not Zygomalas suppose that the Protestants and they are two Churches that they were not then united into one saies he not that he hopes for such a Future Unity Gaudium in coelo supra terram erit si coibit in unitatem utraque Ecclesia c. Ergo that unity was not then actually made and that unity depended on the correction of those differences in Faith which were betwixt them which whilst they remained obstructed it now this is wholly destructive of your Novelty nay this Agreement and becoming one and the same Church as Synonimaes coibit in unitatem utraque Ecclesia et Idem sentiemus both Churches the Greeks and Lutherans shall join in unitie and we shall hold that is believe the same thing evinces that their disagreement was inconsistent with their being one Church nay besides Faith he requires a future charity and concord which argues it was then wanting Et simul vivemus in omni concordia pace secundum Deum in sincerae charitatis vinculo and sayes he we shall live together in all concord peace in God and in the bond of sincere Charity so that this very Text which you quote to prove the unity betwixt Greeks and Lutherans proves the quite contrary so choice are you in your Citations Mr. Baxter Num. 112. But as it is not the Patriarch that is the whole Greek Church so it is not their Errours in some lesser or tolerable points that prove us of two Churches or Religions William Iohnson Num. 112. Who saies he is the whole Church yet sure when the Patriarch writes concernings his own Jurisdiction he is supposed to understand the extent of it and when those of his Church shew no kind of contradiction against it neither when he writ this nor ever since and thereby give a tacite consent to it what he writes is to be esteemed as the tenet of his Church I am much joyed to hear you terme the differences in Faith betwixt you and the Grecians some lesser or tolerable points for they being in substance the very same with those betwixt you and us as the Authors confesse cited by me pag. 46. of your Edition you must consequently acknowledge the differences betwixt you and us to be some lesser or tolerable points but give me leave then to tell you that as you judge those points tolerable so must you also judge your separation from the external communion of the Greek and Roman Church intolerable for if those parts in difference be tolerable they were to have been tolerated by you without proceeding to an open and scandalous Schisme by reason of them nor will it excuse you to alledge you were forc't to separate in detestation of those things which you judged Errours otherwise you would have compell'd us by punishments to have assented to them for you were rather to have suffered patiently that force though it had been to death it self then to have made so notorious a Schisme for tolerable Errours or fear of persecution I have already shewed that every Errour in Faith against a divine truth sufficiently proposed separates the erring partie from the true visible Church of Christ. Mr. Baxter Num. 113. Whereas you say it is against all antiquity and Christianity to admit condemned Hereticks into the Church I Reply 1. I hate their condemnation rather then reverence it that even being non Judices dare condemn whole Nations without hearing one man of them speak for himself or hearing one witnesse that ever heard them defend Heresie and this merely because some few Bishops have in the dayes of all maintained Heresie and perhaps some may doe so still or rather differ from you in words while you misunderstand each other I see you have a sharp tooth against Bishops why name you them onely as maintainers of Heresies how many Bishops found you broaching or spreading heresie in the 2. first hundred yeares was either Simon Magus or Nicolaus or Cerinthus or Menander or Valentinian or Manes or Montanus Bishops and in the third Age was there not Arius and Eutyches neither of them Bishops broachers of two most pernicious Heresies as well as Nestorius and Dioscorus who were Bishops William Iohnson Num. 113. You mistake the manner of the Churches condemnation of Hereticks it is neither personal nor National save in some notorious Arch-Hereticks who either by their words or writings evidently professe or teach Heresie but general or abstractive viz. whosoever holds such or such Errours let him be accursed or we excommunicate all such as hold them c. where there can be no wrong done to any for those who de facto held them not are not cast out of the Church now when this sentence comes to Execution those who either acknowledge themselves to hold those Heresies or communicate with them who professe it are esteemed as Hereticks because they join with an heretical party against the Church and in case they profess to disbelieve their heresie and yet live in communion with them and subjection to them they become open Schismaticks separating themselves from the whole visible Church by communicating with Hereticks Mr. Baxter Num. 114. Did I find such Errours with them as with you yet first I durst charge them on no one man that I had not reason to hold guilty of them I dare not accuse whole Nations of your Errours but of all these things and of sundry words which you cite I have spoken already in two books and in the latter fully proved that you differ in many points of Faith and greater things then you call Heresies in others among your selves even your Pope's Saints and Councils and yet neither part is judged by you to be out of the Church see my Key pag. 124 125 127 128 129. and pag. 52. ad 62. William Iohnson Num. 114. You or any Christian may safely judge those Hereticks who publickly communicate and side with those who professe and teach open heresie for the very siding with them Argues a consent to their Doctrine and is a sufficient profession of it unlesse they professe publickly a difference from their heresie your recrimination is unseasonable the question is not for the present wherein or how We differ but whether You be guiltie of heresie or no our innocencie or guiltiness clears not you clear your Selves first and then you will have gained credit to accuse us 'till that be done you do nothing but divert the Question â—â—y removing it from your selves to us In your Key pag. 128. you trifle in using the words Material point Equivocally and proceeding à specie ad genus fallociously Mr. Turberville speaks of material Points against your 39. Articles saying for if they differ from them in any material point c. and you make him speak of all kinds of material points in Religion whether contrary to any Article or Ecclesiastical decree of Faith or no. Mr. Baxter Num. 115. When you say so much to prove the Greeks guiltie of manifest heresy
fly from and not the universal that proves them not out of the universal Church Who sayes it does why interlace you such parergons as those treats Bell. here of any particular fold speaks he not expresly of the whole universal Church which he defined cap. 2 but by the rules of contraries you should affirm here against your self that if all hereticks fly from the universal Church they cannot be in the universal Church Now it is most evident that all heretiques fly from the universal Church ergo none of them can be in the universal Church for therefore are they hereticks because they either reject obstinately some doctrine sufficiently propounded to them as taught by the universal Church to be a point of Christian faith or imbrace some doctrine sufficiently propounded to them to be rejected by the universal Church as an error in Christian faith de Eccles. l. 3. c. 2. Next you bring in Bellar. thus And Bellar. saith of the Catechumenis excommunicatis that they are de anima etsi non de corpore Ecclesiae Now who can understand by those words of yours but that Bellar. teaches absolutely that both all as well excommunicati as Catechumeni are de anima Ecclesiae of the soul of the Church whereas he speaks only sub conditione conditionally not absolutely and so of some excommunicate persons but not of all that is such as he declares himself c. 6. sect Respondeo lucem esse c. have faith and charity as being either unjustly excommunicated or repenting before they be absolutely absolv'd by the Church from excommunication Bellar. words cap. 2. clipt off in the midst by you are those Rursum aliqui sunt de anima non de corpore ut Catechumeni vel excommunicati si fidem charitatem habeant quod fieri potest Again sayes Bell. some are of the soul of the Church and not of the body as are the unbaptized or excommunicate if they have faith and charity which may happen You see how candidly you have proceeded with Bellarmine and in this sense and no other is Canus to be understood whom you cite next out of Bellarmine and if you could prove any profest heretick properly so call'd had faith and charity I would acknowledge with Bellar. that they were de anima Ecclesiae of the soul of the Church or de Ecclesia quae comprehendit omnes fideles c. of the Church which comprehends all the faithful from Abel to the end of the world you see by this how unfairely you have dealt with Canus also What follows in answer of yours to my question whether profess'd hereticks properly so called are true parts of the visible Church is upon matter of fact who are or who are not in particular rightly condemn'd for hereticks which is an alien to my question and so neither worth the answering nor reading I come now to the question it self 74. That therefore no profess'd heretick properly so called is or can be a true part of Christs universal visible Church I prove by those arguments 1. St. Paul in his 3 to Titus v. 10 11. writes thus A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself Thus yours translate the words but the vulgar and Pagninus have it devita avoid or decline from it signifies also in Scapula to refuâ—â—e remove or expel one from them where the Apostle speaking indefinitly is to be understood of all profess'd hereticks properly so called so that all such hereticks are to be avoided rejected removed or expelled from the community and society of all Christians for the same reason which obliged Titus to avoid them obliged all the faithful which is nothing but to be depriv'd of the communion of the universal Church and so even in your principles just now deliver'd to be cast out of the Church and St. Hierom expounds those words that Hereticks are cast out of the Church by themselves leaving the Church and separating themselves from it by their obstinacy in error 2. St. Iohn in his first Epistle and second chapter verse 19. ex nobis exerunt They went out from us where the Apostle speaks in general of all heretiques and of the whole visible Church of Christ for how could it be manifest they were not of the Church as St. Iohn sayes it was if they did not visibly go out of it Thus also St. Cyprian (a) St. Cypri lib. ep 8. unit Eccl. sive de simplicitate St. Hierom and St. Aug. writing upon those words expound them 3. Ioh. ep 2. v. 9 10 11. whosoever trangresseth and abides not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ hath both the Father and the Son if there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil works Where the Apostle without any distinction or exception intends the denial of communion through the whole Church for he gives a general precept to all Christians to all those who teach contrarie to the doctrine of Christ. And this not as to others scandalous sinners lest they should draw others to sin by their bad example but as to Hereticks for no other crime then their maintaining a doctrine contrary to the doctrine of Christ and that in what point soever it be for he speaks in general of all doctrine contrary to that of Christ. Now since all profess'd Hereticks properly so call'd teach contrary to Christs doctrine in some point or other they are all to be avoided and deny communion thorough the whole Church consequently are out of the whole Churches communion and so out of the Catholique Church This is proved from the authorities both of the ancient fathers later Doctors and Protestant Authors which are cited and confirm'd at large in schism unmask'd in a late conference with Doctor Gunning and Doctor Pierson from p. 131. to p. 188. where the very definition of schism and heresie of schismaticks and heretiques make it most manifest that no profess'd heretick or schismatick properly so call'd can so long as they remain in that state be true parts of the Catholique Church These following I cite for a brief confirmation of this truth St. Aug. de fide symbolo c. 10. quapropter nec hereticus pertinet ad Ecclesiam Catholicam quoniam diligit Deum nec schismaticus quoniam diligit proximum wherefore neither doth an heretick belong to the Catholick Church because she the Church loves God nor a schismatick because she loves her neighbour And Optatus lib. 1. cont Parmenianum addressing himself to the Donatists whom you say were not separated from the Church sayes thus Desertâ matre Catholica impii filii dum for as excurrunt se separant ut vos fecistis à radice matris Ecclesiae invidiae
falcibus amputati errando rebelles abcedunt The Catholique mother that is the Church being forsaken wicked children run abroad and separate themselves as you have done being cut off from the root of their mother the Church by erring as rebels depart from her Now was it the unanimous consent alone of the holy ancient Fathers and all later authors yours and ours but the universal agreement of all Christendom for even in St. Cyprians time when the matter of rebaptization was so hotly agitated through the whole Church both parties and consequently all Christian Churches agreed in this that all professed hereticks and schismaticks properly so called were out of the Catholique visible Church of Christ for this was the very ground whereupon St. Cyprian and his party founded their opinion as appears in the said citations and is deliver'd by all authors that treat of it that they were to be rebaptized nor was this presupposed ground of their being no members of the Church ever called so much in question as by the opposers of Rebaptization but supposed as a known undeniable truth by the whole Church insomuch that the Council of Nice it self supposing this as a manifest truth condemned the doctrine of Rebaptization as an heresie as St. Aug. witnesseth in his book de Baptismo contra Donatistas which is largely explicated in Schism unmask'd now cited from page 557 to page 566 this universal perswasion continued ever since amongst Christians and I provoke you to cite any Author ancient or modern yours ours or of any other Professor amongst the Christians who before you taught that professed hereticks properly so called were true parts of the visible Church of Christ. St. Cyprian epist. 40. Paenas quas meruerunt perpendêrunt ut a vobis non ejecti ultro se ejicerunt de Ecclesiâ sponté se pellerent St. Hierom cited by Dr. Hammond in his book of Schism Marg. 14. Propriae conscientiae videtur esse damnatio cum quispiam suo arbitrio ab Ecclesiâ recesserit This is also the undoubted and constant doctrine of St. Cyprian lib. 5. epist. 6. ad magnum Schismaticicos v. g. Novatianum in Ecclesia non esse nec gregis pastorem That Schismatiques were not in the Church v. g. Novatian nor Pastor of the flock Si autem Grex unus est quomodo gregi connumerari potest qui in Numero gregis non est But saith he If the flock be one how can he be annumerated to the flock who is not in the number of the flock aut Pastor haberi quomodo potest qui alienus fit prophanus Or how can he be estem'd a Pastor who is become an Alien and a prophane person Non habitans in domo Dei not dwelling in the house of God that is in the Church of God and it is most evident that St. Cyprian was of this opinion for it appeares in his works that he held the rebaptization of those which were baptised by Schismatiques as well as by Heretiques because he esteem'd them both equally out of the Church St. Cyprian lib. 2. ep ad Septianum Epist. 9. ad eundem And Lucius a Castra galba in consilio Carthaginensi sub Cypriano Item Schismaticos non posse condire sapientia spirituali cum ipsi ab Ecclesia quae una est recedendo infatuati contrarii facti sunt Neither can Schismaticks season with spiritual wisdome because they being corrupted by receding from the Church become contrary or adversaries This is also taught most Emphatically by St. Augustine lib. de unitate Ecclesiae cap. 4. cited by you in your second part Quicunque credunt quidem quod Iesus Christus ita ut dictum est in carne venerit in eadem carne in qua natus passus est resurrexerit ipse sit filius Dei Deus apud Deum c. Si tamen ab ejus corpore quod est Ecclesia ita differentiant ut eorum communio non sit cum tota quacunque diffunditur sed in aliqua parte separata inveniatur manifestum est eos non esse in Catholica Ecclesia Whosoever believes that Jesus Christ as is said is come in flesh and that he rose again in the same flesh wherein he was born and suffered and that he is the Son of God and God with God c. Notwithstanding if they discent so from his body which is the Church that their communion be not with the whole Church wheresoever it be diffus'd but be found in some separate part it is manifest that they are not in the Catholique Church Which words cannot be understood of any but Schismatiques St. Fulgent de fide ad Petrum cap. 38. Firmissiime tene nullatenus dubita non solum omnes Paganos sed etiam omnes Iudeos Haereticos Schismaticos qui extra Eeclesiam Catholicam presentem finiunt vitam in ignem aeternum ituros c. Believe most firmly and doubt not at all that not only all Pagans but also all Jewes Heretiques and Schismatiques which end their lives out of the Catholique Church shall go into eternal fire St Cyprian also Ep. 40. above cited supposes some Schismatiques and a fortiore all Heretiques to be out of the Catholique Church And the separation of all Heretiques from the Church St. Austin treats Tom. 9. de symbolo lib. 2. c. 5. Haereses omnes de illa exieruut scilicot Ecclesia tanquam sarmenta inutilia de vite praecisa ipsa autem manet in sua radice Portae inferorum non vincent eam All Heresies have gon out of her that is the Chucrch as unprofitable branches cut of from the vine but she the Church remaines in her root the gates of Hell shall not overcome her St. Cyprian Epist. ad Florentium Pupianum Epist. 69. In which Epistle he reprehends Pupianus for his insolency Et quia fecit se Episcopum Episcopi and proves himself a holy Catholique by his communion with the Church and with the chief Pastor and demonstrate Schism by the contrary Inde Schismata Haereses obortae sunt oriuntur dum Episcopus qui unus est Ecclesia praest superba quorundam praesumptione contemnitur homo dignatione Dei honoratus indignus hominibus judicatur From hence arise Schisms when the Bishop that is one and who is the Governor of the Church is contemned by the proud persumption of some and the man of God honor'd by him is dishonored by men Epist. ad Rogatianum Epist. de superbo Diacono Haec sunt enim initia Haereticoruus ortus conatus Schismaticorum male cogitantium ut sibi placeant ut praepositum superbo tumore contemnant sic de Ecclesia receditur sic Altare prophanum foris collocatur sic contra pacem Christi ordinationem unitatem Dei rebellatur These are the Origine of heretiques and Schismatiques who to please themselves contemn the president of the Church and so rebel against the peace of Christ and the ordination and unitie of
determinate congregation they were In your Num. 3. you tell me in the former ages till one thousand there were near as many or rather many more A fair account But in the mean time you nominate none much less prosecute you those with whom you begun Num. 4. You say in the year six hundred there were many more incomparably What many what more were they the same which you nominated in the beginning and made one Congregation with them or were they quite different Congregations what am I the wiser by your saying many more incomparably when you tell me not what or who they were Then you say But at least â—â—or four hundred years after Christ I never yet saw valid proof of one Papist in all the world that is one that was for the Popes universal Monarchy or vice-Christ-ship What then are there no proofs in the world but what you have seen or may not many of those proofs be valid which you have seen though you esteem them not so and can you think it reasonable upon your single not-seeing or not-judging only to conclude absolutely as you here do that all have been against us for many hundred years In your Num. 5. You name Ethiopia and India as having been without the limits of the Roman Empire whom you deny to have acknowledged any Supremacy of power and authority above all other Bishops You might have done well to have cited at least one ancient Author for this Assertion Were those primitive Christians of another kind of Church-order and Government then were those under the Roman Empire * But how far from truth this is appears from St. Leo in his Sermons de natali suo where he saies Sedes Roma Petri quicquid non possidet armis Relâ—â—gione tenet and by this That the Abyssines of Ethiopia were under the Patriarch of Alexandria antiently which Patriarch was under the Authority of the Roman Bishop as we shall presently see When the Roman Emperors were yet Heathens had not the Bishop of Rome the Supremacy over all other Bishops through the whole Church and did those Heathen Emperors give it him How came St Cyprian in time of the Heathen Empire to request Stephen the Pope to punish and depose the Bishop of Arles as we shall see hereafter Had he that authority think you from an Heathen Emperor See now how little your Allegations are to the purpose where you nominate any determinate Congregations to satisfie my demand I had no reason to demand of you different Congregations of all sorts and Sects opposing the Supremacy to have been shewn visible in all ages I was not so ignorant as not to know that the Nicolaitans Valentinians Gnosticks Manichees Montanists Arians Donatists Nestorians Eutychians Pelagians Iconoclasts Berengarians Waldensians Albigenses Wicleffists Hussits Lutherans Calvinists c. each following others had some kind of visibility divided and distracted each to his own respective age from our time to the Apostles in joyning their heads and hands together against the Popes Supremacy But because these could not be called one successive Congregation of Christians being all together by the ears amongst themselves I should not have thought it a demand beseeming a Scholar to have required such a visibility as this Seeing therefore all you determinately nominate are as much different as these pardon me if I take it not for any satisfaction at all to my demand or acquittance of your obligation Bring me a visible succession of any one Congregation of Christians of the same belief profession and communion for the designed time opposing that Supremacy and you will have satisfied but till that be done I leave it to any equall judgement whether my demand be satisfied or no. You answer to this That all those who are nominated by you are parts of the Catholick Church and so one Congregation But Sir give me leave to tell you that in your principles you put both the Church of Rome and your selves to be parts of the Catholick Church and yet sure you account them not one Congregation of Christians seeing by separation one from another they are made two or if you account them one why did you separate your selves and still remain separate from communion with the Roman Church Why possessed you your selves of the Bishopricks and Cures of your own Prelates and Pastors they yet living in Queen Elizabeths time and drew both your selves and their other subjects from all subjection to them and communion with them Is this dis-union think you fit to make one and the same Congregation of you and them Is not charity subordination and obedience to the same state and government required as well to make one Congregation of Christians as it is required to make one Congregation of Common-wealths men Though therefore you do account them all parts of the Catholick Church yet you cannot make them in your principles one Congregation of Christians Secondly your position is not true the particulars named by you neither are nor can be parts of the Catholick Church unless you make Arrians and Pelagians and Donatists parts of the Catholick Church which were either to deny them to be Hereticks and Schismaticks or to affirm that Hereticks and Schismaticks separating themselves from the communion of the Catholick Church notwithstanding that separation do continue parts of the Catholick Church For who knows not that the Ethiopians to this day are * See Rosse his view of Religions p 99 489 492 c. Where he says that they circumcise their children the eighth day they use Mosaical Ceremonies They mention not the Council of Calcedon because saies he they are Eutychians Jacobites and confesses that their Patriarch is in subjection to the Patriarch of Alexandria c. See more of the Chofti Jacobites Maronites c. p. 493 494. where he confesses that many of them are now subject to the Pope and have renounced their old errors Eutychian Hereticks And a great part of those Greeks and Armenians who deny the Popes Supremacy are infected with the Heresie of Nestorius and all of them profess generally all those points of faith with us against you wherein you differ from us and deny to communicate with you or to esteem you other then Hereticks and Schismaticks unless you both agree with them in those differences of Faith and subject your selves to the obedience of the Patriarch of Constantinople as to the chief Head and Governour of all Christian Churches next under Christ and consequently as much a Vice-Christ in your account as the Pope can be conceived to be See if you please Hieremias Patriarch of Constantinople his Answer to the Lutherans especially in the beginning and end of the Book Acta Theologorum Wittebergensium c. and Sir Edwyn Sands of this Subject in his Survey p. 232 233 242 c. Either therefore you must make the Eutychians and Nestorians no Hereticks and so contradict the Oecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon which condemned them as
such and the consent of all Orthodox Christians who ever since esteemed them no other or you must make condemned Hereticks parts of the Catholick Church against all antiquity and Christianity And for those Greeks near Constantinople who are not infected with Nestorianism and Eutychianism yet in the Procession of the Holy Ghost against both us and you they must be thought to maintain manifest Heresie it being a point in a fundamental matter of faith the Trinity and the difference betwixt those Greeks and the Western Church now for many hundred of years and in many General Councils esteemed and defined to be reall and great yea so great that the Greeks left the Communion of the Roman Church upon that difference alone and ever esteemed the Bishop of * See Nilus on this Subject Rome and his party to have fallen from the true faith and lost his ancient Authority by that sole pretended error and the Latins always esteemed the Greeks to be in a damnable error in maintaining the contrary to the doctrine of the Western or Roman Church in that particular And yet sure they understood what they held and how far they differed one from another much better then some Novel Writers of yours who prest by force of Argument have no other way left them to maintain a perpetual visibility then by extenuating that difference of Procession betwixt the Greek and Latin Church which so many ages before Protestancy sprung up was esteemed a main fundamental error by both parts caused the Greeks to abandon all subjection and Communion to the Bishops of Rome made them so divided the one from the other that they held each other Hereticks Schismaticks and desertors of the true Faith as they continue still to do to this day and yet you will have them both parts of the Catholick Church But when you have made the best you can of these Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants whom you first name you neither have deduced nor can deduce them successively in all ages till Christ as a different Congregation of Christians from that which holds the Popes Supremacy which was my Proposition For in the year 1500. those who became the first Protestants were not a Congregation different from those who held that supremacy nor in the year 500 were the Greeks a visible Congregation different from it nor in the year 300. were the Nestorians nor in the year 200. the Eutychians a different Congregation from those who held the said Supremacy But in those respective years those who first begun those Heresies were involved within that Congregation which held it as a part of it and assenting therein with it who after in their several ages and beginnings fell off from it as dead branches from the tree that still remaining what it ever was and only continuing in a perpetuall visibility of succession Though therefore you profess never to have seen convincing proof of this in the first 400 years and labour to infringe it in the next ages yet I will make an Essay to give you a taste of those innumerable proofs of this visible consent in the Bishop of Romes Supremacy not of Order only but of Power Authority and jurisdiction over all other Bishops in the ensuing instances which happened within the first 400 or 500 or 600 years (a) Liberatus in Brev. c. 16. Iohn Bishop of Antioch makes an Appeal to Pope Simplicius And Flavianus (b) Epist. praeambula Concil Chalcedon Bishop of Constantinople being deposed in the false Council of Ephesus immediatly appeals to the Pope as to his judge (c) Concil Chalcedon Act. 1. Theodoret was by Pope Leo restored and that by an (d) Concil Chalcedon Act. 8. appeal unto a just judgement (e) S. Cyprian Epist. 67. Saint Cyprian desires Pope Stephen to depose Marcian Bishop of Arles that another might be substituted in his place And to evince the supream Authority of the Bishops of Rome it is determined in the (f) Concil Sard. cap. 4 cited by S. Athan. Apol. 2. page 753. Council of Sardis That no Bishop deposed by other neighbouring Bishops pretending to be heard again was to have any successor appointed untill the case were defined by the Pope Eustathius (g) St. Basil Epist. 74. Bishop of Sebast in Armenia was restored by Pope Liberius his Letters read and received in the Council of Tyana and (h) St. Chrysost. Epist. 2. ad Innocent Saint Chrysostome expresly desires Pope Innocent not to punish his Adversaries if they do repent Which evinces that Saint Chrysostome thought that the Pope had power to punish them And the like is written to the Pope by the (i) Concil Ephes. p. 2. Act. 5. Council of Ephesus in the case of Iohn Bishop of Antioch (k) St. Athanas. ad Solit. Epist. Iulius in lit ad Arian ap Athan. Apol. 1. pag. 753. Theodoret lib. 2. cap. 4. Athanas. Apol. 2. Zozom lib. 3. cap. 7. The Bishops of the Greek or Eastern Church who sided with Arius before they declared themselves to be Arians sent their Legates to Iulius Bishop of Rome to have their cause heard before him against S. Athanasius the same did S. Athanasius to defend himself against them which Arian Bishops having understood from Iulius that their Accusations against S. Athanasius upon due examination of both parties were found groundless and false required rather fraudulently then seriously to have a fuller Tryal before a General Council at Rome which to take away all shew of excuse from them Pope Iulius assembled Saint Athanasius was summoned by the Pope to appear before him and the * The Appeal of Theodoret from that Council as to his judge is so undeniable that Chamier is forced to acknowledge it Tom. 2. l. 13. â—â— 9. p. 498 and the whole Council of Calcedon acknowledged the right of that Appeal restoring Theodoret to his Bishoprick by force of an Order given upon that Appeal by Leo Pope to restore him Concerning Saint Athanasius being judged and righted by Iulius Pope Chamier cit p. 497. acknowledges the matter of fact to be so but against all antiquity pretends that judgment to have been unjust Which had it been so yet it shews a true power of judging in the Pope though then unduly executed otherwise Saint Athanasius would never have made use of it neither can it be condemned of injustice unless Saint Athanasius be also condemned as unjust in consenting to it Nicâ—â—ph lib. 13. cap. 34. Chamier cit p. 498. says other Bishops restored those who were wrongfully deposed as well as the Pope Which though it were so yet never was there any single Bishop sâ—â—ve the Pope who restored any who were out of their respective Diocess or Patriarchates but always collected together in a Synod by common voice and that in regard only of their neighbouring Bishops whereas the Bishop of Rome by his sole and single authority restored Bishops wrongfully deposed all the Church ever Council in Judgement
