thousand years been ever a true General Council in the world The Popish Doctors as Doctor Holden de Resolut fid li. 1. cap. 9. pag. 156. say that It must arise to that degree of universality that there may not be any suspicion of conspiracies and combined factions that so every prudent man may be able heartily to say that the Assemblies are truely General And is it so when there are none but the sworn obliged vassals of the Pope of Rome and the Greeks Ethiopians Protestants c. and most of the Church are absent and when it is a known combination to promote their own espoused cause Quest 12. And then is the whole foundation of Divine faith extinct and lost when there is no General Council It may be we may have no General Council of a hundred or six hundred or a thousand years together Have we no Church then Or no certainty of Scripture or of the faith If they say that we are certain by the determinations of former Councils then they speak of the Church that is past and gone of which I moved the doubts before And the Canons of these we can read and understand as well as the Pope But when we appeal to former Councils and Ages they would hold us to the present Church and that must be their own and so be sure to be judges in their own cause Q. 13 I would know also whether it were by the judgment of a General Council that the first Churches believed the Scripture to be Gods word Did not the Church of Rome believe the Epistle to the Romanes and the Church of Corinth believe the Epistle to the Corinthians and so the rest to be the word of God as soon as they received them by an undoubted messenger from Paul Or did they stay till they had the judgement of a General Council or of all the Churches Indeed they made use of the intervening humane but certain testimony of him that was the messenger or bearer of the Epistle to know that it was the writing of Paul indeed and so we still maintain the necessity of a credible humane Testimony that these writings came from the Apostles hands But Tychicus or Trophimus or Timothy or Onesâ—mus were not a General Council nor the whole Church And doubtless those Epistles that were written to each particular Church were received by all the rest of the Churches upon the credit of that particular Church as having received it from an Apostle and not that the particular received it from the universal How did the universal Church know that those Epistles were written by Paul to Titus Timothy Philemon to the Ephesians c. but on the report of the persons and Church to whom they were written or else of those particular persons or Churches to whom the Apostle did communicate a copy of them Quest 14. And how did all the Church know the Scripture to be Gods word before the Council of Nice when there had been no General Council to â—etermine the business Quest 15. Dare a Papist undertake to justifie at Gods judgement all that part of the unbelieving world for not taking the Scripture for the word of God who have seen or heard it and had all other â—estimonies of it but never knew of the Testimony of the Pope or a General Council Shall none of â—hese perish for this unbelief Quest 16. And if it be the Pope that they call â—he Church and take it to be this infallible judge â— then demand How knows the Pope that the Scripture is Gods word or that the Christian Faith is â—rue The like also I ask of a Council How doth that Council know it themselves from whom we must know it Either the Pope and Council must believe it because they first believe themselves and so take it on their own words or else on the words of some others â—f the former then they Believe it because they Believe â—t then they are the original of their own belief and believe themselves first and then would have all the world to believe them And this is not onely to be â—o arrogant as to be the God of themselves and the Church but also so impudent and unreasonable as to believe themselves without reason and to expect that all others should do so too But if it be not from themselves that the Pope and Council believe the Scriptures from whom then is it not from any others of the present Church doubtless therfore it must be from the former Church And if so 1. Have not we the same means to know that the former Church believed the Scriptures as the Pope hath and therefore may believe it without recourse to him and as infallibly as he 2. And then it seems that acccording to their doctrine the Pope and his Council receive not their faith or the Scriptures on the same ground as all the rest of the Church must do so that the Church must have a twofold foundation of her faith whereof one is necessary only to one part and not to the other that is All the rest of the Church must believe the Scripture to be Gods word because the presenâ— Pope or Council saith so having first believed the infallibility but the Pope and Council themselveâ— need not any such ground of their faith And this distinction is not made between the Laity and the Clergy in general But even the Clergy themselves out of Council or who never were of the Council which sure is more then a hundred for one must thuâ— differ from the Pope and Council in the foundation of their Faith This is another taste of the famous Romane unity Paul saith there is One Faith bâ—â— if two divided Foundations or Reasons of Belieâ— do make two Beliefs surely the Church of Rome hatâ— two Quest 17. Do you believe that the Lord Jesâ— Christ understood the doctrine of your Papal Authority and infallibility when he so chid his Apostles foâ— striving who should be greatest and telleth them so expresly that the Kings of the Gentiles exercise Authority over them and are called Gracious Lords but with you it shall not be so And when he sets before them a little child and telleth them that he that will be greatest among them must be as that child that is that humility is the thing that they must strive to be great or excell in and so to serve one another in love Also when he commandeth them to call no man on earth Father or Master that is of their Faith Did ever Christ direct the world to go to the Church of Rome to know whether he be the Christ or whether the Scripture be his word or not Quest 18. Where is the Faith of the Church when the Pope is dead and when there are three or four at a time and when there is an interruption by Schisme thirty years together as it is known there hath been Hath not the Church then lost her faith by losing the foundation of it Or
indicted by the instinct of the Holy Ghost and so are they Infidels or else they think themselves wiser then the Holy Ghost and what other thing do they in that than shew themselves possessed of the Devil So that if we must go to the Arbitration of the Pope to know whether the Scriptures were indited by the Holy Ghost We must go to him to know whether we must be Infidels or not For they that deny this are Infidels But I hope all the world will not remain Infidels till they know the Arbitrement of the Pope or till his Authority move them to be Christians For its an impossibility and contradiction that any man should believe in Christs pretended Vicar as his Vicar and believe an authority and infallibility which he or his Church of Rome hath received from Christ before they believe in Christ himself How Tertullian lib. de Pudicitia c. 21. takes up the Pope if he pretend to his pardoning power from Do tibi claves or supra hanc Petram I shall for brevity refer you to the place in him And Origen upon Math. on the words is large and full against them I refer you to the words themselves in him I conclude this ranke of testimonies in the words of Tertullian Credunt sine Scripturis ut credant contra Scripturas They believe without the Scripture that they may believe against the Scriptures Had Scripture been for the Pope and Papists then the Pope and they would have been for Scriptures and then we might have spared all this ado But because it is against them no wonder if they be against it I shall next give a touch more of some passages of Councils concerning this controversie And first it is known that the first Councils did commonly decree that appeals should be from a Bishop to a Synod or the Metropolitane and that if the Synod of Comprovincials disagreed that the Metropolitane should call some of the next Province to assist them and that was the highest unless there were a more general Council as Concil Antiochen Can. 14. and divers more beyond doubt declare So that here was no appeal to the Pope Yea in the 6. Canon of that Council of Antioch it is decreed that till an offending Priest Deacon or Layman be reconciled to his own Bishop or else have given satisfaction to a Synod that no other Bishop shall receive him so that Rome it self may not receive him much less absolve him Also in the 22. Canon of the same Council and in many other Councils it is decreed that no Bishop shall come into the City of another Bishop not subject to him about ordination and if they there ordain any it shall be void and they shall be questioned by a Synod And Chrysostome hereupon complaineth of Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria for exercising authority at Constantinople out of his oâ—n jurisâ—iction contrary to the Canons as may â—e sâ—en in his first Epipse to Pope Innocent I know they pretend that by that Epistle he yet acknowledged Innocents superiority and jurisdiction As if a man might not make his moan or seek all possible relieâ— from any that are capable of helping them without respect to superiority or jurisdiction It was Râ—mes greatness and interest in the Emperor and others and not a universal jurisdiction that made Innocent seem capable of affording some help to Chrysostome But thus Baronius the Popes Annalist where ever he findeth but a letter writen to the Bishop of Rome or his advice or help in any thing desired doth presently conclude that they acknowledged in the Pope universale regimen an universal Government And by the like reason many another should be universal Governor as well as he Moreover in the third Council of Carthage Can. 26. it is decreed Vt primae sedis Episcopus non appâ—â—â—tur princeps sacerdotum aut summus sacerdos aut â—liquid huâ—â— modi sed tantum primae sedis Episcopus that iâ— That the Bishop of the first seat shall not be called the chief of the Priests or the chief Priest or any such thing but only the Bishop of the first â—â—at One would think that this were as express against Romes usurpation as can be spoken But they that must be the interprets of Scripture because it speaks â—â—t plain enough must be judge of Councils too which it seems can speak no plainer then Scripture 〈…〉 taught them to speak anew Or if plainer may be of the power as well as the name let us hear the Council of Milevis of which saith Prosper Aurelius was the Captain and Augustine the ingenium And Baronius saith that Augustine was magna pars a great part of the Council and by reason of his great abilities and interest Whether there were two Milevitane Councils as Baronius not improbably thinks or but one it much matters not The Canons are now usually commixt as if they were one and undoubtedly the true Canons and so that which is now the 22. Canon runs thus Item placuit ut Presbyteri Diaconi vel caeteriis inferiores clerici in causis quas habuerint si de judiciis Episcoporum suorum quaesti fuerint vicini Episcopi eos audiant inter eos quicquid est finiant adhibiti ab eis ex consensu Episcoporum suorum Quod si ab eis provocandum putaverint non provocent nisi ad Africana concilia vel ad Primates provinciarum suarum Ad transmarina autem qui putaverit appellandum a nullo intra African in communionem suscipiatur That is It seemeth good that Presbyters Deacons and the other inferior Clergy if in their causes they complain of the judgements of their Bishops neighbor Bishops shall hear them and being used by them with their Bishops consent shall end whatever is between them But if they think good to appeal from them they may not appeal but to the Africane Councils or to the Primates of their Provinces But if any think to appeal to those beyond Sea let none in Africk receive him into communion Then it was a matter of excommunication to appeal to Rome and consequently to acknowledge their universal Government and now it is become essential to a Church and to a Christian to believe it The General Council of Nice before this according to such Canons as are now extant C. 6. doth give the Patriarchs of Alexandria power over Egypt Libia Pentapolis quoniam quidem Episcopo Romano parilis mos est Because the Bishop of Rome hath the like custome so that the Bishop of Rome is equalized with them and his power restrained to his own Patriarchate or the Ecclesiae suburbicariae of the extent whereof read Salmasius his learned Treatise against Sirmondus de Ecclesiis subuarbicariis which was so plain to Cusanus a Cardinal of Rome that it made him say hereupon Videmus quantum Romanus Pontifex ultra sacras observationes ex usu consuetudine subjectionalis obedientiae hodie â—cquisivit That is We see
