see a necessary connexion with the deliver'd Faith if you say so you desert your vertue of prophesying and come over to our School which you so abominate as rational and faithless yet this experience teaches us is the way that Popes and Councils use to take If you say their consulting must not hold till they see it by reason then tell me what Oedipus or Geometrician can guess or fix the terminating line of counsell prerequisite These points a Scholar would have setled You distinguish nothing but jumble all your Bells together into a confused noise and deafen more then instruct your Hearers Now 't is to much purpose to talk of the force of the word Anathema whilest you have not settled a matter in which the Church hath a power to impose it What an inconsiderate manner of arguing is this You say Catholiks require no other assurance of their Faith then upon this firm foundation that our holy Mother the Church is their infallible directress The proposition is the very Tenet we mainly advance and stick to Go but consequently to this and we shall have no quarrell You add another ground that the Councils her mouth are the unerring deliverers of truth This also is very true and never deny'd by us But there rises a great question whether Councils be perpetually and in all cases the mouth of the Church look upon Cariolanus his abridgment of the Councils and read his division of General Councils into approbata and reprobata and ex parte approbata and ex parte improbata and see how ignorantly you go to work even in the grounds of your own eminent learned men who will oppose you peradventure more then I and yet you preach Christian Religion is a mockery if this be taken away I desire not to look into particulars unless you force me to it For I cannot discover even your Errours without discovering too the vanity of that School which you nickname the Church and confidently take upon you to be one of her Masters I doubt not if you attentively consider your eminent Scholars you will find many of them speak indeed gloriously of Councils but unless I be strangely deceiv'd they give them less of inward and reall Authority then I while they make them in effect but Cyphers to the Pope without whom they signify nothing though added perhaps to him they increase his signification yet surely not very much since in many of those Masters opinion he alone is infallible and I think in every ones opinion all together are not much more Whereas the Doctrin I follow gives them an absolute Inerrancy in testifying receiv'd truths which is clearly sufficient to conserve and propagate the Faith of the Church I beleeve you mistake the meaning of that grave and worthy Person whom without any ground at all for your conceit you call my Scholar since he seriously protests he never gave his mind that way nor ever read over any considerable part of my Books nor particularly this of the Middle State his true meaning I conceive is we may know when Councils and Consistory's apply themselves right by examining not Tradition it self for that's evident in the sence of the Faithfull but their proceedings by Tradition whether they be conformable to it Which is not onely a maintainable but excellent truth And by this method the Divines of those dayes examin'd the Doctrin of John 22. For Tradition is the Law of Christ planted in the hearts of all Christians not to be examin'd it being to be read fair written there by their externall words and conversations Now if a Pope or Council be supposed to delver Doctrin against this 't is past darkness and examining since all the Christian world cannot choose but resent it and know it to be against their Faith and Judgment So that you plainly misunderstand the meaning of Tradition which is no hidden thing but the publick and settled belief of the Christian world You will say 't is impossible a Pope or Council should proceed so grosly I wish there were no examples of it But the truth is if instead of a Pope consider'd onely personally you take him as presiding in his Church and Seat and joyn'd with it which is a kind of more then a Provinciall Council but much more if you take a General Council without extraordinary violence without or within both mainly visible this cannot happen and so they have infallibility in attesting the received Doctrins most absolutely sufficient to secure the Church against being mis-led by them By the same Errour you look to determin Faith by Inquest not knowing it cannot be unknown in a Catholick Country to them that live there See the story of Luther Were men doubtfull of their Faith before he and his fellows in iniquity set themselves to snarl at it Therefore Inquest may be made how to answer their Argumments but not to understand what the Church held before opposition rose How much mistaken is all your discourse about the proceeding to higher Tribunals after so great diligence of scrutiny There is no such thing as scrutiny necessary to find out Faith nor ever was the Church to seek her Faith Since she once receiv'd it from Jesus Christ she never lost it and so is to look into it not for it If any thing be to be look for it is not faith it may be some Theologicall Verity not faith Your discourse therefore is wholly out of the way No wonder then you find your self at a loss and cry out like a blind man for a hand to guide you since instead of Christs faith you look for a new faith One would have it an Article of our Christian faith that his Order is a true Religious Order Another that one hang'd for treason is a true Martyr others seek some private revelation that brings in profit to be canoniz'd for faith and other such fine questions to be put in the Creeds of the Church and if it be not yeelded there 's a power in the Church to impose such beliefs upon men presently the denying Doctrin is an Exterminating School and pulls up by the roots all the foundations of Christian Religion Nor will there want some to say that though these things be true they are not to be published but Catholicks are to be left in ignorance of such tender points But will not the mischief by degrees grow intolerable if once it should come to that height that the People by a preoccupated credence be apt to be stirr'd seditiously against their naturall and lawfull Governour by any surreptitious Rescript fetch't from beyond Sea freshly seal'd with the new stamp of faith and to believe all Christianity is rain'd if such a Rescript nay the Interpretation of the procurers be any way doubted of O strange unhappy times You press farther that according to me the Church hath de facto erred in the Bull and Council so long treated of What a strange boldness is this you bring an Interpretation
Councils if they proceed duly in their discussion And must all this be conceald and onely three generall words which declare neither particular manner nor matter be barely alleadg'd as a ground of all your spitefull Rhetorick How strange a proceeding is this for a Christian My third note is that in case Christ be a perfect Law-giver and that the Faith he left be sufficient and no more necessary for the Church that is if a Council have nothing to do in making new Articles of Faith then I onely deny Infallibility to Councils in things unnecessary for the Church and unconcerning their duty as Definers of Faith and give them an absolute Inerrancy in all points necessary for the Church that is in all that can truly concern their main purpose that is defining Faith And more than this I beleeve you will find an hundred Catholick Doctors to one deny them as well as I. My fourth note shall be that you would make the denying Infallibility of Councils abstracting both from all matters and manners of proceeding or acceptation of the Church for so you treat it my singular opinion whereas thus spoken of we have for their Errability amongst the Franciscans Castillo and the learned Author of Systema Fidei who cites him for the Dominicans Sotus who tells us that if God by his secret judgment suffers a Council to err he will not permit it long to be conceald from the Church but will take order that it be corrected by another following Council before it be receiv'd in the Church For the Jesuits Bacon telling us it was the opinion of Saint Austin and of all the writers of that Age that the resolution of Faith was compleated in the reception of the whole Christian world For the Fathers Saint Austin himself whose known words are that Plenary Councils have been corrected by following ones where he seems also to speak even of matters of Faith Of Cardinalls Cusanus that it may be observ'd by all experience that an universall Council may fail For your own Doctors worthy Dean Cressy in whom you may find most of these Authors cited Exomol c. 33. where he acknowledges the placing the Infallibility of Councils ultimately in the acceptation of the Church an opinion at least allowable and according to his eminent learning and charity puts down the conveniences he observ'd in that Doctrin to the reducing the Heterodox party Nor onely these but indeed who is there of any note that will say a Council