say to so many poor souls that are ready to enter into another World Either sin against your Consciences and so damn your souls or else let us burn and murder you or else you do not love us you are uncharitable if you deny us leave to kill you and you separate from the Communion of the Church We appeal from the Pope and all unreasonable men to the great God of heaven and earth to judge righteously between you and us concerning this dealing As for possessing our selves of your Bishopricks and Cures if any particular person had personal injury in the change being cast out without cause they must answer for it that did it not I though I never heard any thing to make me beleeve it But must the Prince and the people let alone Delinquent Pastors for fear of being blamed for taking their Bishopricks Ministers of the same Religion with us may be cast out for their crimes Princes have power over Pastors as well as David Solomon and other Kings of Israel had Guil. Barclay and some few of your own knew this The Popes treasonable exemption of the Clergie from the Soveraigns judgement will not warrant those Princes before God that neglect to punish offending Pastors And I beseech you tell us when our Consciences after the use of all means that we can use to be informed cannot renounce all our senses nor our reason nor the judgement of the most of the Church or of Antiquity or the Word of God and yet we must do so or be no members of your Church what wrong is it to you if we chuse us Pastors of our own in the order that God hath appointed Had not the people in all former ages the choice of their Pastors We and our late Fore-fathers here were never under your over-sight but we know not why we may not now choose our Pastors as well as formerly we do it not by Tumults We kill not men and tread not in their blood while we chuse our Pastors as Pope Damasus was chosen The Tythes and other Temporal maintenance we take from none but the Magistrate disposeth of it as he seeth meet for the Churches good And the maintenancâ—â— is for the cure or work and therefore that are justly cast out of the cure are justly deprived of the maintenance And surely when they are dead none of you can with any shew of reason stand up and say These Bishopricks are yours or These Parsonages are yours It is the Incumbent personally that only can claim the Title saving the super-eminent title of Christ to whom they are devoted But the successive Popes cannot have title to all the Tythes and Temples in the World nor any of his Clergy that never were called to the charges If this be dis-union it is you that are the Separatists and cause of all If you will needs tell all the Christian World that except they will be ruled by the Pope of Rome and be burned if they beleeve not as he bids them in spight of their senses he will call them Separatists Schismaticks and say they dis-unite and are uncharitable again we appeal to God and all wise men that are impartial whether it be he or we that is the divider Iohnson Num. 98. By what is now answered this your long Rhetorical Exclamation from page 108. to page 112. is also solved For all that the Church of Rome demands of you even to the denying of your senses and subjecting of your judgement was in the year 1500. required of you by all Visible Ancient Churches in the World and you are not able to nominate any one where it was not Change therefore the term Pope or Church of Rome into that of the Catholick Church of Christ that is all Orthodox particular Churches existent at that time which are comprised in the number of all visible ancient particular Churches then existing and address your exclamations to it and then you will see how little of a Christian complaint there is in that whole digression To this therefore I presse you once again to produce some Visible Church in the year 1500. from whose visible Communion you were not separated in your first beginning Anno 1517. as much as were the Pelagians or Donatists from all Visible Churches in their times And to render a sufficient reason why your dis-obeying or substracting your selves from the dependance and obedience of all the Visible Pastors in all Churches Anno 1500. was not as much deserving to be termed and held a criminal Schism and spiritual Rebellion as any former separation from all Visible Churches Mr. Baxter Num. 99. You ask me Is not Charity Subordination and obedience to the same State and Government required as well to make one Congregation of Christians as it is required to make a Congregation of Commonwealth's-men Answ. yes it is But as all the world is one kingdome under God the universal King but yet hath no universal vice-king but every Commonwealth only hath it's own Sovereign even so all the Christian world is one Church under Christ the universal king of the Church but hath not one vice-Christ but every Church hath it's own Pastours as every School hath it's own School-master But all the Anger is because we are loth to be ruled by a cruel usurper therefore we are uncharitable William Iohnson Num. 99. You commit the Fallacy of ignoratio Elenchi and pass à genere in genus I speak of a visible Kingdome or Commonwealth as it is regulated by a visible Government and you take it as it is invisibly govern'd by an invisible Providence In this sense only are all the kindomes of the earth one kingdome under the invisible Government of the Invisible God but cannot be truly called one visible kingdome but more Now it is evident through the whole discourse that our present Controversie is of the visible Church as it is visible and in this sense it is and must be one and consequently must be under some visible Government which must make it one That cannot be Christ for he governs not his Church now visibly Ergo there must be some other and that must either be some Assembly of chief Governours as would be a General Council or some one person who has Authority to govern the whole body of the Church A general Council it cannot be for that was never held to be the ordinary but only the extraordinary Church-Government when emergent occasions require it and even when that is convened there must be some one person to avoid Schisme and quiet Controversies which may possibly arise in the Council with Authority above all the rest It is therefore manifest the Church cannot be perfectly one visible politick Body unless there be one visible head to govern it visibly as the ordinary Governour of it I beseech you Sir reflect often upon this distinction and you will see the chief ground of your discourse answered by it For to say as you do here that the Church
Church in this opposition Mr. Baxter Num. 109. They do not claim to be vice Christi the universal Governours of the Church Contradiction the Title of universal Patriarch they extended but to the then Roman Empire and that not to an universal government but Primacy William Iohnson Num. 109. I wonder to hear you say here the Greeks intended the Title of universal Patriarch only to the Empire and that not of Government but of Primacie that is as you mistake that word precedencie in place when you labour mightily to prove Pag. 154. 155.156 c. from St. Gregorie's Epistles that the Title the Greeks then pretended to and S. Gregory exclaimed against was to be Bishop and to have spiritual Jurisdiction over all Churches and Christians in the world either therefore you must grant that your Argument drawn there from St. Gregorie's words is fallacious and of no force or if it be of force and well grounded That then Iohn of Constantinople and with and after him the Patriarchs of that City pretended to be universal Governours of the whole Church both extra and intra-Imperial And as to the later Patriarchs of Constantinople seeing there is now no Christian Empire amongst them and they still retain that former Title of Vniversal Patriarchs you cannot pretend they inclose their Authorities within the Verge of the Christian Empire And that you may see what Authoritie the Constantinopolitan Patriarch assumes to himself and how plaguely he stiles himself a vice-Christ quite contrary to your groundlesse Assertion here Hieremias in his Epistle to the Lutherans of Germany prefixed before his censure of their Doctrine saies thus Si enim volueritis inquit Scriptura audieritis me bona terrae comedetis quibus sane verbis mediocritas item nostra quae ipsa Christi Domini miseratione successione quadam hic in terris ejus locum tenet ad amabilem concordiam consensum cum ea quae apud nos est Jesu Christi Ecclesia charitatem vestram cohortatur If you be willing and shall hear me saith the Scripture you shall eat the good things of the Land in which words our mediocrity likewise which by the mercy of Christ our Lord by a certain succession here upon earth holds his Christ's place Exhorts you to an amiable concord and charity with that which is with us the Church of Iesus Christ where this Patriarch of Constantinople Hieremias affirmes expresly of himself that he holds Christ's place upon earth which is to be a vice-Christ as you term it as much as the Pope esteems himself one yet sure Hieremias knew what Authoritie he had in Christ's Church now that you may know undoubtedly he speaks not of a Church of Christ which may be affirmed of every particular true Church but of the Church of Christ that is the whole Catholick visible Church he exhorts those German Lutherans to an amiable concord with that Church of Christ which is with him that is in the Government whereof he holds the place of Christ and that this is no other then the whole visible Catholick Church he declared in the last Paragraph of the eight chapter saying Et ut conâ—â—idimus ubi ei quâ—â— apud nos est sanctae Catholicae Iesu Christi Ecclesiae vos subjiâ—â—ietis c. And as we confide when you shall subject your selves to that holy and Catholick Church of Christ which is with us or belongs to us which can be meant of no other save the whole visible Church for he accounts none to be in communion with that Church which is with him save those who believe and observe all the Apostolical and Synodical traditions and all who believe and observe them to be of his communion that is all orthodox Christians which is the whole Catholick Church nor can these words quae apud nos est be so understood as if they denominated only some part of the Catholick Church to be with him and some other not with him or against him for the Greek hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if he had said the holy Catholick Church existing amongst us or with us Mr. Baxter Num. 110. And for Hieremias his Predecessor whom you mention though they disputed with him by letters Stephanus Gerlochius and Martinus Crusius did not agree in all things with him yet he still professed his desire of unity and concord with us and in the beginning of his second Answer rejoiceth that we agreed with them in so many things William Iohnson Num. 110. So do we to and labour to procure that unity with all our forces but why cast you a mist upon the point in question by saying he agreed not with them in all things what mean you by all things I had said the Greeks and others profess generally all those points of Faith with us against you wherein you differ from us and prove this out of Hieremias his Epistle you answer that the Lutherans did not agree in all things with Hieremias what all things mean you those wherein you and we differ why then have you not designed some at least of those points in difference betwixt us wherein they agree with you against us if you mean they agreed not in all things that is in some wherein we and you agree they agreed also with you us that 's true but is no Answer at all to my Assertion for I meddle not with those but disagreed they with you in the points controverted betwixt us that 's true too but it is a confirmation of my Assertion But you artificially to dissemble what you could not answer serve your self only of a general terme whereby the Reader may remain still unsatisfied whether they agree with you or us in the Points under controversie betwixt us Tell us therefore and I beseech you fail not to do it whether my Assertion be true or no in this point when you Reply to it and whether my Allegations prove it not that is whether the modern Greeks agree with the Roman Church in all points now controverted betwixt us and you except that of the Popes supremacie and whether Hieremias the Patriarch assume not to himself as true a supreme authority over the whole Church as does the Pope Mr. Baxter Num. III. Iohannes Zygomalas in his letters to Crusius 1576. May 15. saith Perspienum tibi omnibus futurum est quod in continuis causam fidei praecipue continentibus articulis consentiamus quae autem videntur consensum inter vos nos Impedire talia sunt si velit quis ut facile ea corrigere possit Gaudium in coelo super terram erit si coibit in unitatem utraque Ecclesia Idem sentiemus simul vivemus in omni concordia pace secundum Deum in sincerae Charitatis vinculo William Iohnson Num. III. To what purpose are these words cited cannot any of the Roman Church write the very same now to Lutherans But does
you are of an inferiour order to his Majesty and content he shall take place of you but withal deny he has any power over you were not he likely to be well serv'd by such subjects but sure you might have discovered had you read his words attentively that St. Gregory could not mean a subjection only of inferiority in order and not in government for he sayes in another place if there be any fault committed by Bishops l. 7. ep 64. secundum Blondel ep 65. Iâ—â—dictione 2. I know no Bishop which is not subject to the Apostolical Sea but if the fault require it not according to the reason of humility wee are all equal See you not the subjection which he asserts here is grounded in the delicts or faults of Bishops and is not that in order to correction reprehension and punishment for those faults and must not that proceed from power of government and authority over them is not this evident nor can he speak in the first part of this sentence of a subjection of order only for he affirms that supposing there be no fault the Bishop of Rome is the first Patriarch in order through the whole Church and consequently the rest unequal in ranke and place that is subject to him in your sense he must therefore mean another subjection besides that when he saith they are subject by reason of their faults would it not be ridiculous if the Mayor of London shoul write thus because all other Mayors are inferiour to him in order if any fault be committed by the Mayors of this Kingdome I know none of them all who is not subject to the Mayor of London but if no fault require it in humility we are all equal I hope by this time you will have cause to doubt whether your sense be the sense of St. Gregory here or no Mr. Baxter Num. 238. But if it had been otherwise Constantinople and the Empire was not all the Christian world William Iohnson Num. 238. This seemes to be the burthen of your song but I have shewed you just now that it s quite out of the tune Mr. Baxter Num. 239. Your next citation is lib. 7. epist. 37. but its falsly cited there is no such word and you are in so much haste for an answer that I will not read over all Gregories epistles William Iohnson Num. 239. There is an errour in the figures it should be lib. 7. ep 64. where you 'l finde what I cite And that very reason which you alleadge for not reading over St. Gregories epistles viz. hasting for an answer pleads the excuse of my friends in sending my answer away to you before I could return to town and read it over to wit your importunity for a speedy answer Mr. Baxter Num. 240. You say that Cyril would not breake of communion with Nestorius till Celestine had condemned him of this you gixe us no proof William Iohnson Num. 240. Doe I not looke in the Margin p. 56. in your edit lit o. you 'l finde the proof of it cited there I see you use not to read the places cited by your adversary otherwise you could not but have seen the proof of what I say in Cyrils epistle to Celestine Mr. Baxter Num. 241. But what if it be true did you think to prove the Pope to be the vice-Christ prudence might well make Cyril cautelous in excommunicating a Patriarch And we still grant you that the order of the Empire had given the Roman Bishop the Primacy therein and therefore no wonder if his consent were expected William Iohnson Num. 241. Yes indeed I really thought so if you understand by vice-Christ no more then what we ascribe to the Pope otherwise I would never have prest that instance to prove it And as really tooke I the writing of two and those as you would have it the cheif Patriarchs of the Eastern Church to the Pope of Rome the one to have his doctrine censured that is either allowed or condemned by the Pope the other to have the Popes authority for himself and the rest of the Eastern Bishops whether Nestorius his doctrine were formal heresie and they oblig'd to avoid communion with him this I tooke to be a forcible argument to prove the Pope to be a vice-Christ if you mean as we doe no more then this by it that he is the supream visible governour of the whole Christian militant Church in the place of Christ and truly I am in the same minde still for all you have brought against it Is it think you probable that Nestorius would have written to Celestine and required his authority for the approbation of his doctine had he esteemed him to have no more power over him then the Mayor of London hath over the Mayor of York nor was the question propounded by St. Cyril about a positive excommunication of Nestorius as you misconceiv'd but onlie a non-communion with him as you presently acknowledge Mr. Baxter Num. 242. But that Nestorius was comdemned by a Council needs no proof and what if Celestine began and first condemned him Is he therefore the universal Bishop William Iohnson Num. 242. Yes he is so as universal Bishop may be understood For if the condemnation of him in the Ephesine Council in conformity to the Popes precedent censure argu'd an universal authority in that council over the whole Church as all both Catholicks and Protestants you only excepted acknowledg much more the primacy and original condemnation of his doctrine argu'd an universal authority in Celestine Mr. Baxter Num. 243. But it was not Celestine alone but a Synod of the Western Bishops William Iohnson Num. 243. This is answered above where you put the same reply No national or patriarchal Council can upon their sole authority oblidge the rest of the Patriarchs as this did Mr. Baxter Num. 244. And yet Cyril did not hereupon reject him without further warning William Iohnson Num. 244. But that warning was ordered by Celestine as I have proved p. 56. in your edit Mr. Baxter Num. 245. And what was it that he threatned but to hold no communion with him William Iohnson Num. 245. And was that in your account a matter of smal moment you may please to take notice that the Bishop of Rome's denial to receive any one into his communion or the substracting himself from communicating with them was in those dayes an undoubted marke of their being cast out of the Church and that no Catholick Bishop was to excommunicate or to permit any under his charge to communicate with them as is proved at large in Schisme unmaskt or the conference with Dr. Gunning For the rule to know with whom every one was or was not to communicate was their Câ—â—mmunion or non-communion with the Roman Bishop Mr. Baxter Num. 246. And though pride made excommunication an Engine to advance one Bishop above others I can easily prove that if I had then lived it had been my duty to avoid
what he was not obliged to prove Num. 277. Why the Roman supremacy in spirituals is necessary to the being of Christs visible Church Num 278. He proceeds fallaciously a sensu conjuncto ad sensu divisum The difference between temporal Kings and Popes government not understood by Mr. Baxter Num. 279. He proceeds a jure ad factum from what should be done to what is done Num. 280. He mistakes his adversaries meaning in governing others as Brethren Num. 281. Wâ—â—e her the Pope be absolutely the Monarch of the visible Church Mr. Baxter Num. 275. Yet fear you not to say that in the time of the holy oecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon the universal consent of the whole Catholick Church was for you in this point The Lord keep our consciences from being the servants of our opinions or interests 1. Was the Popes legate the whole Church 2. Was there one man at either of these Councils but within the Empire yea a piece of the Empire So that they were but such as we now call national Councils that is consisting only of the subjects of one republick 3. Did the Council speak a word for your power without the Empire 4. Do they not determine it so expresly to be of humane right that Bellarmine hath nothing regardable to say against it Can. 28. Con. Chal. but that they spoke falsly And yet your opinion or interest hath tempted you to appeal viz. to the Sun that there is no such thing as light William Iohnson Num. 275. Here 's nothing but a good face put upon a bad cause and a repetition of what is answered imboldned with a new confidence your first qu. about the Popes legate is answered To your second I answer yes there were no small number of extra-imperials but had there been none if all were summoned it ceased not to be a general Council To the third yes every decree it made was spoken to the whole Church and as it appeares by the letters of Leo the Emperour writ presently after the Council of Chalcedon to all Churches even the most distant in those parts it was universally received in their respective answers by every one of them To your fourth about can 28. Con. Chal. I have answered already and shall say more when it is more fully treated Mr. Baxter Num. 276. After the conclusion you have a supernumerary in your margin from Greg. lib. 10. Epist. 30. But there is no such word in that Epistle nor is it of any such subject But it s the 31 Epistle its like that your leader meant And there is no more but that a Bishop not named person or place having fallen into Schism voluntarily swore never more to depart from the unity of the Catholick Church or the Sea of Rome But. 1. So may a Bishop of the Roman Province do or Patriarchate without beleiving Rome to be the universal head William Iohnson Num. 276. Could they and yet make the communion with the Bishop of Rome to be the certification and evidence they reconciled themselves to the Catholick Church If any Schismatick in France should reconcile himself to the Catholick Church could he promise to remain allwayes in the communion of the Bishop of Rhemes suppose that Bishop should so be excommunicated or turne Schismatick as he might could he promise never to forsake his communion seeing therefore an absolute promise was made to remain alwayes in the communion of the Bishop of Rome it was presupposed that Bishop once lawfully chosen and installed could never be excommunicated or become a Schismatick so long as he remained Bishop of Rome otherwise the promise had been illegal and impious obliging them to communicate with Schismaticks Now there can be no other sufficient reason given why the Bishop of Rome can never be excommunicated or become a Schismatick so long as he is Bishop of that Sea then that he is the visible head of the whole Church from whose communion whosoever seperates becomes a Schismatick as he who seperates from the loyal obedience of the visible head of a Kingdome becomes a Rebel but because he has no power above him against whom he can rebel but as a King can never be a Rebell so not the highest visible governour of the Church can be excommunicated or commit Schisme by contempt of the lawful authority of the Church because he who is the highest of all has no authority in the Church over him for then he were not the highest Mr. Baxter Num. 277. So might any one in any other Province have done And yet it followes not that he ought to do so because he did so You see now what all your proofs are come too and how shamefully naked you have left your cause William Iohnson Num. 277. I have so illustrated and strengthened my instances to open them to your understanding that every one of them by an argument a paritate rationis onis ut supra evinces the Popes power to have been universal over all Christendome seeing those Patriarchs and Prelates that were within the verge of the Empire obeyed him upon no other score save this that they still conceived him to be by vertue of the priviledges and powers given by our Saviour to St. Peter and his lawful successors the cheif Governour of themselves and of all other Prelates whatsoever and of the whole Church and I challenge you to produce one sole instance of Authority from antiquity which sayes in expresse termes that those of the Empire obeyed them because they were members of the Empire or that his authority reached not without the Empire Nay even in time of the Council of Ephesus and Chalcedon Spain though seperate from the Empire obeyed the Roman Bishop for it was possest by the Gothes an 414. who have ever since kept it and the Council of Ephesus began 430. And not long after an 475. France was possest by barbarous Kings and never since returned to the Empire yet still remained under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome When England was after converted betwixt six and seven hundred years it was no part of the same Empire yet yeilded it obedience to the Bishop of Rome the like is of many other Western and Northern Countries out of the Empire converted about or after these times See more of this in my reasons against your grand noveltie in restraint of general councils what you mention here of a parity from Canterbury hath no parity at all For the English Church rendred obeisance to the Bishop of Canterbury as to the Primate of the English Church only whereas those in the Empire obeyed the Bishop of Rome not as cheif Bishop only of the Roman â—â—mpire but as having authority over the whole Church in vertue of succession from St. Peter who received it from Christ which I will demonstrate hereafter Mr. Baxter Num. 278. You have not named one man that was a Papist Pope Lâ—â—o was the nearest of any man nor one testimony that ever a