the Catholike Church câ—lâ— Trasubstantiation I confess also that under one 〈◊〉 onely whole and entire Christ and the true Saâ—â—ment is taken I do constantly hold that there is a Pâ—rgatory and that the souls there detained are hâ—lpâ—â— by the suffrages of the faithful As also that the Saiâ—â— raigning with Christ are to be reverenced and called upon and that they do offer prayers to God for mâ— and their reliques are to be reverenced or honoured I do most firmely assert that the Images of Christ and of the Mother of God-ever a Virgin as also of other Saiâ—â— are to be had and kept and that due honor and Vâ—â—ration is to be given them I affirm also that the power of Indulgences is left by Christ in the Church aâ— that the use of them is most wholesome to Christian people I acknowledge that the holy Catholike and Apâ—stolike Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistris â— all Churches And I do promise and swear true Obedience to the Pope of Rome successor of Blessed Peter Prince of the Apostles and the Vicar of Jesus Chrisâ— Also all other things delivered defined and declareâ— by the sacred Canons and Oecumenical Councils aâ— especially of the holy Synod of Trent I do withâ—â— doubting receive and profess and also all things câ—â—trary and all heresies whatsoever condemned by thâ— Church and rejected and Anathematized do I iâ— like manner condemne reject and Anathematize This â—rue Catholike faith without which no man can be saâ—ed which at the present I do voluntarily professe â—nd truely hold the same will I take care to hold and â—onfess entire and inviolate by Gods help most conâ—antly even to the last breath of my life and as much â—s in me lyeth to be held taught and preached by â—hose that are under me or those whose care belongs to â—e in my office This I.N. do Promise Vow and â—wear so help me God and these holy Gospels of God So far the Trent Confession which I the raâ—her recite that you may see what their Religion is â— their own words and oaths where you see also â—â—at this is but a small part of it for it is moreover â— large as all the Council of Trent and all other â—ecumenical Councils and holy Canons of the Imâ—ossibilities and self-contradictions of which faith we â—hall say more anon So that I conclude that it is not Christianity but â—is additional Leprosie which we call by the name of â—opery they believe this much more then we or a â—reat part more and by believing more they believe â—ss while they destroy the sound faith which they â—efore seemed to profess 2 For the next term to be explained Salvation â—e mean by it principally Everlasting Glory and â—ithall those beginnings of it inclusively which we â—ve in this life consisting in our Justification Aâ—option Sanctification Consolation and Perseâ—erance 3. By the term Way we mean such necessary â—eans as are prescribed us by God for the attainment â— Salvation either as to our Belief or our Affection and Practice according to the directions of the doctrine which we do believe 4. As to the sence of the word Safe it signifieth that which is free from danger or which tendeth to a mans welfare Now here is a double safety considerable in Doctrines answerable to a double danger First it s one thing to be safe from any sin in the way to Salvation and so we may well say that Popery is no safe way which leadeth to so much sin But that 's not all that is here intended But it s another matter to be so deep in sin as not to be safe from the Everlasting Punishment but that salvation it self is endangered thereby and this we principally intend And whereas there are several Degrees of Danger we mean that true Popery heartily entertained and practiced doth leave but small probability if any possibility of the Salvation of any that do persevere impenitently therein to the end Though you may see what I deny in what is already said yet for the greater perspicuity I shall express my sence in these few Propositions following Prop. 1. That Christian doctrine contained in the holy Scriptures which the Papists do profess to believe is of it self without their corruptions a safe way to salvation Prop. 2. Whatever errors are held by Papists or any others which do consist with a true practicâ— belief of the foresaid Christian doctrine which they confess and we are agreed in those errors shâ—â—â— not exclude the erroneous from Salvation Prop. 3. The Papists do not expresly in terms and sence deny any fundamental point of faith Prop. 4. It s possible even practically to hold an error which by remote consequence contradicteth a fundamental Truth and yet to hold that truth practically and so to be saved For either all moral â—errots in Theology as Amesius thought do contradict the Foundation by consequence by reason of the necessary concatenation of Truthes or most at least Prop. 5. There are some errors so great that if they were cordially and practically held would be inconsistent with the cordial practical holding of the Foundation which yet may be held but speculatively and notionally in consistency with the cordial and practical belief of the fundamentals and the person not knowing the contradiction may be saved Prop. 6. Multitudes of people while they take common termes in Divinity in a wrong sence do maintain Propositions which by plain consequence if not directly contradict the Fundamentals according to the proper genuine sence of the words when yet in the sence as they mistake and misuse them in there is no contradiction Even as many on the other side do hold the Christian verity in words who in sence deny it Prop. 7. We have great reason to think that many millions of the Laity among the Papists if not the far greatest part of them do not cordially embrace the most of the Popish corruptions in doctrinals nor the most dangerous of them 1. Because they do not understand them and so cannot so much as speculatively receive them It is not one of a hundred perhaps of many hundreds among them that knows all contained in the Council of Trent alone much less in all the rest of the Council and Canons and customes wherein they place their Religion Nay perhaps it s but few of their Clergy that know this comparatively So that it is but an implicite general belief that they can give to such Canons as are unknown which is not a belief of the particular doctrines contained in them as such 2. Because I hope among most or many of them they are first taught the Creed the Lords Prayer and ten Commandments or at least the Creed and Decalogue though the Lords Prayer be usually taught them in Latine which contain the Fundamentals of Christian faith and practice and therefore we have reason to hope that these are deeper in their minds then any contradictory doctrines especially when they must have so
that it is the Church of Rome in particular that is the true Church and hath this power given from God 4. To this end they must know that all those perverted Texts or some of them that speak of Peters own person were also spoke of certain successors of his as well as of himself as that on them the Church shall be built and their faith shall not â—ail c. 5. They must know that the Pope is this successor of Peter 6. To this end they must not onely know that Peter was at Rome of which read well Vlricus Velenus in Goldastus and was Bishop there but they must know that he was the only Bishop there or at least the chief and that Paul was no Bishop there who is more likely to have been or else that he was the inferior and that the Pope is Peters successor and not Pauls or else succeedeth them both and hath his infallibility but from one unless the successors of the rest of the Apostles are infallible too 7. If Peter and Paul were Bishops at once of one Church in Rome then it must be known why they may not have two successors at once and if there be two which of them is to be believed when they disagree But if Peter and Paul were Bishops of two particular Churches in Rome the one of the Circumcision the other of the uncircumsion then it must be known by what right their successors made them one or whether it were not by a failing or cessation of the Church of the Circumcision when all Jews were banished from Rome and so the Church of the uncircumcision only continuing the Pope be not only Pauls successor 8. And it must be known whether Peter were not Bishop of other Churches as well as of Rome yea of Antioch before Rome and so whether the Bishop of Antioch be not his successor as well as the Pope of Rome yea and the chief successor if it follow the right of primogeniture either as to the Church oâ— the Bishop seeing Antioch was a Church before Rome and Peter was supposed to be Bishop there before he was of Rome And then if the Bishop of Rome and Antioch differ as they do how shall we know whom to believe and how shall we know that the Bishop of Antioch is not infallible as well as the Pope of Rome 9. It must be known what it is that makes a Pope what is necessary to his being Peters successor Iâ— it enough that he step up into the chair and call himself Pope Or that his party call him so Then if any Heathen or Arrian conqueror though a Lay maâ— did so he should be Pope And he that conquers Rome may make himself Saint Peters infallible successor at any time But if there must be an ordination and Election then it must be known whether every Ecclesiastical Ordination or Consecration and Election will serve or not If it will then when there have been three Popes chosen and consecrated at once they were all Saint Peters infallible successors though one condemned the other If not then it must be known who it is that hath the power of election which being the act that determineth of thâ— person is the maine that must resolve our doubts and also of consecration or ordination And hoâ— shall the people know this when the Clergy have been so disagreed among themselves 10. And here it must be known whether the Cardinals have the sole power to elect If they have then how came they by it And then whether werâ— all those that were elected by the people in the first ages and by the Emperors in after ages true Popeâ— or not If they were not then Saint Peter hath no successors because of the interruption of the succession so long and the Church had then no visible head If they were then the sufficient power is not onely in the Cardinals And if it be not onely in them then whether are any of those true Popes that have been chosen onely by them of late ages 11. And so it must be known how a possibility of uninterrupted succession can be proved when Popes have been chosen three several wayes sometime by the people or else there had not been so many slain at the election of Damasus nor had the ancient Canons made this necessary to all Bishops and sometime by the Presbyters of that Church and sometime by the Emperors and now by titular Presbyters who are Bishops of other Churches and are uncapable of being true Presbyters of the Church of Rome If all these several wayes of Election may make true Popes then it seems any way may serve and then the three Popes at once will be all true If not then there hath been an interruption of the succession and so according to their own Principles there can be now no true Pope 12. And here it must needs be known too whether there be any thing in the person that is a qualification so materially necessary that he can be no true Pope without it If not then a Pagan or a Mahometan may be Pope If there be then it must be known what that is which few private men at least do know 13. Particularly it must be known whether they that are known Hereticks yea judged so by Councils or by their own successors and those that were notorious Whoremongers Sodomites Murderers Poisoning their Predecessors to get the Popedome Simonists buying the Popedom with money c. were capable of being true Popes 14. If they are not capable then we must all know that all the Popes were none such when the Papists themselves confess they were such before we can know that they were the infallible successors of Saint Peter 15. But if such may be Popes then must we know why a Mahometane may not as well be a Pope or how an enemy of Christ and the Church should come to be a Son of Promise and the Vicar of Christ and the head of the Church and whether such were infallible in their judging falshood to be truth as they did 16. And we must know that the Pope onely is lawless and under no power of Canons or Decrees of former Popes and Councils Or else many such Canons will proclaim their calling null and so the succession still hath been interrupted And if the Authority of the former Church oblige the Pope to believe e. g. the truth of Scripture and Traditions then why must not the Authority of the former Church in its Canons be as obligatory to him in point of duty and penalty and so null his calling 17. Bellarmine saith that it is agreed among all Catholiks that the Pope as a private Doctor may erre through ignorance even in universal questions of faith Also that many Papists and Pope Adrian the sixth himself taught that the Pope as Pope may be a Heretick and reach Heresie so it be without a General Council And that most of the rest do only hold that whether the Pope be