is Infallilible unless it proceed Conciliariter and that it may not proceed conciliarly or after the regular way of a Council I beleeve you are not unacquainted if you be let Pope Martin the fifth teach it you who in the last Session of the Council of Constance declares himself to hold and observe their Decrees made conciliariter non aliter nec alio modo and this too expresly in matters of Faith which caution of his shows he held a possibility of their proceeding illegally Now what they call Conciliariter I call in definitions of Faith attending to Tradition which put I hold and maintain them absolutely Infallible whereas I believe all except me if you examin the matter well and report it candidly put more numerous and more difficult conditions to their Infallibility and far more liable to contingency than what I require which is both extremely hard to fail and when it does must needs be most notorious to the whole world and so beyond my power to pretend or excuse it as you would wisely perswade the Reader by saying this Doctrin brings all into my hands So that we have eminently learned men of all the chief orders in Gods Church Cardinalls and Fathers to omit many or rather all others directly of my opinion in holding a Non est impossibile speaking in generall or rather I of theirs and yet I onely must be raild at as if none in the world held it or broacht it but I. Turn now I beseech you valiant Sir the mouth of your pot-gun against all these renowned Authors and discharge your intemperate spleen against them as abandoning the Catholick Church denying the Authority of Councils and such like which make up a great part of your worthy work and see how feeble an attempt you will make and whether you will not deserve as great an hiss as you have made a noise to no purpose but to breath out some of your swelling passion At least excuse your self to charitable Christians why omitting to mention all others Authority who held the same Doctrin with mine leaping over the backs of all distinctions both of matter and manner without which your discourse signify's nothing and lastly why leaving out words of mine within the same comma which should clear me you rawly took out three onely which were generall ones apply'd them to what particular sence you pleas'd nay extended them to that which was invidious and which I never held and by these arts abus'd the veneration which the vulgar justly have of Councils to stir up in them an undeserved ill opinion against me I pass by in my Book many such like carriages of yours this because you so often and so maliciously glance at I could not leave totally unreflected on If it would not spoil your sport I would crave leave to right the reader in the conceit you would imprint in him of my Romancicall Hell as you are pleas'd to term it the ridiculousness of which lies in your expressions not mine One would think by your putting Dancers Bowlers Fencers c. in other Letters they were my words but he would be mistaken One would think that the words attempting now in Hell in all their severall postures which signify'd as if they were playing tricks there were my words or sence but would be mistaken again One would have thought you might have had the candor not to omit the word quasi which would have spoild the exactness of the postures you fancy and so have much qualify'd your jeft Lastly one that had not known you might have imagin'd you would have transcrib'd to the full point and not still take two or three words single and then you should have seen the mixture of desperation fear and grief marring the perfect molds your Imagination had fram'd and made me say no more but that the shapes of the damned were frightfull and distracted But to omit other little advantages by which you strive in the translating 3 lines to render my sence ridiculous I would gladly know where you find these words spoken of damned Souls as you would here perswade us I would gladly know where you find the word now which you put as mine attempting now in Hell wheras the whole Chapter is intitled declares it self in each Paragraph to speak of their Bodyes onely not Souls and this not now but expresly at the day of Judgment or rather if it could be after it Were ever three lines singled out from their fellows so
that is whether there were true fire in it was debated and so for any thing the Council says or I know it may be debated still Of the other points exprest in the decree of the Council there was an agreement without debate betwixt the generality of the Greeks and the Latins You go on pronouncing that in these professions both sides agreed against us directly and home to our point in question without expressing in what or bringing any proof of it For your self have before confest we hold both expiation and delivery and the onely question betwixt us is whether before the day of Judgment this expiation end of which though the very precise point we contend about you still have the ill luck to fall short you offer sometimes indeed to rack your Testimonies to confess what you desire were not the words too faithfull to their Speakers sence to be corrupted by you but if they will not do in Latin you have a trick to turn them into English and piece them our with stuff of your own making their sence to be this their present delivery whilst uncloth'd this you say the Council intended to deliver as the Faith of the Church in this both the Greek and Latin Fahers clearly agreed and yet plainly the conclusion I sustain was neither agreed to nor debated nor question'd if I be truly accus'd as the first Inventer of it nor so much as mention'd You conclude it must be an act not of understanding but of will to say presently signifies at the day of Judgment Truly it would be so and in the mean while 't is an act of ill will to impose on your Adversary that he sayes it Now a word to the discourse of an eminently learned Divine which you mark with the letter C. And for his learning I have nothing to say why it should not be eminently above yours but for his wyliness he is far short of you and if any thing corrupt his Judgment it is self-conceit and down-right passion his unhappy humors that strangely abound in him But I cannot omit to note in you that you had not the luck to give his Paper a convenient title but printed it just as he had written it for his own memory The entrance of his discourse is very good But his first proposition concerning the matter plainly and unexcusably mistaken for he sayth the matter in dispute betwixt the Latins and the Greeks was what Souls were admitted or to be admitted to eternal Beatitude before the day of Judgment A question that neither you as far as I can guess nor we ever found in this Council Neither do I remember to have met with such a gradation of Saints in any Author Therefore I leave this great Doctor to prove that there ever was such a question mov'd His next leap though he calleth it this question yet is quite from the question in hand being whether there be fire in Purgatory or no Which how it appertains to his mainly proposed question I leave to better wits to consider But I gather that this Paper was onely private notes not written in a form to be printed and that you have done very indiscreetly and to his dishonour to expose them to the publick He puts next the Latins position in which you who cannot pardon your Adversaries sloath in perusing of the Council omit a sentence most pertinent of any thing to the cause to wit that he who hath committed many offences is freed after a longer time of purgation but he who hath committed a few is sooner delivered which particularity had it been in the decision of the Council would have been something to the purpose and saved you the labour of corrupting the Council by your additions But I must note that this eminent man useth this phrase in this world and in the next for before the day of Judgment and after not as I think by affectation but by negligence which still more confirms me that the whole draught were but private notes and not fram'd for the print He goes on to give the variety of opinions concerning their going to Heaven in which he sayes the Greeks imagin that the Souls of just men have indeed obtained Beatitude but not perfectly and that they shall perfectly enjoy it when they shall be reunited to their bodies which position so far by his leave is common also to some principal Latin Fathers He adds that the Greeks say that in the mean while they remain in a separated place where they interiourly rejoyce entertaining their thoughts with the fore-seen and fore-known perfect Beatitude and adoption which is prepared for them But in the conclusion he seems to say that after many disputations the Greeks came to the ensuing resolutions which are well known In which he slaunders the Greek Church for it was but a part of them that maintained this last mention'd position upon the like Testimonies as John the two and twentieth did amongst the Latins so you see that his master piece for which he esteems himself so highly to wit to understand what the opinion of the