London and in your chamber there upon occasion of reading a book writ by a certain Protestant Bishop against the Real presence I observ'd and acquainted you with my observation that to my Judgment the Fathers spoke more favourably for the Papists tenet than the Protestants Hereupon you took me by the hand and told me they were mad who read the Ancient Fathers and saw not they meant Christ was as really in the Sacrament as in Heaven The other was yet more remarkable and this that either your Grandfather or Father I know not which but I think your Grandfather was intimate with Mr. Calvin and when he had put out his Explication of Christ's presencein the Sacrament which dodg'd and shuffled between really and notreally that is between is and is-not he challeng'd Mr. Calvin with it and laid open to him the non-Sence and indefensibleness of it asking him why he put out so strange an Opinion which he was never able to make good at which Mr. Calvin took hold of his own finger and said See you this I would willingly cut it off on condition I had never put it out so To which your Grandfather reply'd You should then explain it some other way Mr. Calvin answer'd My Institutions are so spread all over France that 't is now too late Thus you letting me see by a Testimony very immediate that the late Authour of this Tenet which now so reigns all over England wish't his finger cut off when he writ it How you will reconcile this with the late new piece of the Rubrick in the Common-Prayer-book absolutely renouncing all real presence in which point the Church of of England formerly exprest her self abstractedly do you consider Sir I beseech you let this be a fair warning to you how you deal disingenuously for the future and pardon some of my expressions to my high provocation and exceeding great hast I am sure the worst of them is a Civility compar'd to the harsh carriage you have us'd towards your self in openly falsifying both my words and sence and causlesly wresting to an ill construction every passage you touch't yet not doing me the right to go about to answer any one in the least that so I might see by your Reasons you had Grounds to think as you writ Had you argu'd against me I know too well the right of a Writer to take it ill if you laid open and nam'd my conceived Faults though the names of them had been harsh Words but not even to attempt to confute them yet to flie into such Expressions is the very definition of railing I was extreme sorry to lay open the Fault of a Friend though my own Concern made it Fitting and your demerit Just and do assure you that onely the Injury to my Cause which went along in that action oblig'd me to this Vindication Setting aside the duty I owe to That I am still as ever Your true Friend and humble Servant J. S. A LETTER from The Authour of Sure-footing to his Answerer SIR I Am certainly inform'd there is an Answer to my Book intended and a Person chosen out for that Employment whose Name I am unconcern'd to know it being only his Quality as a Writer I have to do with I receive the Alarum with great chearfulness knowing that if my Adversary behaves himself well it will exceedingly conduce to the clearing and settling the main point there controverted But because there is difference between being call'd an Answer and being an Answer and that 't is extremely opposit to my Genius to be task't in laying open mens Faults even as Writers though it has been my unhappiness formerly to meet with Adversaries whose way of winning made that carriage my only duty wherefore to prevent as much as I am able all occasion of such unsavory oppositions and to make way to the clearing the point that so our Discourse may redound to the profit and satisfaction of our Readers I make bold to offer you these few Reflexions which in effect contain no more but a Request you would speak to the point and in such a way as is apt to bring the matter nearer a clearing This if you please to do you will very much credit your self and your endeavours in the opinion of all ingenuous persons If you refuse and rather chuse to run into Rhetorical Excursions and such Discourses as are apt to breed new Controversies not pertinent to the present one under hand you will extreamly disparage both your self your party and your Cause and give me an exceeding advantage against them all I shall also have the Satisfaction to have manifested before-hand by means of this Letter that I have contributed as much as in me lies to make you avoid those Faults which I must then be forc't to lay open and severely press upon you little to your Credit nor your Causes neither You being as I am informd and Reason gives it signally chosen out as held most able to maintain it 2. That there may be no more distance between us than what our Cause enforces I heartily assure you that though I highly dislike your Tenets negatively opposit to what we hold Faith and the Way of Writing I foresee you must take unless you resolve to love Candour better than your Cause as being Inconclusive and so apt to continue not finish debates yet I have not the least pique against yours or any mans Person Nor have I any particular aversion against the Protestant party rather I look upon it with a better eye than on any other Company whatever which has broke Communion with the Catholick Church It preserves still unrenounc't the form of Episcopacy the Church-Government instituted by Christ and many grave Solemnities and Ceremonies which make our Union less difficult Many of their soberest Writers acknowledge divers of the renounc't Tenets to be Truths some of them also profess to hold Tradition especially for Scripture's Letter and even for those Points or Faith-Tenets in which they and we agree that is where their Interest is not touch't I wish they would as heartily hold to it in all other Points which descended by it and look into the Virtue it has of ascertaining and declare in what that Virtue consists I am confident a little candour of confessing truly what they finde joyn'd with an endeavour of looking into Things rather than Words would easily make way to a fair Correspondence I esteem and even honour the Protestants from my heart for their firm Allegiance to his Sacred Majesty and his Royal Father This uniting them already with all sober Catholiks under that excellent notion of good Subjects and in the same point of Faith the Indispensableness of the duty of Allegiance we owe our Prince by Divine Law Lastly I declare that for this as well as for Charitable Considerations I have a very particular zeal for their reconcilement to their mother-Mother-Church and that 't is out of this love of Union I endeavour so earnestly
