quae revelata non sunt ideoque ab articulorum fidei Catholicae numero excluduntur I know that there never was such a thing as a true Universal Council in the world unless Christ and his Apostles were such nor ever must or will or can be I know that they were called Universal but as to one Empire and that Emperours called them together who had nothing to do without that Empire and that unless accidentally any inconsiderable number no Churches out of the Empire were summoned or sent their Bishops thither Which needs no other proof than the knowledge of the limits of the Roman Empire and the Notitiae Episcopatùum and the Names subscribed to each Council in Binnius and the rest I know that long ago their Raynerius said Cont. Waldens Catal. in Biblioth Patrum Tom. 4. p. 773. The Churches of the Armenians and Ethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome And that Godignus and others make no doubt but the Abassines had the faith from the dayes of St. Matthew and the Eunuch I know that Theodoret. Histor Sanct. Patr. c. 1. saith James the Bishop of Nisibis came to the Synod of Nice for Nisibis then obeyed the Roman Empire Nothing can be more plain I know that Jacob. de Vitriaco and others say Hist Orient c. 77. that the Churches of the Easterly parts of Asia alone exceeded in number the Christians either of the Greek or Latin Churches And that Brochardus that lived at Jerusalem saith that those called Schismaticks by us are far better men than those of the Roman Church And to perswade the Kings of other Kingdoms that the necessary way of church-Church-Union is to unite all their Subject-Churches under the Patriarchs of another Empire is no wiser than to tell all the world that they must be under the Bishop of Canterbury I know that it was long ere Our antient Britains and especially Your Scots would so much as eat with the Roman Clergy as Beda sheweth And I know that their Melch. Canus saith Loc. Com. cap. 7. fol. 201. That not only the Greeks but almost all the rest of the Bishops of the whole world have fought to destroy the priviledges of the Church of Rome And indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperours and the greater number of Churches And yet they could never prevail to abrogate the power of the One Pope of Rome Was this Pope then or the Roman Church Universal Besides that to this day they are but about the third or fourth part of the Christian world And I know that General Councils are their Religion and what the General approved Council at Lateran sub Innoc. 3. hath Decreed against Temporal Lords and their Dominions and absolving of their Subjects from their Oaths of Fidelity Besides what Greg. 7. hath said in his Concil Rom. of his power to take down and set up Emperours The knowing of these things maketh me taken for their enemy And their Image of Worship in an unknown Tongue with their Bread-Worship and multitude of ludicrous deceitful toyes are things which my soul can never be reconciled to Much less to that renunciation of humanity which hereafter I detect in the following Treatise And having given You this Account of my self I add as to this Treatise 1. It grieved me to hear that so many refused the Parliaments Declaration against Transubstantiation And I desired to shew them what it is 2. Instead of joyning with those who talk much of the danger of Popery in the Land to keep it out I thought it better to publish the Reasons which satisfie me against it and leave the success of all to God 3. And having occasion to re-print the First Part of my Key for Catholicks with Corrections instead of the Name before prefixed of one whose face I never saw nor ever had a word from but ignorantly endeavoured to have provoked him to do good I thought Your Name fittest to be gratefully substituted who were the first then that checked my imprudent temerity Though I was not so vain as to expect of late in your multitude of greater business that You should read over my more tedious Writings I despair not but You may find leisure in perusing this to see that I have prefixed Your Name to nothing but what Sense and Reason and Religion do avow And so Craving Your Pardon for the boldness and tediousness of this Address I rest Your Graces humble much obliged Servant Richard Baxter August 27. 1673. TO THE READER THis Dialogue cometh not to you from an apprehension of any extraordinary excellency of it as if it did much more than is already done but as extorted by mens necessity 1. Because so many ignorantly turn Papists of late 2. And some are pleased to Say I dare not say To Think that it is long of men in my condition 3. And it is the Art of the Papists which our vanity encourageth to seek to bring the old Books into oblivion which are unanswerable and to call still for new The intended Use of this is 1. To tell those that will dispute with a Papist on what terms and in what order to proceed lest they be cheated into a snare 2. To teach the Ignorant Doubters truly to understand wherein the difference between us and the Papists doth indeed consist that the talk of Sectaries Calling that which displeaseth them Popery nor the scandal of our real or seeming divisions may not delude them nor Papists puzzle them by putting them to prove every word in our thirty nine Articles or other Writings 3. To Resolve all that will be Resolved by Senses Reason Scripture or the Judgement and Tradition of the Church Of the multitude of Reasons against Popery enumerated I have here made good but one by a special disputation because I would not make the Book too big The rest I shall easily prove in another Volume if greater work and shortness of life do not hinder it which I fully expect And lest I have no more opportunity to answer their Charges against us on the other side I have reprinted and added Corrected the first part of my Key for Catholicks where it is long ago done and never answered There is extant one Piece of theirs against me unanswered called Mr. Johnson's Rejoynder about the Visibility of the Church which I seriously profess I have left unanswered as utterly unworthy of my precious Time till I have no greater matter to do which I hope will never be And he that will well study his opening of the terms in the latter end will see to how pitiful a case they are reduced I conclude with this solemn Profession That I am satisfied of the truth of what I write and must dye ere long in the faith which I here profess and lay my hopes of endless happiness on no other way And that I would joyfully receive any Saving Truth from Papists or any other who will bring
truly believed that Christ was the Messiah They erred that thought it lawful to eat things offered to Idols and yet they erred not in believing in Christ No two men in the world its like have the same degree of personal faith and knowledge as I oft said before But if our professed object of faith that is Gods word were false in one thing we could not be sure that it were true in any thing Yet here I told you before 1. That a man may be much surer that one part of Scripture is Gods word than another because some Copies are doubtful in the diverse Readings of some particular words or sentences and which of them that so differ is Gods word we oft know not But so much as we are sure is the word of God we are sure is true So if the Authority of some few books was once doubted of as 2 Pet. Jam. Jud. Heb. c. and yet be by any it followeth not that they doubt of the truth of any which they know to be the word of God 2. Or if any do hold that the Penmen might be left to their natural fallibility in some by historical circumstances or words it would not follow that one Article of the Gospel or Christian faith is doubtful which is plainly as the Kernel of it delivered in all the Scripture and also by infallible Universal Tradition by it self in the Sacrament Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue And our case also much differeth from the Papists in this For We profess that our objective faith Gods word is Infallible and we are Infallible so far as we believe it But we confess that we are lyable to misunderstand some parts of it and so far are fallible as being imperfect But the Papists say that their Pope and Councils and Universal Practicers are personally Infallible so as not to be lyable to any misunderstanding of any Article of faith say some or Article of Catholick faith say others And so they make their own Act of Believing to be Commensurate and equally certain with Gods word of faith and therefore they allow you to question them in all if they err in one as pretending to a gift of never erring in any D. But is it not a great reason to incline us to them rather than to you when They only pretend to Infallibility and You confess that you are all fallible in your Belief R. This is to be the subject of our next Conference and therefore not now to be anticipated only I shall tell you that It is a meer noise of ambiguous words to deceive the heedless that cannot search out the meaning of them 1. We not only Pretend but Profess and prove that our Christian Religion is altogether Infallible For which end I have written divers Treatises my self 2. And we profess that all the mystical Church of Christ that is all sincere Christians do truly and Infallibly believe all that is Essential to Christianity and as much of the Integrals as they can know 3. And we profess that the Catholick Church-Visible that is All professors of Christianity in the world do profess all these Essentials of Christianity and are Infallible in this profession But we hold withall that there is no particular Church or Bishop no Synod or Council that is so Infallible but that 1. They that hold to the Essentials may misunderstand and err about some Integrals 2. And those persons have no Certainty that they shall not err by Heresie or Apostacy from the Essentials themselves So that the Church is Infallible because it is essentiated by believing an Infallible Word which who ever believeth not ceaseth to be of the Church not Gods Word infallible because the Church or any number of men believe it or say Its true For Truth is before Knowledge and Faith As Aristotle was a Philosopher because he understood and taught the doctrine of real Philosophy and not that doctrine called Physicks or Philosophy because that Aristotle knew or taught it But alas What work shall I shew you when I come to open their bewildring uncertainties D. But to deal freely with you methinks their way of measuring out the Necessaries in Faith and Religion according to mens various parts and opportunities seemeth to me more satisfactory than yours who fix upon certain points as the Baptismal Covenant as Essentials For there is great diversity of mens Capacities R. This cometh from confounding several Questions as if they were all one 1. It is one Question What is the Christian Religion 2. ☞ It is another Question Whether the Christian Religion be absolutely necessary to the salvation of all those to whom it was never competently revealed 3. And it is another Question Whether more than the Essentials of Christian Religion be not necessary to the salvation of many who have opportunity to know more Alas what work doth Confusion make in the world To the first It is evident that as Mahometanism is a thing which may be defined so much more may Christianity Who that writeth of the several Religions of the world Ethnick Jewish Mahometan and Christian do not take them to be distinguishable and discernable Especially when Christ hath summed up Christianity into a Covenant and given it us in express words and affixed a flat promise of salvation to the true Covenanters and the Church hath ever called our Baptism our Christening Is Christianity Nothing If Something Why may it not be defined and differenced from all false Religions And if so It hath its Essential Constitutive parts All this is plain to Children that will see 2. And then as to the second question it concerneth not our Controversie at all It is but Whether any Infidels may be saved Or any that are no Christians And if it could be proved that any are saved that are no Christians do you thereby prove that they are Christians or members of the Christian Church or that Christianity is not a Religion which may be defined 3. And as to the third question We are on all sides agreed in it That they that have more than the naked Essentials of Christianity revealed to them aptly are bound to believe more Yea it is hardly conceiveable that any one should know and believe the Essentials only and no more It is not Essential to the Christian Covenant or Christianity to know that the Name of Christs Mother was Mary or that Pontius Pilate was the man that condemned him And if an Ignorant man thought that his continuance in the Grave was four dayes I do not think that this would damn his soul to Hell Much less the not believing that Mary dyed a Virgin And yet it is not like that any man should come to the Essentials of Christianity by any such way as should acquaint him with no one of these or any point besides the said Essentials And yet it is certain for all this that he that truly receiveth the Essentials and is true to the Baptismal Covenant shall be