Eastern Church was is a meer illusion bred out of the reading some Schismaticks works whom he took to be the mouth of the Greek Church For the Greeks themselves who at Rome write against Hereticks Profess that the Faith of the Greeks concerning Purgatory is contain'd in their Euchologies Ritualls which are ancient and used both by Catholicks and Schismaticks For as to their writers if you read one you know not who else will agree with him So various and irregular are their explications Now if their Ritualls and Euchologies be not more express then the Latins for your opinion you will easily see what will become of you there being not one word of delivery before the day of Judgment but all that is any way express referr'd thither which you are pleased to neglect though it be the publick profession of the Church and to seek birds-nests in the bushes of probable Authours Next then your eminently learned man makes his reflexions upon the word presently just as wisely as you perswading himself that we think the natural and formal signification of it is at the day of Judgment and insisting upon it because it is added onely to this member As if the reason were not evident to wit because the time was to be set down uncertainly onely in this member Presently therefore signifieth as soon as purg'd whensoever that be according to the variety of opinions He goes on to tell us that neither Greeks nor Latins doubted of the delivery of Souls at the day of Judgment which is very true and therefore also they put no more down He adds that the sole difficulty was of the precedent time as both their declarations do manifest But this manifestation was made in his learned brain for in the text there is no sight of any such contest betwixt them But it appears that the Greeks held their tongues about it and
prudently foyl'd you in every encounter in this Question that he hath left nothing for me but to discover your falshood in such by-questions as you thrust in to stuff out your Volume FOURTH DIVISION Containing an Answer to his seventeenth Section The Authours Doctrin of Councils explicated This new opinion of Purgatory in likelihood later than Saint Gregory IN your seventeenth Section you first put upon me that I am arm'd against the Authority of Popes and Councils and then you run headlong on with declamatory invectives upon that supposition But as the world is curious I conceive some will light on my defence as well as on your calumny to whom I thus explicate the true state of the question It is known to all Christians that Christ and his Apostles taught the world the Christian faith It is known to all Catholicks that this same faith has continued in the Catholick Church now fifteen ages It is known to the same that the means of continuing this faith hath been by Pastours and Fathers teaching their Children what themselves had learn'd by the same way It is likewise known that in divers ages there arose up divers Hereticks who endeavour'd to bring in Doctrins contrary to the received Faith and that Bishops sometimes in particular especially the Bishop of Rome sometimes in Collections or Councils with-stood and confounded such Hereticks confirming the old belief and rejecting all new inventions It is evident that to do this it fuffices to have veracity enough to attest what the old Doctrin was and power enough to suppress all such as stir against it Thus far all goes well Of late Ages among our curious School-men some have been so subtle that the Old faith would not serve them but they thought it necessary to bring in new points of Faith and because what was not of Faith could not become of Faith without a new revelation they look't about for a new revelation and finding the two supreme Courts of Christian discipline seated in General Councils and the Pope they quickly resolv'd to attribute the power of encreasing Christian Faith to these two Springs of Christianity Now the first difference betwixt the two parties engag'd in the present controversy is whether the Faith deliver'd by the Apostles be sufficient to govern the Church by or there be necessary fresh Additions of such points as cannot be known without a new revelation In which they whom I follow hold the negative they whom I suppose you follow the affirmative Out of this question springs a second whether in the Councils and in the Pope is to be acknowledg'd a Prophetical kind of Spirit by which towards the ordinary government of the Church they have a gift to reveal some things not before revealed nor deducible out of things already revealed by the natural power of discourse which God has left to mankind to govern it self by In which point also I follow them that deny you and your eminent learned men stand up for the Affirmative I hope by this any ingenious Reader will perceive that if the Faith deliver'd by Jesus Christ joyn'd with the natural power of discoursing be sufficient to govern the Church of God then those who give power to Councils and Popes sufficient to govern by this way give them as much as is necessary for the Church But if new Articles be necessary to the government of the Church then and onely then they fall short So that no understanding person reading these lines can doubt but the true question is this whether the Faith deliver'd by Christ be sufficient for the government of the Church or that we must expect new additions to our Faith every age or when occasion presents it self Whence it will easily appear that all the great noyse you make and furious Rhetorick you use of my denying the Authority of Councils my being arm'd against them and such like angry stuff are but uncharitable uncivil and highly injurious clamours without any true cause or ground at all But we shall hear more of these hereafter Now any prudent Christian that shall with moderate attention have read but so far will judge the question already decided For who dare maintain Christ's Doctrin was imperfect And indeed all that have any little modesty on your side will not say new Articles of Faith are necessary but that whatsoever the Church defines was before revealed though when they come to declare themselves they demand really new Articles onely calling them Explications of the former or Deductions from them And if they would justify that they were but such Deductions as natural reason can deduce there would remain no controversy which in very deed the Churches practise shews to be the truth In the first Council it being recorded that there was Conquisitio magna and all Councils and Popes ever since proceeding in the same style But here I must remember you what you said in the beginning concerning Pargatory that the reason why you write against my opinion was because it was translated into English And so I now protest that you are the cause why I write of this subject in English My books generally are to debate what I think in the points I write of with learned men whose care it is to divulge truths to the people dispensing to every one the quantity he is capable of not to raise any new thoughts in ignorant heads Your crying out against me forces me to a necessary defence before the people wherefore if any disputings concerning this matter displease any person of Judgment let it light upon your head who are the provoker and compeller of me into this new task which both age and other thoughts make me slowly and unwillingly undertake But I must not be mine own chuser but follow God As to what you say against this Doctrin first you desire your Reader to consider that if these grounds to wit that the Pope and the Council can err without distinguishing in what either matter or manner of proceeding Christian Faith is a meer mockery I confess the proposition grave in words but in sence not worthy a School-boy For first I ask you whether you mean in necessary points or unnecessary ones If you say in both I doubt your whole School will desert you For who is there that hath an ounce of brains who will give authority to the Church to determin all the subtle quirks of the School But if you say onely necessary ones then before you went farther against me you should have prov'd that the verities come by inheritance from Jesus Christ are not all that are necessary which question you never think on and so brandish your Logick against the apparitions in the clouds Secondly I ask you whether without counsel or with it If you say without it again your School will desert you If you say with it I ask you how much counsell and to what period In all which you will be at a loss Must it hold till by reason they
