Church cannot or doth not err in telling me what is Gods Revelation before I can know or believe any of his Revelation If they mean that this act of faith must go first before I can have any other why may I not know and believe other articles of faith without the divine belief of the Churches authority or infallibility as I may believe this one God hath revealed that the Church is infallible or true in telling me what I must believe If one Article may be believed without that motive and sure it is not believed before it is believed why not others as well as that 3. And which way or by what Revelation did God confer this Infallibility on the Church If by Scripture it is supposed that yet you know not what is in the Scripture or believe it not to be true till you have first believed the Churches Veracity Therefore it cannot be that way If by verbal tradition it is equally supposed that you know not that Tradition to be Gods word and true before you know the Churches Veracity that tells you so So that the Question How I must believe the Churches Veracity herein by what divine revelation before I can believe any other revelation is still unanswered and answerable only by palpable contradiction But were it not for interpreting him contrary to his company I should by his words here judg that it is no Divine faith of the Churches Veracity which he maketh pre-requisite to all other acts of faith but it is Prudential motives of creâ—…bility which must draw him to afford credit to that authority as derived from God which commends to him the Bible as the word of God now that can be no other than the Authority of the Catholick Church Ans. Mark Reader It can be no other than the authority of the Church which must be the prudential motive to credit the authority of the Church as derived from God So the Churches Authority must be first credited that he may credit it or else the Authority not credited must move him to credit it which is all contradiction unless he mean that the Churches Authority credited by a humane faith or by some notifying or conjectural evidences besides divine revelation must move him to believe that it is authorized by God When they have told us whether that first credit given to the Church have any certainty for its object and also what and whence that certainty is we shall know what to say to them Knot against Chillingworth is fain tosay That it is the Churches own Miracles by which it is known to have divine authority before we can believe any word of God And so no man can be sure that Gods word is his word and true till he be first sure that the Church of Rome hath wrought such miracles as prove its veracity as from God which will require in the Catechumene so much acquaintance with Historical Legends which the more he reads them the less he will believe them as will make it a far longer and more uncertain way to become a Christian than better Teachers have of old made use of And 2. it seems when all is done that he taketh this Authority of the Church but for a prudential motive But is it certain or uncertain If uncertain so will all be that 's built upon it If certain again tell us by what ascertaining evidence Reader it is the crooked ways into which byassing-interest hath tempted these men to lead poor souls which are thus perplexing and confounding How plain and sure a way God hath prescribed us I have told you in a small Tractate called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery In short it is possible if a man never hear but one Sermon which mentioneth not the authority of the Church or find a Bible on the high-way and read it that he may see that evidence in it that may perswade him savingly to believe through grace that it truly affirmeth it self to be the word of God But the ordinary method for most rational certainty is To have first Historical ascertaining evidence of the matter of fact viz. that This Book was indeed written and these miracles and other things done as it affirmeth Or first perhaps That this Baptismal Covenant Lords Prayer Creed and Decalogue have been delivered down from the first witnesses of Christ and Miracles wrought to confirm the Gospel which is also written at large in that Book This we have far greater Historical Certainty of than the pretended authority of a judging-Church of Rome even the infallible testimony of all the Churches in the world and as to the essentials Baptism the Creed c. of Hereticks Infidels and Heathens which I have opened at large in a Book called The Reasons of Christian Religion and another called The Unreasonableness of Infidelity and in other writings And the matter of fact with the Book being thus certainly brought down to us as the Statutes of the Land are we then know the Gospel and that Book to be of God by all those evidences which in the foresaid Treatises I have opened at large and more briefly in a Treatise called The Life of Faith the sum of which is the Holy Spirit as Christs Agent Advocate and Witness in his Works of Divine Power Wisdom and Goodness or Love printed first on Christ himself his Life and Doctrine and then on the Apostles their Works and Doctrine and then on all sanctified believers in all ages and especially on our selves besides his antecedent prophesies Pag. 16. He again pretendeth that he need not name the necessary Articles of Faith because I my self say They must be the Essentials and it is supposed I understand my own terms Ans. A candid Disputant The light followeth him while he flyeth from it Doth it follow that if I know my own meaning I therefore know yours and if I know which are the essentials that therefore you know them and are of the same mind Pag. 17. The man would make me believe that I speak not true divinity when I say that Divine and Humane Faith may be conjunct when the testimonies are so conjunct as that we are sure that it is God that speaks by man who is therefore credible because God infallibly guideth and inspireth him He would make you believe that I am singular and erroneous here Ans. And why He saith that would make Christian faith partly humane But 1. when I talk but of two faiths conjunct what if I called the former divine faith only the Christian faith May not a humane yet be conjunct with the Christian 2. But words must be examined If Christian faith be so called from the Object then Christ and not his Apostles are the reason of the name materially we are called Christians for believing in Christ and not for believing in them 2. If Christian faith were taken subjectively it is humane faith for men are the subjects of it 3. If Christian faith be
tergiversation what sort of Disputants should blush would you think after all this what his answer is You shall have it in his own words And know you not that Divines are divided what are the points necessary to be believed explicitely necessitate medii Some and those the more ancient hold that the explicite belief of God of the whole Trinity of Christ his Passion Resurrection c. are necessary necessitate medii Others among the Recentiors that no more than the belief of the Deity and that he is a rewarder of our works is absolutely necessary with that necessity to be explicitely believed Now to answer your Question what it is whereby our Church-members are known I answer that 1. All those who are baptized and believe all the points of our faith explicitely if any such are to be found are undoubted members of our Church 2. All those who believe explicitely all the Artiales whatever belongs to them in particular by reason of their respective offices in the Church 3. Those who so believe all things necessary necessitate medii or necessitate praecepti extended to all adulti 4 All those who believe in that manner all things held necessary necessitate medii according to the first opinion of the more ancient Doctors 5. It is probable though not altogether so certain as the former that such as believe explicitely the Deity and that he is a rewarder of our works and the rest implicitely as contained in confuso in that are parts of the Catholick Church Baptism supposed 〈◊〉 Nowâ—… seeing all those in my four first Numbers which comprehend almost all Christians are certainly parts of the Catholick Church we have a sufficient certainly of a determinate Church consisting at least of these by reason whereof our Church has a visible consistency those of the fifth rank though not so certain not taking away the certainty of the former See you not by this Discourse that we answer sufficiently to your question by telling which are undoubted members Ans. Reader how sad is the case of mankind when such a talker as this shall go for a Champion and prevail with silly souls in the matters of Salvation against common reason and the notices of Christianity Mark here 1. He asketh me Know you not that Divines are divided Yes and I know how lamentably you have divided the Christian world See Reader what is the unity and concord of the Church of Rome Not only the Laity but their Divines are divided about the very essence of a Christian and their Church These are the men that cry up Unity as a mark of their Church and cry out of us as Schismaticks as if we were all crumbled into dust by Sects because we differ about some small circumstances of Worship or Exposition of some imposed words of men or of some difficult point of no flat necessity 2. Note here also the Infallibility of their Church and what a priviledg they have in having a Iudg of Controversies While their Doctors are divided on the question what a Christian is And Pope and Council dare not or cannot or will not determinate what maketh a Christian or member of their Church O happy infallible Judg of Controversies 3. Note also the extent of the Roman faith 〈◊〉 it is so big as that it and its circumstances fill large Volumes called the Councils and yet it is no article of their faith what Christianity is or what must constitute a member of their Church but this is left at liberty to disputes 4. Note also the great partiality of the Papists The Doctors may be divided about the essence of Christianity and may deny faith in Christ to be particularly necessary to a Christian. But if a man believe not that Rome is the Mistris of all Churches and the Pope the Universal Governourr and that there is no bread and wine in the Lords Supper when the Priest hath consecrated he is to be exterminated or burnt as a Heretick and Princes deposed that will not execute it 5. Note here that here is not a word in all this of believing the Pope to be the Governour of all the Churches in the world Either they take this to be essential to a member of their Church or not If they do are they not juglers and ashamed of their faith when they thus hide it If not what is become of their Sectarian Church and all their accusations and condemnations of most of the Christian World who believe no such office of the Pope And what a Society is that where the reception of the Pars Imperans is not necessary to every subject 6. Note here whether the Roman Religion be mutable or not and whether constancy be a note of their verity When he professeth that the ancient Doctors and the Recentiors or Novelists do differ about the very essence of Christianity Have these Recentiors antiquity to boast of 7. Note also from hence the validity of their common argument from Tradition As if all their Church were now and always of one mind when at present they are divided about the essence of Christianity and the Recentiors forsake the Ancients But had these Ancients Tradition for their opinion or not If they had how come the Recentiors to forsake it If not what an insufficient thing is your Tradition that hath not told you what a Christian or Church-member is And yet we must take this Tradition as sufficient to tell us what orders and ceremonies Peter setled at Rome 8. I pray you note that even their ancient Doctors opinion which is all that must keep his cause from utter shame he durst not describe in answer to my question but having named five words God the whole Trinity Christ his Passion and Resurrection he craftily shuts it up with an Eâ—… caetera so that if you suppose him to say that these five things are all that they require he may deny it because he added an c. If you ask what are the â—…est you are where we begun an c. is all the answer 9. Well let us peruse his five particular sort of members distinctly which make up their Church and try 〈◊〉 be the mâ—…ey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 or whether the Reader will not wonder that such trained disputers have no more to say nor a more plausible sort of fraud to use 1. His first sort of visible members are All those that are baptized and believe explicitely all the points of our faith if any such are to be found Ans. Is not this a modest Parenthesis whether any such are to be found he seemeth uncertain and yet saith These are the undoubted members of our Church The undoubted members when he doubteth himself whether any such are to be found And can we find the Church by them then And no wonder that they are not to be found for note Reader that he never tells you here yet at all what the faith of their Church is but only that if any have it all they
which they may shortly expect by the perswasions of some I have attempted to make this Return to this one Reply which is all that ever they published against me that I know of And because true Order requireth first that we understand each others terms I must begin with that though it be the last thing in his Book in which you will see what a sandy fabrick it is which is adorned by them with the great Epithetes of Apostolical Ancient Universal Infallible and how little they know or can make others know what it is of which they do dispute or what that Church is to which so many hundred thousand Christians called by them Hereticks have been sacrificed by sword and flames In the second Part I defend the Visibility of the Church which the Protestants are members of against his vain Objections And in the third Part I defend those Additional arguments by which I proved it In all which I doubt not but the impartial understanding Reader may see that their Terrestrial Universal Monarchy and their condemnation of the greatest part of the Church of Christ are contrary to Sense Reason Tradition Consent Antiquity and Scripture and that their Kingdom standeth but on three Legs IGNORANCE and deceit worldly INTEREST and the SWORD and violence And when these and especially the sword of Princes do cease to uphold it it will presently die and come to nothing For though Melchior Canus say that the Roman Priviledges as he calleth them have stood though the greater number of Bishops and Churches and the Arms of Emperours have been against them yet was it upheld against all these by no better means than those aforesaid The greater number of Churches and Bishops viz. of East and South being against them and all the other four Patriarchates renouncing them as they do to this day they laid the faster hold of the West and by mastering Italy flattering and advancing France promising Kingdoms and Empire to their Adherents threatning the deposition of others dividing Germany and all Europe that many might need the Pope and few be able to resist him and by keeping men ignorant that they might be capable of their Government by these means they overcame the Arms of Emperours and made them their Subjects whose Subjects they had been If there were nothing else to satisfie the Reader against Popery but these following Particulars it were a shame to humane nature to receive it 1. The natural incapacity of one man to be a Church-Monarch any more than to be a Civil Monarch of the whole Earth 2. That Bellarmine confesseth that the Pope succeedeth not Peter as an Apostle but as an Universal Pastor But Peter never had any higher office than to be the first Apostle 1 Cor. 12. 28. God hath set in the Church first Apoctles not first a Vice-Christ 3. That they affirm that it is not de fide that the Pope is Peter's Successor 4. That none of the other Apostles had Successors as in superior seats nor did any Patriarch much less twelve claim power as Successors of any Apostle save Antioch and Rome and Antioch as from the same St. Peter but no Universal Soveraignty 5. That whoever will turn Papist must confess that he was an ungodly hypocrite before and that all professed Christians are so save the Papists that know their doctrine 6. That he must renounce the senses of all sound men and believe them all deceived by Miracle The Contents of the first Part. CHAP. 1. Sect. 1. HIs Explication of the terms CATHOLICK CHURCH 1. He excludeth all from Christs Universal Church and Christianity that are no Members of Christian Congregations Yet meaneth not only Churches but Families Ships or any civil Assemblies Damning all solitary Christians or that are alone among Infidels 2. He maketh subjection to the supreme Pastor necessary and yet saith the Votum of it alone will serve Sect. 2. He unchurcheth Parish-Churches He maketh dependance on lawful Pastors in general necessary but not on the Pope particularly Sect. 3 What Faith must be in a Church-member His implicite discourse of implicite faith which indeed is no faith of any particular Article Several senses of implicite faith opened His general faith proved No particular faith In what sense we believe all that God hath revealed Sect. 8. His instances explained Sect. 9. When virtual repentance sufficeth Sect. 10. His avoiding to answer Sect. 11. The Papists Church invisible Sect. 12. His strange Doctrine of generals Sect. 13. What Christianity is is no point of faith with them Sect. 14. The invisibility of their Church further proved Sect. 15. Their contradictions about receiving all faith on the Churches Authority Sect. 16. 17. The true method of believing Sect. 18. Humane faith is joyned with Divine Sect. 20. What the Essentials of Christianity are Sect. 21. Papists utterly disagreed what a Christian is and confounded and their Church invisible Sect. 22. Notes of great moment hereupon The baptizing of men that believe only that there is a rewarding God is a new false baptism Sect. 23. Q 3. Who are the Pastors whose rejection unchurcheth men Of Parish Priests Q. 4. How shall all the world be sure that Popes and Priests had a just Election or ordination Sect. 24 25 26 27 28. CHAP. 2. Their sense of the word HERESY Whether Heresie be in will or understanding Sect. 1. Hereticks by their definition are unknown Sect. 2. The power of judging of the Sufficiency of proposals make 's the Clergie Masters of all men lives Sect. 3. He maketh none Hereticks that deny not Gods Veracity Sect. 4. And all Hereticks to deny it Yea all that receive not every truth safficiently proposed Yet unsaith all and saith that not culpable neglect of sufficient proof of all but contradiction to the known proposal of lawful superiours makes a Heretick Sect. 7. Q. What sufficient proposal is Sect. 8. 9. He saith that the true Church-Governours may be known without Revelation Sect. 10. Sufficiency further examined Sect. 11. He hereticateth themselves or none Sect. 12. Whether every misunderstanding of an intelligible Text of Scripture be Heresie Sect. 13. What Heresie is indeed Sect. 14. CHAP. 3. Their meaning of the word POPE Sect. 1. Popes judged Herteicks by many Councils Where Christs institution of the Papacy must be found Sect. 2. Who ad esse must elect the Pope Sect. 3. W. J. cannot and dare not tell Consecration denyed to be necessary to the Pope Sect. 6. Neither Papal nor Episcopal Iurisdiction he saith depends on Papal or Episcopal ordination Sect. 7. So they may be Laymen What such jurisdiction is Sect. 8. What notice or proof is necessary to the subjects CHAP. 4. Their sense of the word BISHOP The Pope is not of Gods ordaining in their way Sect. 1. 2. Their Bishop of Calcedons testimony put off Sect. 3. They make all men that will or no men to be Bishops His great confusion and contradictions Saying we want not Episcopal Consecration but Election
is no spirit but God and the Anima Mundi and say that these are immaterial and never the more believe that Angels or Souls are spirits And no man can reasonably imagine that omnis spiritus est immaterialis doth include omnis anima est spiritus or that W. I's est spiritus immaterialis So one may say that all that are sanctified shall be glorified and yet not believe that Peter Paul yea or Christ were Holy of this sort of knowledg I mentioned that which is a belief of no more but the formal object of Faith that is Gods veracity that God cannot lye and so that all that God saith is true when yet one that confesseth this denieth all the Bible to be his Word and believeth rather Mahomet Amida or Confutius to have been Gods Messengers or the ancient Oracles at Delphos c. to have been his word But the confused Head of W. I. confoundeth several of these different sorts and because he thought that he might handsomly call a meer general knowledg or faith confused therefore he confoundeth the true confused faith with the general which are easily distinguished And first he calls for my proof That a meer general belief is no belief at all of the particulars though a confused faith may I prove it 1. Where there is no intellectual conception of the particulars there is no actual belief of the particulars But where there is only a conception of a general proposition there is no intellectual conception of the particulars Ergo c. the major is undeniable and the minor no less 2. Where the particular Object is not understood or believed there is not the particular Act of knowing or believing that Object for the Object is essential to the Act But where there is only a knowledg and belief of the general Object there the particular Object is not understood or believed Ergo c. 3. That is not an actual belief of the particulars which may consist with the actual belief of the contradictory But a meer belief of the General Proposition may consist i h the contradictory to the belief of particulars Ergo c. But he comes upon me with some instances so worded as may deceive the ignorant 1. Saith he Doth not this Proposition Omne animal vivit contain the substance of these truths Equus vivit Leo vivit Aquila vivit c Answ. No surely unless by substance you mean not the other Proposition but somewhat else what you list for it containeth not the very subject that there is such a thing as Equus Leo Aquila in being and that they are animalia May not a man that never heard or believed that there was such a creature as an Eagle Lyon c. no more than a Unicorn or Phaenix yet know that omne animal vivit 2. He saith Believing all that is in Scripture is the Word of God and true expresly I believe in confuso all that is in Genesis c. Answ. Yes if in confuso be terminus diminuens to actual belief of the particulars By meer believing the first you do not actually believe a word of Genesis or Exodus c. for your Proposition saith not that there is any such Book in the Scripture As I believe all the holy Scripture to be true and yet believe not Tobit Iudith Bell and the Dragon to be true because I believe them not to be the Holy Scriptures so may others by Genesis Exodus c. as the Hereticks of old denied many Books and as Infidels may believe all that is Gods Word to be true and yet not believe that the Scripture is his Word 3. Saith he Is not an express knowledg of the Genus a confused knowledg of species under it and so the species of the individua Answ. Yes if by confused knowledg you mean no knowledg of them it is no true knowledg of them at all 4. But he saith that my words not knowing whether you be Animal or Cadaver is a contradictory Proposition Answ. Say you so May not I see you asleep and think that you are dead Doth this Proposition Omne animal vivit include that there is such a Wight in being as W. I. or N. N or that he is now alive or that it is really a Man and not a Horse that is so called any more than that Bucephalus was a Man Yet doth he back these absurdities with advising me to a little more heed to what I write Note that page 9 he asserteth that The object of implicite faith delivered in the Schools is nothing save particular truths contained in substance under some general propositions so that they be neither known nor believed distinctly and expresly yet in confuso they are by the knowledg or belief of their general proposition Answ. But there is a confused knowledg of particulars which is actual of the Being of them though not distinct not fit or ripe for words to utter it This is different from the knowledg of meer Generals which is indeed no knowledg of the particulars that any such are contained in those generals at all He next comes to expound his words That faith believeth all that God revealeth explicitely or implicitely that is now some things explicitely and some things implicitely when as I asked him What was the faith in which we must unite who would have expected such an answer That it is a general belief of all things revealed and a particular belief of some things That it is such a belief of all particulars as is no real actual belief of some of them and it is an actual belief of other some But is any man ever the nearer the knowledg of their minds by this 1. Here is no notice what the General is that must be believed He professeth that it is not the formal object only that is The veracity or faithfulness of God the Revealer And what else it is whether that all that the Scripture revealeth is true or that all that the Church declareth to be Gods word is true and whom we must take for that Church c. he hath not told us and so hath given an answer which is no answer 2. Nor hath he told us what the Particulars are that must be believed But we may know what faith it is that the Church must unite in by hearing that it is something we know not what or that it is somewhat in general and somewhat in particular Doth this account satisfie themselves or do they look that it should satisfie us Will this distinguish their Church from Hereticks or Mahometans Do not these believe somewhat in general and somewhat in particular And do not Heathens do the same If this be enough for Christianity or Concord why do they call us Hereticks Are we not all of that Faith which believeth somewhat in General even that all Gods Word is true and somewhat in Particular But it 's well that he saith that the explicite belief of somewhat is necessary though
we may not know what And he tells us That while they have an explicite belief of some Articles they can never be thought to be without faith Answ. Either he meaneth that faith which was in the question which must notifie us from Hereticks and from others without and which the Church must unite in or some other faith If any other doth he not wilfully juggle and fly from answering when he pretends to answer If he means the faith in question then Mahometans and Heathens are of their Faith and Members of their Church yea and all that they call Hereticks and anathematize themselves yea and the Devils that believe and tremble But one would think that pag. 11 he described the necessary implicite Faith when he saith Our ordinary sense is so to believe that point that we have no distinct or express knowledg of it but only a confused understanding because it is contained in confuso under this proposition I believe all that God hath revealed or I believe all that is delivered to be believed in the Holy Scripture Answ. 1. But I must again repeat that here the word confused is used but to confound This is no actual belief of any particular under that proposition When a thing is actually known in it self but only by a General knowledg or not dâ—…stinct this is truly an Impersect knowledg It is to know somewhat of that thing though not its form or individuation If I see something which I know not whether it be a Man or a Tree a Steeple or a Rock I verily know somewhat of that thing it self but not the form of it If I see a Book open at two-yards distance I see the Letters distinctly but not formally for I know not what any one of them is If I see a clod of Earth or a River I see much of the very substance of the earth and water but I discern not the sands or the drops as distinct parts Here something is known though the special or numerical difference much more some accidents be unknown But in knowing W. I's general proposition only I know nothing at all of the particulars as shall yet be further manifested 2. And mark what his general Proposition is which he saith is the object of their Implicite saith viz. I believe all that God hath revealed or all that is delivered to be believed in the Holy Scripture Either he really meaneth that this is the implicite faith by which Christians are notifiâ—…d and which uniteth the Members of the Church and distinguisheth them from those without or he doth not If he do not what doth he but deceive his Râ—…ader If he do then as I said All Christians Hereticks most Mahometans and Heathens believe the first proposition viz. That all is true that God revealeth And Protestants and Papists and most other sorts of Christians agree in the second The Scripture-truth Here then is a justification of our Faith so far But do you think that he meaneth as he seemeth to mean Do they not hold it also necessary that men must take their Church to be the declarer of this Scripture-truth And also that Tradition not written in the Bible be believed Must not both these make up their Implicite Faith If our general Faith and theirs be the same what maketh them accuse us herein as they do But now pag. 11. he proceeds to assault me with such reasoning as this No man knoweth all that God hath revealed to wit with an actual understanding of every particular Ergo say I No man believes all that God hath revealed Now I proceed If no man believe all that God hath revealed then you believe not all that God hath revealed Then further Whoever believeth not all that God hath revealed is no good Christian nor in state of salvation But you believe not all that God hath revealed Ergo you are no good Christian nor in a state of salvation See you not how fair a thred you have spun Or will you say that he that believes not all that God hath revealed is a good Christian If you will you may but no good Christian will believe you Answ. The man seemeth in good sadness in all this Childish Play And must Rome be thus upheld And must poor mens Faith and Consciences be thus laid upon a game at Cheating Words No wonder that this Hector would have nothing said in dispute but syllogism c. Few Lads and Women would unmask his pitiful deceits whether the great disputer saw their vanity himself I know not But men at age that can speak and try sense will see that all this Cant is but the sporting-equivocation of one syllable ALL This ALL is either a term of a meer general proposition e. g. All Gods word is true Here I believe what is predicated of this general word ALL and take this for a true proposition ALL Gods word is true Or it signifieth the very things species or parts as in themselves known and so if the very things species or parts generally expressed by the word ALL be not themselves known as such things species or parts it is no actual knowledg of them at all to know that truth of the said general proposition And doth not every novice in Logick know this The same I say of Beliefs as of Knowledg He is no good Christian who believeth not that all Divine Revelations are true which Hereticks and Heathens believe But neither I nor any Christian known to him or me knoweth or believeth ALL the particular verities which God hath revealed And he believeth not one of them beside that proposition it self which is found among the rest who believeth but that general But yet he will justifie his vanity by more instances pag. 12 he saith When you profess in tâ—…e Creed that God is the Creator of all things visible and invisible I demand Do you believe as you profess If you do then you may believe with an actual belief that he is the Creator of many things visible and invisible whereof you have no actual understanding or which are wholly unknown particularly or distinctly to you or by any other knowledg than as confusedly contained in the word ALL. Ans. 1. What 's all this but to say that I believe this proposition All things of which many are unknown to â—…e are created by God This proposition I know and believe but the things themselves as such I no further believe than I know if I know not that they are I believe not that they are if I know not what they are I believe not what they are that is if I have not an intellectual conception That they are and What they are for believing is indeed but a knowing by the medium of a Testimony or Revelation and the veracity of the Revealer I believe that God maâ—… all that is about the Center of the earth and yet I neither know nor actually believe any one thing species or individual or
to another or the King may pardon all crimes by an Act of Oblivion without knowing what they are But if the question were about an intellectual act whose object doth specifie it intrinsecally in the mind As whether the King actually know the particular crimes which he pardoneth If you say that he knoweth the particulars actually in confuso because the only knoweth in general that some crimes there are this is but to talk against all the usual â—…ense of mankind and to call that An actual knowing of particulars in confuso which other men call No actual knowledg of particulars but only of generals which in some cases may be called a virtual knowledg of Particulars which is no actual knowledg of them and in some not But if he had heard some imperfect confused Narratives of the crimes themselves this might be called An actual confâ—…ed knowledg of them But mark Reader what edification is to be expected from these mens Disputations He knew very well that he and I are agreed that all Christians must take Gods Veracity in his Revelations for the formal object without which faith is no faith and so must believe that God cannot lie and that all is true which he asserteth And that we Protestants hold that this is not enough nor includeth the knowledg or belief of any thing which he hath revealed beside this one general He knoweth that our question is Whether it be not necessary to believe some particulars as revealed by God And whether this faith do not go to essentiate a Christian and a member of the Church And if so then what those particulars are which must be believed to constitute a true Christian and member of the Church Now he durst not come into the light and answer this question but as if he were mocking women or children saith All that God hath revealed must be believed explicitely or implicitely We understand you Sir that we must believe this Proposition All that God revealeth is true But is that enough then Heathens Idolaters Sadducees Infidels Mahometans are Christians and members of your Church But do they think so themselves If you can thus with a juggle make all the world Christians the like art may make them subjects of the Pope No saith he there must some things also be believed explicitely But the question is What they are O there you must excuse him he dare not he cannot tell you what But Sir are these some things essential to Christianity and Church-membership or not If you say Not what nothing essential to Christian faith in particular Is it faith and yet a belief of nothing in particular Is there no material difference at all between a Christian and a Sadducee Infidel Mahometan or Heathen And yet cannot Protestants be saved for want of the right belief O marvellous Religion But if any particular belief be necessary cannot it be known what it is How then can a Christian be known by himself or others from all the unbelieving world or your Church from other men This was my question to you Is not your Church then invisible when no man can know what makes a member of it And yet the man talketh confidently in his darkness as if this would serve instead of light and saith I make my Church visible though by comprehending in it all those who profess an explicite faith in several Articles which they understand distinctly and an implicite belief of the rest whereof they have not distinct understanding by professing that they believe all that God hath revealed to be believed by them whatsoever they be in particular Now so long as they persevere in this belief though they should happen through culpable negligence not to arrive to the knowledg of many things which they ought to know necessitate praecepti yet they remain members though corrupt and wicked of the Church Whereby you see how easily I avoid that difficulty which you thought I could not Ans. Too easily against all reason Reader this Paragraph is worth the nothing 1. Several Articles must be believed explicitely but not a word to tell you which or what they are or whether it be any whatever that will serve the turn if it be but that Cain was the son of Adam 2. The implicite belief of all the rest is not here said to be any implicite belief of the Pope Council or Church of Rome but that they believe all that God hath revealed to be believed by them And are we not yet so far right and reconciled This is too kind to the Protestants For it takes in all mankind with them who confess a God For to give him the Lie is to deny his Perfection that is his Godhead 3. Mark that even culpable ignorance of other things unchurcheth not 4. And yet all this denoteth but a corrupt and wicked member of their holy Church which if such cannot be saved 5. And with this chat the man thinks he hath done his business And doubtless there are some so ignorant as to believe him But all this wants but two things to make it just the true Christian faith One is to name those Particulars essential to Christianity which must be believed The other is to distinguish between a sound and serious practical belief and a dead opinion or profession And to conclude that the sincere practical belief constituteth invisible justified members and the profession maketh only visible ones Next he hath another bout against Omne animal vivit the question was whether to know this be to know that W. I. Bucephalus a Phoenix or an Unicorn liveth I say No because it may stand with the ignorance that ever there was or will be such an Animal as is called W. I. or any of the rest But he makes all good on his side by talking of Impossibilities and such-like words which are of the same use in respect to our arguments that Drums in an Army are to drown the groans of dying men and put courage into the Soldiers He saith When Philosophers say Omne animal vivit they mean it of the essence or notion of Animal to be a living thing and this is true of me and all particulars whether we be in actual existence or not Is not here excellent Philosophy It 's very true that this is a true Proposition Omne animal vivit whether VV. I. exist or not But is this true of VV. I. and all particulars VVhether they exist or not That which existeth not is nothing neither VV. I. nor any particular The sum is then Nothing is a living thing or animal There is a VV. I. and all particulars which are all nothing and yet are animals or live Who would not turn Papist and run into a Nunnery that is but charmed with such Philosophy Next pag 15. he saith That how much must be believed explicitely is a dispute among Divines not necessary to be determined here yet I will say something to that presently Ans. I warrant you