spread through the world are the Catholick Church why then cite you words quite overthrowing that position out of St. Augustine pag. 230. 24. Quicunque de ipso capite ab scripturis sanctio dissentiunt etiamsi in omnibus locis inveniantur in quibus ecclesia designata est non sunt in ecclesia whosoever discents from the holy Scriptures concerning the head our Saviour though they be found in all places in which the Church is design'd yet are they not in this Catholick Church or intend you to evince that all those who profess the Essentials of Christianity as you understand them though they separate from the external communion of all visible Churches existent when they first begun communicate only amongst themselves in some particular countries are parts of the Church why then cite you the words immediately following Et rursus quicunque de ipso capite scripturis fanctis consentiunt unitati ecclesiae non communicant or as after ab ejus corpore quod est ecclesia ita dissentiunt ut eorum communio non sit cum toto quacunque diffunditur sed in aliqua parte separata inveniatur manifestum est eos non esse in ecclesia Catholica And againe whosoever consents with the holy Scripture concerning the head Christ communicate not with the unity of the Church as after but so dissent from his body which is the Church that their communion be found in some separate part it is manifest they are not in the Catholick Church Now seeing St. Augustine intends by this argument to convince the Donatists not being parts of the Catholick Church because they departed from the external communion of all particular Churches existing immediately before in their time yet it is manifest that in your opinion they held all the essentials of Christian Faith and thereby communicated with those Churches as they were Christians as much as you do you separate from external communion as much as they did it is evident that this very text cited by your self against us unanswerably confutes the substance of your whole book against me overthrowes the foundation of your key and suppresses that grand noveltie of Schismaticks being parts of the true Church O you are a stout disputer are you not 25. Pag. 231. Optatus is cited to as little purpose as was St. Augustine why distinguish you obedience and subjection from charity is not it a preserving of charity in the Church to yield subjection to Superiours is not that a part of Christian charity being a performance of a command touching the love to our neighbour otherwise you must argue thus Optatus sayes the schismatiques were charitatis desertores non subjectionis desertores desertors of charity not desertors of subjection ergo he makes no spiritual Superiours or Pastors at all essential parts of the Catholique Church nor talks of unity caused by subjection to them how like you this consequence If you admit it every old wife at Kidderminster might have tanted you and told you there needs no subjection to you from me more then to me from you so long as I am in charity with you and all men I have no need of subjection to any and therefore as you acknowledge in your answer to Iohnson pag. 231. Optatus calls the schismatiques desertors of charity not of subjection O this is a welcom doctrine to the vulgar and a precious seed of rebellion for if no subjection but a charity as amongst equals be required to the Essence of the Church why should it be essential to a common-wealth O how sweet will this sound in the ear of a Leveller But why say you he accounts not the Apostolick Roman See to be an essential part of the Catholique Church sayes he not expresly in the words now cited by me that unity is to be preserv'd through the whole Church by means of the singular Seat unica sedes of St. Peter at Rome and is not both unity and that which is necessary to preserve it essential to the Church sayes not Optatus presently after those words that this unica sedes the one only See of Rome is Dos Ecclesiae one of the Dowries or properties of the Church and are not they essential 26. Pag. 231. It is cleer Optatus means by extra septem Ecclesias out of the seven Churches no more then out of their communion as they were parts of the Catholique Church as appears from the next words you cite dissentio schisma tibi displicuit concordasti cum fratri tuo cum una Ecclesia quae est in toto orbe terrarum communicasti septem Ecclesiis memoriis Apostolorum amplexus es unitatem Dissention and Schism hath displeased thee thou hast agreed with thy brother and with one Church which is in the whole earth thou hast communicated with the seven Churches and the memories of the Apostles thou hast imbraced unity Thus you save me the labour of salving your arguments by salving them your self 27. But why cite you Optatus his words lib. 6. p. 93. in your 232. page I know not if it be not to confute and confound your grand novelty of Schismaticks properly so called being parts of Christs Church sayes he not after his description of the Catholique Church aquâ vos concisos esse from which you are cut off Why have you not added this sentence to leave your Reader doubtful whether Optatus say these Schismaticks were or were not cut off from the Church nothing surer then that but it 's most certain Optatus was in the affirmative as the full sentence declares Optat. lib. 6. Itra Parm. p. 93. which quite ruines that your novelty Thus you save me again the labour of confuting your novelties by confuting them your self Are you not a strong Disputant let the world judge that 28. Pag. 232. you say first Tertullian thought it a tiresome way to dispute with the Hereticks of and before his time out of Scripture that they were to be convinc'd by prescription and what I pray think you of the matter are you of Tertullians mind why then have you press'd so much the sufficiency of sole Scripture as the rule by which you intend to dispute against us may not we reply against you as Tertullian did against those that it is a tiresome thing to dispute with Hereticks out of Scripture and that you are to be convinc'd by prescription But these Heretick say you err'd in fundamentals tell us I pray precisely once for all which are those how shall we know otherwise whether they err'd in sole fundamentals or no Please also to tell me where Tertullian restrains his rules of prescription to such only as erre in those which you would put in the number if you were able to sum it up of fundamentals what fundamental point even in your account deny'd the Chilliasts or Millenaries the Nicolaitans the Sacramentaries mention'd by St. Ignatius as he is cited by Theod. Dial. 3. deny they any article
we have seen nor will the communion of one heretick or schismatick with another serve the turn as St. Aug. cited by your self delivers l. de unitate Eccles. c. 4. That such as communicate with a part and not with the whole wheresoever it is diffused it is manifest they are not in the Catholick Church Now suppose one singular person turn a professed heretick or schismatick and leaves the external communion of the whole Church he can have no external communion at all if then he seduce to his party another that other can have no communion but with the first who had no communion with the Church so that their communion is without the Church and so will ever be though they increase to thousands and millions This truth therefore thus established my first argument returns upon you shew me said I any Congregation of Christians perpetually visible besides that which acknowledges the Popes supremacy c. This you have not been able to do but by producing known and notorious heretical congregations those I have proved not to be either one and the same congregation amongst themselves which I demanded nor one with the Catholick visible Church because no profess'd hereticks properly so call'd can be true members of the true Church And particularly you fail in this second part for till you prove Protestants to be no hereticks you can never evince them to be true parts of Christs visible Church Now therefore it remains that you begin again and find out some new solution for my argument for as yet you have brought nothing satisfactory to salve it but I hope God will give you the grace to desist from such imposible enterprises strike you with a sweet stroak of mercy as he did St. Paul and change you into a child of his holy Church which are the truest hearty desires of Your assured best wishing friend William Iohnson An Explication of The Catholick Church The chief terms used in this Controversie disputed betwixt Mr. Baxter and William Iohnson William Iohnson THe Catholick Church of Christ is all those visible Assemblies Congregations or Communities of Christians who live in unity of true faith and external Communion with one another and in dependance of their lawfull Pastours Mr. Baxter Of your definition of the Catholick Church Qu. 2. Whether you exclude not all those converted among Infidels that never had external Cemmunion nor were members of any particular visible Church of which you make the Catholick to be constituted William Iohnson It is sufficient that such be subject to the supream Pastours in voto or quantum in se est resolved to be of that particular Church actually which shall or may be designed for them by that Pastour to be included in my Definition Mr. Baxter You see then that your Definitions signifie nothing no man knows your meaning by them William Iohnson You shall presently see that your Exceptions signifie lesse then nothing Mr. Baxter First you make the Catholick Church to consist onely of visible Assemblies and after you allow such to be members of the Church that are no visible Assemblies William Iohnson I make those converted Infidells visible Assemblies as my Definition speaks though not actuall members of any particular visible Church as your Exception speaks for though every particular visible Church be an Assembly of Christians yet every Assembly of Christians is not a particular visible Church I do not therefore allow such to be of the Church who are no visible Assemblies as you misconceive me Mr. Baxter 3. You now mention subjection to the supream Pastour as sufficient which in your discription or Definition you did not William Iohnson Am I obliged to mention all things in my Definitions which I express after in answering your Exceptions prove that Mr. Baxter 3. If to be onely in voto resolved to be of a particular Church will serve then inexistence is not necessary to be onely in voto of the Catholick Church proves no man a member of the Catholick Church but proves the contrary because it is Terminus Diminuens seeing then by your own confession inexistence in a particular Church is not of necessity to inexistence in the Catholick Church why do you not onely mention it in your Definition but confine that Church to such William Iohnson I make them Actually inexsistent in some visible Assembly according to my Definition and in voto onely in a particular Church which is your Exception now every particular family or neighbourhood nay of two or three gathered together in prayer is an actual Assembly of Christians though it be no actual particular Church for according to S. Hierom Ecclesia est plebs unita Episcopo now this part of my Definition so much here opposed by you is in effect the same with the first part of the Definition of the visible Church delivered in your 39. Articles Article 19. for that sayes the visible Church of Christians is a Congregation of faithfull men c. And my Definition sayes the Catholick Church is all those Assemblies Congregations or Communities of Christians who live in unity of faith c. which unity makes them one intire and universal congregation of the faithfull In this therefore consists your fallacy that you esteem none to be actually members of the universal Church unlesse they be actual members of some particular Church which I denie and affirm that one may be actually a member of the universal Church though he be not actually but in voto a member of any particular Church for to be actually of the universal requires no more necessarily then to be an actual part of some Assembly though it be no particular Church Reply Will you say you meant in voto who then can understand you when you say they must be of visible Assemblies and mean they need not be of any but onely to wish desire or purpose it Rejoynder This is answered already above it is not necessary all should be actual members of any particular Church it is sufficient if they be actually of some Assembly or Congregation of Christians though it be no particular Church Mr. Baxter But yet you say nothing to my ease in its latitude many a one may be converted to Christ by a solitary Preacher or by two or three that never tell him that there is any supream pastour in the world how then can he be subject to that supposed Pastour that never heard of him The English and Dutch convert many Indians to the faith of Christ that never heard of a supream Pastour William Iohnson Whether he be named or no yet the Church must be supposed to be sufficiently explicated to those Convertists and that must be represented as having some prudent manner of Government so that they must be instructed to render obedience to such Governours as Christ instituted in his Church which seeing all of my profession hold to be by a chief Pastour and I have here undertaken to prove it is so by subjecting
that it belongs to esteem the Choosers fit here you were at a streight But is not this to say nothing while you pretend to speak and to hide what you pretend to open and who knowes what Custome and of what continuance you mean Primitive Custome went one way and afterward Custome went another way and latter Custome hath varied from both and hath the power of Election changed so often and who is it that must approve this Custome and what approbation must there be all these are meer hiding and no Resolving of the Doubt and tell us that a Pope is a thing invisible or unknown 5. and your last assures us that your Succession was interrupted through many usurpations yea indeed that you never had a Pope for the Church was vnsatisfied with the Election of abundance of your Popes when whores and Simony and murder and power set them up and most of the Churches through the world is unsatisfied with them still unto this day and you have no way to know whether the greater part of the Church is satisfied or not for non-Resistance is no signe of satisfaction where men have no opportuny or power to Resist and when one part of Europe was for one Pope and another for another through so many Schisms who knows which had the approbation of that which may be called the Church William Iohnson What is hidden from your understanding you take to be hidden in it self my Answer is Categorick as it stands conjunctly in my words and you mangling them in pieces have made them obscure take them as they stand and I am content in materia subjecta to submit them to the censure of any of your learned Devines esteemed Impartial to judge whether they be not as clear as need to be given in the qualifying of Electours for Elective Princes or Magistrates where when Different occasions require they admit of Different Determinations of Electours as here it hath hapned and whether your Exceptions be not pure fallacies proceeding à sensu conjuncto ad sensum divisum which is indeed as I have marked too ordinary a fallacie with you your 4. Number is a parergon If the Church did really acquiesce in such an Elected person as Pope it was satisfied according to the substance of the Election which is all I intended though haply it might be unsatisfied in the circumstances if the Church never accepted them as Popes they are not to be accounted Legal Popes nor in the number of St. Peter's successors what abuses have hapned in the Election of some Popes happened most commonly when Lay persons intruded their power and violence into those Elections mingling Lay authority with Church Government which is out of their Sphear now this abuse is much consonant with the Doctrine of Protestants so that those for the most part who confirm their practice according to Protestants principles introduc't this abuse into the Popes Election Mr. Baxter Qu. Is Consecration necessary and by whom ad esse William Iohnson It is not absolutely necessary ad esse Mr Baxter If Consecration be not necessary to Papacy then it is not necessary that this or that man consecrate him more then another and then it is not necessary to a Bishop and then the want of it makes no interruption in succession in any Church any more then in yours William Iohnson Neither Papal nor Episcopal Jurisdiction as all the Learned know depends of Episcopal or Papal ordination nor was there ever Interruptions of Successions in Episcopal Jurisdiction in any Sea for the want of that alone that is necessary for consecrating others validly and not for Jurisdiction over them Mr. Baxter Qu. 5. What notice or proof is necessary to the Subjects William Iohnson Ans. So much as is necessary to oblige Subjects to accept of other Elected Princes to be their Soveraignes Mr. Baxter When you have answered to the afore mentioned three Doubts we shall know what that General signifieth Rejoynder I have now answered and therefore you are satisfied BISHOP I mean by Bishop such a Christian Pastour as hath power jurisdiction to govern the inferiour Pastours Clergie and people within his Diocess and to confirm and give Holy Orders to such as are subjects to him Mr. Baxter Qu. Do you mean that he must have this power jure Divino whether mediately or immediately William Iohnson Answ. The Definition abstracts from particulars and subsists without determining that Question Mr. Baxter You seem to yield the Papacy is Jure humano and sure of no necessity to salvation for if man can change the power of Election and the foundation be humane it is like that Relation is but his name and therefore if Bishops must be Jure Divino they are more excellent and necessary then the Pope William Iohnson Where yielded I that where said I the Election was Iure humano shew where that there should be an election of him by competent electours is Ius Divinum the Determination who hic nunc are competent is Ius Ecclesiasticum therefore the Papacy it self is onely Jure humano how follows that know you not that neither the electours nor consecratours of him give him Papal Jurisdiction that is given him from Christ as S. Peters Successour the election therefore is not the foundation of Papal Authority but the promise of Christ. Nor are BB. more excellent then Popes because both are Iure Divino and as the manner of the election in particular may be and often is changed in the one so is it in the other Mr. Baxter 2. How grosse a subterfuge is this either the Bishop in question is a Divine creature or humane If a Divine as you may manifest it or expresse it at least so you ought it being no indifferent thing to turn a Divine office and Church into an humane if he be not Divine he is not of necessity to a Divine Churth nor to salvation Rejoynder What mean you by Divine creature who ever spake so but you the Bishop is a humane creature but his office is Divine Right will you have all particulars exprest in Definitions are they to contain more then the abstract notions of genus differentia the question is not what ought to be expressed in a full Treatise concerning Bishops but what in a definition ought to be the Genus and differentia of Bishop I intended not to make a precise definition neither but onely to shew you how I take it in my paper as appears by my words Mr Baxter And yet thus your R. Smith Bishop of Chalcedon ubi supra confesseth it to be no point of your faith that the Pope is S. Peters Successour Jure Divino William Iohnson You should have done well to cite the place for I have no time to seek whole books over nor should you have drawn consequences upon so large citations of Authours Mr. Baxter And if you leave it indifferent to be believed or not that both your Popes and Bishops are Jure
from a particular Church unlesse from the whole William Iohnson Answ. No it is no Schism as Schism is taken in the holy Fathers for that great and capital crime so severely censured by them in which sense onely I take it here Mr. Baxter Though I take Schisme more comprehensibly and I think aptly my self yet hence I observe your justification of the Protestants from the Schisme seeing they separate and not from the Catholique Church for they separate not from the Armenian Ethiopian Greek William Iohnson Here you allow of my definition at least you disclaim not from it but use your objections how it makes against my party this I have told often is not now our work but belongs to our dispute in taking your best advantages of my explications Did not your first Protestants in Germany separate as much from the Armenians Ethiopians Greeks as they did from uhe Romans if they did not shew the communion they had with them did you first Ministers either take mission or jurisdiction to preach from any of their Bishops or Patriarks did they take the prescription of their Liturgie Discipline or Hirearchie from them did they upon occasion joyn in Prayer Sacraments or Sacrifice with them and did they profess the same faith in all points of faith and those the very same wherein they dissented from the Church of Rome and all this notwithstanding were they in external communion with them If so they may as well be said not to have separated from the external communion of the Roman Church and if they separate from that they also separated from the other for the very same reasons Mr. Baxter Nor from you as Christians William Iohnson Nor from us say you as Christians no sure for if you did you must be Jewes Turks or Infidels Mr. Baxter But as scandalous offenders when we are commanded to avoide we separate not from any but as they separate from Christ. William Iohnson Was there no more in 't did not the Primitive Persons who begun your breach and party ow subjection to their respective Ecclesiastical Superiours Diocesans and Pastors immediately before they revolted from them and is it lawful for a subject to subtract himself from the obedience of his lawful Pastour because that Pastour is a scandalous offender remaines he not in his former power notwithstanding those scandelous offences till he be legally deposed if you say he does not you contradict our Saviour commanding obedience to be given to the scandalous Pharises who sate in Moyses his chaire you destroy all Ecclesiastical Government and open a way to tread underfoot all temporal authority also in desisting to acknowledge their authority by reason of Scandelous offences if you hold these offences deprive him ipso facto from all Ecclesiastical power why shall not another say they deprive Kings and Magistrates nay even Fathers and Mothers of their authority over those whom they Govern and then you would have spun a fair thred and laid a more open passage to rebellion then any you can finde or shew amongst those whom you term Papists and will make this good against your self that a man cannot be a good subject unless he cease to be of your party such I suppose you esteem those to be who follow your doctrine nor yet did you only refuse obedience to them in what you thought to be scandelous and against God but you absolutely rejected their Ecclesiastical authority and refused to have any dependance at all of them as your lawful Pastour neither acknowledging those under whose immediate jurisdiction you then were nor any of the Ecclesiastical authority in that time Mr. Baxter Qu. 2. Or no Schism unless willfull W. Iohnson Noe. Mr. Baxter Again your further justifie us from Schism if it be wilful it must be against knowledge but we are farr from separating willfully or knowingly from the whole Church that we abhor the very thought of such a thing as Impious and Damnable William Iohnson Abhorr it as much as you please for your own particular I know not what excuse may be pleaded for you I am certain that your first beginners did it and that knowingly and willfully and you still maintaining what they begun must by all considering Christians be judged guilty of the same crime for still you remain separate from all those Churches from which they departed that is from all the visibe Churches existant immediately before they sprung up and in their time and still continue through the whole world Mr. Baxter Qu. 3. Is it none if you make it a division in the Church and not from the Church William Iohnson Answ. Not as we are here to understand it and as the Fathers treat it for the Church of Christ being perfectly one cannot admit of any proper Schism within it self for that would divide it into two which it cannot be Mr. Baxter Though I am sure Paul calls it Schism when men makes divisions in the Church though not from it not making it two Churches but dislocating some members and abating Charity and causing contentions where there should be peace yet I accept your continued justification of us who if we should be tempted to be dividers in the Church should yet hate to be dividers from it as believing that he that is sepâ—â—ate from the whole body is also separate from the head William Iohnson I am glad to see you accept of some thing at the last upshot If it be for your advantage God give you good on 't See Dr. Ham. in his Book of schism c. 1 2 3 I speak not of Schism taken in a large sense but of that onely which is treated by the Fathers and reckoned up amongst the most horrid sinnes which a Christian can commit and that separates from the whole Church Sir urgent and unavoidable businesse constrained me to delay my return to your Solutions or Explications of your Definitions till this Iune 29. 1660. Mr. Baxter When you desire me to Answer any such Questions or Explain any doubtfull passages of mine I shall willingly doe it In the mean time you may see while your Termes are Explained and your Explications or Definitions so insignificant how unfit we are to proceed any further in dispute till we better understand each other as to our Termes and Subject which when you have done your part to I shall gladly if God enable me go on with you till we come if it may be to our desired Issue But still I crave your performance of the double task you are ingaged in RICHARD BAXTER William Iohnson Sir I have thus far endeavoured to satisfie your expectation and to acquit my self of all my obligations wherein I have sought as I strongly hope first God's eternal glory and in the next place your eternal good with his for whom I undertake this labour and of all those who attentively and unpartially peruse this Treatise WILLIAM IOHNSON ERRATA Page 75. line 13. ad neither p. 78. l. 6 dele my answering
Reader may have all ready at hand for a more facil understanding of the whole matter Yet in my Answer to his second part in proof of the perpetual visibility of the Protestant Church I have not inserted his Text both by reason it would haveâ—â— rendred the tome improportionable and that he often spends many Leafs in proving Propositions which I deny not so that it had bin to no purpose at all to insert them what I found material in that part I have recited and answered and remit the judgement and censure of the whole work to any impartial Reader If Mr. Baxter will venture upon an Answer I expect as fair a proceeding from him as he has here from me to insert by Sections as I have done my Text and apply a particular Answer to each Section for otherwise all impartiall eyes will see that he flies the light and seeks corners to hide himself and takes a new occasion both to pervert my words distort my sense and make me say what he pleases when he cannot answer what I say as he has done more then once in this his Answer The whole issue of the work is not onely a discovery of the weaknesse and dâ—â—ssatisfaction of this his Answer but withall an enervating of the main Principles Arguments and Instances against the Roman Church in his other Works and particularly in his KEY this against Johnson being a Receul or Epitome of what he has more largely treated in his former Invectives so that the Authour hopes the serious perusal of this will so far rectifie the judgement of his Readers that they will be enabled to see the vanity and fallacy of all he has with so much labour and bitternesse given out against us All we have to say or doe in relation to his Person is earnestly to beg of the God of mercy pardon and forgivenesse for him for what is past and a new beam of light from heaven to guide and direct him for the future and bring him into that saving way wherein he may attain unto a never ending felicity A Brief Advertisement to the READER THat the Reader may be sufficiently informed how this controversie took its rise and progresse he may please to take notice That Mr. Johnsons Argument was first sent to Mr. Baxter concerning the necessity of being a member of the Roman Church to obtain salvation next Mr. Baxter sent back an Answer to the said Argument and thereupon Mr. Johnson sent a Reply to Mr. Baxters Answer Thus far the whole Process is comprised in Mr. Baxters Edition from page 1. to page 66. which I have here reprinted Word for Word that the Reader may have a full view of the whole Controversie and have at hand the matter to which Mr. Baxter fram'd his last Answer to the end that this Rejoynder to it may be the better understood and the force of it more fully examined and weighed by the Iudicious Peruser of this Tract Mr. Baxter therefore sets down Mr. Johnsons Argument Mr. Baxters Answer and Johnsons Reply in this manner following Mr. Iohnsons first PAPER THe Church of Christ wherein only Salvation is to be had never was nor is any other then those Assemblies of Christians who were united in Communion and obedience to S. Peter in the beginning since the Ascension of Christ. And ever since to his lawfull Successors the Bishops of Rome as to their chief Pastor Proof Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ acknowledges S. Peter and his lawful Successors the Bishops of Rome ever since the Ascension of Christ to have been and now to be by the Institution of Christ their chief Head and Governour on earth in matters belonging to the soul next under Christ. But there is no salvation to be had out of that Congregation of Christians which is now the true Church of Christ. Ergo There is no salvation to be had out of that Congregation of Christians which acknowledges S. Peter and his lawful Successors the Bishops of Rome ever to have been since the Ascension of Christ and now to be by the Institution of Christ their chief Head and Governour on earth in matters belonging to the soul next under Christ. The Minor is clear For all Christians agree in this that to be saved it is necessary to be in the true Church of Christ that only being his mystical Body Spouse and Mother of the faithful to which must belong all those who ever have been are or shall be saved The Major I prove thus Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ hath been always visible since the time of Christ either under persecution or in peace and flourishing But no Congregation of Christians hath been always visible since the time of Christ either under persecution or in peace and flourishing save that only which acknowledges S. Peter and his lawfull successors the Bishops of Rome ever to have been since the Ascension of Christ and now to be by Christs Institution their chief Head and Governour on earth in matters belonging to the soul next under Christ. Ergo Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ acknowledges S. Peter and his lawful successors the Bishops of Rome ever to have been since the Ascension of Christ and now to be by Christs Institution their chief Head and Governour on earth in matters belonging to the soul next under Christ. The Major is proved thus Whatsoever Congregation of Christians hath always had visible Pastors and people united hath always been visible either under persecution or in peace and flourishing But whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the the true Church of Christ hath always had visible Pastors and People united Ergo Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ hath always been visible either under persecution or in peace and flourishing The Major of this last Syllogism is evident for seeing a visible Church is nothing but a visible Pastor and people united where there have always been visible Pastors and people united there hath always been a visible Church The Minor I prove from Ephesians cap. 4. ver 10 11 12 13 14 c. Where S. Paul says that Christ had instituted that there should be Pastors and Teachers in the Church for the work of the Ministry and preserving the people under their respective charges from being carried away with every wind of doctrine c. which evidently shews those Pastors must be visible seeing the work of the Ministry which is Preaching and Administration of Sacraments and governing their flocks are all external and visible actions And this shews likewise that those Pastors and People must be always visible because they are to continue from Christs Ascension untill we all meet together in the unity of faith c. which cannot be before the day of judgement Neither can it be said as some say that this promise of Christ is only conditional since to put it