you put in the Edition of the Bull of Benedictus and the Council of Florence For before that even the consorts of your Tenet held it no otherwise then for the common opinion of Divines LAST DIVISION Containing an Answer from Section the eighteenth to Section the two and twentieth The Catholick Rule of Faith defended The Vindicators weakness in making the unlearned Judges of Controversy His frequently mis-representing my Doctrin and manifold failings in his new attempts from the Bull and Council YOur eighteenth Section you begin with saying my Doctrin which is a close adhering to Tradition is the way to make fools stray You follow still the same truantly humour of using words without looking into the sence For if Tradition signify the delivery of the Doctrin preach't and taught by our forefathers your proposition signifies that to follow what we are taught by our forefathers is the way to make fools go astray Neither do I deny but that you speak consequently if first you make the Popes veracity the veracity of the whole Church and that all the Church but he can err and consequently he may correct the Doctrin which was believ'd by the Church in the age immediatly going before him then 't is true that to prefer the Belief of the former age before the Popes word will lead fools astray But for my part I desire to be one of those fools and to go so astray You run on in a full careere and tell us of the Authority of the Church and Councils in common and that things settled by them must not be brought in question not seeing because you will not that what the Church believ'd in the last Age is more the Church's decree then what she speaks either by Pope or Council unless she speaks the same that she believed the last Age and so you continue your discoursing with words not taking their meaning along with you In your nineteenth Section you come so home as to judge and condemn me by mine own Doctrin a great shame to me I confess if you make it good You argue therefore what have we seen but Masses Dirges Almes c. so far is almost true but why did you not put in by which in express terms we pray'd for the welfare of the Souls at the day of the General Judgment but you had reason to leave that out for it would have set a shrewd puzzell in your Argument We have heard constantly say you that Souls are deliver'd out of Purgatory by these powerfull helps before the day of Judgment In this part you have mended your former fault for there you sayd too little to serve your purpose if you had prov'd all you said and here you say more then can be prov'd to serve your purpose do you mean that your way was preach't constantly that is as a certain and establisht Doctrin of faith or that for a long time they preacht it as a probable truth or without engaging at all into the degree of its assuredness but perhaps you proceed more nicely since you onely said you heard it constantly not that it was preach'd constantly For to say a thing constantly imports that the speaker teaches it to be certain and it is not enough if for a long time he tells you it is likely to be so Now so far as concerns the delivery of Souls from Purgatory by the potent means you speak of was ever constantly taught but that the delivery should be made before the day of Judgment was taught but as a pious opinion if the Preacher understood the sence of the Doctours of the Schools themselves who add no such qualification because their principles being either Authority or Reason they find in Authority neither Fathers nor Councils nor Popes express in the point and Reasons much less favourable and to say the truth though they are apt enough to dispute whether there be a God a Trinity an Incarnation c. Yet I do not remember to have heard of any one who hath treated of his proposition so directly as to dispute it pro and con Which being so what certainty can we expect a Preacher should fix upon this Doctrin But to declare what I think those whom you appeal to will answer I beleeve it is that they never reflected to make any difference of the things the Preachers deliver'd them and much less upon the degrees of assent they gave to this or that point and as far as they can tell they gave the same assent to any place of Scripture the Preacher explicated as they did to this point unless some particular occasion put them in mind to qualify one and not the other But as they found by experience in other things that if any rub came to make them doubt of any thing a Preacher sayd then first they began to consider on what grounds they were bound to believe the point proposed so they have done in this and of those who have spent any competent time in examining both sides many have discover'd your grounds unsafe to build any certainty on and some confest them too weak to sustain even so much as a probability What the Gentleman whose letter you cite and with some imprudent circumstances will say why he was carryed away with your Arguments I know not but had he read my Books as much as I esteem his learning and vertue he would surely have met with full answers to your very objections which they who read yours cannot do nor so much as hear of the Arguments I use to maintain my opinion you on set purpose concealing them and proposing in their stead as my whole grounds a discourse made to a meer Philosopher or Heathen where the method of a regular writer oblig'd me to abstract from Revelation But that this answer I set down is for the greatest part of those that follow this opinion a true one is not onely manifest to all that reflect upon what passeth within them on the like occasions but experience hath taught me it in every country where I have conversed since the publishing this Doctrin In all which I have found divers who upon hearing of it acknowledg'd that before they had in their hearts a certain dislike of your opinion but they knew not why it having a kind of an uncouth semblance yet they could not pitch upon any thing to say solidly against it One passage I will intreat your patience to let me tell you Before I printed it I communicated this point to one of the greatest Divines of Christendome and confest to be so He presently reply'd it was against the Council of Florence and went immediately to his Chamber and fetcht down the Council when we had a little debated the text and he saw it did not reach home he shut up the Book with these words Look to it you will draw all the Regulars upon your back meaning all such of them as found great profit by perswading the people they should procure a sudden
redemption of their friends out of Purgatory which I believe are those you speak of that hear not of this Doctrin without horrour Therefore Acute Sir you will or may see that your Argument is two edged and as the Auditours you speak of did not distinguish the degree of assent to this position from that they give to Faith so neither do they make any difference between it and the sleightest assent they have Thus may your Adversary by your Argument conclude any practise of the Church or common opinion of Preachers or generally receiv'd Ecclesiasticall storyes nay even the new holy dayes to be points of faith as well and as easily as you do this What difference of assent think you do the People make between these truths that there was a Saint Philip or Saint Jacob and that there was a Saint Bennet or Saint Augustin they hear of these far oftner then of those and seldom or never of the severall degrees wherein they are recommended to their assents Even the more prudent in many such points run currently on with an undistinguishing assent till something jog their thoughts and awaken them to look into the business then they begin to make it a question to examin and sift it and at last to settle it in its true box of Catholick or Theological or Historical faith or of some other inferiour assent You go on to perswade your Readers that those who accept of this Doctrin do it through comfortable apprehensions in lieu of great horrours before they were in and because it eases their consciences from the incumbent care of assisting their dead friends In the first you manifestly shew you understand not the Doctrin of your own Divines for we agree in the grievousness of the punishments or if we disagree in any thing it is that mine is the severer For the difference of our positions is not in what the punishments are which we both agree to be acts of the will Our difference is whether these acts of the will be caused by the force of nature in spirits as I say or by the force of material fire as your Divines maintain Which was the cause why when I explicated the nature of Hell in a Divinity lecture one of my Scholars told me I made Hell worse then it was For in truth the force of a material body is not to be compared to the strong activity of a subsistent spirit as any Divine will easily guess In your other point you seem to have fram'd your conceit out of conversation with Women and Children whose desires are violent at the instant but soon pass away and not out of the consideration of men whose counsels are govern'd by a far prospect and aym at perpetuity So you flatter poor Women with the hopes of relieving their friends the first morning or the first Saturday or in some speedy time and get present monies fit to make merry with for one day never reflecting that the ancient and manly charity for the dead was to establish Foundations and perpetual Anniversaries by which the memory of our friends and prayers for them was often renew'd and long continu'd whereas taking your Principles we need neither much fear the terrours of Purgatory nor seek new wayes to ease our Consciences from the incumbent care of assisting our departed friends since one Mass at a priviledg'd Altar will do the work alone and a very little sum of mony procure that Mass without going to the cost of Dirige's and such like chargable Offices And here I must ask my Readers my Adversary's leave to correct one suspition I had unawares entertain'd that Interest might have some influence upon the Defenders of this short stay in Purgatory I was deceiv'd and now I see they are no wayes accusable of that odious crime anciently great alms were given and those often repeated for the assistance of one Soul and so the Church and Church-men gain'd much and grew rich apace Now there is open'd a far cheaper way one piece alone and that of silver too dispatches the business Surely out fair and numerous and rich Monasteryes were not built and endow'd with such petty Contributions After this you proceed to the arraignment of me before my Bishop or a Nuncius Apostolicus But there want two things to make your arraignment good first that the people be inur'd to Tradition and to prefer the received Faith of the Church before all other Doctrins From the danger of which your Divines will secure me while they teach the People that the Church when it is sayd to be inerrable signifies the Pope alone that all the People may err that General Councils have no strength till they be seal'd by the Pope and so I shal have this help to appeal from them to the Pope let my Doctrin be as opposit as it will to all that hath been hitherto the belief of the Christian world The second thing that wants to the perfect arraignment is that you have not yet found out so weak a Bishop that will believe a Doctrin sprung from uncertain Visions foster'd by unlearned zeal and strengthen'd with an Exposition of a Council or of a Popes Bull against the rules of Grammar Logick and Divinity is the belief of the present Church In the mean while I give you great thanks both for your setting forth my plea against Luther and honouring it with so high an approbation that it thunders and lightens home For besides that the knowledge of that form of proceeding against Hereticks is very necessary it will give me a testimony that I am a good Christian and if I be not a very beast I have not committed an errour to fall under so gross and so well fore-seen a Censure To the charge it self from what I have already said you may gather my clear and full Ansver that the Doctrin I sustain is not by me pretended to be of faith but onely not against faith as also that the doctrin I oppose is not and Article of faith and supported by Fathers and Monuments of Antiquity and immemorable Custome but onely an Opinion not very ancient nor ratify'd by the consent of Fathers nor of so long a standing that it's beginning is not well enough known perhaps the later yet for its time as much prevailing doctrin of priviledg'd Altars may live to be as old as this is now and as common too will it therfore deserve to be put into our Creed or can it ever become an Article of faith which the whole Church professes is but an Opinion now And are not these differences betwixt Luthers case and mine whom you so charitably endevour to parallel sufficient to distinguish our dooms Examin them but once more and I will make you my Judg. Onely forget not these words which your self put down as part of my method to convince an heretick That the Authority of things which wee stand bound to beleeve descends handed down from CHRIST our B. SAVIOVR and no otherwise
even till this age In your twentieth Section you pretend to examin the Councill of Florence once more against me Your first mistake is that it was the business of the Council in Florence to declare the faith of the Church concerning the state of Souls which depart this life I mean not to speak to your History for as much as was determin'd of Souls was agreed in Ferrara but to the word business for their business was onely to agree two points one about material fire the other about the Just Souls presently seeing God which was the business of Benedictus his Bull and some of the Greeks were of the same apprehension with John the 22. But you like an Astronomer considering the phoenomena's of the Definition frame the question out of that whereas all the rest was no business but the compleating of the doctrin by dilating it out of tenets agreed without and before any controversy Your next errour is that whereas you pretend to compare my doctrin with the councils you do it to the doctrin of the parts of the Council when it is a clear case the doctrin of one part is not the doctrin of the Council but that in which the whole Council agrees Your third Errour if it be not a willfull aequivocation is that you say the Latins believe material Fire in Purgatory which if you mean by belief Catholick faith is extremely absurd Since they joyn cōmunion with the Greeks who profess the contrary if you mean only they held it as a probable opinion you cosen your Auditory which expects you should speak of Faith and not of that from which I may dissent by authority of the Council Your fourth rather malice than mistakes is that you impose upon me that there is no purging of Souls before reunion for all who know that actio is prior termino will allow a purging before a being purged as going to London is before being there Besides your oft repeated fault of mischarging me to hold that the Soules irregular affections are the torments of purgatory Your fifth errour is that you put an opposition betwixt the Latins and me where we perfectly agree in all save onely that intruded word by this Fire which comes out of a former and spoils the whole tenet of the Latins from being a matter of Faith making it but a probable-opinion in whole though the other parts belong to faith You add the Latins must needs have thrust me out of communion not reflecting that they gave communion to the Greeks who dissented in all you have alledged truly against mee As to the Greeks First you say I hold against them that Souls are in no place And though I cannot affirm positively what the meaning of the Greeks was at the Council in this point yet knowing their Fathers use when they speak of spirits to call working in a place being in a place I am well assur'd they would not thrust me out of their Society for denying a true locality in spirits The second objection is answer'd by my answer to the Latins and the same is to be sayd to the third Of your last objection concerning the efficacy of the helps because you say you will evidence it I must expect the fulfilling your promise till then it is but a threatning likely to be of little effect You end with a great confidence that you have dispatch't this business and converted your adversary unless he will stand upon the Errability of the Council For you imagining your self inerrable in your rash and shallow interpretation of it cannot alas good Christian imagin any other possible way to maintain the conclusion I on the other side hope I have sayd somewhat that may help your imagination but dare entertain no great apprehension that I shall convert you knowing I have not spoken to the main foundation of your opinion which is setled in your will upon grounds beyond my removall Yet in the 21 Section you are forced to retire from your fair hopes for your great words satisfy your adversary no more then your Capital letters His answer in substance is that you misconstrue the Pope and Council as it hath been declar'd by him and me before And that the purgation before the day of Judgment may be suppos'd but not defin'd And clearly enough such is both the Popes and the Council's meaning as is before more largely insisted on which being the onely knot of the controversy you do well to prepare loud clamours against it and tell us it is a pitifull evasion Let us then suppose it were judg'd by the Pope to be the more probable opinion amongst Divines that Souls were purg'd before the day of Judgment though he held the other was also probable which I think you will not say impossible for a Pope since divers have gone that way in other matters In this case was it fit the Pope should define what became of such Souls or no if you say he could and should define what is become of all your clamours against defining upon a supposition which afterwards may be found to be impossible For he that judges an opinion onely probable leaves a probability that it is impossible to be true since whoever sayes one side is but probable as far as concerns science sayes it may be false for any thing he knows Now things that have a settled course in nature are so dispos'd that impossibility is concomitant to falsity nor can it ever be prov'd to be false unless it be prov'd to be impossible So that the Pope in defining the coming to heaven of such Souls proceeds not consequently to his opinion if he doth not go upon a supposition that himself confesses may be impossible and yet in all prudence he must define it as being but an extension of this his main question whether Saints go immediatly to heaven If you say he could not or ought not to define such a conditionall case who will or can believe you that hath any prudence since for the position it self He both thought it the more probable and saw it concern'd the most ample part of his division of Saints going to heaven For all christians imagin more go to heaven through Purgatory then either by the vertue of baptism or by eminency of Purity and Sanctity acquir'd in this world So that I persuade my self you would easily allow the Pope not only could but ought in case he thought both sides probable to proceed as he did in his definition Now that this was the Pope's case is absolutely certain and more then probable since we cannot doubt but it was the case of the Latines in the Council of Florence in which the Greeks by their leaving our the expression of some being deliver'd sooner some later directly wav'd that position and by consequence refused to profess an Article of faith if this were one and yet without any repugnance or quarrelling about this circumstance were admitted to communion and a common decree made in
