any thing and so bestow upon the Devil one path more for us to walke in to him Section 20 If the infallibility of a Generall Councell be a point of faith I desire to know why it is so Scripture and Tradition seem to me not to say so But if they did so I suppose you will grant they do of this doctrine That the soules of the blessed shall see God before the day of judgment and not be kept in secret Receptacles For else the doctrine of prayer to Saints cannot stand and yet for denying this doth Bellarmine excuse Pope John 22. of which beliefe they know he was not alone because the Church he means I doubt not a Generall Councell had not then condemned it I desire to know why should not he be condemned as well without one as many Heretiques that are held so by their Church yet condemned by no Generall Councell which if he makes to be the rule of Heresie it had been happy to have lived before the Councell of Nice when no opinion had been damnable but some against the Apostles Councell at Hierusalem because there had yet been no Generall Councell Section 21 At least why shall not I be excused by the same reason though I believe not a Councell to be infallible since I never heard that any Councell hath decreed that they are so Neither if it have can we be bound by that Decree unlesse made certaine some other way that it selfe is so Section 22 If you say we must believe it because of Tradition I answer sometimes you will have the not believing any thing though not declared by a Councell to have power enough to damne that is when it makes against us at other times the Church hath not decreed unlesse a Councell have and their errour is pardonable and they good Catholiques Section 23 Next as I have asked before how shal an ignorant man know it for he in likelyhood can speak but with a few from whom he cannot know that all of the Church of Rome's part doe now and in past Ages have believed it to be Tradition so certainly as to make it a ground of Faith unlesse he have some revelation that those deceive him not Neither indeed can those that should enforme him of the opinions of former times be certainly enformed themselves for truly if as they would perswade us the relation of Papias could cosen so farre all the Prime Doctors of the Christian Church into the belief of the doctrine of the Millenaries so as that no one of those two first Ages opposed it which appears plain enough because those that after rose up against this opinion never quoted any for themselves before Dionys Alexandrinus who lived at least 250 yeares after Christ Nay if those first men did not onely believe it as probable but Justin Martyr saies he holds it and so do all that are in all parts Orthodox Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Irenaeus sets it down directly for a Tradition and relates the very words that Christ used when he taught this which is plainer than any other Tradition is proved or said to be out of Antiquity by them If I say these could be so deceived why might not other of the Antients as well be by others deceived in other points And then what certainty shall the Learned have when after much labour they thinke they can make it appeare that the Antients thought any thing Tradition that indeed it was so And that either the folly or the knavery of some Papias deceived them not I confesse it makes me think of some that Tully speaks of who arcem amittunt dum propugnacula defendunt lose the fort whilst they defend the out-works for whilst they answer this way the arguments of Tradition for the opinion of the Chiliasts they make unusefull to them the force of tradition to prove any thing else by For which cause it was rather wisely than honestly done of them who before Fevardentius set him forth left out that part of Irenaeus which we alledge though we need it not much for many of the Fathers take notice of this belief of his Yet he justifies himself for doing it by a worse blow to them than this it self which is saying that if they leave out all Errours in the Books they publish that is I suppose all opinions contrary to the Church of Rome bona pars Scriptorum Patrum Orthodoxorum evanesceret a good part of the writings of the Orthodox Fathers must vanish away Section 24 But the Tradition that can be found out of Ancients since their witnessing may deceive us hath much lesse strength when they argue onely thus Sure so many would not say this is true and joyne in opinions if there were no tradition for them I would have you remember they can deliver their opinion possibly but either before the controversie arise in the Church upon some chance or after If before it is confest that they write not cautiously enough and so they answer all they seem to say for Arius and Pelagius his faith before themselves and so consequently their controversie though it may be not their opinion arose If after then they answer often if any thing be by them at that time spoken against them that the heat of disputation brought it from them and their resolutions to oppose Heretiques enough I desire it may be lawfull for us to answer so too either one of these former wayes or that it is as often they say too some Hyperbole when you presse us in any thing with the opinions of Fathers At least I am sure if they may deceive us with saying a thing is a Tradition that is not we may be sooner deceived if we wil say and conclude it for a Tradition when they speake it onely as a Truth and for ought appeares their particular Opinion Section 25 For besides if when Salvian comparing the Arians with evill Livers and that after they were condemned by a Councell extenuates by reason of their beleiving themselves in the right with much instance the fault of the Arians and sayes How they shall be punisht for it in the day of Judgement none can know but the Judge If I say they confesse it to be his opinion they must also confesse the doctrine of their Church to be different from that of Salvian's times because he was allowed a Member of that for all this saying whereas he of the Church of Rome that should say so of us would be accounted Sesqui haereticus a Heretique and a half Or else they must say which they can only say and not prove that he was so earnest against ill men that for the aggravation of their crime he lessened that of the Heretiques and said what at another time he would not have said which if they doe will it not overthrow wholly the authority of the Fathers Since we can never infallibly know what they thought at all times frō what they were moved to say
be so his Lordship was not content to affirme and so is himselfe farre enough from giving you example of begging the question but proves it by this argument because with you nothing is not fallible but the Church This may be dissolved into an hypotheticall syllogisme whereof you must deny one proposition or else the conclusion is forfeited If with you the Church be the only infallible then with you any other reasons by which you prove the infallibility of the Church are not infallible but with you the Church is the only infallible therefore with you any other reasons by which you prove the infallibility of the Church are not infallible Now if you look over your answer againe you shall find that your only exception commeth not home to any part of this syllogisme for you doe not so much as say that any thing is infallible but the Church Or if now you will see your want and make additions to your answer then say distinctly is any other thing beside the Church infallible or no If it be let it be named if it be not the conclusion is granted us And till this addition be thus made i. e. for this present answer of yours 't is I conceive manifest that you have said no syllable to the prime part of his Lordship's first Section Section 6 As for your instances of Phylosophy and Law suites they can prove nothing against his Lordship unlesse you can name some sect of Phylosophy that hath not only truth but infallibility and tell us which it is and prove that by arguments which are confest to be infallible till you have done that your instance is not pertinent and if ever you shall doe it 't will not be concluding against us unlesse you produce the like arguments for the infallibility of your Church against us which must be some other then are yet proposed Section 7 As for Lawsuits that they are determined to one side by the Judge doth not prove that that Judge is infallible which is the only matter of debate and if the contenders are bound to stand to his award it is because the Law and supreme Magistrate have commanded them to doe so and because this is evident and infallible that they have done so by the commission which the Judge hath from them And when the like is produced for your Church I hope all your Subjects will submit to it but then it must be moreover proved that all Christians are such Subjects or else we hope we shall not be involved under that obligation Section 8 As for your long deduction from whence you conclude that either wee are deceived or you and that it is not necessary that both should we grant it and professe our opinions that though both you and we are fallible yet only you are or can be deceived in this particular which we conceive is cleare because only you pretend Infallibility which we not pretending but affirming that we are not so cannot in this be deceived unlesse we be infallible but see not what it concludes against his Lordship whose argument depends not on any such assertion that both parties are deceived but only that your pretended Infallibility is by you proved by no other arguments then those which you confesse are fallible Section 9 What you adde by way of triumph and scoffe I must not answer but by yeilding you free leave thus to please your selfe and if this recreation tend at all to your health to advise you to do so still and whensoever it may be for your divertisement to reckon up the names of London Great Tue and the two Vniversities Section 10 After the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sang you at length bethinke your selfe that his Lordship had affirmed that Scripture Reason and Fathers are by you maintained to be all fallible and to this you answer by a distinction of universally speaking and in some cases onely and acknowledge that you affirme them all to be fallible onely in some cases Now first you ought to have given answer to his Lordship's proofe for what he said which was this that you affirme that onely the Church is infallible from whence it is a conclusion that therefore Reason and Scripture and Fathers are by you affirmed to be fallible whereas you letting the premises alone apply answer to the conclusion which is as much against Logicke as to deny it without denying the premises or shewing the falsenesse of them But then Secondly that which is fallible in some cases onely is by that acknowledged to be fallible and by that is proved unsufficient to prove another thing to be infallible in all things for if it be fallible in any case it may be fallible in this that it pronounces that other to be infallible and till there be some infallible argument produced that it is infallible in that particular pronouncing its Infallibility in other things will availe nothing or if it doe it may availe also for us to prove what we offer to prove from it that your Church hath erred Section 11 There is no possible avoiding of this but by saying and proveing it infallible in inducing your conclusion and false aswell as fallible in inducing ours for if it be true though it be fallible it will serve our turne but it must be both or will not serve yours you being obliged to prove the Infallibility of your Church by something which is it selfe infallible because it must be matter of faith with you which nothing is but what is infallibly induced but it is sufficient for us to beleive you and your Church fallible though we should make it no matter of faith that you are so which because you endeavour not to doe in this place it will be impertinent to examine the truth of what else you adde concerning the cases wherein you affirme Reason and Scripture and Fathers to be infallible any farther then thus that by your owne explication of the distinction and enumeration of cases I shall conclude that Reason doth not prove infallibly that your Church is infallible because the Infallibility of your Church is not an evident verity Scripture doth not prove it so because it is not certainly expounded to that probation Fathers doe not prove it so because it was not a doctrine held in their time and affirmed by them to be so Each of which negations of mine though they were as sufficient proofe as what you have offered to the contrary yet I shall undertake to make good against you if you shall thinke fit to call me to it by setting downe your reasons to the contrary Section 12 And so if on your supposition his Lordship 's three maine props were fallen to the ground which is another boast that had no more relation to the present matter then ground in truth and therefore I beseech you leave out such excesses hereafter yet your supposition being not so much as endeavoured to be proved the props stand as firmly as is desired To the
true it being so cleare that the second hangs so loose from it and will alone serve our turnes as well Section 3 But then Secondly I professe not at all to understand what you meane by that reason of your assertion because the misses or mistakings be cases extraordinary for first how can it be denied in this imperfect infirme state of mortality that now we are in but that errours and mistakings are very ordinary That they are common there is no doubt and as little that they are agreeable to that order or course that is now among men and to you that say in the next words that you know not why such defects should need any pardon and to us that acknowledge that they that reforme all other and pray daily demitte debita shall through Christ have pardon of course for these sure they cannot passe for extraordinary cases in either sense for that would imply that now under the Gospell it should be ordinary or regular to punish involuntary errours which you say can be no crimes and extraordinary either for us to commit or for God to pardon them Section 4 But then Secondly if it were true that these misses c. were cases extraordinary yet can I not see how these words can be annext to your former as a proofe of their being answer to his Lordship because how extraordinary soever the misses may be the pardon for misses may doe as well for you as an infallible guide unlesse you meane somewhat else by ordinary cases then what my capacity hath reacht to and till you please to instruct me better I shall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and by exercising my charity in not judging what I doe not understand invite yours to instruct me that I may Section 5 As for the Coherence of his Lordships discourse you have little temptation to doubt of that when you have said that he conceives that such errours or missings should need pardon for to that all that he saith is coherent It seemes you are not of his opinion for the truth of that and whether is in the right I shall not now examine or enlarge to any so accidentall and extrinsecall discourse but onely tell you that believing as you doe you ought to have said not true when you mistooke and said not coherent To the 12. Section Chap. 11. To this charge we answer that our proofes of a sure guide are themselves also sure and what proofes those are we before have signified Chap. 8. Sect. 8. and before Chap. 5. Sect. 4. Ch. 11. Answ to the 11. Chap. Your next Chapter being but a reference to what you had before said and that before examined by us my answer shall be answerably onely a reference also without taking more paines to put you in minde how unfit your Verba signorum which you there affirmed to be motives of credibility are now to proceed or commence infallible proofes for those are they which his Lordship's argument requires in his 12. Section To the 13 14 15 16 Sections Chap. 12. The Infallibility of Popes or Councels is no point of doctrine necessary to be knowne distinctly before any resolution of faith can be made because it is sufficient to learne out of Catechismes and the common practice of the Church what is to be believed Neither is there any more probable feare of missing which is the See Apostolique and which the Churches living in communion with it then there is of a Subjects being ignorant to what Kingdome he belongs and as for doctrine of beliefe it is found out as readily and as surely as the other by those meanes of instruction which we have signified already As for the Simony objected Sect. 14. it is no impediment of his power so he be received peaceably by the Church and not 〈◊〉 in question for it The like may be said of the decrees and definitions of Councels together with the sense or meaning of them And by this the 15 and the 16 Sections are answered C. 12. Answ to the 12. Chap. Section 1 His Lordship in quest after your infallible ground of faith tooke into consideration the Popes Infallibility Sect. 13. the Infallibility of a Councell by him called Sect. 14. and produced arguments I conceive convincing against each Section 2 To these your onely answer is that neither of these Infallibilities are necessary to be knowne distinctly before any resolution of faith can be made and you give your reasons for it because c. which is in plaine tearmes to grant and prove the thing which his Lordship desires and proves for if they were the ground of faith they would be necessary to be knowne distinctly before any resolution of faith the foundation being absolutely necessary to the superstruction in materiall edifices and in intellectuall the distinct knowledge of a ground of faith being as necessary to a distinct resolution of faith as the ground it selfe which workes not upon any man's understanding the seat of this Faith any further then it is knowne This concession of yours being all that is demanded of you at this time we shall not need insist on nor debate farther what influence the case of Simony may have upon the Popes Infallibility If he be infallible at all He or He and a Councell you say 't is not necessary to ground faith which is the onely use we have of it in this present enquity for it seemes the Catechismes or common practice of the Church are sufficient to teach what is to be believed Section 3 What Is the Popes and Councels Infallibility made unnecessary and is a Catechisme and common practice of the Church sufficient for the grounding of faith infallibly Certainly we are growne very low and are supposed men of very moderate desires if it be thought we shall thus be content with the Infallibility of a Catechisme For whatsoever is sufficient for the grounding of faith infallibly remember infallibly must come in for otherwise 't is not to his Lordship's discourse must it selfe be acknowledged infallible Which if you shall please to affirme of any of your Catechismes as I shall first desire to be directed which Catechisme it is that of Trent or what others that I may not mistake in the choice of my Guide so I shall make bold to demand whence this Infallibility or authority of this prime guide of faith is to be fetcht It will be sure from the authority of the Pope or Councell of that time when 't was compiled and confirmed and then still we fall backe to the infallibility of the Pope or Councell which it seemes in the last resolve is become necessary againe to the grounding of Faith and so againe must be knowne before any resolution of Faith be built even upon the Catechisme which was the thing you just now denied As for the common practice of the Church that that should be a ground of Faith or sufficient for us to learne by it what is to be believed besides that this
9 Nay suppose they had evinced that some succession were infallible and so had proved to a learned man that the Roman Church must be this because none else pretends to it yet this can be no sufficient ground to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation for their beliefe that the Church of Greece pretends not to the same and even to the Learned it is but an accidentall argument because if any other company had likewise claimed to be infallible it had overthrowne all so proved Section 10 Nay it is but an arbitrary Argument and depends upon the pleasure of the adversary for if any society of Christians would pretend to it the Church of Rome could make use of it no longer Section 11 The chiefest reason why they disallow of the Scripture for Judge is because when differences arise about the interpretation there is no way to end them and that it will not stand with the goodnesse of God to damne men for not following his will if he had assigned no infallible way how to find it I confesse this to be wonderfull true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and let them excuse themselves that think otherwise Yet this will be no argument against him who believes that to all who follow their reason in the interpretation of the Scriptures and search for Tradition God will either give his grace for assistance to find the truth or his pardon if they misse it and then this supposed necessity of an infallible Guide with this supposed damnation for want of it fall together to the ground Section 12 If they command us to believe infallibly the contrary to this they are to prove it false by some infallible way for the conclusion must be of the same nature and not conclude more then the premisses set downe now such a way Scripture and Reason or infused faith cannot be for they use to object the fallibility of them to those that build their Religion upon them nor the Authority of the Church for that is part of the question and must be it selfe first proved and that by none of the former waies for the former reasons Section 13 The Popes infallibility can be no infallible ground of faith being it selfe no necessary part of the faith we can be no surer of any thing proved then we are of that which proves it and if he be fallible no part is the more infallible for his sideing with them So if the Church be divided I have no way to know which is the true Church but by searching which agrees with Scripture and Antiquity and so judging accordingly But this is not to submit my selfe to her opinions as my guide which they tell us is necessary Which course if they approve not of as a fit one for a Learned man they are in a worse case for the ignorant who can take no course at all nor is the better at all for this Guide the Church whilest two parts dispute which is it and that by arguments he understands not Section 14 If I granted the Pope or a Counsell by him called to be infallible yet I conceive their Decrees can be no sufficient ground by their owne axiomes of Divine faith For first say the most No Councell is valid not approved by the Pope for thus they overthrow that held at Ariminum a Pope chosen by Symony is ipso facto no Pope I can then have no certainer ground for the infallibility of those Decrees and consequently for my beleife of them then I have that the choice of him was neither directly nor indirectly Symoniacall which to be certain of is absolutely impossible Section 15 Secondly suppose him Pope and to have confirmed the Decrees yet that these are the Decrees of a Councell or that he hath confirmed them I can have but an uncontradicted attestation of many men for if another Councell should declare these to have been the Acts of a former Councell I should need againe some certaine way of knowing how this declaration is a Councells which is no ground say they of faith I am sure not so good and generall a one as that Tradition by which we prove that the Scripture is Scripture which yet they will not allow any to be certaine of but from them Section 16 Thirdly for the sence of their Decrees I can have no better expounder to follow then Reason which if though I mistake I shall not be damned for following why shall I for mistaking the sence of Scripture Or why am I a lesse fit interpreter of one then of the other where both seeme equally cleare And where they seem so I meane equally cleare and yet contradictory shall I not as soon believe Scripture which is without doubt of at least as great authority Section 17 But I doubt whether Councells be fit deciders of Questions for such they cannot be if they beget more and men have cause to be in greater doubts afterwards none of the former being diminished then they were at first Section 18 Now I conceive there arise so many out of this way that the Learned cannot end all nor the Ignorant know all As besides the forenamed considerations Who is to call them the Pope or Kings Who are to have voices in them Bishops only or Priests also Whether the Pope or Councell be Superiour and the last need the approbation of the first debated among themselves Whether any Countries not being called or not being there as the Abissines to great a part of Christianity and not resolvedly condemned by them for Heretiques were absent at the Councell of Trent make it not generall Whether if it be one not every where received as when the Bishops sent from some places have exceeded their Commission as in the Councell of Florence it be yet of necessity to be subscribed to Whether there were any surreption used or force and Whether those disanull the Acts Whether the most voyces are to be held the Act of the Councell or those of all are required as Canus saith All the Councell cannot erre the most may which never yet agreed or Whether two parts will serve as in the Tridentine Synode a considerable doubt because Nicephorus Callistus relateing the resolution of a Councell at Rome against that of Ariminum makes them give three reasons One That the Bishop of Rome was not present The second That most did not agree to it Thirdly That others thither gathered were displeased at their resolutions which proves that in their opinions if either most not present agree not to it or all present be not pleased with it a Councell hath no power to bind All these doubts I say perswade me that whatsoever brings with it so many new questions can be no fit ender of the old Section 19 In those things in which before a Generall Councell have defined it is lawfull to hold either way and damnable to doe so after I desire to know how it agreeth with the Charity of the Church to define
by some collateral consideration Section 26 Next to this certaine and undoubted damning of all out of the Church of Rome which averseth me from it comes their putting all to death or at least paines that are so where they have power which is an effect though not a necessary one of the first opinion and that averseth me yet more for I doe not believe all to be damned whom they damne but I conceive all to be killed whom they kill I am sure if you look upon Constantine's Epistle written to perswade concord upon the first disagreement between Alexander Arrius you will find that he thought and if the Bishops of his time had at first thought otherwise he would have been sure better informed that neither side deserved either death or damnation and yet sure this question was as great as ever rose since For having spoken of the opinions as things so indifferent that the Reader might almost think they had been fallen out at Spurn-point or Ketle-pins he adds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For that which is necessary is one thing that all agree and keep the same faith about divine providence I am sure in the same Author Moses a man praised by him refusing to be made Bishop by Lucius because he was an Arrian and he answering That he did ill to refuse it before he knew what his faith was Answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The banishing of Bishops shews ENOUGH your faith So that it is plaine he thought punishing for opinions to be a marke which might serve him to know false opinions by Section 27 I believe throughout Antiquity you will find no putting any to death unlesse it be such as begin to kill first as the Circumcollians or such like I am sure Christian Religions chief glory being that it increased by being persecuted and having that advantage of the Mahumetan which came in by force me thinks especially since Synesius hath told us and reason told men so before Synesius that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing is destroyed by the contrary to what setled and composed it It should be to take ill care of Christianity to seek to hold it up by Turkish meanes at least it must breed doubts that if the Religion had alwaies remained the same it would not be defended by waies so contrary to those by which it was propagated Section 28 I desire recrimination may not be used for though it be true that Calvin hath done it and the Church of England a little which is a little too much for Negare manifesta non audeo excusare immodica non possum yet She confessing She may erre is not so chargeable with any fault as those which pretend they cannot and so will be sure never to mend it and besides I will be bound to defend no more than I have undertaken which is to give reasons why the Church of Rome is fallible Section 29 I confesse this opinion of damning so many and this custome of burning so many this breeding up those who know nothing else in any point of Religion yet to be in readiness to crie To the fire with him and To Hell with him as Polybius saith in a certaine furious Faction of an Army of severall Nations and consequently languages 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 All of them understood onely this word Throw at him this I say in my opinion was it chiefly which made so many so suddenly leave the Church of Rome that indeed to borrow the Authours phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They needed not perswasion to doe it but onely newes that others had begun For as this alone if believed makes all the rest be so too so one thing alone mis-liked overthrowes also all the rest Section 30 If it were granted that because it agrees not with the Goodnesse of God to let men want an infallible Guide therefore there must be one and that the Church of Rome were that one yet if that teach any thing to my understanding contrary to Gods Goodnesse I am not to receive her doctrine for the same cause for which they would have me receive it it being as good an argument This Guide teaches things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore is not appointed by God as to say It is agreeable to his goodnesse there should be a Guide therefore there is one And sure it is lawfull to examine particular doctrines whether they agree with that principle which is their foundation and to that me thinks to damne him that neither with negligence nor prejudication searcheth what is Gods will though he misse of it is as contrary as the first can be supposed Section 31 I would know whether he that never heard of the Church of Rome shall yet be damned for not believing her infallible I have so good an opinion of them as to assure my self they will answer he shall not I will then aske whether he that hath searched what Religions they are and finds hers to be one and her infallibility to be part of it if his reason will not assent to that shall he be damned for being inquisitive after truth for he hath committed no other fault greater then the other and Whether such an ignorance I mean after impartiall search be not of all other the most invincible Section 32 Nay grant the Church to be infallible yet me thinks he that denies it and imployes his reason to seeke if it be true should be in as good case as he that believes it and searcheth not at all the truth of the proposition he receives for I cannot see why he should be saved because by reason of his parents beliefe or the Religion of the Country or some such accident the truth was offered to his understanding when had the contrary been offered he would have received that and the other damned that beleeves falshood upon as good ground as the other doth truth unlesse the Church be like a Conjurers circle that will keep a man from the Devill though he came into it by chance Section 33 They grant that no man is an Heretique that believes not his Heresie obstinately and if he be no Heretique he may sure be saved It is not then certain damnation for any man to deny the infallibility of the Roman Church but for him onely that denies it obstinately and then I am safe for I am sure I doe not Section 34 Neither can they say I shall be damned for Schisme though not for Heresie for he is as well no Schismatique though in Schisme that is willing to joyne in communion with the true Church when it appeares to be so to him as he is no Heretique though he hold Hereticall opinions that holds them not obstinately that is as I suppose with a desire to be informed if he be in the wrong Section 35 Why if it be not necessary alwayes to believe the truth so one believe in generall what the Church would have believed for so they excuse great men
that have held contrary opinions to theirs now before they were defined or they knew them to be so why I say shall not the same implicit assent to whatsoever God would have assented to though I mistake what it is be sufficient When indeed to beleeve implicitly what God would have believed is to believe implicitly likewise what the Church teacheth if this doctrine be within the number of those which God commands to be believed Section 36 I have therefore the lesse doubt of this opinion that I shall have no harme for not beleeving the infallibilitie of the Church of Rome because of my being so farre from leaning to the contrary and so suffering my will to have power over my understanding that if God would leave it to me which Tenet should be true I would rather choose that that should then the contrary For they may well beleeve me that I take no pleasure in tumbling hard and unpleasant bookes and making my selfe giddy with disputing of obscure questions dazled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Section 37 If I could believe there should alwayes be whom I might alwaies know a society of men whose opinions must be certainly true and who would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 labour to discusse define all arising doubts so as I might be excusably at ease and have no part left for me but that of obedience which must needs be a less difficult and so a more agreeable way then to endure endlesse volumes of commentaries the harsh Greeke of Evagrius and the as hard Latine of Ireneus and be pained by distinguishing betweene different senses and various lections and he would deserve not the lowest place in Bedlam that would preferre these studies before so many so much more pleasant that would rather imploy his understanding then submit it and if he could thinke God imposed upon him only the resisting temptations would by way of addition require from himselfe the resolving of doubts I say not that all these bookes are to be read by those who understand not the languages for them I conceive their seeking into Scripture may suffice But if I have by Gods grace skill to look into them I cannot better use it then in the search of his will where they say it is to be found that I might assent to them if there I finde reason for it or if I doe not they may have no excuse for not excusing me Section 38 For whereas they say it is pride makes us doubt of their infallibility I answer that their too much lazinesse and impatience of examining is the cause many of them doe not doubt Section 39 Next what pride is it never to assent before I find reason for it since they when they follow that Church as infallible pretend reason for it and will not say they would if they thought they found none and if they say we doe find reason but will not confesse it then pride hinders not our assent but our declaration of it which if it do in any one he is without question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned by himselfe and it must be a very partiall advocate that would strive to acquit him Section 40 One much prevailing argument which they make is this that whosoever leave them fall into dissention betweene themselves whereas they in the meane while are alwayes at unity I answer first in this whereof the question is now they all consent Secondly when there is fire for them that disagree they need not bragge of their uniformity who consent Thirdly they have many differences among them as whether the Pope be infallible Whether God predeterminate every action Whether Election and Reprobation depend upon foresight Which seeme to me as great as any betweene their adversaries and in the latter the Jesuits have Ancienter and more generall Traditions on their side then the Church of Rome hath in any other question and as much ground from reason for the defence of Gods goodnesse as they can thinke they have for the necessity of an infallible guide yet these arguments must not make the Dominicans Heretiques and must us Section 41 If they say The Church hath not resolved it which signifies only that they are not agreed about it which is that we object I answer It ought to have done if conformity to the ancient Church be required in which all that ever I could heare of before Saint Austin who is very various I confesse in it delivered the contrary to the Dominicans as not doubtfull and to say it is lawfull for them to disagree whensoever they doe not agree is ridiculous for they cannot doe both at once about the same point Section 42 And if they say they meane by the Churches not having concluded it that a Councell hath not I answer that they condemne some without any and why not these Next I say that the opinion of the Diffused Church is of more force then the conclusion of a Representative which hath its authority from the other and therefore if all extant for foure hundred years teach any thing it is more Heresie to deny that then any Canon of a Councell Section 43 But may not howsoever any other company of People that would maintain themselves to be infallible say as much that all other Sects differ from one another and therefore should all agree with them Would those not think they ascribe all other mens dissentions and learned mens falling into divers Heresies to their not allowing their infalibility to their not assenting to their Decrees and not suffering them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sit as teachers of those things that come in question and to have all others in that place of Disciples obedient to them which is that which Nilus a Greek Bishop professeth that because the Greeks would not allow the Romans was the only cause of seperation between them Section 44 They use much to object How could errours come into the Church without Opposition and mention both of that opposition in History I answer they might come in not at once but by degrees as in the growth of a child and the motion of a clock we see neither in the present but know there was a present when we find it past Next so many Authors being lost who can make it certaine to me that from none of those we should have had notice of this opposition if they had come to us Next I say there are two sorts of errours to hold a thing necessary that is unlawfull and false or that is but profitable and probable Of the second sort that errours should come in it appears not hard to me and especially in those ages where want of Printing made books and consequently learning not so common as now it is where the few that did study busied themselves in School-speculations only when the Authority of a man of chief note had a more generall influence then now it hath and so as Thucydodes saith the Plague did in his