Opinions which pretend a Subordination to and Coherence with Faith Divines should first clear their Incoherence with it ere They engage their Authority against them and then to do it efficaciously being back't with the Majesty of the Council's Orders My Lds words that the Fathers of the Council set their Doctors as well as they can to defend all the new curious and scandalous Questions and to uphold the gainful trade is indeed to the purpose but withal by his leave an unhandsome and most false Calumny against so many Persons of Honour and Quality and so Invidious a Charge that could he have proov'd it he had not slubber'd it over so carelesly without offering any proof for it but his bare word nor with a sleight proper to himself immediately after he had directly charged it have half recanted it with However it be with them that is whether they did any such thing or no as he had so lately and so pressingly challeng'd them to have done And this I note as a Third Head of his disingenuity frequent in his Book that he brings very good proofs for diverse particulars which concern not our Church but when it comes to the very point and which directly strikes at her his own bare word We know or it is Certain p. 54. l. 22. p. 62. p. 63. p. 67. c. is the best Argument he produces 16. A fourth disingenuity is his Perverting wilfully the Intention of Catholick Authours How he hath dealt with the Council of Trent in the two late mention'd points of Indulgences and Purgatory is already shown In like manner has he treated the Expurgatory Indies For whereas by the word Purgari emaculari in a Citation of his own p. 21 it is manisest they meant but to amend Corruptions of the late by the Antient Copies he makes as though out of gripes of Conscience forsooth that the Fathers were not right on our side they had therefore purposely gone about to corrupt the Fathers themselves p. 18. and 19. so to make them on our side because we could not find them so An Attempt impossible to fall into head of any man not stark mad For this altering the Fathers could not have serv'd our turn unless we had made it known and publish't it and if made Publick could not be imagin'd to do the deed neither for the Fraud must needs be made as Publick as the Book So that an Action thus intended must be a Human Action without a Motive or Reason which is a Contradiction Worse is what follows p. 21 22. but withal the malice of it is more easily discoverable For 't is evident by the particulars he mentions in those Indexes or Tables that the Printer or Correcter who made them was an Heretick and put in those Tables what his perversness imagin'd was found in the Fathers Whence it was but fit his whole Index should be expung'd Not that we fear the Fathers but that we disallow the wicked intentions of the Index-maker who abuses the Fathers to injure us So p. 62. he would make Catholikes themselves dissatisfy'd of the Ground of Transubstantiation because they say 't is not express'd in Scripture as if Catholiks held that nothing could be of Faith but what 's expresly found there whereas he well knows they universally teach and hold the contrary But his abuse of Peter Lombard p. 64. 65. is very remarkable though perhaps it might spring out of his little Experience in School-divinity To make Transubstantiation seem a Novelty he would persuade his Reader Lombard sayes he could not tell whether there was any Substantial change or no Whereas that Authour Dist. 10. brings Testimonies of the Fathers to prove it and concludes thence that 'T is evident that the Substance of Bread is converted into Christ's Body and the Substance of Wine into his Blood which is what the Council of Trent calls Transubstantiation And there ends that Distinction After which immediately succeeds the 11th De modis Conversionis of the Manners of this Conversion and of these he sayes he cannot sufficiently define whether this Conversion be Formal or Substantial or of another kind So that Substantial here supposes the Conversion of the Substance of Bread into Christes Body and is put by him onely to signify one of the manners of this Conversion which he explicates to be Sic Substantiam converti in Substantiam ut haec essentialiter fiat illa that one Substance is so converted into another Substance that the one is made essentially the other Whereas others who also hold Transubstantiation do yet explicate that Conversion by putting the body of Christ to succeed under the same Accidents in place of the Substance of Bread annihilated Now this Manner of Conversion calld by him a Substantial Manner in opposition to Formal which he makes to be a Conversion both of Substance and Accidents and not in Opposition to the change of one Substance into another he leaves Undefin'd but the Conversion it self of the Substance of Bread into the body of Christ which is our point he both defines hold proves out of Fathers Disc. 10. and calls them Hereticks that deny it How unfortunate is my L. to quote an Authour as not holding Transubstantiation then to call that Citation a plain Demonstration that it was not known in his dayes whereas he both professes to hold it and by alledging Fathers for it evidences he holds it was held anciently and lastly gives my L. such hard language for not holding it himself Whether it be likely my L. should light by some accident in reading Peter Lombard onely on the 11th Dist. and never read or light on the end of the 10th let Indifferent men judge I onely desire the Reader to observe how ill my L. comes of with his plain Demonstration and to remark that he ever succeeds worst when he most ayms at a good and solid proof the reason of which is because Truth being Invincible the neerer one closes to grapple with her the worse still he is foil'd Those few Instances may suffice for the 4th Kind of the Dissuaders disingenuities which is to pervert the Intentions of his Authours of which sort were it worth the pains I would undertake to show neer an hundred in my Lds. Dissuasive This piece of Art being now so customary to him that 't is even grown into a second Nature 17. His fifth kind of disingenuity is a most wilful one and most frequent too for it takes up far the better half his book 'T is this that he rakes up together all the less solid or ill Opinions and Cases and sometimes deforms the good ones of some private Writers in the Church which he will needs lay upon the Church her self as Mistress of our Faith Nay so strangely unjust he is in this Particular that whereas it evidently clears our Faith disengages the Church and shows it but Opinion when other Catholick Doctors uncontrolledly write against such an Opinion or Explication