head and whether their head and so their Church were then visible or invisible when they could so hardly be known And note that Bellarmine doth disclaim the Com-popes with this John 23. and saith elsewhere that it was most likely that this was the true Pope They have brought their glorious head Church and infallibility to a fair pass Besides this the General Council at Basill did shortly after depose Pope Eugenius the forth declaring him to be A rebel against the holy Canons a notorious disturber and scandalizer of the peace and unity of the Church a Simonist and a perjured wretch incorrigible a schismatick and an obstinate heretick To this Bellarmine hath not a word to say but onely that the Council did him wrong and at Lansanna undid their acts And thus he is content to grant that 1. A General Council may erre which he maintaineth 2. And that a Pope may be a heretick and to be deposed in the judgement of a General Council And are the Papists forced to yield us thus much I would fain know then from Bellarmine or any Papists surviving him whether that General Councils do erre in faith and be Hereticks or not for that their judgement If they do so err then where is the visibility of their Church with the rest of its privileges which they so boast of when its Representative body a General Council are Hereticks as thinking the Pope to be fallible But if they erred not de fide or were no hereticks 1. Then its seems the Popes infallibility is no fundamental 2. Then it seems we are no hereticks neither for denying that which General Councils of Papists pretended by them to be General have denyed 3 Nay why should they be angry with men for erring such an error as they account it which their own general Councils may one after another erre Argu. 6. From the Papists own open known confession If the Papists themselves do confess both Pope and Council to be fallible they have little reason to blame us for affirming the samewhich they confess But the Papists themselves do confess both Pope and General Council to be fallible Therefore c. I do not mean that all the Papists confess it of both but one part of them confess it of one and the other of the other of them Bellarmine and his fellow Jesuites with the Italian party do confess that a General Council may erre in matters of Faith The French and Venetian Papists with all the Doctors of their party affirm that the Pope may erre and be a heretick and teach heresie so that by the confession of one half of them a Council may erre and by the confession of the other half the Pope may erre If any imagine that though both may erre dis-junctly yet not conjunctly I shall onely now say that the concession that each of them dis-junctly may err destroyeth the force of all those Arguments which are brought for their infallibility and therefore will prove it of them also conjunctly But we have yet further proof Argu. 7. If the very substance of Popery be nothing but a fardell of errors brought in by the Pope and his Council to corrupt the Christian Religion among them then certainly the Pope and his Council may erre But the Antecedent is true Therefore so is the consequent All the Question being of the Antecedent and it being proved before in the former disputation and fully by our writers against them I shall thither for brevity refer you What impudency is it to introduce such abundance of corruptions contrary to the express word of God and after all this to say they cannot erre when they have so plagued the Church with their errors They teach men to serve God in an unknown tongue and speak and hear they know not what to worship the Bread with divine Worship to receive onely the bread when Christ ordained that they should have the cup and so do abolish one half of the Sacrament they adore the Virgin Mary and other Saints they plead for justification by the merit of their own works as having a condignity of the reward they make the Church a new thing by making a new head and center of unity and a new and daily mutable Religion in a word they poison both Church policie Worship and Doctrine by their errors and when they have done they stand to it that they cannot erre Like a Leper that should maintain he cannot possibly be Leprous when he is covered with it already or like a swearing or drunken beast that should swear that he never did swear nor was drunk nor ever can be when he lyeth drunk in the dirt and breaths out his oaths What need any impartial diseerning man any other proof that the Pope and the Church of Rome is not infallible then actually to observe the swarm of their errors that have troubled the Church Argu. 8. If the Popes themselves are to be believed or if they are not to be believed they are not infallible But either they are to be believed or not Therefore If they be not to be believed what need there any more proof If they are what need there also any more proof when they themselves confess themselves fallible Not a Pope for above six hundred years after Christ did ever pretend to infallibility as can be proved Pope Adrian the sixth one of the most Learned and best that ever they had this many hundred years hath written his judgement that the Pope may erre And I think he is liker to know himself as to his infirmities than any of his flatterers are His words are these De Sacram. Confirm art 4. ad fin Dico quod si per Ecclesiam Romanam intelligatur caput ejus puta Pontifex certum est quod possit errare etiam in iis quae tangunt fidem haere sin per suam determinationem aut decretalem asserendo plures enim fueâ—unt Pontifices Romani haeretici That is I say that if by the Church of Rome be meant the Head of it to wit the Pope it is certain that he may erre even in those things that touch the faith by asserting heresie by his Determination or Decretal for there have many Popes of Rome been hereticks Thus you hear what a Pope sayes of himself Argu. 9. If the Pope be infallible then either it is his mind in believing or his tongue in speaking or his pen in writing that is infallible But it is neither his Mind nor Tongue nor Pen Therefore he is not infallible 1. That his mind is not infallible in point of belief is confest by the Papists themselves One part of them saying he may erre and the other maintaining that he may be a hereticke and that many have been so That his tongue and pen is not infallible when his understanding erreth is plain 1. In that otherwise he should be infallible in dissembling and God is feigned to promise a man to keep his tongue from error when he
of his contradictions Did it never come into the mind of Celsus Porphyry or any other unbeliever that we read of to doubt of and object against this fundamental infallibility O what an incredible thing is this Yea and yet the more incredible will it appear if you consider that all the whole cause between the Christians and the Infidels according to the Popish conceit must depend upon this one point of their infallibility For what man will be so mad as to contradict the Church if he once believe that the Church is infallible Can they think that all the learned Heathens were such fools It must needs be therefore that their first stop must be at the Major proposition even at this principle of the Churches infallibility and therefore certainly their most objections would have been against it and the most of the Christian Doctors labor would have been in the defending of it But that its certain they then believed no such thing and the Church was at that time utterly unacquainted with the foundation of the present Romish faith Moreover if this Popish foundation had been then known do you think that the Fathers would not have appealed to Rome for a decision of all their perplexing controversies What readier way to have silenced all gain-sayers and ended all strifes and to have saved the labor of so many volumes then to have bestowed their pains with all dissenters upon this one point alone That Rome is infallible and then have sent them thither for satisfaction in all the rest Common reason must needs have told men of such principles that this was the way But do we find that this way was taken How come we then to have so many volumes of the Fathers controversal writings and not one Book or Chapter or leaf or line to prove the Romane infallibility And because the order of our discourse hath brought us up to the judgement of the Fathers I shall here give you a brief taste of their judgement in this point and so conclude this argumentation In the contention about Easter day between the Eastern Western Churches Policrates with the Asian Bishops resisted the Popes judicial determination anno 198. And therefore doubtless they believed not his infallibility nor universal jurisdiction In the Council of Nice the first that subscribed was Eustathius Patriarch of Antioch before the Legates of the Bishop of Rome Theodor. li. 1. c. 7. So did Hosius Bishop of Corduba in Spain as Athanas Apolog. 2. In the Council of Africk the Popes Legates had the last place Conc. Afric Can. 100. In the Council of Calcedon there was 157. subscribed before Philip the Popes Legate In the fifth Council of Constantinople Menna their Bishop was President Evangri l. 4. c. 38. And if the Pope had not then so much as the Presidency how much less an universal jurisdiction with infallibility When Stephen the Bishop of Rome determined judicially against rebaptizing Hereticks and excommunicated Firmilianus for not assenting and wrote to Cyprian about it what did they do Did they either submit to the judgement of the Pope as infallible or obey him as their universal Ruler No but Cyprian Firmilian with the rest of the Bishops did unanimously joyn against the Popes decree I would fain know by what spectacles the Papists can read these words of Cyprians to find out their infallibility in them In his Epist 74. ad Pempeium he saith thus I have sent a Copy of our Brother Stephens letters which when you read you will see his error more and more who endeavoureth to maintain the cause of Hereticks against the Christians and against the Church of God For among things which he writeth either proudly or nothing to the purpose or contrary to himself and ignorantly and unadvisedly he addeth c. Here mentioning Pope Stephens pleading of Tradition he saith Whence is that tradition Is it from the Authority of the Lord and the Gospel Comes it from the commands and Epistles of the Apostle For that we must do those things that are written God testifieth and propoundeth to Joshua saying Let not this Book of the Law depart out of thy mouth c. If therefore it be contained in the Gospel Epistles or in the Acts then let this Divine and holy Tradition be observed What obstinacy is this And what presumption to prefer Humane Tradition before Divine appointment and not to consider that God is angry and offended as oft as humane Tradition doth lose or pass by the commands of God As Isaiah saith This people honoureth me with their lips but their hearts are far from me in vain do they worship me teaching the doctrines and commendements of men and as the Lord in the Gospel reproveth them Yee reject the commandments of God to establish your Tradition So Paul 1 Tim. 6.3 If any teach otherwise and rest not in the wholsome words of our Lord Jesus Christ and of his doctrine he is proud or lifted up with stupidity knowing nothing from such we must depart The custome which hath crept in with some ought not to hinder the truth from prevailing and overcoming For custome without Truth is but antiquity of error therefore leaving error let us follow truth It is through a study of presumption and contumacy that a man will rather defend his own wicked and false opinions than consent to anothers that are right and true Paul therefore saith that a Bishop must be no quarreller but mild and teachable for a Bishop must not onely teach but be taught And there is a speedy way for Religious and simple minds to lay down error and to find and disclose the Truth For if we return to the Head and Original of Gods tradition humane error ceaseth and whatsoever was in cloudy darkness it opened in the light of truth If the water Pipes be stopt do we not run to the fountain to see what 's the matter So now must the Priests of God that keep his commandement that if in any point Truth have changed or wavered we may return to the original even the Tradition by the Lord by the Gospel and by the Apostles and the Reason of our action may rise from thence from whence both order and beginning did arise So far Cyprian If the Papists can make their followers now believe that Cyprian believed the Popes infallibility or that the Church of Rome was the onely keeper of Tradition or that Traditions were not to be tryed by the Scriptures then you may see to what purpose it is that they must needs be the judges of Controversie and the sence of Scripture and why they call it a Nose of wax even that it may be at their service and so flexible as to yield to what sence they will put upon it when they will needs exercise the same Authority on the Fathers themselves who in their familiar Epistles speak as plain as they can Firmilianus a famous Bishop writeth a confutation of Pope Stephens Epistle
it and at last it s come to this that there is nothing remaineth established and inviolable with us nor with any before us And as for the likeness ' of God the Son to God the Father it is the Belief of our miserable time that he is not like in whole or but in part We are excellent judges or Arbitrators sure the seekers of the heavenly misteries who do calumniate in our professions of the faith of God we decree yearly and monethly Beliefs of God we repent of our decrees we defend them we Anathematize those that were defended we damne other mens matter in ours or they damne ours in theirs and biting one another we are consumed one of aouther A Belief is again sought for as if there were no beliefe A belief must be written as if it were not in our hearts Being already regenerated by faith we are now taught to believe As though the Regeneration were without Belief We learâ— Christ after Baptism as if Baptism could be anything without the faith oâ— Christ p. 309. Amonâ— these shipwracks of faith the heritage of our heavenly patrimony being noâ— almost profligate it is the safest way for us to retain that first and onely Evangelical Belief confessed in Baptism and understood and not to changâ— that good Belief which onely I have received and heard Not as if those things which are contained in the Council of our Fathers are to be damned as irreligiously and impiously written but because through mens rashness they are used to contradiction that for this the Gospel might safely be denyed under the name of novelty as if it were innovated that it might be mended That which is mended alwayes effecteth this that while every amendment doth displease every amendment may be condemned by a following amendment as if now whatever it be it were no amendment of an amendment but began to be a condemnation of it In this much O Emperor Constantius I admire thee as of a blessed and Religious will desiring a Belief onely according to what is written and indeed justly hastening to those very words of the onely begotten God that the brest capable of impartial solicitude may also be full of the knowledge of the words of God He that refuseth this is an Antichrist and he that counterfeiteth it is Anathema But this one thing I intreat of thee that the Council being present which now quarrels about the Belief thou wilt vouchsafe to hear me a few words of the Holy Scriptures and I may speak with thee of the words of my Lord Jesus Christ whose banished man or Priest I am O Emperor dost thou seek a Belief