nothing is necessary to you to do which you cannot do without coming into the light It 's a dispute among the Papists Divines what a Christian is or what Christianity is And yet they have an Infallible Judg of all the Scripture and all Controversies And yet they can tell that Protestants are Hereticks And yet they can tell who are members of their Church though it be a dispute among Divines But mark that this is not then with them de fide any point of faith what a Christian is or what must be believed For their Divines dispute not that which they take to be de fide I told him that a man may believe that the Bible is true and Gods word and yet not know a word that is in it or that Christ is the Messias or that there was ever such a person He answereth that This is morally impossible For either such a person believes the Bible rashly and imprudently and then according to all Divines his faith cannot be supernatural and divine or sufficient to constitute him a Christian or he believeth it prudently by prudential motives of credibility Now that can be no other than the authority of the Catholick Church which he cannot be ignorant to profess the faith of Christ there being no other save that though he know not by experience that Christ is mentioned in the Bible he cannot but know that he is professed to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by those of the Catholick Church who delivered the Bible to him as the word of God and that such a faith is necessary to Salvation Ans. Here are many things worthy our consideration 1. That a man is not a member of the Church that is a Christian unless his faith be supernatural and divine not only in the object but his act And surely no man knoweth what other mans act of faith is supernatural and divine Therefore no man knoweth who is a Christian and so their Church is still invisible 2. No man that believeth the Bible rashly and imprudently is a Christian And no man knoweth whether another believe it not rashly and imprudently yea whether he believe it at all Therefore no man knoweth who is a Christian or member of the Church of Rome 3. No other motive than the authority of the Catholick Church can serve to free a man from this rashness imprudence and nullity of his Christianity 1. But why then had we not this General The Church Catholick is to be believed and the Scripture to be received only by its authority before in the description of implicite or explicite faith 2. Was that man no Christian in the Primitive times who was converted by a single Apostle and took not the faith on the authority of the Catholick Church Did the Eunuch converted by Philip Act. 8. or the Jaylor and Lydia converted by Paul Act. 16. or the 3000 converted by Peter Act. 2. receive faith on the authority of the Catholick Church Or the Indians when converted by Frumentius and Edesus or the Abassian Empire that till lately knew nothing of the Pope and his pretensions Or do we read that the Apostles did use that argument The authority of the Catholick Church to convert their hearers or that they always first told them of the authority of such a Church If by the Church you mean any single Apostle or Teacher hold to that and we shall do well enough with you 3. But Authority is an ambiguous word and may deceive We maintain that a preserving and teaching ministerial authority is usually needful to mens conversion to the faith though not absolutely necessary to be first believed by the hearer But a judging authority viz. Whether there be a God a Christ a Scripture a Heaven c. or not which determineth by a sentence rather than teacheth by opening that evidence which caused belief in the Teacher himself this is not necessary to mans faith 4. And what if a man should hear a Preacher open the other reasons of Christianity without talking of the Catholick Church and its authority and should hereupon believe or should believe by the bare reading of a Bible how prove you that this man is no Christian nor shall be saved when Christ saith He that believeth shall be saved and shall not perish and saith not He that believeth on any other motive than the authority of the Catholick Church and that must be the Romans believeth rashly and impudently and shall perish 4. But it 's well worth the enquiry could we possibly find it out what he meaneth by knowing the Church and its profession and its authority and whether this be an act of necessary faith before any thing else can be believed Or what other points of faith are contained in our belief of this Church and its authority And what is the foundation of this faith It seems that he supposeth that the Church must be known before that the Christian faith be believed And that in knowing the Church we must know the faith of the Church It is one thing to know that they are a company of men called the Christian Church and another thing to know what a Christian Church is and another thing to know that this company of men is that Church Must all these be known before we can believe or but one or two and which 1. If the name were enough a man may know that a company of men are called Christians or Mahumetanes who knoweth not at all what Christianity or Mahumetanism is You say that it must be known that they profess to trust in Christ this they may do and not know who Christ is whether God or man or what he hath done or will do for us If you say that they must know that they profess that Christ is the Saviour so they may do and yet not know what the word Saviour signifieth or what Christ ever did or will do for our Salvation 2. But if he mean here that every one that will believe Gods Word must first know the Church as defined or know it in all its essence then 1. How few will he be able to prove to be Christians And how will he know who they are 2. And still the question recurreth what is it that must be particularly believed to essentiate the Church For if he know not that he cannot know that he knoweth what the Church is 3. And when that is done it seems he must know which is that Church considered in existence as different from all Heresies and other Societies But by this method our difficulties are multiplied 1. How shall I be sure that this Church doth not deceive me in saying that this and not that is Gods Word Is this by an act of knowledg or of divine faith If of knowledg what evidences prove it If of faith then I must believe God before I can believe him that is I must believe that this is his Revelation and true that the Roman-Catholick
denominated from the prime or second efficient of the revelation it is the belief of God and of Christ as Mediator and not of the Apostles and so Gods own Veracity and not mans is the objectum formale fidei divinae 4. But why may not a subordinate humane faith be conjoined with this and so we believe Christ to be the Messiah at once 1. By the testimony of God 2. Of Christ as man 3. And of the Prophets and Apostles 1. Did not the union of the Divine nature with the humane make Christ as man to be credible If so why should we not believe him 2. Did not the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost and divine inspiration joined to it make the Apostles and Prophets credible persons If so why should we not believe them 3. Did not the Miracles which they wrought render the persons and their testimonies credible together with the circumstances of their being eye-witnesses and such-like 4. Is not every honest man credible according to the measure of his skill and honesty 5. Doth not every man know that there may be many efficient causes conjoined in producing one effect May not faith now be wrought by the Preachers word and Spirit Why else doth Christ say to Paul Acts 26. 17 18 I send thee to open their eyes and turn them c. And Paul directeth Timothy to save himself and those that hear him Why may not believing God believing Christ as man and believing Peter and Iohn c. that saw him risen be conjunct causes of our faith in Christs Resurrection If they might not produce one faith at least they might produce three faiths united by conjunction But would one ever have expected this from a Jesuit or Roman Priest Remember Reader that Divine belief and a belief of the Church Council Pope or Priest are not to be taken for conjunct causes of our believing the Gospel or Christian faith in this mans opinion But he saith Though the Prophet be a humane person yet he speaks when he is inspired by God not by humane but divine authority God speaking by his mouth Ans. It is Veracity that is the thing that we now speak of and is the authority in question And doth not Gods Veracity give Veracity to the Speaker and use it Doth God speak by Prophets and Christs Humanity as through an inanimate Pipe or Whistle or as by Balaam's asse Doth he make no use of the reason and honesty of the speaker nor make them more knowing and more honest true and careful that they may be the fitter to be believed Is this Roman Divinity Why then do the Apostles so oft protest that they speak the truth and lye not even of that which they had seen and heard Would the Gospel have been equally credible to us if all the witnesses had in other matters been knaves and lyars 2. Reader judg whether those that accuse the Roman Clergy of Fanaticism and Enthusiasm do them any wrong while they think that God maketh them infallible by such inspiration as maketh no use of their Reason Learning or Honesty And read but what their own Historians say of Fifty Popes together besides all the rest and of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries of the Church and of the Popes that were lads and could not read Mass but were illiterate Read what their Councils have said of some whom they deposed as inhuman Monsters and judg whether it be easie to believe that any inspiration used those men as infallible deliverers of that Christian faith and see here why it is that they think wit and honesty no more necessary in Pope or Councils if God use them but as an organ-pipe or trumpet Pag. 18. When he is urged to tell me what it is that is the necessary belief of their Church which must make a man a member of it he again bids me tell him what points I make essential to a Christian and I shall save him the labour Ans. And are we indeed agreed And yet do they writeso many Volumes to the contrary Reader I take him at his word I have said that it is The belief and consent to the Baptismal Covenant that is the constitutive essence of a Christian. Remember this when they jest at Fundamentals and tell us of damnation if we believe not their Councils and the Country-Priests that are the reporters of them Remember now the extent of the Christian Church that it reacheth to all that believe and consent to the Baptismal Covenant But will these wavering men long stand to this and confess their Sect to be but a fourth or third part of the Church But perhaps they will say That words not understood are no true faith we are yet to seek what believing in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost do mean and comprehend Answ. These ignorances or artifices have too long abused unstudied men It is not now the unsearchable truth of mens subjective faith or internal acts which we dispute of But it is of necessary objective faith or what ex parte objecti is essentially necessary to true subjective faith in case it be truly believed which God only can tell And I say 1. It is no meer words spoken more or less which can prove to another the sincerity of the speakers belief of them 2. But the words of the Baptismal Profession and Covenant if sincerely believed contain all essential to the Christian faith 3. And for more or fewer words I say that the more understanding any man hath the more fully and easily he may understand the sense of those words though general and few but to an ignorant person there must be many words and oft repeated to make him understand the same thing which the other doth by these few And must we therefore have as many symbols of Christianity as there are various degrees of Understandings 4. And the Church hath in its best times taken up with the Creed as the Exposition of the Baptismal faith and if it now contain any words more than essential that crosseth not its use which was to be a just and satisfactory Explication of that Baptismal faith which had nothing but the Essentials And accordingly till faith and piety degenerated into opinion and tyranny Baptized persons were accounted Christians and members of the Catholick Church and as obliged to live as Christs Disciples in love to one another it being none but Christ himself who instituted Baptism as our Christening to be the symbol and badg of his Disciples Pag. 19. When I had prest him to a particular answer and told him what would follow upon the Answers which I supposed he might make he tells me that Divines have a hundred times told us that some things must be believed necessitate praecepti and some things necessitate medii Ans. We have heard some things some things so oft that we would fain know what things at last are necessary ut media Reader if these Writers must not be ashamed of their
are Christians Is this a satisfactory answering And yet if you will know the truth from their common writings the faith of their Church containeth these great bodies 1. All that is in the holy Scripture and the Apocrypha 2. All the Decrees of their General Councils if not also the Provincials and Popes Decretals that are de fide 3. All their unwritten Traditions de fide which they have yet to bring forth as need requireth And do you not approve his modesty that saith If any such be found that believeth all this 2. The second sort of their Church-members are All who believe explicitely all Articles and whatever belongs to them in particular by reason of their respective offices Ans. But he tells you not a word what Articles these be nor what belongeth to their Offices whether it be all the Articles of all the Creeds or also of their Councils Decrees or when it shall be known what is necessary to be believed about their office And is here any notice how to know a member of their Church any more than in the former He that believeth all that he should believe is a Christian But is there any such and what is that all and how shall we know them 3. His third sort of members are Those who so believe all things necessary necessitate medii vel praecepti extended to all the adult Ans. And what 's this but the same again we know none but the adult that are to believe And so here we are told That all men that believe all things commanded are Christians We were told this before But it was with If any such are to be found And who knows by this what your All is When we find men that do all commanded and sin not we will hope to find men that know all revealed and have no ignorance yet here is no visible Church 4. His fourth sort are All those who believe in that manner all things necessary necessitate medii according to the first opinion of the more ancient Doctors But what those things are we are not yet told but five words set down with an c. And is here yet a word to satisfie any man of reason what their faith is or what Christianity is or what maketh a member of their Church or is the bond of union But Reader hath God left us so much in the dark Is Christianity any thing or nothing If something hath it not an essence which may be defined Is this all our notice of it That men that know all that God hath reveal'd and believe it are Christians or such as believe five Articles caetera Judge now whether their Church be not invisible And if any little part of it were visible what 's that to the rest or to that visibility of particular members He tells us these are almost all Christians and yet questioned whether any of the first be found and the rest are no more to be found than they 5. And his fifth sort he confesseth himself to be uncertain which yet it s doubted are no small part that go for Papists And note I pray you that it is the present Church which they use to approach to for necessary resolution and the Recentiors are more the present Church than the Ancients And according to these 1. Their Church is confessedly doubtful or unknown as to most or multitudes of members 2. And note that their Articles being but two That God is and that he rewardeth works all the common Heathens of the world and all the Mahometans are of the Papists Faith and Church according to this opinion 3. But mark Reader another desperate corruption That Baptism must concur with these two articles O horrid corruption of Christianity it self Is this antiquity and tradition Did the Christian Church use to baptize men that believed neither in Jesus Christ nor the Holy Ghost if they did but believe a God and a Rewarder Do you baptize such in your Church I suppose even Pope Stephen himself would have been for the re-baptining of such Reader if one of us had charged such doctrine on the Papists as this their Champion doth should we not have been thought to slander them viz. That their later Doctors hold that all that believe explicitely but a God and a Rewarder and are baptized are members of the Church of Rome and consequently that all that believe but this much should be baptized that is all the Mahometans and almost all the Heathens in the world And is Baptism and the Creed come to this But I confess if the world were perswaded of this the Pope could make his use of it For when he is once taken for Governour of all the Church on earth if he can but prove all the world to be the Church it followeth that he is Governour of all the world And what need they now their feigned embassies and submissions to prove the Abassines Armenians and Greeks to be of their Church when Heathens and Mahometans are proved of it and yet are Protestants no part He tells us That a living body may be defined by head shoulders arms though there be a doubt among Philosophers whether hair humours c. be animated or parts Ans. But 1. it is known then that there is visibly head and shoulders c. But you tell us not how to know any individual persons to be visible members of your Church To tell us that there are some men that hold all that they are bound to hold maketh none visible while we are not told either what they are bound to believe or by what profession or proof it must be known that they do so When we tell you that sincere justifying faith and love do prove true Christians and that such there are it 's agreed that this proveth but a Church as invisible or unknown to us because we know not who have this sincerity So is it when you tell us that there are men that believe all that 's necessary for till it be known what that is no profession can thereby prove them Christians 2. But what if you had told us how to know those men that are certain or eminent members of your Church Is it nothing to you to leave all the world besides almost uncertain whether they be in the Church or not How know you whom to admit to your Sacramental Communion or to use as a Christian When a Congregation of many thousand persons called Papists meet you cannot tell how many of these are of your Church and yet you give them the Eucharist And it seemeth by you that they must be Baptized though you know not after whether they be members of the Church Remember Reader that our question is not what mercy God sheweth to the rest of the world nor whether any out of the Christian Church be saved But it is what is the faith which is essential to a member of the Christian Church and whether Papists make it not uncertain and whether he
separateth from that Parish-Church may yet be 〈◊〉 member of the Church Universal while he separateth not from it But I see that Guiliel de Sancto Amore and such others had greater reason to condemn the Friers and Watson and such others the Jesuits than we knew of I noted also the difficulty How we shall know the Authority of every Parish-Priest Bishop Archbishop Patriarch and Pope And 1. in a Country where Orders have ordinarily been forged To this he answered As much as you can be assured of any being Pastor of such a Church or Bishop or Iustice c. Aâ—…s 1. If you prove it a duty to believe and obey every such deceiver that hath no authority we will not believe till you prove it that to do otherwise doth unchurch us 2. And if two or three claim authority over us at once as they did in the Papacy about forty years together are we cut off from Christ if we receive not both or how shall we know which If either will serve then they that took Iohn of Constantinople for Universal Bishop were as much in the Church as they that received Pope Boniface as such And they that followed Dioscorus at Alexandria being Orthodox as they that adhered to Proterius c. Is it no matter who it be so we think him to be the right Why then do you deny our English Clergy when we judg them to have the true authority 2. I asked What if we be ignorant whether the ordainer had intentionem ordinandi how shall we be sure of the authority of the Ordained He answered As sure as you can be that you were the lawful child of your parents who could not be truly married without intention Ans. This is new Doctrine they that speak the words and do the actions which properly signifie a true intention and do profess it do thereby mutually oblige themselves in the relation of husband and wife to each other and they that truly so oblige themselves are truly though sinfully married For what is Marriage but such a mutual obliging contract they are truly my parents and I owe them obedience whatever their intention was But you hold a man to be no Priest that was not ordained ex â—…entione ordinandi and our Salvation to lie on our obeying him as a Priest who is none My fourth Question was How the people that dwell in other Countrys can know whether the Priest Prelate or Pope had necessary Election and Ordination To which he saith Wâ—…en it is publickly allowed in the Church witnessed to be performed according to Canonical prescription by those that were present and derived to the people without contradiction by publick fame Ans. 1. This alloweth the Ministry in Ethiopia Armenia Moscovie Grâ—…ece as much as the Roman For it is publickly allowed and attested and brought to the people by uncontradicted fame And so is the Ministry of the Reformed Churches to all that hear not your contradiction 2 But with Rome the case is otherwise one part of the Church hath publickly allowed one Pope and all his Clergy and another part rejected him and allowed another and his Clergy and publick fame hath contradicted one party 3. And what can fame say to us in England of the Election or Ordination made at Rome of a Pope Prelate or Parish-priest when we hear not any witness of it 4. And how can we expect contradiction of an action done a thousand miles off which none near knew of 5. And yet how few Priests or Prelates are they whose authority fame publisheth without contradiction Do not Protestants contradict the authority of your Priests and most of the Christian World the authority of your Pope My fifth Question was If you tell me your own opinion of the sufficient means to know the Popes or Priests authority how shall I know that you are not deceived unless a Council bad desined it sufficient To this he saith That the orders prescribed in the Canon Law and universally received are sufficient for this without Decrees of General Councils for they are no points of faith but of order and discipline whereof a moral certainty and Ecclesiastical authority are sufficient Ans. 1. Is this moral certainty true certaints or uncertainty If true certainty it hath its moral ascertaining evidences And what are those 2. Who is the maker of this Canon Law If not General Councils how shall we know their authority If the Pope and Cardinals how shall we know whether those of e. g. Stephen Sergius or Formosus be the authentick ones and so of many other contradictory ones If a General Council damn and depose e. g. Eugenius the fourth as a Heretick c. and he make Canons after how shall we know that they are authoritative 3. But are your matters of order and discipline no matters of faith Then God hath not bound us to believe that the Pope is the Universal Bishop or Pastor or that Rome hath any authority over the world or other Christian Churches or that your Priests are the true Ministers of Christ and have any authority over us or that the Mass is to be celebrated c. But either these are matters of Divine or Humane Law If man only command them how cometh our Christianity and Salvation to be laid on them What man commands man may abrogate unless extrinsick accidents hinder If God command them doth God command any thing which he binds us not to believe to be our duty Many things may be de fide revealed which are not de moribus nor to be done but nothing is by God commanded to be done which is not first to be known or believed to be duty 4. If it be no matter of faith how to know that your Elections and Ordinations are true then it is no matter of faith that you are true Pastors or have any authority because without true Election and Ordination it is not so and if so then it 's no heresie to believe that you are all deceivers 5. Your Authority or Decrees below that of Pope and General Councils pretend to no Infallible certainty upon this it seems your Church is built and into uncertainty its authority resolved and yet from this we must fetch our certainty of the Gospel in your way And is not the Gospel then made uncertain by you which must be believed on the authority of an uncertain Ministry yea and are not Councils uncertain which consist of such a Ministry 6. It 's a vanity to pretend that your Canon Law is universally received most of the Christian World receive but part of it and much no part at all unless you call the Scripture the Canon Law 7. If your Canon Law be so universally received and sufficient then when that Law is received into England England must be burnt as a land of Hereticks for that 's part of your Law and so your Ministry and our burning as Hereticks have the same authority My next Question was If I culpably were
all men that believe a God believe him to be true and no lyar and so W. I. maketh none but Atheists to be Hereticks To this he answereth W. J. There is a twofold denying of God one formal and direct the other virtual and indirect Atheists are guilty of the first Hereticks of the second This I oblige my self to prove Whosoever obstinately contradicts any truth revealed from God as all Hereticks do some or other of them they sinfully and wilfully affirm that what God hath revealed is not true and consequently that God is a lyar and by that destroy as much as in them lieth the very essence of God R. B. Here is little but novelty and deceit 1. It is deceit to call that a denying of God in a controversie of such moment whatever you might do rhetorically in an Oration which you confess your self is not a denying him For you say that it is not a formal but a virtual denying him and that is truly no actual denying him for forma dat nomen esse Boys will deride you if you deny this If you object Paul's words Tit. 1. They confess him in words but in their works they deny him I answer that they denied him formally by their works For those works signified that their minds did not formally believe God to be God indeed according to his Essentialities 2. It is novelty and deceit to affirm and stoutly undertake to prove that the denying of one of the Propositions from which the Conclusion must arise is virtually a denying of both e. g. Whatever is Gods word is true but the story of Bell and the Dragon and of the Angel in Tobit saying he was the Son of Ananias of the Tribe of Naphthali and that the intrals of a Fish would drive away all Devils that they should never return c. are the word of God May not a man firmly believe the Major that taketh the Minor for a lie And suppose that the Roman Church say that I am obstinate my reasons are 1. Angels be not born of man 2. Christ saith This kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer c. so that I must take Christ for a lyar if I take not Tobit to be false may not I be obstinate in this and yet not deny that all the Word of God is true If the Manichees tell me that the Gospel of Nicodemus and of Saint Thomas is the word of God and the Papists that the Apostolical Canons and Constitutions and the Itinerary of Peter were written by Clemens is obstinate unbelief of this a denying that God is true Your sufficient proposal is that of your Church A General Council is your highest proposer with the Pope I find that the Council at Constance and Basil and Pisa say one thing and that at Lateran and Florence say the contrary and I obstinately refuse to believe them both may I not yet firmly believe that God is true you are not God And verily I have more reason to suspect you than God The Country-man that never read Councils nor travelled to Rome knoweth nothing of your matters but by his Parish-priest If he know this Priest to be a common whoremonger and lyar may he not suspect him without denying God But if you can prove what you undertake it is the sadder with you that can triumph in sentencing your selves as Hereticks to Hell e. g. Whatever is Gods word is true but it is Gods word that the Lords Supper should be administred in both kinds bread and wine This do in remembrance of me and that it is bread after the consecration 1 Cor. 11. and that it is better to pray in a known tongue than in an unknown 1 Cor. 14. and that they know not what manner of spirit they are of who would have the resisters of Christs Apostles and of Christ himself consumed with fire and that the Clergy must not Lord it over Gods heritage but as servants to all rule them willingly and not by constraint c. Ergo this is all true And whoever denieth this truth of God indirectly denieth Gods essence and maketh him a lyar But the Church of Rome denieth all these Doth it follow that the Church of Rome are Hereticks blasphemers and lyars And all this is sufficiently revealed for it is plainly written in the Word of God 3. Note Reader that such a contradiction of any truth revealed by God doth make a man an Heretick O then what abundance of Hereticks be in the world What one man can say that he doth not contradict some truth revealed by God by nature or Scripture or both Every mans mind and will is depraved and being so hath some degree of obstinacy in resisting some truth of God and so all men in the world as well as the obstinately erroneous Papists are Hereticks Not only Papists that will believe neither the Scripture Tradition Reason nor all mens senses that there is bread after Consecrations but any one that doth not believe who was the Father of Arphaxad e. g. or any point of Genealogy or of Chronology or differing Numbers in Kings and Chronicles Ezra and Nehemiah Mat. 1. and Luk. 3 c. Or that doth not believe that every word in Iudith Tobit c. are Gods word are all Hereticks and deniers of Gods Essence Nor doth he except any age of persons so that if a School-boy should but obstinately deny to believe his Master about a tradition or a Scripture-name or number he were a Heretick The Council of Basil revealeth the sinless conception of the Virgin Mary and yet the Papists that deny it are not accounted Hereticks And what shew is there of this consequence the Council of Ephesus 2. of Arminum of Lateran of Nice 2 of Florence of Constance Basil Trent may lie Ergo God is a lyar Hereticks should be softer in defining Heresie I next instanced What if a man deny that there is a Heaven Hell Resurrection and also the revelation of these and yet deny not the veracity of God no nor of the Church is this no Heretick He answereth No if not sufficiently propounded to him as revealed from God But that Proposition must be made by the Church and as long as he believeth the infallible veracity of the Church propounding he cannot disbelieve what it propoundeth sufficiently c. R. B. 1. But a man that doth not believe the Infallibility of the Church may believe Gods Veracity and yet be an Heretick 2. A Papist that holdeth your Church infallible may disbelieve what General Councils deliver as de fide for so you do So that this word Sufficient is as unintelligible among your selves as meer non-sense For even General Councils proposals are not accounted sufficient when you are against them and yet every Priest is when your turn requireth it 3. And many a man may take the Churches proposal to be certain and yet think that the Roman Church is but an erroneous faction and scarce a corrupt third
what is the notorious Tradition of all the Christian world I that search after it in all the books that I can get can scarce give a good account of the Tradition of much of the greater part of Christians Nay no Universal Tradition at all is notorious to most Christians much less to all the Heathens and Infidels on earth It is not notorious to most in England what is the Tradition of the Abassians Syrians Armenians Greeks no nor of the Italians French Spaniards Germans c. That is notorious to Scholars which is not so to the unlearned and to Antiquaries which is not so to other Scholars Here W. I. answereth two things 1. That to know some Laws of the Commonwealth is of importance to salvation 2. That God should have made a visible Government imprudently whose Governors could not be known but by revelation R. B. 1. And how comes importing to be put instead of necessity to salvation This is but fraud 2. It were worth our diligent enquiry could we prevail with these men to open to us this mystery How it is that the Pope and his Council may be known to be the supreme Governors of the world without revelation I will abate my Antagonists the answering of all the rest if they will but be intreated to answer me this one question It seems that it is by no promise of Christ no word of God no nor by any revelation of the Spirit or Miracles that we must know them to be our Governors I confess I can know without revelation that they claim such authority as any Traytor or Usurper may do but that they have such authority it is past my reach to conjecture which way it is to be proved without revelation But I intreat the Reader to remember this in all our further disputes with them That they confess that it is not by revelation by Scripture Spirit Miracles or Tradition made known that the Pope and his Council are the supreme Governors of the Universal Church And yet we must know this before we can believe in Christ or believe the Scripture to be true And we must know it of necessity to salvation And another difficulty here seemeth insuperable viz. Seeing this is not a matter of Revelation it can be no matter of Divine faith and if so how is all other faith resolved into it and how is the belief of this which is no belief called our implicite belief of all the word of God can no man be saved that cannot unriddle all these contradictions Next I further noted R. B. That if he lay the sufficiency on the respect to all mens various capacities of receiving the notice then they can never know who are Hereticks but if they lay it on a general publication then all or almost all men are Hereticks being unavoidably ignorant of many things so published To this he saith That he Judgeth of no mans conscience Ans. But do not they judg of them that burn them and depose Princes for not exterminating them He saith It is sufficient 1. that such as acknowledg themselves they know such points of faith to be propounded by the Roman Church which I infallibly believe to be the true Church and that notwithstanding reject them as errors give me ground to presume them to be Hereticks Ans. 1. I perceive that it is not the Pope only that is infallible but you also are infallible in believing his Church But alas how many are deceived and deceivers that call themselves infallible 2. But if your belief in the Pope were infallible must all others be hereticks and be burnt that have not attained to your degree of knowledg or self-conceitedness 3. Just now you said the Governours of the Church need no revelation to make them known and now it is an article of your belief That the Roman Church is the true Church so slippery is your foundation 4. But what meaneth that hard word The true Church Is it not enough if it were proved a true Church Either you mean the universal Church or a particular Church if the former why speak you so sneakingly and did not speak out that the Roman Church is all the whole Church that Christ hath on earth Which assertion we abhor and despair of any thing like a proof of it If the latter what is it to us whether Rome be a true Church any more than whether Ephesus Thessalonica or such other be so 5. But to leave your parenthesis what 's all this to the most of the Christian world that do not acknowledg themselves that they know such points of faith to be propounded by the Church of Rome There is not one of five hundred among us that ever read your Councils nor knoweth one of many things propounded by you to be such And are all these now absolved from heresie How long will that be their security if the burning and exterminating Religion should prevail And is it my hard fate to become a Heretick more than all the rest of my neighbours because I have read your Councils when they have not Then I would counsel all that love not to be burned to take heed of medling with such Councils I have oft read how dangerous a thing you judg it for unlicensed men to read Gods word and of many that have been burned for it and its consequents and how you account it the way to Heresie But I have not oft before read how dangerous it is to read your Decrees or to know all that the Church of Rome propoundeth for he that knoweth them all must have a very ready commandable faith such as can believe in despight of Sense Reason Scripture and Tradition to escape the guilt of Heresie But I pray you were you not inexorable executioners when it cometh next to the burning of Dissenters that you will spare all that confess not that they know what is propounded by your Church yea though they take not their parish-priest that tells it them to be infallible especially if they know him to be a common lyar or one that holds that lying for mens good is a venial sin or none W. I. 2. Such as oppose what all visible Churches have most notoriously practised and believed as Divine truths while they were so universally taught and practised I may safely presume to be Hereticks R. B. 1. No Oâ—…dipus can tell whether while here refer to believed or to oppose If to the latter then neither Abassines Armenians Greeks or Protestants are Hereticks for they oppose not such points while they were so universally taught and practised whatever their forefathers did for they have themselves so many partners as derogates from the pretended Universality of the Adversaries But if by all the visible Church you mean all except themselves or if the word while relate to believe then the Church of Rome are characterized by you for certain Hereticks for I defie impudence it self in challenging it to deny that the Universal