so qualify'd as is apt to convince to answer it and not at all by Protestant Grounds which yield them all Fallible yet I have that regard for any thing that tends though remotely to Solidity that I will even remit something of my own advantage to give it a respectful Consideration The Testimony is of Gennadius cited by my L. p. 58 59. thus For after Christ's Ascension into Heaven the Souls of all Saints are with Christ and going from the body they go to Christ expecting the resurrection of their body with it to pass into the perfection of perpetual bliss To which my Ld. subjoyns and this he delivers as the Doctrin of the Catholick Church I take this excellent Testimony as put down by himself to do which the usage of St. Greg. Nazianzen's immediately foregoing gives me small encouragement In answer then I affirm that this Testimony so insisted and rely'd on as against us is as plain a declaration of the Faith of our Church at present as any now-adayes Catholick could pronounce For since no Catholick holds that any goes to Purgatory but they who die Sinners to some degree and that all who are Saints are with Christ in Heaven as is evident by the Churches common language affirming constantly the Saints are in Heaven and never that the Saints are in Purgatory but the Souls onely it is manifest that the words are as expresly for us as we our selves could invent or wish I hope it will not wrogMethod if on this occasion I show how Protestant Writers speed when they bring against us any Testimony of a Father speaking as a Father that is declaring that he delivers the sence of the Catholick Church however in other Testimonies which speak not narratively or matter of Fact the very nature of words joyn'd with the variety of their Circumstances must needs afford room for ambiguity and several Glosses I affirm then that this Testimony not onely is not in the least opposit to us but is directly opposit to the Protestants in another point of Faith in which we differ To discover this let us reflect on the words After Christes Ascension into Heaven the Souls of all Saints are with Christ and ask what mean these words After Christs Ascension And first 't is Evident it puts a distinction between the Souls of Saints before Christs Ascension and After it in some Respect and what is this Respect most expresly this that the Souls of the Saints After Christes Ascension go from the body to Christ that is that before the Ascension none did The avowed Doctrin of the Catholick Church prosessing that those who die Saints in the Law of Grace go straight to Heaven but that the best Saints before our Saviours dying for them and Ascending with them did not Whence also we hold that Christes descending into Hell was to free them from that State of Suspence and Want of their strongly desired and hopet for Bliss According to that Hymn of S. Ambrose and S. Augustin in the Common-prayer-book so oft said over by rote but never reflected on When thou hadst overcome the Sharpness of death thou didst open the Kingdome of Heaven to all Believers Signifying plainly that no Believers sound Heaven open for them till after Christ's death By the Success of this one Testimony is seen how utterly the Protestant Cause would be overthrown by way of Testimony as well as Reason were Citations distinguish't brought to Grounds and those onely admitted from the Fathers in which 't is manifest they speak as Fathers or Witnessers of what is the present Churches doctrin To close up this Discourse about the Dissuader's Citations He is to show us first that they fall not under the Faulty Heads to which they are respectively assign'd or under diverse others of those Heads Next that they have in them the nature of Testimonies And lastly which is yet harder that though they have in them the nature of Testimonies their Authority is Certain and their language unambiguous so that they may be safely rely'd on for Principles or Grounds of a solid Discourse This if he shows of any one citation which strikes at our Faith I promise him very heartily to subscribe to the validity of all the rest 13. Thus much for his Authorities Next should follow a Refutation of his Reasons produc't against our Faith for as for those against our School-Divines or Casuists they concern not me as a Controvertist Let him and them fight it out Now Reasons that strike at our Faith must either be against the Ground of Faith and those shall be consider'd in my Answer to his First Section or against points of Faith And these may proceed two wayes First by showing those points Incomprehensible to our Natural Reason or unsutable to our Faney and this way he frequently takes making a great deal of game upon such subjects as any Atheist may do by the same way in points common to him and us But this hurts us not in the least in regard we hold not Mysteries of Faith Objects of Human Reason nor Spiritual Things the Objects of Fancy and so these Reasons need no farther Answer The other way Reasons against Points of Faith may proceed is to show those Points contradictory to some Evident Principles at least to some other known or else acknowledg'd Truth And these were worth answering But such as these I find none in his whole Book rather that he builds his sleight Descants or Discourses on some controvertible Text or Citation relying on them as firmly as if they were First Principles Indeed p. 65. the Dissuader tells us of a Demonstration of his for the Novelty of Transubstantion and that a plain one too But I shal manifest shortly from the very words of the Author Peter Lombard on which his Plain Demonstration relies that 't is either a plain mistake or plain Abuse of him nay argues the direct contrary to what the Dissuader product it for Some Consequences also he deduces ad hominem against diverse points of our Faith built on our own Concessions or Allow'd Truths taken from the Fathers by which he attempts to overthrow it But these Consequences are so strangely Inconsequent and those tenets he would counterpose so far from Contradictory that 't is hard to imagin whence his Reason took its rise to leap into such remote conclusions I 'le instance in two found p. 49 and 50. That the Conflagration of the last day and the Opinion of some Fathers that the Souls were detain'd in secret receptacles till the day of Judgment do both destroy intermediate Purgatory Which Consequences if he will make good I will vield his whole Book to be Demonstrative and Unanswerable In a word all the good Reasons he brings are taken from some of our Divines writing against others and he hath done himself the right to chuse the best which levelled against the opinion of a less able Divine in stead of a point of Faith must needs bear a
