are sensible they are not to be proved in the same way they find themselves obliged to give the same Authority to one as the other and to bring down the Scripture to the Church or exalt the Church to the Authority of Scripture So that if we will look for things necessary not contained in Scripture we must have recourse to the Church which can as they say ordain new Articles of Faith and which whenever so ordained are as much to be believed and received as those which have their Authority immediately from Scripture And after our Author hath beat about and done his endeavour to loosen the Articles of our Faith from the written Revelation and the Foundation of the Prophets and Apostles hither he would bring the Case that we are obliged to stand to the Determination of one particular Church as he insinuates page 4. But now to return his own words upon him If you remit me to the Decision of the true Church it will be necessary to know which is that Church For since there are several pretenders and there are Christian Arrians as he saith and many other Dissenters how shall I find out this True Church and why that more than others Is it because she herself saith she is the True Church All the rest claim the like Character of being a True Church and besides this is to demand the thing that is to be proved Is it that she is like a City upon an Hill or the Sun in the Firmament to be known by a self-evident Light Why is it not then as well known and indisputably owned to be the true Church and the only True Church as a City to be a City or the Sun to be the Sun Is it to be found out by the Notes and Marks of the True Church Then we must find out the Marks before we find out the Church that is to be known by them And then the pinching Question comes on Where must I seek these Notes It 's to be feared that will lead us to the Scripture and then we know what follows Lastly Are we to find out the Church by an Infallible Guide Then we are to find such a Guide out of the Church and that we have no direction where to seek or by what Notes we may know it Here indeed we are left in a Maze to beat out the way and they that have made the Church a Guide have appointed no Guide to lead us to the Church That is a Track we must find of our selves there we must use our own simple Reason Consideration and Enquiry So that how certain soever we may be when in the Church we can never be infallibly certain which is the Church that we are bound to follow because this kind of certainty is peculiar to the Church and not to be had out of it But since we have gone thus far upon Supposition let us take it for granted once more that the Church is upon the Hill visible and demonstrable yet because the Church is a Collective Body where is the Seat of that Infallible Authority that I am to attend to and finally to be determined by Is it in every particular person Then because Infallibility knows no degrees I my self should in that Church be as Infallible as the Supreme Pastor of it Is it in one particular person or in a General Council Who and where is it Must I suspend till I know or till all the parts of the Church agree in it If you tell me all joyned together as our Author has taught me to Reason then it follows I am bound to believe nothing of this kind but what all agree in for what they disagree in cannot be the Sentiment or Decision of the whole Church but only of a part of it I am not then obliged to believe the Pope's Infallibility for the Councils of Basil and Constance and the French Church tho Papists deny it Nor am I obliged to believe a Council Infallible without the Pope because those at Rome deny it And because what 's a good Argument in one case is good in another let me have our Author's Warrant that I am bound to believe neither Infallible since neither of these agree with the other For certainly I am no more obliged to believe the Infallibility of their Church which they do thus disagree in than our Author would perswade us that we are not obliged to believe the Trinity because the Arrians tho Christians deny it But supposing that the Seat of Infallibility be clear and evident Yet how can I that am at a vast distance of years or place from that Oracle whatever it is be infallibly assured that these that are put into my hands are the very Results and Decrees of that Authority Or that this that I think or am told is the true and undoubted sense of them Or to speak modestly How can I be as much assured of the Truth of these matters as I am of the Authority and Sence of Scripture Or that Christ hath not spoken as plainly and intelligibly in the Scriptures as his Vicar or Substitutes have in any of their Canons and Decrees So that tho the Church be Infallible and I a Member of that Infallible Church yet what will that Infallibility avail me when I am without the doors of that Infallible Council or out of the reach of the immediate Dictates of the Infallible Chair And unless the spirit of Infallibility descends from the Chair to the meanest Priest who is to instruct and direct me or is indorsed