deny the Popes Soveraignty and that as by tradition And how lame their tradition is which is carried but by their private affirmation and is but the unproved saying of a Sect. To this he saith W. J. That this belongs to our Controversie and not to the explication of our terms And so I must pass it by R. B. Q. 2. What proof or notice must satisfie as in particulars what is true tradition W. J. Such as with proportion is a sufficient proof or notice of the Laws and Customs of temporal Kingdoms R. B. But you durst not tell us what that is that is proportionable This was answered before I added Is it necessary for every Christian to be able to weigh the credit of contradicting-parties When one half of the world say one thing and the other another thing what opportunity have ordinary Christians to compare them and discern the moral advantages on each side As in the case of the Popes Soveraignty when two or three parts are against it and the rest for it Doth salvation lye on this W. J. As much as they have to know which books are and which are not Canonical Scripture among those that are in controversie R. B. That these books were sent to the Churches from the Apostles 1. Is a matter of fact 2. And an assertion easily remembred 3. And all the Churches are agreed of all that we take as Caâ—…cal 4. And yet men that practically believe but the Creed and Summaries of Religion shall certainly be saved though they erroneously doubted of some of the uncontroverted books as Chronicles Esther Canticles c. much more that receive not the controverted Apocrypha But 1. Your Traditions in question are many particulars hard for to be remembred 2. And that of matter of faith and fact where a word forgotten or altered changeth the thing 3. And most Christians in the world are against it 4. And you would lay the peoples salvation on it yea and make it one of your cheating quibbles to prove your religion safer than ours because some Protestants say a Papist may be saved but you say that Protestants cannot be saved that is because you have less sincerity and charity Is not here difference enough If you hold that all they are damned that believed not that all the Apocryphal books were Canonical peruse Bishop Cousins Catalogue of Councils and Fathers that received them not and see whether you damn not almost all the Church But if you confess that there is no more necessity to salvation for men to be the subjects of your Pope than there is that they try all the Apocrypha whether it be Canonical and know it why then do you found your belief that Christ is the Son of God upon your forebelieving that the Pope is his Vicar or your Church his Church And why do you make such a stir in the world to affright poor people to believe and be subject to your Pope I here asked him Must all the people here take the words of their present Teacher And he durst not answer yea or nay but as much as they do for the determination of Canonical Scriptures Ans. If it be no more it giveth them no certainty but by the belief of one man as a Teacher they are brougâ—…â—…o â—…cern themselves those notifying evidences by which the Teacher himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 books are 〈◊〉 And if they attain no higher than to believe fide Dâ—… the 〈◊〉 Doctrines the doubting or ignorance of some texts or books will not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Scripture that impress of Divine authority which to a prepared heaâ—… oâ—… reader will 〈◊〉 convince him that they are of God though not râ—…e him of every particular Text and Book R. B. Then most of the world must believe against you because most of the teachers are against you Tradition quite â—…eth Pâ—…er W. J. There is no Congregation of Christians united in the same profession of faith external Communion and dependance of Pastors which is contrary in belief â—…o 〈◊〉 any way to be parallel with us in extent and multitude Prove there is and name it All our adversaries together are a patcht body of a thousand different professions and as much adversaries one to another as they are to us the one justifying us in that wherein the other condemn us so that no beed is to be taken to their testimonies non sunt convenientia R B. They agree not with your interest But if the Testimonies and Tradition of two or three parts of the Christian world be not to be heeded I doubt the testimony of your third or fourth part will prove much less regardable Let us try the case for here you are utterly confounded 1 Indeed none that our ordinary language calleth a Congregation that is men that meet locally together are so big as all your party But a Church far better united than you are is far greater than yours Those that have all the Essentials of the one Church of Christ are that one Church of Christ But the Reformed Churches the Greeks Armenians Abassines Syrians Iacobites Georgians Copties c. have all the Essentials of the one Church of Christ Therefore they are that one Church of Christ. The Major is undeniable The Minor is thus proved They that hold the same Head of the Church believing in the same God the Father Son and â—…ly Gâ—…st and are devoted to him in the same Baptismal Covenant and believe all the Articles of faith desire and practice essential to Christianity in the Creed Lords-prayer and Decalogue and receiâ—…e all the â—…re as Gods â—…ord which iâ—…â—…y here received by us as Canonical these have all the â—…ls of the one Church of Christ and much more But such are all the forementioned Christians Ergo c. The Head and the Body are the constitutive parts of the Church The Head is Christ the Body are Christians 1. They are united in the same profession of faith viz. the same Baptism â—…reed and Scriptures 2. They are united in the same external communion if you mean external worship of God in all the Essentials of it and much more They have the same Scriptures read and 〈◊〉 they preach the same Gospel they use the same Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace viz. Baptism and the Lords Supper yea they are commonly for some Confirmation Ordination 〈◊〉 of penitence and absolution of Pâ—…nitents Matrimony c. though they agree not whether the name of Sacraments be fit for them all much less Sacraments of the Coveâ—… Grace they observe the same Lords day for publick worship they pray confess sin give thanks and praises to God and hold the communion of Saints and communication to each other in want This is their external communion 3. They have the same depenâ—… of the people on their Pastors as the Ministers of Christ authorized to 〈◊〉 and guide the Churches and to go before them in the publick worshipping of God But if
you mean that they have not the same extâ—… communion of Pastors in dependance on one as the 〈◊〉 Pastor or Governour of all the rest indeed there is none such but you For it is in that that they differ from you Reader is not here an excellent Disputer I affirm that the judgment of most of the Christian world is against the Papists in the point of an Universal Head or Governour of all Churches He saith that no one party which is for an Universal Governour and yet is against an Universal Governour is so big as their party I grant it Had they all dependance on one as an Universal Governour they were not against on Universal Governour The Abassines have one Abuna but he claimeth no Universal Government The Armenians have their Catholick Bishop but he claimeth no Universal power The Greeks have their Patriarch at Constantinople but he pretendeth not to govern all the World We are all against any Head of the whole Church on Earth but Christ and therefore are united under no other You say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 patcht body of a thousand different professions c. Ans Reproach not the Body of Christ they are far more united than your Church as Papal Are not the seâ—…en points of 〈◊〉 mentioned by Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4 5 6 7 as good as yours 1. They have one â—…ead that never â—…arieth and whom all receive you have a Head rejected by most Christians and oft turn'd into two or three Heads one saying I am the Head and another I am the Head and setting the world in blood and contention to try it out which of them shall get the better as your forty years Schisms shewed 2. Therefore this Church which you reproach as patcht is but one But yours is really many and not one specifically as well as oft numerically when there were two or three Popes you had two or three Churches For it is the pars imperans that individuateth the Society And de specie you are still three Churches as holding three several heads one holdeth the Pope to be the Head another a Council and a third the Pope and Council agreeing And these Heads have oft condemned and deposed one another Councils namned Popes as Hereticks Infidels Simonists Murderers Adulterers and Popes accused Councils of schism and rebellion at least And to this day there is no certainty which were true Popes nor which were true Councils some being called by you Reprobate because they pleased not the Popes and some approved But our Head of the Church is not thus divided nor schismatical 3 Our common faith is still the same and its rule the same but yours is mutable by new additions as long Councils will make new Decrees and no man can tell when you have all and your faith is come to its full stature Nay and your Decrees which are your rule of faith are so many and obscure that you are not agreed your selves in the number or the meaning of them 4. It is a notorious truth that all these Churches which you say have a thousand professions as they all agree in one Christian profession so do less differ among themselves than your seemingly united Church doth with it self whether you respect the number or the weight of differences 1. For the Number sint libri judices all the Christian World besides hath not so many nor I think half so many Volumes of Controversies as your Writers have written against one another as far as is come to the notice of this part of the World 2. And for the Weight 1. I have shewed that you are divided in your very Fundamentals the Supremacy you confess here that your Church is not at all agreed what the Christian faith is or who is a Christian some say he that believeth the Church and that God is a rewarder others say a Christian must believe in Christ c. 2. Your Commentators differ about the sense of hundreds or thousands of Texts of Gods own word 3. Your Disputers about Grace and Free-will accuse one the other of making God the cause of Sin and of denying the Grace of God 4. Your Moralists differ about many instances of Excommunicating Kings and then killing them and of the Popes power to depose them and of perjury lying murder adultery fornication false witness yea about loving God himself whether it be necessary to love him once a year or whether attrition that is repentance from bare fear with penance may not serve turn to Salvation with abundance such And we confess that other Christians have their differences And what wonder while they are so imperfect in knowledg and all grace And now if Concord or Discord must tell us whose Tradition or Judgment is most regardable let the Impartial judg whether the moâ—…â—…egardable Tradition of the far greatest part of the Church be not against you and whether your reproaching them for discord condemn not your selves much more than them If a subject should stile himself the Kings Vicegerent and claim much of his Prerogative without his Commission and a third part of the Kingdom should unite in receiving and obeying him and have otherwise a thousand contentions among them Qu. Whether these or the rest of the Kingdom were the more and better united When I next questioned Whether the vulgar that know not Councils resolve not their faith into the belief of the Parish-priest he saith no. And saith That the Priest is but the means by whom we come to believe and tells us that else we know not whether there were any Christians 500 years ago c. Ans. But if they will be content with Ministerial teaching and Historical proof of things past we would not differ from them we do not only assert these as well as they but we say that as we have sounder teaching so we have far better Historical Tradition of our faith than that which dependeth on a pretended fanâ—…tick Infallibility or authority of their Pope and Sect even the Historical Tradition of the whole Christian World and of many of the enemies themselves CHAP. VI. What mean you by a GENERAL COUNCIL W. I. A General Council I take to be an Assembly of Bishops and other chief Prelates called convened confirmed by those who have sufficient spiritual authority to call convene and confirm it R. B. Here is nothing still but flying and hiding his cause is such that he dare not answer Note that 1. Here is no mention of what extent it must be at all whether these Prelates must be sent from all the Christian world or whence The least Provincial Council that ever was called may be a General Council by this description 2. He tells us of other chief Prelates and yet never tells what sort of things he meaneth by chief Prelates that are no Bishops And when he hath told us doubtless he will never prove nor I hope affirm that any such Prelates are of Christs institution And if the
Church 6. Christ himself washed his Apostles Feet and taught them to do the like which was used in those hot Countries where it was a needful Act of Ministry but yet it is not essential to the Church 7. Baptism from the beginning as Instituted by Christ was Administred by dipping over Head in Water but you take not that to be essential to the Church 8. The Lord's Day 's holy Observation as Instituted by Christ and his Apostles hath ever been in the Church and yet many of your Doctors do equal it with other Holy Days and make it not essential to the Church 9. Christ and his Apostles distinguish Essentials from Integrals and Accidents in their time therefore they are still to be distinguished And it is a strange Society that hath not ever had Integrals and Accidents Christ Instituting Baptism saith He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved Thus the Essentials Yet he saith Teach them to observe all things whatever I have Commanded you But all those are not Essentials for Christ himself distinguished Tything Mint Annise and Cummin from the great things of the Law And yet saith These ought ye to have done And St. Paul saith The Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink but Righteousness and Peace and Ioy in the Holy Ghost c. And yet more than these were then a Duty All things were to be done decently and in order And yet who ever said but you that all this is essential to the Church Christ by his Apostles instituted that Collections for the Poor should be made on the first Day of the Week yet is not that essential to the Church 10. Afflictions are Accidents of the Church and of Christ's appointment and have been ever there and yet are not essential to it 11. All the numbers of Christians and the higher Degrees of Gifts and Grace have been of Christ and ever in the Church and yet it is not essential to it that Christians be just as many as they have been or of such measures of Gifts and Grace for even Perfection is a Duty 12. Few of your own do think that extreme Unction is essential to the Church and that if it ceased it would be no Church The like may be said of many other things But see how these Men Unchurch themselves For if this be true then the Church of Rome can be no true Church For it hath cast off that which they call Essential Were it but the Cup in the Lords Supper and Publick Prayers in a Known Tongue the change hath Unchurched them These Consequents fall on them that will Unchurch most of the Church of Christ. But Page 55 56. he saith That he doth not say that every such thing must be necessarily believed by every Member No not the belief of the Pope's Supremacy but to such only to whom they are sufficiently propounded Answ. 1. And yet these Men tell our People to affright them That they cannot be saved out of their Church or in our Religion And now it is not essential to believe the Pope's Supremacy 2. But who can ever know what will pass for a sufficient propounding while twenty degrees of Mens Capacities make twenty degrees of Proposal respectively sufficient what Man of Reason can believe that such self-confuting Disputes as yours are a sufficient Proposal of the Pope's Supremacy And sure the Christian Empire of Abassia then had no sufficient Proposal when but lately your Emissaries told them that they never heard from the Pope till now because he could not have access or send to them Q. Whether that Empire be true Christians through so many Ages seeing they received not the Scriptures on the Authoritative Proposal of the Pope or Papal Church and yet confessedly were never bound to believe the Pope's Supremacy 3. By this account all Christians essentially differ from each other in their Religion and Christianity is a word of such monstrous ambiguity that it signifieth as many several Religions as there be persons in the World whose divers Capacities maketh diversity of proposal become necessary or sufficient to them But he saith that these are all essential to the Church though not to the several Members More difficulties still 1. How shall we ever know the Church this way If the belief of the Popes Supremacy be essential to some and only to some how many must they be that so believe Will one serve or one thousand to make all the rest Church-Members that believe it not Or how many will this Leven extend to Why then may not the belief of Italy prove all the World to be the Church 2. How cometh another mans belief to be of such saving use to others If you say that it is not his belief but their own who believe not then all the World is of your Church that want sufficient proposal And Unbelievers are Christians or of the Christian Church so be it they never heard of Christ and so all the unknown World and Americans and most of the Heathens are of your Christian Church And why may not the Pope be saved then without believing his own Supremacy I verily think that there is not one Pope of twenty that believeth his own Infallibility Doubtless some illiterate or ill-bred Popes have had but very defective Proposals of their own Supremacy it being rather affirmed by Flatteries than ever proved to them Pag. 57. Having first called for sense in my words because the Printer had put as for is he turneth his former assertion whatever hath been ever in the Church by Christs institution is essential to it into another Because Christ hath instituted that it should be for ever in the Church it is essential And this yet more plainly shameth the asserter than the former For no man can deny but that Christ hath instituted 1. That every word of the Canonical Scripture should be ever after its existence in the Church 2. And that no Ministers should preach any thing but truth in the Church 3. And that no man should commit any sin at all 4. And that the Eucharist be delivered in both kinds in remembrance of Christ till he come c. And yet sure all this is not essential to the Church Pag 58. He would perswade me that I miscite Fr. Sta. Clara and that he saith not that Infidels may be saved but only those that have not an explicite Faith in Christ through invincible ignorance and that he saith not that it is most of the Doctors Opinions nor that any may be saved who are out of the Church and that my Friends will be sorry to see me so defective in my Citations and he hopes I will mend it in the next Ans. That I will if plain words transcribed be any amending but I cannot amend your deceitful dealing 1. I did not say that Sta. Clara saith They may be saved out of the Church but that such are in your Church and so may be saved who indeed are no
Iudgments which he executeth Psal. 9. So all things and power now are given unto Christ and he judgeth the World as Lord of all For the Father judgeth no Man but hath committed all Iudgment to the Son Joh. 5. 22. 7. He denyeth Christ's final visible Judgment if he hold strictly to his words That the Exercise of Christ's Pastorship is only in spiritual Influences and internal Graces If you say that some of my Instances are not of his Pastoral but his Regal Offices I answer that it is but some that you so except 2. It is a mistake because his Pastoral and Regal Office are one and the same indeed not two Offices but two inadequate Metaphorical conceptions of one and the same Office of Christ And it belongeth to the Pastor to provide Food for his Flock to govern them to fetch them home and to defend them and destroy the Wolves He saith all that is visible is done by visible pastors and all that is invisible by Christ in the Pastoral Function as if Christ did nothing which they do or no more than they do And he reproacheth Christ's Church as being a Monster unless it have some other visible Head Like Cardinal Bertrand see his words in his Book in Biblioth Patrum that saith God had not been wise if he had not made one Universal Monarch over all the World And when we have fully proved that a mere Humane visible Church-Governour over all the round Earth is impossible and such Power never was deputed by Christ to any and that the far greatest part of the Church never owneth or did own such Will it not then follow that his reproach of Christ's Church and Government is unjust and rash And would it not follow by the same reason that the Earth as Gods Kingdom which Christ also is the King of is a Monster being a visible Body unless it had one mere Humane visible Head Are not Men as Men and governable by the Sword as visible as Men as Christians and governable by the Word and Keys If so which is undeniable Why is the Christian World any more a Monster without a Monarch Bishop than the Humane World without a Monarch King But pag. 66 67. he asks Whether Christ performed immediately any visible Action in relation to the Church and saith Men will expect that I shew that Christ not in his Person but in the Exercise of his Pastoral Headship works visibly by himself Answ. If it be not the Person 's Visibility that you require but the Action that is considered either as it is Agentis or as in Passâ—… in the Receiver The former is seen if ever only when it is the seen Moâ—…us of a Body If the latter I have named you divers visible Acts of Christ. But why must immediate come in Doth not my hand write visibly unless I do it without a Pen How little Government do great Emperours exercise immediately in all their Empire even none in the far greatest part in all their Lives but give out their Laws and Mandates to others What Government hath your Pope exercised immediately in Abassia Armenia Tartary Persia yea or Mexico much less at the terra australis incognita and all that side of the Earth which Lactantius Augustine c. denyed He confesseth that he cited not Ephes. 4. to prove the Papacie but successive Pastors Reader think seriously 1. whether the Pope be not an invisible Head and his Church a Monster by this mans rules Doth he rule all his Church immediately or by others If by others doth not Christ do so and better And was Pope Zachary the visible Head at the Antipodes when he commanded Boniface to excommunicate Vigilius for holding such a World under us as we call the Antipodes And is this Pope a capable Head of all the World that denyeth the very Being of them and holdeth that there is no such thing as so great a part of it O what a Pastor or Apostle is this that excommunicateth men for affirming the existence of the charge which he undertaketh The Answer to W. J's second-Chapter Whereas W. I. would perswade men that it is first incumbent on us to prove where there hath been a Church in all Ages without the Roman Papacie I first evidenced that it is incumbent on them as having the Affirmative to prove that the Universal Church hath been headed by the Pope in all Ages For 1. our Religion is nothing but Christianity as such And this they confess hath been in all Ages since Christs and Churches professing it so that all our Religion being past Controversie between us and them which is still to be noted we have no need to prove that which is not denyed who denyeth that there have been Christian Churches But it is their addition of the Papal Soveraignty over the Universal Church which is denyed by us and must be proved by them according to the common Rules of Disputation 2. And the denyal of their addition is the Renunciative Consequence and no direct and proper part of our Positive Religion True Faith is one thing and the Renunciation of all Errors contrary to it is another thing The one is such as may be defined the other in particulars hath no bounds I can soon say that There is one God the Father Almighty c. and in general that I deny any other but if I will undertake to name them all that are worshipped as Gods and say e. g. Sathan Iupiter Sol c. are no Gods I can never know when I have done and this is but a consequent of my Faith so it is to believe that Mahomet Amida Zachea c. are no Saviours Now if any would bid me prove Where there hath been Church in all Ages that did renounce Arrianism Macedonianism Nestorians Eutychians Monotheliâ—…es c. I cannot prove that any did expresly renounce these before they were known in the World and yet Christianity was the same Religion of the Church without any change before and after So W. I's demand upon his Plea of present possession is as if he should say The man of seventy years of Age which is now gray-headed and lame was ever so Or the Church which now honoureth St. Martin St. Thomas Aquinas as Saints is the true Church of Christ And if you cannot shew us that your Church hath in all Ages so honoured St. Martin c. you are not the true Church of Christ. What if it had been The Church that keepeth Easter-day as now we do and Christmas day on the 25th of December is the true Church of Christ therefore you must prove that your Church hath ever done so Could they prove their Papacy in the Empire as old it would have the same answer viz. It was but a part of the Church and not the whole that kept Easter and Christmas as we do now for one part kept Easter on another day till the Nicene Council ended that Controversie in the East and Christmas-day
Virgin Mary and yet you take it for a controversie c. are these as sufficiently proposed as that there is a God or Christ 3. When Petavius citeth the words of most of the Doctors or Fathers that wrote before the Council of Nice and of Eusebius himself that was of the Council and subscribed it as being for Arrianisme or dangerously favouring it did all these Fathers think that the proposal of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was as sufficient as of a God or Christ. § 15. He taketh upon him to clear his Argument by two deluding instances which suppose an equality in the revelation But he that knoweth not 1 that it was long before all the Canonical books were equally known to be Gods word 2. And that yet it is not equally certain what Councils are true and what Traditions 3. And that there is great difference between one Text of Scripture and another in intelligible places else why do their Expositions so disagree yea of Councils too 4. And that the Hereticks have still pleaded Scripture and Tradition and Councils as well as the Orthodox as the Eutychians c. did the Council of Nice all equally professing to believe Scripture Tradition and true Councils but not equally understanding them I say he that knoweth not all this knoweth not the matters of Fact which should be known in this Dispute But how he will excuse the Papists from Heresie by his Reasoning I know not e. g. Christ Instituting his Supper saith equally 1. This is my Body and This is the New Testament 2. And equally saith Take Eat and Drink this The Papists 1. Do not believe that literally this Cup is the New Testament though equally said 2. Nor do they believe that they must Drink of it though equally Commanded Ergo by W. I's Arguing The Papists believe not that the Bread is literally Christs Body or that it must be Eaten because of Christs Truth or Authority that spake it else they would have believed both § 16. He addeth a Supposition like the rest that a Calvinist is assured that the Pope is not the Antichrist by the same Authority which he acknowledgeth to be the sufficient proposer of the Articles of his Faith And yet here may lie one of his usual Equivocations The Authority of the Author and prime Revealer of the Gospel is one and the Authority of the prime Instrumental Revealers is another The first is Gods the second is the Prophets and Apostles Tell us where either of these say that the Pope it not Antichrist But the Authority of a distant Messenger and Teacher is of a third rank A Drunken or Fornicating Priest may be such a Messenger or Teacher and may give an Infidel those Reasons of the Faith which by Gods Blessing may bring him to Believe And it is possible such a Priest and a Synod of such may say that the Pope is not Antichrist and another Synod may say he is § 17. I came next to Answer a question of his own Whether I take the Church of Rome and the Protestants to be one Church I Answered that They have two Heads and We but one As they are meer Christians united in Christ they are one Church with us as Papists united in the Pope they are not And if any so hold the Papacy as not really to hold Christianity those are not of the Christian Church with us otherwise they are though a Corrupt Diseased Erroneous part To this he saith who ever called a King and his Viceroy a Captain and Lieutenant two Heads The Pope is a dependent Officer Answ. 1. But if you distinguish between a Visible Head and an Invisible and say that the Pope only is the Visible Head of the Church as Visible and that Christ is only the Invisible Head by Influx and that it were a Monstrous Body if it had not such a Visible Head as you do 2. And if this Visible Head be an Usurpation never owned by Christ then I have reason to distinguish the Policy which is of Gods making from that which is an Usurpation and of Mens relations accordingly If any King should say I am a Vice-God or Gods Viceroy to Govern all the Earth â—…nd that by Gods Appointment and none can be saved that Obey me not I would distinguish between the World or particular Persons as Gods Subjects and as this Vice-Gods Subjects § 18. But he saith Is it possible for two Persons to be Papists and one to destroy his Christianity and the other not Answ. Yes very possible and common That is one holdeth those Errors which by consequence subvert some Article of the Christian Faith but as to the Words not understood or not understanding the consequences or only speculatively and at the same time holdeth the subverted Articles not discerning the contradiction fastly and practically another doth the contrary Even as a Monothelite or a Nestorian or Eutychian may either be one that only as to the Words or superficially erreth and in sence or practically holds the Truth or one that is contrary This should seem no strange thing to you for even a Man that professeth only Christianity may do it but Nomine tenus not understanding it or superficially and not practically and be no true Christian indeed § 19. When I exprest my hope that even he and I as Christians are of one Church he will not believe it 1. Because I am of a Church by my self neither of theirs nor any other part 2. Because I have no Faith Answ. It seems then that meer Christianity is no Faith and that there are none of the meer Christian Church but I. But who will believe the latter and when will he prove either An Answer to W. J's Seventh CHAPTER § 1. TO his Question Why we separated from them I Answered that as they are Christians we separate not from them As Papists we were never of them but our Fore-fathers thought Repentance of Sin to be no Sin If by Popery they separate from Christianity they are damnable Separatists if they do not we are of the same Church whether they will or not 〈◊〉 To this he saith That We separate from them as much as the Pelagians Donatists Acacians Luciferians Nestorians and Eutychians did from the Church Answ. 1. The Doctrinal Errors and the Separation are of different consideration The Pelagians Erred as some Dominicans say the Iesuites do The Donatists like the Papists appropriated the Church to their own Bishops and Party we do none of this Lucifer Calaritanus was too Zealous against the Arrians not communicating with them upon so short Repentance as others did But they went not so far as Crab saith the Roman Council in Sylvester's dayâ—… did that Received no Repentance before forty Years Nor so far as the honest Elebertine Council in the number of Years of Mens exclusion from the Communion I take Lucifer for Erroneous and Schismatical but not comparable to the Papists who err far more and yet separate from most of the