how it is described by the Antient Christians Justin Athenagoras Origen Arnobius Minutius Foelix Tertullian Lactantius Eusebius Augustine c. you will say that they thought it a ridiculous unmanly Religion D. I think no better of it than they did R. And 1. Do you not know that almost all the world was then Heathen and Idolaters Alas what was Judaea less than England to all the world Was not the Roman Empire and Alexanders before that far Greater than any Christian Prince hath now And to this day are not four sixth parts of the whole world at least Heathens and Idolaters Brierwoods Calculation is that if you divide the world into thirty parts nineteen are Heathen six Mahometans and five only Christians of all sorts besides the vast unknown parts of the world which are not like to have any Religion of supernatural Revelation 2. And do you not know that Athens and Rome-Heathen were no Barbarians but of most polite literature and the Fathers of the Learning now in use and that when the Christians arose among them they accounted them Barbarians And at this day and long before us the Chinenses have been addicted to Arts and Literature And the Brachmanes and Bonzii are no Barbarians And have not all these souls to save or lose And are all these so mad as to cast away their souls upon a senseless contemptible Religion If your reason be good how much more will it hold for the Heathens than the Papists Alas what a handful are the Papists in comparison of the present Idolaters much more in comparison of the Antient Heathen world before Christianity and Mahometanism dispossessed them of those parts which they now hold With what greater shew of advantage did the Heathens use the Arguments which the Papists do now put their trust in and lay their Cause upon 1. Do they talk of Antiquity Why it was the Novelty of Christianity in comparison of Heathenism through the world which was it that hardned them to contemn and persecute it 2. Do they talk of Vniversality and Consent Alas how little a part of the world were the Christians at first and are the Papists now in comparison of the Heathens then and now 3. Do they talk of Greatness Empire Acts and Learning How little are they as to the first to the Heathen Empires And for Learning they received it of them And Aristotle still is the Schoolmens Oracle And yet doubtless all these advantages are not sufficient to disprove the follies of Heanism nor the badness of their Religion And yet will so much less serve to support the credit of senseless Popery D. But Christians may well expect greater helps from God than Heathens or Mahometans Therefore that so many Great and Learned and Religious Christians should go such a senseless way to another world methinks seemeth strange R. And are not Greeks Armenians Syrians Abassines and Protestants all Christians as well as they Their proud schismatical unchristening all but the subjects of the Pope is a silly proof that we are no Christians or that they are any better than others unless Malignity uncharitableness and Schism be the true Excellency 1. And are not other Christians More than the Papists Bishop Bramhall reckons the Papists to be about the fifth part of Christians Suppose they be a third part They are still the Minor part 2. And are not the Protestants as Learned as the Papists Why then will not your argument hold against them as well as for them Have not all these Christians souls to save or lose And do they not take that for the true Religion on which they trust their souls D. But though all these set together are more than the Church of Rome yet no one Sect of them is so great and what matter is it how many various Sects are R. 1. The Greek Church is judged by wise men te be yet bigger than the Roman even in this its broken state But there is no doubt but it was much bigger long after the first division before the Turk did win the Eastern Empire 2. But if it were not so your objection is frivolous The Question is either of Different Churches or of Different opinions and parties in the same Church As to the first There are but two opinions in the Christian world that I know of about the Constitution of the Catholick Church The one is the opinion of the Papists only ☞ that The Catholick Church is essentially constituted both of Christ and the Pope as his Vicar and universal Monarch with all his subjects as the pars Imperans and pars subdita The other is the judgement of all other Christians that I know or hear of that The Catholick Church is essentially constituted only of Christ as the supream Head or King or pars Imperans and his subjects as the pars subdita ☞ And that Patriarchs Archbishops Bishops c. are but Officiales subditi primarii vel nobiles constitutive parts indeed of their particular Churches some humane and some Divine but no essential parts of the Catholick Church ☞ This is the Grand difference between the Papists and all other Christians in the World What the Catholick Church is Whether it have any Constitutive Vniversal Head or Monarch besides Christ Now seeing that Greeks Abassines Armenians and all agree with us in this against the Papists it is evident to them that are willing to see that we are all of the same Catholick Church though not of the same particular Churches nor all for the same Official Ministers Because we are all for the same Constitutive Head and his subjects as such and agree in all the Essential parts ☞ So that our differences among all these parties or particular Churches or Countries is but the difference of Opinions and parties in one and the same Church and not a difference of Catholick Churches which can be but one And if that be the question I undertake to prove that there is no one Sect of Christians known under Heaven that hath so many different opinions within it self if half so many nor have written half so much against one another as the Papists have done 3. But I must not here anticipate my further work when I come to that I shall shew you how small and how disagreeing a part of the Christian world the Papists are I have elsewhere recited the words of their Melchior Canus who boasteth that the Papacy yet standeth though almost all the world and besides Princes almost all the Bishops and Churches have fought against it Was it then the Universal Church And the words of Reynerius who saith that the Churches of the Armenians and the others planted by the Apostles without the Empire he meaneth were not under the Pope of Rome I shall if I live to do that work yet fullier shew you that the Pope was but the chief Patriarch in one Empire as the Archbishop of Canterbury is the chief Bishop in England and that his General Councils
it me with such evidence as may make it indeed my own The Lord Unite us by Truth Love and Humility Amen Septemb. 1. 1673. Richard Baxter THE CONTENTS PART I. WHat is the Protestants Religion and what the Papists pag. 1. Chap. 1. The occasion of the Conference with an humbling consideration to staggerers ibid. Chap. 2. The Conditions of the Conference p. 6. Chap. 3. What is the Religion of the Protestants Of the name Protestant The Augustane and other Confessions The thirty nine Articles The Essentials of Christianity to be distinguished from the Integrals and Accidentals p. 9. Chap. 4. What is the Papists Religion out of Veron Davenport c. p. 25. PART II. Fourteen Principles in which the Papists and Protestants seem agreed by which the Protestant Religion is by the Papists confessed and maintained to be all true p. 40. PART III. Twenty five Charges against Popery enumerated to be all in order proved as Reasons why no one that hath Religion or Sense and Reason should turn Papist p. 61. PART IV. The first Charge made good viz. against Transubstantiation In which Popery is fully proved to be the shame of Humane Nature contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTVRE and TRADITION or the Judgement of the antient and the present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels p. 75. Chap. 1. The first Reason to prove that there is Bread after the Consecration from the certainty of the Intellects Perception by the means of sense ibid. Twenty Reasons against the denying of common senses p. 77. Chap. 2. The Papists Answers to all this confuted p. 88. Chap. 3. The second Argument against Transubstantiation from the contradictions of it p. 96. Chap. 4. The third Argument from the certain falshood of their multitudes of feigned Miracles in Transubstantiation Thirty one Miracles in it enumerated with Twenty aggravations of those Miracles p. 99. Chap. 5. The Minor proved viz. That these Miracles are false or feigned p. 110. Chap. 6. Arg. 4. Transubstantiation contrary to the express Word of God p. 117. Chap. 7. Arg. 5. All these Miracles are proofless yea the Scripture abundantly directeth us otherwise to expound This is my Body p. 123. Chap. 8. Arg. 6. Transubstantiation nullifieth the Sacrament p. 128. Chap. 9. The Novelty of Transubstantiation as contrary to the faith of the antient Christians And the singularity contrary to the Judgement and Tradition of most of the Christian world p. 132. Chap. 10. The second part of the Controversie That it is not Christs very flesh and blood into which the Bread and Wine is turned p. 146. Chap. 11. The Conclusion The Scandal of our difference removed Whether the falshood of one Article prove the Papists foundation false Whether it do so by the Protestants Whether Papists have any more Infallibility than others The necessity of discerning the Essentials of Christianity The distinction of Explicite and Implicite faith considered How come so many Princes Nobles Learned men and whole Nations to be Papists All Christians besides Papists are of one Church though of many opinions How come so many among us at home of late inclinable to Popery What hope of Concord with the Papists How to help them off their Councils Snares in the point of Transubstantiation Of their denying the Cup to the Laity p. 152. Reader I Hope the Printers Errata are not many and I am discouraged from gathering them because I see men had rather err themselves and calumniate the Author than take notice of them So hath Mr. Danvers done by me in a Book against Infant Baptism where as an Introduction to abundance of mistakes in History he abuseth his Reader by several scraps of a Book of mine so curtail'd as to be insufficient to signifie the sense And among them feigneth me to write Chr. Direct p. 3. pag. 885. l. 13. to Institute Sacraments as that which man may do instead of Nor to Institute Sacraments and so maketh his credulous flock to believe that I assert that very thing which I write against Though the place was markt with a Star in the Errata and the Reader desired specially to Correct it But such dealing is now grown so common with such men that we must bear it as the effect of their disease PART I. What is the Protestants Religion and what the Papists CHAP. I. The occasion of the Conference D. SIR I am come to crave your help in a matter of great importance to me I was bred a Protestant but the Discourses of some Roman Catholicks have brought me into great doubts whether I have not been all this while deceived And though I cannot dispute the case my self with you I desire you to dispute it in my hearing with a Catholick Priest whom I shall bring to you R. With all my heart But let me first ask you a few Questions Quest 1. Did you ever understand what the Protestants Religion is D. I take it to be the 39 Articles Liturgie and Government of the Church of England R. No wonder if you be easily drawn to doubt of that Religion which you no better understand Can you hold it and not know what it is Quest 2. Do you know what it is to be a Christian D. It is to believe in Christ and to Love and obey Him Our Baptism is our Christening R. Very true And in your Baptism you are Dedicated and Vowed to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Lusts of the Flesh the World and the Devil Quest 3. And have you been a true Christian and lived according to this Vow Have you obeyed God more than the desires of your flesh Have you preferred the Kingdom of Heaven before all the pleasures honours and riches of this world Have you sincerely submitted to the healing saving Doctrine Law and example of Christ and to the sanctifying motions of his Holy Spirit And have you lived soberly righteously and Godlily in the world and made it your care and business to deny your self and mortifie all fleshly inordinate desires as it is the care of sensual men to gratifie them D. I have had my faults as all men have but I hope none can say but I have lived honestly towards all And if I have been faulty in drinking sports or gaming it hath been to no ones injury but my own R. I ask you not whether you are a sinner For so are all men But whether you are a truly Penitent Converted sinner and whether yet you are true to your Baptismal Vow and Covenant Can your Conscience say that you Love and Trust and obey God and your Redeemer before all the world and that you love not Pleasure Riches and Honour more than God and Holiness and Heaven and that it is more of the care and business of your life to Know and Love and serve God better and to make sure of your salvation than to please your flesh or prosper in the world In a word Do you heartily and in