Hear it not out of newpapers but out of the Books of God Remember that it is not a question of Philosophy but in the doctrine of the Gospel I desire not audience so much for my self as for thee and the Churches of God For I have my Belief with my self and need none from without That which I have received I hold and I change not that which is of God But yet remember that there is no hereticke but doth falsly pretend that he speaks that in which he blasphemeth according to the Scripture Here he names Marcellus Photinus Sabellius Montaneus Manichaeus Marcion They all speak Scripture without its meaning they pretend faith without faith For the Scriptures lie not in reading but in understanding nor in prevarication but in charity Hear I pray thee what is written of Christ lest under them those things that are not written be preached Submit thy ears to those things which from these Books I shall speak lift up thy faith to God Hear that which profiteth to Belief to Unity to Eternity I will speak to thee with the honor of thy Kingdom and thy faith all things profitable to the peace of East and West under the publike knowledge under a disagreeing Council under a famous contention I will defend nothing to scandal nor that is without or besides the Gospel Here he reciteth a short creed in Scripture words especially about Christ I confess I fear I am too tedious in these long citations but I do it that the Papists may not say that we take particular words or shreds of sentences without the full sence Here I desire that it may be noted 1. That Councils may erre and differ 2. That they are so far from being the authorized judges of our belief that in Hilaryes judgement their determinations have occasioned the ruine and dangerous divisions of the Church 3. And that this is not onely true of the Arrian Councils but of the Council of Nice it self though its Belief were sound even by the novelty of terms and example for further innovating 4. That Hilary never calls the Emperor to consult with the Pope or Church of Rome as the authorized infallible judge even when he professeth to tell him all that was necessary to the peace of the whole Church East and West If it be said that this is because Hereticks believed not Romes authority or infallibility I answer It had then most neerly concerned Hilary to teach it them when he taught them all that was necessary to peace especially if that be the foundation into which the rest of our faith must be resolved 5. Lastly note that it is only the word of God and the ancient Baptismal Creed which Hilary here calls them to for Peace and healing of all the worlds division O sad case that this advice was never taken to this day O happy Church when ever it shall be taken and never till then And here because I am afraid of wearying the Reader and making these testimonies unproportionable to the brevity of the disputation I shall forbear adding those that I thought to have added yet assuring any Papist that readeth it that it is not for want of more sufficient Testimonies of the Fathers on our side For I had ready to transcribe in those few books which stand at my elbow sufficient Testimonies shorter or longer in all these following Authors in their own writings viz. Clemens Romanus Ignatius Justin Martyr Irenaeus the supposed Dionisius Areop Tertullian Origen Clemens Alexandr Athenagoras Fatianus Arnobius Athanasius Lactantius Macarius Cyril Alexand. Cyril Hierosol Synesius Epiphanius Eusebius Caesariensis Chrysostome Gregorius Thaumat Neocaesar Greg. Nyssen Basilius Seleuciae Ambrose Theodoret Damascene Isidore Hispal Gaudentius Brixianus Vincentius Lirinensis Salvianus Massil Caesarius Arelatens Alcuinus vel Albinus Beda Vigilius Joannes Maxenâ—ius Alcimus Avitus Prosper Fulgentius Oecumenius Theophylact. Bernard with many others besides all before named of whom some speak fully to the point and all the rest call us to the word of God in Scriptures for the resolution or ground of our faith and not to the authority or infallibility of the Pope of Rome I shall onely stay so long as to adde two or three of the eldest though briefest and two or three Canons of some Councils because there will seem more weight in
your Faith and your Theological Opinions and can scarce reasonably expect that any of you should say more to satisfie me then these contain For any of you to recite the Canons or Decretals of your Church or Popes in a writing to me is in vain For I have them at hand already or can have them at a trice And if you say any thing to me by way of Answer which is not in those Canons or Decretals or solemnly pronounced already by your Church to be de fide you can give me little assurance of its verity but your own writing must incur all those reproaches which Knot bestows on the Doctrine of Chillingworth and we hear from you so frequently for â—he defect of Infallibility But yet let what will come of it I shall leave some slender Teâ—timony to posterity that I dissented not from â—o many confident men without giving them â—ome of the Reasons of my dissent I was born and bred here among the Proâ—essors of the Reformed Catholik Christian Religion When I was young I judged of â—our Profession as I was taught and the preâ—udice which I received against it did grow up â—ith me as yours doth against us Yet receiving much good to my soul by Parsons Book of Resolution corrected when I was but sixteen years of Age it run much in my mind that sure there were some among you that had the Fear of God When I was capable of it by Age and Studies I made some diligent search into your Writers that I might know the true state of the controversies betwixt us But still I confess I read them with prejudice and partiality till at last I attained as far as I can understand by my own heart such a love to the truth and an impartiality in my Studies and judgement of these things that I read your Writers with as free a mind I mean as willing to find what truth was there to be found as I do the Writings of Protestants themselves When I had discovered undoubtedly that in some doctrinal points the differences were made by most on both sides much greater then they were and much greater then the most Learned on both sides thaâ— had any moderation did conceive them to be I was the more confirmed in my resolutions to be impartial in my Studies and so have proceeded if I be a competent judge of my own mind to this day And after all I am left in the dissatisfaction which I here manifest And by what sheps my averseness to your waâ— hath been brought on since I began to search in to it impartially I shall here further declare First I have been most offended with those doctrines and practices that did most notoriously run against the stream of the Holy Scripture for here the case was so plain that without any singular acuteness it might be discerned as in your Latin Service of God with those that understand it not your administring the Bread in the Lords Supper without the cup that Image-worship which your Writers do maintain forbidding Priests marriages with many such like And yet suspecting my own understanding I read what your Writers say also for these But when I saw how palpably they forced the text it increased my dislike And then knowing that you contradicted the Scriptures in these and finding withal that you build your faith upon your Churches Infallibility I was exceedingly turned against your profession when I saw your foundation so clearly overthrown But yet this was not all There was scarce any thing that more offended me then the tendency of your Doctrines to destroy the Knowledge of the people and lead them on in ignorance and please and deceive them by a company of ceremonies instead of a Reasonable service of God and the manner of your worship I could never digest Other things did grate very hard upon those truths which I was confirmed in but these went against the very bent of my heart and crossed the very ends of my Religion and my Life Your keeping the Scriptures from the Laity as far as you do and maintaining it so commonly to be the Original of Heresies to translate them into a known tongue and making it so deadly a crime to have a Bible which they can read with your Latin Service aforesaid and the formalities and scenical worship in which you train up the ignorant vulgar with many other things in your doctrine and practice are such as leave me but little room for deliberation whither I should own them or not because they are so plainely against the very end of the Christian Religion Had these things come under my consideration in a carnal state when the flesh was my end and not God I know not how I should have entertained them But your own Doctors consent that God must be my end and chiefly Loved desired and sought And will you teach a man this and whoodwinke him when you have done Will you bid him love God and keep him from the Knowledge of him Will you bid him desire and seek him and when you have done lock him up in the dark Or will you bid him serve and obey him and yet forbid him to search after the knowledge of his laws and will If you would bring me to be of these opinions your reasonings would be to as much purpose as if you should perswade me to put out my eyes and put them in your pockets for fear of missing my way in my race when my life is at the stake Or as if you should perswade me to be ignorant of Plowing and Sowing and Merchandize and yet to seek after provision and riches in the world I am as easily reconciled as another to those that step out of the path that I am in if they go towards the same end But if you would teach me to turn my back upon Heaven as the onely way to attain it this will not easily down with me I know that God is light and with him is no darkness and that Christ is the light of the world and his spirit is the illuminater of the Saints and the word is a light to our feet and giveth wisdome to the simple And yet would you have us refuse this Light and choose the Darkness I know that Satan is the prince of darkness a state of death is a state of darkness tending to outer darkness and that it is the saving way of God to translate men out of darkeness into his marvellous light And yet would you perswade me that this is the way of Life What a difference is there between this doctrine of yours and the very scope of Scriptures and antient Writers and the sense of a gracious soul Solomon would have men to Hide the commandment with them and incline their ear to wisdom and apply their hearts to understanding and cry after knowledge and lift up their voiec for understanding and seek for it as silver and search after it as for hid treasure Prov. 2.2
therefore â—â—ey shall have life supposing it to be a true faith â—â—at worketh by love The Jews that heard Petersâ—â—rmon â—â—rmon Act. 2. were converted and added to the â—hurch even threâ— thousand souls and put into a state of Justification by Believing that Sermon 〈◊〉 37 38 41 46 47. But the Protestants believe â— that Peter preached in that Sermon thereâ—â— they also are of the Church and justified And least the Accusing Devil or Papists shâ—â— trouble the peace of any of his people Christ 〈◊〉 protested it with his own mouth Joh. 5.24 Veâ—â—ly Verily I say unto you He that heareth my word 〈◊〉 believed on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed frâ—â— death to life Me thinks this should make any â—â—liever tremble at the thoughts of condemning thoâ— that Christ hath protested shall not be condeâ—ned Christ hath promised that all those that receive â— words and in whom his words abide shall be beloved of the Father and have everlasting life and â— heard in what they aske Joh. 14.23 15.7 Doubâ—less that which Christ himself preached was the tâ— Gospel and so far sufficient that whoever believeâ— it shall be saved Otherwise Christ could not â—aâ— converted any soul so far as to have brought theâ— into a state of Salvation by his Doctrine and theâ— Peter and the rest of the Apostles were not trâ—â— Christians by the belief of the Doctrine of Christ 〈◊〉 if the Doctrine which Christ preached be sufficieâ—â— to make true Christians and Church-members oâ— those that receive it then the Protestants are such For they believe every word that the Evangelists record of the Doctrine of Christ And if the Papiâ—â— say that there is more of his Doctrine necessary tâ— salvation which the Evangelists did not record iâ— Scripture 1. We call for their proof of it and 2. Wâ—â—â—â—ow that the Evangelists did purposely write thâ— â—â—ur Gospels or Histories of Christ of purpose to acâ—uaint the world with his Nature Birth Life doctrine â—eath and Resurrection c. Luke professeth that he â—rote his Gospel upon perfect understanding of all â—â—ings from the very first which conteyneth a Declaâ—â—tion of those things which are most surely believed â—mong us even as they were delivered by them that â—â—om the beginning were eye Witnesses and Ministers â—f the Word Luk. 1.1 2 3 4. And he tells us Act. â— 1 2. that he wrote his Gospel of all things that â—esus began both to do and teach untill the day in â—hich he was taken up It would therefore have â—een an exceeding blemish to the Evangelists that â—rote of set purpose both the History of Christs â—ife and Doctrine if they had left out any part of it â—hat was of necessity to salvation Protestants thereâ—ore that believe all the Gospel do believe so much â—s may bring them safely to salvation If Christ himâ—elf be not a sufficient Teacher nor the Gospel it self a â—ufficient Doctrine of Life Then whither shall we go to seek it Then Peter himself was not the Rock â—or a true Christian by Christs Teaching And then â—he Pope could not derive that from Peter which he â—ad not But Peter himself thought and taught oâ—herwise He saith Lord whether shall we go we know that thou hast the words of Eternal Life For my part I will take Peters counsel and go to Christ for the words of Eternal Life which are purposely recorded by four Evangelists in the Gospel Let who will go to the Pope for another Gospel to supply the supposed defects of this for I will not In Act. 22. 