himself often alledges that very thing which should clear the Church and and makes use of it to her farther disgrace First making the School and Church Private Opinions or Explications and Faith all one and at next that the difference amongst such Opiners and Explicaters argues our difference in Faith How strange a malice is this Was there ever any time since the Apostles in which there were not in the Church diverse persons and even some Governours bad in their lives and also Erroneous in their Opinions when the Abstractedness of Christian Faith restrain'd not their Understandings from descending to particulars nor secur'd them in such discourses depending much upon human Sciences Do not the best Champions of Protestants object to the Ancient Fathers themselves such Errors in Opinions Yet no ancient Heretick was ever so weak as to make that an Argument against the Church of those times Did not many Protestant Writers holdmany Roman-Catholick Tenets as may be seen at large in the Protestants Apology Yet no Catholick in his Wits thought therefore the Church of England her self was Roman-Catholick I have heard that one of their Chief Ecclesiastical Officers namely Bishop Bilson writ a book purposely to justify the Hollanders Rebellion against the King of Spain maintaining that Subjects might in some Cases rise against their Soveraigns and turn them out of their Government And yet Catholicks are far from that peevishness to esteem the Protestants disloyal in their Principles but honour them highly for the contrary Virtue even though they are pleased to permit us their Fellow-sufferers for the same loyal Cause to be abused and branded publickly for Traytors by every disloyal Scribbler And to come neerer home did not my L. himself formerly write some strange Opinions I need not name them yet no Catholick was ever so absurd as to charge his Church with those Tenets But which is yet far worse he imputes to the Catholick Church such licentious Cases which not onely Private Authours may and do freely contradict but even Mulritudes of Church-Officers namely almost all the Bishops in France in Diocesan Synods nay the Head of the Church himself has disapproov'd in condemning the Apology writ for them Yet for all this all must be our Churches fault whether she will or no and our Doctrin though she condemns it Was ever such a disingenuous Writer heard of But what aggravates most the Case is neither the Church of England nor the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury nor any Officer or Bishop of hers that we heard of did ever in any solemn Act blemish those Authours cited in the Protestants Apology by condemning their Books nor yet those writ by the Dissuader though they judg'd them amiss but on the contrary his person is advanc't and chosen for their Champion and yet our Writers are soberer more candid than to impute to their Church any of these not-yet-disavow'd Faults whereas my Ld. for want of better Proofs will needs clap upon our Church any misreasonings of private men though our chief Church Governour and many Inferiour ones have discountenanc't and blemish't them Nor is it onely every defect human nature is liable to in reasoning or acting which must be made our Churches Crimes but every unfavorable Circumstance Man's Nature can light into and their defective Effects are all made by the Dissuader's Logick to spring from meer Popery nay the very National Rudeness of his wild Irish is in his Preface confounded by his carriage with our Churches Doctrin and the Inability of their Teachers with much Rhetorick complained of and charactered to be Popery when himself enjoyes the revenue which should educate them better and encourage them Against this kind of unreasonable procedure in the Dissuader I levelled those Corollaries from Corol. 31. to 40. which I intreat my Reader to review and him to consider particularly In the mean time I would ask him on this occasion a few short Questions May not any one remain a Catholick and never hold or practice these Cases and Opinions Do not Catholicks impugn them as much as Protestants Does he find any of those Opinions or Cases in our Catechisms or any Command of our Church to hold or act them nay even in that most common point of extending Indulgences to the next world but they who will use them may who will not need not How then does he hope to dissuade from Catholick Religion by impugning that which touches not that Religion nor concerns any ones being of it And why does not he rather fear all sober men will see his aym by this declamatory kind of Opposition to endeavour to gain credit as a great Anti-papist and not to convince solidly his Readers whose experience if they know any thing enables them to give a ready and satisfactory answer in their own thoughts to all those Questions I have now ask't and so to confute neer three parts of His Book He saw it himself and though he carries it on all along as if he were willing all should be thought the Doctrin of our Church or Faith yet fearing the Calumny is too manifest to be cloak't he provides excuses and Evasions before hand in his Title p. 127. saying The Church of Rome AS IT IS AT THIS DAY DISORDER'D teaches doctrines and uses practices which are in themselves or in their immediate CONSEQUENCES direct Impieties c. So that he speaks of our Church precisely as having some disorders in her and that they lead to ill onely by Consequences drawn from such disorderly Tenets and who 's the drawer of these Consequences Himself But grant his position that there are Disorders in the Church I mean not in Faith held Universally and obligatorily but in unobligatory Opinions and Practices I ask does he think there was ever any time in which there were not some Disorders in the Church or ever will be while Original corruption lasts Does he 〈◊〉 the very time of the Apostles was exempt from such frailty or that S. Paul complain'd for nothing of the Pastors in those primitive and purest times Phil. 2. v. 21. that Omnes quae sua sunt quaerunt non quae sunt Jesu Christi Again thinks he it any wonder that a disorder'd Tenet or a Falshood in a point belonging to manners is apt to lead by consequence to ill actions none doubting but that as Virtue is the connatural Effect of Truth so is Vice of Falshood What hath he got then by this kind of Proceeding taking up better half his book Onely this he hath proov'd there is Original Sin in the world and so it's Effects Ignorance and Interest Again let him consider how disputative an Age this last Century has been and what infinit multitudes of Writers concerning Opinionative Points of all sorts have been in our Church how voluminous how descending to particulars or Cases and this both in School-divinity Morals and Canon-Law and then let him speak seriously whether he can conceive it possible in human Nature there should not