the Arrians yea and of Marcian Leo Zeno Anastaslus Iustine almost all the Churches of the Empire continued charging each others with Heresie and Councils charging and condemning Councils Bishops deposing and cursing Bishops and Monks as their Souldiers fighting it out to blood when the obeying or cursing the Council of Calcedon divided the Bishops for many Princes reigns and when one part called the other Nestorians and the other called them Eutychians almost every where and when after that the Monothelites cause was in many Emperors Reign uppermost one while and down another and navicula Petri that alone scaped before was thus drowned by Honorius if Councils belie him not and Popes with the rest When the very same Bishops as at Ephesus and Calcedon went one way in one Council and another way in the next and subscribed to one Edict e. g. of Basiliscus and quickly to the contrary of another and cryed 〈◊〉 we did it through fear How should we then know by Fathers Bishops and Councils what was their concordant Commentary of the Scripture 4. I ask you what exposition of the Universal Church is it that we profess to differ from for our novelties name them if you can Either by the Universal Church you mean properly all Christians or most If All alas when and where shall we find their agreement in any more than we hold with them If most do we not know that the most two parts to one are against the Popes Sovereignty which is Essential to your Church Do not the Greeks once a year excommunicate or curse you To tell us now That above two parts of the Christian world are none of the Church because they differ from the Universal Church and that the third part is that Universal which he that believeth not is no Christian are words that deserve indignation and not belief and without the medium of Swords and Flames and tormenting inquisitions on one side and great Bishopricks and Abbies Wealth Ease and Domination on the other had long ago been scorned out of the Christian world § 10. But he also denyeth that we believe with a saving divine faith any of the said mysteries and that our Profession general and particular affirmeth it Answ. It 's like the Devil the Accuser of the brethren will deny it too of our Hearts we will not enter a dispute of our Professions let our books be witnesses Reader canst thou believe that we profess not to believe any Christian verity with a Divine faith yea but the man meaneth that it is not a Divine faith if it be not from the beleif of the Pope and his Party And how then shall we believe the Popes own authority § 11. II. My ad Argument to prove that we hold all the Essentials of Christianity was Those that profess as much and much more of the Christian Faith and Religion as the Catechumens were ordinarily taught in the ancient Churches and the Competentes at Baptisme did profess do profess the true Christian Religion in all it's Essentials but so do the Protestants c. To this he calls for Form again as if here were no Universal and then denyeth the Major but his words shew that indeed it is the Minor Because the Catechumens professed to believe implicitly all that was taught as matter of Faith by the Catholick Church in that Article I believe the Holy Church which the Protestants do not Answ. An unproved fiction on both parts 1. Shew us in Fathers Councils or any true Church-Records that Catechumens were then used to make any other exposition of those words than we do Did they ever profess that a Pope or a General Council cannot erre de fide did they not call many of those Councils General though violent and erroneous which they cursed The great doubt then was which party was the true Church and Christians then judged not of Faith by the Church-men but of the Church by the Faith else they had not so oft rejected and Hereticated many Popes Patriarches and the farre greater part of the Bishops as they did 2. And Protestants deny no article which ab omnibus ubique et semper as Lerinens speaks was accounted necessary to â—…ation yea it is one reason why they cannot be Papists because most of the Catholick Church are against the Papacy and all were against it or without it for many hundred Years after Christ. Let the Reader peruse Cyril Hieros Catech. August and all others that give us an account of the Churches Catechism and see whether he can find in it I believe that the Bishop of Rome is made by Christ the Governour of all the World and is Infallible in himself or with his Council and that we must believe all that they say is the Word of God because they say it or else we cannot be saved But it is an easie way to become the Lords of all the World if they can perswade all Men to believe that none but their Subjects can be saved 3. And what an useless thing to they make Gods Word that they may set up their own Expositions in its stead We know that the Word supposeth that the Ignorant must have Teachers Without Teaching Children cannot so much as learn to Speak And Oportet discentem credere fide humanâ that is he must suppose his Teacher wiser than himself or else how can he judge him fit to Teach him But what is Teaching but Teaching the Learner to know the same things that the Teacher doth by the same Evidence Is it only to know what the Teacher holdeth without knowing why If so must we know it by Word or Writing If by Word only when and where shall every Man and Woman come to be Catechized by the Universal Church That is by all the Christian World Or is every Priest the Universal Church Or is he Infallible And how come Words spoken to be more intelligible than words written Doth writing make them unintelligible Why then are their Councils and Commentaries written But if Writing will serve why not God's writing as well as theirs If God say Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart Are not these words intelligible till a Pope Expound them When the Pope permitted his Casuists to expound them so as that Loving God once a Moneth or once a Year will serve for Salvation and that Attrition which is Repeating only out of Fear with the Sacrament of Penance will also serve Cannot a Man be saved that Believeth Repenteth and Loveth God upon the bare Commands of God and Scripture without hearing what all the Christian World or Councils say If I make to my self no Graven Image so as to bow down and Worship towards it by virtue of the second Commandment will this damn me because I receive not the Papists obliteration or contradiction of this Commandment as an Exposition If all the Docrees of Councils be as necessary as the Creed and Scripture why were not the Councils read in the
Church still three hundred Years before there was any General Council as well as the Scriptures And why do not Hierome Chrysostome Augustine c. Exhort Meâ—… and Women to read the Councils as much as the Scriptures At least methinks you should allow the Scripture an Equality with Councils But if God have spoken that which is nonsence or unintelligible till Councils or lopes Expound it Scripture is far from having such Equality Then Paul and Peter spake not intelligibly but P. Paul 4 and 5. and the Council of Trent did Then Councils may save them that know not Scripture but Scripture cannot save them that know not the Councils And do all the Papists Men and Women know the Councils In short If a Tyrannical Sect of Priests can get this Monopoly or Peculiar of expounding all Gods Laws and Word so that the Scripture will not save any but by their Expositions it will become more the word of the Pope or Council than of God And when all is done every Priest must be the pope and Council to us that never saw them and must be the immediate Object of our Infallible belief And if the Pope can so communicate to so great a swarm the sweetness of participating in his Universal Dominion and Infallibility no wonder if Self-love bid them serve his Usurpation But by that time every Woman must be sure 1. That the Pope is Christs Vicar General indeed 2. That with a Council he is Infallible 3. And that Gods Revelation must be received only on this Deliverers Authority 4. And the sence of all on his Exposition 5. And know how Men believed the first three hundred Years before such Popes or Councils ever were 6. And can tell certainly which Councils be true and which false and which of them must be believed and which not 7. And is sure that every Priest doth Infallibly Report all this to her 8. And doth give a true Exposition of each Council before another Council do Expound them 9. And be sure that she hath all that those Councils have made necessary and have not had a sufficient proposal of more I say by that time all this certainty be attained the Popish Faith will appear to be harder work than they think that hear Deceivers say Believe as the Church believeth and you shall be saved Judge how far the Pope Exalteth himself above God when it is thus confidently told us That we nor no Men believe with a Divine and Saving Faith any one word of God if we believe it meerly because God hath given it us in the Sealed Scriptures and add not the Expositions of the Papal Church § 12. My next Argument was Those that explicitely profess the belief of all that was contained in the Churches Creeds for six hundred Years after Christ and much more Holy truth and implicitely to believe all that is contained in the Holy Scriptures and to be willing and diligent for the explicite knowledge of all the rest with a resolution to Obey all the will of God which they know do profess the true Christian Religion in all its Essentials But so do the Protestants c. Here again the Formalist wants Form An Enumeration of particulars in a Description is not equal to an Universal with him unless he read All. And then he denyeth the Major 1. Because our General Profession is contradicted in particulars Answ. 1. Bare Accusation without Proof is more easie than honest 2. There is a contradiction direct and understood which proveth that the Truth is not believed and a contradiction by consequence not understood which stands with a belief of the Truth The latter all Men in the World have that have any Moral Error 3. O what self-condemning Men are these How certainly hath a Papist no true Faith if abundance of contrary Errors nullifie Faith His second Reason is You distinguish not between implicitely contained in general Principles and explicitely contained in the Creed and Scriptures Answ. A very Logical Answer To what purpose should I do it His third is the strength Creeds and Scriptures are not enough Traditions and General Councils in matters of Faith must be believed Answ. 1. I would matters of Practice were more at Liberty that Princes were not bound to Murder or exterminate all their Subjects as Hereticks that will not be Hereticks and inhumane and to Rebel perfidiously against those Princes that are Sentenced by his Holiness for not doing it 2. Alas who can be saved on these Mens terms If the belief of all the Creeds and all the Scriptures be not a Faith big enough to save him And yet perhaps you may hear again that Men may be saved without any of all this save believing that there is a Rewarding God and that the Pope and his Subjects are the Infallible Church Universal And it is but proving an insufficient proposal and we are delivered from Traditions Councils Scriptures Creeds and all And never was the proposal of Councils more insufficient than when Councils were most frequent when in the Reign of Constantius Valens Valentinian Theodosius Arcadius and Honorius good Theodosius junior Marcian Leo Zeno Anastasius Iustin Iustinian and long after Anathematizing one General Council and crying up another and setting Council against Council was too much of the Religion of those times 4. Again he denyeth that Protestants not excused by Invincible Ignorance believe any Article with a Saving Faith Answ. Easie Disputing Cannot a Quaker say so too by us and you But how unhappy a thing is Knowledge then and how blessed a thing is Invincible Ignorance which may prevent so many Mens Damnation § 13. I proved the Major by the express Testimony of many Papists ad hominem To which he saith It is to no purpose For our Question is not of what is to be believed expresly only but of what is to be believed both expresly and implicitely of all Christians respectively Answ. Reader Judge with what Ingenuity these Men Dispute And how they make nothing of giving up all their cause and yet Cant on with any of the most senseless words He had largely enough told us before that the belief of General Truths explicitely is the Implicite belief of the contained particulars though unknown to the Believer I am now proving that Protestants explicite Faith leaveth out no Article necessary to be explicitely believed To this end I cite Bellarmine and Costerus and after many others consessing what I say in plainest words even the sufficiency of our enumeration He denyeth none of my proof as to explicite belief And do we need any more Is not all that which he calleth explicite belief the meer denomination of the Explicite from the particulars implyed in it Can any Man want an Implicite belief that wanteth no Explicite belief If I am not bound explicitely to believe that the Pope and his Council is the Universal Church or the Infallible deliverer of Traditions or Expounder of Scripture or my rightful Governours how am I
sincerity but the very Being of them is the Papists confutation of us § 18. Secondly I proved it from our knowledge and sense of our own Acts. When I know and feelmy Love shall I believe a Pope that never saw me that tells me I do not know or feel it To this his easie Answer serveth He saith I do not feel that I truly Love God or his Servants if I be a Formal Protestant my Heart deceives me Answ. No wonder if all these Priests are Infallible that know all our Hearts so much better than we But who shall be Judge The true searcher of Hearts If the Fruits must be the Evidence I should rather fear that such Murderers of hundred thousands as killed the Waldenses Albigenses French English Dutch c. were like to be without Love than all those meek and Godly Protestants that I have known for no Murderer hath Eternal Life But forma is sometime taken for figura and for outward appearance only And such formal Protestants as have but the cloathing of Christianity have not indeed the Love of God § 19. He addeth What would you say to an Arrian a Turk or Jew that would urge the like knowledge or feeling Answ. The same that I would do to a bloody Papist And'I would tell him that if a Bediam think that he is a Prince or a Fool that he is Wise or a Beggar that he is a Lord or an illiterate Man that he is Learned it doth not follow that no Man can know that he is a Prince or a Lord or Wise or Learned I would tell him that there can be no effect without the adequate cause nor is there a cause where there is no effect And lie that perceiveth not God's amiableness in the necessary demonstrations of it cannot Love that Goodness he perceiveth not nor can any desire or seek the Heaven which he believeth not And I would tell him that he that believeth not in a Redeemer or a Sanctifier cannot Love him nor can he Love Believers and Godly Men as such who knoweth not that they as such are Lovely And that if really he Love God and Holyness and the hopes of Heaven before this World it will work in his seeking them above the World If you had Argued rationally against our Love of God and Holyness from any proved defect in the necessary cause which is in you we had been Obliged thankfully to hear and try your words But let Reason judge e. g. whether that man be like to love this world best and be loth to leave it who looketh to go at death into the flames of Purgatory or he that looketh to go to the glorious presence of his Redeemer And whether he be like to Love God best that look eth to be tormented by him in those flames or he that looketh to passe into heavenly perfect Love Christ telleth us that forgiving much causeth Love If a man were to torment you so long would it make you love him or at least is it a good proof that Protestants Love not God because they believe not that he will torment them in flames but presently comfort them § 20. II. My ad Argument to prove the perpetual visibility of our Church was this The Church whose Faith is contained in the Holy Scripture as its rule in all points necessary to Salvation hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on Earth But the Church whose Faith is contained in the Holy Scriptures as it's rule in all points necessary to Salvation is it of which the Protestants are members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible c. Here he wanteth Form again because the praedicate of the Minor is the Subject of the conclussion and then he distinguisheth of the Maior of containing Involutely in General principles he granteth it but if expresly he denyeth it Answ. 1. The marvellous Logician it seems is but for one mood or figure but by what authority or Reason 2. He denyeth that the Churches Faith in all points necessary to Salvation is expresly contained in the Scripture I proved the contrary ad hominem before out of Bellarmine and Costerus plain words and shall by and by further prove it Mark again the Papists value of the Holy Scriptures he that explicitly believeth all that it expresly delivereth and no more say these men cannot be saved and yet if they believe none of it but a rewarding Deity say most or some more of the Creed say others men may be saved if they do but believe that all is Gods word and truth which the Pope and his Priests or Council say is such Next he distinguisheth of all things necessary to Salvation to be by all distinctly known and expresly believed and so he granteth the Scripture-sufficiency Very good Now all that is so necessary to a distinct knowledge and express belief is there But of all things to be Believed implicitly and distinctly known he denyeth it These distinctions supposed saith he I deny your Consequence Answ. Here is all new still 1. He calleth my Conclusion my Consequence and reciteth it 2. What he meaneth by things to be distinctly known by all and yet Believed but implicitely is past my understanding having to do with that man that hath all this while described implicite Belief by the express Belief of some meer General truth And must men know all that distinctly which they Believe not distinctly but in their general the man sure was confounded or confoundeth me The General to be Believed is the Pope and Councils authority in propounding and expounding Gods word This is their saving Faith the Belief of all that they propose is implicitely contained in this but must all this be distinctly known by all and yet not distinctly Believed The first would damn all that know not every one of their Councils decrees de fide the ad will shew that they Believe nothing at all for he that knoweth distinctly what the Pope saith and yet Believeth it not distinctly cannot Believe the general of his veracity But perhaps he spake distributively of two sorts of Faith viz. both the Implicite and the Explicite and so meant to deny the Scripture-sufficiency only to the first if so I shewed the flat contradiction of it before Where there is all that is necessary to be Believed expresly eo nomine there is all that is necessary to be Believed implicitely because to be Believed implicitly with this man is but to be the unknown consequent or inclose of that which is Believed expresly § 21. For the proof of my Major the Scripture-sufficiency as to all things commonly necessary to Salvation after Bellarmine and Costerus I have cited the plain words at large of 1. Ragus in Council Basil. Bin. p. 299. 2. Gerson de exam doct p. 2. cont 2. 3. Durandus in Praefat. Hierom. in hym 4. Aquinas 22. 9. 1. à 10. ad 1. de Verit. disp de fide q.
10. ad 11. 5. Scatus in Prolegom in sect 1. 6. Greg. Armin. in Prol. e. g. q. 1. art 2. Resp. fol. 3. 4. 7. Guil. Parisiens de Legib. c. 16. p. 46. 8. Bellarmine again de verbo Dei li. 10. c. 10. ad arg 5. c. And then I most fully proved it out of the ancient Church-Doctors But to all these he giveth such frivolous Answers that it irketh me to weary the Reader by repeating and answering them And he that will faithfully peruse the Authors words I think will either need no other confutation of him or is uncapable of understanding one when he seeth it The fore-confuted contradiction of sufficient explicite and yet not sufficient implicite is the chief and next a vain supposition that to say that Scripture is sufficient to all Theological points and conclusions is less than to say it is sufficient to necessary Articles of Faith and if any of them speak of the Churches exposition he denyeth the Scripture-sufficiency as a rule and yet their Councils need exposition too § 22. III. My 3d. Argument for our Churches perpetual visibility was If the Roman Church as Christian though not as Papal hath been visible ever since the dayes of the Apostles then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the dayes of the Apostles but the Antecedent is their own Therefore they may not deny the Consequent Here he wants Form again because as Christian is in the Antecedent and not in the sequel Answ. He might have seen that it is but an Expository term in a parenthesis and so the same exposition in the consequent is supposed Next he saith that it is a fallacy a secundum quid ad simpliciter Answ. so then the Church as Christian is not the Christian Church but secundum quid but we that know no other profess to be of no other nor to prove the visibility of any other than the Church as Christian. Let them prove more that pretend to any other Next he saith that the Protestants have been visible as Christians is all that can be pretended and yet that also he denyeth for they believe not one Article with an infallible supernatural divine Faith Answ. 1. The question is whether they profess not so to do nay rather whether their objective Faith that is all the Creed and Holy Scriptures be not infallible of supernatural Revelation and Divine he that denyeth this seemeth an Infidel But if all the members of the Church must have an actual subjective Faith that is of supernatural divine infusion Then 1. No hypocrite is a Church-member 2. And no man can know who is a Church-member besides himself 3. And so the Church of Rome is invisible this is clear 2. I must not too oft write the same things if the Reader will peruse a small Tract of mine called The certainty of Christianity without Popery he shall soon see whether the Papists Faith or Ours be the more certain and divine Of which also I have said more in my Treatise called The safe Religion and Mr. Pool in his nullity of the Roman Faith § 23. I here shewed that having proved our visibility as Christian I need not prove a visibility as Papal any more than he that would prove his humane Genealogie having some leprous Ancestors need to prove that all were leprous Here he denyeth Popery to be Leprosie and again falsly tells us that if it were so all the visible Church in the world was leprous which needs no more confutation than is oft given it § 24. He tells me how an 1500 the Pope was in possession and we dispossest him without order c. Answ. An old Cant but 1. I have fully proved that he never was in possession of the Government of the Christian world 2. Nor in the Empire or any other Princes dominion but by humane donation and consent as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury is in England 3. And that they that gave him that power may on just reason take it away And that the Bishop of another Princes Countrey cannot stand here by his authority when he hath lost the Government of England himself § 25. IV. My 4th Argument added more than my Thesis required viz. If there have been since the dayes of Christ a Christian Church that was not subject to the Roman Pope as the Vicar of Christ and universal Head and Governour of the Church then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible both in it's Being and in it's freedom from Popery But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the Consequent To this 1. he wants the word ever in the Antecedent And yet before abated it but he knoweth that since was put for ever since 2. He saith I suppose that the sole denyal of the Popes supremacy constitutes the Church whereof the Protestants are members Answ. In despight of my frequent professions to the contrary who still tell him that our Christianity and Relation to Christ and one another makes us Church-members and our freedom from the Papacy is our renunciation of an Usurper § 26. I proved my Antecedent 1. from the express words of the Council of Calcedon can 28 which he answers as before where he is consuted § 27. 2. My 2d proof was from the silence of the ancient writers Tertullian Cyprian Athan. Nazianzene Nissene Basil Optatus Augustine c. that used not this argument of Popes power over all the world as of Divine Right to confute the Hereticks that they had to do with when two words had expeditiously done all if this had then been Believed Here he saith Their authors have proved that the Fathers did so Answ. Soon said and as soon denyed The books are in our hands as well as yours I will now instance but in Cyprian and the African Churches in his dayes and in Augustine and the same Churches in his dayes 1. Did Cyprian and his Council believe Stephens Universal Monarchy when he opposed his judgment with so much vehemency and set the Scripture against his plea from tradition Let him that will read his Epistles of this too long to be recited believe it if he can And when he twitted his arrogance in Council with nemo nostrum se dicit Episcopum Episcoporum 2. The plea of Aurelius Augustine and the rest of the African Bishops I have formerly recited of which Harding saith that the Africans seduced by Aurelius continued twenty years in Schism from Rome and did Augustine and all the rest then believe the Popes Sovereignty even in the Empire I did plainly show that if the Donatisâ—…s Novatians and all such Sects had believed the Roman Sovereignty and Infallibility they had not so differed from them if they did not believe it the Fathers would have taken the neerest way and wrote their Volumnes to convince them that this Papal Rule was it that must end all their controversies instead of writing voluminously from Scripture and the nature of the
yet it is the Catholick that is the whole it self 9. That Traditions are to be received with equal pious Affection and Reverence as the Holy Scripture 10. That the Virgin Mary was conceived without Original sin Decreed at Basil. 11. That the people may not read the Scripture Translated into a known Tongue without a special License 12. That the Books of Maccabees and other such are part of the Canon of Faith against which see Bishop Cousins and Dr. Io. Reignolds See in Dr. Challenor's Credo Eccles. Cath. sixteen of their Novelties See Dallaus De cultu Latinorum their Worship proved new All this W. I. passeth over § 42. My Tenth Argument was If multitudes yea the far greatest part of Christians in all Ages have been Ignorant of Popery but not of Christianity then there hath been a Succession of Visible Professours of Christianity that were no Papists But the Antecedent is true Ergo c. Here I brought full proof of the Antecedent 1. From the Ignorance which they themselves accuse the Aethiopians Armenians Greeks Russians c. of and the Protestants also 2. The known Ignorance of the far most of the Vulgar in their own Church 3. The Papists charge on the Council of Chalcedon and others about their power 4. The difference of the Councils of Constance and Basil and Later and Florence about their Essentials 5. The large proof brought by Dr. Field Append. l. 3. Potter p. 68. Bishop Morton Apol. To this he Answers as to the last by notorious giving up his cause neither granting nor denying That there hath been a Succession of Visible Professours of Christianity that were no Papists which he saith is all that I prove Answ. And what need I more Is not the Succession of the Church as Christian granted by him Therefore if I prove it also Successively Christian without Popery I know not what else the Man would have But he saith Arrians may say so too Answ. Arrians are not Christians If his meaning be that besides our rejecting Popery we have some other Heresie which unchristeneth us 1. That 's nothing against my Argument which is but Christians Visibility ... 2. Why did he never tell us what that Heresie is Would he not if he could And was he not concerned to do it 3. It 's known that it is our rejecting Popery that is the Heresie they charge us with as to any other we defie their Accusation And 4. If any individual person be Accused let it be proved Our Religion Objective is justified by themselves from Heresie and all positive Error For it is nothing but the Sacramental Covenant briefly explained in the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue in the Essentials and in that and the Integrals all the Canonical Scriptures So that our proof of our Churches Visibility as Christian and not Papal is all that Reason can require of us And so this Task is done § 43. After these Arguments I added some Testimonies of Historians which shew how Melch-Canus words de facto are to be understood and how the word Catholick Church was then taken and how small a party the Papal Sovereignty had in the very worst times viz. Rog. Hoveden Mat. Paris in H. 2d shew that it was Avitas leges consuetudinis Angliae which the Pope here Damned and Anathematized all that favoured and observed them Here is Tradition Antiquity and the immutability of Rome The German History collected by Reuberus Pistorius Freberus and Goldastus fully shew That the Papal Tyranny only kept under by a Turbulent Faction the greater part by fraud and force which never consented to them The Apology of Hen. 4. the Emperour in M. Freberus To. 1. p. 178. saith Behold Pope Hildebrand's Bishops when doubtless they are Murderers of Souls and Bodies such as deservedly are called the Synagogue of Satan Yet they write that on his and on their party is the Holy Mother-Church When the Catholick that is the Universal Church is not in the Schism of any Side or Party but in the Universality of the Faithful agreeing together by the Spirit of Peace and Charity And p. 179. See how the Minister of the Devil is besides himself and would draw us with him him into the Ditch of perdition Who writeth that God's Holy Priesthood is with only thirteen N. B. or few more Bishops of Hildebrand's and that the Priesthood of all the rest through the World are separated from the Church of God our Mr. W. I. would say that only these thirteen Bishops were Univocal Christians when certainly not only the Testimony of Gregory and Innocent but the Judgment of all the Holy Fathers agree with that of Cyprian that he is an Aliene profane an Enemy that he cannot have God for his Father that holds not the Unity of the Church And p. 181. But some that go out from us say and write that they defend the party of tâ—…r Gregory not the whole which is Christ's which is the Catholick Church of Christ so the Catholick Church and the Popes Sect are distinct And p. 180. But our Adversaries that went from us N. B. not we from them use thus to commend themselves We are the Catholicks We are in the Unity of the Church So the Writer calls them Catholicks and us that hold the Faith of the Holy Fathers that consent with all good Men that love Peace and Brotherhood Us he calls Schismaticks and Hereticks and Excommunicate because we resist not the King He addeth out of Isidore Etymol l. 8. The Church is called Catholick because it is not as the Conventicles of Hereticks confined in certain Countries but diffused through the whole World Therefore they have not the Catholick Faith that are in a part and not in the whole which Christ hath Redeemed and must Reign with Christ They that confess in the Creed that they believe in the Holy Catholick Church and being divided into Parties hold not the Unity of the Church which Unity Believers being of one Heart and Soul properly belongs to the Catholick Church So far this Apol. of the Emperour Here you see what the Catholick Church is and that the Papalines were then a little Sect of thirteen or a few more Bishops And now Reader open thine Eyes and Judge whether the Emperour and all the rest of the Western Churches besides all the rest a greater part of the Christian Word are therefore no Univocal but Equivocal Christians because a Papal Faction and an Equivocating Jesuite may call them so All this the prudent Disputer thought best to Answer by silence § 44. I added because of their noise of Heresies charged on the Abassines Syrians Armenians Greeks Protestants c. 1. That they differ in greater matters yea de fide than many things which they call Heresies are 1. I repeated the differences of their Councils Const. and Basil against Later and Florence c. 2. Pighius words Hierarch Eccl. l. 6. That these Councils went against the undoubted Faith and Judgment of the
instances of Goths Danes Swedes examined Sect. 4 5. Whether extra Imperial Churches were under the Pope Sect. 5. In what cases some were and which His pretence to the Indians Armenians and Persians examined Sect. 6. The Tradition of these Churches is against Popery Sect 7. His notorious fictions about the subjection of the Indians Armenians and Abassines to Rome Sect. 9. 10. Of Pisanus Arabick Nicene Canons Sect. 11. He intended to write a Tractate to prove that extraneous Bishops were at the Councils But that put-off goeth for an answer Sect. 12. He confesseth that the very Gallicane and Spanish Liturgies mention not the Popes Soveraignty no more than the Ethiopick Sect. 13. When Constantine intreated the King of Persia for the Churches there the Pope did not command there Sect. 14. Whether before Gregory's Mission the British Church was ever subject to the Pope or heretical Sect. 15. Reynerius words vindicated viz. The Churches of the Armenians Ethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome Sect. 16. The 28. Can. of the Council of Calcedon vindicated which declareth the Pope to be but the first Patriarch in the Empire by humane right for the sake of the Imperial City Sect. 17. 18 19 20. His brave attempt to prove that extra-Imperial Bishops were summoned to the Councils At Nice of John Persidis Armenians Gothia At Ephes. 1. Thebamnon Bishop of Coptus Sect. 21. 22. His other citations confuted Sect. 23. Of Eusebius his circular Letter Sect. 24. CHAP. 4. The Emperors and not the Pope called the old Councils Sect. 1. Myraeus his Notitia Episcopat against him Sect. 2. Of the authority over the barbarous given Con. Calced c. 28. Proof that the Papal power was held to be but jure humano Sect. 5. He was over but one Empire Sect. 6. No councils but of one Empire Prospers testimony examined caput mundi expounded Sect. 7. Pope Leo's words examined Sect. 8 9. The Decretal Epistles shew the Popes ruled not the world Sect. 10. More of Ethiopia and Pisanus's Canons Sect. 11. CHAP. 5. The Case reâ—…eated The uselesness of his Testimonies therein CHAP. 6. The Vanity of his proofs that Councils were called General as to all the world and not only to the Empire From the words totius orbis from the end the peace of the World and the rest Sect. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. His Question answered what Hereticks are Christians Sect. 8 9 10 11. He saith that no Heretick believeth for the authority of God revealing and so acquitteth all that do but believe that God is true which is all that believe indeed that there is a God Sect. 12. Of sufficiency of proposal of truths It is not equal He absolveth Hereticks And maketh Hereticks of the Papists Sect. 13 14 15. Whether the Papists and Protestants are one Church Whether the Pope and Christ are two heads Whether a King that saith God hath made me the Vice-god of all the earth set not up a policy destinct from Gods Sect. 16. One called a Papist may be a Christian and another not Sect. 17. 18. CHAP. 7. Whether we separate from the Church as the old Hereticks did Sect. 1. Whether we separate from other Churches as we do from the Papal Sect. 2. Arrians separate from the Church as Christian Sect. 3. Why they-call us Schismaticks Sect. 4. 5. Papists agree not whether Hereticks are in the Church Sect. 6. What we hold herein Sect. 6. His absurd answer Sect. 7. Whether every man deny Christs veracity who receiveth not every truth sufficiently proposed Sect. 8 9. He maketh it a grand novelty of mine to say that there may be divisions in the Church and not from the Church because the Church is a most perfect unity The shame of this charge Sect. 10 11. His charge of Eutychianisme on the Abassines c. Sect. 12. Of self-conceited hereticating wits Sect. 12. Whether the Abassines confess themselves Eutichianes Sect. 14. Of the Greek Churches rejecting us Sect. 16. The Greek Church claimed not Soveraignty over all the world but in the Empire Sect. 17 18 19. Whether every child subject or neighbour must judg Hereticks and avoid them unsentenced Sect. 20. His false answer to the testimony of their own writers that free the Greeks from heresie Sect. 21. The witness of the Council of Florence That the Greeks meant Orthodoxly Sect. 23. Nilus testimony vindicated Sect. 24 Our unity with Greeks and others Sect. 25. A notable passage of Meletius Patriarch of Alexandria and Constantinople for the sole Headship of Christ and the Popes usurpation novelties and forsaking tradition which with Cyril's testimony W. J. passed over Sect. 26. The Answer to W. J's second part of his Reply Sect. 1. SUfficient answers to all his citations pretermitted in terms Sect. 2. Because I cite a Patriarch and Councils excommunicating a Pope by the Emperor Theodosius countenance he saith I plead for Rebellion Sect. 4. His instances of the Popes extraneous power confuted Sect. 5. His particular proofs before promised in a special Tract examined 1. His error of Theophilus Gothiae Sect. 6. 2. Of Domnus Bosphori his gross error Sect. 7. 3. Of Joh. Persidis Sect. 8. 4. Of Bishops of Scythia Sect. 9. 5. Of Etherius Anchialensis for Sebastianus Sect. 10. 6. Of Phaebamnon Copti Sect. 11. 7. Of Theodulus Esulae so falsly called Sect. 12. 8. Of Theodorus Gadarorum Sect. 13. 9. Of Antipater Bostrorum Sect. 14. 10. Of Olympius Schythopoleos Sect. 15. 11. Of Eusebius Gentis Saracenorum Sect. 16. 12. Constantinus Bostrorum Sect. 17. 13. One pro Glaco Gerassae All shew his gross ignorance of the Bishopricks of the Empire Sect. 19. The Nestorians Epistle at the Council Ephes. to Callimores Rex expounded Sect. 20 21. Remarks upon passages in the first Ephisine Council Sect. 22. Remarks of the Council of Calcedon Sect. 23. Of the Titles Caput Mundi Mater omnium Ecclesiarum Primatus Apostolicus c. given to Antioch and Jerusalem Sect. 24. Binnius confession that at Conc. Const. 1. The Pope presided not per se vel per Legatos Sect. 25. His assertion that the Councils pretended to jurisdiction over the Church through all the World examined Sect. 26. The vanity of his first proof Sect. 27 28. Of his second and third More Notes of the Council Calced Sect. 29. His fourth instance confuted Sect. 30. His fifth confuted Sect. 31. His sixth confuted Sect. 32. His last instance vain Sect. 33. He could not disprove the Roman Church from being really two Churches named one as having two supreme Heads Sect. 34. I could not intreat him by any provocation to prove the continued visibility of the Church as Papal PART III. A Defence of my Arguments for our continued visibility Sect. 1. WHether all Believers are Christians Sect. 2. The vanity of his next Cavil against my definition Sect. 3. My definition of Protestants vindicated Sect. 4. One may have communion with faulty Churches Sect. 5.