You hear his conditions you shall hear my answer 1. The Case which you told me you were in doubt of and desired satisfaction in was Which is the True and Safe Religion This he refuseth to Dispute Pretending that we cannot dispute of our whole Religion at once But did you never hear him give any Reasons against our Religion If he have Why can he not do it now I expect not all in a word but let him give them one by one and say his worst I am sure I can give you many against theirs And we will after debate them particularly as largely as you please 2. If Writing be it that you desire for your satisfaction I ask you whether you have read all or the fourth part of what is written against Popery already Have you read Dr. Challoner of the Catholick Church Dr. White Dr. Field Dr. Downame of Antichrist Chillingworth Dr. Abbot Dr. Willet Bishop Vsher Bishop Morton Dr. Stillingfleet and an hundred more Why should I expect that you should read what I shall write if you will not read what 's written already 3. Can you stay so long unresolved without injury to your soul till he and I have done writing You cannot but know that from Sheets we must proceed to the writing of Volumes in answering each other as others have done And this is like to be many years work for men that have other business And how know you that we shall all Live so long 4. Are you able when it cometh to tedious Volumes to examine them and find who is in the right Or will you not rather take him to conquer who hath the last word And it 's like that will be the longest liver 5. And as to a strict syllogistical form do you understand that best I avoid it not but shall consent to use it as far as you understand it Do you know all the Logical forms of arguing all Moods and Figures and all the fallacies Or do you not perceive that you have broken your promise with me and brought a friend of darkness who cometh purposely to hide the truth D. I must needs profess that the Question which I would have debated is Which is the True and Safe Religion And that it is not tedious writings nor long delayes but present conference which must satisfie me And that it is plain Scripture and Reason that must satisfie me who understand not Logick I pray let me hear your own Conditions which you think more just R. The Conditions which the nature of the Cause directeth us to are these I. That we first truly state the question to be disputed For we cannot dispute till we are agreed of what That is 1. That we agree what we mean by our Religion and 2. That I tell you what is the Religion of Protestants which I undertake to defend And that he tell us what is the Religion of the Romanists which must be compared with it II. That our Conference consist of these several parts 1. That premising the principles in which we are agreed I tell you the Reasons why you should not be a Papist 2. That he tell you the Reasons why you should turn Papist or what he hath against Our Religion 3. That then we come to dispute these Reasons distinctly where I will prove my charges against them and he shall prove his charges against us one by one III. And that in all our disputes we shall consent 1. Not to interrupt each other in speech but if the length seem to overmatch the hearers memory we will take brief Notes to help our memories as we go and crave the recitation of what shall be forgotten For the strength of Truth lyeth so much in the connexion of its parts that when it is mangled into scraps by uncivil interruptions it is deformed and debilitated and cannot be well understood 2. That we bind our selves by solemn promise to speak nothing which we unfeignedly judge not to be truth nor any thing designedly to hide or resist the truth which we discern These terms are so just and necessary that I will avoid him as a fraudulent wrangler who will deny them For I come not to scold nor to try who hath the strongest Lungs the nimblest Tongue or the lowdest voice or the greatest confidence or fiercest passion but to try who hath the truth and which is the true way to Heaven For the servant of the Lord must not strive especially about words and barren notions for that doth but tend to increase ungodliness D. Your Method is so reasonable and so suited to my own necessity that I must profess no other can so much tend to my satisfaction And therefore I hope it will not be refused Here after long opposition the P. at last agreeth to these terms CHAP. III. What is the Religion of the Protestants R. I. THe word Religion is sometimes taken Objectively And so I mean by it The objects of Religious Belief Love and Practice which are 1. The Things themselves which are the principal objects called by Logicians The Incomplex terms 2. The organical object or the Revelation of these Things containing 1. The Words or other Signs 2. The sense or notions signified For instance Matth. 17.5 This is my Beloved son in whom I am well pleased Here 1. The Real Incomplex object is Christ Himself the beloved Son of God and God the Fathers well-pleasedness in him 2. The signal part of the organical object or Revelation is the Words themselves as spoken then and written now 3. The signified notions are the Meaning of the words and are the chief part of the organical object that is the Divine Revelation The word Religion is of larger extent in its sense than Faith For it containeth all that Revelation which God hath made Necessary to salvation which is twofold 1. That which is to inform the understanding with necessary knowledge and faith 2. That which is necessary to a Holy Will and a Holy Life to the Love of God and man and to well doing which are Precepts Promises and Threatnings II. The word Religion is oft taken also subjectively as they speak For the Acts and habits of Love and Obedience Now I suppose we are agreed that it is not Religion in this last sense that we are to dispute of which is as divers as persons are But it is that which we call Objective Religion even the Organical part directly And if by all this D. understandeth us not in plainer words our Question is Of the True Divine Revelation viz. Which is the True Rule of Faith Will and Practice that which is held to be such by the Protestants or that which is held to be such by the Papists P. I grant you that this is the state of the Question R. I here declare to you then What is the Religion of the Protestants IT IS THE LIGHT and LAW OF GOD CONCERNING HOLY KNOWLEDGE and BELIEF HOLY WILL and PRACTICE CONTAINED IN NATURE and THE
TRUE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES Here note 1. That our Religion hath its Essential parts And its Integral parts and Accidentals I. The Essentials of our Religion are contained in the Baptismal Covenant which is expounded in the CREED the LORDS PRAYER and the DECALOGUE as delivered and expounded by Christ and the Law of Nature II. Our Entire Religion in the Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals is contained wholly in the Law of Nature and the Canonical Scriptures The Essentials are delivered down to us two wayes 1. In Scripture with the rest 2. By the sure tradition of the Vniversality of Christians in actual Baptizings and the daily profession of Christianity This is all the Protestants Religion If you fasten any other on us we deny it we own no other And none know What is my Religion that is What I take for the Rule of my holy Faith Love and Life so well as my self P. This is meer craft you will make that only which is past controversie among us to be Your Religion that so your Religion may be past controversie too R. It is such Craft as containeth that naked truth which we trust all our own salvation on I say that I have no other Religion And if you know better than I disprove me P. I disprove you three wayes I. Because the Name Protestant signifieth no such Religion but somewhat else lately taken up II. Because the Angustane Confession the thirty nine Articles and such like are by your selves called The Articles of your Religion III. Because all your Writings declare that besides these you hold all those controverted points which are contrary to that which you call Popery R. I pray you mark D. that he would perswade you that he knoweth my Religion better than I do my self What if I should pretend the like as to his Religion Were I to be believed P. No but if you have an odd Religion of your own that proveth it not to be the Protestant Religion R. Remember D. that I come not hither to perswade you to any other Religion than this which I have mentioned Let him talk as long as he will what is other mens opinions I perswade you to nothing but this to take Gods Law of Nature and the Scripture for your Religion Either this is Right or Wrong If Right fix here and I have done If Wrong let that be disputed But yet I open to you all his three deceits I. The name Protestant doth not signifie our Religion but our Protesting against the Papists corruptions and additions I have no Religion but Christianity I am a Christian and that signifieth all my Religion I am a Catholick Christian that is of the Common Christian Faith and Church and not of any heretical dividing Sect And I am a Reformed Protestant Christian because I renounce Popery Therefore I rather say The Protestants than the Protestant Religion As if I were among Lepers If I say I am no Leper that signifieth not my Essence But if I say I am a Man and I am not a Leper I speak my Nature and my freedom from that disease So if I say I am a Christian Protestant I mean only that I am a Christian and no Papist or renouncing Popery as by the word Catholick I renounce all Sects and Schisms I tell you This is my meaning when I say I am a Protestant and can you tell my meaning better than my self II. And as to what he saith of the thirty nine Articles and other Church Confessions I answer None of these are our Religion in the sense now in question that is They are not taken by us to be the Divine Revealed-Rule of our Faith Love and Life which is our Religion now disputed of And that this is so I prove to you past all question For 1. Else should we have as many Religions as we have Church Confessions and should alter our Religion as oft as we alter our Confessions and our Religion should be as New as those Confessions All which the Protestants abhor 2. All those very Confessions themselves do assert that Gods Word is our only Religion and all mens Writings and Decrees are lyable to mistakes To pass by all the rest these are the words of our sixth Article Holy Scripture containeth all things Necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of faith or be thought Requisite or necessary to salvation What would you have more plain and full And in the Book of Ordination it is askt Are you perswaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ And are you determined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge and to teach Nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation but that which you shall be perswaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture Is not this plain P. Why then do you call the thirty nine Articles the Articles of your Religion And what is their use And why are all required to subscribe them R. 1. Their Use is to signifie how the Conjunct Pastors who use them do understand the Holy Scriptures in those points And that partly for the satisfaction of all forreign Churches who may hear us accused of Heresie or Error and partly to be a hedge to the Doctrine of young Preachers to keep them from vending mistakes in the Churches and also to try the soundness of their understandings 2. The Confessions and Articles and Catechisms are our Religion as the Writings of Perron Bellarmine Suarez c. or many of these agreeing are the Roman Religion They are not the Divine Revelation and Rule of faith and practice to us But they are the expression of our own conceptions of the sense of several chief matters in that Rule or Revelation So that they are the Expression of our faith or Religion taken subjectively for acts and habits and not our objective Rule it self Our Sermons and Prayers are our Religion in this sense that is The Expression of our own Religious Conceptions And so are your Sermons and your Writings also to you But if this were our Rule of Faith and Life and so our Divine Objective Religion then we should be of as many Religions as we are several persons For every one hath his several Expressions And every new Sermon or Book or Prayer would be a new part of Religion And so with you also So that this doubt is past all doubt Our Confessions are but the expressions of our personal belief and not our Rule of Faith III. And as to your third pretence that we have other Articles as opposite to Popery I answer Our Religion as a Rule of Faith and Worship is one thing And our Rejecting all Corruptions and Additions is another E. g. My Religion is that our God is only the true God
now calling our Religion and disputing of though this Religion teach us to obey Parents Pastors and Princes and that obedience may be consequentially and reductively called Religious if you please But if really your Religion be not Divine but Humane let us know it For by the word Religion we essentially mean that which is Divine P. Men were the speakers and writers of the Scriptures and so far they are humane as well as the Decrees of the present Church R. The Decalogue was witten by God and delivered by the Ministry of Angels Christ was owned by a Voice from Heaven And himself spake and did most recited by the four Evangelists And the Prophets and Apostles spake by the immediate Infallible Inspiration of the Holy Ghost So that the Holy Ghost is the Author of the Scriptures But the present Pastors of the Church instead of that Immediate Revelation from God by the Spirits Inspiration have but the ordinary help of the Spirit to understand those same Revelations and that proportioned to the measure of their diligence natural parts and helps of Art as the knowledge of Theologie is attained by other Students who are none of them perfect or free from error P. I will tell you what our Religion is It is Gods Word concerning things to be Believed and Done delivered partly in the Canonical Scriptures and partly by Oral Tradition and received by the Church and by it delivered to us The Trent Catech. Prefac q. 12. saith Omnis doctrinae ratio quae fidelibus tradenda sit verbo Dei continetur quod in Scripturam Traditionesque distributum est The Reason of every doctrine which is to be delivered to the faithful is contained in the Word of God which is distributed into the Scripture and Traditions Vide Concil Senonens in Bin. Decr. 5. p. 671. Concil Tridentini Sess 4. p. 802. Perspiciensque hanc Veritatem disciplinam contineri in libris sacris sine scripto Traditionibus quae ex ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptae ab ipsi Apostolis Spiritu sancto dictante quasi per manus traditae ad nos usque pervenerunt orthodoxorum patrum sententiam sequuta omnes libros tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti nec non Traditiones ipsas tum ad fidem tum ad mores pertinentes tanquam vel ore tenus a Christo vel a Spiritu sancto dictaâ—as continua successione in Ecclesia Catholica conservatas pari pietatis affectu reverentia suscipit ac veneratur Bellarmin de Verbo