such only to whom they are sufficiently propounded Baxter Num. 10. Where you say Your Major should have been granted or denied without these distinctions I reply 1. If you mean fairly and not to abuse the truth by confusion such distinctions as your self call learned and substantial can do you no wrong they do but secure our true understanding of one another And a few lines in the beginning by way of distinction are not vain that may prevent much vain altercation afterward When I once understand you I have done and I beseech you take it not for an injury to be understood Iohnson Num. 10. If they have done no wrong to you 't is well for my part I finde my self nothing injur'd by them But unnecessary and frivolous distinctions as yours were in this occasion can be no great advantage to him who gives them Baxter Num. 11. As to your Conclusion that you used no fallacy ex accidente and that my instances are not apposite I reply that 's the very life of the controversie between us and our main question is not so to be begged Fallacy 4. (a) Make sense of this On the grounds I have shewed you I still aver That the holding the Papacy as accidental to the universal Church as a canker in the breast is to a woman And though you say it is essential and of â—â—hrists Institution that maketh it neither essential nor of Christs Institution nor doth it make all his institutions to be essentials Iohnson Num. 11. You fall here again upon your former mistake I say not that the Papacy is therefore precisely not Accidental because it is of Christs Institution but because Christ hath instituted it should be ever in the Church which ever you still omit My saying I confess makes it not to be of Christs Institution but I hope to evince that my Argument hath proved it by a cleer confutation of your Answer Nor would I have any one give credit to my sayings further then I prove them to be true by solid reason Baxter Num. 12. Now of your second Syllogism 1. I shall never question the successive visibility of the Church whereas I told you out of Francisc. à Sanctâ Clarâ that many or most of your own Schoolmen agree not to that which you say Corruption 2. All Christians agree to you make no reply to it Iohnson Num. 12. I had not then seen that Author for want of time and so omitted the Answer And when I came to the sight of him your citation is so vastly large for you say only in articulis Anglicanis that I was forced to turn over the whole Book and all I have found where he treats this subject is A Sancta Clara in Artic. Anglic problem 15. p. 109 110 c. that one may be saved through invincible ignorance though he have no express but onely an implicite Faith in Christ. But I find no mention of Infidels in that place much less that he affirms most of our Doctors teach they may be saved nor that he affirms any can be saved who are out of the Church Your friends will be sorry to see you so defective in your citations You might have cited either his words or the place where they are found in particular and thereby have saved my labour and your own credit This I hope will be done in your next Baxter Num. 13. As to your Minor I have given you the Reasons of the necessity and harmlesness of my distinctions we need say no more to that A Congregation of Christians and a Church are synonyma Iohnson Num. 13. I wonder to hear you say a Congregation of Christians and a Church are synonyma Suppose a Montanist a Luciferian an Origenist an Arrian an Eutychian a Pelagian an Iconoclast a Wickliffian a Waldensian a Donatist an Aerian a Hussite and with these one of each Heresie and Schisme since Christ which in your opinion are or have been univocally Christians and that without any to reconcile and agree them were congregated together to oppose the Roman Church though you hold they are a Congregation of Christians would you venture to affirm they are a Church Or should a company of Murtherers Thieves Adulterers Robbers Bandits meet in rebellion together without Priest or Pastor though all Christians they would be a Congregation of Christians but would you therefore call them a Church Or when in Christian Armies the Souldiers and Commanders stand in Battalia to fight their Enemies or Countrey-people congregate in a Fair or to choose the Knight of the Shire or at my Lord Mayors Feast in London or at Bartholomew-Fair to see a Puppet-play will you term each of the Congregations of Christians Churches Will you term the Common-Council of London or the Sessions of Mayor Aldermen and Justices sitting in the Old-Baily or the Kings most Honorable Privy Councel or the High Court of Parliament a Church yet all the world knows they are each of them Congregations of Christians S. Paul tells you 1 Cor. 12. that the Church is composed of different Heterogenial members as our bodies are one subject orderly to another by way of Pastor and People which is not found in every Congregation of Christians as I have made it manifest Baxter Num. 14. But the word True was not added to your first term by you or me and therefore your instance here is delusory Iohnson Num. 14. I wonder to hear you discourse in this manner I contend the word True could not be added to the first term without manifest absurdity and therefore I neither added it nor was to be understood to include it Baxt. p. 13. Your Syllogisme runs thus Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ c. and is not my Major cited thus by you Baxt. p. 13. Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ. Now you say the word True was not added to your first term nor to mine that 's true but you say withal that I must intend to signifie in that first term by whatsoever Congregation the universal that is the true Church of Christ that 's not true for I speak abstractly in that term nor could I do otherwise unless I would have made an absurd or identical Proposition Baxter Num. 15. But to say Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the True Church of Christ is all one as to say Whatsoever Church of Christians is now the true Church when I know your meaning I have my end Iohnson Num. 15. I have proved this to be manifestly untrue for the East-India Company in Holland is a Congregation of Christians and yet is not a Church Baxter Num. 16. Though my Syllogisme say not that the Church of Rome acknowledgeth those things alwayes done and that by Christs Institution it nevertheless explicates the weakness of yours as to the fallacy Accidentis Iohnson Num. 16. The question is not here whether this acknowledgement of the Roman
it in your Edition p. 35. But why do you refer what I admit not I say not that every Opponent may come to a Negative at his pleasure as you make me say but when that Negative is deduced by force of Syllogistical form and denied by the Respondent in a matter proveable by instances as this is I affirm and desire it should be sent to both our Learned Universities that he who denies the universal Negative is obliged in Logical process to give some instance to the contrary and that there is no other means to prove that Negative but by infringing the instances which the Respondent produces against it For if the Opponent go to prove his universal negative by Induction viz. in my present Minor But no Congregation of Christians hath been alwayes visible save those which acknowledge St. Peter c. he must come at last to this Such a Congregation is neither that of the Arrians nor of the Eutychians nor of Nestorians nor any other Congregation that can be named Then if the Respondent deny that Proposition and affirm there is some nameable he is obliged to tell which it is otherwise it is impossible to make progress in the Argument which way of arguing notwithstanding is most Logical and usually practised amongst Learned Disputants Baxter Num. 25. We are all agreed that Christianity is the true Religion and Christ the Churches universal Head and the Holy Scriptures the Word of God Papists tell us of another Head and Rule the Pope and Tradition and Iudgement of the Church Protestants deny these Additionals and hold to Christianity and Scripture onely our Religion being nothing but Christianity we have no controversie about their Papal Religion superadded is that which is controverted They affirm 1. the Right 2. the Antiquity of it We deny both The Right we disprove from Scripture though it belongs to them to prove it The Antiquity is it that is now to be referred Protestancy being the denial of Popery it is we that really have the Negative and the Papists that have the Affirmative The Essence of our Church which is Christian is confessed to have been successively visible But we deny that theirs as Papal hath been so and now they tell us that it is Essential to ours to deny the Succession of theirs and therefore require us to prove a Succession of ours as one that still hath denied theirs Now we leave our Case to the Lawyers seeing to them you make your Appeal 1. Whether the Substance of all our Cause lie not in this question Whether the Papacy or universal Government by the Pope be of Heaven or of Men Fallacy 8. and so Whether it hath been from the beginning which we deny and therefore are called Protestants and they affirm and are therefore called Papists 2. If they cannot first prove a Successive visibility of their Papacy and Papal Church then what Law can bind us to prove that it was denied before it did arise in the world or ever any pleaded for it 3. And as to the point of Possession I know not what can be pretended on your side 1. The possession of this or that particular Parish Church or Tythes is not the thing in question but the universal Headship is the thing But if it were yet it is I that am yet here in Possession and Protestants before me for many Ages Successively And when possessed you the Head-ship of the Ethiopian Indian and other Extra-Imperial Churches never to this day No nor of the Eastern Churches though you had Communion with them 2. If the question be who hath possession of the universal Church we pretend not to it but onely to a part and the soundest safest part 3. The Case of Possession therefore is Whether we have not been longer in Possession of our Religion which is bare Christianity then you of your super-added Popery Our Possession is not denied of Christianity yours of Popery we deny and our denial makes us called Protestants Let therefore the reason of Logicians Lawyers or any rational sober man determine the case whether it do not first and principally belong to you to prove the visible Succession of a Vice-Christ over the universal Church Iohnson Num. 25. Fair and softly Sir you are run quite out of the field and have lost your self I know not where The present question is not who is to prove the universal and perpetual Supremacy of the Roman-Bishop See you not that I have already undertaken the proof of that in this present Argument The question at present is nothing but this when I have brought the Argument to this Head that no other Congregation of Christians can be named perpetually visible save that which acknowledges the Roman Supremacy and you deny that negative Proposition of mine whether you be not obliged upon that denial to name some Congregation which has been perpetually visible beside it This and this onely is that which I referr'd and still refer to the the judgement of the Learned as to your Case when it comes in season it shall be resolved This onely ex abundanti for the present whatsoever may be or not be of the Indians and Ethiopians c. which shall hereafter be examined You who confess the Pope to have been constituted Part 2. at least by the Churches grant Patriarch of the West and thereby to have acquired a lawfull Supremacy over the Western Churches and consequently over that of England and was in full and quiet possession of that Right when your first Protestants began to reject it you I say cannot deny those first Protestants at least to have been obliged by reason of that possession to bring convincing proofs that it was unlawfull which notwithstanding you must hold impossible to be done because you hold that Patriarchal power over them to have been lawfull Now what obligation falls upon you as maintaining successively so wrongfull a cause I leave to your consciences to determine Nay it is most evident in time of the first breach with the Roman Bishop he was in as quiet possession of Supremacy over the English Church in quality of Supreme visible Pastor over the whole Church as he was in quality of the Western Patriarch for the English obeyed him as Supreme over all and not as Patriarch of the West onely as appears by thousands of testimonies extant in our National Councils Doctors Bishops Historians Records Decrees c. Therefore those who dispossest him of that possession were bound either to have demonstrated it undeniably to be unlawfull or to have procured a definitive Sentence against him by such as had full Authority to judge him that his possession was unjust neither of which either hath been done nor can ever be done Baxter Num. 26 As to your contradictory impositions I reply 1. Your exception was not exprest and your imposition was peremptory Iohnson Num. 26. But I supposed my Adversaries to be Logicians and stood not in need to be instructed
Church you have imposed an obligation upon me of answering the reasons and allegations whereby you labour to prove it to have been perpetually visible Baxter Num. 39. You complain of a deficiency in quality though you confess that I abound in number But where is the deseâ—â—t You say I must assert both that these were one Congregation and ever visible since Christs time Reply If by one Congregation you meant one Assembly met for personal Communion which is the first sense of the word Congregation it were ridiculous to feign the universal Church to be such Iohnson Num. 39. You know I mean not that why lose you time in putting an if upon it Baxter Num. 40. If you mean one as united in one visible humane Head that 's it that we deny and therefore may not be required to prove Iohnson Num. 40. I abstract from that also be it but truly and properly one whencesoever that unity is drawn 't is all alike to the Solution of my Argument Baxter Num. 41. But that these Churches are one as united in Christ the Head we easily prove in that from him the whole Family is named the Body is Christs Body 1 Cor. 12.12 13. and one in him Ephes. 4.4 5 6. c. Iohnson Num. 41. These Churches which these mean you all that you seem to point at in your Catalogue All sure or you prove nothing but which are those all You name only those of the present age Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants After these for eleven hundred years you name none at all How shall we then know determinately what you mean here by these Churches when you give no light to know your meaning Let us therefore first know which are these Churches you here relate to by some particular designation and denomination of them or how can you either prove or we know whether they were united in Christ or no and then and not till then can it be discerned whether these Churches be or be not parts of Christs family or body according to the places you here cite Baxter Num. 42. All that are true Christians are one Kingdome or Church of Christ but these of whom I speak are true Christians therefore they are one Kingdom or Church of Christ. Iohnson Num. 42. I grant your Major and deny your Minor if they were independent of the Roman Bishop Baxter Num. 43. And that they have been visible since Christs time till now all History even your own affirm as in Judea and from the Apostles times in Ethiopia Egypt and other parts Rome was no Church in the time of Christs being on earth Iohnson Num. 43. Let them have been as visible as you please that 's nothing to me so were the Arrians Sabellians Montanists c. as much as many of these prove they were no more then one visible Congregation of Christians amongst themselves and with Orthodox Christians that 's the present controversie Baxter Num. 44. And to what purpose talk you of determinate Congregations Do you mean individual Assemblies those cease when the persons die Or do you mean Assemblies meeting in the same place So they have not done still at Rome Iohnson Num. 44. Why do you still ask me if I mean what you know I mean not Baxter Num. 45. I told you and tell you still that we hold not that God hath secured the perpetual visibility of his Church in any one City or Country but if it cease in one place it is still in others It may cease at Ephesus at Phillippi Colosse c. in Tenduc Nubia c. and yet remain in other parts I never said that the Church must needs be visible still in one Town or Country Iohnson Num 45. I assent to you in this why lose you labour in asserting that which no man questions Baxter Num. 46. And yet it hath been so de facto as in Asia Ethiopia c. But you say I nominate none Are you serious must I nominate Christians of these Nations to prove that there were such You reqâ—â—ire not this of the Church-Historians It sufficâ—â—th that they tell you that Ethiopia Egypt Armenia Syria c. had Christians without naming them When all History tells you that these Countreys were Christians or had Churches I must tell you what and who they were Must you have their Names Sirnames and Genealogies I cannot name you one of a thousand in this small Nation in the Age I live in how then should I name you the people of Armenia Abassia c. so long ago You can name but few of the Roman Church in each Age and had they wanted Learning and Records as much as Abassins and Indians and others you might have been as much to seek for names as they Iohnson Num. 46. You trifle away time exceedingly I require as you have seen above the nomination of the determinate Opinions or Societies as Hussites Waldenses Nestorians Eutychians c. not of their persons And therefore I say you nominate none See Baxt. p. 41. much less prosecute you those with whom you begun Now these were Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants so that I speak undeniably of the nomination of Sects and Societies not of Names Sirnames and Genealogies of persons There were different Sects and Professions in different Countreys as Armenia Abassia c. I require the nomination of which of those Sects or parties you mean in those times and Nations not what were their names and sirnames Nor is it sufficient that you say there were Christians that is Christians univocally so called or true Christians in all Ages in Armenia Ethiopia Egypt c. who denied the Popes Supremacy for unless you nominate of what party sect opinion or profession they were how shall any man judge whether they held not some Opinion contrary to the Essentials of Christianity and by that became no Christians even in your opinion You must therefore either have nominated and designed what sort of professions you mean or acknowledge you have spoken in the air and produc'd a pure non-proof in the nomination of those Countreys since no man can know by that what sort of profession you mean amongst all those different professions which have inhabited the said Nations for Arrians Sabellians Manichees Menandrians c. whom you hold to be no Christians and to erre in Essentials denied the Popes Supremacy in those Nations CHAP. III. ARGUMENT Num. 47. No Congregations of Christians can be united in Christ which are not united in the profession of one and the same Faith and in the Unity of external Communion n. 50 51 c. Assertors of the Popes Supremacy within the first 400. years after Christ. Extra Imperial Nations subject to the Roman Bishop n. 51. India and outer Armenians not alwayes Extra-Imperial n. 51. An Universal prov'd from a Particular by Mr. Baxter His word a proof n. 55. A bold Assertion of his contrary both to Ancient and Modern Writers n. 54. The Ethiopians subject to the Three
the Scholiastes and where they are to be found For the matter it self it seems I must needs tell you very improbable both because the Scripture it self hath hoc and not hic panis and were it not a great boldness in a whole Church to consent to the changing of Christs words of Institution in this divine Sacrament and foisting in others in place of them nor see I any reason why the Ethiopique Church in particular should do it when in the very same Liturgie it delivers cleerly the change of bread into Christ Body effected in the consecration of the divine Mysteries Canon universalis Aethiop Hoc est corpus sanctum honoratum Vitale domini salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi quod datum est in remissionem peccatorum vere sumentibus ipsum Hic est sanguis Domini salvatoris nostri Iesu Christi sanctus honoratus ac vivificus qui datus est in remissionem peccatorum advitum consequendam voce sumentibus eum Dicit intra divinum sacramentum esse corpus quod assumpsit ex Maria Virgine Eâ—â— supra dicit Sacerdos hoc est corpus meum Respondet populus Amen Amen Amen hoc est vere corpus tuum Dein dicit sacerdos Hic est calix sanguinis mei qui pro nobis effundetur pro redemptione multorum c. Baxter Num 57. Constantines letters of request to the King of Persia for the Churches there which Eusebius in vitâ Constantini mentioneth do intimate that then the Roman Bishop ruled not there Iohnson Num. 57. Why so Might not the Roman Bishop rule there though the Emperour did not The King of Persia as not Subject to the Emperour was not to be commanded but entreated by him but might not that stand with the Authority of the Roman Bishop over that Church May not the King of France intreat the King of Spain to send his Bishops to a general Council though both of them acknowledge the Popes Authority over them and the Churches in their respective Kingdomes Call you this an Argument Baxter Num. 58. Even at home the Scots and Brittains obeyed not the Pope nor conformed about Easter-Observation even in the dayes of Gregory but resisted his changes and refused Communion with his Ministers Iohnson Num. 58. No more do you conform to him now follows it thence that he never exercised authority over the Church in this Nation Will you draw a consequence from the disobedience of a Subject to the want of power in a Superiour Was not this very error ascrib'd to them by Venerable Bede Beda Histor. Ang. lib. 2. cap. 2. and here acknowledged by you condemned as an Heresie in the Council of Nice and may you not as well argue thus even against your own principles Those Brittains and Scots conformed not about the Easter-Observation prescribed in the Council of Nice therefore they acknowledged no subjection to the authority of that Council Ergo That Council never had authority over them And as to Communion with his Ministers See V. Bede Hist. Angl. l. 2. cap. 2. Bede tells you they refused also to communicate with the English who were then converted or to help towards their conversion were they also justifiable in this Or had they any right in Christian charity to refuse it Baxter Num. 59. I have already elsewhere given you the testimony of some of your own Writers as Reynerius contra Waldenses Catal. in Bibliothecâ patr Tom. 4. pag. 773. saying The Churches of the Armenians and Ethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome Iohnson Num. 59. No more are you what then our question is not of what is done de facto for the present but what de jure ought to be done or has been done at one time or other This Author says not these Nations were never under the Church of Rome even as you cite him but are not now for the present under him Know you not that many things have been heretofore which are not now Thus I have shewed you and doubt not but you see it the weakness of the first eight points of your Reasons I come now to the ninth which requires a deeper and larger discussion as being a main point in your Novel Divinity Baxter Num. 60. I have proved from the Council of Chalcedon that it was the Fathers that is the Councils that gave Rome its preheminence Iohnson Num. 60. Sir I take the boldness to tell you that you have proved nothing nothing at all of that matter what you say in your second part of the 28 Canon of the Council of Chalcedon proves not what you say here though that Canon were admitted of which more hereafter For the Greek word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gave to or conferred upon Rome those priviledges but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exhibited or deferred to them to Rome as ever before due unto it by right of the Apostolick Sea of S. Peter established there And though the Canon alledge for the reason of this the Imperial power of that Citie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it was the Imperial City yet it neither says as you would infer from it that this was the sole and compleat reason no nor the chief neither of Romes preheminence but one amongst some others Nor can it be understood to be the sole reason without imputing a contradiction to the Council For those Holy Fathers in their Epistle to St. Leo Pope affirm Conc. Calced in relat ad Leonem That Dioscorus had extended his Felony against him to whom our Saviour had committed the charge and care of his vineyard that is the whole Catholique Church when that wicked Heretick presumed to excommunicate St. Leo. Now the true reason why this Canon mentions rather the Imperial Authority of that City then the right from St. Peter was because it suited better with the pretensions of Anatolius Bishop of Constantinople and his complices for the elevation of that Sea then any other because Constantinople had no other prevalent plea for its preheminence save the Imperiality of Constantinople Now that this reason of the Imperial seat at Rome is no way exclusive of the right from S. Peter is evident from the conjoyning them together by the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian in their Laws made six years before the Council of Chalcedon whereof the Fathers of that Council cannot be supposed ignorant where they say thus Vâ—â—de infra Three things have established the Primacy of the Sea Apostolick the Merit of S. Peter who is the Prince of the Episcopal Society the Dignity of the City and Synodical Authority Where the original and prime ground is the Merit of S. Peter the other two are subsequent and subservient For therefore the Imperial Throne is given as a reason because St. Peter thought it convenient that the Highest Spiritual Authority should be placed in that City which had highest Temporal Power as also Alexandria was anciently
Church all the rest even the highest are no more then his Officers with a limited and restrained power that is in order to the sole sole external and visible government of it not having other Bishops under him as his Officers but as Officers of Christ and subject to him as hereafter shall be further declared Nor yet have you given here any direct answer to my Question I demand whether you account Rome and Protestants one Congregation To which you answer the Roman Church hath two heads and the Protestant but one and that 's the difference Now this gives no satisfaction to my demand for the Question inquires not Whether there be any difference betwixt us and you that was out of Question but whether that difference assigned by you be so great that it hinders them from being one Congregation and that you resolve not and thereby leave the difficulty unanswered Baxter Num. 91. They are Christians and so one Church as united in Chrst with us and all other true Christians If any so hold their Papacy and other Errors as effectively and practically to destroy their Christianity those are not Christians and so not of the same Church as we But those that do not so but are so Papists as yet to be truly and practically Christians are and shall be of the same Church with us whether they will or not Iohnson Num. 91. You tell us what would follow if such things as you fancy were done but you tell us not whether it is possible to do them or no. Can a Papist think you remaining still a Papist so hold his Papacy and other pretended errors as to destroy Christianity If he cannot why trifle you away time in printing such Chymerical conditionals if he can tell us how and by what means which you have not done nor indeed can you do it For how is it possible for two persons to be both Papists that is of the same Faith in all things for otherwise they will not be both Papists and the one of them only to be a Christian and the other none but practically and effectually destroying Christianity Baxter Num. 92. And your modest stile makes me hope that you and I are of one Church though you never so much renounce it Iohnson Num. 92. I never saw a man labor so confidently to perswade one out of his Religion upon so weak grounds as you do And truly something might be done in time to make you and me of one Church if I knew what Church you are of For you contradict so loudly the Tenets of all those who pretend either to be the Church or parts of the Church before you that I cannot finde but you are of a Church by your self which no man knows but your self and then I 'me sure you neither are nor can be of one Church with me so long as you remain in the state you are in yet it is the height of my desires that we may both be joyned in one Catholick Church which I shall most earnestly and unfainedly beg of God still hoping that your zeal and ardency in what you profess may as it did S. Paul bring you to see and imbrace his true Church Baxter Num. 93. As Papal we are not of your Church that 's a new Church-form Iohnson Num. 93. Prove it is new you know well enough we hold it to be ancient Baxter Num. 94. But as Christian we are and will be of it even when you are condemning torturing and burning us if such persecution can stand with your Christianity Iohnson Num. 94. I have shewed you are not as Christian speaking univocally of one Church with us For true Christianity requires true faith which I cannot beleeve you have nor have you proved it as shall appear hereafter I am unwilling to revive the memory of those severities you mention and you also might have pleased to have buried them in Oblivion for in objecting them to us you refresh the remembrance of yours towards us nor yet see I why such severities can better stand with your Christianity then with ours CHAP. VII ARGUMENT Num. 95. Roman Catholicks and Protestants cannot be of one and the same Church num 96 Length of time or continuance excuses not the succeeding Hereticks or Schismaticks from the crimes of their first beginners num 97. When Protestants deserted external Communion with Rome they deserted together with it the external Communion of all other particular visible Churches and that upon the same grounds n. 98. Mr. Baxters exclamation against Rome is injurious to all other ancient particular Churches existent immediatly before the first beginners of Protestancy n. 99. All the Kingdoms in the world not one visible but only invisible Kingdome under Gods invisible providence and power which governs them and in that regard an unfit instance to prove different particular Churches without one visible governour of them all to be one visible Church num 100. His opinion of actual Hereticks and Schismaticks properly so called contrary to all Authors ours or his own and to Christianity it self num 101. How Alphonsus à Castro held them to be members of the Church num 102. Every Heretick properly so called denies some essentials of Christianity num 103. Pelagians undoubted and manifest Hereticks and Schismaticks The Catholick Church so perfectly one that it s not capable to be divided Baxter Num. 95. But you ask Why did you then separate your selves and remain still separate from the Communion of the Roman Church Answ. 1. We never separated from you as you are Christians we still remain of that Church as Christian and we know or will know no other form because that Scripture and Primitive Churches knew no other Either you have by Popery separated from the Church as Christian or not If you have it s you that are the damnable Separatists If you have not then we are not separated from you in respect of the form of the Christian Church Iohnson Num. 95. You separated as much from us as did either Novatians or Pelagians or Donatists or Acacians or Luciferians or Nestorians Eutychians c. did from the Catholick Church of their respective times which is enough for us to deny you to be of one Church with us or to be any true parts of the Catholick Church If it be not so shew what you can say for your selves which any of those Hereticks might not as well have alledged in their own defence for neither did any of them separate from the Church as it was Christian nor did either the Pelagians Donatists Acacians Luciferians Novatians dis-beleeve any essential point of Christian faith if Protestants dis-beleeve no essential what you say of not separating from us as we are Christians is a precision never used by Catholick or Heretick in ancient times nor indeed did ever any Heretick who esteemed himself a Christian affirm he separated from the Church as it was Christian for that had been to deny himself to be a Christian which