part that is there If the question be whether there be there fire water air earth gold silver or men or divels created by God I neither know nor believe that there is or is not A Sadducee or an Atheist may believe That all that is in heaven is good Is this an implicite actual belief that God Angels and Spirits are good when he believeth not that in heaven or any-where else there is any God or any Angel or Spirit A Protestant believeth that he can prove by the Bible that the Pope is a Traytor against Christ by claiming his prerogative Doth he also believe that he is Christs Vicar-General because he believeth that the Bible is true Protestants believe that all Tradition is true which really cometh down to us from Christ and his Apostles by credible evidence Doth it follow that they believe the Papists Traditions to be true when they believe multitudes of them to be novelties or fictions contrary to Scripture and to the Tradition of the greatest part of the Church The Papist woman mentioned by Dr. White believed the Creed but she knew and believed no more of Iesus Christ but that it was some good thing she knew not what or else it would not have been in the Creed But he goeth on You profess to believe that All men shall rise at the last coming of Christ and yet you have no actual knowledg of many thousands Ans. And what then If I know not that those thousands had a being and were men I cannot know or believe that they shall rise notwithstanding I believe that All shall rise and if the question be whether this or that or thousands that you may name shall rise I know not because I know not whether you feign not men that never were If any were so foolish as not to know that there ever were more men in the world than he hath seen he cannot believe that any more shall rise and yet may believe that All shall rise not all in true reality as signifying the whole that hath existed indeed but all as the subject-term in the proposition When I say all shall rise I do not only say that I believe that proposition but I know many individuals contained in the whole and I know that there are more than I personally know and that there have been more than I have heard of and by the word all I mean all these particulars inclusively and so the word being a General expressing A Totum some of whose parts I have known by sight and others by history and I know that other parts have been but some parts I know not at all that they have been accordingly my belief is according to the object partly singular partly particular partly indefinite and partly universal He proceeds Act. 24. 5 14. Credens omnibus quae in Lege Prophetis scripta sunt Yet Paul had not an actual understanding of every particular contained in them Ans. Then he had not an actual belief of those particulars He believed in general that all Gods word was true and he believed all in particular which he knew to be part of that word But when he thought that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus and persecuted and blasphemed him had he then an actual belief that This Iesus was the Messiah He addeth A Christian that hath forgotten some sin yet at death is sorrowful for all his sins Hath he no actual sorrow for that forgotten sin I answer No if he have no actual understanding of it There were some that Christ foretelleth would think that they did God service by killing his servants Do you think that if these repented of all sin in general and took this for a duty that this were an actual repentance for this sin Nay is a meer general repentance any actual repentance at all if it extend to no particulars If a man say I repent of all my sin but I think I have no sin but my hearing praying being a Christian c. doth he actually repent of any And as to your instance if you do but forget a sin it implieth that you did once remember it and perhaps repented of it then but if you know not or remember not that ever you committed any such thing or that it is any sin you have no actual repentance of that sin O but saith he What horrid Doctrine would this be Ans. What a childish exclamation is this It 's ten to one but if you were well examined your self you would confess that all this quarrel is but de nomine You confess that here is no particular repentance or faith of the thing in question nor are universals as containing the particulars known confusedly in themselves but with the bare name of an actual knowledg of Particulars you would cheat them that have only the knowledg of the universal Proposition That you may see it is no horrid Doctrine consider that 1. If this general repentance have also joined a particular repentance of all such sin as must be so repented of of necessity to Salvation then a virtual repentance of other forgotten particular sins will prove sufficient to pardon and salvation A general repentance which hath an actual hatred of sin as sin and a habit inclining the person unfeignedly to repent of all sin when he knoweth it joined with an actual repentance of all that he knoweth and a faithful endeavour to know all this is not an actual repentance of the unknown particulars but it may be called a virtual repentance of them because there is that cause that virtue that Grace which would produce an actual repentance if the impediment of forgetfulness were removed But even confused actual repentance hath not a total oblivion or ignorance of the particulars but only a confused knowledg and memory of them and is another thing than the knowledg of Universals He adds One that forgiveth all injuries and hath forgotten some doth he not forgive those forgotten Ans. Yes if the word forgiveness signifie the effect or his act as sufficient to that effect For it is in his power to discharge acquit or forgive another by a meer general remission or discharge though he remembred but one or no particular at all But if by forgiving you mean an act of his will whose object is the crime as well as the punishment and evil consequents remitted he so actually forgiveth in his own mental act no more than he knoweth But his general forgiveness sufficeth to all the ends without it and such a sufficient remission goeth commonly by the name of full forgiveness But instead of speaking to the point in hand you play with ambiguous words of another sense and subject Forgiving another is an act of the Will whose effect is extrinsecal and as a man may burn a house or give away or sell a house and all that is in it though he know not what is in it so a man may remit all debts or penalties
that believeth only that there is a God that rewardeth and believeth not in Christ or the Holy Ghost be a member of the Christian Church or should be baptized My third Question about his definition of the Church was Is it any lawful Pastors or all that must necessarily be depended on by every member who are those Pastors To this he said Of all respectively to each subject that is that the authority of none of them mediate or immediate be rejected or contemned I shewed him how he contradicteth himself for dependance is more than non-rejection and Millions of Heathens neither depend on the Pope or reject him that never heard of him To this he rejoineth that he spake of subjects only and not of others Ans. 1. But we are never the nearer knowing their Church by this while we are not told who the subjects are and what maketh a visible subject 2. Do not they take all Infidels and Heathens and the Christian Abassines Armenians Greeks Protestants c. to be subjects of the Pope as to obligation and right though not consent yet the Abassines neither obeyed the Pope nor rejected him till Oviedo was sent to them 3. For about forty or fifty years one part of Europe took one man for Pope and the rest took another man for Pope and men were uncertain which was the right or whether either of them and so of the Clergy authorized by them Which was the Church then and who were the members when Millions received one and Millions rejected him and many neither received nor rejected but remained in suspense 4. And if all the Priests should desert a Country as Ireland Meâ—…co or our Wales or Highlands are all the people thereby unchristened or unchurched while they have no Priest either to receive or reject and perhaps hear not of a Pope But I specially answered him That this maketh every Priest so essential to that Church that a man is unchurched that rejecteth or contemneth any one of them though he should â—…onour the Pope Councils and thousands others If a man take a Priest in such a crime as Watson Montaltus and others tell us of is contemning him an unchristening of us Yea if it be done causelessly upon a quarrel This is a notable advancement of the Clergy If contempt of one Priest be damnation or unchristening us he that can make Priests for all the world may well be Lord of all the world even of Princes as well as other men To this he rejoineth that by the word respectively he did not mean all Priests but all that are Pastors to that man for there are some Priests that have no care or cure of souls committed to them but a private Christian rejecting the authority of his Parish-Priest Bishop Archbishop Metropolitan Primate Patriarch or supreme Bishop becomes a Schismatick and casts himself out of the Church Ans. 1. He is a strange Priest that hath no Cure of Souls what then is his office If he be not affixed to a particular charge sure he hath an indefinite cure of Souls in the Church Universal 2. Then one of the next Parish may take our Parish-Priest and all the Parish-Priests in the Country save his own for Hereticks Fornicators Traytors and such as must be rejected and yet be no Schismatick but a Church-member But if I reverence all other Priests and take our own Parish-Priest for an ignorant sot or a knave or a wicked man and contemâ—… him I am cut off from the Church This tells us more reason than I knew of before for our Canon against going from our own Parish-Churches when we have no Preacher there And this ells me how great the power of Patrons is who can make an ignorant wicked man so absolute a Lord of all his Parishioners though they be the greatest Lords that to contemn him shall cost them their damnation And this tells me more than I knew before that the Roman Clergy do not plead for the Pope for his sake only but for their own if all men be in as much danger of damnation or unchurching for rejecting any Parish-Priest as for rejecting the Pope And this tells me more than I knew before of the great Pre-eminence of the Secular Clergy as they call them above the Regulars and how low comparatively the Jesuits and Friers are when it will cut a man off from the Church to contemn one sottish drunken Curate or Parish-Priest that can but read Mass and to contemn ten thousand Friers and Jesuits will not do so And this tells us of how great concernment Parish-bounds are and what a priviledg it is to remove ones dwelling For if I will but remove my dwelling one yard out of the Parish I may then contemn the Parish-Priest without being unchurched which on the other side the way I could not do And this 〈◊〉 us why the Clergy are exempt so much from Princes and Magistrates judgment It may cut off a Prince from the Church to contemn his Priest whether to hang him if he prove a Traytor be contempt I know not Many such lessons may be hence learnt 3. But how came Cyprian then so much mistaken that said Plebs maximam â—…abet potestatem sacerdotes indignos recusandi And how came all the ancient Churches to use that freedom in consenting or diâ—…enting electing or rejecting their Bishops and Priests which Blondeâ—… hath copiously proved pro sentent Hiâ—…ron de jure plebis in regim Eccles. 4. And what a priviledg hath the Pope or a Patriarch above an inferiour Christian when he may reject a â—…housand Priests or Interdict whole Kingdoms or reject most Christian Churches and Pastors in the world as being none of Christs and yet not be himself cut off for so doing whereas one that falls out with his Pâ—…rish-priest and rejecteth him alone is presenâ—…ly â—…o member of the Universal Church It seems that God punisheth not men according to the greatness of their sin for sure it is a greater sin unjustly to reject ten thousand Priests than one Or to contemn all other Priests in the Country mistaking them all for Hereticks Usurpers or inâ—…ollerable than so to do by one Parish-priest only 5. How many Millions then that seem to be of the Church of Rome are not so because they contemn the authority of their Parish-priest 6. But what is the proof of this assertion None at all In other Societies no Union is essential to a member but that which is with the Pars Imperans or supreme power and with the body A man that rejecteth a Justice or the Mayor of a City or the Master of a Colledg or School c. may be yet a subject and a member of the Kingdom while he rejecteth not the King though he be faulty and be cut off from the City Colledg or School And I think that to reject a Parish-priest that ought to be so rejected is well done and if he ought not it 's ill done And that he that
part of the Church I next told him that the Jesuit Turnbull against Rob. Baronius maintaineth that Revelation is no part of the formal object of faith and therefore to deny it is not to deny the formal object 2. And that forma dat nomen and he is no Heretick that is none formally To the latter he giveth no answer and to the first as bad as none viz. that the Heretick denieth also the material object and what 's that to the case in hand and that which he is obliged by sufficient reason to believe to be revealed of God and therefore virtually denieth God to be true Ans. But I again reply 1. Virtual is not actual 2. It is no virtual denial that God is true but only that the proposer is true To be obliged to believe a thing to be Gods word only proveth that I break that obligation if I believe it not to be his word but not at all that I believe God to be a lyar whose word I believe it not to be Again this maketh all Christians to be Hereticks past dispute For all Christians receive not something or other small or great which they were obliged to belieâ—…e to be Gods word Do you err in any thing that is revealed by Scripture or Tradition or not If you say no and so that your understanding hath no sin you deceive your self and the truth is not in you If yea then were you not obliged to believe the contrary to be Gods word if not obliged then your error is no sin so that you make every sinful error to be Heresie and proudly deny that you have any sinful error lest you should be a Heretick I added that their Church is constituted of men that sinfully neglect some point of truth or other sufficiently proposed Ergo is it constituted of Hereticks To this he answers That whatever their neglect be to know what is propounded yet so long as they believe explicitely what is necessary to be so believed necessitate medii and implicitely the rest they can be no Hereitcks for it is not the ignorance though culpable but contradiction to what is known to them to be propounded by those that have power to oblige them as being their lawful superiors which makes an heretick R. B. 1. But still you agree not nor tell us what is explicitely to be believed necessarily 2. By this we are all absolved from heresie for we believe all explicitely that is necssary necessitate medii and all the rest implicitely by a double implicite faith 1. In God and our Redeemer 2. In the inspired Apostles and Prophets we believe all to be true which God hath revealed and which his Apostles have delivered as Gods word 3. Yea and all that we know to be propounded by any obliging superiors for we know not the Pope nor your contradictory Councils to be such My next Qu. 2. was What mean you by sufficient proposal W. I. Such as is sufficient among men in humanis to oblige one to take notice that a King hath exacted such and such Laws c. that is a publick testimony that such things are revealed by the infallible authority of those who are the highest tribunal of Gods Church or by notorious and universal trâ—…dition R. B. 1. Here the Reader may see that he taketh sufficiency respectively to the Promulgator viz. as much as he was obliged to do for a King is not bound to publish his Laws in every parish or county but only to make such a publication of them in the chief places of his kingdom as that men may take notice of them Kings send not Schoolmasters to teach every man how to prove that his Laws are not counterfeit and what they are and what is the meaning of them For the enacting of them being a late matter of fact and easily notified as near unto them and no other knowledg or belief of them being required but such as is necessary to that part of the obedience of them which belongeth to every man in his place this is not necessary And if such a publication of Gods Laws be sufficient millions that never heard a word of the Bible or what Christ is have such a sufficient publication for the Gospel is published in many parts of the world and perhaps in many places of the Kingdoms where they dwell though they never heard it 2. But when men have the publick testimony that such statutes are made and such a Book sent from God this doth not acquaint men what those Statutesor that Book contains sothat by this rule it should be sufficient to know that God made the Bible without knowing what is in it or else he that is but told that there is such a book is bound by that much to know all that is in it 3. But note the Popish difficulty of faith W. I. tells us after the rest that we must know these things revealed by the infallible authority of those who are the highest tribunal of Gods Church c. And is it possible for one that knoweth nothing of Christ or the Scripture or that Christ hath a Church to know yet 1. That he hath a Church 2. And that he hath authorized some men to be the highest Tribunal to judg that Church through all the world And 3. That he hath particularly authorized them to judg which is and is not his revelation 4. And to know who be the men that are this highest Tribunal to all the world viz. for those of Abassia that had not so much History as to tell them that there was such a City as Rome or such a man as the Pope in the world till Oviedo was sent who told it but to few could yet know that this Pope and his Council are their Judges and from them they must receive the Gospel 5. And to know that this Universal Tribunal is infallible before they believe in Christ himself who is supposed to give them their Infallibility Alas must every poor Infidel know all this before he can believe in Christ when we that live among them and read their laws and doctrines cannot easily believe the Infallibility of those Popes who by General Councils are charged not only with Murder Adultery Simony Perjury c. but with Heresie also or Infidelity Nor the Infallibility of those General Councils who are accused by Popes and by other Councils of Error Heresie or Schism 4. But he addeth another way Or by notorious and universal Tradition And 1. If this will serve then I hope we may have true faith that believe no humane infallible Tribunal over all the world much less that the Pope and his Council are such a Tribunal for we have notorious Universal Tradition delivering us all our Religion 2. But yet these are hard terms for every poor Heathen to come to Christ by Alas how shall the millions of people through the world who know nothing that is many days journey from their houses know
Church did notoriously believe and practice the administration of the Lords Supper in both kinds the Cup as well as the Bread and the celebration of publike worship in a known tongue and the reading and hearing of the Scripture in a known tongue by the people and others such like But yet I will not take you at your word nor call you Hereticks meerly on the account asserted by you for I know that your rule is false And if a man had known that the Universal Church had held some opinion of Chronology or Genealogy or Cosmography as about Cainan or the age of Sem or that there were no Artipodes especially in the dismal Ninth Century and if he had thought that they took this point for a Divine Revelation believing the Septuagint or some other mis-translation which was commonly received before Ieromes time this man so thinking that the whole Church then erred in so small a point was no Heretick for so thinking for I would know of your self whether the Popes and all their followers be not Hereticks For the Septuagint was long taken by the Universal Church for the Word of God and so was the Vulgar Latin long after by your Universal Roman Church and consequently that those Texts were Gods Word which yet afterward you altered Many hundred or thousand alterations in the one were made by Sixtus 5 and Clement 8 all which were so many judgments that the Church had erred that before took the other readings for the Word of God unless you can make one thing Gods word to day and the contrary to morrow 5. But by this rule also we are acquit from Heresie if it was not notorious to us that the Universal Church believed and practised contrary to us which sure is notorious to very few at most And indeed we differ from the Roman Church the more because we dare not with them differ from the belief and practice of the far greatest part of the Church of Christ in this and in former ages R. B. Is not the Bible a publick testimony and record and being universally received is an universal tradition and yet abundance of truths in it are not actually known or believed by most of your own Church W. J. It is only a Tradition that whatever is there delivered is the word of God but it is no tradition that such a determinate sense and no other is the word of God in every sentence contained in it when according to the analogy of faith the words are capable of many senses R. B. Worse and worse still 1. Tradition tells us that this Bible is Gods Word This Word of God is significant and intelligible or else it is worse and more defective than the common words of men This intelligible Bible or Word therefore delivereth to us its own sense If not then Councils do not deliver us the sense of Gods Word or their own For God could speak as well as they and their words are no more plain than his Yet a multitude of plain intelligible Texts are not understood by many of your Church whom you call not Hereticks yea your learned Commentators differ and fight about their sense 2. Therefore when you talk of every sentence you do but fly and hide your fraud If your meaning be that no sentences of Scripture are Divine revelations as they are in Gods own words but as expounded by your Church all Christian ears should abhor your blasphemy If you mean only that there are some Texts so difficult as that most Christians cannnot understand them or that are capable of various senses we grant it But what are those to all the rest Is every man a Heretick that erreth about the sense of any one plain Text of Scripture or not And it is perverse that you say of divers senses according to the analogy of faith For a Text may be expounded contrary to the plain words and context which yet is not expounded contrary to the analogy of faith if by that word you mean as is usual contrary to the harmony of Christian necessary Truths yea or contrary to any other truth whatever save that Text it self And now Reader I leave it to thy reason whether this man have given us any regardable notice at all what is Heresie or what they mean by it or have not trifled and said nothing But what Heresie is I will briefly tell you The word signifying Election was used in the beginning sometime for any Sect or Party divided from the common body of the Church And Christians were called a Heresie by the Iews By the Christians the name signified any party of men that professing to differ in some necessary thing from the common body of Christians and the Doctrine of the Apostles did separate from them as unmeet for their Communion and gather themselves into divided Societies So that differing from the Apostolical Doctrine and Churches and making different Sects or Societies therefore which separated from and opposed the Churches was called Heresie by the Apostles and it was the same thing with the grossest sort of Schism And the commonest sense of the word Schism then was lower signifying either the contentious making of divisions within a Church without separating from it or else the breaking of one Church into many without separating from other Churches or the generality of Christians And so long after the word Heresie was sometime used for such Schism only and hence Lucifer Calaritanus and the Novatians and many others were called Hereticks And sometimes used more cautelously in a narrower sense for those only that denied some essential article of faith or practice And sometimes in a yet narrower sense for those only that upon such a denial of some essential point did gather into a separated Society to maintain their error and oppugn the truth And according to these various senses of the word Horesie and Heretick we must conclude that a Heretick may or may not be saved and is or is not within the Universal Church which W. I. doth deceitfully confound Of which I have said more in the End and shewed you by an instance of Philastrius how mischievous it is to abuse the name of Heresie against every different opinion of true Christians and so to make Hereticks of all Believers in the world CHAP. III. What mean you by the Word POPE W. J. By POPE I mean St. Peter or any of his lawful successors in the See of Rome having authority by the institution of Christ to govern all particular Churches next under Christ. R. B. I am never the nearer knowing the Pope by this till I know how St. Peters Successors may be known to me Q. 1. What personal qualification is necessary ad esse W. J. Such as are necessary ad esse of other Bishops which I suppose you know R. B. If so then all those were no Popes that were Hereticks or denied essential points of faith W. J. 'T is true they were no Popes while
may elect a Schoolmaster Pope and any man may be Pope or an hundred may be Popes But if not then it must be known who it is that hath the power of Election and that it was done by them The people of Barnet or Brainford have no authority to elect a Lord Mayor of London nor would one of their choice be any better than a Play-house Lord. Our Question is Who must choose the Governour of all the world In reason all the world should meet by themselves or their just Delegates to choose him But the man that claimeth this Divine Soveraignty hath been sometime chosen at Rome by a meeting of Lay-citizens and sometimes by neighbour-Bishops and sometimes at the best by Citizens and Presbyters together Bishops approving it and sometimes by the Emperors of Rome of Constantinople or of Germany and sometime by a sort of things called Cardinals Now if none of these have more right to choose him than the rest then either any body hath right that can carry it out and get possession or else no body hath right or none can tell who hath it Accordingly for above forty years together the Emperour and his party chose one Pope and the King of France and his party chose another one reigned at Rome and another at Avignion in France Part of Europe chose or owned one and part another and at once saith Wernerus there were six alive that were then Popes or had been Popes of whom one honester than the rest because he could not read himself chose another Pope to be his partner to read the Mass which he could not do and to help him in the rest Here in the answer of W. J. 1. He durst not tell us who have the power of Election 2. But he saith it must be those that are fit for the charge If I should ask who must choose the Lord Mayor of London and you should so answer me Those that are fit for the charge would not any sensible Reader judg by your answer that you were unfit for an honest disputation 3. He saith that the Electors must be so esteemed fit for the charge by those to whom it doth belong To whom what doth belong why to esteem the Electors fit But how should a man know to whom it doth belong to judg who is fit to be an Elector Doth it belong to the World or to Rome To the people Presbyters Bishops Emperours or Cardinals Here we have more difficulties than we thought of we must know who is fit to be Pope and who is fit to elect him and to whom it belongs to judg who are fit to be Electors that is to elect Electors and when shall we come to know all this If he say that it is the people that must choose the Choosers what people be they they of Rome or they of all Italy or they of Germany or of France or of all Europe or of all the World 3. He saith that the choosers must be such as by custom are esteemed fit by these But what custom doth the man mean when there have been four or five ways or sorts of Election had not every one of them a beginning and at their beginning could they plead custom O that your sword were no stronger than your reasons 4. Yea he saith It must be approved customs But not a word who must be the approvers of all these new customs 5. And when all is done no more is needful but that the unknown persons to whom it belongs do esteem the Electors fit and so be they fit or unfit their estimation carrieth it 6. But yet the hardest part remaineth The Church must be satisfied with the Election But 1. Either the Election is valid or invalid before If valid will the Churches dissatisfaction invalidate it If invalid will the Churches satisfaction make it valid or make him Pope that was none before Who would have thought that a Pope had been a wight so utterly unintelligible 2. And what way must the Churches satisfaction be notified to me Is it by some note of approbation or by silence It 's in vain for men to contradict that have no power But what if I believed in my conscience that most of the Church is unsatisfied in the Election Must I take that man to be no Pope Then I am necessitated to believe that when Whores and Murderers and such like brought in the fifty that Baronius and Genebrard called Apostatical c. there was an interruption of the Succession by the dissatisfaction of the Church Good Sir was the Church satisfied with such men Was it satisfied with those that the foresaid Council condemned as Heretical wicked and one of them a Devil incarnate Did those Councils signifie no dissatisfaction of the Church 3. And must I suspend my reception of the Pope till the Abassines Armenians Greeks yea or Mexicans and the Antipodes signifie their satisfaction 4. But what is the Church that must be satisfied when half Europe was for one and the rest for another for forty years and more with which of them was the Church satisfied Was France or Germany the Church 5. Lastly by this we are acquit from acknowledging your Pope at all while we know that three fourth parts or at least two third parts of Christs Church on Earth is unsatisfied with your Pope and Papacy it self To all this he answers W. J. 1. Tour exceptions are fallacies à sensu conjuncto ad sensum divisum R. B. See Reader what the Papacy is come to if it had not the sword or ignorance to uphold it when he puts together so many things as necessary ad esse to the Election of a Pope and yet makes nothing but a meer name to deceive the ignorant of any one of them is it fallacious of me to expect that all those things be found in the Election Or is it not fallacious in him that can shew us never a one of them Next W. I. saith If the Church did really acquiesce in such an elected person as Pope it was satisfied according to the substance of the Election though not in the circumstances R. B. 1. Reader is this any answer to any of the foresaid Objections what satisfaction what Church when part of the Church was divided and the greater part abhor'd them all And was he Pope or no before this acquiescing If so what made him so And 2. What doth he but cheat us by his distinction of the substance and circumstances of Election Doth he not obstinately but necessarily refuse to tell what is the substance of Election Have those that were brought in by Whores Poyson and Murders the substance Had those that were chosen by people Presbyters Bishops Emperours and Cardinals all the substance If so why may not twenty have the substance at once or four or five at least what is it that is the substance Alas we ask in vain that which cannot be told us Next he saith If the Church never accepted them as
Christ had made us a King or Bishop of all the world he would have told us who must chuse him to save the men at the Antipodes their journey 2. But why pretend you then the peoples consent when you plead it unnecessary In Poland that their Diets chuse their Kings is from a known reason it is the Constitution of their Kingdom which the people agreed to and chuse many of the chusers But when did the Universal Church constitute your Cardinals to be the Electors Or which of the Cardinals are chosen by the Universal Church or any other than the Pope himself God made Bishopricks like Corporations where all may chuse the Mayor Who made them like great Kingdoms or set one over all the world where the people cannot chuse nor God made any chusers is the question R. B. 4. According to this rule your successions have been frequently interrupted when against the will of General Councils and of the far greatest part of Christians your Popes have kept the seats by force W. J. These are generalities What Popes What Councils in particular Name and prove if you will he answered R. B. What disgraceful ignorance are you forced to pretend What need I go over your Schisms What need I name any more than Eugenius the 4th deposed by a great General Council and two or three parts of the Church disowning your Pope at this day R. B. I told him how his instance even about Civil Power failed seeing the consent of a people pre-engaged to their Prince giveth not right to a Usurper W. J. The people cannot be supposed to consent freely and lawfully to an usurper c. R. B. Lawfully indeed they cannot and that 's the same thing that I affirmed you confute me by granting what I say When the Bishop of Rome hath a lawful election to be Bishop of all the world we will obey him and so we will any Prelate or Priest that hath a known lawful election R. B. Will any Diocess suffice ad esse What if it be but in particulor Assemblies W. J. It must be more than a Parish or than one single Congregation which hath not different inferior Pastors and one who is their Superior c. R. B. 1. How ambiguously and fraudulently do you answer No man can tell by this whether you unbishop all that had but one Parish or Congregation or only all that had not Presbyters under them Which ever you mean it is notoriously false and a nullifying of the ancient Episcopacy Ignatim tells you that in hiâ—… days one Church was known by one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons And though I think not as Dr. Hamond that all the first Bishops in Scripture-times were setled as the sole Pastors of single Congregations without any Presbyters under them yet when you consider with whom he agreeth in this viz. Dionysius Petavius and what St. Clara saith for it fathering it on Scotus we think you should not so far differ from your own Doctors as to deny all those to be true Bishops of the Scripâ—…re-times who they think were the only Bishops You have a custom of calling the Apostles Bishops even Peter Bishop of Antioch and Rome Did not those first Bishops then make all the Presbyters that were under them Qu. Whether they were no Bishops till they had made those Presbyters If no then those first Presbyters had not Episcopal ordination If yea then habetur quaesitum The truth is all the ancientest Bishops were the Pastors of single Churches not near so big as many of our Parishes I have elsewhere proved this at large I instanced to him only in Gregory Neocâ—…sariensis who was Bishop only of Seventeen souls when he came thither first He answereth W. J. How know you that there were no more in the Countrey adjacent 2. Know you not that he was sent to multiply Christians and make himself a competent Diocess R. B. I know the first by the consent of History that telleth us of the Seventeen in the City over whom he was set and speaketh of no more in such circumstances as would have occasioned it 2. And I believe your second but do not you see that you desert your Cause and contradict your self 1. Speak out Was he the bishop of the Infidels Were they his Church Or was he only to convert and gather them to the Church 2. Was he not a Bishop there before he had converted any one to those seventeen alone You dare deny none of this Therefore he was a Bishop before he had more Congregations than one and before he had any Presbyters to govern And here you may see how the changes that Popes and their Prelates have made in the Church constraineth them to defend them by subverting their own foundation For if those were no Bishops who had but one Congregation yea and those that had no subject-Presbyters then the first ages if not also the second except in Rome and Alexandria had no true Bishops or at least the founders were not such and their Episcopacy as they describe it hath no succession from the Apostles Truth and Error will never make a close coalition CHAP. V. Q. What mean you by TRADITION W. I. I Understand by Tradition the visible delivery from hand to hand in all cases of the revealed will of God either written or unwritten R. B. I suppose by visible from hand to hand you mean principally of the unwritten audible from ear to ear by speech But all the doubt is by whom it must be delivered by the Pastors or people or both by the Pope or Councils or Bishops disjunct by the major part of the Church Bishops or Presbyters or by how many W. J. By such and so many proportionably as suffice in a Kingdom to certifie the people which are the ancient universal received customs in that Kingdom which is to be morally considered R. B. O wary Disputant that taketh heed lest you should answer while you seem to answer Reader a Kingdom is not so big as all the world The Customs of a Kingdom may be known by the constant consent of the people of that Kingdom and if they differ about it Records and Law-booke decide it expositorily and judges by the decision of particular mens cases by such rules But can customs be known as well over all the world Yea and can matter of faith and doctrine be as easily known as practised customs Can we know as easily what are the Traditions of Abassia Armenia Syria Egypt c. as of England Can they of Abassia tell what are the true Traditions of all the Christian world that have Traditions in their own Countrey so different from ours They have many books as sacred among them by tradition which we receive not They have annual Baptism and other ceremonies by Tradition which we account to be unlawful Here I told W. I. 1. How certainly Tradition is against them when most of the Christian world