Dei lib. 4. c. 2 3. sheweth the divers sorts of unwritten Traditions which are part of Gods Word some de side as the perpetual Virginity of Mary that there are but four Gospels c. and some of Manners as Crossing Fast-dayes c. Easter Whitsontide and other Festivals Veron de Reg. fid cap. 2. saith The total and only Rule of the Catholick faith to which all are obliged under pain of Heresie and Excommunication is Divine Revelation delivered to the Prophets and Apostles proposed by the Catholick Church in her General Councils or by her Universal practice to be believed as an Article of Catholick faith All that is of this nature is an Article or doctrine of faith And no other doctrine can be of faith if either the first Condition fail viz. Divine Revelation or the second which is a Proposal by the Universal Church p. 5. No doctrine grounded on Scripture diversly interpreted either by the antient Fathers or our Modern Doctors is an Article of faith For such a doctrine though it may be revealed yet the revelation is not ascertained to us nor proposed by the Church Nor any Proposition which can be proved only by consequence drawn from Scripture though the consequences were certain and evident and deduced from two propositions of Scripture Yet these doctrines are Certain when the premises are so Gratians decrees the Papal decrees contained in the body of the Canon Law none of them do constitute an Article of saith Nor that which is defined in Provincial Councils though the Pope preside in person for the second condition is alwayes wanting in this case and very often the first p. 11. I did not say that such definitions were not of faith but they are not of Catholick faith or which all as Catholicks are bound to hold as of faith and the contrary to which is heretical and removeth from the bosome of the Church p. 12 13. The Practice even of the Vniversal Church is no sufficient ground for an Article of Catholick faith by reason the object of faith is Truth and oft times the Church proceeds in matter of practice upon probable Opinions and this probability is sufficient to justifie the practice which the Church on just cause may change As e. g. as Vasquez teacheth the Church did antiently pray in the Mass for Infidels alive and Catechumens dead and the Sacrifice of the Mass was offered for them and yet he rather inclineth to the contrary that the Sacrifice of the Mass ought not to be offered but for the faithful living and dead by which Opinion the Church seemeth guided at present But Vasquez answers that the Church following a probable opinion did practise that which she did not declare to be of faith p. 15. So General Councils when they mention any thing in this manner by way of simple assertion and do not properly define For as Bellarmine affirms it is necessary that General Councils properly define the thing in question as a Decree which ought to be held as of Catholick faith Hence Bellarmine adds they are not properly Hereticks who hold the Pope not to be above all Councils though he say the last Laterane Council under Leo the tenth Ses 11. expresly and professedly teacheth that the Pope is above all Councils and rejects the contrary Decree of the Council of Basil because it is doubtful whether the Laterane Council defined that doctrine properly as a Decree to be believed with Catholick faith The same Bellarm. de Concil l. 2. c. 19. also requireth that the definition be made Conciliarly Pope Martin the fifth said he only confirmed those Decrees of faith which were made in the Council of Constance Conciliariter that is after the manner of other Councils the question being first diligently examined But its clear saith he that this Decree that a General Council hath immediate authority from Christ which all even the Pope are bound to obey was made without any examining p. 17. The object defined must be truly and properly an object of faith and a Decree ought to be on a thing universally proposed to the whole Church Vasquez holds It is not at all erroneous to affirm that a General Council may err in Precepts and in particular Judgements and p. 19. in framing Laws not necessary to salvation or making superfluous Laws Without all doubt a General Council may err in a question of fact which depends on testimony and
information of men So the sixth General Council condemned Honorius of Heresie by false Information and misunderstanding his Epistles p. 20. The Pope saith Suarez to a particular action belonging to humane Prudence hath no infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost As that such or such an excommunication is valid or that such or such a Kingdom is disposable by the Pope for such and such causes So far Veron who is most favourable to you in narrowing our faith R. Thus far you have resolved me but I must crave somewhat more Qu. I. Are there no Essential Constitutive parts of your Religion more necessary than the Integrals and Accidentals Have you no description for it but that It is Divine Revelation proposed by the Church The Doctrine of Sacrificing was a Divine Revelation to Adam and the difference of clean and unclean Beasts to Noah and the Jewish Law was Gods Revelation to Moses and them And yet I suppose Christianity is somewhat different from all these Is not Christianity your Religion Hath Christianity no Constitutive special Essence but only the Genus of Divine Revelation which is common to that with all other Divine Revelations And what if you add to a Prophet or Apostle Was Agabus Prophesie of Paul or Pauls of the event of the shipwrack c. essential to Christianity Hath Christianity no Essence Or is all Divine Revelation essential to it P. You take advantage of the disagreement of our Doctors You know that some few acknowledg distinct fundamentals and some deny the distinction in your sense And most of us say that no man can enumerate the things necessary to all but that it dependeth upon mens various capacities educations and means of knowing And in sum that no more is necessary to all to be explicitly believed but that Gods Revelations are true and that All are Gods Revelations which the Church proposeth as such You may take our judgement much from him that cometh nearest to you whom I have heard you much praise as most moderate and judicious viz. Dr. H. Holden Anal. fid l. 1. c 5. Lect. 2. p. 53. Divines disputing of the necessity of points to be believed do commonly tend this way to denote the Articles of things revealed the explicite and express belief whereof is as they opine altogether necessary to all Christians The resolution of which question is among them so doubtful and uncertain as that they are in this as ☞ they are in all things else distracted and divided into various Opinions which they that care for them may seek To me they are as Nothing while the Authors of them profess that they have nothing of Certainty Yea to one that meditateth the matter it self laying by all preoccupation it is most clearly manifest that the Resolution of this question is not only unprofitable that I say not pernicious as it is handled by Divines but also vain and impossible It is unprofitable because no good accrueth by it to souls ☞ It is pernicious while Divines for the most part assert that only One or Two Articles yea as some say no singular Article at all is necessary to be believed of all by an explicite faith For hence however the truth of the matter be the colder Christians taking occasion do little care to obtain that degree of Knowledge in the Mysteries of faith which they might commodiously and easily attain It is Impossible seeing it is Manifest that no particular Rule or Points to be believed or Number of Articles can in this Matter be given or assigned which shall be wholly common and necessary to all Christians For this dependeth on every individual mans natural capacity means of instruction and all the other circumstances of each mans life and disposition which are to each man so special that we can determine of nothing at all that is common to all But I handle the Necessity of points to be Believed in a far other sense For the Articles of the Christian faith which I now call necessary I do not at all understand to be such as all and every one must distinctly know or hold by explicite assent But I mean only such the belief of which is accounted universally by the whole Catholick Church so substantial and essential as that he that will deservedly be esteemed and truly be a member of it must needs adhere to them all at least Implicitely and Indirectly that is by believing whatsoever the holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of divine faith And therefore he is for that cause to be removed from its Communion and Society who shall pertinaciously and obstinately deny the least of them much more if he maintain the contrary while he knoweth and seeth that it is the Universal sentence of that Church that we must adhere to that as an Article of faith And in this sense I will henceforth use the word Necessity R. This might have been said in fewer and plainer words viz. That your Divines herein do commonly err and that perniciously and yet that indeed he is of the same mind viz. that It is impossible to name the Articles necessary to be believed explicitely of all because each mans divers capacity means and circumstances diversifie them to each But that only this one thing is explicitely to be believed That whatsoever the Holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of faith is true And therefore that no man must pertinaciously deny any thing which he knoweth the Church so holdeth So that nothing is necessarily to be believed actually and indeed but Gods and the Churches Veracity P. Another of ours that cometh as near you as most openeth this more fully Davenport alias Fr. a Sancta Clara De. Nat. Grat. p. 111 c. As to the Ignorance of those things that are of necessity of Means or End there is difference among the Doctors For Soto 4. d. 5. q. 5. l. de Nat. Grat. c. 12. Vega l. 6. c. 20. sup Trid. hold that now in the Law of Grace there is no more explicite faith required than in the Law of Nature Yea Vega ib. Gabriel 2. d. 21. q. 2. ar 3. 3. d. 21. q. 2. think that in the Law of Nature and in Cases in the Law of Grace some may be saved with only natural knowledge and that the habit of faith is not required Whom Horantius terms men of great name and will not accuse of heresie I would this great mans modesty were more frequent with modern Doctors Yea Alvarez de aux disp 56. with others seemeth to hold that to justification there is not at all required the knowledge of a supernatural object or the supernatural knowledge of the object Others hold That both to Grace and Glory is required an explicite belief of Christ Bonav 3. d. 25 c. Others that at least to salvation is an explicite belief of the Gospel or
of Christ though not to Grace or Justification And this is common in the Schools as Ferera shews that followeth it And for this Opinion Scotus is cited But I think he holdeth that explicite belief of Christ or the Gospel is not of necessity of means as to Grace or Glory as 4. d. 3. q. 4. What is plainer than that now men may be saved without the explicite belief of Christ And I plainly think its Scotus's and the common opinion which Vega followeth and Faber 4. d. 3. and Petigianis very well and of the Thomists Bannes 2.2 q. 2. a. 8. Canus and others Yea the Trent Council seemeth to favour it Sess 6. c. 4. p. 114. So Corduba Medina Bradwardine ☞ And such as have no explicite faith in Christ are not formally without the Church This way go Victoria in 4. Relect. 4. tit Richard de Villa med 3.25 a. 3. q. 1 c. Well saith Petigianis 2. d. 35. q. 1. a. 9. that if there were a simple old woman to whom some false Opinion were preached by a false Prophet e. g. that the substance of Bread remaineth with the body of Christ in the Sacrament and she believe it Doth she sin by this No. p. 119. Yea if she so err through piety thinking that the Church so believeth perhaps she should merit p. 120. For my part I think that the Vulgar committing themselves to the instruction of the Pastors trusting of their knowledge and goodness if they be deceived it will be taken for invincible ignorance or at least probable as Herera which excuseth from faultiness Yea some Doctors give so much to the Instruction of Pastors that have the care of the Sheep that if they should teach that ☞ hic nunc God would be hated the rude Parishioner were bound to believe him which yet I think false p. 123. It seemeth at this day to be the common judgement of the Schools and Divines that the Laity erring with their Doctors or Pastors are altogether excused from all fault ☞ Yea oft times so materially erring do merit for the act of Christian obedience which they owe their Pastors as you may see in Valent. To. 3. disp 1. q. 2. p. 5. and others So Angles 2. d. 22. q. 2. dub 7. Vasqu p. 2. disp 121. In case they never doubted of the Veracity of their Prelates Much more saith Sancta Clara there to prove that the ignorant Protestants here may be saved citing further to his end Zanchez in Decal l. 2. c. 1. n. 8. Alph. a Castro Simanca Argon Tanner Faber Emanâ—sa Rozell And out of Argon tells us when Faith is sufficiently proposed viz. When faith is so confirmed by Reasons holiness of life the confutation of the contrary errors and by some signs as that Reason it self beginneth prudently to prescribe that the matters of faith heard are to be believed and the contrary Sect is false p. 125. And probl 16. p. 127. Whether men may be blamelesly ignorant of the Law of Nature and the Decalogue The common opinion is that they may not of the first principles but 1. Of the easie conclusions for some time and of the remoter conclusions for a longer time Such are the Commandments of the Decalogue as to the substance of the act as in some lying theft fornication manslaughter in Will at least c. R. Qu. II. But do you think