time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the disease that first setled in the head easily passed through all the body considering how apt all men are to desire that all men should think as they doe and consequently to lay a necessity upon thee reciving that opinion if they conceived that a way to have it received And then if it were beleeved generally profitable as for example Confession who would be apt to oppose their calling it necessary for the same cause for which they called it so Besides if this errour were delivered by some Father in the hot opposition of some Heretique it may be none of his side would oppose it lest they might take advantage by their dissention and he that disputed for the Orthodox side might lose by it much of his authority Section 45 The word necessary it selfe is often used for very convenient and then from necessary in that sense to absolutely necessary is no difficult change though it be a great one The Fathers use Heretiques sometimes in a large sense and sometimes in a stricter and so differ in the reckoning them up Some leaving out those that others put in though they had seene the precedent Catalogue The doubtfulnesse of the sense of those words might bring in errour Names as an Altar Sacrifice Masse may have been used first in one sense and the name retained though the thing signified received change which may have been the art of the Church of Rome as it was once of an Emperour of Rome Cui proprium fuit nuper reperta I leave out Sâ—â—lera priscis verbis obtegere whose property it was to cover things newly found out with ancient tearmes And the same Author tells us that the same State was as it were cheated out of her liberty because there did remaine Eadem Magistratuum vocabula The same titles of Magistrates and I believe that if the Protestants beyond the Seas would have thought Bishops as good a word as Superintendents and so in other such things many who understand nothing but names would have missed the Scandall they have now taken Section 46 These waies I thinke things may have come without much opposition from being thought profitable to be done and probable to be believed to be thought necessary to be both and how many things little by little may have been received under old names which would not have been so at once under new ones the first of these being no such small fault but that part of the Montanists heresie was thinking uncommanded fasting-daies necessary to be observed which without doubt might lawfully have been kept Section 47 But my maine answer is that if for an opinion to be in the Church without known precedent opposition be a certain note of being received from the beginning let them answer how came in the opinion of the Chiliasts not contradicted till two hundred years after it came in Section 48 To conclude if they can prove that the Scripture may be a certainer teacher of truths to them then to us so that they may conclude the infallibility of the Church out of it and we nothing If they can prove the Churches infallibility to be a sufficient Guide for him that doubts Which is the Church and cannot examine that for want of learning by her chiefe marke which is conformity with the Ancient If they can prove that the consent of Fathers long together if they had it is a stronger argument against us then against rhe Dominicans If they can prove that though the first of them affirme that such a thing is Tradition and believed by all Christians and this assertion till a great while after uncontradicted yet they are not bound to receive it and upon lesse grounds we are if indeed any can prove by any infallible way the infallibility of the Church of Rome and the necessity under paine of damnation for all men to believe it which were the more strange because Justin Martyr and Clemens Alexandrinus among the Ancients and Erasmus and Ludovicus Vives among the Modernes beleive some Pagans to be saved I will subscribe to it And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Section 49 If any man shall vouchsafe to think either this or the Author of it of value enough to confute the one and enforme the other I shall desire him to doe it with proceeding to the businesse and not standing upon any small slip of mine of which sort this may be full and with that Civility which is fit to be used by men that are not so passionate as to have the definition of reasonable Creatures in vaine remembring that truth in likelyhood is where her Author God was in the still voice and not in the loud winde And that Epiphanius excuseth himselfe if he have called any Heretiques in his anger Deceivers or Wretches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I request him also to bring me to the Truth if I be out of it not only by his Arguments but also by his Prayers which wayes if he use and I still continue on the part I am of and yet doe neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither am wilfully blind nor deny impudently what I see then I am confident that neither he will have reason to be offended with me in this world nor God in the Next FALKLAND A view of the Exceptions which have been made by a Romanist to the Lord Viscount Falkland's Discourse Of the Infallibility of the Church of ROME SEPTEMB 11. 1645. THis day there came to my hands A Treatise Apologeticall touching the Infallibility of the Church Catholique in answer to another of the like argument lately published And although I have no temptation to spend any more time upon it then a single reading hath cost me nor to think it so dangerous a piece that I should not venture it abroad with the weakest sonnes of my mother without an appendant antidote or defensative against the poison of it especially being not obliged in any other notion then that of the respect I beare to the honour and memory of that noble Lord to vindicate his discourse from the exceptions here offer'd yet being not sure that I can excuse the so excessive thrift of a few houres which yet I could very gladly otherwise employ then in drawing one end of a saw in a controversie of this nature I shall give the Author of the exceptions or Apology in as few words as is possible the reasons why I am not moved by them much lesse perswaded that they are so extraordinarily lucky as to give as is pretended full answer to all that Master Chillingworth's large Book hath superstructed on this foundation And this I shall doe in such a manner that it may appeare that I desire onely to satisfie his reason and not make him payment of his scoffes or triumphs in that spirit of meeknesse which is proper for the restoring of one overtaken in an errour hoping in charity that he is such
that meane no more by the Roman Church then that which is so governed shall assoone beleive the Roman Church to be infallible as the Catholique under your notion of it Section 4 The short of it is we shall never agree upon any thing till the equivocall tearmes be explicated and one single sence of this as of all other phrases agreed on betwixt both parties Tell us then plainly that by the Catholique Church you meane the Vniversall all the world over without any kind of restriction and not that onely which is governed by the Pope of Rome which is a great restriction of the word Catholique and must be not onely affirmed but proved by you to be none And then I shall thus farre consent with you Section 5 First that the Vniversall Church is in fundamentals infallible not from any thing inherent in it selfe but by a prerogative acquired i. e. by the promise of Christ that his spirit shall leade them into all truth and that he will be with them to the end of the world and the like but then this Infallibility must signifie no more or be no farther extended then that Christ doth and will so defend his Church that there shall be for ever till the end of the world a Church Christian on the Earth i. e. that the whole Church shall not at once make an universall defection erre from the foundation or doe any thing by which there shall cease to be a Church on earth Section 6 But then 2dly I say that this very Vniversall Church though it be in the sense infallible in fundamentals is not yet a rule or Canon or guide or Judge infallible even in fundamentals visible it is infallible it is but 't is not a visible judge or rule infallible And the reason of this assertion is this that its Infallibility explained as we have explain'd it is all that can be certainly inferred from Christ's words and that belongs not at all to judicature and so any other Infallibility that shall be pretended to belong to judicature must be inferred from some other tenure or else it will not be inferred Section 7 If you cannot be thus liberall to us and tell us that by Catholique in this question you meane that Catholique without restriction Tell us then Secondly that you meane a representation of that Catholique i. e. a Councell Generall Oecumenicall and then I shall acknowledge many priviledges to belong to that An humble though not an absolute obedience and in a word that nothing is to be preferred before it but the Word of God or the Church truly Vniversall Yet after all this that it is not infallible or inerrable I have the judgement of Panormitan and shall adde his reason also to back it Because saith he the Generall Councell is not truly but onely by representation the Vniversall Church and supposing such a Councell to erre it would not yet follow that the Vniversall Church or multitude of all Christians doe erre because 't is possible that some out of the Councell doe not erre yea and in the Councell too though a major part overcome the better In this I have the concurrence of Occam dial p. 3. tr 1. l. 3. c. 5. Cardin. Cameracensis c. 1. Waldensis Doctrin fid l. 2. artic 3. c. 26. quest vesp arg 3. ad lit O. Antoninus to 1. de sacram l. 2. c. 19. Card. Cusanus in summarum par 3. tit 23. de concil general c. 2. sect 6. l. 2. Concord Cathol c. 4. Et Nic. de Clemangis Collat. 2. p. 64 73. with this farther confirmation of it from the opinion of the Ancient Fathers evidenced by their practice In that saith he it was solemnly accustomed by them at the beginning of such a Councell by fasting and praying to implore the assistance of the spirit which had beene a piece of uselesse diligence if they had been before assured that they could not be deceived or faile in those things for which they were assembled Which argument if it doe not infallibly induce the conclusion to those that pray for those things which they are sure of yet is it an evidence that they that use it are of the opinion which they inferre by it and will be of force to those that from the mention of some of the Ancients praying for the dead conclude them to be in a mutable state as I conceive some of your freinds are wont to doe To this assertion of ours I might also cite the Concordance of the Jesuits generally who that they may fasten all Infallibility in the Pope alone attribute nothing at all to a Councell but this that the errour of a Councell cannot be confirmed by the Pope which is in effect no more then that Councells begin to be infallible when the Pope confirmes them i. e. when the Councell is at an end which kind of Infallibility they will afford I presume to every Heretique and to me while I thus write that my errour cannot be confirmed by the Pope unlesse they will be so bountifull to adde also that such a Councell cannot erre if it follow the instructions of the Pope which will also be acknowledged true of any the meanest Lutheran or Calvinist as well as of that Councell Section 8 If neither of these two be it you meane then be ingenuous and tell us you either mean the Pope of Rome as the Jesuits doe or else that you meane those parts of the Catholique that are governed by him and then as we shall tell you that it is the very thing which we learn't from you to meane by the Roman Church so you that affirme that to be the notion of the Catholique Church must acknowledge to affirme the same thing to be Infallible which we say you doe affirme when we propose the Question of the Roman Churches Infallibility and in this there is no matter of deceit or difficulty but that that Church under the government of the Pope which we affirme to be fallible even in the highest degree fallible in fundamentals you undertake and contest to be infallible 'T is true this we call the Roman Church conceiving it to be your Dialect and if you say it is not we will consent to you and in obedience to your example call it so no more on condition you will be but as reasonable and give it some other title whether that of the Westerne Church which were a good large Province and yet of that Saint Basil complaines in no lower stile then this That they neither know nor endure the unity of Faith or any other title besides that of the Catholique Church which we are sure cannot properly be allow'd it unlesse it appear First that all Christians ought to be govern'd by the Bishop of Rome and Secondly that all they which are not so governed are no longer members of the Catholique Church and if you affirme both these we professe to deny them and then that must be the
of saying that it was necessary but rather the contrary and by saying it is impossible implies he cannot thinke it necessary and therefore when you affirme of his Lordship that by consequence of his Doctrine he imposes this impossible taske upon the illiterate and doe not so much as pretend to mention that consequence this is so clear a prevarication that you cannot take it ill at any friends hands to call upon you to confesse and retract it and of that nature is that other suggestion here that his Lordship seems to say that ignorant men doe assent to truth on no better grounds than others doe to falshood there being no such syllable here affirmed and if afterwards there be we shall there meet with it Section 4 The second part of the Argument is in relation to the learned proving that tradition cannot to them infallibly prove the Infallibility of your Church or be a rule by which to square your beleife in this particular so farre at least as to make it to them necessary to be beleived as your friends doe and must say it is because it is possible they may mistake in it and that mistake will not be damnable in them if they fall into it with a good conscience as possibly they may i. e. if they use their best diligence to find the truth by tradition and are not kept from it either by prejudice or passion though it should fall out they doe not finde it Section 5 This argument thus drawne out at length his Lordship confirmes by a cleare and pertinent instance suppose me in my inquest whether the Church may erre to enquire whether it ever hath erred and in that inquest suppose me to meet with some motives which really perswade me that the Church hath contradicted her selfe which if she hath done she hath certainly erred because both branches of a contradiction cannot be true but one of them must needs be false in this case it followes that I beleive she hath erred Wherein though it is possible that I may erre because the premises which I beleived true may be false yet because it is but an errour in my judgement that did so thinke and that being reconcileable in this case with sincerity will not be damning to me it will follow that it will be pardonable in me though never so learned that Tradition doth not convince me of the truth of that which I did really conceive it shewed me to be false it being as pardonable in the learned to beleive that errour which they conceive Tradition tells them as it was impossible for the unlearned to know what is Tradition Section 6 The whole weight of this part of the Argument lies in this that what ever is necessary to be beleived must be offered to be proved by a meanes wherein the learned at least cannot erre pardonably and therefore the Infallibility of the Church offered to be proved by Tradition that Tradition being a thing wherein the learned may erre pardonably is not proved by that meanes to be necessary to be beleived Or in a Syllogisme thus That wherein the learned may erre pardonably is not a meanes to prove the Infallibility of the Church to be necessary to be beleived but Tradition is a meanes wherein the learned may erre pardonably therefore Tradition is not a meanes to prove the Infallibility of the Church to be necessary to be believed Section 7 This is the summe of what his Lordship saith in the other part of that paragraph and to no part of this Syllogisme or of the materialls there out of which I have formed it doe you returne the least answer or deniall but rather confirme the Minor First by using Arguments to prove that it is a difficulty and knot common to Papists with Protestants to finde out the conformity of their doctrine with the Ancients which difficulty being granted will prove that in that matter the learned may erre pardonably Secondly by asserting that there be other notes of truth besides this of conformity with the Ancients and therefore that enquiry after that is not necessary to any man which seemes a disclaiming of that as of an unfit Argument Thirdly by saying that we know the conformity by the truth much easier then the truth by conformity From whence it will follow that conformity is a very ill Argument and the worse the Argument the more pardonable the errour in it And fourthly by the professed unfitnesse of this Argument at large dilated on by you with this conclusion that the conditions for the understanding of Tradition are so very hard that certainly God never imposed them on us On which grounds you offer us another meanes of proving it which shewes that this was unsufficient in your opinion viz. the conspicuous body of the present Church which if it be not a very fallible meanes also as in many respects I might prove it were particularly by this that the compasse of Christians that are of that Church of yours is not by common computation a third part of the Christian world is certainly very distant from Tradition which that it is not a meanes infallible in this matter is all that his Lordship now contends in that present Argument Section 8 The onely thing that is by you produced against this difficulty of using this meanes and so pardonablenesse of erring is the last period of the Chapter which commends the reading of the Magdeburgians as a readier way to know conformity then examination of places Section 9 To which I answer that if they have voluntarily confessed that there is constant Tradition for the infallibility of the Roman Church then have you fitly cited them if they have not or if upon my present instance you doe not shew that they have either directly or by certaine consequence then have you wronged them in this your affirmation and left your selfe no meanes to prove your conclusion by that medium Section 10 This is all I shall say to that long Chapter and in that I have shewed that through it you much mistooke the Argument proposed in the title of the Chapter the confutation of the fourth paragraph of which there being two parts you spake no word against either of them and therefore if I should allow every word of that Chapter to be true though you would be beholding to me yet would it be no advantage to you against his Lordship's present reasoning to which all you say is very extrinsecall and impertinent But that I may not lay too great an obligation on you by so liberall a grant I wil mention to you some infirm parts in that your discourse Section 11 I have touched on three already and your evidences that your Church and Religion is the true which you mention for the illiterate and are no one of them evidences may be added to the number which I need not prove because you have not attempted to prove but onely assert the contrary And so also your Divinity cited out
of Ric Victorinus if applied to your purpose that whatsoever is once so creditable as you have there made the Infallibility of your Church can never be false Which beside other falsities must inferre other things to be infallible beside that onely infallible for 't is sure that other things may by you be made so creditable and as sure that what ever else cannot be false God's veracity standing engaged for it is infallible also and not to mention your proofes of that Divinity such is your assertion that the Enquirer's inference against the Church is we thinke she hath erred therefore she may erre for his inference is onely this if she hath erred certainly she may which I should say is another great injustice by changing his Lordship's words but that it is repaired and expiated with another act of more kindnesse to us though of as little force of reason that the iâ—ference is good but the antecedent is infirme whereas in tâ—uth the Inference had beene nought but the Antecedent either tâ—ue or onely in the power of the Searcher of thoughts to disprove in him so againe that the discovering the non-conformity of your Church with the Antients may justly be thought impossible when if we had not actually done it yet hereafter we might and when in the present businesse we affirme and you goe not about to disprove that your pretending to the Infallibility of your Church is inconformable to the Antients because they did not so pretend and surely such is your affirmation that to send one to a witnesse and yet bid him not believe himselfe in what he conceives that witnesse tels him is not as bad as to send him in like manner and bid him not believe the witnesse there being no possibility of believing what the Witnesse saith but by believing himselfe affirming that that Witnesse said it For if you say it be by believing of you i. e. another Witnesse that that Witnesse said it I answer that that will include a believing himselfe also viz himselfe affirming that you testified that the other Witnesse said it Section 12 I shall trouble you with no more at once lest you count me uncivill one thing onely more I shall let you know I take notice of that in the compasse of very few words you cast off much of the respect due to Antiquity by saying that it is sufficient if we can by any sure way come to the knowledge of truth mentioning at that time onely the conspicuous body of the present Church for such without taking care whether it be conforme to the Antients or no c. By which as you acknowledge your preferring the conspicuous body of the present Church for the finding out of truth before Antiquity which is the strangest speech I could have look'd for from a defender of Tradition so I confesse I see the reason why a Section that undertooke to prove that Antiquity was no infallible proofe of your Churches Infallibility had in a long Chapter of answer to it never a word said in confutation of it and so I very friendly take leave of it To the fifth Section Chap. 6. Out of that which hitherto hath beene said it appeares plainly how the conclusion which the Enquirer would inferre in this fifth Section is no way applicable to our manner of probation of the Churches Infallibility for we doe not as he surmiseth maintaine that our Church the Guide of Faith is to be knowne by such markes by which the ignorant cannot seeke it and the Learned may chance to misse although with all diligence and without prejudice they enquire after it for we affirme that our first principles of probation are certaine and manifest and out of them we with certainty though not with evidence evict the Church By which manner of proceeding it is cleare that our probations are Logicall and conformable to the rules prescribed for the hunting out of truth by Aristotle in his Analytiques and the Philosophers in generall Some peradventure will deny our Churches verity to be evidently credible If any doe it the matter must be remitted to an equall triall betweene us But say you who must be the Judge I am no Socinian nor inclining to that sort of mis-believers yet neverthelesse I say right reason must be he and every man 's owne conscience and of these Judges I hope all men will allow and it is reasonable sure they ought to doe so because reason is in all questions the last and the interior Judge without whose assent and approbation no exterior is sufficient and compleat For exterior Judges be as spectacles to the eies and as spectacles be they never so good cannot see without eies so cannot revelation be it never so manifest give the last sentence about any doctrine nor be sufficient without reason It may be further replied that these principles of ours are also question'd Admit they be yet neverthelesse may they be certaine and evident otherwise we should grant nothing to be certaine for there is no one thing so evident which is not question'd by some or other C. 6. Answer to the 6. Chap. Section 1 That which you say to the fifth Section is in effect the denying the conclusion when the premises are either not deny'd or not confuted for that which his Lordship saith in that Section you acknowledge to be a conclusion and is so indeed of all that went before all directly tending to this That the Church provided for the guide of faith it offered by you to be knowne by such markes as the ignorant cannot seeke it by and the Learned though never so honest in his search may chance not to finde it by This then being the conclusion of all the discourse you professe to deny upon no other proofe but by affirming that your principles of probation are certaine and manifest i. e. by saying the direct contrary to his conclusion but not thinking needfull to prove it And so beside that other absurdity in Logick there is petitio principii againe Section 2 In doing this you were I conceive very much resisted by your owne spirit for the satisfying of which you are faine to say this strange thing that your principles of probation are certaine and manifest and out of them you evict the Church with certainty though not with evidence where either you must affirme to thinke that evident and manifest are not all one or else that the conclusion is not evident when the premises are either of which you shall have free liberty to take the choyce of and maintaine in your reply And when you have shewed your skill in so doing you then shall have leave to boast that your probations are Logicall and conformable to the rules of Aristotle in his Analitiques and the Philosophers in generall but till then 't was to no more purpose to say that of your selfe then 't will be to the edification of any that I have repeated it to you Section 3 Having thus confim'd the
conclusion with that great popular argument that prevailes with so many a bare confidence of affirming it it is very remarkable what your next attempt is why in stead of that hard taske which lay so heavy upon your shoulders to get an easier if 't were possible and therefore you foresee that some may peradventure deny your Churches verity to be evidently credible Good Sir what is this but to suborne a weaker adversary to challenge you that you may be excused from fighting with the stronger we desire plaine dealing that you will prove your principles of probation to be certaine and manifest which is the thing you affirm'd and not to thinke to put us off with more obscure and lesse containing tearmes of your Churches verity being evidently credible For first your Churches verity i. e. I conceive its being the true Church for I hope you speak not now of its Metaphysicall verity or its being truly a Church for so it may be and be very fallible and very corrupt is an equivocall phrase and in what ever sense is not so much as your Churches infallibility for it may be a true Church and not be infallible i. e. upon supposition that what ever now it taught were actually true 't were yet possible it might erre even when it doth not nay if its verity should signifie that it were a true Church as perhaps you meane exclusively to all others i. e. that the Catholique Church were the Roman Church and the Roman the Catholique yet speaking of the present state of the Church i. e. of the present Roman Church though it were supposed to be the present Catholique Church yet may that be fallible again because those that are now in the truth may fall into errour and others rise up as they fall to be defendors of the truth and so the promise of God of keeping his Church from finall or totall falling be made good still Section 4 As for that other largest notion of the Catholique Church under which we confesse it to be infallible that of the universall Church all the world over without any restriction I conceive it impossible that by your Church which is the Church with an eminent restriction you should meane that and upon that ground it was that I affirm'd that the verity of your Church in what ever sense is not so much as its infallibility Section 5 Then againe your phrase of evidently credible is not sure so much as certaine and manifest for though evidently credible sound strangely and if it have any sense in it hath also some obscurity yet I shall suppose you meane by it that which is credible or may be believed and of which it is evident that it may the words Grammatically can beare no other sense then this that it is evident that they are credible now certainly to be evident and certaine is much more then to be credible though it be never so evident that it is credible For suppose me actually to acknowledge that you have some probable arguments that your Church is the true Church nay suppose it is so evident that you have such arguments that every man that hath common understanding will be ready to acknowledge you have so doth it thence follow that I or all others doe and must acknowledge that you have demonstrated it this is to make no difference between the two sorts of Arguments in Logick Topicall and Demonstrative or in a word to conclude that to be infallible which you durst not say was any more then credible for as for the word evidently added to it it cannot have such an influence on the word credible as to make that quite another or higher sort of things then it was Credible in the clearest or highest degree is but credible still as the eminentest or excellentest man in the world is a man still and therefore in briefe if we should helpe you to fewer adversaries then you have and take off that suborn'd enemy of yours whom you suppose to deny your Churches verity to be eminently credible you would have gain'd by it but little peace from his Lordship who would still require you to make good your pretension of infallibility which will be a much harder theme to declaime for popularly I am sure Logically then the credibility of the verity of your Church Section 6 As for your way of answering that objection because the objection is not needfull for us to make Any reply or confutation of your answer will be as unnecessary I shall onely report to other men from your owne pen one notable decision of yours that in a triall of huge importance concerning the credibility of the verity of your Church I must be faine to use your phrase right reason and every man 's owne conscience must be the Judge which being so great an act of complyance and favour both to those which assert reason and to those that maintaine the private spirit to be the Judge of Controversies i. e. to two sorts of men which have hitherto beene believed opposite enough to your infallibility it will be but gratitude to reward so great a bounty with a favourable interpretation of a good meaning and he should be very rude and uncivill who would not grant upon such your demand that you are no Socinian nor inclining to that sort of mis-believers for sure he that makes right reason the Judge of his very principles must needs be so rationall and ingenuous that he can never be an Heretique though he say the very things that Heretiques doe Section 7 As for your very excellent similie of the eies and the spectacles I shall not have a word to say to it save onely this that although you have gotten the inclosure and monopoly of spectacles I meane of imposing of an exterior Judge upon us yet other men may be allowed to have eies as well as you i. e. to have reason and conscience to Judge of your Judge and then the issue according to your premises being granted to you will be this that they whose reason and conscience tels them that 't is not evidently credible that your Church should be the true Church exclusively to all others shall not be obliged to believe it is so for their owne reason say you and Conscience is to be judge that they whose reason c. tels them it is so credible may believe it if they please nay if they have no arguments as credible to the contrary and upon impartiall search can finde none it is very reasonable for them to believe what to their conscience is so credible but if they have such arguments to the contrary or if it be their fault that they have not they are sure no farther bound to believe it if they are not Subjects of your Church then those dictates of their conscience doe extend to oblige them or if they are Subjects yet no farther then the doctrine of obedience rightly stated which will be too long a worke for a parenthesis