he would deal candidly Himself confesses the Inquisition of Spain corrected one of those Books he names and I know no obligation any man has either to use or abet the others and then to what purpose were they brought against the Church 23. The last greatest and most notorious disingenuity is his most unworthy and most Intolerable Calumny against all Catholicks that they are Traytors and unfit for human Society He names not these words but that he endeavours to have the thing beleeved by his Readers appears thus The Title of his third Chapter p. 260. is this The Church of Rome teaches Doctrins which in many things are destructive of Christian society in General and of Monarchy in special We see here what he charges on our Church and since 't is known all Catholicks not onely are oblig'd to hold but to hold as Sacred and of Faith what the Church of Rome teaches nay to be ready to dy for that Faith 't is plain his Endeavours are to make us pass in the Opinion of his Readers for persons who hold Treason and Villany Lawful nay Sacred and that we are ready to dy and hope to be sav'd by such damnable points of Faith Nor will his false-hearted Pretence p. 462. exempt any while 't is known that nothing is more deeply rooted in our hearts than our obligation to beleeve as the Church beleeves and teaches In particular he assures his Reader p. 462. that No Contracts Leagues Societies Promises Vows or Oaths are sufficiēnt security to him that deals with one of the Church of Rome And p. 279. that the Doctrins of our Church are great Enemis to the Dignity and Security to the Powers and Lives of Princes 'T is not fit we should use here the Language proper to express what 's the due return and genuin brand for so malicious a Calumny But perhaps it were not unfit nor injuring the modesty of Subjects humbly to beg Protection for our Innocence against the virulent tongues and pens of our uncharitable accusers whom neither Reason nor Experience will restrain from going on still to stigmatize us all with the Faults of a few rash or sometimes misconstru'd Writers But when writes the Dissuader this After such fresh Testimonies of the unanimous Loyalty of Catholicks to His sacred Majesty and his Royal Father spending their lives and Fortunes in his service And against whom Against a Multitude in which are found very many Noble and Honourable Personages and many thousands of others very considerable and remarkable for their Fidelity How strange a Wickedness is it then to calumniate so highly and so publickly so many eminently deserving and Honourable Subjects of his Majesty Now the mischiefs naturally apt to flow from such a Calumny are these It breeds ill Correspondence between our Fellow-Subjects and us and makes us ill look't upon by them which violates Civil Unity so necessary for the Peace and strength of a Kingdome especially being between those two parties who have ever been so friendly and brotherly in their Affection and Allegiance to their Prince and Fellow-Acters and Sufferers for his Cause It discourages Loyalty to see that after such best Testimonies of it we are not even able to obtain a bare acknowledgment that we are Loyal but that it shall still be lawful for any one at pleasure to brand us for Traytors and this publickly in print in the face of all England And lastly were not our known Fidelity too strong an Antidote for his malice it tends to breed a conceit in our Governours that we are not to be endur'd in any State and onely fit to be ruin'd and extirpated not to mention the breach of Charity ensuing such unworthy Criminations which must needs breed very many Feuds and unneighbourliness between private persons all over England and Ireland Nor will there be ever any hearty Union in Church or State till thatwicked Uncharitableness of affixing upon a whole party the faults of some few be totally laid aside 24. Now on what does my Ld ground these horrid Charges against our Church or how proceeds he to make them good After the old fashion of quoting the private Opinions of a few Authours viz. Emonerius Father Barnes Emmanuel Sà Tolet Vasquez Navar c. Now my Ld supposes his Readers are to be credulous silly Asses and to believe that these private Casuists or Discoursers are the mouth of our Church that she by them declares what we are to believe that such private Discourses are so many definitions of our Churches Doctrin or Faith That these Discourses are held by our Church to be Constant and Certain for such all Catholicks hold her Doctrin or Faith to be whereas every Child knows these and such like Opinions are controllable changeable as the Moon that they were taught by Christ and his Apostles whereas any one may and himself does quote who first invented them that they who deny or impugn them are Hereticks whereas yet others do and any one may write against them at pleasure Lastly that these Points are all Divine Revelations whereas the very nature of the thing shows and himself confesses they are all Human deductions These Madnesses which are my Ld's First Principles in this whole Chapter and the Chapter foregoing that is in better half his book if his Reader will be such a Bedlam as to yield to then all his discourse is as sure as Gospel but if not then 't is Evident such Pretences are flat and most unconscionable Calumnies against our Church Little better is his quoting two or three particular Acts of some Popes does he think the words Church and Pope are Equivalent or that the word particular act signifies Doctrin or Faith that he should think three or four Acts all in several kinds that is one in each kind argue the Churches Doctrin or Faith in those points This in case he deals truly with those Popes but I know he is apt to deform all he meets with and I see he does that of Pope Clement p. 268. which makes me suspect the rest That Pope extinguish't the Templars and consest that de Jure he could not do it but that he did it ex plenitudine potestatis Here my Ld so interprets de Jure that he makes the Pope disown any Justice in doing it that is own an Injustice in doing it for that 's my Ld's Intention in wresting those words which being impossible to conceive the Pope should prosess of himself 't is clear he meant by de Jure the same we mean by the words by Law that is that there was no positive Law of the Church impowering him to dissolve them yet the Exigency requiring it his Office might give him a natural right to do it by which if Governours might not act in great Emergencies but must be ty'd to let all go wrong because it happens no provision is made against it in any written Law All Churches Kingdomes Cities nay Families would be at the same loss