no Hetick ever did so that if this excuse save you from Schismatical separation every Heretick in the world may be excused as well as you Actual separation and refusal of external Communion with all the Churches in the world of their time as your first beginners did was ever esteemed and will ever be esteemed by Orthodox Christians a destruction of true union with the visible Church of Christ under what notion or precission soever it be done because as Dr. Hammâ—â—nd affirms lib. de schismate there can be no sufficient cause given for any such separation Baxter Num. 96. And for your other form the Papacy 1. Neither I nor my Grand-father or great Grand-father did separate from it because they never entertained it Iohnson Num. 96. This is strange doctrine and would help out an Arrian or a Donatist at a dead lift after a hundred or two hundred years continuance of those Heresies no lesse then your self Is not the maintaining of a Separation or Schisme ever termed amongst Christians a Schism or separation even many generations after it begun Were not the succeeding Donatists after some ages as truly esteemed Schismaticks as the first beginners of their Schisme S. Austin called them Schismaticks and said they had left the Church above a hundred years after their first parting from it Baxter Num. 97. Those that did so did but repent of their sin and that 's no sin We still remain separated from you as Papists even as we are separated from such as we are commanded to avoid for impenitency in some corrupting Doctrine or scandalous sin Whether such mens sins or their professed Christianity be most predominant at the heart we know not but till they shew repentance we must avoid them yet admonishing them as brethren and not taking them as men of another Church but as finding them unfit for our Communion Iohnson Num. 97. This is one of the handsomest passages of your whole Reply and shews a fecundity of invention to maintain a Novelty But give me leave to tell you it will not it cannot acquit you of separating from the true â—â—hurch of Christ. Had you indeed deserted the sole Communion of the Papacy as you term it it might have born some shew of defence though no more then a shew but seeing when you separated from that you remained also separate as much from all particular visible Churches in the world as from that there can be neither shew nor shadow of excuse in it For you must either say that all the particular Churches in the world existent immediatly before you Anno 1500. were guilty of impenitency in some corrupting Doctrine or scandalous sin for which you were commanded to avoid them which were both to contradict Tertullian cited by your self page 235. Eâ—â—quid verisimile est c. to prove the contrary and thereby to condemn your selves of manifest Schisme which is nothing but a separation of ones self from the whole Visible Church or you must say there were some particular Churches then existent not guilty of that impenitency in some corrupting Doctrine or scandalous sin to which Churches you adhered when you first separated from the Roman and with which you lived in external Communion and then you are obliged to shew design and nominate which that Church oâ—â— those Churches were which neither you nor any of your professors ever yet did or could doe Nor will it excuse you to alledge you communicate with all Churches as Christian for whilest you profess your selves Christians you cannot affirm that you left all Churches as they are Christian and by this means never yet any Heretick no neither Arrian nor Sabellian could be convinced to have separated from all Churches for never would any of them acknowledge that they left them as Christian seeing they all not only protested but really beleeved themselves to be Christians Now if you will acquit your selves of separation from Christs Church shew in your Rejoynder some visible Churches pre-existent immediatly before you and co-existent with you in your first beginning which did not pray for the dead desire the assistance and Prayers of Saints for themselves use and reverence Images in their Churches which had not Altars Priests Masses reall and proper Sacrifice which held not Bread and Wine to be really changed by vertue of consecration into Christs true Body and Blood before they received them which held not S. Peter and him whom they esteemed his lawfull Successor to be the Supream visible Governour next under Christ of the whole Militant Church as is declared above Or which held not some other points as points of Faith which you deny or held not or denied some points which you hold to be points of Christian faith by reason wherof you had sufficient reason to leave their external Communion if you had reason to forsake that of Rome For till this be shewed all the world will see that as you separated from all other particular Churches as much as from those who adhere to the Church of Rome so had you the very same or equivalent Reasons to separate from them So that in accusing the Church of Rome of impenitency in some corrupting Doctrine and scandalous sin you accuse in like manner all other Christian Churches then existent in the World together with her Baxter Num. 98. But O Sir what manner of dealing have we from you must we be imprisoned rackt harg'd and burned if we will not beleeve that Bread and Wine are not Bread and Wine contrary to our own and all mens senses and if we will not worship them with divine Worship and will not obey the Pope of Rome in all such matters contrary to our Consciences and then must we be chidden for separating from you if we can but a while escape the Strappado and the flames What! will you blame us for not beleeving that all mens senses are deceived and the greater part of Christians and their Traditions against you are false when we read studie and suspect our selves and pray for light and are willing to hear any of your reasons but cannot force our own understandings ti beleeve all such things that you beleeve and meerly because the Pope commands it and when we cannot thus force our own understandings must we be burned or else called Separatists Would you have the Communion of our Ashes or else say We forsake your Communion In your Churches we cannot have leave to come without lying against God and our Consciences and saying We beleeve what our senses contradict and without committing that which our Consciences tell us are most hainous sins We solemnly protest that we would do as you do and say as we say were it not for the love of truth and holiness and for fear of the wrath of God and the flames of Hell but we cannot we dare not rush upon those Errors and sell our souls to please the Pope And must we then either be murthered or taken for uncharitable Will you
is one visible Kingdome yet to make it no more one visibly then the School of Christ-Church or Westminster is one visible School is in my Logick to speak-contraries Mr. Baxter Num. 100. Your next reason against me is because They cannot be parts of the Church unless Arians and Pelagians and Donatists be parts and so Hereticks and Schismaticks be parts Reply 1. You know sure that your own Divines are not agreed whether Hereticks and Schismaticks are parts of the Church William Iohnson Num. 100. You cannot but see I speak of parts of the Church as you understand parts and therefore I say pag. 48. in yours Secondly your position is not true Now your position is to hold that some Hereticks properly so called are parts of the Church of Christ and united to him as their Head by reason that they believe with a true Christian Faith the Essentials of Christianity whereby they are Christians though they erre in some Accidentals as appears by that distinction so often used by you In this sense then I say you hold Hereticks to be true and real parts of the Church And this I affirm to be contrary to all Christianity and a novelty never held before by any Christian. Though therefore taking the word parts in another more lax and improper sense and the Church as it is a visible body and government one only Catholick Authour * Lib. 2. de Haeret. punit c. 24. Haereticus etsi per Haeresim perdat fidem non tamen eo ipso est prorsus ab Ecclesiâ separatus sed adhuc est parâ—â— illius corporis membrum ejus c. Et infra Faâ—â—eor quidem meo quidem judicio negari non potest Haereticum esse partem Ecclesiae membrum illius non esse omnino ab illâ separatum quia etsi fidem non habeat habet tamen Characterem Baptismalem per quem primum factum est membrum Ecclesiae quâ—â— durante semper erit membrum illius Alphonsus à Castro thinks Hereticks may be called parts of the politick Body of the Church as She hath power over them to inflict punishment upon them by reason of the character of Baptisme which makes them ever remain subjects of the Church and lyable to her censures yet he holds expresly that they have no true Christian Faith at all quite against you whereby they can be made parts of Christ's Church united to Christ as their Head as you hold they are And the like is of Schismaticks For though some Catholick Author 's doubt whether they may be termed by reason of the profession of Christian Faith parts of the Church in a large sense yet none ever held as you doe that they were united to Christ as their Head and thereby compose one Christian Church with other Catholick Christians because they want that principal Christian Charity required as necessary to a compleat union to Christ. Your opinion therefore is contrary to all those of the Roman Church and shall God assisting me be * See my second Part. proved contrary to all Christians and Christianity and of most dangerous and damnable consequence But you must know that à Castro's opinion is censured by all other Doctours and thereby improbable nor yet makes the ground of his opinion Hereticks and Scismaticks more of the Catholick Church then are those Christians who are damned in hell for even they have the Character of Baptism and yet he says that so long as that Character remains they are Church-members quo durante semper erit membrum illius Mr. Baxter Num. 101. And if they were yet it is not de Fide with you as not determined by the Pope William Iohnson Num. 101. 'T is determined contrary to your sense a hundred times over by all the Anathemas and Excommunications thundred out against them in so many General Councils Mr. Baxter Num. 102. If it be then all yours are Hereticks that are for the affirmative Bellarmine nameth you some of them If they be not then how can you be sure it 's true and so impose it on me that they are no parts William Iohnson Num. 102. I have now told you None of ours ever held them parts as you doe that is united to Christ their Head as the rest of the parts are by Faith and Charity Mr. Baxter Num. 103. Arians are no Christians as denying that which is Essential to Christ and so to Christianity William Iohnson Num. 103. 'T is very true they are no real univocal Christians and your reason is good because they deny that which is Essential to Christ and so to Christianity But hence will follow that no proper Heretick whatsoever is a real univocal Christian for all of them deny something Essential to Christ and so to Christianity which I prove thus Whosoever denies Christ's most Infallible veracity Divine Authority denies Something which is Essential unto Christ. But every Heretick properly so called denies Christ's most infallible veracity and divine Authority Ergo Every Heretick properly so called denies something which is Essential to Christ and so to Christianity The Major is evident I prove the Minor Whosoever denies that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed from Christ denyes Christ's most infallible veracity and divine authority But every Heretick properly so called denies that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed from Christ. Ergo Every Heretick properly so called denyes Christs most infallible veracity and divine Authority The Minor is clear For that is properly to be an Heretick The Major is also clear For how is it possible to deny that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to me to be revealed from Christ without affirming that Christ said something which is not true which is manifestly to give Christ the lye and to doe that is to deny openly his divine veracity This Argument I hope you will please to think of seriously and either give an Answer in form to it or relinquish your Noveltie Mr. Baxter Num. 104. Pelagianisme is a thing that you are not agreed among your selves of the true naâ—â—ure of Many of the Dominicans and Jansenists think the Jesuites Pelagianize or Semi-Pelagianize at least I hope you will not shut them out Donatists were Schismaticks because they divided in the Catholick Church and not absolutely from it and because they divided from the particular Churches about them that held the most universal external Communion I think they were still members of the universal Church but I 'le not contend with any that will plead for his uncharitable denyal It 's nothing to our Case William Iohnson Num. 104. You fall again into a plain Fallacy proceeding à parte ad totum The doubt which is among some of our Divines is only about part of their Heresie and you would make your Reader believe it were about the whole Some points of their Heresie are clearly agreed upon by all Catholick Authors as is that
very words of the Popes Bull of the Union which declare that the Greeks and Latines were found to mean Orthodoxly both the words are these Convenientes Latini Graeci in hac sacrosancta oecumenica Synodo magno studio invicem nisi sunt ut inter alia articulus etiam ille de divina Spiritus sancti processione summa cum diligentia affidua inquisitione discuteretur Prolatis vero testimoniis ex divinis Scripturis plurimisque authoritatibus sanctorum doctorum orientalium occidentalium aliquibus quidem ex Patre Filio quibusdam vero ex Patre per Filium procedere dicentibus Spiritum sanctum ad eandom Intelligentiam aspicientibus omnibus sub diversis vocabulis Graeci quidem asseruerunt quod id quod dicunt Spiritum sanctum ex Patre procedere non hac mente proferrent ut excludant Filium sed quia eis videbatur ut aiunt Latinos asserere Spiritum sanctum ex Patre Filioque procedere tanquam ex duobus principiis duabus spirationibus ideo abstinuerunt à dicendo quod Spiritus sanctus ex Patre procedat Filio Latini vero affirmaverunt non se hac mente dicere Spiritum sanctum ex Filioque procedere ut excludant Patrem quin sit fons ac principium totius Deitatis Filii scilicet Spiritus sancti aut quo did quod Spiritus sanctus procedat ex Filio Filius à Patre non habeat sive quod duo ponant esse principiae seu duas spirationes sed ut unum tantum asserunt esse principium unicamque spirationem Spiritus sancti prout haâ—â—enus asseruerunt tum ex his omnibus unus idem eliciatur veritatis sensus tandem c. I pray you now tell it to no more That it is some Novel Writers of ours prest by force of Arguments that have been the Authours of this Extenuation My heart even trembleth to think that there should be a thing called Religion amongst you that can so far extinguish both Charity and Humanity as to cause you to pass so direfull a doome without authority or tryal on so great a part of the Christian world for such a word as this about so exceeding high a Mysterie when your Pope Council have pronounced an union of meanings William Iohnson Num. 117. It is a pretty kind of art you have of Triumphing before the Victory and collecting a Conclusion without Premisses 'T is true the Greeks did not intend to exclude the Son from the procession of the holy Ghost for they admitted him as a medium through which he proceeds from the Father as water issues from the fountain through the Conduit-pipe but yet they wholly denied he proceeded from the Son as from a principle of his procession and their reason was because then said they there would be a double procession of the holy Ghost as from two principles the Father and the Son and this they thought so evident that it could not be denied and thereupon supposed the Latines put a double procession and a double principle now when it was made manifest to them by the Authorities of the ancient Fathers as the Council here affirmes that he proceeded from the Father and the Son as from one principle so that those Fathers who affirm that he proceeds from the Father by or through the Son say the very same thing with the others who say he proceeds from the Father and the Son they were content to recall their former Errour and to hold with the Latines that he proceeded from both as from one Principle by one indivisible procession or spiration whence followed the union betwixt those two Churches Now that the Greeks before and after the Council when they were returned home thought it impossible they should proceed from both as from one Principle is evident both from the long craggy disputes betwixt them in the Council and from Mark Bishop of Ephesus who obstinately defended the common Opinion of the Greeks and would never yield to the union in this point and it appears also from the Grecians themselves who after their Return relapsed into their former Errour and from Hieremias his Censure C. 1. who excludes the Son in expresse terms Spiritum sanctum ex solo Patre procedere that the holy Ghost proceeds from the Father alone and from all the other Greeks who reject at this day the Union made in the Florentine Council and maintaine their former errour against it Now your Argument has this force with it the Grecians who recanted their Errour in the Council of Florence convinc't by the Authoritie of the holy Fathers agreed with the Roman Church that the holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son or from the Father through the Son as from one Principle of Procession Ergo Marcus Ephesius who refused that Agreement and the modern Greeks ever since that Council who reject it and the others before the Council who contradicted it held the very same Doctrine with the Latines that he proceeded from the Father and the Son as from one Principle whereas they most manifestly denied that he could so proceed and all of them deny it to this day see you not your fallacie how it proceeds à parte ad totum and à particulari ad universale that is from that partie of the Grecians who consented to the Florentine Council to the whole bodie of them ever since and with that I hope you will see how illogically you extend the Union in this and other points to the whole community of the Greek Church at this present time because some few of them assented to it in the Florentine Council whose consent with the Latines is now rejected and condemned by the present Greeks and how undeservedly you accuse me of extinguishing both Charitie and Humanitie for which I heartily beseech God to forgive you and desire only you will please to note that seeing I speak of the Grecians as they are at present and of those who held as they now do your testimonies of what they held many hundred yeares before our times hurt me not nor so much as approach to contradict what I say and please to consider this also that the Greeks holding the holy Ghost's proceeding from the Father and the Son argu'd a double principle and a double spiration as it was a real difference betwixt them and the Latines before the Union so is it yet a real difference betwixt the Latines those Greeks who reject that Union and that of so great concern that the present Grecians chuse rather to denie he proceeds from the Son as from a Principle then grant that he can proceed from both as from one principle or by one spiration from them both Mr. Baxter Num. 118. And what mean you in your Margent to refer me to Nilus as if he asserted that the Greeks left the Communion of the Roman Church upon that difference alone verily Sir in the high matters of God this dealing
the breach Mr. Baxter Num. 119. But you say that when I have made the best of those Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants I cannot deduce them successively in all Ages till Christ as a different Congregation of Christians from that which holds the Pope's Supremacie which was your Proposition Reply I have oft told you we owne no universal Informing Head but Christ in Respect to him I have proved to you that it is not my Interest or designe to prove us or them a different Congregation from you as you are Christians nor shall you tempt me to be so uncharitable as to damn or unchristen all Papists as far as you do others incomparably safer and better then your selves William Iohnson Num. 119. This is answered above no Heretick ever professed to separate from the Church as it is Christian for in so doing he must professe himself to be no Christian which no Heretick ever did yet for by professing himself no Christian he falls into the sin of Apostacie and becomes not an Heretick but an Apostate Mr. Baxter But as you are Papal and set up a new informing Head I have proved that you differ from all the ancient Churches but yet that my Cause requireth me not to make this proof but to call you to prove your own universal succession William Iohnson I have shewed above there must be alwayes some who Exercise visible Government as ordinary Governours of the whole Church and seeing a general Council is not the ordinary way of Governing the Church there must be some one who is supreme in visible Government over the whole Church this I affirm to be the Bishop of Rome and seeing there must be some one and you confesse the Roman Bishop to be the highest in place and honour me thinks even in your principles he has a stronger claim to be supream in authority also then any one singular person through the Church now if we set up the Pope as a new informing head over the whole Church as you say we do I should be much obliged if you would please to nominate the first Pope whom we set up as such a head who they were that set him up and who withstood it as a noveltie you cannot in your principles alleadge Boniface the third for the having his title as you pretend from Phocas and Phocas having no power out of the Empire could not give him any authority over the extra-imperial Pormies no not so much as precedency in place over all the extra-imperial Bishops for what reasons had they to conform themselves to the Emperours orders who had no authority over them and consequently not over the whole Church nor was the Emperour so foolish to give more then he had power to give now that Popes before Boniface's time had jurisdiction over the whole Empire you are forc't to acknowledge divers times in your reply not being able otherwise to resolve my arguments Phocas therefore neither made nor could make Boniface head over the whole Church nor was he the first who set him up over all the Churches within the Empire oblidge me therefore in nominating to me the first head so set up in your rejoynder to this I have no obligation to prove my succession my argument presses you to the proof who though you made a bold essay to produce one Congregation of Christians perpetually visible either denying and opposing the Popes universal supremacy or at least of such a nature in Church government as rendered it inconsistent with it and in this your present reply p. 92. you undertake the proof of such a visible Congregation distinct in all ages from that which hold the said supremacy yet being told by your adversary that none of the particular Congregations instanced and nominated by you in your former answer were perpetually visible as distinct from that which held the Popes supremacy in those two paragraphes you recoile and manifestly give up your cause as not being able to perform what you first undertooke Mr. Baxter Num. 120. You adde your reason because these before named were at first involved in your Congregations and then fell off as dead branches Reply this is but an untruth in a most publique matter of fact William Iohnson Num. 120. This is your bare affirmation without proof you nominate p. 23 your edit the Armenians Greeks Ethiopians Indians Protestants and no more Now it is evident by what I have said above that the first Protestants before their change were of that Congregation which held the Popes supremacy the Armenians and Greeks consented to it in the council of Florence the Ethiopians and Indians I have proved to have reconciled themselves to the Bishop of Rome since he publickely exercised and claimed the said supremacy ergo no one of those nominated by you no nor all together have been a perpetually visible Congregation distinct from that which held the Popes supremacy Mr. Baxter Num. 121. All the truth is this 1. those Indians Ethiopians Persians c. without the Empire never fell from you as to subjection as never being your subjects prove that they were and you have done a greater wonder then Baronius in all his annals William Iohnson Num. 121. I have proved it out of the Arabick edition of the nicene canons and from that very text of the council of Calcedon cap. 28 c. which you use against us Mr. Baxter Num. 122. The Greeks and all the rest within the Empire without the Roman Patriarchate are fallen from your communion if renouncing it be a fall but not from your subjection having given you but a primacy as Nilus shews and not a governing power over them William Iohnson Num. 122. You your self in the insueing replyes acknowledg a governing power over the Churches through the whole Empire and consequently over Constantinople nay you cannot deny the fact of Agapeâ—â— over Anthymus Bishop of Constantinople nor of Celestin over Nestorius c. you are therefore as much obliged to answer Nilus his argument as I am and Bell hath saved us both a labour of answering him 't is true according to what you say of being subject the Greeks hold now a subjection to the Pope and sure if they professe subjection to him they must professe themselves to be his subjects now according to you subjection may signifie no more then to be inferiour to another in place and every subject has a superiour to whom he is subject ergo they professe the Pope to be their superiour which gives him even in your principles at least a precedency before them but Nilus never granted they were in any proper sense subject to the Pope but only inferiour in place to him seeing therefore S. Gregory as we shall see hereafter declares the Bishops of Constantinople and all other Bishops in the Church to be subject to him and his sea and the Greeks now acknowledge no subjection to him it is manifest they are not only fallen from communion with him but also from their