hath influence on mens opinions but then still what ever their case be for believing the verity of your Church they can no way from thence be obliged to believe your infallibility Section 8 You confesse there may farther reply be made to you that these principles of yours are also question'd but take no notice upon what grounds of reason or Scripture they are question'd and so thinke you can deale with so unarm'd an adversary as you please by telling him they may be certaine and evident though they be question'd and perhaps I shall confesse to you that if they were onely question'd and no reason that were not by you easily answered brought to justifie such questioning it were sufficient which you say that questioning doth not disprove certainty and yet if every man's conscience be the Judge as you acknowledge then unlesse you can make it evident that that man's questioning is against conscience you will have no way to keepe it from being certaine and evident to him but when there be arguments produc'd to backe that questioning which you have no way to answer but by saying they may be certaine and evident for all that he that disputes with you will be excus'd to thinke he hath more reason to say and that you say must be judge that it may be otherwise To the 6. 7. Sections Chap. 7. No doubt there can be but God will reveale his truth to all such as seeke it with sincerity of heart and though both sides as the Enquirer objecteth may make use of this for an exterior allegation yet not as of interior helpe and preparation and therefore this sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious and thus much we grant willingly neither doe we challenge it as an argument of truth We grant him also that before such time as we can believe the Church we are to acquire sufficient principles for informing us which is she and also before we can believe upon her determinations we must have principles of knowing she is infallible and all this we make profession we doe de facto know Neither doe we take this Church to be a Proteus that is to say sometimes of one shape sometimes of another but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with the robes of truth and annexed to a Succession of Pastours legitimate from one age to another C. 7. Ans to Chap. 7. Section 1 Your answer to the sixth Section is by giving a distinction to tell us now both sides make use of the pretence of seeking truth sincerely and concludes that sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious which because you are willing to grant I will containe my selfe from springing any game or recreation for the Reader at this time of which he that were playsomely disposed would finde aboundant matter in the review of your distinction here applied and give you present payment for your favour by acknowledging that that which you grant is all that is begg'd from you viz. that God's promise of revealing of truth to those who seeke it sincerely is not at all an argument that they that pretend to the benefit of that promise must have reall title to it or consequently that they that have no other arguments to prove their Churches Infallibility but that they seeke truth sincerely and yet after that sincere search are of that opinion are to be heeded in their pretensions This justifies his Lordships sixth paragraph as fully as if you had subscribed it without your distinction Section 2 His Lordships seventh Paragraph consists of two things First a resuming of a part of his former argument which had beene onely mentioned but not inforc'd before that supposing the Church were proved to be infallible yet were not that sufficient to give any man certaine knowledge which were it Secondly a solid proofe of this affirmation by plaine reason because the granting the Infallibility of the Church did onely conclude that God would alwaies have a Church that should not erre but not that this was appropriated to any particular Church to such a Succession to the Bishop and Clergy of such a place c. Thirdly by a lively instance of the Greeke Church which though it were now in the right might hereafter erre and so the Greeke Church be now fallible and yet at the time that that erred another Church might arise the Champion of truth and so still the Church be infallible Section 3 To these two parts of the Paragraph your dispatch is short and annext to the nothing that was replied to the former Section to the first a liberall Grant of that which no man thankes you for that it is as necessary to know which that infallible Church is as that the Church is so but then saying and professing that you doe de facto know which is the Church and that she is infallible which beside that it is your old beloved petitio principii to say you know it offer no proof for it but your profession and a Latine word when the very thing that his Lordship was just a proving was that you neither did nor could know it comes not at all home to his Lordship's matter of shewing that the acknowledgement of the Infallibility of the Church doth not evict which is she For if 't were acknowledged that you did know it yet might it be by some other meanes and not by proving or confessing the Church to be infallible Section 4 As for his Lordship's proofe and instance added to his proposition 't was so despicable a thing that 't was not worth taking notice of but instead of any such thing you give us a declaration of your owne opinion that the Infallible Church was not a Proteus but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with truth c. which is againe the meanest begging of that which was just then denied and disprov'd and must so stand till you can annex reasons to your opinion and answers to his Lordships reasons To the 8. Section Chap. 8. We never goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because it holdeth with the truth or teacheth true doctrine as this Enquirer seemeth to suppose we doe but rather contrariwise because it is the true Church of Christ therefore we inferre it teacheth true doctrine but that it is the true Church we prove first of all and originally by reall revelations called in the Scripture Verba Signorum that is by signes ostensions or motives of credibility which motives for a great and sufficient part of them are the same by which we prove to Infidels the truth of Christianity it selfe For these same motives though when they are considered but in generall and as it were afarre off doe perswade Christianity but in generall without designing out in particular this or that Individuall Christianity yet neverthelesse the selfe-same being understood distinctly doe designe out a distinct and individuall Christianity and are applicable
semblance is the Church who needs not define her owne infallibility and therefore needs not because that same is to be presupposed to all her definitions as a thing knowne without them before hand for otherwise she would not be believed in any of them at all either touching her selfe or any other matter Neverthelesse though this definition be not in tearmes yet it is virtually done and in actu exercito as often as a Councell defineth any thing by the pronouncing of Anathema against such as doe not submit and counting them as Heretiques It is done againe in the using continually this old forme Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis For a conclusion I demand of these eager impugners both of Church and Councels what thing it it must regulate our beliefe and keepe us in discipline and unity for if they let all men loose upon themselves and make all men Judges in the Court of faith as they de facto doe controversies will multiply apace and no meanes left to reconcile them and while all men have authority of deciding no man hath it Reason alwaies did teach us that confusion would be the effect of this new licence yet could we never understand it till that now costly experience the mistris of the improvident hath laid it open before our eies And now at length we smart for our leaving the venerable decrees and definitions of Church aâ—d Councels and doe behold all brought to misery and ruine both Church and State yet such is our blindnesse as we are not able to disâ—erne the true causes of all these evils The daily growing up of new and new devices in stead of the old faith and the continuall discords and dissentions thereupon ensuing evict unanswerably the weaknesse and inaptitude of the rule of faith and our young and presuming wits way see how farre short they come of their forefathers wisedome and how much more unhappy then those who were governed by Church and Councels C. 14. Answ to Chap. 14. Section 1 The first part of this Chapter in the Apologist is answer onely to one of three or foure proofes of his Lordship's argument Section 20. viz. to that against the Councels being a rule of heresy when some passe for Heretiques that are not condemned by any Councell To this I confesse it were satisfactory if it were proved to say that Councels are a rule but not the onely rule But then First there is no other rule specified And Secondly this argument of his Lordships is complicated with three others being joined with which it is of force to strengthen one of them though of it selfe it were not sufficient to conclude and then neither of those are taken notice of Thirdly 't is meant but as a proofe against this rule not against any other And yet Fourthly his Lordship's method being to confute every one of them single as they lye all others being disproved this must be concluded the onely one or none at all and however no more can here be required then that here he disprove this from being the rule not that he disprove all others in this period Section 2 For your way of proofe that Councels are infallible First that is not answer to the contrary proofe And Secondly it is by a medium as much denied as it selfe the Infallibility of the Church whose quintessence it is and so your old acquaintance petitio principii againe Section 3 Your second part about John 22. puts us off to Ciaconius and Caeffeteau whom in obedience to your direction I should advise with but that I see from what you have learned from them that either you have proved an ill Schollar and 't were insolence in me to hope to be better or else that their resolutions are not pertinent to his Lordship's argument for the three things that you adde I conceive from their Writings are nothing at all to it Section 4 First not that which you grant for his Lordship grants it Secondly not that which you deny for his Lordship had not affirmed it unlesse from these words he was not alone you conclude that that which he contradicted was generally contradicted and then what his Lordship said may be as truly said to be generally granted for he is not you see alone in so saying Thirdly Not that which you say you doe not know for his Lordship knowes it as little and indeed sayes never a word of it Whereas the onely thing wherein the force of that part of his Lordships argument consisted viz. Bellarmines excusing Pope John in his denying of that which you believe from the no-Councell that had defined against him hath no title said to it but continues in great security to make good the argument that you doe amisse and withall either you or Bellarmine are very partiall to condemne those that are condemned by no generall Councell Section 5 Your Answer indeed to the 21. Section is nearer to the mark but yet it hits it not The argument is that no Councel ever decreed a Councell to be Infallible therefore as farre as the argument is drawne for beliefe from the infallibility of the Councell I am not bound to believe it infallible To this you answer 1. That for Councels so to define was not needfull because a Councell is the Church and the infallibility of that is a praecognitum in all her definitions otherwise it would not be believed in any Section 6 Here is excellent contrivance 1. For Councels to define that Councels are infallible is not needfull which sure is needfull if nothing be to be believed but what the Councell defines to be so and that must be granted 1. if the Councell be the rule of beliefe and 2. if the Councell be the Church as you say it is for that is the onely rule infallible if you be not deceived 2. That the Councell is the Church in substance I thought it had beene in representation onely and that nothing is the Church in substance but the Church in its full extent of which you said before the Church is onely the quintessence which sure is not the same in substance with that whose quintessence it is but onely the representation of it 3. That the Infallibility of the Church is a praecognitum if so then it is a principle and if so then I am sure I must not looke to see it prov'd and then as long as we deny it as we doe you know that is petitio principii againe 4. That unlesse the Church were presumed infallible before its determination it could never be believed in any this supposes men very hard-hearted that never will believe any thing but what some presumed infallible tels them Section 7 There is a beliefe as well as a certainty cui non subest dubium of which a man doth not doubt as well as cui non potest subesse falsum in which there can be no falsity and the Schooles have told you of a certainty of adherence where there is none of
and undoubted Monuments by an intelligent Author Philoponus l. 2. de Operib Creat c. 21. l. 3. c. 9. 13. The like may be said of the pretended tradition of the Quartodecimanes touching the celebration of Easter after the manner of the Jewes which was wholly rejected and forbidden in the first Nicene Councell and before that time opposed by many and principally by Pope Victor who as Ciacconius conceives did not cut Polycrates and his Associates from the body of the whole Church but only threatned it or as Eusebius seemes to say did doe it but yet at the instance of Saint Ireneus and some others if he had once past it did not prosecute the censure against them but let it fall and that it was so is very probable because there is no memory made how the sentence was received whether with obedience or otherwise which particular doubtlesse would never have beene omitted by Historians no more then the sentence it selfe or the intention of it was if there had beene any thing to register and besides because we finde not by any record but that all proceeded with those Asian Churches as formerly it had done without any note or alteration And by this is solved all that Chillingworth with so much animosity objecteth against the learned Cardinall Perone Salvian lib. 5. de Gubern Dei where he speakes in excuse of some Arian Gothes speakes not at all in excuse of their Heresy but supposing that sundry of them might have beene innocently mis led conceiveth more hope of such mens salvation then of such Catholiques who lived carelesly and lewdly Now what can this make against the tradition or definition of the Church Onely this Inquirer must say something to his Mother and be making difficulties where none is Ch. 15. Answ to the Chap. 15. Section 1 To the three next Paragraphs 23 24 25. you professe it needlesse for you to give any answer and doe it so willingly because as you say the discourses are intricate i. e. such as you cannot easily accommodate answer to but especially because it is sufficient for private men to learne the common doctrine of the present Church and therefore there will lye no obligation on me to reply any thing save onely this that his Lordships arguments doe still prove sufficient to the end to which he designed them to shew that Tradition is no infallible guide which that you acknowledge your diversion seemes to intimate and your many proofes that 't is not needfull it should be Section 2 But then it is in you a great injustice not to take notice of his Lordships designe to which his arguments are concluding but to impose another on him to which he never thought himselfe engaged nor could have foreseene your pleasure without the spirit of divination and yet to chide him for impertinence and pretermit and despise all that he hath said upon this onely ground of displeasure because he hath not proved what you now thinke fit to set him for his taske Section 3 This onely you must please to note that the appointing the ignorant to learne their beliefe from the common doctrine of the Church as before you did from the Catechismes doth intimate your opinion that your present Church is infallible but is no shew of proofe that it is so and so Petitio principii nay if your words signifie as they sound that your doctrine thus taught is credible and perswasive enough I may conclude that your Church is not infallible for whatever is taught by such an one is more then credible and perswasible Section 4 Your subtilty about the way of knowing the River Thames will as little come home to the businesse of Infallibility though to Credibility it may unlesse every Water-man on the River be as infallible as your Church for of him it is that I learne it and though his credit be great enough for a matter of this moment and in it I would as willingly be ignorant or uncertaine as be at the trouble to seeke out a better security In matters of greater moment I may be excused if I am not so credulous if I choose not to believe them whose interests are concerned at least if I thinke every Catechisme on the stall to be somewhat lesse then infallible Section 5 Having now sufficiently disclaimed Tradition at least shewne your opinion of it that you have little need of it to sustaine your Churches infallibility and so granted as much as his Lordship attempts to prove yet for some former profession of kindnesse to it you will now take its part a little rather then his Lordship shall be permitted to say any thing true and vindicate it from the argument about the Chiliasts In which I must tell you that what you here affirme of his Lordship and M. Chillingworth is not true of his Lordship whether it be of M. Chillingworth is not tanti as that not having the booke by me I should take the pains to examine it Section 6 As First this that he seekes to father on Saint Justin that all orthodoxall beleivers of his time received the doctrine of the Chiliasts whereas all that his Lordship saith is but the repeating of Justin's owne words wherein he cannot be deceived in your opinion for you before recite the same and translating them wherein he is not deceived for he doth it ad literam and in a word affirming that Justin saith he holds it and so doe all that are in all parts orthodoxe Christians which phrase all that are i. e. which he saith are in all parts orthodox that it differs from this other of yours all orthodoxall beleivers I shall appeale to no other judgement then that of your owne conscience who in the former page affirme that Justin spake of three sorts of men First Those that did as he conceived in all points hold aright the second which though they did not so in all things yet were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a pure and pious judgement and those which are such I shall suppose to be orthodoxall beleivers though as it appears by your acknowledgment they did not hold right in all things Or if your analysing of the place doe not sufficiently convince you of this difference and the injury that consequently you have done his Lordship I shall then having long agoe seriously weighed that place First give you an account of it such as I doubt not will satisfie you and when I have done so Secondly confesse the weakenesse of that place to conclude any thing against Catholique tradition and yet Thirdly make it cleare that you have wronged his Lordship in your report of his citation Section 7 First For the doctrine of the millennium I professe to beleive that it appears not to be Justin's affirmation that it was not opposed by his contemporaries but rather the contrary which I conclude from these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have signified to you that many doe not acknowledge this doctrine of
thought knowes much better what doctrines be agreeable to the goodnesse of God then yours can doe what is against it and therefore your owne reason and understanding teaches you that the Churches understanding is to be preferred and that yours must submit and againe that this is the rationall way and not the other this the way of understanding and that of errour And so much in answer to this fallacy wherein I perceive both he and Master Chillingworth confide very much As for particular doctrines it is true as you say you may examine whether they agree with the Principle that is foundation yet neverthelesse cannot you from thence conclude any thing against the doctrines or Infallibility of the Church but rather for it and this for the reason before specified Neither doe we therefore send you to a witnesse and bid you not believe it but rather to believe it as farre as in right reason you are to believe it and not farther that is to say you are to trust to your owne particular discourses as to particular discourses and no farther but to the resolves of the Church as to the dictamens of a higher understanding by the light of which you are to judge and censure of the rest and by doing thus you are sure you doe wisely and safely and in fine so as although you should chance to erre you might answer the businesse at the latter day by saying I did in this case what I ought to doe for I followed what my reason taught me and more then this was not required at my hands But if I follow my owne judgement and in confidence of that doe adventure to condemne the Church In that I offend against my reason and true judgement and should not be able to make a good apology for my selfe or any way make it good that I followed my reason which faculty is the rule that God hath set mee For a conclusion of this dispute I answer in briefe that putting the Inquirers argument as he ought to have put it namely thus as followeth This guide to my understanding or to my seeming teaches things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore it is not appointed by him for a guide putting I say the argument on this manner it is nothing so good or so concluding an argument as this other is videlicet This guide teaches such and such doctrines therefore they are not against the goodnesse of God and therefore againe my understanding was deceived in holding them to be so and therefore lastly notwithstanding all this she may be an infallible guide and appointed by God for such Note that we inferre hence she may be but not that she is as the Inquirer would impose upon us for we doe not say that the Church is appointed a guide therefore because it is agreeable with God's goodnesse to make her so but because we for other reasons know he hath so made her because we are not now to learne but that many things are agreeable to Gods goodnesse to be done which yet are not done nor peradventure ever will be Wherefore when we are to judge what is or will be we are to consider not what his goodnesse may admit but what his will determines shall have a being for of that lastly depends the existence of things and not of the other C. 18. Answ to C. 18. Section 1 In your report of his Lordship's argument Section 30. you leave out those words therefore there is one and so make nonsence of that period which in his Lordship's setting of it is excellent reason But I can believe that this was but a slip As for your answer to the parrallel cases wherein saith his Lordship Gods goodnesse is equally concerned doe you thinke you can ever satisfie any reasonable man in saying that the first thing he speaks of is onely contrary to Gods goodnesse in his Lordships understanding not absolutely but of the second he speaks not as it is in his understanding but as it is simply in it selfe from whence you conclude that he changes the tearmes Certainly Sir in despight of your exception argument is good Thus Section 2 If it be sufficient to conclude an infallible guide because it agrees not with Gods goodnesse to let men want one then any man that conceives that Church to teach any thing which he conceives against Gods goodnesse by the same reason is not to receive her doctrine The case is cleare because nothing concludes to any man any farther then it is conceived by him and that is not a proofe to me which I doe not conceive to be so which makes his Lordships arguing to be farre from fallacious For the matter of this paragraph is not whether it be really true that it agrees not with Gods goodnesse to let men want an infallible guide but supposing it to be so whether it will follow the Church is infallible or whether he whose understanding is convinced and perswaded of that truth that it is not agreeable to Gods goodnesse to let us want such a guide be enforced to confesse it infallible Section 3 This also his Lordship disputes not against but will willingly acknowledge the consequence supposing that the Antecedent were true onely by the same argument proves another thing that he that conceives the Church to teach any doctrine contrary to Gods goodnesse or that which is such to his understanding or he that supposes the Church to teach so must not believe that Churches doctrine So that if you marke the supposition is equall on both sides not taken for true one side and onely pretended on tother but one taken to be true by you that not to provide an Infallible guide is contrary to Gods goodnesse and tother taken to be true by his Lordship that Gods damning those that erre without either negligence or prejudication is contrary to his goodnesse also and if the Argument be of force on one side it must be so also on tother and for you to say that what you suppose is true but what his Lordship supposes is not so is a terrible petitio principii againe and no ground of a confutation against his Lordship The ridiculous arguments that you put in his Lordships paper without his privity will be matter of reproach to you who if you understood as I suppose you did were willing to deprave his discourses and not unto his Lordship Section 4 As for your way of satisfying his Lordships understanding that what the Church teaches is not contrary to the goodnesse of God because the Church knowes what is so better than he 't will sure prevaile little with any that is a disputing whether the Church is infallible or no as you see his Lordship now is for if she be fallible she may mistake in that judgment and that she doth not mistake there will be no assurance from her saying it as long as the controversy depends about her Infallibility which to affirme not to depend or to be no controversy is
petitio principii againe Section 5 As for your Conclusion of this dispute wherein you set the comparison betwixt two Arguments and say yours is much the better I shall not need debate that with you because they are not the two Arguments betwixt which his Lordship makes the comparison The first I confesse you have rightly set downe This Guide to my understanding teaches things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore it is not the Guide and this will be as good an argument as this other 'T is to my understanding contrary to the goodnesse of God that the Roman Church should not be an infallible Guide or that there should be no infallible Guide where there is none but the Roman Church therefore the Roman Church is so In this comparison the consequences are equally true and built upon the same ground that that which is against Gods goodnesse cannot be and the Antecedents equally affirmed according to severall understandings and then whether the other Argument which you bring be comparable to either it matters not Section 6 But when at last you give us a note that the argument from God's goodnesse doth not conclude that your Church is infallible but onely that it may be so I confesse you make me repent of all this unprofitable attendance I have paid you in following your argument thus farre when your selfe have given me directions to a shorter cut of answering viz by granting that it may be infallible that is that nothing in nature resists but that if God's pleasure were so it might be infallible but say we we have no evidence from God that it is his pleasure it should and therefore we conclude it may be deceived or may be fallible betwixt which two though there may be some difference as there is betwixt falli and fallibilem esse yet unlesse some evidence can be brought against one which cannot against the other they will be both equally true as farre as respects our knowledge or debate of them Section 7 And when you adde that 't is from other reasons that you conclude she is infallible and not from this of Gods goodnesse I answer that 't is cleare that his Lordship was now disputing onely against that reason taken from Gods goodnesse which it seemes you confesse was no reason and for your other reasons they are either confuted in other paragraphs of his Lordships Treatise or when you produce them shall be To the 31. Sect. Chap. 19. This Section is spent in the enquiring whether a man shall be damned for making a diligent and impartiall enquiry after the true religion of which he finds the infallibility of the Church to be a part supposing that his reason when all is done will not assent This is his Quaere and the same may be made concerning any other verity or point of doctrine as namely of the holy Scripture whether or no it be the word of God and what shall become of that man whose reason after an impartiall search made will not assent or againe about the truth of Christian Religion unto which after such a search made his reason will not condescend I answer first that it is a mockery to aske whether or no any Man shall be damned for making a good enquiry without successe and in effect it is the same as to enquire whether a Man shall be damned for doing a deed that 's commendable and good For this Question supposes that either the Enquirer or we were very simple Creatures and did not understand our selves or else that the Gentleman-demander was not in earnest but propounded it only for his recreation though at a time ill chosen and unseasonable and also in a matter about which there ought to be no jeasting I answer secondly that in a place where instruction and information may be had the case he puts is morally impossible to happen out for we deny that where the search is diligent impartiall and without prejudice and where againe information sufficient is to be had that there the reason shall not be able to assent and that wheresoever it cannot that same happens either through weaknesse or inhability of judgment and capacity or else by reason of some disordinate passion of the will by which the understanding is misled and darkened as in those who are refractary it for the most part falls out Which passion and prejudices arise sometimes from custome and education sometimes from vitious inclinations sometimes from a crookednesse and perversity of nature which doth refuse instruction Wherefore as it is no sufficient excuse for an Infidel to say I have searched diligently whether or no Christ be the true Messias or whether the Scripture be the word of God or no and after all endeavours used my reason will not assent so in like manner it is as little sufficient to alleage that after enquiry made about the true Church and her Infallibility your reason would not assent for in these cases we cannot grant any ignorance invincible or free that errour which possesses them from guilt Now what shall become of others who want instruction sufficient and have no crookednesse or backwardnesse in their will and die in ignorance is another point and different from this of ours and is to be resolved in the Question about the efficacy of Implicite faith to which I referre my Reader Chap. 19. Answ to Ch. 19. Section 1 In this Paragraph his Lordship askes a Question Whether supposing that he that never heard of the Church of Rome shall not be damned for not believing it infallible it can be thought that he that hath made diligent search and used honestly all meanes afforded him and yet doth not believe the Church infallible shall be damned for that not-believing this is the Question and to weigh it downe on one side that that latter shall not be damning when tother is not this reason is put in that in this matter all that that Man hath done in the second case more than in the former is onely the having diligently enquired which is presumed to be no damning sinne Section 2 In stead of the Question thus put you set another somewhat distant but I will suppose tending to the same effect whether a Man shall be damned for making a good enquiry without successe which you say is a mockery and so as I conceive ridiculous to affirme it and so Sir after all your descanting on his Lordship for asking this question it is apparent by our explication of it that upon the denying of that which you say 't is ridiculous not to deny it inevitably followes that that Man shal not be damned for denying the infallibility of your Church Section 3 And though you take paines to perswade that this case is morally impossible yet you must give us leave from your stating of the case wherein you say it is so viz when information sufficient is to be had to conclude your proofe a petitio principii againe for when wee deny your Church to
deny with obstinacy the infallibility of the Church of Christ or any other Article we are willing to beleive yet neverthelesse how safe he was we know not For a man may be obstinate and yet not thinke so though he may peradventure have just reason to suspect it It is not likely that Arius for example or any other Arch-heretique did thinke themselves to be obstinate although it is not to be doubted but they were for in the heart of Man there be many darke corners in which obstinacy may lurke and be unseen many passions that doe corrupt the intention which without great diligence are not espied especially in Men that are Lovers of the world or be possessed with prejudices hefore hand For which the wise Man wisely said Verebar omnia opera mea I distrusted all my workes And so hath every Man reason to doe in this universall corruption of nature and manners The 34 Sect. hath no difficulty in it which may require an Answer Chap. 21. Answ to Chap. 21. Section 1 Your Answer to the 33 Sect. is very strange you first grant very freely that you beleive that his Lordship did not deny with obstinacy the infallibility of your Church and yet in your next words you interpose against him that a man may be obstinate and yet not thinke so and on that ground your Answer to that Section But sure Sir whosoever else maybe obstinate or what grounds soever he may have to suspect he is yet this cannot by you be said of him at the same time when you acknowledge he is not obstinate Section 2 I beseech you compare your Answer with that Paragraph of his Lordships again and tell me whether this would not be very strange dealing Suppose a Friend should make this Syllogisme for you an honest Catholique ought not to be denied the liberty of this Towne but this Gentleman is an honest Catholique ergo and to the major I should answer by silence i. e. consent and to the minor that you are an honest Catholique I am willing to believe Neverthelesse whether you ought to have the liberty of this Towne I know not for you may be a dishonest Catholique and yet not thinke so Section 3 I pray how would you like this way of discourse would you not first tell me that I did in effect deny the conclusion i. e. make scruple how you should be dealt with after I had acknowledged both that all honest Catholiques ought to be used as you desire and that you are an honest Catholique And Secondly that I did suck in my concession of your being an honest Catholique assoone as I had made it for if that Reply belong to me then is it doubted whether I am such or no. Be pleased to compare the cases and this is directly your answer Section 4 What you meane by the no-difficulty in the 34 Sect. which you confesse and which therefore requires no Answer I doe not perfectly know but shall suppose you meane that there is nothing of doubt or question in it and then I am sure I have nothing to reply but that by the same reason the 33 Section must be granted also for the medium is the same to inferre both those conclusions To the 35 36 Sections Chap. 22. To beleive saith he implicitly what God would have believed is also to beleive implicitly what the Church teacheth if this doctrine be one of those which God commands to be believed My Answer to this is negative and my reason of deniall is because one implicite faith doth not containe another but it is an explicite assent and no other that containes within it an implicite To the point then I answer that if that same generall beliefe which he falsly calls Implicite be sincere and cordiall we then grant that it may as he saith implicitly containe the other But what will he deduce from thence what that all who pretend to believe on that manner doe it sincerely It is improbable for if it were sincere it would in knowing Men not stay within the narrow compasse of an implicite assent but quickly dilate it selfe and become explicite Indeed this great profession of believing in a preparation of minde all which God would have believed and goes no farther seemes in most Men to be but feigned and delusory and so no great trust can be reposed in it Chap. 22. Answ to Chap. 22. Section 1 The force of the argument Sect. 35. you deny upon a shew of some subtlety because say you one implicite faith doth not containe another This you affirme but afford us not the least offer of proof for the affirmation I must therefore beseech you to looke over your principle againe Suppose me to believe by an implicite faith that you are an honest Man may not that beliefe containe in it an implicite beliefe to every proposition by you asserted Nay what need this circumlocution is not his Lordships argument most cleare being put into a Syllogisme Section 2 If God commands the Church to be believed then he that implicitly believes all the commands of God implicitly believes that the Church is to be believed but God commands the Church to be believed ergo See now which Proposition you will deny the major is evident the minor I presume you will not deny whosoever else doth and then I beseech you be good to the conclusion Section 3 But that it seemes you will grant too but suspect that that generall beliefe is not sincere and cordiall But that I am sure is not for us to dispute of or discerne and I am as sure 't is nothing to the case where 't is supposed to be sincere and if it be not no Man ever thinkes it can be relyed on To the 37 38 39. Sections Chap. 23. Admitting the formost of these Sections as probable To the 38 I answer that as some are made obstinate by pride so againe othersome lazinesse detaines in ignorance But what of that I grant you that it is not pride in you or any Man never to assent till you find good reason for it but rather wisdome Neverthelesse it may be pride which blinds a Man and hinders him from the seeing a just reason of assenting yea even then when it is not onely perceptible but also easie to be perceived for the eye of the proud sees not the truth but overlooks it The 39 Paragraph containeth in it no businesse considerable in the matter of controversie between us Chap. 23. Answ to Chap. 23. Section 1 The 38 Sect. you admit as probable and now methinks I understand your Dialect somewhat better then before I did Doth not admitting as probable signifie not understanding Truly it had been more ingenuously done to have used that other phrase for the truth is it might have been done at this time without any disparagement to your understanding for in the beginning of this Section there was at the first Edition clearly an errour in the print It should be thus as