26. and other places Paul preacheth so much of the Gospel as might have made true Believers and all that the Protestants receive The Church of Rome when Paul wrote his Epistle to them were a true Church Rom. 1.7 and all the Doctrine that Paul writeth to them we do believe Paul telleth the Elders of Ephesus Act. 20.27 that he had not shunned to declare to them the whole councel of God and this is summed up in Repentance toward God and Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ vers 21. And whatsoever Paul hath written to these Ephesians or any other Churches or persons we believe But what should we talk any more with such an arrogant unreasonable sort of men that dare maintaine that the belief of all the Holy Scripture is not large enough to salvation Atheists and Infidels say of the Scripture that it is too big to be all true And Papists say that it is not big enough to bring a man to heaven that believeth and obeyeth it Shall the Holy Ghost endite a Volume as big as the Bible and when he hath done shall any pretending to be Christians perswade the world that he that believeth all this shall be damned if he believe not the closet Traditions which the Romane Bishop pretendeth to be the keeper of Nay see the strange contradictions of this giddy fiction They lock up this Scripture it self from the common people in an unknown tongue They damne the translating of it as the root of all Heresies and burn men to ashes for using the Bible when they cannot keep it unknown any longer they translate it themselves as far as they can to their own advantage and put it forth with their perverting Annotations and yet when they have all done they condemne any that read it without a special licence from their Ordinary which in England and France they sometime grant to avoid suspicions but in Spaine Italy c. too few if any at all And when they have written voluminously to prove that the Scriptures are not necessary to the people for salvation and that Ignorance is the mother of devotion they come back again and dispute against the Protestants that the whole Scripture is not sufficient to salvation and he that believes but the Scriptures is not in a safe way to salvation It seems then that the Popes Canons are more necessary then the Scripture For a man may be saved without the knowledge of Scripture but not without the knowledge of the Canons of the Pope Yes that he may too if some of them mistake not if they will but implicitely believe that the Church of Rome is the Catholike Church and that the Pope is the infallible soveraign of the Christian world and believe some Articles of the Creed upon his credit he may be saved without either Scripture or Canons so he be but ready to believe and obey whatever shall be offered to him by the Pope for the time to come Moreover Christ and his Apostles do frequently promise Remission and salvation to all that truely Repent that love God in Christ that mortifie the flesh c. but all this do the Protestants and their Religion teacheth them to do it Paul concludeth that There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus that walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Rom. 8.11 But the Protestants are in
center to no head but the King of Spaine without his express Commission manifested and the Provinces of Mexico and the adjacent parts onely shall be otherwise minded and subject themselves to the usurper who is it that causeth the Schisme in the King of Spains dominions And which partie is it that holdeth to the ancient terms of unity and which are the dividers I need not stand to make a particular application It is even so between us and the Pope with his Romanists The Church of old was centred onely in Christ and headed onely by him At last the Pope pretending Christs distance and invisibility and a Commission that he hath from Christ to be his Vicar General written in letters that none can read but himself and his party will needs become the visible head and center and whereas before those onely were the rebels that rejected Christ now all must be rebels that are not subject to the Popes And to aggravate the crime by the addition of hipocrisie all this Schisme and separation must be carryed on by a pretence of unity They make the poor simple people believe that the Pope being the Head and center there is no unity to be held but in him and that we must all be guilty of Schisme that unite not in him and that all our divisions are caused by our departing from this center of unity when it is himself that hath divided from the rest of the Christian world and would drown the infamy of it by accusing others of the same sin that he is so notoriously guilty of By which we may well see that accusing others is none of the surest signs of innocency but too common a trick to divert the suspition from themselves When the Papists that are the greatest Schismaticks on earth do make such an outcry against us as Schismaticks because we have repented of our joyning with them in their Schisme and will not confederate with them in evil against the Laws of Christ and the necessary means of the unity of his Church Arg. 7. If the faith of Papists as Papists which is it that we call Popery be a meerly uncertain changeable thing so that a man can never tell when he hath it all then is it no safe way to Salvation But the faith of Papistâ— as such is such a meerly uncertain changeable thing Therefore it is no safe way to Salvation The consequence of the Major I suppose they will grant For how can that be a safe way 1. which is uncertain 2. and changeable when the true way to salvation is one and the same and changeth not since Christ had established and sealed his Laws All the question therefore is of the Minor which I prove 1. From the Popish principles 2. From their Practices both which do plainly shew that their new Religion is a meer Weather-cock that must fit with the winde of the mutable conceits of the Pope and his Clergy Even like the Religion of the Enthusiasts that wait still for new Revelations to be superadded to the Scripture And first for their principles one is that The Scripture is not the whole word of God or sufficient rule of faith or manners but onely a part of the Word and Rule and that unwritten Traditions are the other part Yea Rushworths Dialogues Bellarmine and the rest of them ordinarily tell us that Scripture was not chiefly given to be a Rule of faith at all saith Bellarm. de verbo dei li. 4. cap. 12. Finis Scripturae pracipuus non est ut sit Regula fidei sed ut variis documentis exemplis adhortationibus nunc terrendo nunc instruendo nunc minando nunc consolando adjuvet nos in hae peregrinatione that is The chief end of Scripture is not to be a Rule of faith but that by divers documents examples adhortations sometime by affrighting sometime by instructing sometime by threatning sometime by comforting it may help us in this our peregrination It is then unwritten Traditions that are part of Gods Word and at least part of the Rule of faith And where these Traditions are to be found and what they are and how many and by what notes they may all be known either they dare not tell us for fear of bringing mens faith to a certainty from under the lock and key of the Pope or else in telling us they do but cloud the business with general terms or else disagree among themselves That the Scripture it self is delivered to us infallibly we doubt not and thereby we know the Canonical books But this may be done without another word of God The act of Delivery from the Apostles is not a new Revelation or Word of God but the natural means of conveying the word to those for whom it was intended And the object of that Act of Delivery was not another Word of God but all and onely these same Canonical Books so that I know which is the Canon among other reasons because I can prove not by another Word of God but by infallible humane Testimony such as I have of the Laws of this Land that the Bible and these particular books in it were actually delivered by the holy Writers to the Churches If God write the two Tables of stone and therein make known that they are his Laws and then Deliver these to Moses this Delivering is not a new Word of God but a necessary act for the promulgation of the Word So that if you aske an Israelite how he knows whether onely the ten Commandments and all those ten were contained in the Tables He can prove it to you by the Tables Delivered and by proving the Act of Delivery though he could bring no other word of God which told you what was in those Tables And indeed if these must needs be another Word of God besides the Delivering Acts to prove the former to be the Word of God and tell us its parts then there must also be another word to discover that second Word to be the Word of God and another to discover that and so in infinitum Our acknowledged necessary Tradition therefoâ—â— is not another materia tradita or Word of God but onely one of the actus tradendi and act of delivering the same matter or word But for the Papists that will have another part of the Rule of Divine faith they will never be able to tell us what it is and where and to let us understand when we have all Bellarmine de verbo dei non Scripto li. 4. cap. 9. layes down five Rules by which we may know the true Traditions The first is When the whole Church embraceth any thing as a point of faith which is not found in the Scriptures of God we must needs say that this was had from the tradition of the Apostles The second is When the universal Church keepeth somewhat which none could constitute but God and which is not found written we must needs say that this was delivered from Christ and
and that his determination or Declaration that this or that is a point of faith doth make it to us a point of faith and necessary to be believed to salvation which before was not so So that according to the Papists the Churches faith must alter at the Popes pleasure at least with his Clergy And by new declarations and determinations he may make them a new Article of their Creed when he will so that their faith is as mutable and fallible as their Pope and this they are themselves aware of and therefore feign him to be infallible that they may prove their faith infallible which if they could do as they never can yet still their faith is mutable by their own confession if not by revocations yet by new additions as to us so that their Religion is in continual progress or flux and groweth in quantity as every Pope doth adde his Determinations Now I would know of any Papist in the world or of the Pope himself if he would condescend to such considerations whether they are sure that yet they have all that is made necessary to be believed to salvation upon supposal of their determination How can they tell but that their successors may make the Creed as long again as it is and make their Religion another thing I know they will say that as to them no more is de fide then the Pope determineth to be so But then 1. If he would not determine it no man should be bound to believe in Christ and so none be damned for unbelief 2 If it be a benefit to have all points of faith determined Why are they not done but one Pope must adde one and another adde another to the end of the world if Christ should let them go on 3. Sure the preaching of any one Apostle or other Preacher of the Gospel in the first age did leave the unbelievers without excuse and not onely the Cathedral Determination of Saint Peter And why then doth not any Preachers Revelation of Gods will from his Word oblige men now to believe as well as it did then And 3. It is evident and undenyable that their practice is according to their principles The Popish Religion changeth so fast by the new additions of several Popes that it is not the same thing now as it was heretofore Look but into the Oath or Trent Confession which I recited in the beginning and you may presently see how their Religion is swelled bigger then it was All the Popes Decretals or at least all the Canons of Trent and every General Council at least confirmed by the Pope do enlarge their faith as they adde any thing to what went before What a multitude of things are de fide now that were not so within a thousand years What man can give up himself to such a growing Religion where we must waite on the Pope as the Enthusiasts do on God for new Additional Revelations And cannot know when we have all or halfe How can they tell but their Creed may fill more volumes yet before that all their Popes have done with it Nay further note that the Pope can make not onely new wayes to Heaven but several wayes to Heaven at once He could once dispence with the Bohemians for receiving in both kinds and yet make it necessary to the salvation of others to take it but in one because he so decreed it to be given So that there shall be one Creed in one part of the world and another in the rest It is a damnable Heresie in parts that are absolutely under his power for the vuglar to read the Scripture in their own Tongue But in England he can make it Lawfull lest it hinder his designes though his Doctors have long determined that it is the Mother of all Heresies So that Popery is not the same thing in one Country as it is in another nor the same thing at Rome it self in one age as it is at another To give you a fresh example How long have the Dominicans and Jesuites the Jansenists and the Molinists been in contention about Predestination Freewâ—ll Predetermination Universal Redemption c. and one party condemned the other professing their opinions to be heretical and destructive to the Catholike faith as is to be seen in the writings between Petavius Ricardus and Vincentius Lenis alias Fremondus with many more before them But when they speak to us about these matters they perswade us that it is onely about certain Shool points that they differ and not about any points of faith For they are not points of faith to us till the Pope have determined them And while the eager contenders on either side endeavor to have the Pope determine the controversie on their side no Pope durst do it for fear of losing the reputation of his infallibility with the adverse party and so the unmerciful Popes have long suffered their Doctors to live in contention and to write voluminously against one another and their Romane Church to be broken into parties because they would not once open their mouths to decide the difference But now at last it pleased Pope Innocent the tenth though he durst not touch the principal points to favor his Jesuites so far as to determine five of the controverted points for the Molinists against the Jansenians when Pope Clement was once about determining all for the Dominicans as they thought Mark here the agreement of the Papists and the stability of their faith Before the determination each party maintained their way as de fide and accused the other as Heretical some boldly prognosticated as our Thomas Anglus alias White that the Pope would never determine the controversie about Predetermination And now the Pope hath tryed the stomacks of his Dominicans with the Determination of these five Articles First to see how they will digest them before he went further And he pronounceth them to be Heretical and some of them temerarious impious and blasphemous too condemning them with Anathema Now those become points of faith on one side and Heresies on the other which were none before Till this Determination the Church of Rome wanted five Articles of their Creed or had five fewer then now they have A man might have been saved before that had believed that Liberty from necessity is not necessary to Merit with the rest of them but now all of that belief must be damned And was not the Pope unmerciful to the poor Dominicans to send them all to Hell that cannot change their belief knowing how hard it is for a learned Tribe especially so countenanced by Augustine and Thomas to alter their mindes unfeignedly at a word And yet in the Trent Confession they must all solemnly swear and vow that all things delivered defined and declared by the sacred Canons and Oecumenical Councils especially that of Trent they do without doubting receive and profess though no man had ever heard the Popes Reasons yet if he do but see
and so to eat of this Bread and Drink of this Cup Alas they know all this they cannot but know it and yet they will contradict the express word of God God saith Drink ye all of it and Let a man examine himself and so drink The Pope saith Let none of the people drink of it but the Clergy only What is this but to abrogate Gods Laws and set up the Popes above and against it Yea unless it were to shew the world their Power to contradict Christ and destroy his word who can imagine what should move them to this attempt If there were any temptation of profit or honor in the business as there is in the maintaing of the Popes supremacy Purgatory Indulgences Pardons c. we should not wonder at it But what profit or honor or pleasure is it thus to contradict Christ and for them that adde such a multitude of their own Ceremonies to affect so to cut off one half of the Sacramental Rite and matter which Christ ordained Nay thirdly Do not these men know that the Bread and Cup were both given to the people by the Primitive Church and that it so continued for many hundred years and that their alteration is a meer novelty Yes they know all this For the matter is so far past doubt that they cannot but know it And yet these deceivers would make the people believe that they are of the old Religion and our Region is new These are they that cry out against our casting off Apostolical Traditions and the Churches constitutions and customs and going in new wayes which our forefathers knew not These are they that make it a mark of an Apostolical Tradition that the whole Church hath received it and that as from the Apostles And yet these men dare cast off not onely that which they know the whole primitive Church received and practised as from the Apostles as Justin Martyr Tertullian and all antiquity profess but also is expresly contained in the Scripture With what face can these that exclaim against novelty introduce such a palpable novelty into the Church with what face can they that so cry up antiquity gainsay all antiqiuty and they that cry up the whole Churches consent so go against the consent of the whole Church for so many Ages after the Apostles They dare not deny but this part of Popery is utterly New against the constant practice and Canons of all Churches The third point which I shall instance in is Their performing Gods publike service in Latine and forbidding the people to read the Scriptures in their known vulgar Tongue when as the Apostle Paul hath written the greatest part of a whole Chapter 1 Cor. 14. expresly against this opinion and practice and for using of a known tongue that others may understand and be edified The evasions by which they would elude that part of Scripture are so senceless that I think it not necessary to recite them but rather suppose that they need no other confutation than the bare considerate reading of the Text and therefore I shall venture the Reader if he have common capacity and impartiality and be but willing to know the truth upon any thing that the Papists shall be able to say for their Latine Service and locking up the Scriptures so be it he will but read that Chapter considerately And are not these good Teachers in Christs School that will lock up the Grammar from their Schollars when it is the very office of the Presbyters to teach it the people And to hide from them that word of the living God which he hath given the world to be their Directory to salvation The Prophets and Christ and the Apostles did speak and write this word in a knowâ— tongue to the people to whom they did immediately direct it And must All hear and read it then and onely the Learned now Are not these the men that take away the Key of knowledge and will neither enter in themselves nor suffer others to enter They do expresly contradict the Commands of God and bid the people not read the Scripture when God hath charged them to write it on the very posts of their houses and on their doors and that it be as a frontlet between their eyes and that they teach it their children speaking of it lying down and rising up at home and abroad Deut. 6 11. God makes it the mark of the Blessed man Psal 1.2 3. To meditate day and night in his Law as making it his delight and the Papists commonly maintain in their writings that to have the Scripture in the vulgar tongue is the root of all heresies God maketh the study of his word the duty and mark of all his Disciples and the Papists make it the mark of a Heretick and have burned many a one for it here in Queen Maries dayes and tormented and burnt many by their bloody inquisition for it abroad The very Pharisees thought that their vulgar were cursed that knew not the Law and the Papists will not let it be made known to them lest it make them accursed God saith To the Law and to the Testimony if they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them Isa 8.20 The Papists cry out precul hinc away let it alone meddle not with it it will make you Hereticks And indeed they have had large experience that the way which they call heresie and contradicteth their impieties is most effectually promoted by the word of God and therefore they think they have some reason to speak against it Saint John saith These things are written that ye might believe and that believing yee might have life throagh his name Joh. 20.31 The Papists say Read not these holy writings lest they destroy your faith and bring you to damnation When the man Luk. 10.26 asketh Christ What shall I do to inherit eternal life Christ answereth him thus What is written in the Law how readest thou directing to the course which the Papists do forbid The Apostle saith that Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our Learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope Rom. 15.4 But the Papists will not have men learn that which was written for their Learning Comfort and Hope Johâ— wrote to fathers young men and children 1 John 2.12 13 14. Gods anger against the Jews was that He had written to them the great or wonderful things of his Law and they had accounted them as strange things Hos 8.12 And the Papists will force people to be strange to these writings Yet how familiar comparatively they were to the vulgar Jews and their very children â—s known and acknowledged Is it not a high advancement of the Gospel Church above the legal Jewish Church which the Papists do vouchsafe it That we may not have the same liberty or means of knowledge as the very children of the Jews had Their children must be taught
Nation the Kingly Priesthood was so far amiss that it was distracted into six hundred opinions and errors And spoiled and wasted by the Devil If the Popes Monarchical Government was then a foot then it seemâ— that Government will no more prevent sects and errors then the worst If it were not then 1. They are now usurpers 1. And they cannot prove ouâ— way of Government to be wrong by the multitude of errors that are in the Church Basil was far from resolving his faith into the Popes infallibility when he wrot his Ascetica or at least Eustathius Sebastienus if they be his when pag. 195. Tom. 2. translat Musculi Basil he saith It is a manifest lapse of faith and apparent vice of pride either to refuse any thing which the Scripture containeth or to bring in any thing which is not written seeing Christ saith My sheep hear my voice and premiseth But another they will not follow but flye from him because they know not a strangers voice And pag. 193. he saith that sometimes he had used unwritten sayings against hereticks But never aliene from the Scripture sence c. and that now he was resolved To make use of what he had learned from Scripture and but sparingly to use the very names and words which are not literally conform to the divine Scripture though they do retain the Scripture sence The same Basil Epist 80. To. 2. p. mihi 74. renouncing the argument from custome saith Let us stand therefore to the arbitration of the Scriptures inspired from God and with whomsoever is found the opinions which are agreeable to the Divine oracles to him let the sence or sentence of truth be wholly adjudged This is Basils judgement of the judge of controversies Hilarius Pictav in his Epistle de Synodis adversus Arrianos pag. mihi 318 319. and fully sheweth his thoughts that Councilâ— have erred and that even those of the Orthodox are to be tryed by the Apostolical doctrine And lib. 2. de Trinitate pag. 16. col 2. he saith Commendat autem fidei hujus integritatem c. The integrity of this faith is commended by the Authority of the Gospel and Apostolical doctrine For this foundation standeth strong and unmoved c. And he maketh it a remedy against all Heresies And in his Commentary on Mat. Canon 8. pag. 498. he saith Igitur secundum haec Ecclesiae intra quas verbum Dei non vigilaverit naufragae sunt c. i. e. The Churches in which the word of God doth not watch are shipwrackt And most fully lib. 4. de Trinitate pag. 31. col 2. Nemini autem dubium esse oportet c. that is No man ought to doubt but that we must use Gods doctrine for the knowing of divine things For humane weakness cannot of it self attain the knowledge of heavenly things It is God himself that we must believe concerning himself and those things which he offereth to our knowledge of himself must we obey For either we must deny him as the Gentiles do if we disallow his testimonies or if he be believed to be God as he is nothing of God can be understood but as he hath witnessed of himself Let mens own opinions therefore cease or be laid by and let not mens judgements extend themselves beyond Gods constitutions For the understanding of sayings must be fetcht from the causes of the speech because the thing is not subject to the words but the words to the matter And li. 4. de Trinitate pag. 29. col 1. when he sheweth that the hereticks use to plead Scripture misunderstood he doth not send them to Rome for a judgement of the sence but still concludeth Respondendum esse existimo haereticorum perversitati omnes corum stultas ac mortiferas institutiones Evangelicis atque Apostolicis Testimoniis coarguendas That is I judge that we must answer hereticks perverseness and all their foolish and deadly institutions by the testimonies of the Gospel and of the Apostles And the same Hilary doth largly perswade to a close adhering to the Gospel and the sum of Faith called the Apostles Creed without adding or altering under any pretence of amending and sheweth the divisions and depravations that have followed since the Council of Nice would make one emendation and on their example other Councils had made and mended done and undone so oft that they had marr'd all by it and he perswadeth the Emperor to hearken to the ancient Gospel faith and not to Synods His words are in Epist vel Lib. ad Constant August pag. Edit Paris 307.308 where having shewed how he had erred in looking after Councils he saith Recognosce fidem quam c. that is Reacknowledge that Belief which thou desirest to hear from the Bishops but hearest not For they of whom it is required do write their own things and do not preach the things of God they have drawn about an endless and perpetual circle For the modesty of humane infirmity should have contained all mysteries of divine knowledge in those bounds of conscience onely which he believed in and not after a Belief confessed and sworn in Baptism in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost to doubt or innovate any thing else Under the improbable occasion of this necessity the custome is come up of writing and renewing the Belief Which after that it began rather to frame new things then to retain what was received it neither defended the old nor confirmed the new and Belief is now become rather a belief of the times than of the Gospels while it is written according to the years and not held according to the Confession of Baptism It is a most perillous and miserable thing that we have as many Beliefs as Wills and as many Doctrines as manners and that as many causes of blasphemy spring up as there are vices And when according to one God and one Lord and one Baptism there is one Belief we are faln from that Belief which is but one and while many are made they therefore begin to be that there may be none For we are on both sides conscious that since the meeting of the Council of Nice we have wrote nothing but Beliefes While there is quarrel about the words and questions about the newness and occasion about the ambiguityes and complaints about the Authors and strife about the parties and difficulty in consents and while every one begins to be an Anathema to another almost no one now is Christs For we are carryed about by an uncertain wind of Doctrine and either while we teach we trouble or while we are taught we erre And what is the change that is in the last years belief The first decreeth that the word homousion shall be silenced The next decreeth and preacheth the homousion The third doth by indulgence excuse the word usia which was simply before used by our fathers The fourth and last doth not excuse it but condemn