letters writ flatly to him that he knew no John Bishop of Alexandria but had taken Petrus Mogas as Bishop of Alexandria into his communion and that without Simplicius for the Churches unity at the Emperours command William Iohnson Num. 125. It was indeed Ioannes Thalaida chosen Bishop of Alexandria but presently disturbed by Zeno the Emperour through Acacius his meanes and Petrus Mogas setled in his place by the Emperours authority and by Acacius Bishop of Constantinople this Ioannes Thalaida being a Catholick Bishop appealed as Liberatus saith and you acknowledge to Simplicius being dead before Iohn arrived at Rome Pope Felix his successor received the appeal and gathered a council upon it sent Legates and redargvitory letters to Zeno and Acacius where in his letter to Zeno he exhorted him to send Acacius to Rome according to the Ecclesiastical lawes and cited Acacius a fauourer of Hereticks to hasten thither to defend himself against the depositions of Ioannes Thalaida and to answer juridically to the objections made by his accuser and then to have his cause tryed in judgement this is the history By the way I wonder much to hear you say that Iohn Bishop of Antioch dyed in Sixtus the fift's time when as all the world knowes this Iohn of Antioch flourished in the year 1585. surely that Iohn must have been a notable old man of eleven hundred and odd years at least Mathuselah was nothing to him and which is yet a greater miracle he must have lived above a thousand years after he was dead I should have taken no notice at all of this for I know you would have said Sixtus the third but only to let you reflect how carefull you ought to have been in your own accounts Names and Figures when you are so punctual to note every smal slip in the writings of your adversary I might also have noted your errour in affirming this Iohn of Antioch dyed an 436. citing Baronius for it whereas Baronius as abreviated by spondanus sayes expresly he dyed Anno 440. But I have no reason to pass in silence your not informing your Reader what Zeno Acacius Petrus Mogas Petrus Fullonis Iohn Thalaida and Calendion were you say Zeno expelled Iohn Thalaida that Acacius disowned him and acknowledged Petrus Mogas as Bishop of Alexandria and thence inferre how little regard Acacius made of our Pope by which obsurdity in writing your ignorant Reader may well suppose that Zeno was a good Christian Emperour Acacius and Petrus Mogas found Catholick Bishops Iohn and Calendion turbulent intruders or Schismaticks whereas you could not but know seeing you profess to read the Aâ—â—thours you quote that Zeno Acacius Petrus Mogas Petrus Fullonis and their abbetters were either Hereticks or first favorites secretly and after publickly of the Eutychian heresie and the cheif of them were after by a sentence given of Pope Felix excommunicated and deprived of Episcopal dignitie and jurisdiction as I have proved above whereas Iohn Thalaida and Calendion were most Orthodox and Catholick Bishops quietly and canonically elected and installed the one in the sea of Alexandria and the other in that of Antioch which had it been declared as all open and fair dealing required it had proved rather a credit then a disadvantage to the Roman sea to have been opposed by such notorious Hereticks and Schismaticks as those were and appealed to by Thalaida and Calendion Catholick and lawful Bishops Mr. Baxter Num. 126. Here you see how little regard Acacius made of your Pope and that the appeal was but to procure his letters to Acacius which did him no good William Iohnson Num. 126. I am glad to see how Hereticks and Favourers of hereticks have still contemned the authority of that Sea but I see not that the appeal was only to procure the Popes letters to Acacius for it was also to summon Acacius to answer Iohns accusations against him at Rome and there to trie his cause in judgement with him now that nothing was effected by this was only Acacius his pertinacy for which he is condemned by all the Catholick writers of his proceedings in those times and not one of them blame Simplicius or Felix as exceeding the limits of their authority in sentencing and deposing Acacius and his adherents as we have seen he did produce in your next those authours who speak against it in their times Mr. Baxter Num. 127. But do you in good earnest think that all such addresses or appeales are ad superiorem judicem what more coÌ„mon then to appeal or make such addresses to any that have advantages of interest for the releif of the oppressed young men appeal to the aged in controversies and the lesse learned to the more learned and the poor to the rich or to the favorites of such as can relieve them Johns going first to Antioch was no acknowledgement of Superiority William Iohnson Num. 127. Yes I think so in very good earnest and when you shall have fixt your second thoughts upon what past in this affaire I doubt not but your own ingenuity will induce you to think so too 't is not every appeal made from any tribunal or Judge to another who hath power to summon the defendant and to pronounce sentence against him in case of not appearance to defend his cause a strict and juridical appeal to a higher Court or Tribunal was not this appeal such I know when you consider the letters and sentence given by Felix against Acacius you neither will nor can deny it whence appeares how far your instances of improper and nominal appeales are from the present matter Should a poor Peasant of Northumberland being wronged by some inferiour persons having the Lord Mayor of London his friend appeal to him and require of him that he cite those Judges to appear before him and in case they did refuse to appear pronounce sentence against them and deprive them of their offices lands and possessions would it not be highly ridiculous seeing therefore such a proceeding as this was held by virtue of this appeal of Iohn Thalaida and no Catholick of those times ever condemned Felix for doing it nor Iohn for requiring it as is most evident it was an appeal or complaint as Baronius affirms to an higher Judge Now seeing an appeal made from one Judge to another as all solemn and proper appeals are made and understood in law must be from a lower to a higher Judge and the word appeal as all other words must be taken in a proper sense where nothing constraines us to take it improperly it is most manifest that this appeal must be understood to have been made to a higher Judge then were those who deposed Thalaida Mr. Baxter Num. 128. But of this I must referre you to a full answer of Blondel against Perron de Primatu in Ecclesia cap. 25. sect 76. where you may be satisfied of the vanity of your instance William Iohnson Num. 128. I could wish you had alleaged Blondels reasons for by
thus giving me Authours at every turne you will oblige me to peruse and answer whole libraries if Blondel have any thing worth taking notice of you may please to insert it into your rejoynder to this Reply and it shall be answered thus much only I am bold to tel you aforehand that Blondel trifles exceedingly for whether Thalaida were cited by Acacius legally or no which might make the wrong done him rather violence then juridical condemnation yet seeing Blondel confesses injuries done him by Acacius and his adherents upon pretence of perjury wherof he was though illegally judged guilty and solemnly deposed it was an appeal properly so called to reverse that unjust judgement by virtue of a sentence pronounced by an higher judge otherwise if an innocent person should be unjustly condemned in his absence without either citation or hearing he could not properly appeal from that sentence to an higher Court that which Blondel alleadges in the second place is yet more childish for seeing Zeno Acacius and their complices never treated with Thalaida about a joynt consent to chose Felix their Arbiter nay seeing the appeal was made to Felix whether they would or no they refuseing to appear in defence of themselves and make good their accusations against Thalaida it is most manifest that Felix was not made Arbiter of the cause by joynt consent as all Arbiters must be but had of himself the power of judging both parties Now though it was admitted not granted that the recourse of Thalaida to Simplicius and Felix was rather a complaint of violence injury done him by force then of an unjust juridical sentence pronounced against him yet my intent will evidently follow from it or it had been ridiculous in Thalaida to have sought redress from that injury and a condemnatory sentence against Acacius c. from one who had no power or jurisdiction over them and it had been a most insufferable injustice and presumption in Felix to have deposed and deprived Acacius had he had no jurisdiction over him and the rest of his complices Hence your fallacy consists in this that you proceed from secundum quid to simpliciter that is from appeales improperly so called or vulgar appeales to juridical or proper appeales whereas you should have given some instance where an appeal made from an unjust sentence to another Judge who hath power to cite and condemn those from whom the appeal is made is not alwayes made to an higher judge for such was the appeal of Thalaida to Simplicius as I have proved Mr. Baxter Num. 129. Whereas therefore you inferre or you say nothing that because this John thus appealed to Rome therefore he appealed thither as to the universal Ruler of the Church William Iohnson Num. 129. The story proves it most manifestly there were but three cheif Patriarck's then in the Church besides the Pope viz. of Constantinople Alexandria and Antioch now if the Pope had authority to summon sentence condemn excommunicate or deprive them of the communion of the faithful depose and dis-Bishop them as Felix undeniably did in his sentence against Acacius and his adherents the intruded Patriarkes of Alexandria and Antioch he must have had power and jurisdiction over all the inferiour Church governours for qui valet ad majus valet ad minus and to limit this papal power to the Empire I have shewed it groundlesse for if the Bishop of Constantinople censured here by the Pope had power over the barbarous that is extra-imperial Provinces as I have proved above why should not the Pope that had power over him seeing there is not the least appearance in antiquity that he had power over the Patriarkes as they were subjects of the Roman Empire and if there be shew it Mr. Baxter Num. 130. The story derideth your consequence much more that therefore the universal Church held the Pope then to be the universal head or Governour William Iohnson Num. 130. What story wherein how derides it my consequence why you say it does and that 's enough this second consequence follows also undeniably for seeing these proceedings were notorious to the whole Church and no Catholick Prelate or Church disallowed of them but all Authours of those times approve them that it was either then the unanimous consent of the Church that the Pope had the power or there is no meanes left to know by Authentical tâ—â—stimonies what the Church held or held not in those Ages Mr. Baxter Num. 131. Here is nothing of Govâ—â—â—ment but intreaty and that but within the Empire and that but upon the seeking of one distressed man that would be apt to go to those of most interest that might relieve him and all this rejected by Acacius and the Emperour a fair proof William Iohnson Num. 131. Here is nothing but a most supream visible authority in Government over the three cheif Patriarchs of the Church in repealing their sentence excommunicating depriving and deposing them and consequently seeing some of them at least had authority over extra-imperial or barbarous provinces as I have proved the Pope had government over some who were out of the Empire yet withall I minde you I undertook no more then to prove against you that some at least in those times held the universal jurisdiction of the Pope now whether my proof or your answer be the fairer I leave it to the impartial Reader Mr. Baxter Num. 132. Your second Instance is that Flavianus appeals to the Pope as to his judge Epist. praeambul Concil Chalced. Reply I have perused all the Council of Chalcedon as it is in Binius purposely to finde the words you mencion of Flavianus appeal and I finde not any such words in Flavianus own epistle to Leo there are such words nor any other that I can finde but the 〈◊〉 appeal once in one of the Emperours Epistles as I Remember but without mencioning any judge I will not turne over volumes thus in vain for your Citations while I see you take them on trust and do not tel me in any narrow compasse of cap. sect or pag. where to finde them William Iohnson Num. 132. I am sory you were put to so much paines but I take it not to have been occasioned by me I cite Epist. praeambulat Con. Chalced. and you confess you found it in one of the Epistles whether the word Judge be there or no imports nothing for the nature of the appeal and circumstances wherein it was made shew him to be a Judge as wee shall now see Mr. Baxter Num. 133. But had you found such words an appeal is oft made from a partial to an impartial Iudge thought of equal power William Iohnson Num. 133. What a juridical appeal made both viva voce and per libellum by a bill of appeal in and from a generall Councill to another of no greater authority then that Councill was nay in your principles of inferiour Authority to a generall Councill would not this have been ridiculous should
his eminent authority in that Kingdom he might do you some favour and he upon the receipt of those accusations should summon those Brethren of yours to appear before him and for not appearance condemn them and acquit and restore you would not all the World see that he exceeded his Commission No Patriarch by vertue of his Patriarchal dignity though preceeding the other in place had power to condemn any belonging to another Patriarchate if the fact were not committed within his jurisdiction without the consent of that Patriarch under whose Authority he was according to the Council of Nice Mr. Baxter Num. 176. Our own Communion with men is to be directed by the judgement of our own well informed consciences William Iohnson Num. 176. But our consciences if well regulated must avoid all those whose Communion is prohibited by the lawful Governours of Gods Church nor are private persons to avoid any whom the lawful Prelates of the Church retain in their Communion Mr. Baxter Num. 177. Julius desired not any man then to be one with a Council that should decide the Case William Iohnson Num. 177. There 's another non-proof make that appear Non-proof 18. Mr. Baxter Num. 178. Councils then had the Rule and the Patriarchs were the most honourable members of those Councils but no Rulers of them Non-proof 19. William Iohnson Num. 178. And that 's another let us see that prov'd Mr. Baxter Num. 179. Yet Zozomen and others tell you that Julius when he had done his best to befriend Athanasius and Paulus could do no good nor prevail with the Bishops of the East till the Emperours commands prevailed Non-proof 20. William Iohnson Num. 179. And that 's another cite the place in Zozomen who be those others Mr. Baxter Num. 180. Yea the Eastern Bishops tell him that he should not meddle with their proceedings no more then they did with his when he dealt with the Novatians seeing the greatness of Cities maketh not the power of one Bishop greater then another And so they took it ill that he interposed though but to call the matter to a Synode when a Patriarch was deposed William Iohnson Num. 180. What then Ergo the Pope had no Authority over them So did the Pharisees resist our Saviour the Jews Moses and Aaron and the late Rebels our most gratious Soveraign Ergo will you deduce thence they had no Authority over them But see you not how inconsequent you are to your self you said just now p. 148. that it seemed irregular that any Patriarch should be deposed without the knowledge of the Patriarch of the preceeding Sea Ergo say you the Eastern Bishops seem I suppose you mean truly and with reason or you urge that reason p. 148. without reason to have proceeded irregularly in opposing Iulius If so either this your first reason is against reason or you against your self Tradition Mr. Baxter Num. 181. Any Bishops might have attempted to relieve the oppressed as far as Julius did especially if he had such advantages as aforesaid to encourage him William Iohnson Num. 181. Another non proof why give you neither instance nor reason for what you say Mr Baxter Num. 182. All your consequences here therefore are denyed It is denyed that because Julius made this attempt that therefore he was universal Ruler in the Empire 2. It is denyed that it will thence follow if he were so that it had been by divine right any more then Constantinople had equal previledges by divine right 3 It is denyed that it hence followeth that either by divine or humane right he had any power to govern the rest of the world without the Empire Had you all you would rack these testimonies to speak it is but that he was mad by Councils and Emperours the cheif Bishop or Patriarck in a National Church I mean a Church in one Princes Dominion as the arch-Bishop of Canterbury was in England But a national or imperial Church is not the universal and withal oppressed men will seek releif from any that may help them William Iohnson Num. 182. All those consequences are proved at large in other parts of this treatise The first because this proceeding of Iulius having been approved in all ages by the whole Church there can be no other reason given of his power over the Bishops of Alexandria and others of the East save this that he was head in Government over all the Churches through the whole Empire The second that it was by divine right for it was exercised by virtue of an ancient rule or canon received in the Church as Iulius affirms which could not be that of Nice for that was instituted a very few years before Hence followes the third for Christs institution was for the whole Church not for the sole Empire CHAP. IV. ARGUMENT St. Athanasius Theodoret St. Chrysostome Innocentius NUm 182. Mr. Baxter miscites his adversaries words and then accuses him of want of Conscience for writing what he never wrote ibid. What sense Chamiers words can have whether they be referred to a Iudge or to a friend ibid. c. St. Athanasius his recourse to Iulius and effectual proceding in it and that Iulius had authority to restore him ibid. Theodorets appeal as to a Iudge acknowledged by Chamier nor is it directly contradicted by Mr. Baxter If the Pope were Theodorets lawful Iudge by way of appeal then was he also Iudge of all the Bishops in the Church Num. 184. St. Chrysostomes appeal convinces the Popes soveraign power Num. 185. 186. His appealing first to a Council hindred not his appeal afterward made to the Bishop of Rome Num. 187. None but superiours to a Council can reverse the sentence given by that Council Num. 187.188.189 How Mr. Baxter declines and Sophisticates the words of St. Chrysostome Num. 193. Whether Arcadius and Eudoxia were excommunicated by Pope Innocentius In what year Eudoxia dyed Num. 194. Mr. Baxter involves and lames the words of his adversarie Num. 201. What authority St. Ambrose had to excommunicate Theodosius which act is falliciously instanced by Mr. Baxter Mr. Baxter Num. 183. In your margin you add that concerning St. Athanasius being judged and rightly by Pope Juliu s Chamier acknowledgeth the matter of fact to be so but against all antiquity pretends that judgement to have been unjust Corruption Reply Take it not ill Sr I beseech you If I awake your conscience to tell me how you dare to write so many untruths which you knew or might know I could quickly manifest Both parts of your saying of Chamier p. 497. are untrue 1 the matter of fact is it that he denyeth He proveth to you from Zozomen's words that Athanasius did make no appeal to a judge but only fled for help to a friend he shewes you that Julius did not play the Iudge but the helper of the spoiled and that it was not an act of judgement 2 He therefore accuseth him not of wrong judging but only mentioneth his not hearing the
Diocess though the person sentenced lived out of their Diocess yet they might renounce all Communion with him Churches that have no power over one another may have Communion with one another and that Communion they may hold and renounce as there is cause Now if a neighbour Patriarch with so many Bishops of the West had renounced Communion with Chrysostome's Enemies and also written their letters on his behalf and taken him still as in their communion this he hoped would much further his restauration which yet he doubted as he had cause For in his second Epistle he thanks him for doing his part though it do no good or did not availe William Iohnson Num. 191. St. Chrysostomes words now cited evince there was more then bare avoiding of anothers communion Nay it is evident the aâ—â—oresaid authorties that Pope Innocent kept communion with both parties till a further trial of the cause was heard vide S. Chrysostome Ep. 5. ad innoc papam supra citatam Mr. Baxter Num. 191. And it is to be noted that your author Nicephorus tels you lib. 13. cap. 31. that Chrysostomes letters and his fellow-Bishops also and the Clergies of Constantinople were all written both to the Emperour Honorius and to Innocent and therefore you may see by that on what account it was and what help they did expect The Emperour was not to excomnicate but his letters might do much William Iohnson Num. 192. But sayes Nicephorus the same letters which were writ to Pope Innocent were writ to the Emperour prove that Mr. Baxter Num. 193. Well but to alleadge Niceph. lib. 13. cap. 34. to prove 1 Chrysostomes appeal But you have better or worse eyes then I for I can finde no such thing but a seeking for help as aforesaid 2 You say Innocentius nuls his condemnation and declares him innocent Ans. So might another Bishop have declared him But how far it should be regarded was not in his power William Iohnson Num. 193. Now at last you confess there was more then a bare avoiding the communion with others Doe you really think that any Bishop whatsoever could null the sentence of a Council both out of his Diocess and his Patriarchate as Innocent did that of Constantinople that is to say validly and lawfully I cannot perswade my self you doe now had it been unlawful St. Chrysostome would never have intreated Innocent to do it If you mean any Bishop can do it invalidly and unlawfully you say nothing to the purpose it was not indeed in his power how far it was regarded nor is it the power of a King how far his commands are regarded by powerful Rebels but what of that he had power to command and censure to annul and restore and so it was in his power to oblige others and procured that it ought to have been regarded that they sinned grievously in disobeying his command which is enough for my purpose But whilst you thus measure out the power of others by the rejection of their commands made by unjust oppressors you shew what spirit you had when you writ this in matter of Monarchial government it imports little what may be said of excommunication in general it is sufficient that this now treated included jurisdiction Mr. Baxter Num. 194.3 You say he excommunicated Atticus and Theophilus and 4. Arcadius the Emperour also and Eudoxia Reply 1. If he did so and did well another Bishop might aswel have done it William Iohnson Num. 194. Now let you and me try whether the sentence of Innocent against these persons were nothing save a bare excomunication in your sense that is a declaration of avoiding them Niceph l. 13. c. 34. Glicas Ann par 4. extant Tom 1. Epist Rom Pontif. Ep. Innoc 17. Georgius Patri Alex citatus a S. Io. Damasc orat de Imagin a Photio in Biblioth in Greg Alexandr extatque Graece editus in Angl. unà cum Oper. S. Chrysost. or that they were unworthy of Christian coÌ„munion or not communicating with them utsupra The words are these Itaque ego minimus peccator cui thronus magni Petri Apostoli creditus est segrego rejicio te illam i. e. Arcadium Eudoxiam a perceptione immaculatorum mysteriorum Christi Dei nostri Episcopum etiam omnem clericum ordinis Sanctae Dei Ecclesiae qui administrare aut exhibere ea vobis ausus fuerit ab ea hora qua praesentes vinculi mei legeritis literas dignitate sua excidisse decerno Quod si ut homines potentes quenquam ad id vi adegeritis Canones nobis a Salvatore per Sanctos Apostolos traditos transgressi fueritis scitote id vobis non parvum peccatum fore in horrenda illa judicii die cum neminem hujus vitae honor dignitas adjuvare poterit arcana autem abdita cordium sub occulos omnium effundentur atque exhibebuntur Arsacium quem pro magno Joanne in thronum Episcopalem produxistis etiam post obitum exauthoramus unà cum omnibus qui consultò cum eo communicarunt Episcopi cujus etiam nomen Sacro Episcoporum albo non inscribatur Indignus eo honore est quum Episcopatum quasi adulterio polluerit Omnis siquidem planta quae a Patre nostro in coelis plantata non est eradicabitur Ad Theophili anathematismum addimus abrogationem absolutam a Christianismo absolutionem I the least of all and a Sinner to whom the throne of the great Apostle Peter is committed segregate and reject thee and her that is Arcadius the Emperour and Eudoxia the Empresse from the receiving of the immaculate misteries of Christ our God and I decree that every Bishop and Clerk of the order of the holy Church to be fallen from his dignity who shall dare to give them to you from that hour wherin you shall have read these obligatory letters of mine But if you as being powerful shall force any of them to exhibite them to you and shall transgress the rules delivered to us from Christ by the holy Apostles it will be no smal sin upon your Conscienâ—â—s at the terrible day of judgement when the Honor and Dignity of this world can help no man but the secrets of hearts shall be powred out manifested before the whole world Arsacius whom you have intruded into the Episcopal throne in place of that worthy and great John Chrysostome we accurse even after his death together with all the Bishops who wittingly communicated with him whose name is not to be written in the Catologue of the holy Bishops He is unworthy of that Honor who hath polluted his Bishopprick as it were with adultery For every plant which is not planted by our Father which is in heaven shall be pluckt up by the roots To Theophilus his curse we add an abrogation or deposition and an absolute rejection from Christianity Whatsoever Blondel presses against the creditableness of this Author yet in matter of this consequence
proves evidently that there was at least one papist that is one who was for the Popes univer +sal monarchy or vice-Christship in the extent of those ages wherein you profess not to have found so much as one single person in that whole tract of time For those legates give testimony not only for that precise time of the Council but also for all precedent ages before it as I have evidenced by their words Mr. Baxter Num. 271. Yet I have given you instances in my key which I would transcribe if I thought you could not as well read print as M. S. of higher expressions then Caput fundamentum given to Andrew by Isychius and equal expressions to others as well as Rome and Peter William Iohnson Num. 271. You might have pleased to have told me where thinke you I 'me bound to were your key at my girdle as if I had nothing to doe but busie my self in reading it over to finde your wild citations Mr. Baxter Num. 272. And who is ignorant that knoweth any thing of Church history that others were called successors of Peter as well as the Bishop of Rome William Iohnson Num. 272. What successors mean you such as were received by Christians to succeed in the place of St. Peter as he was fidei columna and ecclesiae Catholicae fundamentum the pillar of Faith and foundation of the Catholick Church as the legate speakes here of him truly Sr. I confesse I am so ignorant that I know no such matter as you talke of Mr. Baxter Num. 273. And that the the Claves regni were given him is no proof that they were not given also to all the rest of the Apostles William Iohnson Num. 273. The question is not at present whether it prove absolutely they were not given to others because they were given to St. Peter but whether the legate in this sentence must not mean this to have been a priviledge peculiar to St. Peter as much as all the former were understood by him to be peculiar to St. Peter Now he could not without manifest absurdity be understood in any other sense for seeing he intended to demonstrate to the Council the preheminence of St. Peter and his successors above all others he had fallen into a grosse inconsequence had he enumerated those excelencies to shew St. Peter to be greater then were the other Apostles and his successor higher in authority then the successors of any of the Apostles should he have specified such particulars as were common with him and the rest of the Apostles seeing those are so far from proving him to be above them that they prove the quite contrary for equal priviledges common to all prove all were equal in those priviledges Mr. Baxter Num. 274. And where you say Arcadius condemneth Nestorius for contemning the command of the Apostolick sea You tell me not where to finde it I answer you still that its long since your sea begun to swell and rage but if you must have us grant you all these consequences Celestine commanded therefore he justly commanded therefore another might not as well have commanded him as one Pastor may do another though equal in the name of Christ And therefore he had power to command without the Empire over all the Catholick Church and therefore the Council was of this minde yea therefore the universal Church was of this minde that the Pope was its universal head You still are guilty of sporting about serious things and moving pitty instead of offering the least proof William Iohnson Num. 274. By what I have now writ in answer I think you will not have found me in jest in the proof of these consequences taken with due circumstances Celestine sayes the legate commanded and Nestorius was condemned by him for not obeying Celestines command and no man was either in the council or in the whole Church who had then the repute of an orthodox Christian either reprehended Celestine for commanding or justifyed Nestorius for not obeying and if any did so produce them in your next by good authority ergo it was a just command 2. It being a just command and must proceed from one who had true authority to command and against one whome you say by right of the first Council of Constantinople was the first Patriarch then in the Church had he true authority over him he must have had true authority over all those who were inferiour to him ergo there was no man to be found in the church who had power to command Celestine there the second consequence The third I prove thus he had power to command justly as is proved the highest Patriarch in the Empire and that Patriarch and the others also had power to command the Empire as I have proved above ergo Celestine had consequently power to command all those whom they commanded The fourth consequence I prove the legate said this in full and publick council and were all highly concern'd in it as is also prov'd and yet did not in the least contradict it ergo the council was of this mind that it was no abridgement to their priviledges but an establishment of their authority a prime preservative of the Churches unity and a fundamental institution of Christ in the perfect orders of Ecclesiastical Hierarchy as the legates had delivered it to the council You suppose here without any proof at all that one pastour though equal may command another in the name of Christ. Who ever taught this doctrine before you everts it not inevitably the order of Church government commanded by St. Paul for what is order but a due observance and subjection of inferiours to their respective superiours which is wholly subverted when an equal takes authority upon him to command his equal whatsoever pretence of the name of Christ he assume to glosse it for unless that conferre a real authority upon him who commands over him who is commanded he remaines his equal still that notwithstanding and then he commands without any true authority which destroyes order or if it communicate a reall authority over the person commanded it makes him superiour who commands and not equal to the other which destroyes your supposition of one equal commanding an other This made good the last consequence followes inevitably for seeing his Council has ever â—â—een reverenced and received as a true general Council and what such Councils consent to is the consent of the Catholick Church for all bodies diffusive are to confirm themselves to their true representatives it follows and that very seriously without all jesting that these consequences are so fast lockt up together that all the tuâ—â—nâ—â—s of your key will not be able to unlock them CHAP. VIII NUm 275. Why perpetual adherence to the Roman Church was promised by a Bishop who was reconciled from Schism to the Church Extra-imperial Bishops obeyed the Bishops of Rome Num. 276. Mr. Baxter forgets what his adversary undertook to prove and thereupon accuses him of not proving