not very unhappy in his searches after truth or no I leave it by the searcher of all hearts to be determined C. 26. Answ to C. 26. Section 1 To your answer to the undiscernablenesse of errours that though they are not seene at the time they may be seene after I reply that I confesse it possible they may be seene after and that some are so very soone after but yet sure not all presently after at least not publiquely and vulgarly seene As they are seene so they may be made knowne to the world some a long time after others and this is sufficient to shew that the Authours of the errours may possibly not be seene discovered at all though the errour in processe of time chance to be so which will be most evidently true if it be farther considered what his Lordship affirmed that errours came in by degrees and not at once Section 2 To your question what it matters that sundry bookes are lost I answer that thus much it matters that from thence it followes infallibly that 't is possible there might be opposition against any doctrine though in the writings we have there be none mentioned and as you disprove not that so his Lordship desires not to have more acknowledged Section 3 Your next answer by retortion against Calvin will be of no force unlesse Calvin undertooke to be infallible Section 4 For the matter about the Chiliasts as you referre to your answer before so doe I to my reply onely from your favour or indulgence to that opinion during the time that it was held but as an opinion without censuring or condemning others but then withdrawing that favour when it arrived to that height I am very glad and joyfull to joine issue with you and charitably to suppose though I affirme it not that till you tooke upon you to condemne and censure others any opinion you held meerely as an opinion might doe you no irreparable hurt but now that you proceed to that insolent unmercifull height what mercy can you expect from your owne principles by which yet we that censure not condemne not are confident to hope for some kindnesse from you though not from other men Section 5 To the 48 Sect. I shall take your example likewise and to the last commend your ingenuity for commending that that deserved it so much and onely demand with what conscience you could thinke him very unhappy in those searches which you confesse to be so happy in proposing for sure if unhappinesse signifie the ill successe of his searches there can be according to your Principles no feare that they should by God be permitted to be unhappy or if it signifie any fault in them you cannot without uncharitablenesse and judging of hearts pronounce him guilty of it The Conclusion The generall result of all that which hath beene debated hitherto betwixt the Enquirer and me is in effect no other but that First the Catholique Churches infallibility is a soveraigne preservative against errour and against all dissention or dis-union in believing unto all those who doe acknowledge it and yeild submission thereunto Secondly that each new verity defin'd by that Church is to them a new path to heaven though on the other side to all such other as refuse to be directed by her it may prove just as the Enquirer is pleased to expresse himselfe a new path to walke in towards the Devill or one steppe more unto damnation And in this he was in the right and spoke truer then he was aware Now it is well knowne that all we Catholiques are guided by that same infallibility and againe that on the contrary all Anti-Catholiques doe resist it and what will follow out of this is no hard matter to collect Moreover this same infallibility a quality so unpleasing to the Enquirer cannot as he surmises make us sure if we be in errour never to mend for we all doe offer freely that if either he or any of his side be sure to disprove soundly and clearly the infallibility we will be as sure to mend and forthwith to relinquish it by which expected act of theirs we shall be reduced unto such good tearmes in which all Anti-Catholiques continually are that is to say to believe at randome reele wildly up and downe unconstantly and fall at variance amongst our selves as they doe and then I hope the Enquirer will be contented with us But the want on their behalfe of such an efficacious proofe as this hath beene the true reason why we have not hitherto thought of any alteration or comming towards them Certainly it is much better to be perswaded though falsly of an infallibility then to be sure to have none as you now are but to be wrangling perpetually falling out and fighting amongst your selves whereas before you were when as our Religion prevailed this inconvenience happened not So that in fine all the goodly fruits you have reaped from your impugning Church and Councels and in bringing in instead thereof a new invention of your owne is but the making of your selves and your Country miserable which daily by deare experience we finde And so much for the Enquirer's unadvised impugnation of the infallibility of the Catholique Church Chap. 27. Answ to the Conclusion Section 1 In your Conclusion which recapitulates the summe of these debates betwixt his Lordship and you your first result is acknowledged perfectly upon supposition that your Church were infallible but then whether it be or no that is the question still and its being taken by you for a Principle when 't is so farre from being supposed one is the cleare ground of the Irreconcileablenesse betwixt You and Us. For upon supposition that we were your Proselites in all manner of doubts besides yet your requiring us to believe you not onely in the right but infallible equally obligeth us to believe all that your Church can possibly ever affirme as what you doe already and then we must have a strong faith indeed to be able to beare such a burthen Whereas if you could but be brought to thinke it possible you might be deceived we could then finde place in you for Scripture and reason to make impression but till then you have that terrible prejudice against them whensoever they are produced against you and whensoever they are urged for you they are to little purpose onely to confirme you in the beliefe of that which you are already infallibly perswaded to be infallible that they are but temptations and shafts of Satan which the stronger they come and the more irresistibly the more is your faith obliged to resist them all and to that this one fortification is sufficient that you know that whosoever doubts of your infallibility is not fit to be heeded in any thing else Reason must cease to be Reason Scripture to be Scripture when it appeares on that Argument Section 2 And that sure is the reason that this Treatise of his Lordships which consists not of more
from you or if it should prove lesse splendid yet more tolerable to have beene ravisht from you then prostituted To the second Sect. I answer that you had said that before in annot to the concl A. And the answer there belongs to this Sect. and if you had made good what you say was your drift you should be pronounced conquerour To the third Sect. You have taken a good course to defend infallibility by setting up for it your selfe and affirming that no reply can be made to you in that matter because it depends onely upon your judgement which none can know but whom you tell it But good Sir your Authors do tell us that there is nothing infallible but the Church and when they have done so we may know your outward acts for such are your writings though your inward we pretend not to pry into To Sect. 4. I answer that one argument of his Lordships taken from your affirmed fallibility of Reason Scripture and Antiquity is most prodigiously by you call'd three pillars And how Sampson-like you have broken them downe the Reader must judge if you are so confident I have here exprest my selfe your servant by helping you to a publique tryall To Sect. 5. I acknowledge that from your owne confession I make those three arguments that neither Reason Scripture nor Antiquity can infallibly prove your Church to be infallible And To the Sect. 6. I say that the want of infallibility in those three mentioned Sect. 6. and by you confest is sufficient to prove his Lordships conclusion that they cannot infallibly prove your infallibility and this is the same that was meant by his Lordship though more explicated by me and brought home against you by way of retortion and Argument ad hominem upon your own confession And so your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was sung much too early and you must to your taske again if you will make an end of it To Sect. 7. I answer that if you had shewed the revelation on which reason inferres your infallibility your section had stood good but the totall want of that is your maine impediment To Sect. 8. Be you also pleased to produce your consent of Antiquity certainly expounding Scripture to inferre your infallibility and that shall be yielded you also but I conceive those writers of yours have not done it and whensoever you please I shall be ready to examine their testimonies with you To Sect. 9. I answer That we have allowed a sence wherein the Church universall may be stiled infallible and that to save my selfe the paines of examining your testimonies though some without examining I know to be ill cited I shall grant it in that sence to be so But then to your second proposition be it either I deny that they teach not or I affirme that it holds it matter 's little that the Roman Church is the true Church I answ That if there be emphasis in the particle the in the praedicate so that it signifie the Catholick Church in the former proposition 't is then absolutely false that the Fathers say any such thing And you are prudent to cite none to that ridiculous purpose But if you meane that the Roman Church is a true Church so you doe not meane that all it saith is true as we grant that so we challenge you to prove that ever the ancient Church thought any such particular Church of one denomination to be infallible When you please to produce your testimonies you shall receive answer to them To Sect. 10. Concerning the motives of Faith You might have spared that paines it being not at all concluded by you here or before that that infallibility is built on the same grounds with Christanity To Sect. 11. If you had never such solid reasons to perswade you that your Church had the truth as I should not need to deny were it not for your denying the cup to the Laity against Scripture and your keeping the Scripture in an unknowne tongue and some other such defects in faciendis but rather charge you that you have more then the truth viz. many errours mixt with the truth this would prove but a very weake probation that your Church is the true Church in the exclusive notion i. e. that no other is the Church but that for having the truth doth not signifie a Monopoly or inclosure of it or that no body else can have it And if by the true Church you meane no more but a true part you know we doe not question it nor affirme that your errors though many have turn'd you in non Ecclesiam into a no Church As for your Concordance with the Fathers which you say you have I answere that in those things wherein you and we consent we shall not be unwilling to grant it to you but yet must remember you that you would not allow that to be a proofe of your being infallible but in those other which we call errors in you we challenge you to produce an universall Concordance You goe on that you proue your Church by no other way then Christianity is perswaded unto Infidels I hope your meaning is that you prove your Church to be a true Church and that shall be granted you without your proofe but that it is the only true one or the infallible one I hope you have not miracles for that if you have you have trifled away a great deale of time in not telling us of them nor revelation from Heaven nor universall tradition to assure you what you affirme so confidently that the Infallibility of your Church is the whole frame of Christianity And therefore what you learnedly adde about the verba signorum or signa realia signes and ostensions c. by which you go about to prove Christianity I must professe to edifie me but little in point of the infallibility of your Church because that is so distant a thing from it To Sect. 12. Your affirmation that the true Catholique Religion is the true Christianity if that be the onely thing you aime at shall be willingly granted you all the question will be whether all your doctrines that of denying the cup to the Laity c. be that Catholique Religion And sure to him that questions that all the characterismes c. all your Propheticall predidictions will give but little satisfaction and no more will the excellency of Faith perfection of heroick actions of professors nor the conveyance from age to age by the Prime Ecclesiasticall succession of Pastors in the Sea of Rome because that of the sub unicâ specie c. which we quarrell at in you might as well be pretended to have testimonies out of the present Articles of our Church as out of these If there be any of these evidences or moreover of Reason Scripture Antiquity on your side for such controverted particulars I beseech you let them be produced or else you may be Christians but yet corrupt in these particulars your being
for which that punishment was inflicted to which purpose the Chancellour of Paris will advise you or when the condition of her being received againe is such as cannot with any honesty be entertained be it the undertaking any Treasonable act against the King whose Admirall he is which denominates that Praetorian and who is supreame Master of the whole flâ—et or be it but swearing any thing to be true which is false or subscribing to the belief or practice of what we believe neither true nor practicable And that this is the state of our Church in its separation from yours I shall undertake to make good whensoever you will yeild the point of Infallibility or exchange it for the question of Schisme You see I am not much edified by your way and because you are not so importunate that I should but are modestly content that if I am not satisfied with it I should set you downe a better I shall humbly crave leave to doe it in very few words The farre better way more Christian because more humble and more charitable and beyond all probably the most peacefull too Is to make the Scripture as 't is interpreted by the antient Fathers the ground of our belief for all the substantiall i. e. plaine parts of Faith to define as few of this nature as the Primitive Christians may be discerned to have done to command and require obedience and assent to these from all our Inferiours under our authority and to proceed to Ecclesiasticall admonitions in case of errour to censures in case of contumacy but to blood never purely for Religion nor too often for Religion in ordine ad temporalia To tolerate with meeknesse those that are contrary minded in all things that are not either of the number of these few very few necessariò credenda or that have not a necessary connexion and immediate influence on practice and good life This as it is farre from either pretending to infallibility or letting loose the reines to licentiousnesse so is it the happiest most lasting durable temper of a Church most agreeable to all those ends that Christ hath made most estimable to us in his Gospel and so will be farre from that feare of yours of betraying us to a deserting of the Christian faith or falling to Infidelity universall peace and charity and humility being above all things most contrary to that And so you see 't is not so unpracticable a difficulty to compose an Organon of Faith so farre as to preserve it among Christians And for the planting it among Infidels that is not hujus considerationis nor doe I much believe I shall have much reason to differ from any learned Romanist on that Subject on condition he would agree with me in this As for your judgement upon his Lordship that he was able to say more against an infallibility then for it and that in the one he hath shewed his strength in the other not I easily believe and must thinke my selfe bound to confesse because I have seen a Booke of his against Infallibility but never any for it If this must be thought a fault in him I must be content to lie under your severest censure for the same crime also and sic habes confitentes reos patiently expecting what you will pronounce against us Sect. 14. You are resolved it seemes to have a word or two about Lawes upon what temptation or provocation from the precedent discourses at least from the maine businesse in hand I cannot readily satisfie my Reader The most I can guesse is that in our meeting we fell into some discourse and difference about the nature of unjust Lawes whether they might be said to be Lawes or no. And perchance your charity led you now out of your rode to informe me in this matter if 't were onely so I must acknowledge it an obligation and shall thanke you for that though I chance to dissent from you And that matter I perceive will be soone stated Thus That Lawes if considered in respect of the matter of them they be found to command me to doe ought which by any superiour law 't is unlawfull for me to doe they are then unjust Lawes be the Legislatour never so lawfully my Magistrate and in this case 't is true that God hath not given him power to make them meaning thereby such a power that he may make them without being unjust but yet another power he hath given him to wit such an one as that if he exercise it thus against God the Doners will yet it shall not be lawfull for any man or society of men on earth to call him to account and punish him to resist violently or reduce him in ordinem Onely God that hath given him potestatem in genere which is libera ad utrosque actus power to make good or evill lawes but withall restrained by a command from the law of nature and God and limited by that law onely to the lawfull exercise of it or making the good lawes is to receive an account of the Talent given him to trade with as his Steward and to enquire whetâ—er he hath used it well or no. Thus much unlesse I am mistaken your discourse gives me reason to thinke granted by you And from thence I must conclude that any such abuse of power in the Law-giver though it be in him aberration from the rule in respect of God yet still is an act that hath some effect on the man which is borne or lives under that law though not to oblige him to doe what is commanded him yet to oblige him to non-resistance and suffering patiently if the Law-giver be so wicked to tyrannize over him Which obligation to passive though not active Obedience is the result of a Law if not properly so called in your notion of it yet very lawfully and intelligibly so called as I have interpreted it And for the propriety or impropriety of the word I shall not much contend with you so the substance be agreed on and yet 't were easie enough to repay you with the quotations of Schoole-men and Casuists which make no scruple to use the word in my sence and to answer the places you have produced and shew that 't was onely in that sence which we yeild that they did deny it But enough of this For your 15 Section What it signifies or whether it would I cannot I confesse divine 't was I conceive in you an excessive act of liberality that you thought might be for my turne and though I know not how at this time I shall reap profit by it yet I cannot but accept your good intentions And so being extreamly weary of a very thanklesse taske I bid you heartily farewell FINIS 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tom. 2. pa. 272. Dial. cum Tryph. pag. 307. lib. 5. cap. 33. Niceph. Tom. 1. pag. 555. Tom. 2. p. 206. De Regno Coesarius Synesius Sophoc * Licet concilium generale representet totam ecclesiam
A view of some EXCEPTIONS Which have been made BY A ROMANIST TO The L D Viscount FALKLAND'S DISCOURSE Of the INFALLIBILITY of the CHVRCH of ROME Submitted to the Censure of all sober Christians Together with The Discourse it self of Infallibility prefixt to it The second Edition newly corrected LONDON Printed by J. G. for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane M.DC.L To the READER THE Length and quality of this insuing trouble will seem to have been given the Reader somewhat impertinently if a brief account be not first rendred of the occasion thereof The sad effects of the present differences and divisions of this broken Kingdome having made peace and unity and infallibility such pretious desireable things that if there were but one wish offered to each man among us it would certainly with a full consent be laid out on this one treasure the setting up some Catholick Umpire or Daies-man some visible infallible Definer of Controversies the Pretenders to that Infallibility having the luck to be alone in that pretension have been lookt on with some reverence and by those who knew nothing of their grounds or arguments acknowledged to speake if not true yet seasonably and having so great an advantage upon their Auditors their inclinations and their wishes to finde themselves overcome going along with every argument that should be brought them and so a faire probable entrance by that inlet of their affections to their minds they began to redouble their industry and their hopes and instead of the many particulars of the Romish doctrine which they were wont to offer proofe for in the retaile now to set all their strength upon this one in grosse and by the compendiousnesse of that course to expect a more easie reception then formerly they had met with the very gaines and conveniences that attend this doctrine of theirs if it were true being to flesh and blood which all men have not the skill of putting off mighty Topicks of probability that it is so To discover the danger of this sweet potion or rather to shew how farre it is from being what it it pretends and so to exchange the specious for the sound the made-dish for the substantiall food allowing the Universall Church the authority of an irrefragable testimony and the present age of the Romish Church as much of our beliefe as it hath of conformity with the universall of all ages but not a priviledge of not being able to say false whatsoever it saith and so to set us in the safer though longer way thereby to whet our industry in the chase of truth in stead of assuring our selves that we cannot erre which is not a vertue but an excellency not a grace to be crown'd but a great part of the crowne it selfe reserv'd for another world a felicity but not a duty this Discourse of the Lord Viscount Falkland's was long since designed as also to remove the great scandals and obstacles which have obstructed all way of hope to that universall aime of all true Christians that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catholick harmony which Iamblicus talkes of in the spheares above but would found better in this vault this arch to beare up those spheares the Church below the Universall peace of Christendome for to this nothing is more unreconcileably contrary than pretensions to Infallibility in any part of it all such making it unlawfull either for themselves to mend or others to be endured shutting out all possibility either of compliance or charity or reformation in their owne or mercy to other mens errours What was thus by his Lordship designed in all justice was by an intire lover of peace and truth published in all charity to resist and check a threatning tempest which rising from out present evils was apt if it did not begin to shake some The Printing of this Tract presently provoked an Assertor of that Infallibility to take upon him the answering of it and to complaine that an Answer which had been by the same hand given it formerly was not permitted to attend it into publick This then being a second Care was probably to have arrived to a higher degree of perfection and indeed among the Favourers of that peâ—swasion was cried up for so satisfactory a piece that it was delivered to a Member of the Church of England as unanswerable From him it came to those hands which returned it to the Authour with this ensuing Rejoynder withall intimating that since in his he seemed to wish the same freedome of the Presse which his Lordship had found both the Answer and the Reply should be recommended thither if he pleased After he had detained the Reply some weeks he was pleased to returne it with a protestation That he neither intended nor would permit his to become publicke pretending that I may give you his owne words his Treatise to have been no finish'd worke but onely a first draught or inchoation ventured abroad to explore the judgements op one of two intelligent Adversaries that so the Authour by his second he might have said third thoughts might be better able to understand what was to be altered in it what added or what taken a way either as superfluous or offensive and till that act was done and withall till an approbation and license given by those to whom it belonged neither the worke nor any line of it is to be acknowledged or vouched by the Authour And so both were returned with some few alterations and additions in his Answer and marginall Notes on the Reply and one sheet at the end of them containing a new Scheme of probation of the pretended Infallibility and a preloquium to it wherein the passage just now mentioned is interminis recited This the Replicant to avoid all appearance of severity was content to accept for sad earnest and therefore freely exprest his willignesse to give the Authour leave to provide a new Answer to his Lordships-Treatise which he might be willing to owne in publicke which when he should doe promise was made to prepare a speedy Answer thereunto and on those termes to be content to lay aside the former That this should be done was affirmed on one part and on the other expected some months with patience till at length the Answerers pleasure was made knowne that that resolution was put off and that in stead of so meane a combat either with his Lordship or this Replicant he was pleased now to designe a full discourse on that Subject without taking notice of either any farther than he should thinke fit to take in his way any thing by them objected against his position and that this should be printed beyond the Seas When this will be performed I cannot tell Onely this is now discerned somewhat contrary to expectation that what hath been disclaimed by him is extolled by others and the weaknesse of the Replicant sufficiently despised Wherein though he hath not much temptation to thinke himself injured being ready to acknowledge the
emptynesse of these Papers and more then so to render a reason of it viz the fate which they were under by a necessity of attending this Apologist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yeilded them occasion of little variety unlesse they would extravagate Yet could he not resist the Reasons which charged it on him as a duty thus confidently to importune the Reader with the view of the whole matter as farre as it hath past between them setting downe that Answer to and this Vindication of his Lordships Arguments by Chapters and then not doe him the least injustice adding in the end of all the Answerers marginall Replyes and that concluding Sheet that even now was mentioned with a Rejoynder to that also By all this endeavouring to lay grounds for all men to judge how little truth there is in that so Epidemicall perswasion that there is no middle betwixt asserting an Infallible Judge and the falling headlong into all the Schismes and Haeresies of this present age My Conscience assuring me that the grounds on which the establish'd Church of England is founded are of so rare an excellent mixture that as none but intelligent truely Christian minds can sufficiently value the composition so there is no other in Europe so likely to preserve Peace and Unity if what prudent Lawes had so long agoe designed they now were able to uphold For want of which and which onely it is that at present the whole Fabricke lyes polluted in confusion and in blood and hopes not for any binding up of wounds for restauration of any thing that lookes like Christian till the faith of the reformed English have the happinesse to be weighed prudently and the military Sword being timely sheathed the Power and Lawes of Peace be returned into those hands which are ordained by GOD the Defenders of it H. H. Of the INFALLIBILITY of the CHURCH of ROME A Discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND Section 1 TO him that doubts whether the Church of Rome have any errors they answer that She hath none for She never can have any This being so much harder to believe than the first had need be proved by some certaine arguments if they expect that the belief of this one should draw on whatsoever else they please to propose Yet this is offered to be proved by no better wayes than those by which we offer to prove she hath erred Which are arguments from Scripture Reason and Antient Writers all which they say themselves are fallible for nothing is not so but the Church which if it be the onely infallible determination and that can never be believed upon its owne authority we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible for these other waies of proof they say may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to believe them Section 2 If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine faith why are they so offended with the Protestants for believing every part of their Religion upon that ground upon which they build all theirs at once and if following the same Rule with equall desire of finding the truth by it having neither of those qualities which Isidorus Pelusiota sayes are the causes of all Heresies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pride and prejudication why should God be more offended with the one than the other though they chance to erre Section 3 They say the Church is therefore made infallible by God that all men may have some certain Guide yet though it be infallible unlesse it both plainly appeare to be so for it is not certaine to whom it doth not appeare certaine and unlesse it be manifest which is the Church God hath not attained his end and it were to set a Ladder to Heaven and seem to have a great care of my going up whereas unlesse there be care taken that I may know this Ladder is here to that purpose it were as good for me it had never been set Section 4 If they say we may know it for that generall and constant Tradition instructs us in it I answer that ignorant people cannot know this and so it can be no Rule for them and if learned people mistake in this there can be no condemnation for them For suppose to know whether the Church of Rome may erre as a way which will conclude against her but not for her for if She hath erred certainly She may but though She hath not erred hitherto it followes not that She cannot erre I seeke whether She have erred and conceiving She hath contradicted her selfe conclude necessarily She hath erred I suppose it not damnable though I erre in my judgement because I trie the Church by one of those touch-stones her self appoints me which is Conformity with the Antient. For to say I am to believe the present Church that it differs not from the former though it seem to me to doe so is to send me to a Witnesse and bid me not believe it Section 5 Now to say the Church is provided for a Guide of faith but must be known by such marks as the ignorant cannot seek it by and the learned may chance not to find it by though seeking it with all diligence and without all prejudice can no way satisfie me Section 6 If they say God will reveal the truth to whosoever seeks it in these wayes sincerely this saying both sides will without meanes of being confuted make use of therefore it would be as good that neither did Section 7 When they have proved the Church to be infallible yet to my understanding they have proceeded nothing farther unlesse we can be sure which is it for it signifies onely that God will alwaies have a Church which shall not erre but not that such or such a Succession shall be alwaies in the right not that the Bishop of such a place and the Clergy that adheres to him shall alwaies continue in the true faith So that if they say the Greek Church is not the Church because by its owne confession it is not infallible I answer that it may be now the Church and may hereafter erre and so not be now infallible and yet the Church never erre because before their fall from truth others may arise to maintain it who then will be the Church and so the Church may still be infallible though not in respect of any set persons whom we may know at all times for our Guide Section 8 Then if they prove the Church of Rome to be the true Church and not the Greeke because their opinions are consonant either to Scripture or Antiquity they run into a circle proving their tenets to be true first because the Church holds them and then theirs to be the true Church because it holds the truth which last though it appeare to me the onely way yet it takes away it's being a Guide which we may follow without examination without which all they say besides is nothing Section
of an infirme not a malicious mistaker And the first thing we have to view is that which is entituled A note upon the title of the Adversarie's C. 1. We against whom this enquirer writes or rather to whom he propounds his difficulties with a pretending desire of procuring a satisfaction are defenders of the Catholique Churches Infabillity which Churches chief Pastour or Metropolitan though he be particular Bishop of Rome as of some one place or other he must be yet neverthelesse from that one portion of it is not the whole and universall Church aptly to be stiled the Church of Rome as in the Enquirers title it is called no more then the Church of England can be rightly termed the Church of Canterbury or the Protestants of England the Canterburians as the Scotch Puritans have called them onely because the chief Bishop and Primate of the whole Kingdome hath his seat at Canterbury By the self same reason then cannot we justly be called Romanists as it hath pleased some Protestants to entitle us The reason of this assertion is That Rome and Canterbury are but small and onely materiall portions of either Church and therefore no way sufficient to give a denomination to the whole As then the Church of England is wrongfully called the Church of Canterbury so in like manner is the Church Catholique wrongfully stiled the Church of Rome or as such controverted to be fallible or infallible forasmuch as this perfection of being infallible is not claimed by her as she is Church of Rome but as she is the Catholique and according to the appointment of Christ governed by S. Peter and his successours For this cause we have altered the title and stated the question in tearmes more proper and formall enquiring not Whether the Roman Church but whether the Catholique be infallible and this ought to be the title But before we enter upon the examination of particular difficulties the Reader may please to know that this same Enquiry was written by the Author diverse yeares agoe in his Catholique Mothers life time and was by her mediation forthwith answered at large and the answer sent unto the Enquirer fairly bound up in whose hands though it rested long yet had it never any reply made unto it though it was sometime threatned it should At that very time Chillingworths Booke began to be in moulding and it may be that same new labour diverted the Enquirer and altered his designe Now at length in a time most unseasonable by the frivolous officiousnesse of I know not whom these old papers are forced to see the light and to leave their answer behind them After so meane and creeping a fashion doe they appeare now unto the world But although no notice hath been taken of any answer made already or of giving licence for any other to be made hereafter or if made to be published in print and have the advantage to be dispersed abroad in many copies yet are we not by this discouraged from composing one for though for want of the Printers helpe it shall lye concealed and in much restraint yea and be in danger to perish as the other did before it yet may this small labour fall at least into some few hands and remove out of their way such dangerous stumbling blockes as have beene cast into it by this Enquirer who by his casting of doubts about the method of resolving faith hath thereby amongst all those who are not much versed therein endangered the stability and safety of the whole fabrique not of Catholique Religion onely but of Christian in Generall As for the Papers themselves and their particular contents they in a word are Chillingworths Booke in little and an Embryo of his large volume growne up after made bigge and bolstered out with many new materials borrowed from Baron the Scotch Minister and that impious author Volkelius the veines of whose poisonous doctrines and discourses are observed to runne branching throughout all Chillingworths worke Wherefore this small collection containing the substance of the other larger booke the confutation of this Enquirers allegations cannot but in substance conteine a confutation of all Chillingworths delated errors and sophistications wherewith so many soules have beene perverted or brought into great troubles and perplexities C. 1. Answer to C. 1. To the exceptions made against the title of the Lord Viscount Falklands discourse I answer by saying these few things Section 1 First that it is no news to heare of the Catholique Roman Church it hath frequently beene used and avowed by your owne writers and as I conceive is by your selfe acknowledged when you say the perfection of being infallible it not claimed by her i. e. the Church Catholique as she is the Church of Rome but as she is the Catholique which words by the rules of discourse must suppose you to thinke the Catholique Church to be capable of a double appellation Roman and Catholique though the perfection there spoken of belong to it onely under the second notion And beside you say in another place that the Roman Church is the Catholique whence it will follow that the Catholique is the Roman And if this be not propriety of speech his Lordship is not to be blamed for it but you whose dialect he is faine to use Section 2 This then being presumed to be granted by your writers and as I conceive also by you that the Roman Church is the Catholique Church or that the Roman and Catholique are two names for the same Church it will certainly follow that he that affirmes the Catholique Church to be infallible must affirme the Roman Church to be so too though not quatenus Roman For any particular man being affirmed to be a Christian whatsoever will be true to be said of this Christian will be true to be said of this man by the rule of quicquid praedicatur de praedicato praedicatur de subjecto if this Christian have a promise made a priviledge instated on him this man hath so also and if any that yeilded the former shall deny the latter it will never be sufficient ground or authority for such denying to affirme that it was made to him as a Christian and not as a man for the whole man being a Christian and not onely some part of him even that which belongs to him onely for Christianities sake doth as truly belong to him as that which his humanity gives him title to Section 3 Or 2â—y. If you have sprang a subtlety and by helpe of that meane to disclaime the expression of other your friends and therefore will not allow the Roman Church to be in propriety of speech the Catholique Church and yet will agree with them in all but in the expression truly you have revealed no great mystery to the world And as long as you define as you do the Catholique Church as it is the subject of the pretended Infallibility to be that which is governed by Saint Peter and his Successours we