say so and that onely you pretended to make the Doctrin pass for an Article of faith the contrary of which all the world knew to be maintain'd by me Secondly I must remember you that you do indeed and inexcusably wrong me when you say I deny that such Souls are receiv'd presently into Heaven if you mean by the word such Souls purg'd after separation 't is no better then a cunning calumny and would represent me as holding directly contrary to the Bull and Council Whereas our dispute is whether Souls may be so purg'd out of their bodies before the day of Judgment not if they be so purg'd whether they go to Heaven before that Day this I agree to and is of faith that I deny is but an Opinion Thirdly you do not well justify your Friends for changing the Title from Concerning the Vision of God the Beatitude and Damnation of Souls to this shorter but more generall one Concerning the State of departed Souls while your answer signifies onely that they are severall expressions for the same thing which to a wary considerer will easily appear an artifice Is it all one to contend about white and black and about colours in generall No more is it all one to define concerning Beatitude and Damnation and to define concerning a State which is neither of them both Fourthly you often up and down your Book brand me with faithless Theology What do you mean do not your Doctors generally agree that somthing in Religion is demonstrable are they all therefore presently to be condemn'd as faithless cannot your self demonstrate there 's a God and will you think your self an Infidel for it Or dare you tell the Ladyes that for your part you are not so silly as to believe there 's a God you know it and that as for belief of such things it belongs to the simple unlearned not to Scolars I hope in your next work you will proceed with more candor and manliness Your thirty seventh Section being spent in petty quarrels though some lines in it be both false and malicious yet I will let all pass and go on to the thirty eighth Section where you rip up again the question whether the matter of the Decree be that perfect charity carries separated Souls immediately to Heaven In which you tell us your Publisher is indifferent and may yet chuse whether he will say that good Souls at their decease be wholly purg'd from all irrationall affections or no in the first Instant And this may peradventure be true But if I am not deceiv'd he will not say they are purg'd For I am sure you would censure it deeply in me if I should say that after this life there is any more disposing it self or meriting towards life eternal But I must not be over confident you may have two censures in your brest for the same saying in the mouths of different Persons You ask if Charity brings a Soul immediately to Bliss What then does your Adversary think of Lumen Gloriae It is to me a hard question what he will think of it for I see your great Divines cannot agree what to think of it But I guess he may think either Charity it self when perfect in a pure Spirit is the Light of Glory or causes it as well as the Beatificall Vision You press farther the perfection of Charity in this life doth not give the Beatificall Vision therefore neither in abstracted Souls But if I should ask you how you knew the Antecedent you would be at a stop I can hear it defended that St. Benedict had the clear sight of God And I was at a Sermon in Alcala made to the whole University in which the Preacher asserted our Lady had Beatifical Vision in the first Instant of her Conception and prov'd it out of his Text which was Fundamenta ejus in montibus Sanctis Fundamenta ejus her conception in montibus Sanctis in the heighths or tops of Sanctity Therefore believing Divines must take heed of denying as well as of saying Besides I have read in St. Thomas and others both more Ancient and more Modern that there is a certain pitch of Charity to which when men arrive God takes them out of this World But however that stand I think there is a large difference betwixt the Charity of pure Spirits and of men So that the consequence may be true of one and not of the other Farther on you mention some reasons of mine against corporall punishing of Spirits but you knock them all on the head with a Canon of the Council of Trent To understand the state of the question it is not amiss to consider that a Sin specially a notorious one hath three effects or parts One in the rational Soul where it is a Judgment or resolution or affection that such an Action is to be done A second in the Appetite or Body where it makes certain motions and their causes which bring a likelihood of falling into the same sin The third part is in the external action where it brings in some disorder which is subject to propagate it self farther into other subjects The disorderly Judgment and affection is that which our School-men when they speak formally call the Sin and account the sin remitted when that is duly blotted out whatever that signifies But it is supposed to be done by Contrition and Absolution And although they admit this to be sufficient to go to Heaven if one dyes yet in a living man they with reason require that the other two parts or effects of sin should also be taken away which is to be done by Satisfaction So may the Reader understand what Satisfaction is required for Now let us see what you urge out of the Council First you object the Council teaches that it is against the word of God to say that the fault is never remitted but that all the punishment is also forgiven And so you see by the discourse above made that we say also Secondly the Council sayes that it becomes the Divine clemency that sins should not be parâ—on'd without any Satisfaction So we say also by the fore-made discourse Thirdly the Council charges Priests to impose Satisfaction so that it be not onely as to the guard of a new life but also as in revenge and chastisement of their past sins which is clearly necessary for the mending of the outward excesses brought in by the sin and so we say directly the same You press farther that the Council sayes in Baptism the whole pains are remitted And if you speak in opposition to sins remitted in Penance the cause is clear For the sins committed before Baptism belong not to the Churches Court But if you speak in regard of God Almighty I fear it will require I should ask your Judgment of a Case Your Divines tell us that he who receives Baptisme cum fictionâ— receives Baptism truly yet if he dye immediately I suspect whether you will send him immediately
accuse your Adversary that he sayes you think such things promote souls in Holy desires though for my part I think it is a great reason of the use of them to make people be devout when otherwise they would not And for souls going to Heaven by them if they take away the pains of Purgatory with what face can you deny it I remember a Doctor of Divinity who having obtain'd a Scapular from the Carmes and a priviledg from the Jesuits to be admitted a Jesuit at the hour of his death was as confident to go directly to Heaven as if he had had a Patent for it under Jesus Christs own Hand Why then are you so touchy as if there could not be abuses in these things why cannot you be patient in this case as well as the Church is content to admit some abuses to have crept even into the administration of the Sacraments Your last note I believe is quite mistaken for I do not conceive your Adversary intended to make any comparisons both because he does not specifie any particular man to whom he should be suppos'd to compare me and because there is no occasion for it But peradventure he would not have the good life of any man be an Argument to bear down a contrary Doctrin For my self I profess no exemplarity If my life be such as may not unbeseem my Calling I have as much as I desire from men neither do I see any reason why any one should engage for me supra id quod videt in me I pray let not opinion-quarrels break into Personal dissentions Si invicem mordetis invicem consumemini