that men may not as invincibly and inculpably be unacquainted with the Authority of the Pope and Roman Councils or Church as you say they may be ignorant of Christ and the Law of Nature I instance in the millions of the Abassme Christians who for above a thousand years never heard from the Pope or his emissaries P. That cannot be denyed For they have not the necessary means R. How then do you make your Churches proposal to be the necessary point to be Explicitely believed of all P. We do not mean it of all that Will be saved For you hear that some may be saved without any explicite belief of Christ But we mean it of all that will be in the Church and be saved there R. But do you not hold and say that out of the Church there is no salvation P. Some say so and some say that It is rare out of the Church R. But are the Ethiopian Christians out of the Church P. They are out of the true Church being Schismaticks R. Why said your Author before that Infidels were not formally out of the Church who are invincibly ignorant P. But other Doctors are of another opinion R. But Christ is the Saviour of his body Are not those of the Church who are saved or in a state of salvation What hold you of that P. Some say They are all of the Church and others that Christ saveth more than his Church And some say that They are of the Church Regenerate but not of the Church Congregate But few own this because it is your distinction as of a visible and invisible Church R. Qu. III. But above all I would know of you what you mean by the Catholick Church whose proposal is necessary to the being of faith P. We mean the Roman Catholick Church that is the Pope and his Subjects R. Do you mean the Pope without a General Council or a General Council without the Pope or only both agreeing and conjunct R. You take advantage of our differences but those do but shew that this is no point of faith Some hold that the Pope alone may serve and some that the Pope in a Provincial Council and some that a General Council without him But you heard Veron taketh in the Council and it is no true Council without the Pope And therefore the surest opinion saith that it must be both in Concord R. But what is the Vniversal Church whose Practice is made sufficient instead of or without a General Council P. It is the whole Roman Church real distinct from the Representative R. Is it the Clergy only or the Laity only or must it be both P. Both but not equally but in their several places R. Must it be All the Church without any excepted Or only the greater part P. These are points not agreed of and therefore not of faith Some say that it must be so many as that the dissenters be not considerable But how many are considerable or inconsiderable is undetermined Others say It may be the minor part that practise so be it the rest do not contradict it or do contrarily R. I will trouble you with no more such questions though I have a multitude which should be here resolved for I perceive that we must expect nothing but a Maze of uncertainties and confusion We are next in order to Agree upon our common principles which must be supposed in our following Dispute For they that Agree in nothing are uncapable of disputing of any thing seeing all conclusions of which we doubt must be drawn from more evident truths of which we
including Godliness which is its final part R. By Christianity I mean both our Believing Loving and obeying Christ as the way to the Father and our Believing Loving and Obeying God our Father as the end of Christs Mediation The Knowledge of God and the Mediator being Eternal Life Joh. 17.3 And as Taking a man for my Physicion is taking him by his medicines to help me to my health and so Health is finally included so taking Christ for my Saviour is to take him by faith to be the means of bringing me to the Love of God and to Glory And so I include Godliness in Christianity and the Law of Nature in the Law of Grace P. We are agreed on the truth of this but not of the medium by which it must be made known to us R. At the present I ask no more than that we agree in Christianity as the true and sufficient Religion and way to life The tenth Principle That Baptizing is our Christening And that all that are truly Baptized are Christians and members of the visible Church untill they Apostatize or are justly excommunicate at least P. I grant you all this as a common Principle with Christians R. Then you grant us 1. That our Religion is the True Religion of Gods appointment sufficient to salvation For it is Christianity which you confessed to be such 2. You grant that we are baptized into the true Catholick Church which is the body of Christ The eleventh Principle That all that are truly Baptized have the pardon of all their sins and have present right to salvation if they so die R. I mean that they that are Internally true Consenters to the baptismal Covenant and are baptized have all these benefits of Baptism And that Infants have them as rightly dedicated to God and baptized Do not you Consent to this P. Yes you know we do R. Then you fully grant that all among the Protestants who in Infancy or at age are truly baptized are in a state of salvation Why then would you make people believe that there is no salvation in our Churches when you grant the right to all that are Baptized P. But you are not Baptized by lawful Ministers R. Take heed what you say Your party holdeth that even Schismaticks and Hereticks Baptism is valid if they have all that is essential to Baptizing in the doing of it Yea that a lay mans or womans baptizing is valid If you deny it I will shame you by producing the common consent of your Doctors and your censure of Cyprian and making the contrary doctrine to be a Heresie P. But you have not all that is essential to Baptism because you are not intentionally Baptized into the true Catholick Roman Church For while you are not subject to the Pope you are not baptized into the Church and therefore Bellarmine sheweth that indirectly we are obliged to the Pope by baptism which you intend not R. Come come strive not against your knowledge 1. If our Baptism have not all that is essential why do you never rebaptize Protestants when they turn to you Do you not find that you condemn your selves 2. Why do not you your selves put the name of the Pope into your words of baptism 3. Doth your Tradition tell you that the ancient Churches did baptize men into a subjection to the Pope 4. Did any of the Primitive Christians baptize men into the name or subjection of Peter or any Apostle 5. Doth not Paul expresly renounce it as to himself and Peter 1 Cor. 1.12 13 14 15. Every one of you saith I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ Is Christ divided Was Paul Crucified for you or were ye baptized in the name of Paul c. 6. Did not Christ himself tell us all that was Essential to baptism in his institution Matth. 28 without making any mention of Peter or the Pope P. I cannot deny but our doctrine inferreth that all that are baptized among you have a true Sacrament but not the Benefit of it and so are not in a state of pardon and salvation Or at least when you come to age by refusing the Pope you turn Hereticks and lose it R. I know some of your divided writers say that we have Sacramentum but not Rem Sacramenti But 1. You say that a Character is imprinted by Baptism and all sin done away and the person in a state of life unless he come feignedly which you will not charge on Infants nor can you prove it by those of the Anabaptists themselves that are baptized at age And saith Aquinas when the fiction ceaseth the fruits of baptism are obtained 2. And it will be long ere you will prove that to be baptized into the name of the Trinity is uneffectual if we leave out the Pope 3. And you will hardly make a man understand what you mean by the validity of the Baptism of Hereticks and Schismaticks if it neither take the Baptized into the true Visible Church nor the invisible or a state of saving grace And as to Infants losing it as you say at age by Heresie 1. Will you save all the Anabaptists that are baptized at age If their baptism put them into a state of salvation and they continue just of the same faith and mind that they were baptized in sure that faith which put them in a state of salvation will keep them in it or not be damning through defectiveness to morrow which made them heirs of Heaven to day But you cannot make your doctrines hang together 2. And they that are Baptized in Infancy are baptized into the same faith which they continue in at age The Minister intendeth no other The Parents Sponsors c. intend no other And will that prove defective even to Salvation after which was saving then 3. If Baptism make us Christians and if Christianity be the true Religion sufficient in suo genere to salvation then we that continue in the Christianity which we were baptized into by your confession continue in the true saving Religion And this is all our Religion P. It is not every one that owneth Christianity that shall be saved Hereticks own it in general and yet contradict it by their Heresies R. It is every one that truly owneth Christianity in mind and will that shall be saved else Christianity were not a saving sufficient Religion The question is not whether objective Christianity or faith be sufficient to save him that believeth not or is not subjectively a Christian nor whether the doctrine of faith be sufficient in omni genere But whether it be a sufficient doctrine or obâ—ective faith in suo genere If a Heretick deny any essential part of it he believeth not that which he really understandingly and prevalently denyeth It is but the Name of Christianity and not the Thing which he owneth who disowneth any of the essence Our question is now whether our professed objective Faith be true and sufficient
time And the occasion of it was a particular Protestation of the German Princes and not directly a Protesting against Popery R. It is not Names but Religion which we dispute of And it is that which each party Professeth to be their Religion Therefore you must take our Profession or you change the subject of the dispute And we profess that the Law of Nature which no sober man questioneth and the Scriptures are All our Religion Therefore if you please you shall suppose that the name Protestant were not now in the world It doth not signifie our Religion But we now use it to signifie our Protesting against Popery or that we agree in substance and in rejecting Popery with those that made that particular Protestation mentioned by you Names are oft given from accidents as Africanus Germanicus Britannicus c. to several Roman Captains when yet their Humanity was the same before they were so named P. Turks Socinians Quakers c. Protest against Popery It seems then they are Protestants too and your companions R. 1. Thus some men study to deceive by turning from the question to another Our question I tell you is Whether the Religion of the Protestants be Infallible and not Whence is their name 2. But by a Protestant we mean only one that taketh the Scripture for the Rule and Christianity for the Essence of his Religion Which no one doth that denyeth any essential part of it If we do so prove it and you shall have our answer How do you judge of any man among your selves that taketh Gods word proposed by your Church for his Religion and yet mistaketh the Church in any point As Durandus that thought the matter of Bread continues whom Bellarmine yet denyeth to be an Heretick So is it with any among us that mistake the sence of Scripture in some such point When a Name is put upon any person or party from a common accident you may if you will call all by that name which that accident agreeth to And so Papists are called by some Non-conformists now in England because they Conform not But the world knoweth well enough that it is Protestants which are commonly meant by that name and not Papists Quakers Seekers c. though these conform not And so you may say if it please your self that Turks Jews Heathens Socinians Quakers Ranâ—ers are Protestants because they Protest against or reject Popery But the world knoweth who is meant by the Name Even Christians rejecting proper Popery And for my part I deal openly with you I care not if the name Protestant were utterly cast aside If any man be so deceived by it as 1. Either to think that it signifieth the Essence of our Religion unless you mean as we Protest for Christianity 2. Or that we take those called Protestants for the whole Catholick Church they make it an occasion of their own deceit Names of distinction are used because men know not else readily how to speak intelligibly of one another without circumlocutions And then cometh the Sectarian and taketh his Party for all the Church at least which he may lawfully Communicate with and the name of his party to notifie his Religion And then comes the crafty Papist and pretends from hence that such a named Religion is new and asketh you where was there any e. g. Protestants before Luther My Religion is naked Christianity the same as is where the name of a Protestant is not known and as was before it was known and as if the name of the Pope had never been known But now the Pope and his Monarchical Vsurpation over all the world are risen and known I am one of those that protest against them as being against Christianity which is my Religion But so as to addict my self to the opinions of no man or party that opposeth them wholly and absolutely and beyond evidence of truth I take the Reformed Churches to be the soundest in the world But I take their Confessions to be all the Imperfect expressions of men and the Writings of Protestant Divines to be some more clear and sound and some more dark empty and less sound and in many things I differ from many of them Choose now whether you will call me a Protestant or not I tell you my Religion which is simple Christianity Names are at your own