Pope of Rome had the government of all the Church without the verge of the Roman Empire but only that he was to the Roman Church as the arch-bishop of Canterbury to the English Church and as between Canterbury and York so between Rome and Constantinople there have been contentions for preheminency but if you can prove Canterbury to be before York or Rome before Constantinople that will prove neither of them to be Ruler of the antipodes or of all the Christian world William Iohnson Num. 278. But if you can prove Canterbury to be not only in place and precedency but in authority and jurisdiction above York and withall above all the Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs which were anciently within the Roman Empire because they acknowledged his authority to be above all the Prelates of God to have Christs vineyard committed to his care from Christ to be the Father to all the Bishops met in general Councils and they his professed children acknowledged by them to be their head and they as parts subject to him c. And never to have been acknowledged as supream in spirituals by these in the Empire because his authority reached as I have prov'd the Bishops of Rome to have been acknowledged by them no farther then the Empire When I say you shall have prov'd the Bishop of Canterbury to have been over all the Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs within the Empire in this manner as I have proved the Bishop of Rome to be you will have proved Canterbury to have had all the preheminences given him by antiquity to be the Supream spiritual governour of the whole Church But seeing neither you nor any one in his right wits would ever undertake so great a peice of nonsence I should have wondered you dazle the eyes of your readers with such empty shewes as these had it not been so ordinary with you This very argument hath proved that not only one man but as you cannot deny all the Churches in the Empire acknowledge it and yet you say I have not proved one man to hold it whether this be to be termed confidence or impudence I leave to judgement Mr. Baxter Num. 279. Much less have you proved that ever any Church was of this opinion that the Pope was by divine Right the Governour of the world when you cannot prove one man of that opinion 3. much less have you proved a succession of such a Church from the Apostles having said as much as nothing to the first 300 yeares William Iohnson Num. 279. You forget and have proceeded in that act of oblivion through your whole reply that I undertook in these instances noe more then to prove against your bold assertion that within the first 600. 500. and 400 yeares there were some at least who testified the Supremacy of the Roman Bishop over the whole Church by Christs institution though therefore my proofs had not been taken out of those who flourished within the first 300 years seeing they were within the first 400 they had been of force against you But you may remember also that I cited St. Cyprian who was within the first 300 and Vincentius Lyrinensis who witnesses the same of Pope Stephen contemporary with St. Cyprian and very many of my cheif instances prove V. G. in the councils of Nice Ephesus and Chalcedon that it descended from our Saviour and had been in all ages since the Apostles and was to be in all future ages Mr. Baxter Num 380. And much less have you proved that the whole Catholique Church was of this opinion William Iohnson Num. 380. Whether I have or no let others judge Mr. Baxter Num. 381. And yet least of all have you proved that the whole Church took this Primacy of Rome to be of necessity to the very being of the Church to our salvation and not only ad melius esse as a point of order William Iohnson Num. 381. I have proved it to have been a matter ever necessary in the Church by Christs institution and therefore necessary ad esse to the being and not only ad bene esse to the perfection of the Church For seeing some Governours are essential to the Church as appears Ephes. 4. v. 11 12 13. in the order and Hierarchy of those Governours there must be some who are to be over all the rest in visible government otherwise neither could schism be avoided and unity preserved as Optatus cited hereafter affirms l. 2. contra Parmen nor would a visible body have a visible head which would be monstrous Mr. Baxter Num. 382. So that you have left your cause in shameful nakedness as if you had confessed that you can prove nothing William Iohnson N. 382. If you mean to such eyes as yours which I have demonstrated either discovered not or mis-saw the face of my arguments I grant it but all open and right sighted eyes I hope will have seen my cause so invested with grace and truth by what I have here replyed that it will have no shame to appear before heaven and earth before men and angels for its justification Mr. Baxter Num. 383. In the end you return to terms To what you say about the word Christians I only say that it s but equivocally applied to any that profess not all the essentials of Christianity of which Popery is none any more then pride is William Iohnson Num. 383. I leave it to judgement whether this answer related to my explication as of Christianity pag. 64. your edit have any sense in it For what though Popery as you conceit were no more essential to Christianity then pride is yet if a Papist hold all the essentials of Christianity as you hold he does he may be univocally a Christian. Will you say that because pride is none of the essentials of Christianity therefore no proud man holds all the essentialls of Christianity to what purpose then have you added this clause of Pride and Popery when I speak in general and abstractive terms not medling at all with particulars Now you give no satisfaction to your Reader about the clear notion of an univocal Christian you tell him here that an univocal Christian is he who believes all the essentials of Christianity but through this whole answer you never give him either a distinct catalogue of essentials or prescribe any direct rule or means to know which they are as we shall see hereafter Mr. Baxter Num. 384. About the word Monarch in good sadness do you deny the Pope to be an imperious sole Commander Which of these is it you do deny not that he is a Commander not that he is imperious not that he is sole in his Soveraignty I would either you or we knew what you hold or deny But perhaps the next words shew the difference as temporal Kings But this saith not a word wherein they differ from temporal Kings William Iohnson 384. You are really a strange man to deal withal Can any one speak more
visible body without a visible head Num. 5 6 7. His 6. first syllogismes are out of form and thereby are 6 Non-proofs Num. 11. Mr. Baxter 's skill in logical terms Num. 13. Whether Mr. Baxter or any formal Protestant be infallibly certain they love God and their neighbour as they ought to do Num. 15. c. 13. authorities 13. Non-proofs to shew the sufficiency of sole Scripture This question Mr. Baxter resolves affirmatively pag. 197. 1. You first prefix an explication of termes from p 197. to p. 204. which is of no concern to my argument nor of much to your answer I note only obiter these particulars p. 198. you define the universal visible Church thus It is the whole company of believers or true Christians upon earth subject to Iesus Christ their head where you first make believers and true Christians Synonimaes whereas one not baptized may be a believer but no Christian for he is made a Christian by baptism being before a Catechumen and then you assert the visible Church to consist as well of Catechumens as of baptiz'd Christians which is absonous for by baptism they are made Church-members 2. You use the word subject to Christ in your definition which according to you ut supra is equivocal and thereby unfit to be part of a definition and may signifie no more according to you then one of an inferiour rank and order who is not under the government of another so that when you say subject to Christ c. you may express no more by the word subject then that they are inferiour to Christ and that Christ is to take place of all Christians nor can you distinguish your self from this difficultie by alleadging you say they are subject to Christ their head for you speak equivocally in the word head too according to the former principles where you were forc'd to say head signifies no more then a principal member proceeding but not governing the rest In the same page you define Protestants thus Protestants are Christians protesting against or disallowing Poperie which is worse then the former for you cannot be ignorant that the first Origin of the word Protestant proceeded from the Elector of Saxony Landgrave of Hassia and some few other Prinees of their faction protesting against the imperial Edict decreed at Wormes an 1526 the observance whereof was established in the diet at Spire 1529 about the not changing any thing in the Churches practise publickly and commonly used before their times till a general Council was assembled and made decrees about it Now it is evident these Princes protested against Popery and disowned it some years before this and yet were not termed Protestants for that reason Take you your self to be a man of so uncontroulable authority as to make new impositions and give new significations to words as your fancie leades you what Call you the Greeks for some hundred of yeares Protestants because they protested against that which they esteem Popery the Popes supremacy the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son c. I am sure they execrate that appellation as much nay more then they do Popery nor were they ever termed Protestants till you call'd them so Are the new Arians in Polonia Antitrinitarians in Sylesia Socinians in Holland Hassiâ—â— â—â—n Bohemia Anabaptists Familists Montanists Millenaries Quakers in England all Protestants Protest not all these against Poperie If they be Protestants Protestants be they much good do it you with them you 'l say Arians and Antetrinitarians are no Christians but you shall see presently your arguments will prove them as true Christians as you can prove your self to be for an Arian or Antetrinitarian will say as you do here page 199. and 200. We profess our selves to be of no other Church and before men a man is to be taken of that Religion and Church of which he professeth himself to be till he be proved false in that profession pag. 199. You say Protestants in relation to our religion are as a man purged healed freed from Leprosie Plague Consumption c. then sure you make that which you call Popery to be infected with Leprocie Dr. Ferne Dr. Bramhall Plague Consumption as some of your Bretheren have done of late if so then tell me I pray in your next either that you hold the Catholick-Church in those imediately proceeding your beginnings to be spotted with Leprocy infected with the Plague and worn almost to nothing with a mortal Consumption and consequently teaching dangerous errors and therefore no man with a false conscience could remain in her external communion but must have forsaken the communion of all particular Churches in the world which is abominable in the eares of a Christian or you make it free from those foul disasters and then tell me where and which that holy visible Catholick Church was pure and unspotted from such diseases in the year 1500 neer to the time of your first Protestants beginning pag. 200. you say your profession shews you as much to be a true Christian as he doth the profession of a Papist shew him to be a Papist see you not the difference thousands and millions deny you to be true Christians and those not only friends but enemies also of the Pope as all the Greeks are notwithstanding all your profession to be so but not so much as one denies those to be Papists who profess themselves to be so 3. Pag. 200. Parag. Note you speak not say you of internal belief but of external profession but there you 'r out for whatsoever your internal sincerity be or be not your very external profession in the particulars of your belief or rather disbelief against the Roman Church shews your general profession of true christianity to be false so that the one convinces the other of falsity as in your principles an Arrian who as you presently say p. 203. is no Christian though he sincerely profess the belief of Christianity yet because that notwithstanding his particular profession of disbelief of the consubstantiality of the Son of God with his Father shews his general profession to be false 4. Page 201. 202. You renew first your error of making a visible body without a visible head for I have shew'd though Christs person be now visible yet as he is head of the millitant Church he is invisible that is he exercises immediately no visible office or action in governing his Church but all are purely internal spiritual and invisible Secondly you say he is visus seen to the triumphant Church but where finde you in your doctrine any corporal eye amongst the triumphant to see him pag. 202. num 2. you say the true Christians were very few to the Arrians in their prevalencie which you neither prove nor can prove for it is manifestly false I omit many such over-reaches as these that I may come to your proof Non-proof 1. 5. Pag. 204. Your first sylogism is out of form first having never an
it if expresly containing all things necessary to salvation I deny it Again I distinguish all things necessary to salvation either you mean all things necessary to be distinctly known and expresly believed by all to obtain salvation and so I grant it or all things also to be believed implicitly and to be distinctly known to all and so I deny it These distinctions suppos'd I deny your consequence viz. That the Church whereof Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth 15. Pag. 210. your authorities prove nothing the aforesaid distinctions applied Bellar. and Costerus speaks of things necessary to be expresly believed by all Ragusa of the Scripture well understood which include the interpretation of the Church Gerson not of articles of Faith but of Theological conclusions drawn by private and fallible authority Durandus treats of private conclusions drawn from Scripture by himself as you cite him pag. 212. of delivering nothing contrary to Scripture and of using the interpretation of the Roman Church St. Thomas speaks not a word of Scripture nor so much as names it in those words cited by you and in his summe de veritate addes the interpretation of the Church to Scripture as you cite his words pag. 213. Scotus cited p. 213. is quite against you he sayes add you that many needful things are not expressed in Scripture but virtually contained which is not protestant but sound catholick doctrine Gregor Ariminensis p. 14. speaks not of points of faith but of Theological conclusions drawn by private discourse which is not as you add next more then to intend the sufficiency of express Scripture to matters of faith for the seusteine of faith is infallible and divine Theological discourse only fallible and humane now he sayes diametrically against your tenet that all truths are not in themselves formally contain'd in holy Scripture but of necessity following these that are contained in them c. but here 's the difficulty we say that every point we teach is contain'd as in general principles at least in Scripture and necessarily deduced from it but you adde they must be contained formally for what seems a necessary consequence of Scripture to us seems not so to you and the like is of what seems necessary to you seems neither necessary nor propable to us so that neither of us can be convinced that our respective deductions are points of faith and both you must confess yours are not because you have not infallibly authority deducing them and we do acknowledge that conclusions drawn from Scripture abstracting from the Churches authority oblige us not to receive them as matters of faith 16. Pag. 216. Gulielmus Parisiensis sayes no more then say the former Authors and Bellar. nothing at all to your purpose draw if you can the sufficiency of sole Scripture held by you from words which so cleerly declare its insufficiency Pag. 217. Your whole discourse is a pure parorgon our question is not what is essential or necessary necessitate medii or praecepti to be known and expresly believed by all per se and absolutely but whether one believing all that is essential and necessary in that manner and withal disbelieving any other point of faith whatsoever after it is hic nunc sufficiently propounded as such to any particular person can either be saved or be a true real part of the visible Church of Christ. Now we answer negatively to this question because such a disbelief excludes an implicite belief of that point so disbelieved and consequently a belief of all that God hath revealed and therby all supernatural saving faith To illustrate the truth of this assertion let us instance in a Pelagian who believed all that which you account essential that is the common Articles necessary for all to salvation the Creeds the Scriptures c. And had sufficiently propounded to him the belief of Original sin as a point of Christian faith which he refuses to believe and accounts an errour the question will not be in this case whether that Pelagian believe all these essentials in the account but whether that supposed he be not excluded out of the Church and dismembred from it by that wilful disbelief of Original sin This is our present case controverted betwixt us so that though it were admitted that you believe all that material object of faith which you esteem essential and necessary for all to be expresly believed yet because we accuse and judge you to disbelieve many points of as much concern as is that of Original sin and as sufficiently propounded to you as such as that was to the Pelagians we have as much reason to judge you to be excluded out of the Catholique Church and dismembred from it as we have to judge them either therefore you acknowledge the point disbelieved by you and propounded as matter of faith by us to you to be as sufficiently propounded as was that of Original sin to the Pelagians or you deny it if you acknowledge it you must acknowledge you are as much dismembred from the Church by your disbelief as they were if you deny it then we will put our selves upon the proof of it so that till our proofs be heard and fully answer'd you cannot secure your selves of being parts of the Catholique Church no more then could the Pelagians 17. If you affirm as your principles lead you that even the disbelief of Original sin hinder'd not the Pelagians from remaining parts of the Catholique Church you contradict St. Augustine and St. Epiphanius In Catalogis Haereticorum the Council of Nice all antiquity nay all modern authors even your own and I provoke you to produce so much as one Author who affirms Pelagians to be parts of the Catholique Church CHAP. II. Mr. Baxters authorities NUm 18. Whether Mr. Baxters doctrine about sole scripture agree with Tertullians in his prescriptions Num. 21. Mr. Baxter would send all his adversaries packing if he knew how he supposes his Readers to be very simple Num. 19. Whether St. Augustin taught that common people were to reade-Scipture in the place cited by Mr. Baxter whereas St. Augustine taught there that all things belonging to Christian Faith and manners are expressed in Scripture his two other Collections from St. Augustine examined Num. 22. He knowes not where his Church was An. 1500. Num. 25. He cites two texts of S. Augustine distructive to his own doctrine Num. 25.26 How much Optatus makes for Mr. Baxter Num. 26.27 What Optatus meanes by being within or in communion with the seven Churches of Asia Mr. Baxter cites two texts in Optatus which quite overthrow him Num. 28. Divers of his Effugiums examined and confuted concerning Tertullians prescriptions Num. 29.30 Many texts of Tertullian not Englished by Mr. Baxter make directly against him 18. Hence falls to nothing all you alledge from Bell. Costerus Gulielmus Parisiensis Aquinas Bannes Espenseus c. p. 216.217.218 For they speak of
that he is segregated or divided from the peace of St. Peter that is from the communion of the Catholique Church What follows for six leaves together is nothing but a farago of equivocations misconceits contradictions p. 154. after you your self had cited St. Greg. words that this title was offer'd him per Concilium Chalcedonense by the Council of Chalcedon you say it was but a brag of his and that it was offer'd only by two Deacons in the Council 47. Thus you first cite authors against us and then accuse them of vanities and falsity when those very citations which you cite for your self make against you the question is not what is or is not now extant in the Council of Chalcedon or wherein St. Gregory grounded his sayings but whether St. Gregory affirms that this title was offer'd him in that Council as you confess by citing his words he does and is it fit for so mean a worm as you are to make this most honourable and holy Pope the Apostle of our Nation to be a bragger when he relates what pass'd in general Councils But now let us see a piece of your skill in History first you say the title was writ by two Now Blundel p. 452. acknowledges there was four and Barron ad an 451. num 32. sayes they were varii clerici alii Alexandrini then say you these two were Deacons Blundel sayes no such matter but that they were particular persons and Barronius that they were clerici and others Next you add they had no votes in the Council what wonder 's that when they did not so much as sit in it You say the names of those who compos'd those bills libellos against Dioscorus were Theodorus and Ischirion who as they were only those who offer'd them to the Council in the names of their Authors the bills being compos'd by others as well as by them after his you call those writings libels on purpose to disgrace them as it may seem for though they be called libelli that is little writings in Latin yet the word libels in English is alwayes taken in a bad sence and signifies a a false seditious infamous pamphlet but this you thought a fitter name for them because they had a superscription containing the title of universal Patriarch given to Pope Leo never considering what a disgrace you put upon that holy Council by making it a favourer and receiver of libels but suppose St. Greg. had had no other ground of his so constant affirmation that the title of universal Patriarch offer'd him by those Clerks of Alexandria in the Council of Chalcedon read publickly and no way disallowed by any one in the Council when it concern'd them so much ut supra yet this very thing convinces that he thought such a â—â—acite approbation was sufficient to affirm it was offer'd him not only in the Council but per consilium by the Council of Chalcedon Next page 254. You shew your skill in Grammar and argue that if the thing were due signified by the title of universal the name was also due never reflecting that one word may be taken in divers senses whereof one may agree with one particular thing signified and not the other Thus Tyrannus signified a King in the ancient signification but now a Tyrant only thus Minister in Latin signifies both a Minister and a servant c. Nay you your self confess and that is one of your contradictions that the Council offered it not to him in that sense wherein it signifies an vniversal governour of the Church but in an other now because this word beside the moderate signification in which the Council offer'd it is capable of another most pernicious and ante-Christian sense as I have declared St. Gregory thought it undue and unfit to be accepted because he esteemed himself oblig'd to avoid all appearance of evil and never accept of any title which was apt to breed publick scandal in the Church 48. Your next work is pag. 255. to confound those two significations of this word or the thing it self for that which is to be debated betwixt us is not what St. Gregory judged to be the thing signified by this word for that was most wicked and unchristian but the being the supream visible governour of Christs Militant Church yet so that inferiour Bishops and Pastours are true governours also each of his portion and immediate officers and Vice-gerents of Christ receiving their original power from him and not from the Pope which may also be signified by the word universal Now you shift cunningly from this second to the first and thereby work a confusion in your whole discourse and deceive your reader you take it in the first bad signification or the unchristian thing signified by it as St. Greg. understood it pag. 254. then say it is plain that it is the thing as well as the name that St. Gregory wrote against but that is not the thing now debated betwixt us but that which St. Greg. took to be signifyed by that word which we disallow asmuch as he did or you can do 49. Page 255. num 2. You equivocate againe about the taking away Episcopacie by that title for we affirm not that St. Gregory thought or Iohn of Constantinople either to expel all Bishops directly crudely out of the Church as you and your zealous brethren lately did out of the English Hierarchy But that although they remain'd still in the possession of their former titles and office of Bishops yet in effect according to the malignancie of this proud title St. Gregory thought the virtue and proper force of Episcopacie to be ennervated that is that whosoever made himself universal Bishop made himself Bishop of every particular Diocess in the Church in capite and thereby the rest who were possest of those Diocesses held their titles as from him as his vicars a moveable at pleasure by him as it were his servants or officers And though happily Iohn of Constantinople penetrated not so deep into the malignancy of this title Yet St. Gregory might suppose he did or fear he would do therefore would not permit so dangerous a title in the Church by force whereof one might lay a claim so obnoxius to and destructive of Ecclesiastial Hierarchy and this is that which St. Gregory signifies that Iohn by force of that title would subjugate all Christs members to himself that is make them his officers and vicars holding their Original powers from him and not immediatly from Christ. Now to say as you adjoyn that this is the very form of Popery is nothing but either your calumnie or want of true understanding of our doctrine wherewith you ought to have bin furnished before you had taken to write so bitterly against us We subject no Bishop according to his Episcopal power of ordination or original power of jurisdiction in his Diocess to the Pope no more then are the Collonels or Captaines of an Army who recieve their