Catholick which was greedily catcht at by such as leapt for joy to find any licks thing to bespatter the Church with and startling some unattentive and too credulous Catholikes drive them zealous of defending the Council to an unwarrantable position which Tenet and its practice my Ld. himself knows well the Generality of Catholikes hate and detest as much as himself Eighth Way 27. THe eighth and last Way is to pick out as well as I can those Propositions or Principles my Ld relies on and show their Weakness which is sufficiently performed by singling them out and then naming them PRINCIPLES they are so quite unlike what they 're call'd Now his Principles he layes in his first Section I mean his main and Fundamental Propositions which because he relies on yet never proves we are from his carriage to take for Principles and Self evident to him though he himself calls them not so for 't is dangerous to them who have not Truth on their side even to mention the word Principle Evidence or Demonstration His First concerning Scripture I shall speak to anon A second seems to be this p. 6. We all acknowledge that the whole Church of God kept the Faith entire and transmitted faithfully to the After-ages the whole Faith that is to the Ages next after the Apostles as he expresses a little before call'd by him p. 7. the first and best Antiquily and signify'd to mean the First three Ages Now the Positive part of this Principle is good and Assertive of Tradition but withall unapt to stead him The Negative part of it or that the third Age transmitted it not to the fourth and so forwards imply'd in his Discourse would onely stead him but 't is left unproov'd and so is a Voluntary Assertion and strangely ridiculous For if the first two Ages kept the Faith entire and transmitted it to the third 't is Evident the Third was able to transmit it to the fourth and so forwards wherefore it being Evident from the Concern of the Thing it was also willing to do so 't is demonstrable it did so This Principle then on which he so much builds is either not for him or else highly against him 28. Another main and Fundamental Proposition or Principle is found p. 7. and as the former concern'd the Tradition of the Church so this and the three following ones concern the Authorities of Fathers The present Roman Doctrins saith he which are in difference were Invisible and unbeard of in the first and best Antiquity That is no Heretick had arisen in those dayes or in the first three hundred years denying those points and so the Fathers set not themselves to write Expresly for them but occasionally onely and yet by his leave our Controvâ—â—â—â—â—â— are frequent in citing them for diverse points especially for the Ground of our Faith the Churches voice or Tradition to the utter overthrow of the Protestant Cause So far this improov'd and main position disannulling all use of the Fathers of the first 300 years in our Controversies is from not needing proof or being Self evident 29. It may be his respect and value for the Fathers of the next Ages will make amends for this rashness He tells us immediately after that in the Succeeding Ages secular Interest did more prevail and the Writings of the Fathers were vast and voluminous full of Controversy and ambiguous Sences fitted to their own times and questions full of proper Opinions and such variety of sayings that both sides eternally and Inconfutably shall bring sayings for themselves respectively Now if they be so qualify'd that both sides may eternally dispute out of them and neither be ever able to confute the other or conclude then let him speak out and say all the Fathers after the first 300 years are not worth a straw in order to decision or Controversy nor yet the Fathers of the first 300 years because they spoke not of our points in difference and so there is a fair end of all the Fathers and of his own Dissuasive too for that part which relies on them which looks like the most authoritative piece of it The Reader will easily judge now whether we as he charges us p. 18. have many gripes of Conscience concerning the Fathers that they are not right on our side or the Dissuader Our constant and avow'd Doctrin is that the Testimony of Fathers speaking of them properly as such is Iufallible that in two Cases they speak as Fathers that is when they declare it the doctrin of the present Church of their time or when they write against any man as an Heretick or his Tenet as Heresy Some complexions of Circumstances also may be found out by much reading and comparing several considerations which make it Evident they speak as Witnesses though it be more laborious and tedious to compass a Satisfaction this way Whereas as appears by our Dissuader the Protestants neither acknowledge them Infallible nor indeed Useful And this is my Ld's FOURTH PRINCIPLE which with the former destroyes the Efficaciousness of all the Fathers invalidates all that part of his own Book which should seem weightiest 30. Notwithstanding the two former Principles to invalidate the Fathers it may still be said by the Catholicks in behalf of their validity as was by me now that the Sayings of Fathers as Witnesses are Convictive and therefore it should seem sit my Ld did lay another Principle to provide against that He is not unmindful of it but hath taken order about it For though p. 9. he tells us the Fathers are good Testimony of the Doctrin deliver'd from their Forefathers down to them of what the Church esteem'd the way of Salvation yet that is to be understood according to the Rule premised p. 8. thus Things being thus it will be Impossible for them the Catholicks to conclude from the sayings of a number of Fathers that the Doctrin they would prove thence was the Catholick doctrin of the Church because any number that is less than all does not proove a Catholik Consent So that unless each single Father affirm each single point to be of Faith or the Doctrin of the Catholick Church which morally speaking is Impossible to happen it follows by his words that 't is Impossible to conclude thence the Catholick Doctrin of the Church which amounts to this that 't is Impossible to conclude any thing in Controversy from the Fathers even taken as Witnesses And this is his FIFTH PRINCIPLE A strange conceit that it should be Impossible to know the Consent of all England in a matter of Fact for example the late war without speaking with each single man in the whole Nation Yet this is his Discourse when he sayes that no number less than all can prove a Catholick consent 31. Yet some use certainly he allows of the Fathers for all this else why does he quote them Yes and the Principle which I reckon his SIXTH by virtue of which he enforces them is this