Will I could almost wish that there were no name known besides that of CHRISTIAN as notifying our faith and Religion in the Christian world Though as notifying Heresie and sin there must be proper names as in Rev. the name Nicolaitans is used Even the word Catholick had long a narrower sense in the Empire with many than I now own it in Though as it signifieth One that is of the Church Vniversal loveth Vniversally all true Christians and hath Communion with them in Faith Love and Hope so I like it and am A CATHOLICK CHRISTIAN I dispute for nothing else I perswade this person here in Doubt to nothing else but 1. To hold fast to true and meer Christianity 2. To Reject all in Popery or any other Sect that is Evidently against it 3. To suspend his belief of all that 's doubtful and to receive nothing as a part of Divine faith or Religion till he be sure that indeed it is of God And now these Principles being supposed let us proceed and try whether Popery be of God or not PART III. The Protestants Reasons against Popery D. I Have heard what you have said in stating the Protestants Religion I now expect to hear what Reasons you have against that which you call Popery And afterwards that you prove all that you charge upon it But I adjure you first that you say nothing but what you believe in your conscience to be the truth as one that looketh to be judged for it R. With many Papists confident and vehement protestations go instead of Arguments and we oft hear them say If this be not true I am content to be torn in a thousand pieces We will seal it with our blood We will lay our salvation on it And do you think we have not souls to save c. Which is much like as if they would end all Controversies by laying Wagers that they are in the right or by protesting that they are honester and credibler men than their adversaries And it is no more than a Quaker or other such Sectary will say the most proud and ignorant being usually the most confident But yet though I expect not that you should receive any thing from me upon Protestations but upon Proofs I will here promise you that I will charge nothing on the Papists but what in my Conscience I am verily perswaded to be true The Reasons which resolve me against Popery are these and such like I. Reason Their Doctrine of Transubstantiation is so notoriously false and inhumane even contrary to the fullest ascertaining evidence that mankind can expect on earth viz. for all men on pain
of damnation to believe that there is no Bread and no Wine when all the soundest senses of any men in the world do perceive Bread and Wine by seeing it tasting it feeling it smelling it and by the notorious effects and all this built upon no Revelation of God no Reason at all nor any true consent of the Primitive Church but clean contrary to them all that I solemnly profess that I find it an utter Impossibility to believe it And it often puts me to a doubt Whether it be possible for any mortal man unfeignedly and fully to believe it and Whether there be really any such Papist in the world or Whether most do not for carnal respects take on them to believe it when they do not or rather the Vulgar understand their words as not really excluding the true being of Bread and Wine and the rest only somewhat overawing their own reason with a reverence of their Church so far as not to contradict or so far as notionally to own it when they do not from the heart believe the thing So many contradictions absurdities and impieties are to be by them believed with it that I am sure no man that understandeth them can possibly believe them all And all this must be done by Miracles stupendious miracles daily or common miracles which every Priest can do at his pleasure and never fail sober or drunken greater than raising a man from the dead so that every beastly sordid ignorant Priest shall do more miracles by far than ever Jesus Christ did in all his life on earth as far as we know by the holy Records if he live as long He that can believe all this may next believe that there is neither Earth under his feet nor the Firmament over his head nor Water nor Air nor any other Creature and that he hath no being himself II. Reason The Faith or Religion of the Papists as described by themselves is so far from Infallibility as that it is utterly uncertain unintelligible and meer contradiction and confusion and a changeable thing so that no man knoweth whether he have it or not and whether he have it all But whoever hath it he hath certainly a hodge-podge of truth and falshood III. Reason Their Papacy which essentiateth their Church is a horrid Usurpation of Christs own Prerogative and of an Office to do that which is incompaparably above the Natural Power or Capacity of any mortal man even to be the Apostle and Governour of the whole world of Christians at least To take Charge of all the souls on earth to teach and call those that are uncalled and to Rule those that are baptized even at the Antipodes and in all those unknown or inaccessible parts of the world which he hath no knowledge of A far more arrogant undertaking than to be the Civil Monarch of all the earth and utterly impossible for him to perform and which never was performed by him IV. Reason The said Papacy is an arrogant Usurpation of the Power of all the Christian Princes and Pastors upon earth or of a Power over them never given by Christ It setteth up a Kingdom in a Kingdom and taketh from Pastors the power which Christ gave them over their particular flocks V. Reason The said Papacy is a meer humane Institution They confess themselves that it is not of Divine faith that the Bishop of Rome is St. Peters Successor by Divine Right It is no article of their own faith But History fully assureth us that it was but in the Roman Empire that the Roman Bishop was made Supream as the Archbishop of Canterbury is in England And that he standeth on the same humane foundation as the other four Patriarchs of the Empire did And that their General Councils were called by the Emperours and were called General only with respect to that Empire And there never was such a thing as a General Council of all the Christian world nor ever can be And that there never was such is most notorious yet by the Names subscribed to all the Councils But they abuse the world and claim that power over all the Christians on earth which one Prince gave his subject-Prelates in his Empire As if the General Assembly of Scotland or France should pretend to be a General Council of the world and the Archbishop of Canterbury should call himself Archbishop of all the Church on earth and claim the government of it VI. Reason The said Papacy hold their claim of Supream Government as by Gods appointment though they confess as before said that it is not de fide that the Pope succeedeth Peter by Divine right and this notoriously Contrary to the Judgement and Tradition of the far greatest part of the Churches in the world General Councils such as they had and the sense of the greatest part of Christians have determined against the Papal claime And Tradition condemneth them to this day while they plead Tradition VII Reason It is Treason against Christ for the Papists who are but a Sect and not the third part of the Christians in the world to call themselves the whole Church and unchurch all the rest and seek to rob Christ of the far greatest part of his Kingdom by denying them to be such As if they would deny two third parts of this Kingdom to be the Kings They are Sectaries and Schismaticks by this arrogant dividing from all the rest and appropriating the name and priviledges of the Church to themselves alone VIII Reason By making an unlawful and Impossible Condition and Center of Church Vnion they are the greatest Schismaticks in all the world The greatest Dividers of the Church upon pretence of Vnity As he would be a divider of this Kingdom who would set up a Vice-King without the Kings authority and say that none that subject not themselves to him shall be taken for subjects of the King IX Reason They studiously brand themselves with Satans mark of malice or uncharitableness and cruelty to mens souls while they sentence to damnation two third parts of the Christian world because they will not be the subjects of their Pope And they think their way to Heaven is safest because they are bolder than us in damning other Christians Whereas Love is the mark by which Christs Disciples must be known to all X. Reason They are inhumanely cruel to mens bodies And this is their very Religion For the Council at the Laterane under Innocent the third decreed that those that believe not or deny Transubstantiation are Hereticks and all Temporal Lords shall exterminate them from their Dominions That is no man shall be suffered to live under any Christian Lord that will not renounce all his senses and profess that he believeth that they are all deceived by God himself which is not only to renounce their Humanity but their Animality or sense it self So that no men indeed are to be suffered to live but only such as deny themselves to be men What Heathens
what Turks did ever exercise such Inhumane fury Besides their burning and tormenting men as Hereticks that will not do all this and more and will not say as they require them XI Reason Their Church indeed is invisible while they deny it and an unknown thing For 1. Men are forced into it by such bloody Laws as that they cannot rationally be known to be Consenters 2. And they have no certain faith to constitute a Church-member For they hold that his obligation to believe is according to his inward and outward means of which no man can possibly judge And so no man can know whether himself or another have that faith which is required as necessary to salvation And many of them say That they that believe not in Christ have saving faith and are in the Church if they had not sufficient means XII Reason The Papacy doth intolerably tyrannize over Kings and teach such Doctrines of Perjury and Rebellion as their very Religion as is not in the practice of it to be endured in any Kingdom nor dare they fully practise it The Crowns and Lives of Princes being at the mercy of the Pope As the said Laterane Council sheweth XIII Reason Their Church is oft Essentially unholy heretical and wicked because the Pope is often so who is an Essential part of it And therefore it is not the holy Catholick Church General Councils have upon examination judged their Popes to be Hereticks Schismaticks Adulterers Murderers Simonists yea guilty of Blasphemy or Infidelity it self And the Church cannot be Holy whose Essential part is so unholy XIV Reason Their Churches succession is so notoriously interrupted and their Papacy so often altered in its causes as that it is become a confounded and a meer uncertain thing So many notorious or judged Hereticks Simonists Murderers Sodomites Adulterers have possessed the Seat who were therefore uncapable that the line of succession must needs be interrupted by them And so many wayes have they been made or elected sometimes by the people sometimes by the City-Presbyters sometimes by Emperours sometimes by Cardinals sometimes by Councils that if any one way of Election be necessary they have lost their Papacy long ago If no one way be necessary then the Turk may make a Pope XV. Reason Their Church called One is really two in specie one Headed by a Pope and another by a General Council For while the Head or Supream Ruler is an Essential part and one part of the people own one Head and another part own another Head as they do the Churches thus constituted cannot be One. And also de individuo there have been long two or three Popes at once and consequently two or three Churches And to this day none knoweth which was the right XVI Reason They plead for a Church which never had a being in the world that is All Christians Headed by one Pope When all the Christian world did never take him for their Head nor were governed by him to this day XVII Reason They dreadfully injure the holy Scriptures as if Jesus Christ and all the Prophets and Apostles in all those Sacred Records had not had skill or will to speak intelligibly and plainly to deliver us the doctrines necessary to salvation But they make their Voluminous Councils more intelligible and sufficient as if they had done better than Christ and his Apostles And when men must only Discern Gods Laws and Judge Causes by the Law they make themselves Judges of the Law it self that is of God the Judge of all and of the Law by which they must be judged XVIII Reason There is no other Sect of Christians under Heaven which hath so many differences among themselves or have written so many Books against one another as the Papists And though many of them are of great importance yea some are about the very Essence or Constitutive Head of their Church yet have they no handsomer way to palliate all by than by saying that these are but Opinions and no Articles of faith and the Infallible Judge dare not decide them No though it be diversity of Expositions of Gods own Word yet Commentators still differ without any hope of a decision as if Gods Word were not to be believed but were only the matter of uncertain Opinion till the Pope and Council have expounded it and no more Scripture is de fide than they expound XIX Reason Perjury is made the very Character of their Church or the brand by which it is stigmatized As is visible 1. In the Trent Oath imposed on their Clergy which whoever taketh he is immediately perjured and 2. By their disobliging men from Oaths and Vows even the Subjects of Princes from their Oaths of Allegiance whenever the Pope shall excommunicate them and give their Dominions to others as is decreed Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. XX. Reason They are guilty of Idolatry in their ordinary Worship by the Mass while they worship Bread as their Lord God Nor will it justifie them to say that if they thought it to be Bread they would not worship it Any more than it would justifie Julian to say that he would not worship the Sun if he thought not that it was God And they confess that if it prove to be still Bread their Worship will prove Idolatry and we desire no other proof And I am not able to justifie their sending God his Worship by a Cross Crucifix or other Image as a medium cultum from being a gross Violation of the second Commandment which they leave out XXI Reason Their Religion greatly tendeth to Mortifie Christianity and turn it into a dead Image by destroying much of its life and power 1. By befriending Ignorance and hiding the holy Scripture forbidding all the people to read them in a known tongue without a special license blaspheming Gods Word as if so read it had more tendency or likelihood to hurt men than to profit them to damn them than to save them when they will say otherwise of all their own Vulgar postils and such like writings 2. And by teaching the people a blind devotion viz. to pray in an unknown tongue and to worship God by words not understood 3. And by making up a Religion much if not far most of external formalities and a multitude of ceremonies and the opus operatum of their various Sacraments As if God delighted in such actions as befit not the acceptance of a grave and sober man or as if Guilt and Sin would be wiped off and charmed away into virtue and holiness by such corporeal motions shews and words XXII Reason Their Religion though it thus tend to gratifie the ungodly by deceitful remedies and hopes yet is very uncomfortable to the godly For 1. By it no man can know that he is a true believer and not a child of Hell much less that he shall be saved For they teach that no Divine can tell them what Articles are necessary to be believed to salvation