which we charge them with in Europe and yet the Papists so charge them still that they may seem to have reason for condemning them fearing that their non-subjection to the Pope will not seem enough with impartial men And as to the great Confidence that they seem to place in their succession to St. Peter and Christs words to him on this Rock I will build my Church and to thee I give the Keys c. and feed my sheep I have oft answered it more fully than is fit again to recite but these few hints I would commend to the Reader 1. That we affirm that Peter was among them as a fore-man of a Jury and no more and so Christ spake to the rest in speaking to him and the same power is given to the rest The Church is said to be built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the head Corner-stone Is not this as much as is said of St. Peter Christ gave them all the power of Holy Ghost and the remitting and retaining sins binding and loosing which is the Keys which he gave to Peter And they are all sent forth to feed Christs Sheep Now the Fathers give as high Titles oft to others as to the Pope yea and to Peter see what I have cited in my Key for Catholicks pag. 175. 176. and what Gataker hath cited out of Dionysius Tertullian Basil Ierome Augustine Theodoret Gildas Nicephorus c. Cin. 395. 396. 2. Peter never exercised any authority over any of the rest of the Apostles He called them not governed them not There is mention of Paul's reproving him Gal. 2. but none of his reproving them Schismes being among them and greatly lamented they are never directed to unite in Peter as the way to Concord nor to have recourse to him to end them Nay when the over-valuers of Peter made one party in the Schism among the Corinthians Paul seeks to take them off that way and set Peter in the same rank with himself and Apollos as Ministers only by whom they believed calling them Carnal for saying I am of Cephas never calling them to unite in him as the Head of all And had this been necessary what had this been but to betray the Churches 3. The Apostles were never properly Bishops but of a higher rank Bishops were the fixed Over-seers of particular Churches and no one had many But Apostles only planted them and governed them for their Confirmation and so passed on from one to another and had care of many such at once If any one Church might pretend superiority by vertue of succession it would be Ierusalem and next that Ephesus where it is said that Iohn the Beloved Disciple was as Bishop and which hath continued to this day 4. The Apostles as such had no Successors nor as Bishops in any distinct Seats The same Christ that called Peter called the rest and called especially the Beloved Disciple to whom on the Cross he commended his Mother when Peter had denyed him and he promised to be with them to the end of the World But no Bishops on Earth ever pretended to superiority over any other Churches as the Successors of the other eleven Apostles Where are those Seats or where ever were they If the Apostles Successors must rule the Churches as such tell us which be the other eleven and which be their Diocesses and of what extent Nay it is considerable that even in the times of domination there were but five Patriarchates ever set up and not twelve and not one of those claimed Power by vertue of succession from any Apostle Constantinople never pretended to it Alexandria claimed the honour of succession only from St. Mark who was no Apostle And Ierusalem from Iames whom Dr. Hammond laboureth to prove to have been none of the Apostles but a Kinsman of Jesus Only Antioch and Rome claimed succession from Peter and Antioch as his first Seat but they did on that single account claim Power then over other Churches And seeing the Church is built on the Foundation of Apostles and Prophets and that all the Apostles 1 Cor. 12. are mentioned equally as the noblest Foundation Members or Pillars and the People chidden sharply by Paul for making Cephas a Head What reason have we to believe that Peter only hath perpetual Successors fixed to a certain City and that no other of all the Apostles have any such What word of God will prove that Peter hath left his Power at Rome and no other Apostles no not one hath left theirs to any Place or Person on Earth yea and that he left it more to Rome than to Antioch when Antioch claimeth the first succession from him and Rome but the second and when Nilus and others have said so much to make it probable that Peter never was at Rome and when it is certain that Paul was there and those old Fathers that from some word of one of Eusebius his doubtful Authors do say that Peter was at Rome and Bishop there do also say that it was the Episcopal Seat of Paul and when it is certain that no Apostle was any-where a Bishop formaliter but only eminenter as being not fixed nor fixing their Power to any Seat And Dr. Hammond giveth very considerable conjectures That if Peter and Paul were both at Rome they had divers Churches there Paul being the Bishop of the Uncircumcision and Peter of the Circumcision only from whence we may see that the Spirit of God in his Apostles judged that there might be more Churches and Bishops in one City than one much more over a thousand Parishes though as the contrary Spirit prevaileth the contrary Interest and Opinion prevailed with it These things premised the Reader must know that the state of the Controversie between Mr. Terret alias Mr. Iohnson and me is this Finding the Church of Rome in possession of abundance of Errours and Vanities he would not only perswade us that they are of God and have ever been the same because it is so with them now but also concludeth that these Carbuncles are essential to Christianity and the Church and that we cannot prove that we are a Church and Christians unless we prove that we have had from the Apostles a continued succession of their Errours As if a man could not prove himself to be a man unless all his Ancestors from Adam had the French-pox or the Leprosie On the contrary I maintain that the Church of Christ which is his Body is essentiated by true consent to the Baptismal Covenant which is our Christening and integrated by all the additional degrees that this Covenant is expounded in the Creed Lord's Prayer and Christian Decalogue The Lord's Supper is but the same Covenant celebrated by other signs not for Essence but Confirmation That all that consent to the celebrated Baptismal Covenant heartily are Members of the invisible Church and all that profess consent in Sincerity or Hypocrisie are visible Members
coram Ecclesia That the true Church of Christ hath no other Head than Christ himself no Vicarious Universal Head Pope nor Council That the Protestants profess themselves Members of no other Universal Church but that of which Christ only is the Head and all Christians at least not cast out are Members that this Christian Church hath been visible to God by real consent and visible to man by professed consent from the first being of it to this day And when they ask us Where was your Church before Luther we say where there were Christians before Luther Our Religion is nothing but simple Christianity We are oâ—… no Catholick Church but the Universality of Christians We know no other but lament that the pride of the Clergy growing up from Parochial to Diocesan and from Diocesan to Metropolitical and Patriarchal and thence to Papal hath invented any other and that the Serpent that tempted Eve hath drawn them from the Christian simplicity They deny not the successive visibility of Christianity and the Christian Church We desire no more we own we know no other Religion and no other Church But the Roman Artifice here comes in and when their HUMANE UNIVERSAL HEAD hath made the grand Schism of the Christian World hence they have learnt to make Christians of no Christians and no Christians of Christians as Pride and Ignorance serving this usurping interest please Their Doctors are not agreed whether any more be necessary explicitely to be believed to Salvation than that there is a God and that our works shall be rewarded without believing a word of Christ or the Gospel and whether they that believe not in Christ are Christians or whether being no Christians yet they are Members of the Christian Church And the greater part are here on the wider Latitudinarian side as you may see in Fr. S. Clara's Problemes Deus Nat. Grat. and in the words of this W. I. before answered And yet these charitable men conclude that two or three parts of the true Christian world Abassines Copties Syrians Iacobites Georgians Armenians Greeks Moscovites Protestants are all out of the Church of Christ though their own Fryars that have lived among some of them in the East profess that they are no Hereticks and are better Men than the Papists are and none worse of Life than the Roman Party And whence is this strange difference Why it is because that these are none of them subject to the Pope which it is supposed that those are that believe only that there is a God and a Reward But how is this their only explicite Faith if they must also believe that the Pope is the Vice-Christ And some of them tell you further that he that should so far believe his Ghostly Father the Priest as to hold that he is not bound to love God because the Priest tells him so is not only excusable but he meriteth by it So much more necessary to Salvation is it to love the Priest than to love God And yet after all this their own Leaders confess that it is no Article of their Faith that the Pope is Peter's Successour and that it is not by Revelation that the Church-Governours must be known as I have shewed out of Ri. Smyth Bishop of Calcedon and of England and in the fore-confuted Writings of W. I The things that I maintain are I. That the Protestants Religion and Church being only the Christian as such had an uninterrupted succession as such which the Papists deny not II. That the Papal Church as such cannot prove its constant visibility and succession Nay though it be their part to prove it we are ready to prove 1. That it is a Novelty 2. That it hath been often and notoriously interrupted and their Papacy hath not had any continued succession of Men truly Popes by their own Laws and Rules and in their own Account CHAP. I. The Confutation of W. J's Reply THE first regardable Passage in W. I's Reply is p. 53 54. Where he maintaineth that whatsoever hath been ever in the Church by Christ's institution is essential to the Church and nothing meerly Integral or Accidents Because I had omitted the word ever in the Confutation he taketh that as the Insufficiency of all that I said against him and challengeth me still to give an Instance of any Institution not essential to the Church of Christ that hath been ever in it But Reader is Perpetuity any proof of an Essential He was forced to confess that as other Societies so the Church hath Accidents but he faith no Accidents instituted have been ever in it It may be we shall have a Quibble here upon the sense of the word ever whether it was from Everlasting or from the Creation or before Christ's Incarnation or before his Resurrection or the forming of his Church by the Spirit in the Apostles But in Consistency with his own Cause which is That the Papacie hath been ever in the Church he must take up with this last sense Well Let us see what work these Men make and how they are taken in the Traps that they lay for others But first he shall have some confuting Instances 1. Every word of Christ's own Doctrine and Speeches recorded in the Gospel hath been ever in the Church and instituted by Christ but every word of Christ's own Doctrine and Speeches recorded in the Gospel is not essential to the Church Therefore every thing instituted by Christ that hath been ever in the Church is not essential to it If you say that it was not all written till after some years it was yet all in the Church even in the Minds of them that wrote it and the other Apostles and in their Preachings as is like If you say that all this is essential alas then if false Copies have lost us a word the Church is lost and those Churches that received not some words were Unchurched That Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate hath been ever in the Church's Creed and yet the Name of Pontius Pilate is not essential to Christianity 2. The Administring the Lord's Supper in both kinds Bread and Wine hath been ever in the Church and of Christ's own Institution Is this essential to the Church Perhaps some will have the impudence to say that it is not now in it because the Pope hath cast it out but it is now in all the rest of the Church And we might as well say the Papacie is not now in because other Churches do reject it 3. Prayer in a known Tongue was ever in the Church and of Christ's Institution and yet you think it not essential to it 4. The use of the second Commandment as such Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image c. was ever in the Church and yet you have left it out of the Decalogue 5. The Office of Deacons hath been ever in the Church since their Institution Act. 6. yet few think them essential to the
the Cause in naming Integrals for those are not Accidents Ans. 1. My affirming that the Papacie is as much an Accident as a Leprosie is to a Man did not make me forget that I was confuteing his assertion that all is essential to the Church which is instituted to be for ever or indeed which had been ever in it for that was his saying And though Integrals be not Accidents yet they are not Essentials was this hard to see And 2. by his now putting in the word instituted he would make the Reader think that I had granted that the Papacie was instituted by Christ. 2. He saith that Nothing can be an accident to the Church which Christ hath instituted to be perpetually in the Church and consequently the Churches holding any thing to be so if true is essential to the subsistence of the Church if false is essentially destructive of the Church so that whether true or false it will never be accidental to the Church Ans. 1. What work will Interest and Errour make If so then every Errour and every Sin of the Church is essentially destructive of the Church For Christ hath instituted that the Church shall perpetually hold and teach the truth only and obey all his commands without sinning If he say that the Church never hath nor had Sin or Errour I answer 1. If an essential part of the Church have had Sin and Errour then so hath the Church had But an essential part in their account that is their supposed Head hath had Sin and Errour To pass by Peters denying Christ disswading him from suffering till he heard Get behind me Satan Mat. 16. his dissembling Gal. 2. sure Marcellinus sinfully offered Incense to an Idol and Honorius and Tyberius sinned and it was some sin in those Popes that defiled Wives and Maids at the Apostolick doors and that were Whoremongers and came in by Whores and Poyson and that were condemned as Simonists Hereticks Incarnate Devils Perjured Murderers c. and that by Councils 2. If all the particular Members of the Church have some Errour or Sin then so hath the Church But all the particular Members have c. If any Man say that he hath no Sin he is a Lyer and the truth is not in him 1. Joh. 1. And in many things we offend all Iam. 3. 2. c. 2. Why then doth he accuse us for separating from Rome if it be as certainly unchurched as it is certain that they have had Sin and Errour it is certain that the Popes were such as aforesaid or the Councils sinned that condemned them as such and it is certain that either the Councils of Constance Basil and Pisa erred and sinned which decreed that Councils are above the Pope and may condemn and depose him and that this is de fide and the contrary Heresie or else the Councils of Laterane and Florence erred and sinned that said the contrary And so of other Instances 3. But as I have proved the Antecedent of his Argument false already so his consequence that the Churches holding any thing to be instituted for perpetuity is essential and the denying destructive of the essence would not follow but on two suppositions 1. That such institutions are not only no Accidents but no Integrals 2. That every commanded truth is essential which are both false For else the institution might be essential and yet not the believing it such be essential And he confesseth that such belief is not essential to every Member nor can he tell to how many nor to whom ad esse Ecclesiae If he say To as many as have a sufficient proposal 1. Then if none had a sufficient proposal it would cease to be essential to the Church 2. Then if any one sin be committed by the Church against a sufficient proposal the Church is nullified If he said It is not known how many must believe it ad esse Ecclesiae then no man can know whether the Church be nullified or not He saith pag. 6â—… So the acknowledgment of it by all those to whom it is sufficiently propounded is necessary to make them parts of the true Church and the denyal of it when so propounded hinders them from being parts Ans. 1. Still this sayeth nothing to the question how far and in whom it is essential to the Church 2. And this unchurcheth every person that erreth and sinneth against any one word of Scripture after a sufficient proposal yet this same man said pag. 36. of his explications Whatsoever their neglect be to know what is propounded yet so long as they believe explicitely what is necessary to be believed necessitate medii and implicitely the rest they can be no Hereticks for it is not the ignorance though culpable c. And do the wilfully ignorant acknowledge it reconcile these if you can 2. This Unchurcheth your whole Church For it is sufficiently proposed even in express words in the Scripture that there is Bread in the Eucharist after Consecration thrice together in 1 Cor. 11. and that the Church should communicate with the Cup This do in remembrance of me even to shew the Lords death till he come and that we should not make to our selves any graven Image nor bow down to it nor worship it and that we should pray publickly in a known Tongue and that Bishops should not Lord it over the Flock c. and you erre and sin after this sufficient proposal Pag. 36. I had given several Instances of the Iberians Indians Americans the primitive Christians and their own Converts to prove that the belief of and subjection to the Pope is not necessary to Christianity or Salvation to which his answer is very remarkable Viz. I never said that all particular persons or COMMUNITIES are obliged to have an express belief or acknowledgment of the Roman Bishops Supremacy that being necessary to all neither necessitate medii nor praecepti It is sufficient that they believe it implicitely in subjecting themselves to all those whom Christ hath instituted to be their lawful Pastors and when the Bishop of Rome is sufficiently proposed to them to be the Supreme Visible Pastor of those Pastors upon Earth that then they obstinately reject not his authority Ans. There is some moderation in this though it utterly overthrow their cause 1. This fully proveth that the poor Abassines Armenians and such others for all the Popish Accusations of them are neither Hereticks nor Schismaticks for not acknowledging the Pope whose Supremacie hath not been sufficiently proposed to them And so that the Church is greater than the Popes Kingdom 2. This maketh out a receiving of the Popes Supremacie to be no more necessary than the receiving of every Word of the holy Scripture or tradition noâ—… than the receiving e. g. of the Cup in the Lords Supper For all are essentially necessary say they when sufficiently propounded 3. This undeceiveth us that thought their Doctrine had been that the Scripture and Christianity must necessarily be
Churches from the beginning of the Christian Church nor was Rome it self so but ever since their beginnings they have been visible sometimes obeying the Pope and sometimes rejecting him the Abassines and several other Extra-imperial Churches never obeyed him The most of the Churches of the Empire the Eastern and African sometimes obeyed him as the chief in the Empire by the Laws of the Empire amd sometimes they cast him off when the Eastern Empire cast him off but they never obeyed him as the Soveraign Bishop of the whole World III. In the third sense of the word Congregation as it signifieth the Universal Church I confess that I can shew you no Universal Church now visible rejecting the Pope for the Universal leaveth out no part though a corrupt part and while Papists own him I cannot say that the Universal Church disowneth him but I can prove 1. That the Primitive Universal Church never owned any Universal Head or Governour but Christ and his twelve Apostles whose indefinite charge may be called Universal 2. That the Universal Church never owned the Roman Universal Soveraignty 3. That the far greatest part of the Church doth not own it at this day and therefore if the whole may be denominated from the major part we may say that now the Universal Church disowneth him And now Reader answer these like Sophisms and you have answered this man of Art 1. No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which acknowledgeth the Patriarchs in the Empire at least heretofore Ergo no other is the true Church of Christ. Answ. 1. But another is part and the best part of the Church of Christ. 2. And none that doth or ever did acknowledge those Patriarchs was the whole Church 3. And none of the Church acknowledged them at first before they were erected So 2. Inst. No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which condemneth the Monothelites the Nestorians the Eutychians the Audians the Luciferians the Quartodecimani c. Ergo no other is the true Church Answ. 1. Part of the Church condemn them and part never heard of them And before they rose none of the Church condemned them So another Instance is No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which Administreth the Eucharist only in one kind without the Cup and which useth publick Prayers in an unknown Tongue and which forbiddeth the reading the Scripture translated without special License c. Ergo no other is the true Church Answ. 1. Only a corrupt part now doth these The most discover it and none were guilty of it in many Generations Doth there need any other Answer to such palpable Sophismes His Argument plainly should run thus No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which now owneth the Trayterous Usurpation of the Pope and the Council of Trent and of Lateran and part of whose Religion is for exterminating or burning all that will not renounce all belief of Humane Senses in believing Transubstantiation and for casting out Princes that execute not this and absolving Subjects from their Oathes of Allegiance to them and which hath corrupted the Doctrine Worship and Government of Christ Ergo no other is the true Church Answ. A diseased part of the Church only is guilty of this now and the whole Church was far from it heretofore But pag. 83. he telleth me that he meaneth neither one present Assembly nor yet one as united in one visible Humane Head but abstracting from that also be it but truly and properly one whencesoever the Unity is drawn 't is all alike to the solution of the Argument Answ. Then sure our business is in a hopeful way if not as good as ended Remember this and fly not from it Our Unity is in Christ our Head One King maketh us one Kingdom All Christians are one Body of Christ. Yea moreover we are one in all the seven Points of Unity required by the Holy Ghost Eph. 4. viz. We have 1. One Body of Christ not of the Pope 2. One Spirit 3. One hope of our Calling viz. Eternal Glory 4 One Lord without a Vice-Christ 5. One Faith summarily in the Creed and integrally in the Holy Scriptures 6. One Baptisme or solemnised Baptismal Covenant 7. One God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in us all Yea as to the Integrals though our Grace hath various degrees we all receive the inspired Prophets Apostles and Evangelists Authority and Doctrine and the ordinary Pastors and Teachers that are sent by the Holy Ghost and called by the way which God hath appointed though we receive not an Usurper that maketh himself the Governour of the whole World in Title while he Governeth not the tenth part of it nor any according to God's Law and who is oft obtruded by Whores and Murders and is a wicked Slave of Satan so judged by his own General Councils We acknowledge that there are among us different Opinions but neither for Kind or Number comparable to the differences of the Papal Sectaries among themselves Not for Kind such as about Murder Adultery Perjury Lying False-witness yea about the Love of God it self are by the Iansenists charged on the Iesuits and proved out of their express words Nor such as Mr. Clarkson hath collected from the express words of their most famous Doctors of all Parties Nor such about King-killing dissolving Subjects Oathes c. as H. Fowlis hath gathered from the express words of your greatest Doctors And for Number all the Sects in the World of Christians set together have not half the Controversies and contentious Writings against each other as your Schoolmen and other Writers of your Church have For our parts we look not that our Union should be perfect till our wisdom and holiness and patience and we our selves be perfect They that know but in part will err in part and differ in part We believe that there are diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit and differences of Administrations but the same Lord and diversity of Operations but the same God who worketh all in all For as the Bedy is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body so also is Christ For by one Spirit we are Baptised into one Body and have been all made to drink into one Spirit Thus are we the Body of Christ not of the Pope and Members in particular And God hath set some in this Body the Church first Apostles not first a Vice-Christ secondly Prophets thirdly Teachers but no Universal Vicar-Head All these are Members and should so live in love that there be no Schisme in the Body But pag. 84. the Man is not satisfied though I name them what I mean by These Churches united in one Christ. Answ. How should I make a Man know that is unwilling or how but by naming them by their Country and Profession I mean All the Christians of
Abassia Armenia Egypt Syria the Georgians the Iacobites those falsly called by you Nestorians and Eutychians the Africans Greeks Muscovites the Britains Seots Swedes Danes Belgians Saxons Helvetians the rest of the Germans Transilvanians Hungarians French c. which now disown the Papacy who were some Countrys never under the Pope some Countries at first under him and after rejected him and some at first from under his Government next under him and after repented and all of them have been Christians from their first conversion to this day Can I speak plainer But Num. 42. he granteth that All that are true Christians are one Kingdom or Church of Christ but denyeth that these are true Christians And pag. 84. He would seem to give some reason for his denyal saying I deny it if they were independent on the Bishop of Rome Answ. 1. Even now he abstracted from this But now they are no Christians unless they be Dependendents on the Pope Such a Denyal is an easie Task and the sum of all their Writings But what need there then so many Ambages and large Volumes to bring out such a short and crude Assertion Could you not have said this without all the rest He is no Christian that dependeth not on the Pope But is it not incumbent on you to prove it Undoubtedly it is 1. In foro Scholastico as an Affirmer 2. In foro civili Ecclesiastico as an Accuser And till you have proved it what need they or I care for yoùr words Must all Men pass for no Christian that a Priest or Jesuit will say are none Or am I and all Men disobliged from loving all those as Christians whom such as you will affirm to be no Christians Love is easily destroyed if this much will do it But it costeth more than so to cause it Pag. 85. He addeth Let them have been as visible as you please that 's nothing to me so were the Arrians Sabellians Montanists c. Prove they were no more than one visible Congregation of Christians among themselves and with Orthodox Christians that 's the present Controversie Answ. I hope we shall find out the Controversie at last though it seems as hard almost as to resolve it How oft must I repeat the same Proof Again my Proof is this Those that are baptised into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and hold all essential to Christianity not apostatizing from the whole or any essential part are true Christians But such are they before mentioned 1. That they are Baptized is not denyed and Baptizing is Christening and supposeth the profession of all that is essential to Christianity or else it could not make them Christians 2. No man that professeth himself a Christian must be taken to be no Christian till he be convict by lawful proof because as sincerity or heart-consent to the Covenant of Grace is our Christianity as invisible before God so Baptism and professed consent to that Covenant is our visible Christianity before men every man being the Expositor of his own belief and resolution but that these Churches have Apostatâ—…zed from the whole or any essential part of Christianity is unproved and therefore not to be supposed As every particular man is to be taken for a Christian who is baptized and professeth it till his profession be disproved so much more whole Countries and Churches that profess Christianity must not be supposed without proof to be no Christians If a Papist will say to all the men in the City prove that you are no Thieves no Adulterers no Murderers no Lyars no Traytors or else I will take you for such I think they may more justly say prove that we are such or else we will take you for a standerer And that they are of one Church I prove All Christians are one Church but those are Christians therefore of one Church The major is certain They that are the Members and Subjects of one Christ are of one Church All Christians are the Members and Subjects of one Christ therefore they are of one Church All that have the seven terms of Union before mentioned out of Eph. 4. are of one Church but such are these before named Here remember 1. That I plead not for the Christianity of any that are proved to deny indeed any one essential point of Christianity but I will not believe this man that every thing instituted by Christ and so every word in the Bible is such an essential nor that our Church or Religion is so strange a thing as to have no perpetual integral parts nor accidents but what will not some men have a Face to defend 2. That this same man hath already maintained that no man is bound to be subject to the Pope to whom he is not sufficiently propounded and that he confesseth that it is not yet agreed among them that any more is necessary to Salvation to be explicitely believed than that there is a God and reward for good works And yet two or three parts of the Christian World must be no Christians nor Members of the Church of Christ because they are not Members of the Pope And let it be still remembred to acquit the Eastern and Southern Churches from the Papists charge of Heresie as being Nestorians and Eutychians 1. That the Accusers are to be taken for Calumniators till they prove it by all the rules of common Justice 2. That if they could prove Dioscorus e. g. an Eutychian that 's no proof that all the Bishops that adhered to him were such for it 's apparent by the Acts of the Councils that Multitudes adhered to him because they thought him no Eutychian and Derodon de suppositâ—… hath undeniably proved that Dioscorus said but what his Predecessor Cyril hath oft said whom you approved and many because they thought the Judgment unjust that judged him so and cast him out and many for the honour of the Seat yea many for fear of death by the people that were affected to him as their Patriarch though they understood not the cause in question He that readeth the Bishops at the Council of Calcedon part crying out prostrate on the Earth miseremini miseremini non dissentimus else kill us here we dare not go home if we desert and raile against our Patriarch before another be chosen the people will kill us and another part of them confessing that fear made them subscribe at the Council at Ephes. 2. and some crying out Away with them they are Hereticks who cryed non dissentimus may well judge that all were not Hereticks that clamor called so 3. If they could prove those few Bishops that were openly accused and noted to be Eutychians that 's no proof that the rest were so 4. If they could prove that many then were so that will not prove that those that now there inhabit are so 5. And of Nestorianism there is less publick shew of proof 6. And indeed the main Body of the Common