matter of debate and till that be agreed there will be no other question seasonable to be proposed in this matter and wen it is there will be no other needfull Section 9 And for the parallel of the Canterburians which you use to prove the unfitnesse of the question under these termes it is but a thin fallacy easily seene through if it be thought to conclude any thing To the clearing of which be pleased to observe that the Bishop of Canterbury may be considered in a three-fold relation First to his particular Diocesse of Canterbury of which he is Bishop Secondly to the whole Province of Canterbury of which he is Metropolitan Thirdly to the whole Nationall Church of England of which he is Primate his two former relations are terminated in Canterbury under the two significations of the word but the third is terminated not in Canterbury in any notion of that word but in all England and thence it followes that the Church of Canterbury whether as a Province or a Diocesse which are the onely two Notions we in England have of it being not of the same latitude with the Church of England it will be improper to call the Protestants of England Canterburians But then on supposition that there were a third notion of it whereby the Church of Canterbury and the Church of England were of the same latitude or to him that were confidently perswaded that they are so it were no impropriety at all to call all English Protestants by that denomination and if to prove it were improper it should be affirmed that 't is but an accident that he that is Primate of all England should be Bishop of the particular See of Canterbury there would be no force in that proof First because that which is true per accidens is neverthelesse true and denominations being ad placitum are many times accidentall yet for all that denominations as much as if they had been by nature or per se and Secondly because we are now upon a supposition though it be but a supposition that there is a Nationall Church of Canterbury as well as a Province and Diocesse And therefore I say on this supposition if it had so happened or been agreed on that all that are under the Primate of Canterbury should be called the Church of Canterbury as it hath been agreed on that all that are under the Metropolitan of Canterbury should be called the Province of Canterbury we should never challenge any man of improper speaking that should call us Canterburians As for the Scotch Puritan you speak of that calls us so by way of reproach you cannot be ignorant of his meaning or think it pertinent to the purpose to which you apply it It was used by him onely in relation to the present doctrines of the then Bishop of Canterbury and onely some men scoffed at under that title as followers of his as they erroneously conceived particular or personall doctrines which is quite another notion of the word then that which you have occasion to speak of Section 10 From all this it will consequently appear to be as unreasonable for you who acknowledge a notion of the Roman Church equipollent with Catholicke and affirme the whole Catholicke Church to be govern'd by the Primate or Pope of Rome and urge the necessity of Christ's precept that the Church which you pronounce infallible must be so governed or else that it is no longer Catholicke to make any difference between the stile of Catholicke and of Roman Church or of Catholicks and Romanists no man among us fetching the denomination of Roman or Romanist when he thus speaks from the relative Diocesse of Rome as the Pope is a Bishop or from the relative Province of Rome as he is a Metropolitan but from the relative Church of Rome the whole number of those Christians who acknowledge the Pope their Primate or Partriarch which you that affirme him to be Primate of all Christians by full right and succession from Saint Peter must acknowledge him to be of the whole Catholike Church In which acknowledgement because we agree not with you but contend that his Patriarchate is limited as well as his Diocesse or Province as we cannot therefore speak throughout in your language and call that the Catholicke Church which is but a part of the Catholicke or debate the Infallibility of the Catholicke Church with them that meane by that phrase onely that are under the Roman Communion or government of the Pope of Rome whil'st we mean Catholicke without any restriction or if we should so speak shall be guilty of leaving a maine equivocation in the words of the question which ought of all things to be avoided by distinguishing before we goe about to debate any thing and after distinction made and agreed on that by Catholick is to be meant onely those which are in Obedience to the Pope we will then debate it under that title also so may we very reasonably use your dialect when we agree in the meaning of it as in the phrase Roman Church we doe meaning both of us all those who are govern'd by the Pope of which Church in that notion we now enquire whether that be infallible or no And so much for the phrase of the Question or Title of that Treatise Section 11 And then I shall adde no more to the second part of the first Chapter then by acknowledging the treatise of that excellent Lord to have beene written many yeares since and now not unseasonably publish't at a time when some arts were used though blessed be God improsperously to pervert unstable minds and this pretended Infallibility a maine auxiliary call'd in for that purpose As for any answer long since framed to it I am perswaded that that Lord thought it not such as that his reputation should be concerned in providing an answer for it And for the Publisher 't is very possible that he might never heare of any such which I guesse also by my selfe who had long since a copy of the one but till I read it here never heard of the other or if he did had reasons which he can justifie to any ingenuous man why he did not publish it also Which being now said to you and which you had before no ground of thinking to be otherwise you will hardly give a civill account why you should charge and now not aske pardon for charging on the Publisher a frivolous officiousnesse by which that answer is forced to stay behind though it were also sufficient to tell you that when you set out all your Bookes at Rome or Doway with our answers annext to them we will then publish this of yours at Oxford or on the Edition the stile of a mâ—ane anâ— creeping fashion of appearing to the world which words being so contrary to truth which is punctually this the Booke was licensed by the Vice-chancellour Printed by the Printer to the Vniversity the Authour's name put in the Title page
difficulty or subtilty or profit in it either of which whensoever I can finde I professe I shall be most ready to enlarge upon it and now acknowledge it an obligation from the Author if he will point out to me where I shall have fail'd and in other particulars be more mercifull to the reader and my selfe To the 1. §. Chap. 2. Section 1 True it is and we grant it willingly that every proofe that is solid and good must be a notioribus and that every sure conclusion must also be deduced from no other premises or principles then such as be knowne and at least be as certaine as we desire the conclusion should be Neverthelesse we doe absolutely deny that this assertion of ours touching the Churches infallibility is by us offered to be proved by waies no better then our Adversaries offer to prove that she hath erred as this Inquirer pretends we doe for we affirme that our Churches infallibility is proved by reasons which are reall and true and that on the other side the adversary offers to prove the contrary onely by such as be no more then seeming and pretended Now true reason or authority is a way quite different from pretended and much better then it and therefore the Inquirers charge is false or at least light and ineffectuall Must all controversies in Philosophy be undecidable because both sides pretend reason or no suits of Law be judged because both sides pretend Law Certainly whatsoever both sides doe pretend yet there is but one side that hath it as namely but one side of Philosophers have true reason and but one side of contendents have true Law and so in like manner but one side of contending Christians have true reason for them Scripture or Tradition howsoever both may pretend it and therefore we doe not goe about to prove the Church is infallible by the selfe same wayes that you goe about to prove that she hath erred but by wayes that are quite different from them and the same but in name onely and no farther By which it followes that either you are deceived or we and it is not necessary that both And so much for this great and principall difficulty which troubled the Inquirer so much as he writ to London for the solution of it which thing surely was more then needed for it might have been done at Great Tue without consulting London about it or either of our two Vniversities We doe not maintaine as he falsely supposes that Reason Scripture and Fathers be all fallible universally speaking but in some cases only as namely reason is not fallible in such verities as be evident but in other that be not so it is Againe Scripture is a most certain rule whensoever it is certainly expounded otherwise it is not Lastly the Fathers be assured and undoubted witnesses of the Doctrines which were held in their time though not undoubted definers of them And by this answer all the three main propps of this Authors discourse are overthrown and fall unto the ground C. 2. Answ to the 2. Chap. Section 1 To the second Chapter I need only to put you in mind that when his Lordship saith the wayes of proofe that the Church of Rome can never have any errours are no better then those by which we offer to prove she hath erred and nameth three heads of Arguments from Scripture Reason and Ancient writers and proveth you to affirme all these are infallible because nothing is in your opinion infallible but the Church and from thence concludes that we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible because all the meanes proposed to induce that knowledge being of necessity somewhat else beside that only infallible must needs be fallible it will be very unsufficient in you to reply that his Lordship hath not said true in the first particular upon no other ground of proofe but only because you affirme that the Churches infallibility is proved by Reasons which are really true and that the contrary is by us offered to be prov'd only by such as be only seeming and pretended for this very thing that you affirme viz. that those your reasons are reall and true is a part of the very question in hand and as much denyed by us as the infallibility of your Church and therefore by your own rule of proceeding à notioribus cannot be proper means to conclude that his Lordship erred to him that will farre more easily be brought to believe that your reasons are not reall then that his Lordship erred in this particular and that will as readily confesse he erres as that those reasons are reall Section 2 It appeared strange to me that you should begin with such a petitio principii untill by reading on I discerned that this one meane Sophisme hath run through most Paragraphs of your following Treatise which is a shrewd infirmity in a confutation to take that for a principle granted and so bestow no proofe upon it which is by you known to be denied by us and yet to conceive that this will be able to satisfy our other importunities Section 3 2dly You must observe that his Lordship had said only this that your Churches infallibility is offered to be proved by no better wayes than those by which we offer to prove she hath erred which is an undertaking of his Lordship and not a bare assertion and sure you cannot say he offers to prove it by reasons onely seeming for you as yet know not particularly what those reasons are any farther then that they are from the same heads by which you offer to prove the contrary Section 4 And Thirdly if the Arguments which he offers be only seeming on his side yet if you marke it they are so seeming to him and as long as they seem to him to conclude that the Church hath erred the very same arguments or those that are no more seeming cannot assure him that she is infallible for by your own confession every solid proofe must be ex notioribus i. e. not only by media which are more true but which are more known to him to whom this proofe is offered and if you marke that is it to which his Lordship's argument drives that the reasons by which you prove the infallibility of your Church are such as you confesse your selves to be fallible Marke not which you confesse to be false but fallible your confessing them fallible is enough to his Lordship's turne though they should have the luck to be true because the infallibility of your Church on which as on a foundation and principle you must build in many after difficulties had need be infallibly asserted and knowne or if it be but fallibly will it selfe be fallible no conclusion ascending higher then the premises have ascended and so though it were true yet not fit to commence a principle of all other truths Section 5 Now that these reasons or premises of yours are fallible and by you acknowledged to
second §. Chap. 3. The Enquirer is here much mistaken for we are not at all offended with Protestants for their alleadging Scriptures but for their doing of it after a way which is fallible and uncertaine in which case we say Scripture can be no foundation of faith Wherefore though they alleadge Scripture and we also yet doth it not follow thence that the Protestants disprove the infallibility by the selfe same media or meanes by which we endeavour to prove the same It is true they attempt to doe so but that they doe it is denied The Scripture when surely sensed or expounded is a different medium from the same Scripture sensed unsurely or expounded falsely Now he that takes an unsure way which no reason or discretion commends unto him and leaves the sure which Reason does perswade him to be such if that man chance to erre it is easie to understand why God should be more offended with him then with others that doe not so but hold a prudent and contrary course The summe is that holy Scripture after such time as it comes to be knowne certainly for Canonicall and shall be expounded according to the interpretation of the Church foundeth an argument strong and invincible but when otherwise one that is probable onely or ad hominem and this latter we say is your case and out of this give a reason why your resolves are temerarious and presumptuous and in fine such wherewith God may be displeased justly forasmuch as no man ought to goe about this worke unadvisedly or expose his salvation without all need to chance and uncertainty as if he meant to build upon the sand C. 3. Ans To the third Chap. Section 1 I answer that through this whole Chapter the same fallacy returnes againe of satisfying his Lordship's argument by a bare affirming but not proving a thing which is as much denied by his Lordship viz. that your alleadging of Scripture for the infallibility of your Church is by an infallible and certaine way but our alleadging of it for every part of our religion is by a fallible and uncertaine For though you in tearmes affirme onely the latter of these that which is against us yet in charity to you I shall suppose you imply the former or if you will say you doe not I shall then answer that the granting of what you say doth not vindicate your Infallibility but onely accuse us not cleare your selves or if that which you adde by way of explication may passe for a proofe of it viz. that Holy Scripture when it shall be expounded according to the interpretation of the Church foundeth an argument strong and invincible but when otherwise onely probable and ad hominem I answer that this being applyed to the matter in hand to you and us must if it signifie any thing have this importance that the places of Scripture which you bring for the Infallibility of your Church are expounded according to the interpretation of the Church but the places which we bring for the severall parts of our religion are not so expounded And then I answer that by the Church you may and I conceive ought to meane the Vniversall Church truly so called without your ordinary clogge or restriction and then all that we require of you is to make your affirmation good and produce the places of Scripture which that Vniversall Church hath so expounded to the asserting the Infallibility of your Church which till you doe produce 't is petitio principii againe and then we shall shew our selves ingenuous and though we might reply something which ad homines might be answer yet shall we part with all other advantages of defending our selves and in plaine ground yeild you the cause and contend no longer with you Section 2 But if you meane by the interpretation of the Church the interpretation of the Church in the notion wherein we enquire whether it be infallible viz. that society of Christians which have been govern'd by the Pope Though then we might deny that you have any such interpretation of Scripture for your infallibility and justifie the deniall for if you please we will undertake to shew that some eminent persons in the Church of Rome perhaps Popes themselves never interpreted any Scripture to the asserting the Infallibility of your Church and that many other differ among themselves what is that Church which they affirme from Scripture to be infallible and that will amount to the same also yet we shall content our selves with this other answer that the interpretation of that Church unlesse Saint Peter himselfe or some other acknowledg'd to be inspired joyne in it is not Infallible and for you to say it is and not to prove it is a petitio principii againe And for any other notion of the Church which shall be said so to interpret when you shall fasten on it we shall undertake to make good either that it doth not interpret the Scripture to the asserting the Infallibility of the Church or else that the Church in that notion is not infallible Section 3 As for the other part of your assertion which you principally insist upon in this Chapter that our case is contrary to yours i. e. that we found not our religion on Scripture expounded according to the interpretation of the Church we utterly disclaime it and for you to affirme it without proofe is petitio principii againe and to put it to a faire issue we make this offer that what ever proposition we affirme without shewing Scripture for it and that expounded according to the interpretation of the ancient Church we will presently forgo on your first instance and if you would pay us the like offer and your party make it good I doubt not but as turbulent a Sea as the state of Christendome is at this time the whole Church might quickly be at peace or at least the dissentient party not be considerable I remember a passage in Saint Hilary depredicating the Bishops of France as very happy men quòd aliam non cognovissent confessionem◠c. that they knew no other confession then that ancient and most simple which through all Churches from the Apostles age had been received And I am a little confident that that which first made and hath ever since fomented the breaches of that pretious body is the multiplying and imposing of new confessions and articles of beleife from the suggestion of private or lesse publique spirits and that hath made the body like Aristotle's insectills which for want of bloud runne out into a multitude of legs every such new article so multiplyed above the number of those which Scripture in the truly Catholique interpretation of it will authorize not onely as true but necessary to be so acknowledged being an effect of some want of bloud I meane charity in the Authors for though to teach any man any certaine truth be an act of charity yet to make an article i. e. to require every man to
to understand that this pretended non-conformity of hers ought to be discovered very clearly and perfectly before he adventure to condemne her and this great discovery having yet not beene made and manifested to the world may justly be thought an act impossible and be judged in such as make pretensions of it a worke rather of a strong apprehension then of any solid judgement If then our Enquirer in this case should be rejected let him not complaine of us as if we sent him to a witnesse and after bid him not believe it but rather bid him not believe himselfe and his owne judgement more then the Churches that is to say more then he ought nor suffer himselfe to be misled by the testimony of a witnesse to whom we did not send him I meane himselfe in hearkning unto whom self-love too much inclines him and made him over credulous as to their great griefe it hath made very man Now for the better understanding this point of conformity with the Antients of which this Enquirer and Chillingworth his confederate doe talke so much and seeke to urge against us the reader may please to know that they themselves are bound to solve this knot as well as we for it will be both as necessary and as hard for them to finde out the conformity of their doctrines with the Antients as it is for us to finde out ours and againe the conformity of this moderne Scripture with the Antient and these present copies of the Greeke and Hebrew with the Originall or Archetype of the same languages as it is to finde out a conformity of this Church and her Doctrines with the Antients and so these Authors have made a rodde wherewith to whip themselves as commonly wrangling people doe Secondly That there be other notes of truth besides this conformity and therefore the enquiry after it is not necessary for any man Thirdly That we may know this conformity by the truth a great deale easier than the truth by conformity because truth may be knowne by the present notes and such as are before our eyes but conformity must a great way off and through a thick mist of many Ages if it be sought after by examination of particulars Fourthly That the enquiry after conformity by examining the Antient rites and the innumerable darke passages and decisions of Antiquity cannot be a generall method for the instruction of all or of the greater part of Men for it is a long businesse and so cannot be ready at all times but rather after divers years it is also so difficult that few have learning or ability to go through with it for the passages of Antiquity be very intricate and require a great light of understanding for their discovery You see the Enquirer Sect. 37. confesseth he was much vext with the harsh Greek of Evagrius and the hard Latine of Irenaeus and with distinguishing between different sences and various lections c. If this learned Gentleman found so much difficulty in the search what must become of the greater part of Men if there were no way but this for in comparison of the rest few have so much wit as he or so much leisure few understand Greek or Latine either whether harsh or pleasant few so painfull Must no man that is not acquainted with Evagrius or Irenaeus come to the knowledge of the truth nor any man be able to know the Creation of the World and the Old law without he can read in Hebrew or learn the New law without reading the New Testament in Greek These were very hard conditions and certainly such at God never imposed upon us Doubtlesse we are not obliged to find out the Originall Copies of Scriptures and Fathers of which sort as I suppose there be none extant nor trouble our spirits with judging about various lections we are not bound to impossibilities for our instruction and salvation but have a ready way assigned us which is the conspicuous body of the present Church which body is like a City built upon a hill and that hill is a rock not to be undermined It will be therefore sufficient that we can any sure way come to the knowledge of the truth without taking care whether it be conforme unto the Ancients or no for sure we are all truth is conforme to that it should be abstracting from the consideration either of Antient or New and this alone may be sufficient to content any Man Yet if he would know conformity I will shew him a readier way than examination of places let him but take the voluntary confession of the Magdeburgians in their severall Centuries and he need seek no further for they acknowledge all that we desire and this acknowledgement of theirs cannot but satisfie for they make it neither out of ignorance of the truth nor out of affection to us C. 5. Answ To the fifth Chapter Section 1 Your fifth Chapter is a very long one and by that length and the contents of it puts me in mind of him that owing his Fellow Sixpence being not able to pay him offered him a hundred Counters one after another in a sudden motion of his hand in hope that at length his eyes might dazle and take some one of them for coyne or if not yet rather chuse to lose his Sixpence than to venture so many cheats by awaiting that payment For I am perswaded that when I have but repeated to you his Lordships Argument in the fourth Paragraph you will spare me the paines of shewing that you have not answer'd it by confessing you have not said one word to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rationall importance of it Section 2 The intent of the Paragraph is to prove that tradition or Authority of the Antients is not a proper meanes to prove the Infallibility of the Church The meanes of inferring the conclusion are First the division of men to whom this Argument is supposed to be brought into ignorant and learned Secondly the insisting on the proposition in relation to each of them to the ignorant because they cannot know to the learned because they cannot infallibly know that tradition doth prove this Infallibility Section 3 First To the ignorant proving that tradition cannot prove the Infallibility to them because the ignorant cannot know what is the voice of generall and constant tradition Which if it be true is an infallible argument to induce the conclusion for that tradition cannot prove another thing till it self be proved which it is not to him at least who neither doth nor can know it and that it is not true you doe not so much as pretend but rather help to prove it more plainly than his Lordship thought necessary to doe And this is all that you doe returne to the first part of the proofe save only by pretending that this knowledge or triall of tradition cannot be necessary to the ignorant which as it is true so is it nothing against his Lordship who had no use
Ch. 9. Answ to Chap. 9. Section 1 Your answer to the 9. and 10. Sections signifies a great deale viz that you were so put to it by the conviction of his Lordships argument that to dis-intangle your selfe you have ventured to vent a peice of very severe divinity which my charity to you makes me hope you will not justifie and if you will yet your no argument produced gives me nothing to answer nor otherwise to reply then by denying as mercifully and obligingly to the world as you doe cruelly affirme viz that without succession sufficient from Saint Peter there is no succession sufficient to prove a Church or a succession of Pastours Ecclesiasticall and this is so strange a newes to our eares who were confident that what ever you deeme of the other two parts of three of the Christian world at this present you had allowed liberty to Apostles to ordaine Churches as well as and without succession from Saint Peter and indeed that that which in the second and eighth line of your Chapter you call the Greeke Church might have beene acknowledged to be a Church in the seventh that had you not said it in the most evident tearmes None beside Rome can pretend this and without this one none can be sufficient to prove a Church c. had there been any way imaginable but this to answer his Lordship's argument I should never have thought this had beene your meaning till I see you againe owne this severe doctrine I shall not take paines to confute it and when I see that I must say that his Lordship presumed you had not been so bloudily minded when he proposed to you the argument in those two Sections Section 2 And yet after all this I doubt not but with a little change his Lordships argument will still hold against you even after you have ventured on such strange practices to secure your self from it Thus suppose you had evinced that the succession from S. Peter were infallible and so proved the Roman Church to be so because none else pretended to succeed S. Peter yet this can be no sufficient ground of belief to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation of belief that the Greek Church doth not pretend from S. Peter whether by S. Mark at Alexandria who might be ordained by S. Peter whose right hand they say he was in the penning of the Gospell or by Evodius at Antioch where S. Peter was Bishop seven yeares as your owne Baronius or by any other or to the ignorant it matters not by no other known way and even to the learned it is but an accidentall argument because if any other company had likewise claimed Succession from Saint Peter as they of Antioch do it had overthrown all that probation nay it is but an arbitrary argument which the adversary can confute by but denying for if any society of Christians so called would pretend to be from Saint Peter some other way then by succeeding him at Rome or submitting to his government your Church could make use of it no longer Section 3 As for that which you adde in a word of answer to the 10 Sect. that what ever Churches claime unto succession shall be alleadged it can no way evacuate that of Rome if it be applied to his Lordship's argument it is absolutely false for if Rome's claime to Infallibility together and to succession to Saint Peter be to be proved by this because none else pretends to it which is the argument which his Lordship here confutes then sure any other Churches claime or pretending to it will evacuate that claime or title that by that argument is pretended and contrary to this there is yet nothing shewed To the 11. Section Chap. 10. What mercy God will use in pardoning the errorurs of those men who doe seeke sincerely and yet misse makes nothing at all against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings be cases extraordinary Besides I would know why any pardon should need for such innocent errours which be defects involuntary and so can be no crimes wherefore me thinks the discourse of our Enquirer in this Section is not coherent C. 10. Answ To the Chap. 10. Section 1 His Lordship's argument Sect. 11. is very strong against the collecting a necessity of an Infallible guide for the interpreting of Scripture from the topick of God's goodnesse by proposing another way of reconciling God's providence with his goodnesse in this matter which if it may be done concludes that other unnecessary viz. by mentioning a doctrine of more Evangelicall oeconomy in which errours may be reconcileable with mercy when God doth give grace to the diligent seeker to finde out truth or by this dilemma that without such an infallible guide upon the use of Reason in the interpretation of Scripture and search for tradition God will either give grace to finde what is so sought or pardon if he misse and so though it stand not with Gods goodnesse to damne him for every errour to whom he hath assigned no infallible way to finde out all truth yet to him that is confident that God will not damne any man upon such tearmes as the servant laid to his charge when he told him he was an austere man c. to him that teaches not such legall bloudy doctrine against God this argument of the Romanists will not be pressing at all this expedient of the Gospell-grace or Gospell-mercy being as fit for the turne of infirme soules as an infallible guide would be as indeed the state of imperfection wherein we are placed is as fit for our turnes when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gospell is revealed and proportioned to it as Adam's Paradise of Supernaturall all-sufficient strength and innocence would be Section 2 To all which all that you returne is only this that all this is nothing against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings are cases extraordinary To which I answer First that if it were supposed that against the ordinary provision of a guide the argument were not of force yet sure it might against the necessity of it and then that is all that is pretended to by his Lordship and that which alone is destructive to you and therefore 't is strange you should couple them together as so sociall things which are so distant and separable for sure though Evangelicall grace and mercy doe not exclude an ordinary provision of an infallible way but leave it in medio that God may if he will make that ordinary provision yet notwithstanding this it followes not that such a provision is required or nenessary There is a wide distance betwixt possible if God please and necessary to the vindicating of God's goodnesse now against the latter onely it is that his Lordship argues and is not at all concern'd in th' other and therefore I shall not need to examine whether the first be