To the same uncharitable end I fear tends your often repetition of diminishing words to those persons who think well of me or my Doctrin insisting especially on their small number but I pray you tell me how many you think have impartially and attentively read these few Books I have made I believe in proportion to them it is not a small number who profess to have met in many points with great satisfaction nor do I expect they should in all I may sometimes be mistaken my self and there I desire none to follow me others may sometimes be mistaken in me and there I am so far from being followed that my obscurity which I confess a defect will not let me be found Nor do I see so much cause to be troubled at the fewness as to bless God for the qualities of those who profess to have found good in my writings being Persons both ingenuous and vertuous and of such frank and unbyassed Principles as well by their own inclination as the influence my way may have had upon them that I am confident they desire nothing more then to see my Doctrin thorowly examin'd and speedily brought to a fair impartial Tryal by the sharpest Arguments that a pertinent opposer can make and indeed they themselves have been the strongest though not the fiercest Objectors I have met with One reason possibly of this little number may be that my Books have not as yet been long enough in the World to be fully perus'd by many what time may produce God onely knowes to whom I submit it But to return to my self and speak to what you dislike in me you absolve me from being an Heretick to make me a Pagan Nor will I refuse to be what you shall please when you have explicated your self But this not marking nor understanding your own words makes all the misintelligence You make me a Pagan but such an one as acknowledges Christ and every word and tittle either of the Scripture or any other Law of his Such a Pagan such a Naturalist was never heard of before Will you have me give you an Instance take this Bull and Canons which you cite and put them to my self or your Adversary and see whether we will either refuse to subscribe or even swear to them Then our Paganisus lyes in this that we do not think you have the right sence And this is my Paganism thorough all things belonging to Christian Faith You say I agree onely in words with the Church but saying so you say I agree in words and by consequence the whole disagreement is about the sence of the words In which controversy because I proceed out of Philosophy and reason and you out of what Masters Dictatts I know not you leave a great prejudice that my explication is the more reasonable Wherein consists then my Paganism Because I pretend to demonstrate what you think is not to be known but by Faith Then if I do not pretend to demonstrate but onely profess that they are demonstrable and exhort men to seek out the Demonstrations which is the true case and what you add is out of the fulness of your heart why do I not hold all the Articles by Faith and where is my Paganism But suppose some great Scholar possibly or impossibly as the Schools speak should have the demonstration of the Articles of Faith would he therefore be a Pagan sure you never thought what a Pagan signify'd when you spake so cholerick a word That peradventure might make him more then a man or more then a Christian as a Comprehensour is if it reach'd to Gods Essence less it could not make him Faith is not desirable for its Obscurity but for its Certainty We govern our lives by knowing the objects not by the defect in the knowledge Let a man see his way by the clear Sun and sure he will be as able to walk in it as by the dimmer light of a Star But you complain I reduce the mysteries of our faith to our narrow brains Sir you are mistaken It is the quite contrary you should rather accuse me of endeavouring to dilate our brains to the capacity of the mysteries by the help of Faith Why God cannot elevate our brains to understand what he hath deliver'd us to be understood You have not yet declar'd to my capacity You say when you are told Souls are not purg'd in the state of separation but at the reuâ—ion though the word remains your Faith is gone I easily believe you speak from your mind and that truly you apprehend the explication you frame to your self is your Faith and so that as many Christians as fancy divers explications of the same Article have so many faiths but by this way I see very few in the whole Church would be of the same faith 'pray consider a little that reflexion Nothing is more clear then your next Example You say you believe that Faith Hope and Charity are infused by the Holy Ghost into our Souls in Baptism A Pope and a generall Council too declar'd that of two opinions of Divines this was the probabler and by saying so said this was not the faith of the Church and yet if this be not true your faith is gone Your next Example is to the same purpose that supernatural qualities are of a different series then nature
against Grammar against Logick and against Divinity and if this be not accepted of you cry the Church has err'd Your Interpretation is against Grammar by your own confession complaining of your Adversary for demanding an Is or Is not which is a plain acknowledgment that your sence is not formally in the words It is against Logick because you put the subject to be part of the predicate Against Divinity because you would make the grace of God and heavenly benefits be bought like Salads in the market by him that has most mony Besides other inconveniences whereof I have explicated some in my Book of the Middle State and may have occasion to say more hereafter And yet forsooth if this sweet Interpretation be not gratis admitted of the Church has err'd the Church has err'd and all 's undone well a day well a day You go farther and press that my rule of faith failes me in this very point And first you appeal to the consciences of all illiterate Persons whether this be not their present faith Yau have found out a Tribunal very fit to gain your cause in But I wonder you are so little skill'd in spirituall direction that you do not know most illiterate men never reflect upon their inward acts or farther then what belongs to the fancy not one amongst ten thousand And you deceive me if you hold faith to be an act of the fancy Yet I dare not be too bold for I have heard of one that wore a plush cloak and could neither read nor write Wherefore it is enough for me to deny it whether it be your opinion or no Besides do you not know that even literate Persons unless Divines are not to mince the doctrin taught them by their Pastours so far as to distinguish what is deliver'd for faith what as necessary to the explication of it or to the Practise of Christian life Further you may know that many even of your own eminent Divines differ not only in what points are of faith what not but in what makes them to be of faith what not Though I think they all agree that an explication against Grammar and Logick does not rayse a position into an Article of faith though the explication be of a Popes Bull Next you tell your adversary that Master White him self says Saint Gregory the great was the first founder of that faith I know well you accompt Master White a kind of a mad man that dares advance such propositions as he cannot but foresee what strong opposition they were like to stir up against him But I did not think he was so mad as holding no doctrin to belong to faith which began since the Apostles daies who are the last revealers of publik faith that he knows of and besides professing this doctrin so far from faith that it is not true yet should tell you that Saint Gregory founded this faith As far as I remember what I sayd was that Saint Gregory reported this novelty first broke out in his dayes by the means of certain revelations And this I sayd upon the authority of Venerable Bede who attributes the book of Dialogues to Saint Gregory But now I must tell you that upon fuller consideration I rather believe Venerable Bede's information was defective then to attribute so unworthy a book to so grave and learned a Pope nothing like such winter tales as are told in that book being found in his most worthy and learned works And I will make your self whom I know a great admirer of that learned and pious Doctour Judg of the controversy Do you think there is in the next world Excommunications and restorings to communion as is exprest in one of those Revelations Do you think that one who dy'd obstinate in schism was sent to Purgatory because he did many Alms as is reported in another Revelation do you think it is not the fancy of an Idle brain to imagin Souls are sent to bathes to scrub and rub men there to be acquitted of their sins Other things there are in the same book worth the noting but these are enough to shew it unworthy of St. Gregory as indeed it is for so great a Doctour and Prelate to spend his time in gathering together private storyes of obscure and petty Relaters This will set this Doctrin an hundred years later and into an age one of the least cultivated since the