by voluntary subjection yet so are not the Churches which the rest of the Apostles planted without the Empire aâ—… those Apostles were not subject to St. Peter 6. And why do you so arrogantly accuse such vast Churches as Armâ—…nia Ethiopia India and all the rest of the Apostles planted besides Peter and Paul and take them all for Rebels and Schismaticks and yet bring no word of proof for your Accusations But the truth is Reynerius though he revolted from the 〈◊〉 of his times was an honester man than the Pope that shall thus be his Expositor and yet W. I is not the Pope and therefore I question his partial exposition Next I mentioned the Canon of the Council of Calcedon which saith that the Fathers in Council gave Rome the preheminence c. He replyeth that 1. The Greek word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exhibited or deferred to Rome as ever before due to it by the right of the Apostolick See of St. Peter established there Ans. You are hard put to it when you have no better shift than so useless a Criticism 1. You know I suppose that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may have a signification as remote from doâ—…ation as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that your own common Translation is tribuere and I desire no more 2. Is here ever a word in the Canon that saith It was ever before due not a word 3. Is not the same word used of the giving of equal priviledges to Constantinople as â—…is of giving or deferring it to Rome the same word And did they mean that this belonged ever to Constantinople and that of Divine Right You dare not say so 4. Did they not say that by the same reason they judged that Constantinople should have equal priviledges because it was the Royal City And was this famous Council of which you boast as obeying Leo's Epistle so sottish and absurd as to argue thus because old Rome had the first Seat assigned to it on this account because it was the imperial Seat and that was because it was ever before its due as St Peter's Chair therefore we judge that by the same reason Constantinople should have equal priviledges because it is now new Rome the imperial Seat though it was never due to it before as the Seat of any Apostle O what cannot some men believe or seem to believe And how much doth it conern your Church to be the Expositor and Judge of the sense of all Councils as well as of God's Word He addeth that the Canon saith not that this was the sole reason Ans. 1 But the Canon saith This was the reason and assigneth no other 2. And if it made not it the great reason which the Church was to take for the fundamentum juris they would never have laid the Right of Constantinople on the same Foundation as by parity of reason The plain truth is but interest and partiality cannot endure plain truth he that will not be deceived by cited By-words of the Ancients must distinguish between the Titâ—…lus or fundamentum juris and the Ratio or Motives of the Statute or Constitution The first was the Law of Emperours and Councils This only giveth the Right The second was prevailingly and principally that which the Canon here assigneth that Rome was the great City and the imperial Seat but as a honorary Tittle adding to the Motive they say sometimes that it was the Seat of Peter and sometimes of Peter and Paul and sometime they mention Paul alone and cry as at Ephesus Magno Paulâ—… Cyrillo Magne Paulo Celestino But note that they give often the same reason for the Patriarchal honour of Antioch that it was Sedes Petri and therefore never took this to be either the Foundation of the Right or the chief determining Motive of the Constitution He addeth that else it had been a contradiction when the Fathers say that Dioscorus had extended his Felony against him to whom our Saviour had committed the charge and care of his Vineyard that is of the whole Catholick Church Ans. 1. No doubt but they acknowledged that Christ committed the care of his Vineyard to Peter and every one of the Apostles and to all Bishops as their Successors though not in Apostleship and they acknowledged Rome the primate in the Empire and when Dioscor us undertook to excommunicate Leo they supposed that he transgressed the Laws of the imperial Church and therefore Anatolius in the Council when the Indices said that Dioscor us condemned Flavian for saying Christ had two Natures answered That Dioscorus was not condemned propter fidem but for excommunicating Leo and for not appearing when he was sent for 2. Is here any word that saith that the Pope was Soveraign of all the Earth Doth not the Council in that very Letter to Leo say that the Emperour had called the Council not ascribing it to any Authority of the Pope And also that the saying Mat. 28 Go teach all Nations c. was delivered to them which is the care of the vineyard and not only to the Pope Quam nobis olim ipse salvator tradidit ad salutem But saith W. I. The true reason why this Canon mentioneth rather the Imperial Authority of that City than the right from St. Peter was because it suited better with the pretensions of Anatolius Bishop of Constantinople and his Complices for the elevaton of that Sea than any other for they had no other c. Ans. It 's true But did Anatolias and his Complices that is the Council speak sincerely and truly here or falsly If truly that 's all that I cite them for If falsly as worldly unconscionable men that were setting up themselves why hoast we of General Councils even of this and of their words to Leo How can we tell when to trust them and whether they that subscribed against Flavian at Ephes. 2. and after cryed omnes peccavimus at Calcedon when they were under a Martian and not Theodosius would not have acquit Dioscorus and condemned Leo and Elavian again if another Theodosius had come But if they were credible believe them But he tells us that a Law of Theodosius and Valentine put both reasons together c. Ans. I told you in what sense even now even as they put the name of Peters Seat as a reason of the honour of Antioch a honorary motive to their Law And he here confesseth himself That Alexander and Antioch had the second and third places because they were the second and third great Cities of the Empire But he saith that St. Peter thought it convenient that the highest spiritual Authority should be placed in that City which had the highest temporal power Ans. Say you so 1. Where is that Canon of St. Peter's to be found and proved 2. If so then why is not this Canon produced for the regulating of all other Churches Why doth Canterbury take place of London
necessary to make us Members Answ. As the union of King and Subjects maketh one Kingdom so the union of Christ and Christians maketh one Church and we call none Christians that profess not true Faith and Charity and their seed But he saith the Question is How a Heretick or Schismatick can be a true Christian. Answ. Ambiguous words are the game of deceivers and to open the ambiguity marreth their cause The word Heretick I have told you signifieth either one that denyeth an Essentiall part of Christianity or one that only denyeth an Integral part The former are no Christians the latter may § 13. But he will prove that no Heretick is a Christian or hath true Faith viz. Whoever hath true faith believeth the material object of faith for the Divine authority of God revealing it That is certain But so doth no Heretick That 's very false of both sorts of Hereticks 1. You call the Luciferians the Novatians c. Hereticks and who can see reason to doubt but they might believe that all that God saith is true 2. Overdoing is undoing As you are the greatest causes of Schisme by overdoing as against Schisme so you would justifie almost all the Hereticks in the world by your blind overdoing as against Hereticks and while you would make most or much of Christs Church to be Hereticks you would make men believe that there are none All that believe that there is a God believe that he is Verax no Lyar but true All that believe that God is no Lyar but true of his word believe all to be true which they judge to be his word But saith W. I no Heretick believeth any thing on the authority of God revealing that is because God that revealeth it is true And so all those that believe that God is true and that any thing is true because he revealeth it are no Hereticks And who knoweth other mens hearts better You or They You take me it's like for a Heretick I say that I believe that God cannot Lye and I believe in Christ because God the â—…evealer is true You say Then I am no Heretick If an Arrian can but truly say that he believeth all Gods word to be true but he taketh not Christs Consubstantial eternal Deity to be Gods word you will justifie him to be no Heretick And yet the poor Iconoclasts the Waldenses the Berengarians can find no place in this mans Church when yet he thus acquitteth almost all Hereticks in the whole world Nothing but humerous singularity can pretend any probable reason why an Arrian a Nestorian an Eutychian a Monothelite yea a Mahometan or other Infidel may not believe that God is no Lyar but all that is indeed his word is true § 14. But he will not be unreasonable without reason His Argument is Whosoever believeth the material object of Faith for the Divine Authority of God revealing it must believe all things which are as sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed of God as are the Articles which he believeth protesteth to and believe nothing as revealed which is as sufficiently declared to him to be erroneous and not revealed c. But every Heretick doth otherwise If he believe some and refuse others equally propounded it is not for Divine Authority Answ. If you believe this reasoning your self you deserve little belief from others 1. The word sufficiently propounded will never sufficiently be expounded by you nor ever is like to be Sometimes by sufficient as in the Dominicans controversie of sufficient grace is meant that which quo posito res fieri potest sine quo non potest And so taken as necessarium or possible for the minimum tale it hath no degrees But usually we take sufficient in such a latitude as that things may be in many degrees one more sufficient than another that is more apt and powerfull to produce the effect And for the first remember that if you judge so mercifully of Hereticks as that no one is such that hath not a proposal in the very first sense sufficient you can call no Arrian nor Photinian or Gnostick a Heretick till you know that the Proposal was to him sufficient And how much less can you call the Nestorians or Eutychians or the Abassines Syrians Armenians c. Hereticks when you know them not and know not the sufficiency of their proposals And to know that a proposal was sufficient to Nestorius Eutyches or Dioscorus doth not prove that there was such sufficient proposal to all others that go under such names either then or now Who knoweth not that an unlearned man hath need of clearer and ofter teaching than the Learned and one that by Education is prepossest with contrary conceptions hath need of more than the unprejudiced and one that is corrupted by sensual lusts hath need of more than the temperate And what man is well able to judge of the measures of sufficiency as to other then much less to whole Nations whom we know not 2. But as to your Minor which by the word as sufficiently sheweth that you take sufficiency as it hath degrees here you seem plainly to absolve all the Hereticks in the world e. g. As if a Monothelite were no Heretick unless it be as sufficiently in degree revealed that Christ hath two wills as it is that he is the Christ and rose again or as if an Arrian were no Heretick unless it be as sufficiently revealed that Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same substance with the Father as it is that he dyed 3. And the supposition in your Minor is notoriously false that all Hereticks have as sufficient a proposal of all they deny as of that which they believe For if the meaning of the words revealing be not equally plain and intelligible then the proposal is not equally sufficient But c Can any man not blinded by faction believe that God hath no more plainly told us that Christ dyed rose and ascended than that he hath two distinct wills or that he hath but one person or that his mother is to be called The parent of God and one that did beget and bring forth God and that God dyed yea or that Christ is God of God Light of Light very God of very God and yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only from the same substance but the same substance Though these are equally true they are not equally clear and evident Do the Quartodecimani the Luciferians the Iovinians deny Truthes as sufficiently proposed as that there is a God or a Christ If you say that though they be not equally proposed in Scripture yet they are by Councils or Traditions I Answer 1. Were they no points of Faith nor the denyal Heresie for 300 years before the first General Council 2. When they of Constance and Basil are for the Supremacy of Councils as de fide and they of Laterane and Florence against them when the Council of Basil decreed the Immaculate conception of the
mens salvation and all the Churches peace and safety was thought to be at stake upon the controversies Whether de Christo Locutio formalis an materialis erat maximè propria An Deus à Sp. Sancto in Virgine concipi ab ipsâ generari propriè diceretur Whether Nestorius was a Heretick for saying that he would not say God was two or three months old And when poor Eutyches and Dioscorus for want of skill thought verily they had spoken but what Cyril taught them and became Hereticks by it before they were aware when the grand Question was whether the word persona had such a signification as that Christs Humane Nature might be called any part of his Person or whether the Divine Nature which is infinite can be Pars And whether if the Humane be Pars personae then that Personality which was from Eternity without the Humane could be the same with that Personality of which the Humane was a part Or if the Humane be no part of the Person but an Accident whether it be proper to denominate the Person and Essence from an Accident so as to say God was begotten of Mary God was two Moneths old God was dead and buried ascended c. And when the whole Salvation of Men seemed to lye on the curiosity How far two Natures or two wills so nearly united as to have a communication of Names and Epithets might be said to be made One No doubt but in all these the Orthodox were in the right But it 's pity that when Logick was so denyed in the Council of Nice and Apollinaris blamed for too much using it and the Council at Carthage forbad the use of the Heathens Books yet so many Men must burn in Hell for being no better Logicians or more metaphysical and all Men to the end of the World must be numbred with them that do not anathematize them And that Millions of Ignorant Men and Women in Abassia Syria Armenia c. that know nothing of these Matters nor ever heard of them to whom they are as an unknown Tongue must all be unchristened and damned as Hereticks yea for not owning a Council that most it's like never heard of Alas how few in England Ireland or any Countrey know what the Council of Chalcedon did or ever heard it But yet all these Hereticks two or three parts of the World have an easie way of Recovery It is but to believe as the Pope of Rome believes though they know not what and take him for their Sovereign and they are safe But the final Judgment is more Just. § 14. Pag. 169. He addeth The Abassines confess themselves to follow Eutyches and Dioscorus and therefore there needeth neither Tryal nor Conviction Answ. 1. Where is your Proof that they so confess We will not confess that this is no Slander 2. Alas how few of them know who Eutyches and Dioscorus were 3. And of those that Honour their Names how few know what they held 4. Your own Writers acquit them of that Heresie 5. The Truth is the Tradition of their Countrey teacheth them to Honour Dioscorus for his place sake but I cannot learn that the Name of Eutyches is known or Honoured much by them 6. O that the Papists had not more and greater Errors than either Nestorius or Eutyches and that you condemned not your selves in condemning the Abassines § 15. Let the Reader Note that this Man would first have us believe that the Abassines and others whom they call Hereticks are Subjects of the Pope and of their Church and yet that they are Hereticks and so that Hereticks are no parts of the Church and yet that they are parts of their Church His shameless calling for proof that any of their Writers acquit them from these Heresies shall not tempt me to lose my time in citing them § 16. Next we come to his charge That the Greek Church rejects us as well as they Therefore the whole Church rejecteth us Therefore we are to be rejected Hereticks or else the whole Church is deceived Answ. 1. He that never read Church-History may think that there is some signification in this Cant of The whole Church and the Universal Church But so will not he that knoweth how the Prelates have usually turned to the stronger side and that if the Majority be the whole the whole Church was Orthodox in Constantines days and the whole Church was Arrian in the days of Constantius and Valens the whole Church was Eutychian in Theodosius Junior's days and long Monothelites and Iconoclasts c. 2. If it prove Men to be Hereticks or Schismaticks because the Major part reject them then the Orthodox were Hereticks when the foresaid Arrians rejected them But you have been so long used to Usurp Christs Chair that you seem to be grown to believe your selves that a Man is out of Christs Church if other Men do but say that he is out As if you knew not that the Church is to put no Man farther from Christ but only to declare how far from him they have put themselves And if any declare more than is true it doth not separate the wronged Person from Christ. e. g. I heard but yesterday divers Persons Excommunicated some for Teaching School without License and some for other such like things Doth it follow that these are any further out of the Church than they put themselves 3. But tell us if you can when the Greek Church or Patriarch of Constantinople did presume to Excommunicate us You will not tell us How then doth their rejection signifie that we are not of the same Church The Truth is the Greek Church never declared their mind concerning us If you will call one Man or twenty Men the Greek Church you may use your Liberty but we shall little regard it In the days of one Patriarch Cyril he declareth for us and our Reformation The Papists in Charity get him Murdered Another Ieremiah declareth his dissent from us but it is one thing to dissent from some things and another thing to take Men for none of the Church If you will charge the Greeks to be such Separatists as to unchurch or unchristen all that they in controverted Points dissent from We will not believe you in so ugly a charge till you have proved it The Greeks disown us and we them in some lesser things but neither they nor we presume to unchristen one another And if they or we did it would unchristen none of us unless we first unchristened our selves 4. But if the Greeks have the supream authority as the virtual universal Church then the Papists have it not if the Papists have it the Greeks have it not If neither hath it who hath it Neither of you nor both are the real Universal Church and neither is Virtually the Universal Therefore if both did Excommunicate us we are not therefore Excommunicate by the Church Universal 5. But may the Church Universal erre in Excommunicating or not If
so then you have said nothing If not you take a General Council to be indeed the Church representative â—…nd then how many of your Popes Essential parts of your Church have been Excommunicated and deposed as Hereticks by the Universal Church And your Church now is but the Successour of e. g. Eugenius the fourth so rejected Shew us when ever the Greeks did so by our Church or us § 17. I told him the Greek Church claimed but the Primacy or Supremacy in the Empire and not the Government of all the World At this he first wondreth and then takes upon him to disprove it 1. Because else Gregory the first had ill reprehended John of Constant. for claiming the Title of Universal Bishop 2. Because Jeremy saith 1. He was Vice Christi 2. And perswadeth Lucius c. to be Subject to the Church with them Answ. 1. It was the Arrogancy of the Title that Gregory reprehended as sounding like a real Universal Claim and the reality of an Universal Claim in the Empire I proved before that the Greeks knew that Constant. had no Title Iure Divine by the Can. 28 of Chalcedon and the notoriety of the thing And therefore they could not pretend it to be over all the World where the Empire had no Power And what need there more proof than that there is no Evidence brought by you or any that ever they gave Laws to all the Christian World or that ever they called Councils out of it or that ever they set up and put down Bishops in it Indeed they have Excommunicated Roman Popes but that was within the Empire and so did Alexandria Or if since as they do still it is not as their Governours but as any Churches may renounce Communion with Hereticks or Persons uncapable of their Communion 2. And as for Ieremy 1. Will not Cyril as much prove the contrary 2. Is one Man the Greek Church 3. Did every Apostle or doth every Minister of Christ proclaim himself Universal Head of the Church when he saith as 2 Cor. 5. 19. We beseech you Vice Christi in Christs stead to be reconciled to God It is one thing to be Preachers in Christs stead to our particular Flocks and another thing to Usurp Christs proper Office and be in his stead Universal Governour of the World 4. And may not one of us or any Christian perswade a Man to be Subject to the Church of Christ And if Ieremias had a mind to Rule further than the Empire now the Empire is Mahomeâ—…an and Subjects Voluntary and free what wonder is it We undertake not to Justifie him from all Ambition § 18. I told him out of his Ieremias and his Protonotary Iohn Zygomolas that they confessed Agreement with us In continuis causam fidei praecipuè continentibus articulis and that Quae videntur consensum impedire talia sunt si velit quis ut facilè â—…a corrigâ—…re possit He tells me That 1. Yet they consent with them in all save the Popes Authority Answ. 1. How far that is from Truth Thom. a Iesu and other of your own will tell you 2. And the Popes Authority is the ratio formalis of Popery 2. He saith That Ier. claimeth as Supream Authority over the whole Church as the Pope doth Answ. 1. I will not believe it till I see the proof I find he layeth all his Claim from Councils and therefore may possibly claim power over those Churches that were in the Empire when the Council of Chalcedon gave that power but I find no more And if he did they and we may yet be Christians 3. He saith Any of the Roman Church might write the like to the Lutherans But Zygomalas supposeth them of two Churches till united Answ. He supposeth them not in all things of the same mind nor of the same particular Churches But he that saith that we agree in the Articles of Faith and differ but in lesser things of easie reconciliation either supposeth both Parties to be Christians and of one Church of Christ or else that no Men are Christians that have any Difference that is no two explicite Believers perhaps in the World § 19. I told him 1. The Patriarch was not the Greek Church Nor 2. Their lesser Errors prove us of two Religions or Churches He Replyeth 1. But he knew the Extent of his own Iurisdiction Answ. 1. So do not all Ambitious Men If he do then the Papists are all deceived for he pretended say you a Jurisdiction over the Pope and his Church But the Question between him and the Protestants wâ—… not about his Jurisdiction 2. He saith That If the Errors be tolerable we are Schismaticks in Separating from them and should rather have suffered Answ. To separate from any sin and error by not consenting or committing it no Christian denyeth to be our duty and his supposition that we separated from the Catholick or the Greek Church is but his continued fiction We were not under the Government of the Greeks and therefore not obeying them is no separation and not sinning with them is no separation we own them as Christians and we renounce the sins of all the world and hate our own more than any others so far as we know them § 20. To his saying that It is against Christianity to hold condemned Hereticks to be in the Church I answered 1. That I detest that condemnation when even non judices condemn whole nations without hearing one man much-lesser all speak for themselves or any just witness that ever heard them defend a Heresie His Answer is that I mistake the way of their Churches condemnation They do but say whoever holds such errors let him be accursed or we excommunicate such as hold them c. Answ. There is some hope left then for the Nations that are no subjects of the Pope unlesse non-subjection be the Heresie But hath the Pope gone no further than this Hath he not put whole Nations under Interdicts But he saith those that profess their heresies or that communicate with them are esteemed hereticks and those that profess to disbelieve their heresie and yet live in communion with them and subjection to them are Schismaticks Answ. 1. Here 's new confounding doctrine indeed If their Canon only condemn indefinitely those that hold a heresie e. g. Nestorianism taking it to be unfit to say God dyed or God was born must all be taken for hereticks that communicate with any of these before the person guilty is convict and judged Must every private man be the judge of hiâ—… neighbour Every servant of his Master Every woman of her husband Every subject of the King and be burnt for a heretick for communicating with one that was never accused or condemned We live then with one another more dangerously than men converse in the time of pestilence Nay what if the Priest himself admit such to the Communion must the poor people be burned if they communicate with them in the parish Church
France and Germany To which I say 1. That none but Rome much medled in the Empire after their Conquest Nor Rome much in comparison of Alexandria Constantinople and Antioch 2. I easily confess that those Churches within the Empire had been settled in their several powers by the Councils at Nice and Const. did plead the same Canonical Settlement to keep their possession when they were conquered And that e. g. Rome under Theodorick and other Arrians was willing to keep their Relation to the Orthodox Churches of the Empire for their strength And Neighbours that were under Heathens or Arrians were glad of a little countenance from Councils of great Bishops in the Empire as Basil and the Easternes under Valens were from the West without Subjection to the Pope § 33. Pag. 116. After some trifling Quibbles he Answereth my Charge That their Church is not one but two having at times two Heads The Pope to some and a Council to others To this he saith 1. That this belongs to them that take Councils to be above the Pope and not to him who is of a contrary Opinion Answ. It is to your Party in general I did not say that W. I. was two Churches but that those called Papists are so 2. He saith That they also can answer me with a wet finger for the Pope is in the Council and not excluded Answ. Such wet-fingerd Answers serve to deceive the Ignorant The Question is not of the Popes Natural Person but of his Political Two summa potestates make two Polities The Pope in a General Council is not the summae potestas if a Council be above him and may Judge and Depose him To be a Member of a Council that hath the Sovereignty is not to have the Sovereignty Did you not know this § 34. I urged him as his proper work to answer these Questions Whether the Church of which the Subjects of the Pope are Members hath been Visible ever since Christ's days on Earth And therein 1. Whether the Papacy that is their Universal Papal Government over all the Earth hath so long continued 2. Whether all the Catholick Church did still submit to it 3. Whether those that did submit to it took it to be necessary to the Being of the Church and Mens Salvation or only to the more Orderly and Better being But he would not be driven to touch at any of these or prove the perpetual Visibility of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over my last 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 over many of his Imâ—… 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 that I refer him but to the pâ—…sing of the Histories which 〈◊〉 coâ—…th with the General Answers which I have before given And he will find 1. That the Pope was but a National Primate 2. And that by Humane Institution 3. And under a General Council 4. Striving upon every Advantage to be greater 5. Under the power of Princes 6. And when he lost his power over all the other four Patriarchs the West falling from the Empire he sought to bring the Western Princes under him and claimed a Government over all the World The Third Part A Defence of my Arguments to prove That the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the daies of Christ on Earth § 1. I Began with an Explication of the termes but this Disputer saith that this is of no concern to his Argument nor much to my answer Answ. It pleaseth not those that are all darkness such Explications as you gave me are indeed of little Use. 1. He saith I make Believers and true Christians Synonyma's whereas one may be a Believer as an unbaptized Catechumene but is not a Christian till baptized Answ. As a Pope once told one how little wit in a place of power would serve to govern the world so I see by this man How little Reason will serve to set up a Iesuite for an â—…nanswerable disputant among the ignorant The word Christian as well as Believer signifieth 1. A heart-consenter to the Baptismal Covenant 2. Or a Professor of that consent And 1. Regularly by Baptism 2. Or without it when it cannot be â—…ad 1. As soon as a man Believeth and Consenteth he is a Christian before God 2. As soon as he solemnly professeth it he is an incompleat Christian before men 3. As soon as he professeth it in Baptism he is orderly and regularly a Christian before the Church Even as two secretly maâ—…rying are marryed before God and when they publish their mutual Consent and Covenant as suppose it were where a priest is not to be had they are irregularly married before men but solemn Matrimony maketh it a Legal Marriage in fore And this distinction holds of the word Beleiver as well as of Christian A Beleiver a Disciple and a Christian were Synonyma's before Popery was born § 2. Next he saith that my words Subject to Christ their Head are equivocal Because Subject may signifie but inferior and Head but a principal member Answ. What is not equivocal to a Jesuite 1. Did I not put this first The Church is the Kingdom of Iesus Christ 2. When I said It is the whole company of Believers subject to Christ their head are not the words significative enough of a governing Head And did I not adde the constitutive parts are Christ and Christians as the pars imperans subdita are there more notifying words in use If there are tell'them me if you can or was not this a cavil that had more of Will and Interest than of Conscience § 3. I said Protestants are Christians protesting against and disallowing Popery To this he cavils 1. That the name had another original 2. That the Greeks Arrians Antitrinitarians Socinians Hussites Anabaptists Familists Millenaries Quakers are not Protestants Answ. 1. Did I undertake to tell you the first Rise of the name or only to tell whom I mean in my dispute If I had the German protestation immediately against a particular Edict was principally and finally against Popery and in that sence is the name continued But it is not the Name but the Church and Religion that I dispute of You know that the Name Reformed Catholick Christians pleaseth us better than the Name of Protestants Were not Christians after they were first called so at Antioch of the same Religion as before when they were called but Disciples and Believers yea and Nazarens by their adversaries 2. Who would have thought that you had taken Arrians Antitrinitarians Socinians or any that deny an Essential part of Christianity for true Christians Did you not here oft profess the contrary and those that are no Christians are not in my definition those that are Christians as Greeks Millenaries and Hussites and most Anabaptists with us are Protestants but not meer Protestants they have somewhâ—…t more and worse which giveth them another name but if Christians protesting against Popery they are of the same Church universal as we are § 4. When I call Popery
the Leprosie of some Christians he must know whether all the Church was not Leprous then 2. And whether men could with a safe Conscience have Communion with any Answ. 1. He that saith he hath no sin is alyar saith St. Iohn All Christians and therefore all Churches are defiled with sin 2. All are not equally defiled I have told you that the Papists are not the third part of the Christian world and for many hundred years there were none 3. We must not separate from all Churches that have sin but we must not willfully sin for their Communion and we must joyn locally with the best we can and in spirit joyn with all as far as they joyn with Christ is not this plain and sufficient to your cavills § 5. He saith p. 423. that our external profession in the particulars of our Belief or rather Disbelief against the Roman Church sheweth our general profession of Christianity to be false as the Arrian was Answ. What is easier than to say so But where 's your proof § 6. After a repetition of his talk against Christ as no visible Head he cavills at the form of my first Argument which was this The body of Christians on Earth subjected to Christ their Head hath been in it's parts visible ever since the dayes of Christ on Earth But the body of Christians on Earth subjected to Christ their Head is the Church of which the Protestants are members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since thâ—… daies of Christ on Earth And first he saith that it 's out of form because it hath never an universal proposition Answ. This is the man that would not dispute but in meer Syllogism what need I an universal proposition If you be to prove that Cephas was Peter or Peter was an Apostle of the first place must you have an universal proposition What Universal must there be above The Body of Christians c. 2. He saith that the word Those Form requireth should have been All those when as there is never a Those at all in the argument Is not this an accurate reformer of Syllogisms that amendeth termes that were not written and talketh like a dreamer of he knoweth not what but what is the All that the man would have had is it all those bodies of Christians when we are all agreed that Christ hath but one political body if I had been to prove that the world that Protestants are parts of hath been visible since Adam or that the God the Protestants worship is Almighty must I have said All those worlds and all those Gods Nay had I said but whatsoever worlds or whatsoever God it had sounded ill among men that are agreed that there is but one sure an expository medium that was but notius was enough Next he saith that I put more in the medium of the major than in the medium of the minor and so it hath four terms Answ. Wonderful This is the man that disputed with our two great Logicians and publick professors of Cambridge Bishop Gunning and Bishop Peirson and as a triumpher printed the dispute and challenged men in London to Syllogistical combats And now see how he talketh 1. He calls that my medium that is no medium at all but the Praedicate 2. He saith it is not in my Minor where that Praedicate was not nor ought to be but another 3. He takes an expository parenthesis which is no part of the proposition for an addition that maketh â—…our termes When I prove the Church visible to prevent his cavils I put in a parenthesis as a margin in it's parts because the whole world or Church is not seen by any mortal man no not by the Pope that pretends to rule it all and this no man controverteth If he had said that there is less in the conclusion than in the premises he had spoken sence though impertinet while there is as much as was in the question 2 He saith I make the praedicate of the minor the subject of the conclusion and then saith This is a hopeful beginning Answ. O rare triumphant disputer why should I not make the praedicate of the Minor the subject of the conclusion What Law or Reason is against it when iâ—… is the subject of the question My Argument is a re definitâ ad rem denominatam as questioned the definition or res quà definita is my medium How ridiculoâ—…s hath this Aristarchus made himself in his Logick would not this disputing have been very edifying to such as the Lady that he and I were once to deal with when he would have bargained that never a word should be spoken by me nor written but in a Syllogism as bad as Popery is I hope it hath some men of more ingenuity and honesty then wilfully to delude the ignorant at these low and sordid rates § 7. But from his play he turneth in earnest to deny my Major and saith that Protestants are no parts of that Church on Earth of which Christ is Head And yet many of their Doctors say that they that have no explicite belief that Iesus is the Christ but believe only a God the rewarder of works are members of the Church but no Christians are save Papists Just the Donatists and worse than the Quakers and Anabaptists My Argument Those that profess the true Christian Religion in all it's Essentials are members of that Church which is the Body of Christians on Earth subjected to Christ the Head But Protestants profess c. Here 1. he wanteth form also All is wanting as if a definition were not Universal or equipollent But if All be in he denyeth it because they may destroy the faith by an Error Answ. He that so erreth as to deny any one Essential part doth not truly profess to hold that Essential part and so not the Essence as he that denyeth Christ to be God or Man and yet will say in general that he is the Messiah his meaning is that one that is not God or not Man is the Messiah which is not a profession of all Essential to Christianity but if he truly profess all that is Essential and ignorantly think some error Consistent with those Essentials which by consequence crosseth some of them and would abhorr that error if he knew it inconsistent this man is still a Christian or else it 's doubt whether there be one in the world if those Doctors say true that say that Theology is so harmonious a frame that the least moral Error doth by consequence cross and subvert fundamental truthes Certainly abundance of such do so as are collected by Montaltus and Mr. Clarkson out of your Jesuites and school Doctors and as you find in one another But he bids me prove my Major mark Reader what I am put to prove 1. Either that Profession denominateth a professor it being only Christians as visible by profession in question 2. Or that all the Essential parts do