is a weaker ground then Catechismes as much as errours are more likely to get into the practice of the many then into the Bookes of the Learned or Authentique Writings of the Church and accordingly 't is observable in the particular of images that the common practice of men is much more grosse then the Writings of the Learned 't is impossible that that should ever be a guide quâ cundum which way we are to goe till it be some other way proved that we ought to goe that way Section 4 For the improbability of missing the See Apostolique and which be the Churches that live in communion with it we have no obligation lying on us to deny it his Lordship's words gave you no occasion to assert it nor can we see what at this time you can get by it when you acknowledge the Infallibility of Pope or Councell unnecessary to be knowne before any resolution of faith can be made Section 5 You adde and as for doctrine of beliefe c. This I should conceive you had spoken of before in those words what is to be believed and then your memory was short to put it in againe within five lines as if it had beene a new matter Section 6 I told you 't was not necessary after you had confessed the cause to insist on the matter of Simony which was an argument of his Lordships to defend it Yet that you may not complaine that any word of yours is neglected or lost upon us I have considered that also and aske you whether it be not true what his Lordship saith that a Pope chosen by Simony is ipso facto no Pope you durst not I conceive because you did not before deny it and if now you will take more courage let your minde be knowne and we shall not doubt to bring as Classicke Authors as your selfe against you If it be true then is your answer of no validity because of no truth for either that infallibility or whatever other power must be annex'd to him as a man which he may be indeed though he be not Pope or under some other relation which infallibly belongs to him neither of which I conceive you will affirme for then ten thousand to one some other will communicate with him in that claime or else he must be Pope when he is ipso facto no Pope or else that power must be annext to him by some body that may thinke him Pope when he is not and then either God must runne the errour or that power be given him from some other for that God should know him to be no Pope and yet give that power of Infallibility for if you speake of any other power it is not pertinent to him as long as he is peaceably received must First conclude that a no-pope may be infallible And Secondly that whosoever is so received by the Church is so which unlesse there be some promise of Gods to assure me that he hath promised it to the Churches blind reception will for ought I yet see conclude againe that either the chaire or the peoples errour gives him that prerogative Section 7 To the 15 and 16 Sections you reply no one word but referre it to your former answer whether if I knew which part of your answer it were for that immediately precedent I conceive 't is not for I hope the Simoniacall election hath nothing to doe with the decrees of Councels I should attend it but the scent being cold I am at a losse and so must be content to give over the game Section 8 Yet seeing I am on this matter of the Popes Infallibility because you have wholly avoided that question and by a kinde of stratagem diverted it and so not given me any occasion to defend his Lordship in that matter I shall a little consider the reader to whom I am much obliged if he shall have had patience to read thus farre i. e. to endure the penance of so much Nothing and give him a few collections of my owne to this purpose of the Popes infallibility not that I conceive they will from me finde any better entertainment then his Lordship's reasonings had done but because they are for the most part the concessions of your owne men from whence I here transcribe them Section 9 That the Pope is not onely fallible but even judicially subject to errour deviation defection and in Ocham's phrase haereticabilis to heresy apostacy Atheisme and in his practice to sinne of any the most hain us kinde and consequently to damnation irreversible I shall assert no farther then these honourable Names will avow and authorize me Among your owne Writers I meane Pontificians Lyra in Matth. 16. Waldensis l. 2. doctrin fidei antiq Gerson de exam doct consid 1 2 3. Adrianus Sextus the Pope in 4. sent de confirm qu. ult Driedo de libert Christ l. 2. c. 2. Cardin. de Turrecrem l. 2. c. 16. Almainus de author Eccles c. 8. ad 6. c. 10. de dom civ nat Eccl. concl 3. Archidiaconus Bononiensis in Grat. gloss in dist 19. contra Auxentium Catharinus in Gal. 2. Yea and the Councels of Constance and Basil and the Fathers generally there assembled which I hope tooke not up this doctrine from Luthers or Calvins dictates Section 10 To this purpose is it that we reade of Childebert King of France that he sent Ruffinus his Legate to Rome to enquire of Pelagius the Pope whether he had violated the Faith as Baronius testifies the same was suspected of him by the Bishop of Tuscia and other Bishops of Italy to whom he sent his Apologie saith the same Baronius So Gregory the first being under the like suspicion wrote his Apologie to Theodolinda Queene of the Longâ—bards So the Popes generally laboured to approve themselves to the Emperours and purged themselves before them Sixtus before Valentinian concerning the crime laid to his charge by Baessus Symmachus upon an accusation of forgery saith an Author in Goldastus all which are arguments that the Popes infallibility was in those daies unknowne to the world and the Popes themselves were not very perfect in it if they had they would have beene more confident then to have made Apologies Section 11 Farther yet the Bishops of Germany met at Brixia the Bishops of France at Mentz condemned the Pope for a disciple of Berengarius Or if the condemnations of such will not be of value against the Pope you gave reason even now leave to be the Judge and that and common sense may be so in this matter if you will but read the Epistle of Pope Zachary to Boniface è Cathedra a Papall and definitive rescript wherein he condemnes one Vergilius for an Hereticke for affirming that there were Antipodes which whether it were an errour in him I leave you to judge and professe my self to be of opinion that though it were 't was yet more tolerably discreet and pious then that of
Gregory the seventh that there is but one name under Heaven that of the Pope to whose Seate whosoever paid not obedience became presently an Idolater and a Pagan and if you will undertake to defend this I will reward you by adventuring to justifie the other That speech of Gilbert Bishop of Rhemes that after was Pope shall with me be sufficient to expiate for either Audaciter dicam c. I shall boldly say that the Bishop of Rome himselfe if he have offended any Brother and will not heare the admonitions of the Church ought to passe for an Heathen and a Publican Section 12 But all these are but trifles if they be compared with other knowne passages of story how Stephanus was reprehended by Cyprian Liberius by Athanasius Honorius almost by all Christians of no lesse crimes then Heresy it selfe Or because that is but one piece of carnality and there be many others beside that as probable and considerable errours and carnalities I beseech you review either in your memory or in Onufrius and Platina the lifes and manners of the Popes the incests and sorceries and cruelties of Alexander the 6. the Idolatrous sacrifices of Marcellinus Calestin's using the helpe of Magitians and Devils to come to the Papacy and then tell me your opinion whether Popes may not erre and when you have replyed by way of distinction of manners from Doctrines be then pleased to answer Nilus by some more satisfactory way then by calling him pratling Greeke this question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how it fals out that the Pope can deny God in his workes but cannot by any meanes in his words what charme or amulet kept his tongue inerrable when his whole body was subject to those darts of Satan and when you have done that I beseech you to phansy to your selfe what kinde of crimes you conceive those Popes would have committed if they had beene fallible Section 13 I shall not enlarge this supernumerary trouble any farther or expect your answer to every of these passages in Bookes if I have wronged any by misciting I shall be glad to heare of it and if they make not all together one probable argument or proofe of the fallibility of the Pope I beseech you pardon me for this unneedfull importunity To the 17 18 Sections Chap. 11. I noted before that the knowledge of all these particulars recited by the Enquirer are no way necessary to the Believer and therefore both this Author and Baron the Scotch Minister struggle in vaine when as with such care and vehemency they presse them against us I conclude then that in the Church of God Councels doe not multiply doubts but diminish them C. 11. Answ to Chap. 11. Section 1 To the 17 18 Sections the answer is a reference againe to a note dropt from you before which truly I should not have been likely to apply to this businesse in hand if you had not given me that seasonable admonition Your note I conceive referres to your discourse in the precedent Chapter how Catechismes and the common practice of the Church teach all what is to be believed And as then the Popes infallibility so now that of Councels is unnecessary to be knowne and by that meanes all these particulars also for if the infallibility of Councels were necessary to be knowne as it must be if they were deciders of questions then all these particulars mentioned by his Lordship would be necessary to be knowne also because they are incident to every Councell and the knowledge of its infallibility because of its decisions and even being it selfe depends on these Section 2 And the fitnesse of Councels to decide Controversies being the thing his Lordship had now in hand and which Baron treats on when he uses the like arguments sure neither of them struggle in vaine but you rather who 't was thought in reason would have beene no wiser then your fellowes and so would have asserted that fitnesse of Councels have become a very slippery Wrestler gliding out of their hands when their arguments began to lay hold on you and after such an escape as this I confesse 't is matter of wonder to me how you could thinke fit to end with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 triumph presupposing victory and victory resistance and none of these here are to be heard of but onely a conclusion that what his Lordship had said and proved he had said falsely a petitio principii againe that Councels doe not diminish doubts but multiply them Which proposition and proofe of his Lordships having no need of defending any farther I shall onely interpose one caution which I desire may be observed in his Lordships discourse that it being supposed that Councels are dot deciders of controversies meaning thereby infallible ones they be yet of good authority and use in the Church to helpe to decide them and notwithstanding all the doubts that his Lordship saith they doe multiply be onely denied by us the priviledge of infallibility not that other of being very usefull and venerable in a lower degree and such the Councell may be even next to the Word of God it selfe To the 19. Section Chap. 13. He maintaines here a strange paradox and one very improbable namely that to define any thing of new is to bestow upon the Devill one path more for us to walke in towards him If you aske why he tells you because before the definition made it was lawfull to hold either side but after it is damnable Belike then with this Author the manifestation of divine truths is the high way to damnation but I suppose few men are of his minde Certainly most are of opinion that every such verity we learne had rather beene a new steppe towards Heaven because knowledge of things divine doe enable men for the attaining of salvation and therefore the Apostles by their instructing our understandings in them shewed the world so many more paths to Heaven It may be indeed that by accident minds blowne up with selfe-conceit may by their resisting such revealed truths take an occasion to transgresse but that is their owne faults not the fault of them that teach or of the verities that are declared and therefore this cavill of the Enquirers against the definitions of Councels was very frivolous It should seems he had a great minde to be quarrelling with Councels that was content to take such a frivolous exception as this against them C. 13. Answ to Chap. 13. Section 1 Your great quarrell to his Lordships 19. Sect. comes now to be considered wherein the paradox in and improbability of his Lordships conclusion will not be so great if you observe but one thing that the matter of definitions of Councels which he speaks of is not divine truths as the following words suppose them and upon that presse them with absurdity but as I conceive such things as have beene defined by Councels being not before defined by Scripture and so though affirmed to
be truths yet not as divine truths at least of which it is not infallibly true that they are so of which nature I might instance at large in your Councels of Lateran Constance and Trent for to the antient generall Councels I confesse to beare such reverence that I shall challenge any of you to exceed me Section 2 Now to cleare his Lordship from the guilt of a frivolous quarrell at this time I must adde that in such decisions of Councels the worth of the matter and inconvenience of leaving it undecided are the maine things worth considering and so it is possible that the decision may be such that it may tend First to some publique end whether the clearing of obscure Scripture or the recovering of some venerable and usefull practice or doctrine of the Church Secondly to the setling and establishing of peace by interposing such a judgement which may probably sway with both pretenders And in these and the like cases the advantages being so intrinsecall to the decision and withall so great the inconvenience mentioned by his Lordship ought not to prevaile to the disparaging of Councels because though it be an inconvenience yet is it over-weighed with other conveniences and therefore the argument I confesse is not infinitely or unlimitedly true Section 3 But then the case may be that the matter of the definition is of no such great weight or use that there is no such assurance acquirable from Scripture that either side is true nay it may be audacious and untrue and as little from any other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that either side will peaceably sit downe and acquiesce in the decision but in matters of opinion probably prove opiniatour and so the decision will then rather widen the breach then compose it Section 4 In this case or when indeed in other respects the ballance is even set the good of defining counterpoised with the ill then there is place for his Lordship's argument and 't is true that then upon that present supposition that before decision 't were lawfull to hold either way and damnable after it were uncharitable to define my reason is because when charity doth not move to doe a thing i. e. when no advantage shall arise to mankinde by it but on the other side charity shall advise to absteine some one though accidentall hurt being foreseen to arise on the other side there to doe that thing is uncharitable Section 5 Thus have we heard of an expression of Bishop Tunstall of Durham who died in your communion that if he had beene Chaplaine to Pope Innocent the Fourth he would have begg'd on his knees that he would not define Transubstantiation as knowing it would tend to the breach of the peace of the Church and thus in matters of controversy about Predestination c. you know the Pope hath in charity abstein'd to define and the Apostles or whosoever else were the composers of it in their Creed defined but a few things and generally those Churches that have avoided multiplying of articles have by wise men beene thought the most Christian because the most charitable and even in matters of rites and humane lawes the rule is that they must not be multiplyed unnecessarily and the reason is because they would consequently multiply snares on mens consciences as unnecessarily which is just his Lordship's reason in this place Section 6 Which you will rather guesse because 't is cleare his Lordship speakes of those things in which before a Councell hath determined it is lawfull to hold either way perfectly lawfull not excluding also that other circumstance that I have added viz when there is no reall gaine expectable by defining And when the those things are by his Lordship so limited and restrained I know not how to make up your paradox you could thinke fit to change the phrase from those things c. to any thing and after to divine truths and things divine and verities in generall when 't is improbable that he did I am sure very possible and probable that he did not speake of any such as are new steps toward Heaven but such as onely fill mens braines puffe up their phansyes and oft make men to thinke themselves pious men for being of such opinions and to neglect workes of piety and charity as not neare so considerable and so are to them even that believe them accidentally pathes to damnation much more if the doctrine of the decisions of Councels be to be extended to whatsoever uselesse definitions to those that doe not believe them Section 7 Having said thus much for defence of this supposed paradox of his Lordships I must desire once for all these two things from the Reader which Equity will require of him to grant me First that his Lordship's arguments be not extended infinitely but onely be supposed to undertake to conclude as farre as is necessary to the present matter and no farther an example of which this Chapter hath afforded you Secondly that his arguments being by him brought onely to enervate the Infallibility of the Roman Church be so cautiously taken as that they be made use of onely to that end and not at all inclined or wrested to the lessening the authority of the Church or Councels universall for this would be very unjust and ill inferred there being a wide difference betwixt authority and infallibility as also betwixt universall and Roman though by reason of the manner of his Lordships discourse being according to the designe wholly destructive of the one and not assertive of the other the Reader may perhaps be tempted to thinke otherwise and therefore I thought it not impertinent thus to fortify him against this prejudice To the 20 21 22 Sections Chap. 14. It is true we condemne some doctrines which generall Councels have not condemned and we have great reason for it because though Councels be one rule of faith yet not the onely Againe these we hold to be infallible because they are the Compendium and quintessence of the Church and the body representative thereof as a King and the three States be of the whole Kingdome The cause of Pope John the 22. is cleared sufficiently by Ciacconius in his life by Caeffeteau in his learned answer to Plessye's iniquity and by many others and therefore needs not be argued any more I grant it a point of faith that the soules of the just shall see God before the last judgement and doe deny that this doctrine was generally contradicted at any time Neverthelesse I doe not know it to be of faith that all of them shall enjoy the same vision before that great day and that none of them shall be detained in secret receptacles as the Antients hold till they together with their bodies shall be compleatly purged in the great fire of the worlds conflagration as I have treated elsewhere It was not needfull that Councels should define in tearmes their owne immunity from errour because a Councell both in substance and
evidence and let me tell you this is the difference betwixt beliefe and knowledge the latter onely is inferr'd demonstratively or by premises that cannot be otherwise the former being content with probable arguments so they be strongly probable and such as have not any the like or of as considerable weight to be ballanced against them And this sure is the reason that Faith is by God thought fit to be rewarded as being an act of the Believers choyce and knowledge not because it is necessarily and irregably induced and yet such as that it will be all obstinacy and perversnesse to resist when it comes well provided with arguments extreamly probable Section 8 For if you marke it the most weighty actions of our lives and those which we doe most constantly and most confidently are founded no deeper then on probabilities We eate and drinke for the strengthening and refreshing of our bodies and yet conceive not our selves to have any certainty of evidence or demonstration that every bit we eate or drop we drinke may not choake or poyson us yet having probabilities on which to ground a beliefe that they are wholsome and no strong contrary probability that our table shall become a snare or death unto us we doubt not to feed as securely as if Euclid had beene our surety by one of his Demonstrations Section 9 So in every piece of land I buy or estate I enjoy from my Ancestors 't is possible and the contrary not demonstrable or certaine in that sense that there may be some flaw which may undoe me and yet when I have searcht my evidences and have the opinion of wise men upon the matter I sit downe and trade and live securely and all this but upon probabilities without the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or full armour of infallibility or demonstration Section 10 And so in all matters of fact which we see or heare not with our owne eies or eares but as with perspectives and otacoustickes I meane where we are faine to trust the relations of others be it that there was a Julius Caesar or a Henry the eight the ground of our beliefe is but a probability viz. the topick ab authoritate the argument taken from the authority of the relators which though it be never so strengthened by the universall concurrence and non-dissenting of all witnesses cannot yet ascend higher then to be extreamly probable and yet sure is as firmely believed of us and although it may possibly be otherwise the contrary implying no repugnance or contradiction in nature and he that should be so mad to affirme it being not confutable either by rationall or ocular demonstration yet as little doubted of by any man in his right wits and as little lyable to any scruple or matter of doubt as what is most visible before our eies Section 11 This I have said perhaps ex abundanti yet shall not repent of it because it is usefull to be considered in order to other difficulties to shew you the falsnesse and inconsequence of that argument that unlesse the Church were presumed infallible before its determinations it could never be believed in any For hereby it hath appeared that that may be believed nay cannot sometimes without pertinacy and sinne be not believed as in case the arguments though but probable be excessively so which brings not with it demonstration or any thing of equall power or force with it and such is infallibility Section 12 And from thence you will easily discerne how possible it may be for us Protestants to believe the universall Church in all things wherein the testimony appeares to be universall nay to believe the Church of Rome in many things wherein the arguments produced by her doe actually perswade with us such are her consonancy with antiquity and the like and yet to remaine constant to our present undertakings that she is not infallible Section 13 But it now appeares that I might have spared this paines in pressing these inconveniences on that first answer of yours For it seemes by what followes that all that answer was needlesse For now upon better consideration 't is true with a distinction that the Councell doth virtually and in actu exercito define its owne infallibility and that you prove First because it pronounceth anathema's against those that submit not Secondly it doth it by saying Visum est Spiritui Sancto c. Section 14 Not to examine your phrase of actus exercitus as 't is here applyed To your arguments we answer First that our Councels denounce anathema's too yet you know doe not pretend to infallibility Section 15 That forme I conceive signifies not that all are damned that believe not what we believe but that all they that shall dis-believe may be excommunicated if they be refractory and that againe onely in reference to those that are under dominion but not that all others that are not under us should by us be so handled or that those that are not excommunicate are in that other danger or if these are yet not for the sinne of dis-believing an infallible doctrine but for not believing our lawfull superiours which may be a damning sinne though they be not infallible their being in the truth when they make such constitutions is sufficient for that Secondly the forme of Visum est Spiritui Sancto is onely a forme transcribed from the Acts arguing it their opinion that use it that this particular is the dictate of the Holy Ghost not at all their beliefe that the Holy Ghost was bound to assist irresistibly which he must as well as assist to make the infallibility for otherwise when he assists we may possibly not make use of his assistance In plaine 't is an evidence that they thinke they are in the truth not that they cannot be in the wrong Section 16 To the 22. Section though you answer not a word yet you are as discreet as if you did you doe another thing in stead of it you aske a question and harangue upon it at large the Question is pertinent enough though not to this Section yet to the businesse in grosse and we answer it in a word that the Word of God must regulate our beliefe and reason in the use of all the meanes that you will commend to us and you have given us a pledge already that you will not quarrell with us for this answer as for discipline and keeping in unity we had blessed be God meanes very sufficient to that end till the sword wrested them as all other our lawfull possessions out of our hands and I believe the Infallibility of the Church is not weapon-proofe or able to keepe Resisters in obedience or Schismatiques in unity Section 17 As for your uncharitable judgement that want of an Infallible Church which must be but want of that insolence to undertake our selves to be Infallible is that and no other the cause of all our present miseries and his Lordships doctrine in this Book
although never so remote the cause of his death This is but to let us see your change or variety that you can use non causa pro causa and not deale onely in petitio principii thus was Tenterden Steeple the cause of Goodwin Sands and that is all I shall returne to your State-observation the cause of our present calamities I conceive came not out of the Church but when it was infamous it fled to it for a Sanctuary to give it an honest Name and a protection together and I could tell you that the League in France was once pretty parallel to ours and then 't was the observation of a knowing man that if a true story of the causes of that Warre should be written the businesse would be traced into such or such a brothell house that made as if it came out gravely from the Church a competition or animosity the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or true cause when religion was onely the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the pretended Besides let me tell you that decisions and anathematizings have sometimes done as much hurt toward occasioning of breaches as licence and acknowledgement of fallibility hath done and if you marke the onely colour of charge at this time against our Church hath beene the imposing too much and truly whatever your opinion is I conceive meeknesse hath the promise of this life and I never knew that pretending to Infallibility is the onely Symptome of that To the 23 24 25 Sections Chap. 15. The argument of these three Sections is how an ignorant illiterate man cannot be able to trace out all traditions which be truly Apostolicall and this is sought to be perswaded and made good by sundry intricate discourses all which I willingly doe pretermit and onely signifie that they all fall wide of the marke for in a word our answer to them is that private men stand in no need at all of having any particular information of them but that it is sufficient for them if they doe learne what is the common doctrine of the present Church without looking any higher to the Primitive and elder times because this doctrine now taught is credible and perswasive enough for satisfying of any wise mans understanding and the setling of his judgement upon it as for example it is sufficient for any man desirous of knowing which is the River Thames to see it at Gravesend or London without any laborious ascending by it higher and higher and tracing the shoares thereof till he come unto the springs and more then this would not be needfull for the distinguishing of it from Severne or Trent or any other River For if this kinde of assurance might not be sufficient then certainly few or none could ever have come to know which water was the famous River Nilus of which few have ever seene the springs and which as it is very likely doe lye conceal'd in Aethiopia and wholly undiscovered even to this day Against the possibility of searching out traditions Apostolicall and discerning them from others that be spurious and false his principall instance and that in which he most confides is the doctrine of the Chiliasts or Millenaries and the same example is vehemently pressed and repeated often by his Friend Chillingworth The substance of all they say consists in this namely that their doctrine although now generally received to be erroneous was received in the first 200. yeares with one consent as a tradition Apostolicall For making of this charge good they both of them doe jointly alleadge Saint Justin as their witnesse But that we may judge most favourably of this their allegation we needs must tell them they are mistaken grossely for Saint Justin speaking there of three severall sorts of Christians which were in his time affirmes that of those three but one of them held the doctrine of the Chiliasts The first of these three sorts was as he describeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Those who as he conceived did in all points hold aright The second classe consisted of such other who although they did not like the former in all things hold aright yet neverthelesse were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 men of pure and pious judgement or beliefe for so he expressely stileth them the third and last sort were such as denied the resurrection and were therefore censured by him to be Christians rather in name then in reality and justly to be compared with the Sadduces amongst the Jewes Those of the first sort he telleth did hold the doctrine of the thousand yeares The second sort as he expressely witnesseth although they were orthodox and good yet did not hold that doctrine Those of the third sort as he saith were Christians but feignedly and in name alone and resembling the Sadduces yet not for their denying the errour of the thousand yeares for what relation could that have unto the Sadduces But contrariwise for their denying the resurrection as the Sadduces did and all this appeares clearly within the compasse of a few lines in the Greeke text of Saint Justine Besides if all at that time had beene perswaded of the truth of the Millenaries fancy what needed Saint Ireneus have laboured so much as he did and spent so many Chapters in the proving of it This being so it appeares as plainly that the Enquirer and also his Partner Master Chillingworth were both of them deceived in seeking to father upon Saint Justin that all Orthodoxall Believers of his time received the doctrine of the Chiliasts and that such as did not were held as Sadduces or Heretiques for in the Text of Justin there is no such matter but rather the quite contrary to it as may appeare fully by the Text it selfe and partly by the words before recited out of him for without all doubt Saint Justines many of pious and pure judgement or beliefe and were no Chiliasts must needs be Orthodox and could not be Heretiques nor as the Sadduces amongst the Jewes unlesse we will say that with one breath he called them by both contrary names Againe if as these men say all the whole Church were Chiliasts during the first second or third hundred yeares how could or durst Dionysius of Alexandria have opposed them either without forcing his owne Conscience or incurring the blame of Heresy Now it is certaine he was not counted an Heretique and againe very unlikely he would straine his Conscience by opposing any doctrine received as orthodoxall by the whole Church Againe it is probable Saint Dionyse the Areopagite opposed that doctrine therefore it cannot be certaine that during the first 200. yeares it was not opposed that Saint Dionyse did it appears by the workes now extant bearing his name and that these works be his is very probable first because they are received for such by the major part both of the Westerne and the Easterne Church secondly because they were cited for his a thousand yeares agoe and numbred amongst the rest of the Fathers antient
lesse prove that he had so is there not added by you any other or indeed any tittle of answer to what is brought by his Lordship out of Irenaeus Section 15 His Lordship saith also in this Paragraph that they that were after against the Millenaries never quoted any for themselves before Dionysius Alexandrinus who lived 250 yeares after Christ this indeed sounds somewhat toward concluding that that was the doctrine of the first age not opposed by any prime Doctor and might be worth your pains in answering too but you endeavour not that neither but would make it improbable that if it were so generall a doctrine Dionysius should dare to oppose it This is very ill arguing against a matter of fact to aske how could or durst he there is nothing done so many yeares since but some probability may by a witty man be brought against it I confesse I acknowledge my opinion that there were in that age men otherwise minded as out of Justin it appeared and his Lordship saith nothing to the contrary out of any other evidences no more then we made it cleare he did out of Justin all that he saith is that Papias had gotten the Prime Doctours into the beleife of it and that no one of those two first ages opposed it that is wrote or interposed in any considerable manner against it Section 16 And if I were apt to change my opinion in this matter on easy tearmes I should goe neare to doe it upon the view of your proofe of the contrary so exceeding feeble and weake is it For supposing all the eminent men for those ages had beene for it upon the strength of some places of Scripture and Papias his report from Saint John it would not yet be very difficult for a learned man Dionysius Alexandrinus when no act of Councell had interposed or bound up that doctrine in the degree that he thought that those places of Scripture were misunderstood and that Papias had abused them in the same degree I say to declare his opinion and the grounds of it and never force or straine his owne conscience or incurre the blame of heresy by so doing Section 17 For what thinke you of another opinion that Irenaeus tooke up just upon the same tearmes of Christs being betwixt 40 and 50 yeares old for which he vouched Scripture as he did for tother and the authority of omnes seniores larger then Presbytery in tother testantur qui in Asia apud Johannem discipulum Domini convenerunt id ipsum tradidisse eis Johannem c. All the Elders witnesse it that were in Asia with John that he delivered it to them qui alios Apostolos viderunt haec eadem ab ipsis audierunt testantur de ejusmodi relatione they that saw the other Apostles heard the same of them and beare witnesse of such a relation This is as high an expression of Apostolicall Tradition if we will beleive Irenaeus as universally testified to be so as any could be thought to be And yet sure you would not thinke it a sinne against Conscience or obnoxious to the censure of Heresy for any man of meaner parts and authority then Dionysius Alexandrinus to have opposed this phansy and profest his opinion to the contrary you must know that there was not that perfect yoke of tyranny gone out upon all mens necks as now your infallible Church doth glory of that no man must oppose any the meanest assertion or opinion of the Doctours of the Church though not at all defied but presently he must be an Hereticke at least divinity was not turn'd into such an art that it must receive no grouth or sensible change but all goe on in the same tracke beleive nor understand no more in Scripture then the present Church understands and so in effect have all their skill in tongues and fathers and even their judicative faculty as so many unprofitable burthens upon them that must not be made use of to the discovery of an errour to the helping of the world to more light reforming any thing that is amisse in it Section 18 This which is one of the greatest moderne crimes in Christianity was not so ancient as those purer daies wherein life was as censurable as now false opinions I meane such as though supposed false are yet perfectly extrinsecall to the anology of faith wherein 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impiety and piety divided the Church into erroneous and true members and teaching of opinions not before embraced so it were not with pride or judging of others could be well enough endured And so according to the old rule of distingue tempora doe but consider how distant those times are from these amongst you on one side and your opposite extreame that runne from you so farre till they meet you againe at the Antipodes on the other and you will give Dionysius Alexandrinus leave to dare oppose that doctrine of the Chiliasts though it had more generally then it did prevailed amongst them Section 19 Another argument you have against the generall reception of that doctrine that 't is probable Saint Dionysius the Areopagite opposed it I wonder one that asserts an infallible Church should deale so mightily in probabilities just as if a profound Geometer should use but Topicall arguments Now to see how you prove this probability 'T is proved by the workes now extant bearing his name What workes those are and how improbable to be his I could give you a large account by some hints which I remember Photius in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 helpt me to but I shall satisfie my selfe onely with answering your argument out of Philoponus briefely thus That in the places by you cited he mentions onely an Epistle of Dionysius to Polycarpus in which you know or may know there is no word of the Chiliasts and then that will be a very aliene testimony and very unable to countenance the bulke of those bookes under Dionysius his name which may all be spurious and in them the testimonies against the Chiliasts though that letter should be canonicall and now see I pray what your probability is come to Section 20 For your discourse about the Quartodecimani I will not divine how it came in here but am sure it hath no right to be taken notice of by me his Lordship having not said one word of them nor of any friend of theirs whose interests lye common with them and therefore shall I returne no word to that part of your discourse till you shew how I am obliged to it Section 21 What his Lordship saith out of Salvian you confesse to be true but see not what it makes against Tradition If you be not modest in concealing your knowlekge in this matter but really ignorant I shall then tell you His Lordship proves by this that the Church that suffers Salvian to be a member of it while he refuses to passe sentence of condemnation upon