p. 8. The clear saying of one or two of those Fathers truely alledg'd by us to the Contrary will certainly prove that what many of them suppose it do affirm and which but two or three as good Catholicks do deny was not then a matter of Faith or a Doctrin of the Church I wish my Ld. had been so Ingenuous as to have made use of this Principle when he charg'd our Church it self with the mistakes of a few Writers contradicted not by one or two but sometimes by a whole Nation But this Principle shows 't was not Reason in him but Will and Interest which made him so hot As for his Principle it self it subsists not at all For is it not known that more than one or two that is S. Cyprian and the African Fathers deny'd the Baptism of Hereticks Valid yet the Contrary was notwithstanding found and defin'd to be Faith and the Sence of the Church Let him consider how perfectly he engages himself in the very Sphere of Contingency and recedes from Universality the Sphere of Certainty when he comes to rely on one or two unless he can show those one or two strangely supported and upheld by Universal Nature or concurring Circumstances 'T is possible even one or two Lawyers may hap to be ignorant of two or three Acts of Parliament But my Ld is still the best confuter of himself as appears lately by this present Principle apply'd to his former carriage against our Church To himself then let him answer I conceive that if one or two's not denying it to be of Faith or affirming expresly 't is not-of-Faith he engages not so far but bare denying a point argues what many do affirm to be not-of-Faith à fortiori one or two's affirming positively that to be of Faith and the Doctrin of the Catholick Church which many others barely deny argues 't is of Faith 'T was of Faith then what Gennadius cited by himself p. 59. affirms that After Christs Ascension the Souls of all Saints go from the body to Christ This being so let him reflect what himself asserts p. 49. that Justin Mariyr Tertullian Victorinus Martyr Prudentius S. Chrysostom Arethas Euthimius and S. Bernard affirm none go to Heaven till the last day Either then Gennadius his Testimony delivering the doctrin of the Catholick Church is Inefficacious and yet 't is incomparably the best nay the onely Efficacious one in my Lds. whole book or else according to him many Fathers and not one or two onely denying a point is no argument but that point may be of Faith Whether all those Fathers held so or no is another Question and requires a longer discussion 32. Fathers then are useless to the Dissuader as having according to him no virtue at all of setling the Understanding Yet he must make a show of them else all 's lost and so he tells his Readers p. 8. as if all were well two things both very remarkable The one that notwithstanding In the prime and purest Antiquity the Protestants are indubitably more than Conquerours in the Fathers A high Expression but compar'd with what he sayes p. 7. that in those times our present differences were unheard-of it signifies that they miraculously more then conquer where if his words be true no mortals else could either conquer or even attacque For how should one fight against such points in difference from those Fathers who never heard of those points The other is that even in the Fathers of the succeeding Ages the Protestants have the advantage both numero pondere mensurà in number weight and measure which joyn'd to his words at the bottome of p. 7. that each side may eternally and inconfutably bring sayings for themselves out of those Fathers which signifies that 't is to no end or purpose to alledge them amounts very fairly to this that he brags Protestants have a far greater number of Citations which are to no purpose than Catholicks have that those Citations which have no possible force of concluding or no weight at all do weigh more strongly for them than for us and lastly that they have a greater measure than we of proofs not worth a rush with which they can bubble up their books to a voluminous bigness And we willingly yield them the honour of having a very great advantage in all three in case they be such as his own words qualifie them to wit that each side may Eternally and Inconfutably alledge them 33. We come now to his main and most Fundamental and in comparison his onely Principle p. 9. laid out thus We do wholly rely upon Scriptures as the Foundation and final resort of all our Persuasions but we also admit the Fathers c. To finish our Discourse about the Fathers will make way to the Scripture What means admitting as contradistinguisht to relying on Not relying on that 's certain for 't is contradistinguisht to it And yet to alledge any thing for a Proof as they do Fathers and not to rely on it is to confess plainly for Truth will out that they alledge them meerly for a show He sayes they admit them as admirable Helps for the Understanding the Scriptures and good Testimony of the Doctrin deliver'd from their Forefathers Have a care my Ld. This supposes the Certainty of Tradition For if there be no Certainty of delivery there is no doctrin delivered nor consequently any thing for them to testify and so the words good Testimony unless our Ground of Continual Tradition stands mean directly that they are good for nothing as your former Discourses or Principles made them But I ask is their Interpretation of Scripture or Testimony Certain If not why should they even be admitted Or how can Vncertain Interpreters and Witnessers be admirable Helps to interpret right and good Testimony I fear my Ld. can onely mean they are Admirable Helps as Dictionaries and Books of Criticisms are to assist his Human Skill about the outward Letter which is a rare Office for a Father and not to give him the inward Sence of it or the deliver'd Doctrin of the Catholick Church for unless All conspire to speak to the same point if any one be silent concerning it it argues not according to my Ld. p. 8. a Catholick Consent and so is far beneath an admirable help And this is what we reprehend exceedingly in the Protestants that they love to talk gaily in common of any Sacred or Grave Authority for an affected form or show but not at all value the Virtue or Power of such an Authority not judge interiorly they have any worth valuing They would credit themselves by pretending Fathers yet at the same time lay wayes to elude them at pleasure or which is their very temper springing from their renouncing Living and determinate Sence and adhering to dead unsenc't words they study to speak Indeterminately and confusedly not particularly and closely 34. Do I wrong them Let my Ld. clear me His First Principle is by him