God to be Cruel to Mankind and that under pretence of Grace Even to put such hard Conditions of salvation on man which seem to us impossible to any but mad men or those who by faction have cast their minds into a dream If these be Gods Conditions that no man shall be saved that doth not believe that all his senses and all the senses of all the world are deceived when they perceive Bread and Wine or substance many may take on them to believe it but few will believe it and be saved indeed Reason XI Hereby you make the Gospel or New Covenant to be far harder and more rigorous than either the Law of Moses or the Law of Innocency For neither of these did damn men for believing the agreeing senses of all mankind Perfect Obedience to a perfect nature was fit to be a delight The burdensome Ceremonies had no such Impossibilities in them None of them obliged men to renounce all their senses and to come to Heaven by so hard a way Reason XII You seem to me to Contradict Gods Law and terms of life and to forge the clean contrary as his He saith He that cometh to God must Believe that God is c. and He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned But you seem to me to say in plain effect He that Believeth Gods Natural Revelations to all mens senses shall be damned and that believeth that the said Revelations are false may be saved caeteris paribus Reas XIII And what a thing by this do you mak◠Gods Grace to be Whereas true Grace is the Repaire◠and perfecter of Nature you make it to be the destroye◠and deceiver of Nature The use of Grace according to your faith is to cause men to believe that Gods natural Revelations are false and that all the senses of th◠world in this matter are deceived Whereas a mad ma◠can believe this without Grace Reas XIV By this doctrine you abominably corrupt the Church with hypocrisie while all that will hav◠Communion with you must be forced to profess tha◠all mens senses are thus deceived And can you thin◠that really they can all believe it or rather you◠Church must be mostly made up of gross hypocrites who falsly take on them to believe it when they do not Reas XV. And by this means you make the Vnity of the Church to become a meer Impossibility For you◠condition of union is that men all believe this among other Articles of your faith And that man hath lost o◠vitiated his humanity who can believe and expect tha◠all Christians in the world should ever believe that al◠the senses of all the world are thus deceived You might as well say The Church shall never have Unity till all Christians do believe that David or Christ was a Worm and no man a door a Vine a thief a Rock in proper sense or we shall have no unity till we renounce both our humanity and animality and the light and Law of God in Nature And after this to cry up Vnity and cry down Schism what abominable hypocrisie is it Reas XVI And by this doctrine what bloody inhumanity is become the brand or Character of your Church When you decree Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. that all that will not thus renounce their senses and give the lie to Gods natural revelations shall be excommunicated and utterly undone in this World even banished from all that they have and from the Land of their Nativity Yea your Inquisition must torture and burn them and your Writ de hereticis comburendis must be issued out against them to fry them to death in flames if they will not renounce the common senses of mankind Reas XVII And it even amazeth me to think what horrid Tyrants you would thus make all Christian Princes When the said Canon determineth that they shall be first Excommunicate and then cast out of their Dominions which shall be given to others and their subjects absolved from their allegiance and fidelity except they will exterminate all these as hereticks from their Dominions who will not give the lye to all mens senses and to Gods natural Revelations The plain English is ☞ He shall not be the Lord of his own Dominions who will have men to be his subjects or such as will not renounce both their humanity and animality or sense For to perceive substances in genere in specie by sense and to believe or trust the Common senses of all the World about things sensible as being the surest way that we have of perception is as necessary to a Man as Ratiocination is Choose then O ye Princes of the Earth whether you will be Papists and whether you will have no men to be your Subjects even none that believe the senses of themselves and all the world Reas XVIII Thus also your Idolatry exceedeth in absurdity the Idolatry of all the Heathens else in the World Even Canibals and the most barbarous Nations upon Earth For if they call men to Worship an Image the Sun the Moon an Ox or an Onion of which the Egyptians are accused they do but say that some spiritual or celestial numen affixeth his operative presence to this Creature But they never make men swear that there is no Image or Sun or Moon or Ox or Onion left but that the whole substance of it is turned into God or somewhat else Your Absurdities tend to make the grossest Idolatry seem comparatively to yours a very fair and tolerable errour Reas XIX By these means you expose Christianity to the scorn of humane nature and all the world You teach Heathens Mahometans and other Infidels to deride Christ as we do Mahomet and to say that a Christian Maketh and Eateth his God and his faith is a Believing that Gods supernatural Revelations are a lie and that God is like the Devil the great Deceiver of the world Wo be to the world because of offences and wo be to him by whom offence cometh Reas XX. Lastly by this means you are the grand pernicious hinderers of the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel world For you do as it were proclaim to them Never turn Christians till you will believe that Gods Natural Revelations are false and that all mens senses in the world are deceived in judging that there is Bread Wine or sensible substance after the words of Consecration These are the mischievous Consequents of your doctrine But one benefit I confess doth come by occasion of it that it is easier hereby to believe that there are Devils when we see how they can deceive men and to believe the evil of sin when we see how it maketh men mad and to believe that there is a Hell when we see such a Hell already on Earth as Learned Pompous Clergie men that have studied to attain this malignant madness to decree to fry men in the flames and damn them to Hell and
though this will produce a humane belief in the Hearers or Readers as by advantages it is most taking with them yet that fallible belief is all the Certainty that it can afford them Therefore I think it most ingenuous and reasonable to give men such arguments as they are capable of understanding and improving to certain satisfaction 2. Because they that can study such Authors as have gathered the sentences of the Antients in this Controversie may find it so fully done by Edmund Albertinus in his second Book that they can need no more P. You know that Albertinus is answered R. And I know that he is again Defended And who doubteth but you can answer me copiously if I did maintain that the Sun giveth light What is it that a man cannot talk for especially they that can hope to perswade all the Christian world that they must be damned unless they will believe that all mens senses are deceived and that God is the great Deceiver of the world P. But how can you think to please God and be saved if you be not of the same faith as the Church hath alwayes been of All the antient Fathers and Catholick Church were for Transubstantiation and are you wiser and in a safer way than they R. You have lost your credit with me so far as that your word is no oracle to me If I must not believe my own nor other mens senses I am not bound to believe you at least when I know you speak falsly But I pray tell me How know you that the Church and Fathers did so believe P. Because the present Church saith so which cannot err R. Do not your own Writers say that a General Council and Pope may err in matter of fact and that they did so in Condemning Pope Honorius and in other Cases P. Yes but this is a matter of faith R. Is it not a matter of fact what this or that man said and what doctrine the Church at such a time did teach and hold But how know you that the present Church doth say so that this was the faith of the antient Church P. By their testimony in a General Council R. Did you hear the Council say so P. No but the Church telleth me that the Council said so R. Who is it that you now call the Church which tells you so P. My Superiours who have it from the Pope and their Fathers R. Are your Superiours that told you so the Church Or is the Pope the Church If so What need you say a Council is the Church And how know you that the Pope and your Superiours err not in a matter of fact P. I know it by the Decrees of the Council yet extant R. 1. But if sense be deceitful how know you that you ever read such Decrees 2. How know you that they are not forgeries or since corrupted P. The Church is a safe keeper of its own Records R. Still what mean you by the Church The Vulgar neither keep nor understand your Councils The Council of Trent is long ceased No other General Council hath been since to tell you what are the true Decrees of that Council The Pope is not the Church And he may err in a matter of fact What then is the Church that tells you certainly what the Council of Trent decreed Tell me if you can P. We have such common historical Evidence and Tradition as you have for your Acts of Parliament when the Parliament is ended The present Governours preserve them R. Very good It is the Office of the Governours to take that Care but therein they are not indefectible and infallible but they and the published Laws and the notice of the whole Land and the Judicial proceedings by them in the Courts of Judicature make up a Certain Historical Evidence And so it may be in your Case And when you have talkt your utmost you can shew no more And have not we the same Writings of Fathers and Councils as you have You dare not deny it Why then may not we know what is in them as well as you And I pray you tell me Whether your Antiquaries such as Albaspinaeus Sixtus Senensis Petavius Sirmondus c. do prove what Cyprian Optatus Augustine c. held by the judgement of the Pope or Councils or by citing the words of the Authors themselves And do Crab Binnius Surius Caranza c. prove what one Council said by the authority of another or by the Records themselves yet visible to all P. Those Records themselves even the visible Writings of the Fathers and Councils are for Transubstantiation R. Till you have perswaded me out of my senses I will not believe you I pray you tell me if you can of any Author or Council that ever used the name Transubstantiation before Stephanus Aeduensis after the year 1100 de Sacram. Altar c. 13. P. Though the name be new the Doctrine is not R. Tell me next what General Council did ever determine it before the Council of Laterane under Innoc 3. an 1215. P. Not expresly for General Councils need not mention it till the Albigenses Hereticks gave them occasion by denying it R. Was it an Article of faith before If it were either the Councils are not the measure of your faith or it is very mutable P. Among all your questionings answer me this question if you can If that General Council decreed Transubstantiation what could move them so to do if it were not the faith of the Church before Were they not all of the same mind the day before they did it and so the day before that and the day before that c. Or do you think that they were against Transubstantiation the night before and awaked all of another mind the next morning What could make all the Pastors of the Church think that this was the true faith if they did not think it was the antient faith And what could make them think it the antient faith if it were not so Did not they know what their Fathers held And did not their Fathers know what their Fathers held The same I say of the Council of Trent also R. Thus men that must not believe the common sense of mankind can believe the dreaming conjectures of their brains and sit in a corner and thence tell the world what can and what cannot be done by publick assemblies at many hundred years and miles distance Who would not laugh at a Fryer that in his Cell would tell by moral conjectures all the thoughts and motions of an Army or Navy that never saw them and contrary to the experience of those that were on the ground and interessed in their Councils and actions Observe how many false suppositions go to make up your cheats 1. You suppose this a true General Council which is a pack of factious Prelates subject to the Pope and assembled at Rome in his own Palace under the awe of his presence and power And as if the small