religion it destructive of all others and that amongst us it is a maine principle or maxime that all other are to be invaded and destroyed by us and this it affirmed confidently though against all probability and experience It cannot indeed be denyed but truth is destructive of falshood by the owne power as light is of darknesse and one contrary of another but for externall coaction or violence we leave that to the Accusers and doe not owne it By this it is not hard to make a judgement who have been the encroachers and who have propogated and maintained themselves by violence you or we And who are the destructive party and live by the spoiles and oppression of others let not those who possesse other mens goods cry out of wrongs or make any brags of just dealing for neither of these can come well out of their mouthes This Enquirer confesseth both sides are in fault but we in more and for this assertion of his brings in some light sophistry because forsooth Protestants hold that they may erre but we maintaine we cannot and so will be sure never to mend That Protestants may erre is granted him and needs no other probation then experience whereby we finde thy have filled all this Kingdome with dissentions and these dissentions with civill warres so that by this that you have erred we know you may But so frequent possibility of erring doth not extenuate but aggravate your crime For if you may erre so foulely how dare you undertake to tutour others how prescribe Lawes with what face Persecute If your rule be so weak as it cannot containe you all in one body but lets you disperse into multitude of Sects and fall in pieces as now you doe why doe you not forsake it and seeke a better for it or else have none at all if you can finde out a surer why doe you not learne wit by experience but wallow on still in the same mire If this Enquirer speake so ill for his Clients we will not entertaine him for our Advocate The Protestants side sets downe for a rule of religion every ones private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture and so doth Master Chillingworth the disciple of Volkelius We doe all that yet we doe not please them nay more we must be punished by them for the result what is this but to bid us doe a thing and then punish us for doing it Is not this extreame perversity certainly if the rule they give be a sufficient warrant for their receding from the faith of their Ancestours and for their breaking off from the Church and standing in defiance of her then doubtlesse much more may it warrant us to continue on and to keep off from any new doctrines either of the Protestants or any other Innovatours whatsoever and sure this is great reason and cannot be gainsayed Besides if we were to yeild to whom were it to be done There is a world of distracted Sectaries now in this Kingdome all sprung from the same roll or from the rule of faith which it common to you all of which one sort imagines there is no Papacy and these were the first ring-leaders of all the rout another that there is no Episcopacy a third that there is no Clergy but that Lay-Elders is all in all and must rule the roast a fourth that there is no Church nor Church-government at all but that the Church is like a Schoole of Philosophers where every man may believe and doe what he pleases without being accountable to another or any obligation of conformity and peradventure the Inquirer was one of this number together with his confederate M. Chillingworth a fifth sort that there is no Trinity a sixth that there is no Sacrament or at least none necessary or effectuall Is it not fit thinke you that these divided Christians should come and write Lawes to others or punish any man for non-conformity nothing more improbable It is a Comedy to see D. Featly a Protestant and Page a Puritan make Catâ—logues of Heretiques and when they have done can finde no way whereby to exempt themselves nor give a reason why they themselves should not be of the number as much Sectaries as any other of the Catalogue The Inquirer charges us that because we pretend to be infallible we have lesse reason to prescribe to others but on the contrary me thinkes we should have more for as he who is really infallible is fittest to guide and governe others so he that thinkes himselfe to be is at least in his own judgement more fit than he that does not He addes that this pretence of infallibility makes us sure never to mend or as his Schollar Chillingworth speaketh makes us incorrigible True if it were a meere pretended one but that is not yet proved either by him or any although he say here in this 28. Section he undertakes to give reasons why the Church of Rome is fallible But if on the other side it be a reality and that the Inquirers reasons are but pretended then surely will not this infallibility keep us from mending but contrariwise from erring or having any thing to mend or which is all one from any errours to correct And thus we see that our Religion is maintained by the selfe same arts that bred it that is to say not by force or violence but by reason and revelation and spirituall industries contrary to the surmises of this Inquirer C. 16. Answ to Chap 16. Your doctrine of damning all that are out of the Church of Rome you have enlarged much above the occasion that invited you to it for all that his Lordship had said on that theme was onely this that your certaine and undoubted damning of all out of the Church of Rome averseth him from it Which if it be true you cannot blame him for sure they that heare the punishment of judging Mat. 7. being judged of the Lord will have little love to that piece of sensuality or consequently to the religion that requires them to runne upon this danger And that the charge is true of you you doe at first acknowledge by labouring to prove that there is no uncharitablenesse in it Secondly that it is necessary for you to maintaine or that otherwise you must fall into some great absurdity particularly this that there is any Church but that which is governed by the See Apostolique which is a rare petitio principii againe and saves us the paines of saying one word more in defence of the truth and justice of those true words of his Lordship For indeed that enclosure of the Church Christianity and Salvation to those that are under the Roman submission is the uncharitablenesse that you are charged of The envy of which it seemes after all your confidence you are willing to remove from you and therefore adde an handsome lenitive to keepe any from thinking that your doctrine is rigorous or harsh And truly if you might be taken at your
unhappy for any ingenuous man to make any confession to you who from his Lordship's acknowledgment that the Church of England is a little too blame in this point conclude that in confessing this he insinuates all This 't is to deale with men who cannot imagine it possible that a man's words and thoughts should be of the same latitude Should I by the same Logicke conclude that you by confessing that all invaders for Religion must be put to death doe intimate that all kinde of Protestants must be executed I hope you would say you had wrong done you And yet to tell you truth the subtlety of your next distinction would give any man that observed it great temptation so to conclude of you For after your citation of S. Th. of Aquine and the Schoolemen you are pleased to communicate to us a notable Mystery that you doe use reasons to perswade and plant your faith and truly the telling us you cannot erre and upon that bottome building all your most irrationall conclusions is no speciall exercise of the reasonable faculty and onely fence it exteriourly and afarre off with statutes of temporall severity against invaders which say you is another thing from defending it interiourly by that meanes i. e. from justifying the right and truth of religion by them Section 24 I should never have beene so uncivill as to have affixt such a sence to your distinction had you not beene your owne interpreter It is as if you had said you are not to be accused for planting religion by armes because your swords doe onely force men to be of your minds doe not give them any reasons why they should And truly I have not heard any man say that your armes did fence religion interiourly being the unaptest thing in the world to justifie the right and truth of religion and therefore you need not disavow that so providently the great Turke could send a letter to your Pope and answer and confute his bull of inciting the Princes of Christendome to take up armes against him for crucifying their god and tell him that as 't was a great falsity to charge on him what was proper to the Jewes the crucifying of Christ the Turke being descended from the Trojans and therefore desiring the Popes aide against the Grecians to avenge their murther of the Trojan Hector a kinde of god of theirs so if the Pope were truly a worshipper of Christ he would never invade any nation upon quarrell of religion so farre is this kinde of fighting in the knowledge of all even of Turkes themselves from justifying of the truth that if is a very great argument of the falsenesse of any sect of Christian religion a plaine demonstration that they doe not obey the Christ whom they worship Section 25 The using the sword as an exteriour meanes of propagating your religion is all that is laid to your charge and that it seemes you are content to yeild us Though within a page or two more you have forgotten your selfe againe and say that for publique coaction or violence you doe not owne it I wish you did not Section 26 And that you may for the time to come deale clearely and never have minde to sucke in your words and owne it againe I shall in passing mention to you a narration concerning an honest Philosopher in Valens his time It was Themistius who before his death turn'd from Aristotelian to Christian but I conceive was not yet converted when this story is related of him Valens in Antioch saith the Historian had vehemently persecuted the Christians that were not of his opinion had not a booke of Themistius the Philosopher recall'd him in which he perswaded him that he ought not to be cruell to any for a difference of Ecclesiasticall opinions seeing among the Pagans themselves there were more than 300 sects differing all from one another And perhaps this might be wore acceptable at least more pardonable before God because God is not easily knowne and is glorified in different manners on purpose that every man may feare the more the more he wants of the integrity and perfection of that knowledge of him either how he is or how qualified or how great he is By the reasons of Themistius saith he mitior factus est Imperator the Emperour became more mild It may not be unfit for your friends to consider the example and doe so too Section 27 As for your challenge to us that if we will restore all we have taken from Papists in Europe you will restore what you have taken from us it is a good safe boast you know that it is not in any replyers power to strike the bargaine Yet if all the pecuniary mulcts under the reigne of the three last Princes in this Kingdome be price enough to ransome and fetch backe the bloud shed by you in Queene Maries daies I doubt not but I shall be as forward as you to accept that challenge Section 28 Meane while for the justification of our severest lawes in this point you cannot but confesse that in most Kingdomes strong presumptions have beene thought sufficient to make lyable to punishment In the Canon law the proving of nudus cum nudâ that such a man and woman were taken naked together is presumption enough to bring the punishment of adultery on any And when our Queene had run so many dangers by Priests and thereupon Capitall lawes were made that no such should come into the Kingdome or if they did they should be presumed traiterously disposed and punished accordingly and this Statute thus legally made conveyed to the knowledge of all such it hath been a very rationall presumption against any that should be so found Though as 't is possible that nudus cum nudâ may be no adulterer so such a Priest may have no traiterous purpose And yet if you marke it unlesse since these times of troubles very few of you have suffered among us by this Statute Section 29 Sir you had great leasure when you could enlarge so to triumph over us for acknowledging our Church fallible and professe to discharge his Lordship from being your Advocate if he speake so ill for his Client This you might have done long since and unlesse your favour may be had upon some other tearmes then undertaking the Infallibility of meere creatures we must all be content to be discarded by you Section 30 Yet after all your turning away and slighting we shall never be so provoked as to punish you for the result of what we prescribe you If your best use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture and not any prejudice or passion or fault of yours have sincerely brought you to your opinions and no light that is offer'd hath beene neglected and yet all prove unsufficient to convince you I shall never severely pronounce against you and if you will say and make good as much to me our affections may meet though not our braines
be no Argument Section 4 This being premised I pray observe in the second place the no force of this Argument against us unlesse it may also appeare that our departing from you is the cause of these Dissentions For if they be but onely consequent to it accidentally this ought not in all reason to be laid to our charge any farther then thus that this accidentall consequent is a probable argument of one of these two things either that you have better rules for the restraining of such Dissentions than we or else that you are more carefull in executing the rules you have and if either of these be said by you I shall then tell you 1. That it seemes this Argument concludes but probably though the proposition were granted and I believe I could urge as probably on the other side and conclude the excellency of our Reformation from that old saying of Clemens by way of Answer to your Objection both of Jewes and Heathens against Christianity taken from the Dissentions of Christians in the Primitive Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The cause of them is because all things that are excellent are subject to the envy of Men and Devils and from thence to the sowing of seeds of Dissentions amongst them agreeably to that of our Saviour that as soon as the wheat was in the ground the envious sowed his tares Section 5 But then secondly for the preventing of such Dissentions I shall adde that though we have not pretence of infallibility and threats of fire to restraine Men from them yet we have other rules more agreeable to antient Church practice than either of these and though the weapon of our warfare are not carnall in your sence of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the taking away of life yet are they if they were executed mighty to bring downe or shut out Heresies For if you know it not I can tell you that Excommunication that soveraigne receipt of Christ and his Apostles the most perfect designe of charity to save and recover that which is lost to shame Men to reformation and upon contempt of that that secular rougher hand interposing the Writ de Excommunicato capiendo and the Statute of Abjuration are very strong restraints and if they have not been so diligently executed as they ought to be though I hope you will pardon this fault yet he that will not must charge it onely on the Persons of our Magistrates and not on our Religion or the state of our Reformation And then let me adde that even these lawes and this execution of them or the like whether among you or us can extend no farther then to outward restraints and that onely of those that will be so terrified or to punishment of them that will not but not to preventing of Heresies in the inward rise or growth or sometimes in the breaking out whensoever ambition of being Leader of a Sect c. are more prevailing than feare of punishments which cases must be lookt for in every Church Section 6 To which purpose you may please to reflect upon your selves and tell me whether there were not good store of Hereticks before the times of the Reformation If not I am sure Irenaeus Epiphanius and Saint Augustine and Philastrius have abused us in their Catalogues and I beseech you but to remember the ridiculous Heresies of Galatia which Saint Jerome mentions on occasion of Gal. 3.1 in respect of which he conceives the Apostle calls them such fooles and thinks they were bewitcht particularly those of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that would have Cheese mixt with the Bread in the Sacrament which with two others of the like stamp there mentioned came from Ancyra the Metropolis of Galatia And yet I believe you would not thinke the Argument of much force if it should from your example against us be made use of by us either against those Apostolicall Churches or against the Roman Church ever since that so many Heresies are gone out of it and yet that would be as reasonable in us as in you it is to charge all the Heresies which have been in the World since Luther upon the Reformation Section 7 For let me aske you is the fault that you object to us in this matter that Hereticks are gone out from us That which wee have said will satisfie you that that is no argument that we are not a true Church for if it be it will be of force against the Catholique Orthodox Church in all Ages Or is it that they that thus dissent from us are suffered to continue among us if that be it then first there are also Dissenters among you continuing with you Secondly our Lawes and Canons are for the casting them out if their dissentings be Hereticall and that is all that you can pretend of these and if we have been more indulgent than you would have us that is but an errour of tendernesse first and then that onely the fault of Persons Section 8 Having said thus much which I conceive full ground of satisfaction to what you have or can say in this matter I might now adde that if you looke no farther then the Church of England even in these which I suppose you will count the worst times of it you cannot finde any greater or more dangerous Heresies avowed by any considerable Party than are owned by some of the Jesuits among you Section 9 I shall first mention that popular doctrine you know what I meane of Bellarmine resumed and confirmed not long before his death with his most advised care in his Recognitions Secondly the doctrine and practice of resisting and deposing lawfull Magistrates under colour of religion that I set it no higher even to killing of Kings Thirdly the opposing the Order of Bishops as expresly contrary to the sole-power enstated by Christ on S. Peter And also Fourthly the affirming it lawfull that evill may be done so it be in order to a publique good and that I trouble you with no more and yet give you reason to thinke that it is in my power I beseech you to believe that I have read Watson's Quodlibets and I could without much difficulty make a parallel betwixt these whom you so much charge and those whom you defend your hatedst Enemies and your dearest Friends that Booke being so richly able to furnish me with hints that I have surveyed the Writings betwixt the Seculars and the Regulars with the late controversie among you about the Bishop of Calcedons being appointed Ordinary in this Kingdome produced and in them the difference about the necessity of Confirmation and the non even now mentioned in the Canon of the Councell as also the Symbolum Jesuiticum c. and if we have any greater divisions among us yet than these I beseech you to let me know it from you for I believe 't will be no easie discovery and I shall promise to doe and pray my utmost that they may be
particularly by your self it is apparent that you affirme the Roman Church to be Infallible though not quatenus Roman this conclusion you deny not to follow from those rules but say you speak according to those rules And truly I have as yet no necessity to dâ—ny that you doe so nor shall I untill having affirm'd the Roman Church to be the Catholique you proceed to deny the Roman to be Infallible though the Catholâ—que be This you doe not yet distinctly deny though the whole controversie about the title of his Lordships booke shews that you are not very willing to stand to the affirmative When you doe so I shall make bold to put you in mind of those rules and in the meane onely to take notice of your owne confession that what you said was not for reprehension of the Enquirer which I must affirm to be a retrataction of your former writing which pretended to prove that in truth it was not so as in the Enquirer's title it is called This was then surely a reprehension of the Enquirer and if now you say you meant not to reprehend him this is to say you did not meane to doe what you did which being a â—â—ile of humility I shall never reproâ—ch or find fault with in you â—ut yet tell you that what you call in the next words of your Annotation your rectifying the manner of speaking and stating the Question aright is in my Answer proved to be contraâ—y to your owne manner of speaking and a cleare mis stating To which proofes as here you reply nothing nor is it imaginable how you should the matter being so evident viz that they that affirme the Roman Church to be the Catholique and the Catholâ—que to be infallible must needs affirme the Roman to be infallâ—blâ— so doe you in effect confesse that you had nothing to reply to the remainder of that whole Chapter which as it is the longest in the Book so by vindicating the fitnesse of his Lordships title and stating of the Question against your exceptions doth lâ—y very usefull grounds for the voyding your pretensions to infallâ—bility For if it be cleared by my first Chapter as I conceive it is and your Annâ—tations do not deny it to be that the Question is of the infallibility of the Roman Church then we that deny the Roman to be the Catholique must never be charged of denying the Catholique to be infallible nor be liable to the arguments that are brought against us upon that head which without question are the bâ—st you have though we deny it never so confidently of the Roman Id. D. Surely the meaning is very obvious Answ If it be I am sure the words doe not clearly expresse it for how should the editor of his Lordships tract to whom the former part of that period belongs in these words though no notice hath been taken of any answer given already take notice of giving licence for any other answer Give notice he might but that in my judgment is not to take and take notice you might but that I conceive would not cohere with the antecedents and any third way of rendring I confesse I imagin not and therefore still if the meaning be obvious it must be met with somewhere else then in the sound and contexture of the words but this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall not be imputed to you it was onely an officiousnesse in me then to shew you it was such Id. E. These are bitter scoffes and no way grounded upon my words Answ That the phrase sad newes was grounded on your words there recited by me I must still affirme for they are most evidently a forme of complaining and that is all I meant by sad newes yet if to you it seeme to be a scoffe or bitter and both those in the plurall more scoffes than one in that single expression though my conscience doth not accuse me of any such intention yet I will fall at your judgement and beseech you to pardon me for it and to make you reparations promise to endeavour to offend no more against you or any other Adversary by any kind of bitternesse and for once be you pleased to imitate my resolution and remember that when another man spake it sad newes was a bitter scoffe and then perhaps your reprehension of me may worke a double cure and heale you also of some excesses Chap. 2. Answ to Ch. 2. A. I doe not beg the Question but deny what the Enquirer assumed as true and granted namely that our proofes of the Church are no other nor better than those by which you impugne it which assumpt of his we deny and whether justly or no must depend upon the triall and the examination of his proofes to follow after and therefore this deniall of mine is no petitio principii but a right and Logicall deniall which either the Enquirer or you were bound to disprove and not to tell us as you doe that we are bound to prove against the Enquirer who here chargeth us and susteineth the Person of the Opponent or one that argues against our Infallibility I am the Defendent and no Defendent can begge the Question my discourse is Apologeticall as the Title tells you Answ I did not venture to tell you that you were guilty of a petitio principii untill I had as I conceived made an ocular demonstration to you that it was such which you may please to review in the place or to save you that trouble I shall tell you the summe of it you deny a proposition which in that place 't is cleare that his Lordship proves and having not answered one word to his proofes which is in effect to deny the conclusion you then give a proofe or reason of your deniall for we affirme that our Churches infallibility is proved by reasons which are reall and true c. this reason of yours being as much denied by his Lordship as your maine conclusion against which he disputes ought in any reason to have beene backt with some firme proofe and of that kind you give none but your owne affirmation and because you doe not this I there call a petitio principii agreeably both to Aristotles notion of that Sophisme and to the notation of the phrase For principium or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 being acknowledged to signifie the question for that or any part of it to be brought in to prove any thing that in that disputation is denied is either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to begge the question or take it for granted and in effect to prove a thing by it selfe which is the most irrationall proceeding that can be If you are not yet convinced of this I shall yet farther give you a proofe of it from those antient Authours which can best judge of this matter the Interpreters of Aristotle Take one for all Magentius in his definition of this Sophisme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A begging of the
one without being the other it may be the formost proofe of evidencing which is the true Church to them that are supposed Believers and none else will be fit for that enquiry yet not be the first meanes to prove Christian Religion to Unbelievers And yet I shall not be over-coy nor make much scruple to tell you my opinion of this also that I would not begin with an Infidel with that proofe to either purpose as supposing he did believe it or that it would of its owne accord attract his beliefe infallibly but for Christianity it selfe I should first labour to win somewhat upon his affections by converse and by shewing him the excellency of the Christian precepts and the power of them in my life bring him to thinke my discourse worth heeding then when I had gotten that advantage I would relate the rem gestam of Christianity where all the acts and miracles and passages of Christs life would come in then if he doubted of the truth of it tell him the authority by which it comes downe to us in a continued undistributed undenied tradition from those that were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oculate Witnesses of Christ and the whole matter and to as good an advantage as I could compound the severall motives of Faith together which if you please you may view at leisure in Grotius de verit Chr. Rel. and when by these meanes I had converted him I should then by Scripture and antiquity which would now be of some authority with him and not by miracles attempt to manifest to him which were the true Church To which end it may be worth your remembring that your Apostle of the Indies Xaverius thought fit for their use to compile a double Gospel one of Christ another of S. Peter by the authority of one of them to teach them Christianity of the other the supremacy and infallibility of S. Peters chaire But I shall not give my self liberty to enlarge on this Ib. C. I deliver the method and how it may be I also affirme or declare that it is I was not in this place to prove but to defend against the Enquirers arguments and no other and therefore those two quarrels needed not Answ The designe of most of your Notes is to save your selfe from the necessity of proving any thing that you affirme whereas it might be but an act of a little supererogating charity if you would sometimes prove your assertions even when by strict law you were not bound to it But Sir I will not require your almes but onely your justice and though that will not oblige you to prove when you onely defend i. e. when you onely deny the premises of his Lordships arguments c. or when you are strictly an Answerer yet when instead of that you confront any affirmation of yours to his Lordships conclusion as here you doe and in all places when we charge petitio principii upon you I must then be pardoned to put you in mind of your duty which is that of Arguers then and not of Respondents either to prove what you so say or not to think you have convinced any man They that cannot answer one argument produced against them may yet think fit to make use of some argument for them hoping that may prove as convincing on their sides as that against them and so by divertisement put off the heat of the impression and this you have been proved to be often guilty of and 't will satisfie no man to say that you neither are nor because Defendant can be guilty of so doing Ibid. D. Sure he hath not for Turnbull hath vindicated himselfe Answ If every reply were a Vindication then you may have affirmed truth and then these few marginall notes of yours such as they are would be your Vindication also and then I suppose you will give your free consent that they be printed But the task would be too long to disprove what you have now said for it would require the examination of all those writings betwixt the two Combatants and when that were done you would think perhaps that Turnbull were vindicated and I that he were not I shall onely tell you that you had beene so concluded in a circle infallibly if you had asserted that method which his Lordship there disproves which is enough to vindicate his Lordship against those that doe assert that method as sure some Romanists doe and against them he there argues and not against you or any in that place which renounce that method Ibid. E. If our Church be the true Church it must be proved firstly as Christianity is first proved that is to say by motives of credibility and supernaturall ostensions or acts not of naturall and ordinary but supernaturall and extraordinary providence and he that will not prove Christianity by this way will not prove it at all After this done Scriptures and Fathers doe come but not before and this way is not new but the way of the Antients Answ I have here no necessity of re-examining of the means of proving Christianity to an Infidell it will suffice to remember that those meanes which are necessary to that may be unnecessary to prove which is the true Church because now to him that is converted as he that will judge betwixt true and hereticall is supposed to be other meanes may suffiently supply the place such are Scripture and Antiquity which to an Heathen are of no authority but to a Christian or suppositâ fide are and being so as I conceive you will not think fit to deny may well be made the umpire betwixt us who are I hope allowed to be Christians still by the consent of parties or if we are not our pretensions to miracles wil hardly gain any credit with them that have that prejudice against us Mean while I must remember you that motives of credibility as you call them are but weake premises to induce a conclusion of such weight as the choice of religion is I will tell you what I should have said instead of it Motives of excessive probability of the same or greater force then those on which I ground and build the most considerable actions of my life and which as formerly I told you if I will dis-believe I have as good reason to mistrust the wholesomenesse of every dish of meat I taste on which 't is physically possible may poison me but yet none but Hypocondriackes think it will or phansie it so strongly as to abstâ—ine the security of any title of estate I purchase or possesse the truth of any matter of fact in the most acknowledged history or tradition among men that I daily talk of All which though they produce not nor are apta nata to doe so a science or infallible certainty cui non potest subesse falsum yet doe they or are very sufficient to doe so a Faith or fiduciall assent cui non subest dubium of which I doubt no more