how much the Pope of Rome hath at this day gotten beyond the sacred observations by use and custome of subjectional obedience And Barth Caranza having mentioned this Canon in his summ Council p. 48. had no other evasion but this that among all the Greek and Latin Copies which he searched Cardinal Marcellus a Legate at the Trent Council shewed him one Latine Copy that had Metropolitane instead of Romane But is this much to the purpose Or if it were is one Latin Copy in a Cardinals hand more credible then all the rest in the world that have câ—â—e to light In the 6. Council of Carthage Auâ—elius heard it and Augustine was there and there they again determined that the Bishop of Rome should not receive the Priests or excommunicate persons that appeased to him And they give this as the Reason Quia hoc nulla patrum c. That is Because this was never derogated from the Asricke Church by any definition of our Fathers and the Nicene Decree do commit both the inferior Clergy and and the Bishops themselves to their Metropolitans For they most prudently and justly provided that all businesses should be finished in the places where they were begun and the grace of the holy Ghost will not be wanting to each province Let this equity be constantly and prudently observed by Christs Priests especially seeing every man hath leave if he be offended with the judgement of the known to appeal to a Council to his Province or to a General Council Unless there be any man that can think that God can inspire a Justice of Tryal into any one person and deny it to innumerable that are congregated in Council And whereas the Bishop of Rome would have sent his Legates into those parts to take cognisance of their affairs they answered Vt aliqui tanquam atuae sanctitatis latere ad nos mittantur nulla invenimus Patrum Synodo constitutum That is That any should be sent against as Legates from your sanctity to us is a thing which we find not constituted by any Synod of the Fathers But here Gratian hath falsified the Canon by the addition of a Save to the See of Rome where the Milevitâ—n Canon is repeated In which manner they have used too much of the Churches records Can we think that Augustine and the rest of the Bishops in these Councils did not understand what they did and purposly restrain the Romane ambition The case also which is related in Augustine between the Catholikes and the Donatists shews how far they were in those dayes from dreaming of the Romane decisive judgement The great controversie was who had the true Church the Donatists or the Catholikes And the Donatists great Arguments were that Caecilian had been ordained by Traditors and therefore his party and those that communicated with them were not the Church nor to be communicated with Mark now how the Catholikes plead this cause 1. They procure it heard by the Emperors Cognitor Marcellinus and not by the Pope 2. They never once fetch their proof that the Catholike Church was theirs from their agreement with Rome or subjection to the Pope nor once in all their mention of the Catholike Church do give the Popish description of it or fetch it from the Romane Bishop as the head but over over again they prove that their Church is the Catholike Church because it is That which beginning at Jerusalem is tranfused over all the world and frequently they give this same description of it and hence prove it out of Scripture as is apparent in Austins writings at large They never say the Catholike Church is the Romane or that which submitteth to the Pope 3. Note which is the chief thing that here I do intend that it was publikely proved in the conference that first Melchiades Bishop of Rome with other Bishops were appointed to hear the business between Donatus a nigris Casis and Caecilianus and that they absolved Caecilianus and condemned Donatus And then that the Donatists rested not here but appealed to the Emperor and the Emperor caused a certain number of Bishops to meet at Arles to hear over all the cause again and these Bishops not agreeing though they were most of them against Donatus the Emperor Constantine was fain to determine the matter himself who absolved Faelix and Caecilianus and condemned the Donatists yet giving them liberum arbitrium as it was called then or Liberty of conscience as it is called now So that the Bishop of Rome acteth but as appointed with others and his judgement is not that highest from which there is no appeal for the Bishops at Arles must judge of all again and the Emperor after them Of all this see Augustine in Brevicul Collation cum Donat. throughout specially pag 288. Edit Paris lib. ad Donatist post Collation cap. 33. pag. 245. I shall onely adde to these Testimonies foregoing the witness of some of their own party I have before shewed that one part of their Church denyeth the Popes infallibility and the other a Councils and that they are not agreed about the ultimate resolution of their faith Their Cardinal Nic. Cusanus li. de Concord Cathol c. 13. 34. maintaineth that All Bishops are equal as to the jurisdiction though not as to the execution because the executive exercise is restrained by certain positive bounds and that for the better to bring men to God which when it ceaseth the positive rights cease And he saith that in time of necessity a simple Priest may absolve even one that is excommunicated by the Pope And concludeth that the Papacy is but of Positive right and that both it and all Majority among Bishops is constituted by subjectional consent that the power of binding and losing is immediately from Christ and therefore that Priests are equal and that the distinction of Diocess and that a Bishop should be over the Presbyters are of positive right And that Christ gave no more to Peter then to the rest of the Apostles nor said more to him then to them Yea and he addeth that if the Bishop of Trevers were by the congregate Church chosen to be their President and head he should properly be more the successor of Peter then the Bishop of Rome This is plain dealing for a Cardinal That the like passages are frequent in Gerson is so well known that I need not mention them And in Cardinal de Aliaco and many other Cardinals Bishops and Schoolmen of their own the like passages are well known and so oft cited already that I shall forbear to recite them I have oft times observed how they have alledged Durandus as pleading that the last resolution of our faith is into this primo creditum that the Church is guided by the holy Ghost and that therefore we believe the Scripture to be Gods word e. g. the Gospel of Matthew rather then that of Nicodemus because the Church approveth it who is guided by the
Church li. 3. Cap 7. Of the several points of difference between us and our adversaries wherein some in the Church erred but not the whole Church FOr neither did that Church wherein our Fathers lived and dyed â— hold that Canon of Scripture which the Romanists now urge nor that in sufficiency they now charge it with nor corruption of the Originals nor necessity of following the vulgar Translation nor the Heresies touching mans creation brought into the Church by certain barbarous Schoolmen as that there are three different estates of men the first of pure nature without addition of Grace or sin and two other the one of Grace the other of Sin That all those evils that are found in the nature of man since his fall as Ignorance Concupiscence Contrariety between the better and meaner faculties of the Soul difficulty to do well and proneness to do evil were all natural the conditions of pure nature that is of nature as considered in it self it would come forth from God That these evils are not sinful nor had their beginnings from sin that they were the consequents of nature in the state of creation but restrained by addition of supernatural Grace without which the integrity of nature was full and perfect That men in the state of pure nature that is as they might have been created of God in the integrity of Nature without addition of Grace and in the estate of Original sin differ no otherwise but as they that never had and they that have lost rich and precious cloathing so that Original sin is but the loss of that without which natures integrity may stand That no evils are brought in by the fall but nature left to her self to feel that which was before but not felt nor discerned while the addition of Grace bettered nature None of these errors touching the estate of mans creation were the Doctrines of the Church but the private fancies and conceits of men So likewise touching Original Sin there were that taught that it is not inherent in each particular man born of Adam but that Adams personal sin is imputed onely That the propagation of sin is not general Mary being conceived without Original sin That the punishment of it is not any sensible smart or positive evil but privative onely and that therefore there is a third place neither Hell nor Heaven named Limbus Puerorum which is a place whereas some think they who are condâ—mned thither though they be excluded from the Kingdom of Heaven and all possibility of ever coming thither yet are in a state of natural happiness and do enjoy the sweet content of Eternal Life These Pelagian Heresies were taught in the Church of God but they were not the Doctrines of the Chuâ—ch being condemned rejected and refuted as contrary to the Christian Verity by many worthy members and guides of the Church who as they never received these parts of false Doctrine So likewise the Church wherein they lived neither know nor approved that distinction and difference of venial and mortal sins which the Romanists now Teach nor power of nature to do the works of the Law according to the substance of the things commanded though not according to the intention of the Law-giver to love God above all and to do actiâ—â—s morally good or not sinful without concurrence of special Grace nor election and reprobation depending on the foresight of something in us positive or privative nor merit of congruence and condignity nor works of supererogation nor counsels of perfection as they now teach nor justification by perfection of inherent qualities nor uncertainty of Grace nor seven Sacraments properly so named nor local presence nor Transubstantiation nor â—rall manducation of the body of Christ nor real sacrificing of it for the quick and the dead nor remission of sins after this Life nor tormenting of the souls of men dying in the state of Salvation in a part of Hell hundreds of years by Divels in corporal fire out of which prayer should deliver â—hem nor that the Saints hear our Prayers â—ow or are acquainted with our particular wants nor the gross idolatry in those times committed and intollerable abuses found in the number fashion and worship of their images nor their absolution as now they define it nor treasure of the Church growing out of the superstuity of Saints merits not rewardable in themselves to be disposed by the Pope for the supply of other mens wants to release them out of Purgatory by way of indulgence nor the infallibility of the Popes judgement and plenitude of his power such and so great that he may depâ—sâ— Princes and dispose of their Crowns and digrâ—â—ieâ— and that whatsoever he doth he may not be broughâ— into order or deposed by authority of the whole world in a general Council Those are the errors which we condemne and our adversaries maintain and defend these we are all assured were not the Doctrines of that Church wherein our Fathers lived and dyed though we do not deny but they were taught by some in that Church All these we offer to prove to be error in matter of our Christian faith and that seeing we could have peace no longer with our adversaries but by approving these impieties we had just cause to divide our selves from them or to speak more properly to suffer our selves to be accursed anathematized and rejected by them rather then to subscribe to so many errors and heresies contrary to the Christian and Catholike verity WHereas the Papists have little else to say to us but onely to call still for a Catalogue of Professors to prove the successive visibility of our Church we require of them first an answer to those Writings that have been extant so long on this subject especially Bishop Vsher de successione Statu Eccles and his answer to the Jesuits challenge Defended by Master Sing and Master Puttock Doctor Fields Treat of the Church especially the Appendix to the third part Simon Birkbecks Protestants evidence Doctor Whites Way to the true Church Abbot against Hill Illiricus his Catalogues testium veritatis Mornays two Treatises of the Church and the Mystery of iniquity to say nothing of that of the Mass Johan Lidii Waldens Nicol. Vignier Ecclesiast Histor. And the confessions of your own Writers Your after Pope Aenaeas Sylvius Histor Bohem. and that commonly cited passage of your inquisitor Rainnerius which I will adjoyn Rainerius contr Waldens cap 4. Inter omnes sectas que adhuc sunt fuerunt non est perniciosior Ecclesiae quam ea Leonistarum idque tribus de causis 1. Quia est diuturnior aliqui enim dicunt quod duravit a tempore Silvestri alii a tempore Apostolorum 2. Quia est generalior fere enim nulla terra est in qua haec secta non sit 3. Quia cum omnes aliae sectae immanitate Blasphemiarum in Deum audientibus horrorem inducant haec scilicet Leonistarum magna habet speciem pietatis eo
