Wadding p. 334. Vincent Lir. Wadd Pag. 282 Camp Ethicks Lib. Con. R. Jac. Pag. 633. Theodoret. Lib. 15. C. 28 Pag. 271. Tom. 13. Pag. 193. Pag. 208. and 687. Tacitus Object Resp. Object Resp. 〈◊〉 Socrat. lib. 5. Object Resp. Wadd Pag. 30. His Opusc. Dr. D. Object Resp. Praefat. in Hillar Pag. 496. Pag. 497. Epist. Pag. 1164. Pag. 296. 1 Edict Tom. 13. Pag. 467 In Elucidar Deiparae Pag. 1113. Wadd Pag. 125. Pag. 270 Pag. 202. Pag. 203. Pag. 204. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Theodoret lib 4. Object Resp. Cap. 6 Lib. 3 de Romano Pontifice Object Resp. Object Resp. Lib. Con. Reg. Iac. Pag. 892. Object Resp. Tertul. De fide Symb. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Arist. Ethick Con. Reg. Iac. Pag. 708. Object Resp. Arrian Eras. Ep. Rhetor. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Salust Object Resp. Tom. 13. Pag. 468. Object Resp Object Resp. Object Resp. Philos. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Object Resp. Resp. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Resp. Repl. Tom. 9. An. 726. de fide Simbol 2 Lib. C. 2. Vers. 11. 12 13 6 Cap. St. Johan