acknowledge it to be his due you can give me no other reason for this then because the word universal is capable of a worse signification and therefore to be avoided which is the very reason I give you why St. Gregory both refused it and inveighed so much against it 56. How the rest of the Apostles had the care of the whole Church you oppose Bellar. p. 262. sect 2. To your first answer I have now replyed To your n. 2. No man questions St. Peters being a member of Christs Church under Christ the head but so is every Bishop a member of the Church which hinders not their being true Governours and visible heads of their respective Diocesses so was the high Priest amongst the Jews a member of the Church next under God the absolute chief head yet was withal indued with the power of governing visibly the whole Jewish Church as all grant 57. Pag. 262. But see you not into what bryars you have cast your self if you follow the ordinary Edition read it as you do thus certe Petrus Apostolus primum membrum sanctae universalis Ecclesiae est Peter the Apostle is the first member of the holy universal Church You establish St. Peters supremacy for what is primum membrum sanctae universalis Ecclesiae is it in place only then the Bishops of Rome as St. Peters successors have their precedency in place from him and not conferr'd upon them by the Fathers which destroyes the main ground of your novelty you cannot therefore say it is a naked precedency in place it must therefore have been a primacy over the whole Church in government as was that of the other Apostles in their singular jurisdictions yet was he not to be stiled absolutely head of the whole Church for the reasons above declar'd But if you follow the lection of Mr. Iames whom I credit as much as you do Mr. Ross you will make a fair piece of non-sence of St. Gregories words for they constitute St. Peter no more then a common member of the Church membrum sanctae universalis Ecclesiae est which is true of every good Christian and yet constitute the other Apostles heads of particular Churches and thereby give a greater honour and power to them then to St. Peter which you your self every where deny CHAP. V. Saint Leo and other holy Fathers NUm 58. what means Ecclesiae Catholicae Episcopus given by St. Leo and other Fathers to the Roman Bishop how Episcopus universalis Ecclesiae and universalis Episcopus Bishop of the universal Church and universal Bishop are said by Bellar. to be of the same signification Num. 60. How Mr. Baxter abuses both Bellar. and St. Gregory he makes St. Greg. speak false Latin and non-sence by misciting his words he understands not St. Greg. Latin phrase Num. 62. In what sense Catholiques affirm Christians to be opposers of the Pope Bellar. misreported by Mr. Baxter Num. 64.66 He gives a false translation to Raynerius his words twice over and misreports his meaning by concealing the words following in Canus once Num. 67. 68 69 c. He proves his antecedent but not his consequence which I deny Num. 69. Whether the Papacy began in Phocas his time 58. To your third numb pag. 263. you are sore pinch'd to find an answer to the Popes being intituled Episcopus universalis Ecclesiae Bishop of the universal Church could you think it would satisfie any rational man to say that this title imported no more then what may be and ought to be given to every Bishop who adhered to the common Communion was a Catholick to wit that he was a Bishop of the Catholick Church can you be so ignorant as not to know this and the like titles were given him as signal declaratives of his place honour whereby he was both distinguish'd and preferr'd before all other Bishops and Patriarchs neither of which could be done had Episcopus universalis Ecclesiae signified no more then that he was a Bishop that is to be accounted amongst the Bishops of the universal Church for this was common to him with all other Bishops thorough the whole Church And I pray you tell me in good earnest when any one should have intituled his letter to Pope Leo v. g. thus Leoni Episcopo universalis Ecclesiae to Leo a Bishop of the Catholick Church would it not have been profoundly ridiculous for seeing there might have been some other Catholick Bishops call'd Leo as well as the Bishop of Rome who could know to whom this letter was written by vertue of that title but that it may appear evidently how incongruous this your effugium is several Epistles of Pope Leo intituled with his own hand will sufficiently manifest it Saint Leo Epist. 97. intitles his Epist. thus Leo Romae universalis Catholicaeque Ecclesiae Episcopus would you translate these words thus Leo a Bishop of Rome and of the universal and Catholique Church I pray you how many Bishops of Rome were there at that time beside Leo Or sees not every one who sees any thing that they must be thus render'd into English Leo Bishop of Rome and of the universal and Catholique Church Now this evinces that as he was in power and jurisdiction Bishop of Rome so was he also Bishop of the universal and Catholique Church in power and jurisdiction for otherwise the sentence will be incongruous and equivocal In the like manner ep 13. he intitles himself Leo Catholicae Romanae Ecclesiae Episcopus Leo the Bishop of the Catholique Roman Church Now who sees not both that this must be in authority and government and that the appellation of the Roman Catholique Church is of 12. hundred years standing Ep. 42. he writes himself thus Leo Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopus now had that imported no more then this Leo a Bishop of the Catholick Church who could have known who writ this Epistle ep 88. he gives himself this title Leo Romanae Ecclesiae Apostolicae sedis Episcopus Leo Bishop of the Roman Church and Apostolique Sea Now seeing he takes the Roman Church for the same with the Catholique Church as we have now seen it imports thus much Leo Bishop of the Roman or Catholique Church of the Apostolical Sea for had he meant only the particular Roman Church by Romanae Ecclesiae he had committed a tautology in adadding presently Apostolicae sedis for that design'd the particular Church of Rome Now seeing he was by power of government Bishop of the Apostolique Sea either he must speak equivocally and absonously or signifie by those words that he was by power of government also Bishop of the Roman Catholique Church ep 54. thus Leo Episcopus Romanae universalis Ecclesiae Leo Bishop of the Roman and universal Church ep 62. Leo Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopus Leo Bishop of the Catholique Church by all this appears the truth of Bellarmines illation from this title against your novel and
as the Religion continued in Rome to that day declared and which Pope Damasus then followed and Peter Bishop of Alexandria and that those only who followed that Religion ought to imbrace the name of Catholicks and all others to be accounted as mad men and Hereticks and Iohn Bishop of Rome writes thus to Iustinian Ibid. lege quarta long before Phocas raign'd That both the Rules of the Fathers the statutes of the Emperours declares the Sea of Rome is truly the head of all Churches Quam esse omnium vere Ecclesiarum caput Patrum Regulae principum statuta declarant And this done Pope Iohn delivers this doctrine precept that all those who yield not obedience to his commands and laws should be esteemed as câ—â—st out of the Church therefore affirmes that all those who adhere to the doctrine of their own Bishops refuse to hear the voice of him their Pastor he receiv'd not into his communion but commanded them to be Aliens from the whole Catholick Church ab omni Ecclesia Catholica esse jussimus alienos n. b. ab omni Ecclesia it reaches to all Churches none excepted and jussimus it is a command from the Pope In the Council of Chalcedon many years before Iustinian it is said to be the head of all Churches to have alwaies had the Primatum the primacy which word I have proved signifies Eccclesiastical power authoritie and yet some years before Valentinian ut supra ascribes the same authority to the Roman Bishop Thus much in answer to your second part 70. From page 293 to page 305. You busie your self in answering a question I propounded to you which only say you page 292. you receiv'd instead of an answer I wonder not you write this but that you printed it for before this was or could be printed it was sufficiently intimated to you that Mr. Iohnson intended to answer your paper and obliged himself to answer it wherewith you seem to be satisfied and sure if he had before patience to expect your answer almost three quarters of a year upon your excuse of being hindr'd by other more weighty imployments all equal proceeding should have obliged you to excuse him also alleadging the like reason CHAP. VI. Of Hereticks and Schismaticks NUm 71. Whether some Hereticks are parts of the Church Mr. Baxter is in the affirmative his explications unnecessarie to the question Num. 72. His distinctions excluded in the termes of the question Num 73. His Citations from Alphonsus a Castro Bellar. and Canus prove nothing Num. 74. The negative is proved from scriptures and Fathers Num. 75. The same is proved by reason 71. The question I propounded was this as you have printed it page 293. a Whether any professed Heretiques properly so called are true parts of the universal visible Church of Christ so that they compose one universal Church with the other visible parts of it And you first gave it this answer b My words are plain distinctly answer your question so that I know not what more is needful for the explication of my sense unless you would call us back from the thing to the word by your properly so called you are answered already Now the former answer to which you relate is mentioned in my other to you and printed by you page 292. c Some are Heretiques for denying points essential to Christianty and those are no Christians and so not in the Church but many are also called Heretiques by you and by the Fathers for lesser errors consistent with Christianity and those may be in the Church You therefore grant the thing it self that some profess Heretiques are true members of the universal visible Church this I confess is a categorical answer to my question and you had no reason to add any more but I see you love to be doing and cannot remain quiet when the thing is well but must be tampering with it though you marr it in the moulding you take an occasion upon my words Heretick properly so called to intangle your self and your Reader through twelve pages in twelve distinctions twelve conclusions and twelve observations and in this you descant upon universal Church Heretique Schismatique properly so called c being the principal words used in my question now to what purpose all this had not you the word universal Church Heretique Schismatique repeated often over through your whoâ—â—e writing and did you not think your self sufficiently understood when you writ them if you did not why omitted you then to explicate the termes so that you might be understood if you did then speak clearly and distinctly what need had you now to give any further explication did I complain that I understood not what you meant by these termes 72. But it is much more absonous to heare you distinguish termes in order to the answer of my question by distinctions excluded in the proposition of the question p 293. I mention the universal visible Church of Christ can any Christian speak more distinctly then I do in the expression of the Church you say page 294. We are not agreed what the universal visible Church is what of that are we not agreed there is such a thing think you or I what we will of the definition of it t' is sufficient to give an answer pro or con to my question whether Heretiques be true members of the Church that we agree there is such a thing as the universal visible Church of Christ and it will be timely enough to explicate what you mean by the universal visible Church when your answer is impugned Then page 294. you distinguish Heritique properly so called into Etimological Canonical usual all these you reject as insufficient to know what is meant by an Heretick properly so called so that after you have so often treated in this and other books of Heretiques either you speak of them alwaies improperly or know not what you say when you speak of them as properly understood or you have here made an insufficient division of an Heretique properly so called but see you not again that whatsoever you or I understand by Heretique properly so called we both agre there are Heretiques properly so call'd that 's enough to answer my question then page 295 you distinguish Heretique first into Heretique in opinion and in communion and then you run into seven more distinctions of Heretiques never considering that I had exprest my question in such termes that all these distinctions were excluded by the very termes I say thus whether any professed Heretiques c. now could you not have said that some professed Heretiques are parts of the Cathlique Chucrch without making such a pudder with so many distinctions what was it to my question that some are convict others tryed some judged by Pastors others by others some by usurpers some by lawful Iudges c. I did not demand what sort of Heretiques properly so called were held by you to be of
God and in the entrance of the same Epist. he compares Schismatiques to Corah Dathan Abiram who separate themselves from the communion of the Jewes and their high Priest Aaron St. Aug. lib. 20 contr Faustum c. 30. Schisma est eadem opinantem eodem ritu colentem quo caeteri solo congregationis delectari dissidio Schism is a voluntary Dissidium or separation of one who agrees in doctrine from the Congregation viz. of the Church St. Aug. lib. 4. contr Donatistas Cap. 14. Nam caetera omnia vera vel censeatis vel habeatis in eadem separatione tamen duretis contra vinculum fraternae pacis adversus unitatem omnium fratrum Thus he states the Schism of the Donatists if ye continue in separation against the bond of Brotherly peace and unitie of all the Brethren that is of the whole Church Lib 2 contr Donatistas cap. 6. Respondete quare vos separastis quare contra orbem terrarum Altare erexistis quare non communicastis Ecclesiis respondete quare separastis propterea certe ne malorum communione periretis Quomodo Ergo non perierunt Cyprianus Collegae ejus quare ab innocentibus separastis Sacrilegium Schismatis vestrum defendere noâ—â— potestis The holy Father disputing against Schismatiques askes them as we à pari aske Protestants why have you separated your selves why have you erected an Altar against the whole world answer me why did you separate certainly you separated least you should perish in the communion of the wicked how then did not Cyprian and his colleagues perish Lib. contra Petilianum nulla igitur Ratio fuit sed Maximus furor quod isti velut commmnionem caventes se ab unitate Eeclesiae quae toto orbe terrarum diffunditur separarunt There was no cause but a great madness that they fearing communion should separate themselves from the unity of the Church through the whole earth what can be more evident then this that St. Aug. held the Donatists to be out of the Church which you flatly deny St. Hierome Haeretici de Deo falso sentiendo ipsam fidem violant Schismatici discessionibus iniquis a fraterna charitate dissiliunt Contra Luciferianos quamvis ea credunt quae credimus Heretiques by teaching false things of God violate the Faith Schismatiques by unjust seperations depart from fraternal charity though they believe the same thing with us Nothing can destroy more fully your novelty then do these words for he speaks indefinitely of all Heretiques and affirms that they violate the faith and consequently have no faith without which they cannot be true members of Christs Church and that all Schismatiques leave fraternal charity which is necessary to be in the unity of the Church St. Hieron comment in Ep. ad Titum c. 3. Propterea vero a semet ipso dicitur esse damnatus Haereticus quia Fornicator Adulter Homicida caetera vitia per sacerdotes de Ecclesia propelluntur Haeretici autem in semetipsos sententiam dicant suo arbitrio ab Ecclesia recedendo Therefore he an Heretique is said to be condemned of himself because a Fornicator an Adulterer a Murtherer and the like vices are expelled out of the Church by the Priests but Heretiques pronounce a sentence against themselves by receding or departing from the Church of their own accord Does not this profound Doctor condemn your novelty in these words both by teaching that all Heretiques for he speaks indifinitely depart from the Church and by shewing a difference betwixt other criminal sinners and Heretiques when they are to be avoided which you labour to put in the same state with some Heretiques viz. That other sinners are cast out of the Church but Heretiques out themselves and yet farther that even other criminal sinners when they are excommunicated are no actual parts of the Church as you hold they are because they are cast out of it which doctrine is also Emphatically delivered by St. Aug. l. 11. quest cap. 3. Omnis Christianus qui excommunicatur Satanae traditur quomodo Scilicet quiaextra Ecclesiam est diabolus Sicut in Ecclesiae Christus ac per hoc quasi diabolo traditur qui ab Ecclesia communione removetur Vnde illos quos Apastolus Satanae traditos esse praedicat esse excommunicatos demonstrat Every Christian who is excommunicated is delivered up to Sathan how that to wit because the devil is without the Church as Christ is in the Church and by this he is as it were delivered to the devil whosoever is removed from the communion of the Church whence the Apostle demonstrates those to be excommunicated whom he pronounces to be delivered to Sathan whence followes also that seeing all profest Heretiques are excommunicated persons that according to St. Aug. they are all out of the Church I forbear the citation of more Authors esteeming these â—â—ufficient 75. I have at large deduc'd the reason of this truth against you in my answer to your first part The sum whereof is this that whosoever disbelieves any divine truth sufficiently propounded to him as such disbelieves the infallible truth of Gods word and consequently evacuates the formal object of Christian faith thereby destroyes faith which cannot subsist without its formal object and by that destroyes Christianity in so much as in him lyes and consequently Gods Church nay and God himself whence also follows that such a disbeliever hath no supernatural faith at all of any other articles which he believes but a meer humane natural and fallible assent to them for he cannot assent to any of them because they are reveal'd by Gods infallible authority for he hath made that fallible in disbelieving something which is sufficiently notified to him to be revealed from God Now if he have no true faith he can neither have salvation nor be a member of Christs true Church which is directly destructive of your novelty That which has deceiv'd you and such as follow you in this is that you make your whole reflection upon the material object of faith which considered alone is as a dead carcass in respect of true Christian faith seeing it wants the soul and life of it the infallible authority of God revealing it and though hereticks perversely perswade and delude themselves they assent for the infallible authority of God to such articles as they believe yet seeing we now suppose there is no defect in the proposition of such articles as they believe not that they are reveal'd from God they being propos'd to them equally with other articles which they believe in reallity there is no other cause of their disbelief then that they attribute not an infallible authority to God revealing the said articles which they disbelieve Now if he be fallible in one he is infallible in nothing for his erring in one supposes him subject to error which is to be fallible And as faith is wanting so is external communion also to every profest heretick and schismatick as
some time or other all those whom you term Christians were not such Heretiques as in Reality were no Christians being Christians onely in name as the Arians were nay how shall they know they were any Christians at all for five hundred yeares agoe they must take all upon your word and so as much resolve their Faith into your Authority as you would have ours to resolve theirs into that of their Parish Priests Resolve this and you have solved your own difficulty against us General Council William Iohnson A general Council I take to be an Assembly of Bishops and other chief Prelates called convened confirmed by those who have sufficient spiritual Authority to call convene and confirm it Mr. Baxter Qu. 1. Who is ad esse that must call convene and confirm it till I know that I am never the nearer knowing what a Council is and which is one indeed William Iohnson Answ. Definitions abstract from inferiour subdivisions for your satisfaction I affirm it belongs to the Bishop of Rome Mr. Baxter If it be necessary to the being or validity of a Council that it be called or confirmed by the Pope then your Definition signifies nothing if you abstract from that which is so necessary an ingredient unlesse it were presupposed to be understood William Iohnson I have often told you that Definitions must abstract if my Definition be true why yield you not to it if false why shew not wherein my Genus is an Assembly my Differentia of Bishops and chief Prelates called convened c. Is there here either a false genus or a false Differentia In this first objection you admit both and yet will not be satisfied with my Definition this I understand not when I named the Bishop of Rome I told you it was for your satisfaction not for compleating my Definition for that abstracts from particulars Mr. Baxter If it belong to the Bishop of Rome to call a Council as necessary to its being then the first great general Council and others following were none it being certain that they were not called by him and as certain that he hath never proved any such Authority to call them or confirm William Iohnson What with you is certain till you prove it I hold not onely to be uncertain but untrue also Mr. Baxter Qu. 2. Must it represent all the Catholick Church doth not your Definition agree to a provincial or the smallest Council William Iohnson Answ. My Definition speaks specifically of Bishops and those Prelates as contradistinct from inferiour Pastours and Clergie and thereby comprised all the Priest conteined in the Species and consequently makes a distinction from the National or particular Councils whom some Bishops onely Convened not all that being onely some part and not the whole Species or specifical notion applyed to Bishops of every age and yet I said not all Bishops But Bishops and chief Prelates because though all are to be called yet it is not necessary that all should convene whence appears what I am to answer to the next Questions Mr. Baxter Then you have no General Councils much lesse can you have any now for you have none to represent the greatest part of the Church unlesse by a mock-Representation 2. If all must be called your Councils have not been General that called not a great part of the Church William Iohnson The matter we are now about is to explicate Termes whether those Explications agree with us or make against us belongs to our further Dispute what you say of our having had no Councils representing the whole Church is as easily denied as affirmed without proof which are those which called not all Mr. Baxter If most are necessarily detained as by distance the Prohibition of Princes c. the call made it not their duty to be there and so make it not a generall Council which is so called from the Generality of the meeting and representation and not of the Invitation no more than a Call would make it a true Council if none come William Iohnson Your Reason concludes not drawn from none present to most absent when a Parliament is summoned in our Nation if none at all should come it would be no Parliament follows it therefore if most fall sick or are lawfully hindered or wilfully absent themselves that by reason of the absence of them it is neither Representative sufficiently of the Kingdome nor enabled to enact Lawes binding all the Inhabitants see you not that such Principles as this of yours are of dangerous Consequence and render the Lawes of our Nation dubious and uncertain nor is the Call a sole invitation but a summon or command Mr. Baxter Qu. How many Bishops and from what parts ad esse make such a Council William Iohnson The number is morally to be considered more or fewer according to the difference of times distances of place and other circumstances from whence thay are to come Mr. Baxter This is put off for want of an Answer is it a Council if difficulties keep away all if not it can be no General Council when difficulties keep away the most much lesse when such a petty Confederacy as met at Trent shall pretend to represent the Christian world you thus leave us uncertain when a Council is General and when not how can the people tell when you cannot tell your selves when the Bishops are so many as make a Council General William Iohnson By this is answered what you say here tell me what number present may consist with the Essence of a Parliament or a Diet in the Empire and I will tell you with proportion what number may suffice for a Representation of the Church in a General Council will you have things of a moral consideration to consist in indivisibles But who sees not how by cavilling in in this manner against the validity of a Council you lay grounds of dangerous consequence for rejecting the authority of lawfull Parliaments whilst you thus carp at the members present and thereby render it as difficult to know which is a sufficient number foâ—â— Parliament as for a Council Mr. Baxter Qu. 4. May none but Bishops and chief Prelates be members as you intimate William Iohnson Answ. No others unlesse such inferiours as are sent to supply their places and as Deputies of those Bishops or Prelates who are such members of the Council as have decisive Votes in framing Decrees and Definitions Mr. Baxter This is your private opinion no Council hath defined it unlesse they are Contradictory for I suppose you know that Basil and many Councils before it had Presbyters in them William Iohnson Basil in many things is not allowed of by us name those others received as General Councils amongst us which had simple Priests with power of giving voices belonging to them as such SCHISM I understand by Schism a wilfull Separation or Division of ones self from the whole visible Church of Christ. Mr. Baxter Qu. 1. Is it no Schisme to separate
subjection to him for no man in proper speech can say that the Mayor of York professes subjection to the Mayor of London because he acknowledges he is to take place of him in a publique meeting nay by this meanes your Church of England and Bishop of Canterbury givâ—â—ing primacy to the Pope as much as the Greeks do that is in precedency of place only may must be said according to you not to have fallen from the subjection to the Roman Church which I believe will sound harsh in their ears Mr. Baxter Num. 123. The withering therefore was in the Roman branches if the corruptions of either part may be called a withering you that are a lesser part of the Church may easily call your selves the tree and the greater part two to one the branches but these beggings do but proclaime your necessities William Iohnson Num. 123. If the Roman Church have withered in this point shew me when it begun to wither in setting up the Pope as supream and as I now told you you will really oblige me Is it not strange to hear you term my argument a begging the question when you in the very same sentence beg the question your self for without any proof at all you suppose there what is universally deny'd by us that your selves and almost all the rest of Hereticks and Schismaticks now in the world are parts of the Catholicke Church for without inclusion of them you could not affirm with any appearance of probability those who oppose the Roman Church to be twice as great as part of the Catholick Church as are those that adhere to the Roman The Second part CHAP. I. ARGUMENT Iohannes Thalaida and Flavianus NUm 124. The interest of producing the insuing instances misreported by Mr. Baxter whereupon he imposes a false obligation upon his adversarie almost in every page the appeale of Iohn Thalaida patriarch of Alexandria to Pope Felix defended Thalaidas age according to Mr. Baxters account what kind of persons Zeno Acacius Petrus Mogas Petrus Fullonis Thalaida and Calendion were Num. 125. No Authors of those ages reprehend Simplicius or Felix in condemning Acacius and justifying Thalaida Num. 127. Thalaidas appeale whether it were a strict rigorous appeale or no proves the Popes supremacy Num. 128. The Popes power exercised over the three cheif Patriarchs of the East Num. 129. The whole Church allowed Pope Felix his deprivation of Acacius c. Num. 131. c. It had been ridiculous if Flavianus patriarch of Constantinople had apealed from the second Council of Ephesus which was then esteemed a general Council the Pope and his provincial Council had not the Pope as Pope had power to reverse the sentence of that Ephesine Council Num. 137. How farre the second Council of Ephesus was a general Council Mr. Baxter Num. 124. In good time you come to give me here at last some proof of an ancient Popery as you think But first you quite forget or worse that it is not a man or two in the whole world in an Age but the universal Church whose judgement and form we are now inquiring after you are to prove that all the Churches in every age were for the Papal universal Government and so that none can be saved that is not William Iohnson Num. 124. Sir please I may tell you that you would impose upon me an obligation of proving that which cannot be inferd from the argument I sent you as I have shewed above so would you now perswade your Reader by the insueing instances that I undertook to prove what was never undertaken by me I give indeed some proof of an ancient Popery and I have proved by force of my argument which you undertake to answer that all the Church in every age was for the Papal universal Government But I never undertooke in my treating with you to prove this by instances from age to age for this I still denyed as I yet do to be any obligation of mine contracted by virtue of my arguments which requirs your proof only and meddles not with mine such a proof as that from age to age may in its due time be effected when you have given a satisfactory answer to my Argument all therefore that I undertake here is occasionally fallen upon me by reason of your bold Assertion that within four hundred years you never saw valid proof of one Papist in all the world that is one that was for the Popes universal monarchy or vice-Christ-ship thus you p. 23. whereupon I took occasion to give you som essayes in ancienter times as appears by my words p. 49. in your edit where I say thus Though therefore you profess never to have some convincing proof of this in the first four hundred years and labour to infringe it in the next ages I will make an essay to give you a taste of those innumerable proofs of the Bishops of Romes supremacy not in order only but of Power Authority and Iurisdiction over all other Bishops in the ensuing instances within the first 400 500 or 600 years whence it is evident I intended no demonstration of our perpetual visibility but only a confutation of what you pretended within or about the first five hundred years by shewing some few instances to the contrary And indeed had I undertaken to prove it in all ages since Christ I had most grosly faild in my proof since I produce none after the first six hundred years whence appears how palpably you impose upon your Reader by proceeding upon this false supposition which you repeat almost in every page in your Answer to my instances that I have not brought the consent of the whole Church in them whereas it was sufficient for my intent in confutation of your Assertion to produce any one solid instance for it in those ages Mr. Baxter Num. 125. Your first testimony is from Liberatus c. 16. John Bishop of Antioch makes an appeal to Pope Simplicius Reply 1 I see you are deceived by going upon trust But its pitty to deceive others there was no such man as John Bishop of Antioch in Simplicius raigne John of Antioch was he that made the stirs and divisions for Nestorius against Cyril and called the schismatical council at Ephesus and dyed anno 436. having raigned thirteene years as Baronius saith and eighteene as Nicephorus he dyed in Sixtus the fift's time but it s said indeed that John Bishop of Alexandria made some addresse to Simplicius of which Baronius citeth Liberatus words not c. 16 but c 18 ad Anno Dom. 483. that John being expelled by the Emperour Zenos command went first to Calendion Bishop of Antioch and so to Rome to Simplicius if Baronius were to be believed as his iudge Liberatus saith that he took from Calendion Bishop of Antioch letters to Simplicius to whom he appealed as Athanasius had done and perswaded him to write for him to Acacius Bishop of Constantinople which Simplicius did but Acacius upon the receipt of Simplicius