quod coram omnibus juste vivant bene omnia de Deo credant omnes articules qui in symbolo continentur solummodo Romanam Ecclesiam blasphemant et Clerum That is Among all the Sects that yet are and have been there is not a more pernicious to the Church then that of the Lyonists and that for three causes 1. Because it is the more 〈◊〉 or of longer continuance for some 〈◊〉 it hath endured from the time of Silvester other from the time of the Apostles 2. Because it is more general for there is scarce any land in which this â—ect â—s not 3. Because when all other sects do by the immanity of their blasphemy bring horror into the hearers this of the Lyonists hath a great shew of godliness in that they live righteously before all men and they believe all things well concerning God and all the articles that are contained in the Creed onely they blasphem the Romane Church and the Clergy To this adde what I cited out of Canus and others before Lastly Give us some tolerable answer to all that voluminous evidence of your oppositions by Princes Prelates Divines and Lawyers which Mich. Goldastus hath collected and published on his volumes de Monarche constitut Imperial APPENDIX A Translation of Bishop Downames Catalogue of Popish Errors lib. 3. de Antichristo cap. 7. To satisfie the earnest desires of some of the unlearned who would fain know wherein the Papists differ from us that they may be the better furnished against them and may the better understand those that under other Titles carry about their doctrines BEcause I find many ignorant persons both unacquainted with the Errors of the Papists and yet very desirous to know them I have adventured to translate a larger Catalogue of them gathered by Bishop George Downame in his Book written to prove the Pope Antichrist lib. 3. cap. 7. pag. 189. c. though it cannot be expected that in such brief expressions the true point of the difference should in all lie plain before them that are unacquainted with the controversies yet because I was resolved not to give you any such Catalogue of my own gathering and knew not where to find one so large as to the number of errors and brief as to the expressions I give you this as I find it Bishop G.D. Chap. 7. A Catalogue of the Errors of the Church of Rome THe Errors of the Papists are either about the Principles of Divinity or the parts of it The principles of Theology are the Holy Scriptures Here the Papists have many errors 1. They deny the Holy Scripture which is of Divine inspiration to be the onely Rule and Foundation of Faith 2. They take certain Apocryphal Books into the Canon of the old Testament which neither the Jewish Synagogue to which the Oracles of God were committed nor yet the purer Christian Church did receive 3. They make two parts of Gods word that is the Scriptures and their own Traditions 4. They contend that the Customes and unwritten Opinions of the Church of Rome are most certain Apostolical Traditions 5. These Traditions or as they call them unwritten veritys they make equal with the Holy Scriture and receive and reverence them with equal pious affection and reverence 6. They number the Popes Decretal Epistles with the holy Scriptures 7. They say its heresie for any to say that it is not altogether in the Power of the Church or Pope to appoint Aâ—ticles of faith 8. They prefer the faith and judgement of the Church of Rome which they say is the internal Scripture written by the hand of God in heart of the Church bâ—fore the Holy Scripture 9. That the Scripture in which God himself speaketh is not the voice of a Judge but the matter of strife 10. They accuse the Scripture which is the light to our feet and giveth understanding to children of too much obscurity 11. They condemn it also of imperfection and insufficiency 12. They say that even in matters of faith and the worship of God we cannot argue Negatively from Scripture as thus It is not in the Scripture therefore it is not necessary or lawful 13. That the Scripture is not sufficient for the refuting of all heresies as if there were any heresie but what is against Scripture 14. That heresie is not so much to be defined by the Scripture authority as by the Churches determination 15. That the authority of the Catholike Church that is the Romane is greater â—en of the Scriptures â—nd the Popes authority greater then the Church 16. That the Church is ancienter than the Scripture that is then the word of God which is now written because it is ancienter then the writing of it As if it were not the same word of God which was first delivered by voice That is now then in writing 17. That the Scripture dependeth on the Catholike Church that is the Romane and not the Church on the Scripture 18. Also that the sence of the Scripture is to be sought from the See of Rome and that the Scripture is not the word of God but as it is expounded according to the sence of the Church of Rome 19. They make seven Principles of the Christian doctrine which are all grounded in the authority of the See and Pope of Rome 20. They take the vulgâ— Translation only for authentical preferring it before the originals though it is so manifestly corrupt that the Copies lately published by the Popes themselves Sixtus the fifth and Clement the eighth do in many places differ 21. That either the holy Scriptures ought not to be Translated into vulgar tongues or if it be yet it must neither be publikely read in a known tongue nor permitted to be privately read by the common people § 2. Of the Belief The Parts of Theology are 1. Of faith or things to be believed 2. Of Charity or things to be done Matters of faith are 1. Of God his works 2. Of the Church The works of God are specially 1. Of Creation and Government of the world 2. Of Redemption of mankind 1. ABout the Creation the Papists erre in saying that concupiscence was then natural to man though John saith that it is not of God 1 Jo. 2.16 and themselves sometime confess it to be evil and contrary to nature 2. In the denying that original righteousness was natural to man before the fall created after Gods Image in Righteousness and holiness 3. In affirming that mortality was natural to man before the fall which yet is not from God the author of nature 4. In placing Paradise where the waters of the flood did not reach it which yet covered all the earth and were fifteen cubits higher then the highest mouâ—taines 5. Forsooth they would have that Paradise or Eden yet untouched that it may be a pleasant habitatian to Henâ—ch and Elias
the Determination of their Church he must presently not onely believe the contrary to what he believed before but do it also without doubting though they 'l confess millions are saved that believe Christ to be the Son of God though not without doubting Well but see what unity is procured by the addition of these new Articles to their Creed The French Doctors ascribe to his holiness that the said Articles may be taken in several sences The one sence is Heretical Lutheran or Calvinian but that is a sence That the words lawfully used will not hear but onely may malignantly be fastened to them say they The other sence which is genuine and proper they Defâ—nd themselves as true and as pertaining to the Belief of the Church as the Doctrine of Augustine and as defined by the Council of Trent and the contrary Opinion of Molina and the adversaries others maintain to be Pelagian or Semipelagian See here what the Papists themselves now do implicitely charge upon the Pope That he by his express unlimited condemnation doth malignantly fasten an Heretical sence on the words which properly they will not bear or else that he contradicteth Augustine and the Council of Trent and Anathematizeth the Christian faith and maintaineth the Semipelagian Heresie of Molina And yet must we judge either their Pope to be infallible or their Church to be at such unity in faith as they would make the ignorant vulgar believe More of the like contention about his holiness Determinations you may see in Tho. Whites Appendicula ad sonum Buccinae and Franscus Macedo his Lituus Lusitanus In all which you may see that all the comfort that the poor Dominicans have left them even their hope of salvation if they be Papists indeed consisteth in this that the Pope speaks one thing and means another and that as White so merrily saith in so sad a matter The wise father of the Church was necessitated for the appeasing of contentions to grant the more turbulent party their words and the more obedient party their sence so that when the Pope hath done all that he can to determine their controversies they will still say that he determineth but the words nay he doth but grant one party their words and not the meaning and so not onely sence but bare terms must be made Articles of faith And here you may see the great force of the Papists arguing for a necessity of a living Judge to determine of the sence of Scripture because the Scripture is so ambiguous that each one will else wrest it his own way And do we not see that the Pope cannot after so many years deliberation determine five short Articles so expresly and plainly even when he doth it of purpose to decide the controversie as to make his learned Doctors understand him but that each party doth take his words to be either for or not against their opinions and hold their opinions as fast since his determination as before And so they do by Augustine Thomas and the Council of Trent each party confidently perswading the world that they were of their side And may not God have the honor of speaking as plainly as the Pope or Thomas or the Council of Trent and cannot we well be without the Decision of such a Judge as cannot speak so as to be understood by his greatest Doctors himself So that the Principles and Practices of the Romanists do assure us that their faith is unfixed growing and mutable they may be one year of one Religion and another year of another as pleasâ— the Pope A Dominican might have been saved at any time since the creation till May 31. 1653. when the Popes Determination was dated but now they must all be damned for heresie There is a new way to heaven made 1653. that never was before and for ought they know to the contrary before their Popes have done Determining there may be five hundred Articles more in their Creed So that for my part I desire not either to be shut out of heaven at the pleasure of every new Pope nor to be of so uncertain and changeable a Religion And I cannot think therefore that Popery is a safe way to salvation Arg. 8. That Doctrine which derogateth from the written Word of God and setteth the Decrees of men above it enabling them to contradict its most express institutions is no safe way to salvation But such is the Doctrine of Popery therefore it is no safe way to salvation The Major is unquestionably true among true Christians For the proof of the Minor I shall only give you three instances of the Popish Doctrine because I intend not to be too particular left I be too large The first is their affirming the Scripture both to be insufficient to discover the whole doctrine of faith as being but one part of Gods Word and Tradition the other part and also to be no Word of God at all to us till the Pope and his Clergy do authoritatively determine it so to be or that we cannot know the Scripture to be Gods word but upon the Authority of the Churches determination But of this I have spoken before and shall do more in another dispute The second instance that I give is Their changing Christs most express institution by withholding the Cup in the Lords Supper from the people and giving them but half the Sacrament I am not now disputing about the efficacy or inefficacy of one half so delivered but proving the intolerable Arrogancy of the Papists that dare set up the will of man above Gods Word and give power to the Pope to change Christs Institutions and not onely to adde but to diminish and expresly to contradict Christ and forbid what he commandeth I know they pretend that it was but to the twelve Apostles that Christ gave the Cup and not to the Laity True nor the bread neither but then if he intended that none but the Clergy have the Cup why may they not as well say so of the Bread But do not these deceivers know 1. That Christ gives this reason of his administring the Cup Drink yee All of it For this is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the Remission of sins So that if this reason hold to others if his blood be shed for the sins of others as well as for the Clergie then the command extendeth to others Drink ye all of it And do they not know that Luke further intimateth this in his narration of the words of Christ This Cup is the New Testament in my blood which is shed for you So that those whom it is shed for and we may discern to be Believers it may be applyed to 2. And do they not know that Paul delivereth the doctrine both of the Bread and Cup as from the Lord to the whole Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 11. and not onely to the Clergy Is it not all that he expresly commandeth to Examine themselves