bound or how can I be said to believe Implicitely their unknown Doctrine or Articles of Faith What is my Implicite belief of Scripture-Particles but my General belief that all the Scripture is Gods Word and true And what is Implicite belief of Popish Traditions in particular but the explicite belief that all Popish Traditions in general are true If therefore these Disputers confess the sufficiency of our explicite neccessary belief and yet damn us for the insufficiency of our implicite belief they shamefully contradict themselves and give up their cause § 14. Next I thus Argued If sincere Protestants are Members of the True Church as intrinsecally informed or as Bellarmine speaketh Living Members then professed Protestants are Members of the true Church as extrinsecally denominated or as it is Visible consisting of Professours But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the Consequent To this when I had given the Reason of the Consequence undenyable and said I prove the Antecedent or Minor he saith You prove say you your Antecedent or Minor which is a Syntax in Logick and deserves a Ferula for no Minor can be an Antecedent Answ. For this Mans sake I will know a Man better than by his Hectoring before I will go to School to a boaster Reader 1. What is that Error in Logick that is called a Syntax I thought Order or Concord had been no Error I confess my self not wise enough to understand this great Logician And his Ferula is too ready which must be used for Syntaxes when it is more used for violation of Syntax 2. Risum teneatis Can no Antecedent be a Minor so did Dr. Peter Heylin tell me before him in his Certamen Epistolare I suppose I shall never hear a third say so What 's the matter that the Boys Laugh at this and say that to deny the Antecedent of an hypothetical Proposition and to deny the minor is all one Is it that Boys have made all our usual Logicks and now these two Logick Doctors have Reformed them Or hath this Man pretended to be a Champion in that Art in which he is below the Novices He had hit it if he had held to his offer to Dispute before a Lady a Girle only in Syllogism by the Pen for this with her might have past for currant and invincible Logick § 15. I proved the Minor thus All that by Faith in Christ are brought to the unfeigned Love of God above all and special Love of his Servants and unfeigned willingness to Obey him are Members of the True Church as intrinsecally informed But such are all sincere Protestants c. This Minor the Man denyeth and saith That Protestants have not these things Answ. 1. Mark how hard this Man is put to it to renounce his Charity He cannot do it without denying what he granteth A sincere Professor of any Religion is one that really is what he professeth to be He denyeth not that Protestants profess to Love God c. And yet he denyeth the Minor that sincere Protestants do love God As if he that sincerely professeth to Love God doth not Love him These are Papist's Syllogisms 2. Note That this Man seemeth to know all Protestants Hearts better than they do themselves and can prove them all Hypocrites that Love not God 3. But by this you see how he reproacheth all those Protestants that turn Papists as having all been but before but graceless ungodly Hypocrites And what wonder then if they turn 4. But it may be his word formally is a cheat A Protestant is a Christian renouncing Popery It is his Christianity which containeth his Love to God His renouncing Popery is but his freedom from their sin And perhaps the Man hath a mind to call this the Form of Protestants But I hope his Talk shall not deprive us of the Love of God or of our Neighbour In the mean time any Man that can truly say that he is not an ungodly Hypocrite without the Love of God and Man hath Argument enough to Answer any Papist in himself 5. Again Reader mark how much these Men magnifie themselves and how much they vilifie the Word and Works of God Let a Man see all Gods wonderful Goodness in his Works and in his Mercies to himself and all Mankind let him read and believe all the wonderful Love of the Father and Grace of the Son that is described in all the Scriptures Let him believe the Promises there Recorded of Everlasting Glory and All this is insufficient to cause him savingly to Love God or Man But let him but add the belief that the Pope is the Governour of all the Earth and that he and his Council must be believed in all their Traditions and Expositions and then the work will be done and he may Love God unseignedly and be Loved by him The Holy Ghost will not work by the Scripture unless we take the Pope for the Expositor Yea more if a Man never heard of Scripture or if he believe not in Christ for want of the Popes sufficient proposal he may Love God and be saved so he do but believe that the Pope with his Council is a sufficient proposer And is there any account in Reason to be given of this strange Phaenomenon why a Man can Love God if he believe in the Pope of Rome and yet cannot Love him by all his Works and Mercies with the belief of all the Scriptures Or is it as very a Miracle as Transubstantiation and Sanctification by Holy-Water or the Opus operatum and one of those Miracles that prove the Church of Rome to be all the Church on Earth § 16. But he repeateth again the thred-bare Reason Had they this they would never have disobeyed and disbelieved all the Churches in the World Answ. That is the Pope and his Priests who are against the far greatest part of the Christian World and Yearly Anathematized by the Greeks who when they had lost the Primacy of the Eastern part of one Empire have tryed to make up the loss by laying Claim to all the Earth O! of what consequence is Obedience to an Ambitious Pope or Priest in comparison of Obedience to all the written Laws of God § 17. I proved the Minor two ways 1. If this the Love of God c. be in our profession then the sincere are such indeed But this is in our profession Ergo Of this he denyeth the Minor It is not in our profession What not that we Love God and are willing to understand and obey his Word Is he not driven up to the Wall even to another denyal of all Mens Eyes and Ears Do not I profess it while I write these words And have not I professed it in sixty Volumns and more And do not Protestant Libraries contain such professions and their Pulpits ring of them every Lords Day What is a Profession but Words and Writings And are not these Audible and Visible to the World And yet the denying not of the
cause which they did not § 28. My 3d. proof was this The Tradition witnessed by the greater part of the Universal Church saith that the Papal Vicarship or Sovereignty is an innovation and usurpation and that the Catholick Church was many hundred years without it Therefore there was then no such Papat Church Here the man is angry and saith It is an abominable untruth set down by a fore-head of brass A man in his right wits would not have the confidence to utter so loud a falshood and all the world will see that I am one of the most unsufferablest out-facers of Truth and asserters of open Falshood that ever set pen to paper yea it brings in the talk of Rebellion against his Majesty c. Answ. The apprehensions of men are very different when reading it's like the same books leaveth me past doubt on one side and him so vehemently confident on the other My proof is this 1. The greatest part of the Universal Church doth now deny the Papal Universal Sovereignty 2. The greatest part of the Universal Church do suppose and say that they hold herein to the ancient truth which was delivered down from the Apostles 3. Therefore the greatest part of the Universal Church do hold that the ancient truth delivered from the Apostles doth teach them to deny the Popes Universal Sovereignty and consequently that it is an innovation and usurpation I. As to the first it is a matter of present fact such as whether most of England speak English 1. That the great Empire of Abassia renounce the Pope and plead tradition for it Godignus the Jesuite besides others fully testifieth and justifieth Pet. Maffeius Ribade Nica and other Jesuites against 〈◊〉 new author that falsly saith they were subject to the Pope He tells us that they take the Romans for Nestorian Hereticks p. 318. 328. c. and that they resolved never to be subject to the Pope that he that told them otherwise misinformed them yea saith one of the Jesuites pag. 330. I think the Emperour had rather be under the hardest yoak of the Saracens than under the mild and gentle Empire of the Roman Pope It 's true that many errors they have and many more are charged on them which they deny and believing that Dioscorus was the true follower of Cyril and the Council of Ephes. and that Leo and the Council of Calcedon were Nestorians of which more anon they are for Dioscorus against Leo and the Council But few if any of them understand the bottom of that controversie And the Emperor told the Jesuite that he falsly charged errors on them and his mother saith seeing your Faith and ours do nothing differ but are the same why do you write to trouble quiet minds without cause The Jesuite answereth I certainly affirm to your Majesty that if you had no other Errors this one that you are separated from the Pope of Rome the Vicar of Christ on Earth is enough and too much to your everlasting destruction II. To this she replyed that she and her Countrey were subject to the Apostles Peter and Paul and first to Christ himself The Jesuite answered I deny that they are subject to Christ that are not subject to his Vicar Saith she neither I nor mine deny obedience to St. Peter we are now in the same Faith that we were in from the beginning If that were not right why for so many Ages and Generations was there no man found that would warn us of our error He answered The Pope of Rome that is the Pastor of the whole Church of Christ could not in the years past send Teaâ—…hers into Abassia c She answered To change the old Customs and Rites and receive new ones is a matter full of danger and offence He answered that their Faith was old and had nothing new c. p. 323 324 325. The Emperor also spake to the like purpose p. 319. 320 321. So that it is confessed by the Jesuites and best information from Abassia 1. That they abhorre or refuse the Papal Government 2. And that for this they plead Tradition and Antiquity And the same is notorious of the Greek Armenian and other Oriental Churches How large they were in the East when Iacobus de Vitriaco was there I have formerly shewed out of his words who saith that those Eastern Christians were more than either the Greek or Latin Church and as the Greeks anathematize the Pope every year so the rest are known to reject him To say that these are Hereticks and not the Church is but to beg the question and fitter for contempt than an answer That all such rejecters of the Papacy are the farre greatest part of professed Christians is past doubt 2. And that Greeks Armenians c. plead Tradition and the judgment and custome of their fore-fathers for what they hold is so farre past question that I will not vainly wast time in citing authors to prove it Even the Papists confess it when they tell us that these Churches joyn with them in pleading for tradition Is not then the consequence clear which W. I. is so angry at I know not what can be said against it unless that both the Greeks and Protestants do confess that once they were under the Pope but the Greeks say that they were never under him as a Governour of the whole Christian world set up by God but as the Primate of one Empire set up by man upon such reasons the Seat of the Empire as are alterable as well as unnecessary I have proved this fully before 1. From the words of the Council of Calcedon 2. From their equalling and after preferring the Patriarch of Constantinople who pretended not to a Divine Right and that as over all the world and they were not so blind as to set up a humane Law above that which they believed to be divine many other proofs I gave And even the Protestants hold that in rejecting the Papacy they follow the Tradition of the Church of Christ however some Countreys where they live and their progenitors fell under the Papal errour or terrour There are some late Papists that think that what is held in this age was certainly held in the former and that no Countreys Tradition can be false Which is contrary to all experience But if other Countreys Tradition may be false so may the Roman Niceph. saith of the Armenians They do these things from Tradition which resteth on no Reason and their ancient Legislators and Doctors do calumniously boast that Gregory the Bishop of great Armenia delivered them by hands c l. 18. c. 54. And the Abassians that received the Gospel from the Eunuch and St. Matthew being before too much addicted to some Jewish ceremonies and never cured of them retain them as by Tradition to this day And it is known how Tradition differed about Easter-day and the Millenaries opinion By all this it is evident that most of the Christian world take the
Religion which they hold to be that which by Tradition the Church received for the Apostles and therefore most being against the Papacy think Tradition is against it And the Tradition of two parts of the Christian world especially those next Ierusalem is more regardable as such than the Tradition of the third part only that is contrary unless better Historical proof mak a difference § 29. 4. My 4th proof was Many Churches without the virge of the Roman Empire never subjected themselves to Rome and many not of many hundred years after Christ Ergo there were visible Churches from the beginning to this day that were not for the Roman Vicarship To this he saith If I can prove as I have proved that any one Extra-imperial Church was subject to the Bishop of Rome and you cannot shew some evident reason why that was subject rather than all the rest I convince by that the subjection of all Now it is evident that the Churches of Spain France Britain of France and Germany when divided from the Roman Empire were as subject as the rest c. Answ. 1. Yes and much more Rome it 〈◊〉 was then under Theodorick and other Arrian Gothes and those Rulers gave them their liberty herein and being Hereticks no wonder if the Bishops chose to continue their former correspondency and Church-order to strengthen themselves Here is then a special reason why Rome it self and the rest of the Churches should so voluntarily continue 1. Their old custom when under the Empire had so setled them 2 Their strength and safety invited them 3. It was their voluntary act 2. But what 's this to those many hundred years before when the Empire was not so dismembered Though even till after Gregories daies an 6â—… the Britains obeyed you not yet I told you that when Pagans or Arrians conquered any parts of the Empire the Christians would still be as much under the old Christian power as they could which made the Major Armenia when subduâ—…d by the Persians crave the Romans Civil Government and revolt to the Emperor and kill their Magistrates even when they were not governed by the Pope at all § 30. Here he repeateth what he had frivolously said before of the Council of Nice with an odd supposition as if India were in America and then betaketh himself to prove out of the Fathers the Roman Sovereignty but with such vain citations that I dare not tire the Reader with repeating and particularly answering them 1. They being at large answered by Chamier Whittakers and many other Protestants long ago and many of them or most by my self in my key and my former answer to him 2. Because it is needless to him that will peruse the Authors and Histories themselves and useless to him that will not 3. This general answer is sufficient 1. Part of them are the words of spurious books as St. Denis an interpolate book of Cyprian some new found Chaldaick Nicene Canons c. 2. Part of them say nothing of the Pope but only of St. Peter as being the first of the Apostles but not as the Governour of the rest 3. Part or almost all of them speak only of an Imperial Primacy that mention the Pope 4. Part of them speak only of an honorary precellencie of Rome and the Church there 5. Some speak only de facto that at that time the Church of Rome had kept out the Arrian Nestorian and Eutychian Heresies more than the â—…ast did which was because they had more orthodox Emperours and therefore that those sects that then differed from them were not in the Right nor in the Church 6. Some are only the commendations of Eastern Bishops persecuted by the Arrians in the East that fled to Rome for shelter 7. As high words are often given by Doctors and Councils themselves of Cyril and other Bishops of Alexandria and of Bishops of Ierusalem Antioch and Constantinople as those that are acquainted with Church-writings know There needeth no longer confutation of his Citations § 31. My fifth proof was that The Eastern Churches within the Empire were never subjects of the Pope He denyeth this Antecedent I proved it as formerly from the Africans Letters to Celestinus and the words of Basil c So farther 1. Because the Pope chose not the Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch Ierusalem or Constantinople nor the Bishops under them 2. He did not ordain them nor appoint any Vicar to do it nor did they hold their power as under him To both these he saith It was not necessary c. But their Patriarchal power was from him Answ. Prove that and you do something but no man verst in Church-writings can believe you I remember not to have met with any learned Papist that affirmeth it that the Pope set up the other four Patriarchs it is notorious in history that as the Churches of Ierusalem and Antioch were before the Church of Rome so Alexandria Antioch and Rome were made Patriarchates together and no one of them made the rest and the other two were added since He proveth it because he restored and deposed those Patriarchs as occasion required Answ. 1. Tell this to those that never read such writings Princes and Councils did set them up and cast them out as they saw cause it were tedious and needless to any but the ignorant to recite the multitude of instances through the reign of all the Christian Emperors till Phocas time how little had the Pope to do in most of their affairs 2. They frequently set up and deposed one another far ofter than the Pope did any Doth that prove that they were Governours of each other accordingly 3. Councils then judged all the Patriarchs Roman and all as is notorious 4. The Pope sometime when he saw his advantage and saw one side striving against another would set in to shew his ambition as the prime Patriarch to strengthen himself by such as needed him and usually was against him that was likest to overtop him as neighbour Princes in War are afraid of the strongest and that was usually the Bishop of Constantinople 3. I said They received no Laws of his to rule by He replyeth The Lawes and Canons of the Church they received and those were consirmed by his authority Answ. But did he make them any Lawes himself by the Church your mean Councils and those made Laws for him therefore he was their subject He had but a voice and was not so much as a speaker in the Parliament some Councils you confess he neither presided in nor any for him as Binnius confesseth of Council Const. He had little to do in any of the Councils for 500 or 600 years less by far than the other Patriarchs 4. I said They were not commanded or judged by him He replyeth I have evidenced they were commanded and judged by him Answ. Reader the solution of such historical controversies is by reading the histories themselves Read throughly the histories of Eusebius
Socrates Sozomene Theodoret Evagrius Procopius Victor Nicephorus c. and judge as you see cause especially if you will also read but the works of Tertullian Cyprian Nazianzene Basil Hilary and the true Acts of the old Councils 5. I added the equalizing the Patriarch of Constantinople which he denyeth against the express words of the Council I might adde the after prefering the Bishop of Constantinople The oft contempts and excommunications of him the altering of Church power ordinarily by the Emperors is Iustinian's making Iustiniana prima and secunda to be absolute and under no Patriarch as was Carthage and saith Pet. a Marca and many others Heraclea Pontus and Asia long The managing of many Councils without him and passing Canons as Calced 28. against him The whole Council of Ephes. 2. going against his Legates and that under a most pious and excellent Prince Theodos. 2. that used Cyril and made him President Ephes. 1. and Dioscorous Ephes. 2d and countenance this Council against the Pope When Zeno carryed on his Henoticon and Anastasius his Reconciliation how little did he or any of the Eastern Churches stick at the Popes dissent No nor Iustinian when he turned to the Heresie of the Apththartodocitae and when he drag'd Vigilius as some Historians say with a rope instances might be multiplyed § 32. My 6th proof of the novelty of the Papal Sovereignty was from the testimony of their own greatest Bishops where I cited Greg. 1st his words so plain and large against a Universal Bishop or Pastor as plainer can scarce be spoke and answered Bellarmine words against it and I shall take the impartial Reader to need no more answer to W I. than even to read the words of Gregory themselves only noting that this Iohn of Constantinople that claimed the title of Universal Bishop was a man of more than ordinary mortification and contempt of worldly things for his poverty and great fasting called Iohannes jejunus and therefore not like to do it out of any extraordinary worldliness and pride And also that Gregory was of so little power himself being then out of the Empire under other powers for the most part that he did not blame Iohn as for claiming that which he hath right to but that which no Bishop at all had right to The case is most plain § 33. My 7th proof was The Papists themselves confess that multitudes of Christians if not most by far have been the opposers of the Pope or none of his Subjects Therefore there have been visible Churches of such To this He granteth the antecedent of Christians net Univocally so called but of no others Answ. Here he intimateth that most of the professed Christians of the world were not univocally Christians by profession but equivocally only and who will easily believe such Teachers as unchristen most of the Christian World Any Sect may take that course their sence is this none are Christians indeed but only those that are subjects to the Pope therefore all the Christian World are his Subjects Just so the Donatists and some Foreign Anabaptists take it but for granted that none are Christians but those that are Baptized at Age and then the Inference will be plausible that all the Christian World is against Infant-Baptism § 34. To Aeâ—…eas Sylvius Pope Pius 2d words That small regard was had to the Church of Rome before the Nicene Council He replyeth that he meaneth not so small as not to be the Head of all other Churches else the Council of Nice had introduced a new Government Answ. His words are plain and all History of those times confirm them No one Church before the Council of Nice had any Government over others but what was for meer Concord by free consent at least before Constantine gave it them And in the Council of Nice there is not a word that intimateth that the Pope was Ruler of all the World of Christians but his power is mentioned as limited to his Precincts and the like given to Alexandria Yet Innovation in giving power to Patriarchs is no wonder in Councils How else came Constantinople and Ierusalem to be Patriarchs Was it not by Innovation § 34. Next he saith I cite Goldastus but where the Lord knows Answ. I perceive the Man is a stranger to Goldastus who hath gathered a multitude of Old Writers against the Papacy for Princes Rights and bound them in many great Volumns De Monarchia Constitut. Imperial I cited no particular words but all these great Volumns of many Authors of those times shew the opposition to Papal Claims § 35. His saying That the Schismatical Greeks were not Univocal Christians is no more regardable than the Greeks Anathematizing Papists § 36. My plain Testimony of their Reynerius Armeniorum Ecclesiae Aethiopum Induorum caeterae quas Apostoli converterunt non subsunt Ecclesiae Romanae He first cavils at my saying were not under instead of are not not seeing that I only recited the Assertion as uttered by Reynerius so long ago and must I not say that he saith then they were not under if he so long ago say They are not 2. But he would perswade the Credulous that this speaks of them but as Schismaticks as Alexandria Antioch Constantinople are not now under Rome but have been Answ But those that will be satisfied with forced abuse of words may believe any thing that a Priest will say The context confuteth you You do not pretend that India turned from you and was under you By the Churches Planted by the Apostles he plainly meaneth those without the Empire as being none of the Provinces put under the Bishop of Rome nor of old claimed by the Pope § 37. I cited Melch. Canus words Loc. l. 6. c. 7. fol. 201. Not only the Greeks but almost all or most of the rest of the Bishops of the whole World have vehemently sought to destroy the Priviledges of the Roman Church and indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperours and the greatest number of Churches and yet they could never prevail to abrogate the Power of the one Roman Pope To this he saith That 1. Canus speaks of different times not conjunctly 2. And he taketh them not for univocal Christians And here he finds a Root of Rebellion q. d. Most of the Countries Rebelled against the King Ergo he had no Authority over them Answ. Our Question here was only of the matter of Fact Whether de facto most of the Bishops and Churches have not been against the Papacy This Canus asserteth therefore I seek no more And when you have proved them no Christians or Rebels I shall consider your Proofs 2. Had he meant only the most of the Bishops and Churches per vices it had signified nothing to his purpose For that had been no strength but might have been some inconsiderable Town at a time 3. But that all Church-History may help us better to understand his words that tell us oft
it was at once specially when Binnius said that at Eph. 2. Concil Only Peter's Ship escaped drowning As to his Cavil at my Translation Whether Ab aliis plerisque totius orbis Episcopis be not to be Translated if not almost all the rest at least most of the rest of the Bishops of the whole World rather than very many others I leave to the ordinary Readers Judgment And as for either Canus or his own saying that all these the Greeks and most of the Bishops of the whole World the greater number of Churches and the Armed Emperours were all Schismaticks Hereticks and no Christians but Equivocally it is no weak proof of the falseness of their Cause and Tyranny that cannot stand without unchristening most of the Bishops and Churches in the World with such Emperours Canus his confession of the Historical Truth may be pleaded by me while I hate their Robbing Christ of the greatest part of his Church because they are not the Popes § 38. My Eighth Proof of the Novelty of the Papal Sovereignty was from Historical Testimony that the Papal sovereignty was no part of the Churches Faith nor owned by the Ancients This is done at large by Bloudel de Primatu and Pet. Moulin de Novitate Papismi usher Field of the Church lib. 5. Chaucer Whittaker Io. White and many other I instanced only in many Historians Regino Herman Contract Marian Scotus Beneventus de Rambaldis and others that say Phocas first constituted saith one or Boniface obtained of Phocas say others that the Church of Rome should be the Head of all Churches To this 1. He thinks I have forgot my first Thesis because he forgot that when I had proved by three Arguments my Thesis in the fourth to satisfie their importunity I proved it with the Addition that there hath been a Christian Church still visible that Obeyed not the Pope and so added ten more Arguments to prove this Negative or Exclusive part After he cometh to this again and would have ut Caput esset to be no more than an acknowledgment of a controverted Title But at least the Primus constituit confuteth that and it is not ut diceretur haberetur or denuò esset He citeth Platina as if it were a wonder for the Popes Houshold Servant to say that it was his Right 2. But I specially note that both what is said of Phocas and by him of Iustinian Gratian c. who constitute and command this Primacy and Subjection to it shew that it was but Imperial as to bounds and Authority I before mentioned Suarez himself in his Excellent Book De Legibus saying That God hath made no Laws of Church-policy And if so not of the Papacy § 39. I noted their Novelty out of Platina in Gregor saying What should I say more of this Holy Man whose whole Institution of the Church-Office specially the Old one was Invented and Approved by him which Order I would we did follow then Learned Men would not at this day abhor the reading of the Office Hence I Note 1. That all their Church-Office was new being Gregory's Invention though no doubt much of the Matter had been in use before that form 2. Therefore the maintainers of Tradition cannot prove that because they thus Worship God now therefore they always did so 3. Gregory's Invented Office hardly received in Spain was so altered in Platina's time that Learned Men abhorred the Reading of it 4. Why might they not corrupt Church-Government where Ambition had a thousand times greater baits as well as Church-Offices This is their Antiquity and constancy This W. I. thought meet in silence to pass by § 40. My Ninth Proof of the Novelty of the Papal Sovereignty was If the Generality of Christians in the first Ages and many if not most in the latter Ages have been free from the Essentials of the Papists Faith then their Faith hath had no Successive Visible Church professing it in all Ages but the Christians that are against it have been Visible But the Antecedent is true The Antecedent I proved in twelve Instances To this he saith It followeth not that though our Church as Papal had no Successive Visibility the Church whereof the Protestants are Members had ever since Christs time on Earth a Successive Visibility When you have proved this Consequence I Oblige my self to answer your Instances and so he durst not meddle with that matter but puts it off Answ. Reader see here what an Issue our Dispute is brought to Can you wish a plainer I proved that our Religion being nothing else but Christianity our Church hath been still Visible because it is confessed that the Christian Church hath been still Visible But the Papists must have us prove also that our Church-hath been still Visible as without Popery I now prove Popery a Novelty and doth not that then fully prove my Consequence that the Christian Church was Visible without it And I prove that this Novelty of Popery is yet received but by the third part of Christians of whom I am perswaded ten to one are either compelled to profess what they believe not or understand it not Therefore the Christian Church was once wholly and is yet mostly without Popery I know not when a Cause is given up if here he give not up his Cause § 41. Twelve new Articles of the Papal Faith I named 1. That the Pope is above aâ—… General Council Decreed at Later and Florence 2. Contrarily That the Council is above the Pope and may Iudge him c. Decreed at Basil and Constance True before as a point of Humane Order but not made ever an Article of Faith 3. That the Pope may Depose Princes and give their Dominions to others if they exterminate not all their Subjects that deny Transubstantiation Decreed at Later sub Innoc. 3. 4. That the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Iesus Christ is truly and really and substantially in the Eucharist and that there is a change of the whole substance of Bread into the Body and of the whole substance of Wine into the Blood which they call Transubstantiation Decreed at Trent and proved new by Ed. Albertinus Bishop Cousin's History of Trans and by my self 5. That the Eucharist is rightly given and taken under one kind without the Cup Decreed at Constance and Trent 6. That we must never take and Interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers See the Trent-Oath whereas 1. We have no certainty whom to take for Fathers a great part being called both Fathers and Hereticks by the Papists 2. And they greatly disagree among themselves 3. And have not unanimously given us any sence at all of a quarter of the Bible if of the hundredth part 7. That there is a Purgatory and that the Souls there detained are holpen by the Suffrages of the Faithful 8. That the Holy Catholick Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all Churches and