I can justifie my self I complain then that your carriage in this one page discovers you at once an absolute stranger to Science and withal very uncivilly Injurious to me all along without any imaginable need Ground or the least occasion given You begin with a mistake of the reason why the Rational Way explained in Rushworth's Dialogues was follow'd by me in Schism Dispatcht or rather why that way was devised and conceive 't is because we despair of maintaining the Popes Personal Infallibility and think all your own if you disprove this So that you strongly apprehend this the basis of all our Faith By which I see Opinion and Faith is all one with you Deceive not your self nor your Readers Sir our D râ— came and do dispute against personal Infallibilities far more strongly than you are even likely and if you please to look into our Councils you find no news of building Faith on any such ground but onely on Tradition The Way I take is the old-and-ever-Way of the Church the farther Explication of it is indeed new not occasion'd by our relinquishing Personal Infallibility of the Pope you shall never show the Church ever built her Faith on a disputable Ground but by this occasion Had you look't into Things and consider'd the progress of the Rational part of the world as well as you pore on Books you would have discern'd that the Wits of this last half Century have been strangely curious and Inquisitive and straining towards a Satisfaction apt to bring all into doubt which they conceiv'd to hinder their way to it Had you reflected on those Heroes of such Attempts the Noble and Learned Sr. Kenelm Digby des Caries Gassendus Harvey and now the Royal Society those living Libraries of Learning in their several wayes you would have found that parallel to them in the matter of Controversy were the Ld. Faukland and Mr. Chillingworth whose acute wits sinding no Establishment nor Satisfaction in the Resolution of our Faith as made by some particular Divines nor yet in the Grounds of the Protestant Beleef endeavour'd to shake the whole Fabrick of our Faith and allow but a handsome Probability to their own Whence Doubt and Inquisitiveness being the Parents of Satisfaction and Evidence Catholick Controvertists began to apply themselves more closely and regardfully to look into the Groundâ— of their Faith Tradition or Universal delivery seâ—tled from the beginning of the Church proceeded upon by Councils and all the Faithful insisted on and stuck to by the Fathers especially those who were most Controversial as Athanasius S. Augustin Tertullian S. Hierome c. and at large by Vincentius Lirinensis and to consider how Proper Causes lay'd in Things by the Course of God's Providence had the virtue to produce the Effect of deriving down with Infallible Certainty Christ's doctrin to us Hence sprung our farther Explication of this way which so much bewonders you This is your mistake now to your Injuries I quoted Rushworth's Dialogues and call'd it The rich Store-house of motives fortifying Tradition Upon this your Reason works thus This I do not understand I never heard of such an Authour and it is possible the better to cry himself up he might borrow another name What means This I do not understand I 'le acquaint the Reader It means you are so wedded to talk by the book that you are utterly at a loss if an Authour be quoted you have not heard of The reason of which is because as I see by your Discourses which look like so many dreams your Genius inclines you not much to trade in Books which pretend to the way of Reason and if Schism Dispatch't so amaz'd you 't is to be fear'd that Sure-Footing and its Corollaries may put you out of your wirts But with what Civility should you hint I so extoll'd my self under another name it being as you say but possible Should I put upon you all things that were possible what a Monster might I make you But it abundantly manifests your short reach of reason that 't is highly Improbable For either I must have discover'd my self to the world to be Authour of both books and then I had sham'd my self with so high self-praises or not have manifested it and then where 's the credit I had got by the other book I had so extoll'd Your next Injury is that I make nothing of and disclaim the Testimonies of Popes and Prelates calling them the words of a few particular men and cite for it Schism Dispatch't p. 98. where there is not one word of either Pope or Prelate nor of disclaiming any Testimony nor of calling those the bare words of a few particular men Now if this be so every word you charge against me is an injurious Calumny and your whole charge a direct Falsisication My words are these By this is shown in what we place the Infallbility of the CHURCH not in the bare words of few particular men but in the manifest and ample Attestation of such a Multitude c. Where though you cannot or will not yet the Reader if he understands plain English will see I meddle not with who is or is not Infallible besides the Church nor sean the validity of Testimonies of Popes or Prelates but treat in what the Infallibility of the CHURCH consists Now the word CHURCH denothing in its First Signification an Universality I place her Infallibility in Universal Attestation from Age to Age. Notwithstanding which my Corollaries in Sure-Footing if your Wonderment at my new Way or your own habituation to words will let you understand them will let you see I also place Infallibility in lesser Councils even in particular Sees but most in the Popes or the Roman not by way of an Afflatus of which I for my part an able to give no account but by a course of Things Natural and Supernatural laid by Gods sweetly-and-strongly ordering Providence in second Causes But what aggravates your Falsification is that whereas I there counterpose bare words and Attestation rejecting the first and making use of the later you make me affirm Testimonies to be bare words To which how much I attribute every such passage of mine will tell you for on them the way I follow entirely builds So that this whole Charge is either quite opposit or else disparate to what I say in the place whence you cite my words Your third Injury and 't is a strange one is that I sleight Scriptures Fathers and Councils as much in this business and call them in scorn Wordish Testimonies for which you cite Schism Dispatch't p. 42. But not such a word is found there nor I will undertake any where else in my Writings 'T is likely indeed that speaking of such things as you use to call Testimonies for you name every sleight Citation such whether it have the nature of Witnessing in it that is be built on Sensations or no I may say they are wordish in regard you have no