condemning backbiting reproaching and making odious if not persecuteing one another and shunning many of them the Communion of one another as they do the Papists This makes them think that they must seek some surer soberer way than any of us have yet found and the Papists set in and tell them All these are branches broken off from the true Vine and withered This it is to depart from the Catholick Church when they are once gone thence there is no stop or consistence till they crumble all to dust and atomes You must become Roman Catholicks or go mad You see to what confusion all others tend If you once leave our Church you will never know where to settle Which Sect will you be of If an Independant why not an Anabaptist If an Anabaptist why not an Antinomian How will you ever know which one of all these is in the right All this is easily answered by a man of understanding But to the ignorant Vulgar it seemeth unanswerable And alas how many have given them this scandal Wo be to some by whom offence cometh 6. But the Contentions of our Clergie advantage them more than the divisions of the people when we are of many interests and many parties and proceed to make each other contemptible and odious especially when we come to hinder each other from the work of our Ministry A house and Kingdom divided cannot stand Christ tells us that the Devil himself is not so foolish as to divide his Kingdom All our consent and best endeavour is too little to save mens souls from sin and error And when one part is cast by and each part by contention hindereth the other the Papists have the far easier work When one part are not to come within five miles of Cities or Corporations where Papists are and those that may come near them are too few and many too indisposed or negligent in resisting them so that we are all overdone by their Priests in constant diligence especially with the Greater rank of men with whom one part of our Ministers have almost as little inclination as opportunity to converse no wonder if the Roman work go on 7. And alas how great advantage have they made of our late calamitous Civil Wars and manifold scandalous Rebellions Though indeed it was the terrour of their murdering about two hundred thousand in Ireland of which see Bishop Jones Sir John Temple and the Earl of Orery against Welsh which frightened those that I was acquainted with out of their peace and almost out of their wits here in England yet dead men are not heard on Earth and their service for the King in England serveth not only for a Cloke for that but for an advantage against many that stand in their way In all Civil Wars if the Clergy be drawn in to own several Causes especially if they own an ill Cause who ever prevaileth Religion suffereth by it while one part of them are laid by or hindered by the other 8. And though God hath greatly obliged this Nation to thankfulness by preserving our Superiours so much from Popery as he hath done yet some of their names are injuriously abused to entice men to the Popish way as if it had so much countenance and patronage that Interest might invite them to it 9. And the World is lyable to changes and weary of holding long in one way The name of Antiquity especially in Religion is venerable with all but yet it is Novelty that pleaseth in the Matter And when Popery is to us a New way honoured with the name of The old Religion it is a taking bait 10. But the grand cause of all is the common peoples Ignorance as being ungrounded in their own Religion and their badness who measure all by carnal Interests and all our great and manifold sins by which we have forfeited Gods presence and his grace and provoked him to leave us to the shame and ruine of our own lusts and delusions to undoe our selves Great sins bring great plagues And most men are of their Religion who have the greatest interest in their estimation and affections or that have greatest advantage on them by constant nearness familiarity kindred kindness or power to do them good or hurt in the World And therefore to your question Why so many of late turn Papists I shall but now concludingly answer you as I begun with you concerning the Cause of your own doubts They that have long lived under the light of the holy Gospel and among the mercies which have blest this Land and yet have been sincerely no true Christians but loved their fleshly lusts and pleasures and their wealth and worldly honour more than God or holiness or Heaven it is no wonder that they easily change their party and can be in siding of any Religion who are in sincerity of none and if God forsake their understandings and give them up to senseless and unreasonable opinions who would not live according to the knowledge which they had nor obey the truth which was clearly opened to them And such hypocrites and perfidious rebels against Christ all Protestants do confess themselves to have been who turn Papists and know what they do Because they profess to go from a state of damnation into a Church out of which there is no salvation if the Popes judgement be as powerful in Heaven as it is at Rome D. But is there no hope of ending these lamentable differences and removing the scandal of Infidels hereby or at least of living together like Neighbours without seeking each others blood or ruine R. 1. Yes when God shall by his Providence take down the worldly Greatness and Advantages of the Papacy and level the King of Rome with the true Pastors of his Church and turn the usurping Monarch of all the World into a true Bishop that so worldly Power honour and wealth may not be stronger arguments with their party than Heaven and Hell and Gods commands Till then their Great twisted Interest is like to rule them and keep them in the errours into which it hath involved them Especially while their pretended Infallibility against all sense and reason is their strength which maketh them uncurable in any errour which they once embrace 2. But yet I did in the second Part of my Key for Catholicks long ago shew the terms on which we may live like neighbours if not like Christians if their principles would allow their minds to be but peaceable and give dissenters leave to live And I still profess that might we but secure our selves and our posterity I am none of those that would have the least injury much less cruelty exercised upon any man for being a Papist If they will live peaceably with me or but give me leave I will live peaceably with them And I doubt not but as there are some among them truly fearing God though corrupt with the errours of their education so there are more that are of kind and civil
natures which their ill opinions cannot make fierce and sanguinary nor overcome And none of them I think shall be more loving kind and peaceable to me than I will be to him And I confess I have a greater respect and honour for those whose Ancestors have transmitted Popery to them under the name of the True Catholick faith and who live according to what they know though perhaps in blind zeal they hate me and such others for the Interest of their way than I have for those that seemed once Protestants and by filthy debauched lives have made it seem needful or convenient for them to turn Papists that they may have a seeming Religion and Priests pardons to quiet or deceive their Consciences or than I have for those Papists who live in drunkenness lust and common lying and prophane swearing while yet they seem to be Religious and regardful of God and their souls or than I have for those Priests who befriend such mens wickedness for the increase and interest of their Church Yea I truly profess that if I know a truly Godly conscionable charitable Papist I must I will love and honour him far more than an ungodly unconscionable uncharitable Protestant And as far as I can discern both Ministers and private Christians but especially Ministers whom I most converse with are of the same mind D. But is there no way possible to bring them fairly off in this gross business of Transubstantiation without putting them upon the disclaiming of the Popes and General Councils Infallibility R. I am not bound to devise accommodations to strengthen them in their other errours if I could But yet I would cure any errour in any though they intend their own cure to an evil end I cannot be perswaded but their understanding men are sorry at the heart that the Laterane Council hath drawn them into such a snare by making Transubstantiation an Article of their faith and that they are very angry at them and wish that it had never been done but being done they must take on them to believe it lest they pull down with their foundation all their fabrick I doubt not but they are troubled and ashamed to read the Schoolmens disputes of Transubstantiation exposing Christianity to the Infidels scorn which this Council hath most occasioned I know not how to bring them off unless they will hearken to what Dr. Taylor in his Disswasive from Popery and Dr. Heylin and Dr. Pierson and Dr. Gunning in the Dispute have said against the Validity of that Laterane Council could they but spare the Canon for deposing Temporal Lords and dispossessing them of their Dominions and absolving all their Papists subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and exterminating the rest Yea it would be more serviceable to them at last with Princes to retract that also than to keep it Their best way is to take the help of these pretences and condemn the contrary Reasons of Mr. Terret and his fellow Disputant against the foresaid Doctors and expunge that Council out of Binnius Surius and the rest who number it with the approved Councils and because Matth. Paris and others say that some at the Council thought the Canons burdensom and they were brought in by the Pope and hastily read c. therefore say that They were not passed at least Conciliariter which you know is a word that serveth their turn against another Council which they dislike D. But what shall they do with following Councils especially that at Trent which say the same R. The best shifts that I know are 1. To do as they do about the condemning of Pope Honoririus as a Heretick They say that a General Council and Pope too may err in a matter of fact and so they did in judging of Honorius his meaning So they may say that the Council of Trent did decree this as an Article of faith only because they thought that the Church so held it which was because they thought that the General approved Council of Laterane had so decreed it But now finding that it was not so decreed there the error in matter of fact ceasing which was the supposition the doctrinal error proveth to be no Article of faith or Conciliariter decretum 2. Or if this will not do they are best yet stretch the words of Rome and Trent to a more tolerable signification and say That it is not the ceasing of the substance of Bread and Wine which is meant but the changing it into a Relative new form And so as the Whole substance of a man is changed from being a meer Common man into a King a Bishop a Doctor without any cessation of his Humanity but only quia forma ultima denominat he is not any more to be called meerly A Man but A King A Bishop c. Or as the whole substance of a piece of Gold is changed into Currant Coin by the Kings Stamp c. So the whole substance of Bread is turned into the Representative Body of Christ and the whole substance of Wine into his Representative blood which change they call Transubstantiation But why should I give counsel to men that will not thank me for it and that obstinately refuse much better D. But why speak you nothing of their denying the people the Cup I thought you would principally have fastned on that R. Because it is no part of this present Controversie which I was first to handle though it concern the same Sacrament But it is such an instance as serveth to tell those of the world that will understand what horrid unreasonable audacious arrogance and Vsurpation and Treason against God and the true Head of the Church this pretended Monarch of the world and his pretended Catholick Church the Popish Sect are guilty of considering 1. That it is as essential a part of the Sacracrament as the Bread is For Christ hath made no difference 2. It hath the same Institution and express Command He that said Take Eat said also Drink ye all of this He hath said Do this in remembrance of me of One as well as of the Other 3. Therefore to take away an Essential part is to take away the Sacrament and make it another thing As it is not a humane body that hath not both Head and Heart So here 4. Therefore by the same authority they might have continued the Cup and taken away the Bread or have taken away both 5. And on the same reason they might have taken away Baptism and all Christs positive Institutions And for ought I know the Ministry it self as instituted 6. But then Gersons question de auferabilitate Papae would be next to be debated For were he of Christs own Institution as he is not it is no more than the Cup in the Lords Supper Could he but prove an Institution of his Papacy as evidently who would not be his Subject If you say But who should take him down if it might be done I answer Kings in their own Kingdoms