beginning of the Church of God Nor is it true that this carries after it a practise testified by Foundations Prayers Masses Almes c. For all these were in the Church before this Doctrin as may appear in Antiquity The Church of Afrik made a Canon to force the laity to contribute to Prayers for the dead about Saint Austins time who yet testifies that the question whether Souls were deliver'd out of Purgatory before the day of Judgment had not yet been moved Now Foundations contradict this Doctrin rather then promote it For he that makes a Foundation intends it without limit of time and so must imagin the Soul needs the assistance of that charity so long which would much cool the devotion you pretend and we see practis'd before our eyes to get Masses enow in a morning to send a Soul to Heaven to dinner Shew me but one ancient Instance where two or three thousand Masses have been by Legacy procur'd to be said the very next morning after the Testator's departure and little or nothing after that morning and I will ingenuously confess it the best argument you have produc'd in the whole managing of your cause After the Author of the Dialogue there was no more news of this opinion till Odilo a Monk of Cluny's time who being a kind of a Generall of many Monasteries dilated this Doctrin in them upon a goodly ground to build a matter of Faith on to wit the report of a French Pilgrim who sayd he had met with an Hermite I think a French man who perswaded himself he had Visions of Souls being deliver'd out of Purgatory by the Prayers of the Monks of Cluny Upon this ground the good Saint recommended the devotion for the dead warmly to his subjects and they to the people who frequented their Monasteries and hence this Doctrin came to be common where his order was in esteem And so being a pious credulity stay'd about one hundred years till the School began Which finding it very common easily favour'd it with such reasons and explications as they thought fit though not universally for some are found to have contradicted it and so it was exalted to a probable opinion In which state the Council of Florence found it and practis'd it giving communion 'to the Greeks who as is before declar'd left it out of their confession after the Latins had put it in theirs And in this quality it persever'd till my book de medio statu was turn'd into English Then it began first to be a matter of faith by the power of the great letters
I ever said the People should have it The same I conceive hath ever been in the Church in a certain degree Of which there are manifest signs in Saint Denys the Areopagite Saint Basil Saint Gregory Nazianzen and others as also in the Latin Church specially in Saint Austin Boetius Saint Auselm and others But I conceive demonstration will be both in its matter and in Divines much more diffus'd then it is yet So that in the Church will ever march together Science and Faith though in diverse measures Some other little nibblings at my Doctrin or rather at little bits of it snatcht from the Context as your custom is because taken entire 't is too difficult for your teeth interlace your jollity in these your Sections of mirth and raillery As that of a dispossest Governour which you deform in the worst manner you can by leaving out the Antecedents and Consequents which would have let you see that my discourse proceeds in the case that onely his own private interest or particular good be oppos'd and counter-ballanc't to the publike not if the publick good be for his restorement For then my whole Book favours him Wherefore to make my Doctrin invidious against the Person you mean you must first subsume that his re-entry is against the common good otherwise I say nothing against him but all for him and if you subsume this I believe you will deserve no great thanks for your officious mistake but approve your self his greatest enemy Next you are hugely troubled that in Rushworth's Dialogues which you say are mine I make the letter of the Scripture so uncertain And this objection I may conceive you borrow'd from Doctor Hammond whose Book in which he has something against me and as I am told this very passage was extant long before yours and I doubt not but you read very diligently whatever opposes me Unless perhaps good wits jump't in their observations which also may be likely for you agree much taken as Scholars in your method of seeking for Truth I must profess therefore to answer both in one that you are two of the prettiest men that ever I met with and most hard to please with reason Neither of you can endure I should attempt profess certainty and evidence in things capable of it that is in matters scientifical nor yet profess uncertainty in matters not capable of certitude as in our present point about the delivery of words by way of transcriptions of Copists or Scriveners relying upon their own human diligence which 't is impossible to secure against over-sight besides divers other miscarriages which the Fathers as well as I complain the Letter of the Scripture was lyable to But to satisfie your tender Conscience and other Catholikes like yours I profess that that place speaks of the Letter of Scripture as left to multitudes of human contingencies and imbecillities and as taken abstractedly from and unassisted by Tradition or the Churches living voice and practice to guide securely the delivery of it downwards But I ever profess that this guidance of Tradition did efficaciously preserve the Letter untainted in all that was coincident with Christian Tradition that is in all points necessary to mankinds salvation and not onely so but so far the rest of the Scripture's Letter too that nothing evidently contrary to the doctrin of Tradition or Christian Faith could light into it So that Catholiks may with all security accept it and hold to it And yet notwithstanding the aid of tradition formerly above 2000 faults were corrected in it by our late Pope's since the beginning of the Council of Trent and more still remain to be a mended as the Preface to the same Bible grants nor is any person living able to stint us the ultimate compleating of the true copy Thus much to you How I can satisfy Doctor Hammond who holds Tradition onely then when he can serve his turn of it and otherwhiles impugns it by what way in his grounds he can be certain of one little of it I know not and therefore must leave him to the Fruits of his Labour in impugning Tradition that is to a perfect uncertainty of any thing that can concern his Faith In a word to a Catholik my position onely signifies that we are beholding to the living voyce of the Church even for any Certainty of the true Copy of the Scripture which why it deserves more exception that Saint Austin's noted saying of Evangelio non crederem c. I should be glad to learn But you think Rushworth has made too long a Catalogue of uncertainties To which I answer that if you please to scan the occasions of that long Catalogue and then tell us how many we may safely abate I shall in his behalf remain very much oblig'd to you If not 't is plain you do not know we can abate any or that his Catalogue is longer then it should be in his case After this you give a wipe at my denying the Popes personall Infallibility and as for the point you well know 't is held but a probable opinion and that many learned Authors hold the same opinion with me As for my censuring it I shall hope the reasons given for it in Tabulae Suffragiales will stand to justify me till something of greater force than clamour appears to overthrow them that is till it can be shown less than Archi-hereticall to say that an opinion which confessedly is no more but probable can be a sufficient ground to build Christian Faith upon Your next piece of Gallantry is your old and oft repeated clamour of my denying the Infallibility of Councils which forces me to lay open to the world how far your Malice is above your Conscience in writing against me To do which I offer the Reader those few notes First that you onely cite here three words non est impossible to prove confusedly that I deny all Authority of Councils whereas in my Tab. suffrag. p. 277. the place where it is found which had you quoted the Reader might have rectify'd himself it follows immediately ut Concilium tentet hoc facere tentando in errorem incidat It is not impossible a Council should attempt This and so err Now what this word This relates to is to be seen in the Paragraph immediately foregoing to wit to the making new Articles of Faith so that I put Councils errable onely in such a matter that is in creating us a new Faith you by maiming purposely my words make me hold them to have no Authority in any thing Can this consist with honesty or fair dealing Next is to be noted that in the same Discourse there which gives account of my Doctrin professedly concerning Councils I maintain in express terms that Councils are of Infallible Authority in declaring Articles of Faith that the Pope declaring ex cathedra concerning a matter of Faith is infallible and that the same is to be said of Generall and even Provinciall