then of the demonstrated probleme before me a certainty of adherence of which the believer is as fully possest and from it receives as strong motives to doe any thing proportionable to that belief as if the certitude of evidence were allowed him And this I conceive is a degree prettily advanced above motives of credibility for such is every the lowest probability nay almost possibility and non-repugnance whatsoever is possible to be being in it self and in case the opposite ballance be not otherwise weighed down credible i. e. possible to be believed also But this by the way and ex abundanti C. 9. Answ to C. 9. A. Why cannot the simple know this viz. that the Greek Church doth not pretend from Saint Peter as surely as they know the whole Christian Church pretends from Christ and from no other Answ Sir you are a little too hasty in your annotation for if you had but read on to the next lines you had received the answer to your question so far as my discourse is concerned in it viz. a specifying of divers wayes by which 't is possible the Greek Church might and one whereby one part of it doth pretend succession to S. Peter And then that which so manifestly may be and is will not I hope be so easie for ignorant men to know surely that it is not or so surely as that the Christian Church pretends from Christ and from no other Which yet if it have any difficulty in it not intelligible to some ignorant men I take no pleasure in frighting any with an apprehension that God wil ever damne those ignorants for not being sure of what is so difficult so their lives be believing and Christian and agreeable to what they doe know of Christ. C. 10. Answ to C. 10. A. No sure not against the ordinary necessity Answ The thing I say in that place is that his Lordships argument might be I shall adde is of force against the necessity of a guide meaning thereby an infallible one for such only is to our purpose and that that will serve his Lordships turne and destroy you I there farther prove by a full explication of the whole matter And therefore you must give me favour to leave out your epithete of Ordinary which you would have me interpose when my discourse in order to its end hath no need of it And if you tell me you put it in in your answer to his Lordship and that therefore I have not vindicated his Lordship from that answer unlesse I take it in also I must then confesse to you that I did not so understand your words all this is nothing against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide that the word ordinary was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be repeated to the word necessity but onely that it belonged to provision And now that I know your pleasure I shall more clearly returne my answer that his Lordship supposes some men and I confesse my selfe to be one of them to believe that to all who follow their reason in the interpretation of Scripture and search for tradition i. e. the constant interpretation of the Catholique Church concerning any difficulty God will either give his grace of assistance to find the truth or his pardon if they misse it To which purpose you may please to compare Justin Mart. quest ◠ad Orthod and to omit many more Facundus Hermian in def 3. capit ad Just l. 11. p. 491. p. 496. l. 12. pag. 513. Now to them that so believe the argument which you fetch from Gods providence to conclude an infallible guide will not saith his Lordship be sufficient to prove it because he still will be able to say that where imperfection is accepted meanes of perfection are not necessary if God will pardon weaknesses he need not give such a measure of strength as excludes all weaknesses if sincerity though with some mixture of sinne will serve turne here in viâ we need not expect from God that integrity of faculties which either was bestowed in paradise or will be in heaven to give us an unsinning innocence And if you will still interpose that this is nothing against the ordinary necessity because these are cases extraordinary I answer that this is a great mistake For under the Gospell or Evangelicall State under which all men have beene since the promise of Christ upon Adams fall there is no ordinary necessity of never missing or mistaking our naturall state being an estate of weaknesse is advanced by Christ into such a condition not wherein all weaknesse is excluded but wherein sincerity with mixtures of slips and errours shall be accepted and this as infallibly as innocence had beene rewarded under the first covenant made with Adam in the first state To the first Covenant which is stricti juris such pardon for slips might be extraordinary but to this second whereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or gentlenesse is as much apart as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or strict justice was before this pardon for invincible infirmities is as ordinary as obligation to punishment for every slip had beene before this being a prime ingredient in that Covenant and not extraordinarii but ordinarii juris that under it such slips shall not be remembred In like manner as in this Kingdome Chancery though it be opposed to Common Law in one sence as that signifies strict law yet it is a part of our common law as that signifies the Municipall law or totall body of lawes by which this Kingdome is ruled Equity though perhaps it came in later and to repaire defects or excesses in the strict law being now as much every Subjects right and Writs out of that Court as legally required and granted and the whole processe in Chancery as clearely sec jura consuetudines Angliae and so as much Ordinary or secundum Ordinem as any thing that passes in the Common Pleas. And so much for your nice interposition of the word Ordinary to your pretended necessity of a guide where yet I might farther tell you that infallibility is not essentiall to or inseparable from a guide and therefore though the Guide were granted to be ordinarily necessary to the finding out of truth yet this would not come home to infallibility The antecedent I could make good at large if it were now seasonable Ibid. B. They i. e. misses and mistakings are called extraordinary because happening accidentally besides the provision of the law and not because they happen seldome Answ That misses and mistakings infirmities and ignorances doe happen besides the provision of the second or the Evangelicall Covenant is a mistake as was intimated then within few lines after those whereon your annotation was fastened and now at large proved in my last answer to your former annotation and I shall not need repeate it but onely tell you there is a law of Faith aswell as of workes and that in that law there is provision for errours aswell
such debate with you Ib. C. Neither Arius Nestorius nor others could peep out for saying any thing against the doctrine received How then could this Dionysius have escaped if he had adventured any thing against all the Orthodox Answ You are very much given in stead of answering Reasons to deny Conclusions and if that were backt with Reason 't were yet very improper for a Respondent which you told us was your office at this time But then secondly in this matter you know that neither I nor his Lordship have said that all the Orthodox were for the Millennium And yet thirdly if they had yet the denying the Millennium being a more tolerable opinion than those other of Arius and Dionysius's opposition of the Chiliasts might passe more unresisted than Arius or Nestorius could doe Ib. D. Photius tells us there were Answers given though he recites them not and Schottus in his Notes hath resolved them Answ I will not take the paines to see or examine whether Photius say there were Answers If he recites them not I shall not be much moved with such blanke Papers The truth is this hath been the way to satisfie the hardest Arguments that ever were brought and confuting whole Books at once by having it given out that they are confuted or that Answers are made to them when what those answers are is not so much as intimated this is a very cheap way of confutations As for Schottus's Solutions if he have any they prevaile little with us I am sure they will not conclude that Photius foresaw or would have counted them of any moment to alter his opinion which was the onely thing I there had occasion to take notice of Ib. E. Though Philoponus cite but one Epistle yet elswhere he numbers him among the famous Doctors Basil Gregory c. thereby insinuating he had left workes as they had and not one single Epistle to Polycarpus This is but a conjecture but such both we and all must use in matters of fact and when we are to walke through darke passages of Antiquity Answ Sir you cited three places out of Philoponus to prove that Dionysius Arcopagita wrote those workes now extant bearing his name This testimony I told you would be nothing to your purpose unlesse it testified if not all those Bookes yet of some one wherein he wrote against the Chiliasts But this I shewed you was not done because those places mention nothing of his but an Epistle of Polycarpus and in that I advertized you there was nothing against the Chiliasts This it seems you cannot deny but being willing to say something say that elswhere Philoponus numbers him amongst the famous Doctours c. I have not now leasure to read over all Philoponus for that elswhere though I have reason to thinke that you that before cited the Chapters in Philoponus so punctually would have had the same charity to me again if it had suted w th your interests considering how little can be concluded from what you now cite out of him Dionys was numbred among the famous Doctors Basil Gregory c. doth it follow thence that all the workes now extant under his name were his or particularly that wherein he opposes the Chiliasts Nay would not a man rather conclude from that pretended testimony of Philoponus that the Authour under the name of Dionysius Arâ—op was some Writer about S. Basils or S. Gregories time with whom he is there consorted and that is somewhat later then Dionysius in the Scripture Nay if Philoponus really meant him would he not rather have given him the title of an Apostolicall Person than of a famous Doctor such as S. Basil c. As for the insinuation which you mention from this of Philoponus if it did conclude as you would have it that he left Workes as they did and not onely one single Epistle yet sure 't will not so much as once insinuate that they were the Works that we have under his name much lesse that peculiarly which opposes the Chiliasts least of all that 't was the Apostolicall Dionysius that really wrote all these But you confesse these but a conjecture and therefore sure 't will be a very weake prop to hold up infallibility especially when the conjecture if it should be supposed true would tell us that which we had not before been told from you that the Chiliasts doctrine was taught and so capable of being confuted so early as the Apostles times for with them this Dionysius lived You conclude that such conjectures as this you and all must use in matters of fact c. To which I answer that 't is possible you may be forced to it on supposition that you think your self obliged to vindicate your Churches Infallibility for 't is very possible there may be no better then such conjectures to sustaine it But believe me Sir I will never maintaine cause as long as God keeps me in my right wits which hath no better conjectures than these to sustaine it And for matters of fact so long agoe they are of all things in the World the unfittest to be believed upon such conjectures Because nothing but an authentick expresse witnesse can be ground of faith for such There is no matter of fact done yesterday but may if we will goe by conjectures I am sure as good and as probable as yours here be related 10000 waies for whatsoever may be some bold Affirmer may conjecture was and the more antient and more darke the passage was the more liberty there will be for such Conjecturers because the lesse possibility to confute any of them Ib. F. Salvian doth not refuse to condemne the Arian heresie but some of the Gothick Arians for it as men not guilty of the malice of it Answ If you looke againe you will find that both his Lordship and I say that Salvian refused to condemne the Arian Hereticks not heresie and this it seems you confesse with the restraint of Gothick Arians and this will serve our turnes perfectly and so we shall not quarrell about that but hope from your owne confession that he that is not willing to condemne all Protestants may escape as well as Salvian even in your censure C. 16. Answ to C. 16. A. The Councell of Constance doth not teach this viz that no Faith is to be kept with Hereticks neither our Doctors hold it as Molanus Becanus Tannerus Layman Coeffecteau Coquaeus and others doe shew us Answ To teach is an equivocall word and may signifie to define by way of position or doctrine in universum In this sense I said it not nor doe now meane it of that Synod that they made any such determination that it should be unlawfull to keep faith with Hereticks or lawfull for any man in any case not to keep it But then to teach may signifie also to teach by example to lay grounds of doctrine for the justifying of such example And thus the Councell of Constance did teach it
universum yet it came to a debate whether the having Bishops was necessary or no On which soever it is it is enough to prove dissentions C. 26. Answ to C. 26. A. At least they might have been discerned as well as other errours were and the Authors of them also Answ This note being reduced to intelligible sence will I conceive be that the now Romish errours might have been discerned c. To which I answer that though they might yet First 't is possible that they might not Secondly very possible that being favoured if not brought in by those in authority among them they would not be branded or recorded for errours and then all that we their posterity can see may be onely that the tares are sowne but not punctually at what point of the night or who the man was that sowed them Ibid. B. No more for these then for other errours Answ His Lordship had occasion onely to speake of these but will say the like of all others whose originall is not discernible Ibid. C. In all ages errours were censured and condemned Answ All kinde of errours were not thought to be of such weight as that such heavy censures and condemnations which you lay on us should be fastened on them And therefore in case ours be not errours or but in materia non gravi in disputable parts as if you please to descend to particulars we will undertake to prove them those severe censures of yours being more contrary to charity may prove more dangerous to you then we shall otherwise affirme your opinions to be Ibid. D. I judge one of these two by the event and the other by the semblance of his making a search in manner as he ought Answ This is a darke speech which I doe not clearly understand if the meaning be that you judge the ill successe of his Lordships searches by the event and the fault of them by the semblance c. I must then tell you that the first is a very ill grounded judgement for no event hath proved the ilnesse of that successe unlesse like those in the Gospel you count them the greatest Sinners on whom the Tower of Siloah fell or like him of late that being willing to passe his opinion on a learned mans choice of a side in the differences in the Low Countries said onely this Illud notum est partes quas secutus non est praevaluisse si quis infelicitati hoc tribuat ego prudentiam non probo minus felicem and Busbequius tels us somewhat like of the Turkes judgments of good and bad enterprizes but rather on your owne principles I have already proved that they must be good in the successe which were so happy in proposing But then what you meane by the semblance of his making a search in manner as he ought by which you judge the fault in his searches I must confesse I doe not at all understand and therefore must be faine to confesse my selfe overcome and mastered though not by the reason yet by the obscurity of your writing and if that be a victory I wish you much good of it To the Conclusion A. I here contend no more but that our Church may be infallible notwithstanding any thing the Enquirer hath objected That she is so hath in due place been proved by others Answ If you had performed the former I meane satisfied all his Lordships arguments I should not require at this time the latter from you i. e. proving your Church to be Infallible I must then onely aske you in earnest whether you doe believe that no one of his Lordships arguments against your Infallibility for any one will serve our turne remaines unanswered by your Apology and then whether all that I have said to vindicate his Lordship be effectually answered in your marginall Notes and whether you can justifie all them against his last Reply If you are of this opinion in each I am to crave your pardon for this so gainlesse trouble but referre the matter to God and impartiall men to judge between us Ibid. B. If you would doe it we then would thinke it more than possible Answ The meaning of this annotation if it be sence must be this that if we Protestants could or would finde place in you for Scripture and Reason to make impression you Papists would then thinke it more then possible you might be deceived Which if it be the meaning I must then onely reply by prayer that God would so soften your hearts that they might be capable of that impression But if the words be indeed no sence but yet mistaken for some other words which would be sence then the likeliest thing that I can imagine is that you would have said somewhat to this purpose If you Protestants could by Scripture or Reason disprove our Doctrines we then would thinke it more than possible for us to be deceived Which though it were no huge Concession yet I should be glad to have it from you for then in effect your grounding of Faith on your Infallibility would be laid aside and then there would be no more truth in any individuall Doctrine of your Church than Scripture or Reason would inferre abstracted from the Authority of your Church which is all that at this time we demand from you And in that we are a little importunate seeing we have you now in a seeming good humour First because there is so much danger in insisting on that priviledge of Infallibility even in any particular wherein men are in the right because he that really doth stand yet may and therefore ought to take heed lest he fall but most eminently when a man chances to be in the wrong He that mistakes first in a piece of Divinity and after in a perswasion that he cannot mistake sealeth up that errour obstructs all entrance all approach all possibility of Reformation is fortified impregnable against all assaults either of reason or even the spirit of truth and by that one errour hath a kind of propriety in all other that can by the same hand be represented to him Secondly because we cannot but observe the prudence of your fellow-Champions Master Knot c. now of late who have chosen to vary the method from insisting on the severall points of difference betwixt us and them proving themselves to be the onely true Church from the particular truths profest by them and by no others to this other more commodious way of putting off all together by whole-sale of concluding the truth of all their assertions from the unerrablenesse of the Asserter manifesting that they are in the right because 't is impossible they should be in the wrong using all skill to perswade this one point and then confident on good grounds that no other can be resisted These two things put together will advertise you how seasonable an admonition it is to you that you will bestow a little paines on your Brethren to perswade them they are mortall
or fallible and then againe Reason and Scripture may finde reception and be agreed on the umpire betwixt us and we shall promise sincerely that whatever that shall sententiâ latâ award to you we will most gladly yeild and never breake with you till you breake from that umpirage Ibid. C. The words are applicable against our belief of Christianity as well as against our belief of our Churches doctrine Answ The words are applied by me onely against your infallibility and if that be as infallible as Christianity it self I beseech you either shew as plaine testimonies from the consent of all Ages that the Church of Rome is infallible as there are for the Canon of the Scripture or as plaine places out of the Scripture for it as we can for the severall parts of Christianity and then I will give you leave so to apply the words In the meane you may spare your labour of applying my words or else prove demonstratively that they are so applicable Ibid. D. A possibility perhaps of more errours but a probability of fewer for if she were fallible yet she would not be fallible as a private man so that with these fewer errours we should have quiet and unity you with more errours should have disturbances and dissentions Answ In this place whereto your Annotation was affixt the discourse was upon a supposition that your Infallibility were an errour which I in that case affirm'd would be the most dangerous because most prolificall complicated errour imaginable and will you say that upon that supposition there would be a probability of fewer errours Will the thinking I cannot fall make me stand the longer is there no advantage to be made of care and caution and feare or is there a disadvantage in them This is brave fiduciary doctrine I must thinke infallibly I shall be saved and that I cannot fall away and the thinking that will make it more probable that I shall be saved and shall not fall I confesse I had thought that humility were a readier way both to truth and Heaven then either of these presumptions What you meane by adding by way of proofe of that saying that if your Church were fallible she would not be fallible as a private man I confesse I cannot guesse If she would not I conceive this would be but little advantage on her side for her fallibility would be a greater snare and scandall and more apt to draw into errour those that conceived her infallible than any private mans fallibility would doe For that which you adde of quiet and unity if it were supposed to be joyn'd with fewer errours I grant it would be an advantage but at a time when that infallibility was supposed to be one errour and that prov'd most apt to produce a multitude surely this ought not to have been supposed any more than that we should have more errours still though 't were not at the same time supposed that we have Ibid. E. It was never put into more hands than two but what those hands might doe I know not and to those on purpose to make triall what exceptions might be made against it that so upon a review I might know better what to alter in it what to adde and what to take away Answ I conceive one man hath two hands and therefore 't is possible you may meane it was never communicated to above one man If you doe 't is certainly false But if you meane two men by two hands you acknowledged what I said for I said no more As for your affirmation that 't was put into those hands only for triall c. This cannot be said of one of them for to him it was delivered by one of your friends as an unanswerable piece but yet if it were as you pretend that you might know better what to alter in it I am then glad I have given you occasion to doe so but must tell you that now you have altered it and delivered it from some infirmities which appear'd to be in it there be yet enough behind to be reformed by any body else and when that is done there will remaine somewhat else perhaps but I am sure no answer to my Lord of Falkland Ibid. F. Sir your noble courtesie is gratefully acknowledged and I desire with all due respects and services to correspond Answ This I conceive to be a civility and I shall never go about to confute that or answer it but by the returne of the like and my prayers also that the Lord give you a right judgement in all things HEre it seemes was once an end of those annotations and it had been for the readers ease and mine that you had continued in that minde But upon better thoughts either that which had beene here noted was thought not quite sufficient or else ex abundanti this superfoetation is bestowed on us The closing sheet which I mentioned in the Preface and promised to annex also Which here in justice to the Apologist I shall give you though I conceive I had beene as kind to him if I had forgotten it Section 1 THis small treatise Apologeticall is no finisht worke but only a first draught or inchoation and was ventured abroad to explore the judgements or censures of one or two intelligent Adversaries that so the Author by his second thoughts might be the better able to understand what was to be altered in it what added and what taken away either as superfluous or offensive and till that act was done and withall an approbation and licence given by those to whom it belonged neither the worke nor any line of it is to be acknowledged or vouched by the Author Section 2 The drift is not to prove the Church which we call Catholique and the Enquirer cals Roman to be infallible but to defend it against the Enquirers arguments for he Sect. 28. undertakes to give reasons why the Church of Rome is fallible So that our drift is to make it good that this same Church may still be infallible notwithstanding any thing that he hath said unto the contrary Section 3 The pillars that support all his discourse be 1. Sect. videl that with us both Reason Scripture and Antiquity be fallible his proofe of this assertion is a supposed maxime of ours namely that nothing is infallible but the Church The assertion is first denyed and afterward the proofe and against these denialls no reply can be made because we know best our owne inward acts and judgements and no man is able to tell us what we thinke but we must tell them Section 4 These three pillars of fallibility being broken and relinquisht as desperate you are pleased to come with new ones in their places Section 5 Reason say you cannot prove the infallibility of your Church because it is not an evident verity Scripture cannot because not certainly expounded to that probation Fathers doe not because it was not a doctrine held in their time Section 6 It seems then
that the cause why none of these three can prove our Churches infallibility is not any want of infallibility in them as the Enquirer contended it was but some other different such namely as you here assigne and so the Enquirers argument is at an end even at the very beginning of it and my taske is done yet in my respects to you I will goe on farther Section 7 To your first I answer that though reason cannot it selfe alone prove our Churches infallibility yet as you acutely note Sest 3. reason can assure us by shewing us some words of prophecie or revelation from God with sufficient evidence that it is a revelation and thus reason can prove a verity be it never so inevident After this manner it is that we say reason proves our Church against which proof the inevidence of it as we see can be no impediment Section 8 To your second I answer by denying that scripture hath not beene so certainly expounded to that purpose for we say it hath been shewed by our authors at large as for example by Bellarmine Valentia Petavius Veron and others Section 9 To your 3. I answer first that 1. Irenaeus 2. Augustinus 3. Lactantius and 4 Facundus Hermanensis doe absolutely teach the Church to be infallible Secondly I deny that the Fathers teach not the Romane Church to be the true Church and contrary to your tenet I affirme that they hold that Church to be the true Christian Church as the forenamed authors have declared out of them as also Card. Perone and Coâ—ffeteau have exâ—ellently shewed Also I my selfe have endeavoured it elsewhere out of the severall Testimonies of Antiquity not to be in this place repeated Section 10 The businesse touching the motives of Faith which I with Irenaeus called Ostensions their place use and efficacity needs only explanation and ought to be admitted by every Christian and therefore begging your patience I will tarry longer upon it Section 11 We doe not goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because she holdeth with the truth but because we conceive we have good solid reasons to perswade us that she hath the truth These reasons have been often rendred by our Authors to whom if the Inquirer had replyed we also had endeavoured to defend them Concordance with the Scriptures and fathers we doe marshall amongst them not in the first place indeed in order of Doctrine but yet in the first in order of dignity Neither doe we aime to prove our Church by the gallantry of Demonstration or any other way then Christianity sooner or later is to be perswaded unto Infidels for we are now dealing not about a parcell but the whole frame of Christianity from the top to the foundation and the laying of the first stone which first stone we hold to be those actes of God which Psal 104.27 are called verba signotum and fitly may be tearmed signa realia that is to say sings and ostensions which be the acts of Gods omnipotence and soveraigne Government and by a morall certainty and rationall way are shewed for humane institution and instruction This sort of signes is by order of nature to have the precedence before all artificiall signes or vocall expressions of the divine will and therefore as Raymund Sebund observeth liber factorum is to be perused before liber dictorum By these signes as by the apparentiae or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Astronomy we are to get the first notions of these celestiall revolutions or resolutions of faith and though these be sure yet are they not demonstrative because no way intrinsecall neither to the revelations which they assure nor to the objects revealed which are assured by the revelations as being no causes nor effects of either nor signes inherent of those objects Section 12 Seeing then the true Catholique Religion is but the true Christianity they both of them are to be learned by the same Apparences or Ostensions more or lesse expresly understood Now while we draw nearer unto these signes and learne them more and more expresly amongst other things we may discover as good characterismes and signatures of revealed truth the Concordance of our Faith with holy Writ and venerable Antiquity which two signes without the preceding could have little force to perswade beliefe For say I were to convert an Indian I would not seeke to doe it by telling him first of all of these two Concordances mentioned which 't is like would move him but a little for though I could shew him the Bible was antient and Godly and the Fathers wise yet this would not be enough to perswade him and therefore I should hold it fit First to represent unto him some other motives as namely Propheticall predictions authorized by event miracles and miraculous operations and effects creditably recorded from age to age both in the Evangelists and other sequent Histories of whose faith a man rationally cannot doubt at least in the summe of them or the chiefe bulke I speake not here of fabulous Narrations or suspected Histories but Authours of credit and esteeme Secondly the excellency of our Faith it selfe and manner of propagation of it Thirdly the perfection of life and heroicke actions of such as doe professe it and all this after a manner not interrupted but continued from age to age and conveyed downe to us by the prime Ecclesiasticall succession not of persons onely but of Pastours in the chiefe seate and other inferiour prized so highly by Irenaeus and held a most sure note of truth and a way to confound all that doe gainsay it Lastly a consonance with Reason Scripture and Antiquity These and such like be our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these our Ostensions these be the received notices and signatures of revealed truth by these God invites us and induces us to believe and by these engages his owne veracity to warrant the act of our assent it being repugnant to the high perfection of his truth to lay upon man a rationall obligation and then desert him and to permit that the publique acts of his providence should be a snare not a direction not an introduction to truth but a seduction from it Though therefore these motives make our faith but credible in an eminent and a high degree yet the veracity of God is at hand to supply seale and confirme all and with the authority thereof to make the assurance absolute This method of resolving and reducing faith was signified by Irenaeus when as he said Post tot Ostensiones factas non oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem quam facile est ab Ecclesia sumere This way designed by Saint Augustin this is conformable to the Analytique principles delivered by Aristotle in his Organon this the beaten path of all Divines and no new invention or exotique stuffe This method we are ready to maintaine as strong and solid not permitting the believer to sit downe with a slender Socinian certainty
a true Church will not pronounce you infallible your Church of Rome Primitive may have the truth and your Moderne Rome be filled with errors And therefore you may spare the paines of proving what we have no occasion at this time to deny that God engages his veracity to make good those things for which he gives us such rationall meanes of proofe to induce our assent For what ever else is your infallibility or your other errours for which we charge you are none of these things And if you mark it that which according to your discourse gives us such assurance of the truth of Christianity is the ostensions miracles publick acts of Gods providence not the Infallibility naturally inherent either in your Church or in any particular society of men nor the promise of God that any such society shall be infallible and visible to all that it is that infallible As for that which you covertly cast into the heape of the motives of Faith that 't was continued from age to age in the succession of Pastors in the chiefe seat that is no more a ground of the truth of Christanity then its succession in all other seats as I conceive you have your selfe let fall also The truth is the Preaching the Gospel over all the world and the reception in so great a part of it is an argument of the truth of Christianity among many others because it is the fulfilling of a Prophecy of their sounds going out into all Lands But this is farre from concluding the peculiar priviledge of infallibility of those who are under the Roman subjection By which 't is cleare that what you cite out of Irenaeus and Saint Aug. comes home no better to your point of infallibility then Aristotles Analytick principles which in the same place and elsewhere you cite also And therefore if all you say in that long Section were yeelded concerning the motives to Christianity and your way by bringing to the Church c. yet would you be as farre to seek as ever concerning your pretended infallibility To your 13. Sect. which is neerer indeed to your purpose I answere that being by your meanes brought to Christianity there is no need that I should find out any particular body of professors or Church of one denomination to which those motives to Christianity should so belong as to belong to no othey but that This sure I may better say without proofe then you have affirmed the contrary For doe you thinke it reasonable that Christianity being planted all the world over each man that is converted to it must finde out the Roman Bishop and those that are in subjection to him or not be accounted a Christian If he be borne at Jerusalem or converted there will it not serve his turne to communicate with that Church which hath given him Baptisme Was there any thing in his Creed could send him thither till the holy Catholick Roman Church was by mockery I conceive put in thither As for the line of succession of Ecclesiasticall Magistrates you must know that is to be found in other Christian Churches as well as in Rome and the Scriptures and Apostolicall verities descend downe to us in them also And what if in some passages of Antiquity the Sea of Rome should be found to be the Praetorian or Admirall in your stile i. e. the prime or principall Sea would this prove her infallible the Praetorian may spring a leake as well as any other and in case it should I doe not conceive that all other Ships of that fleet were bound to doe so too or else be counted fugitive because they are unwilling to run that unhappy fate of sinne or errour with her Sure if the Praetorian should casually or wilfully split upon a Rock you would not censure all others for Pyraticall that did not so too The reasons are visible why that Sea of Rome had the Primacy at some time and at other times other Seas put in their plea for it and if they obtained not yet was that an argument that it was never judged a matter of Faith because the Pretenders were not condemned for Haereticks even when it went not with them viz from the Imperiall Seat being placed in that City with which the Ecclesiasticall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might proportionably goe along just as your Praetorian is that ship where the Admirall resides or which peculiarly belongs to him But what is that to infallibility That honour which comes by sympathy with the Civill State is not like to be such a charme or amulet so to elevate above humane condition that it must presently set up for perfection Let your Church have all its due and customary respects but doe not so linke inerrablenesse with Principality unlesse you can bring some ground from Scripture for the union and because in all your Apology Annotations and Appendage you doe not so much as name any such I shall conceive you are too wise to claime by Tu es Petrus or any other so unconcluding an argument Believe me your prescription for some kinde of Principality from the possession of it continued to that Sea so many yeares is a better plea than any other and against that I am not now a disputing but onely adde that greatnesse saecular is no marke of infallibility As for your rule of judging by the Association with Rome which Assembly of Christians is legitimate which not that that is an infallible way of judging is not at all proved by your magnificent simile For first the fleet may be broken asunder by some tempest and so without any fault of any ship be divided from the Praetorian 2. The Praetorian may quarrell with all or any of the rest and by threats or bullets drive them from her and then if the cause be not just if it be for example upon no other crime but that the other ships judge it necessary to cast out some vessels or trumpery which they are resolved to be either uselesse or perhaps dangerous to the vessell and all the Passengers or againe because the rest of the ships are resolved to obey the commission that sent out the whole Fleet when the Praetorian was resolved to disobey it in this and the like cases 't is cleare that the Praetorian is the onely Schismatick Or if it be just yet the ships though confest guilty of that other crime or crimes which made that severity of the Praetorian just will yet not be guilty of a new crime of separation the reason is cleare because she is forced to that driven away and now ever since lies under it unwillingly 't is her infelicity not her crime her punishment not her fault Or if there be a fault in that viz That she doth not humbly confesse the fault and desire to be reconciled yet sure it will not be infinitely true that that is a fault when either she was guilty before of no fault but a pretended one