upon every Decree and inspires every Article with its own unerring sense I am not infallibly certain And I may be no more certain of the true Doctrine of the Infallible Church than I am of the sense of Scripture under the Conduct of a Fallible Church since the immediate Authority I depend upon for the Doctrine and the Sense of it is all this while Fallible As for example I am told that there is such a Creed as that before mentioned of Pope Pius IV. that contains in it such Articles that every one is so bound to believe as without the belief of which no Man can be saved And I find in that Creed that the Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all Churches And yet how shall I be Infallibly assured first that there ever was such a person as Pope Pius the 4th or that he ever composed such a Creed or that the foresaid Supremacy of the Church of Rome is one of those Articles The Pope I never saw nor am like to see A Council is a rare thing and what they care not to hear of at Rome and are able to do as well without as with it And therefore where shall I be infallibly instructed in these matters How shall I then be sure that the Article aforesaid is not to be understood that the Church of Rome is the Mistress of all Churches within the particular Diocess of Rome only For
Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus An Answer to the Address presented to the Ministers of the Church of England Febr. 11. 1687. Guil. Needam R mo in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cantuar. a Sacr. Domest AN ANSWER TO THE ADDRESS Presented to the MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH of ENGLAND LONDON Printed for Ric. Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in St. Paul's Church-Yard MDCLXXXVIII AN ANSWER TO THE ADDRESS Presented to the Ministers of the Church of ENGLAND An Address Presented to the Reverend and Learned Ministers of the Church of England by one sincerely desirous of finding out the Truth in behalf of himself and others equally concern'd as well for their own as the general Satisfaction IT 's a hard Shift the present Writers of the Church of Rome among us are brought to that when other helps fail them they take up with such a sort of Arguments which how useful soever they may prove to make some men of Their Religion have a plainer tendency to make others of None Certainly were these persons as much concerned for the Truth of Christianity as they are for their own Corruptions of it or could defend those Corruptions in a better way they would not put the case upon this extremity and had they the Scripture as much for the Church of Rome's Supremacy and Infallibility c. as it is for its own sufficiency the Trinity and Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour we should have heard more of their Proofs from Scripture than of Requests and Addresses to the Church of England the great Patron it seems of these Points to prove from Scripture the Trinity and Incarnation These Articles of the Christian Faith are an Argument worthy of a serious Consideration if proposed by one that really needs as well as he pretends to desire Satisfaction But to have a Member of the Church of Rome as our Author apparently is personating an Arrian and other Hereticks and in the face of the World requiring Scripture-proof for those above-said Points of Catholick Doctrine To have this thrust upon us afresh after the unrefuted Answers given to the First Request the Catholick Dialogue and the Plea for a Socinian is no good sign whatever he pretends of one sincerely desirous of finding out the Truth nor would it be worth the while to take up the Cause anew for his sake who I am sensible is not to be satisfied in this way were it not for some better End it may be useful to The Address consists of several Proposals which thus begin There can be no doubt but that the main Concern of Man in this Vale of Tears is the Salvation of his Soul. If this be lost he loses all if this be gained he gains all and both for an Eternity No body then can blame me if being solicitous to save my Soul I have recourse to those whose Learning must needs enable them and whose Charity cannot but incline them to instruct me in this weighty Affair I therefore humbly beseech you most Reverend and Learned Doctors of the Church of England to afford me a clear and satisfactory Solution of these following Doubts First I desire to know Whether all things necessary to Salvation are contained in Scripture If not where must I seek them If they be then they are either clearly contained in it so that there is no need of an Interpreter for the meaning of the words or not If there be no need of any such Interpreter then I humbly ask what these Necessaries to Salvation are and in what Chapter and Verse of Scripture each of them may be found For example Is the belief of a Trinity c. For the clearer understanding of the whole I shall divide it into several Questions Q. 1. Whether all things necessary to Salvation are contained in Scripture A. If there are things necessary to Salvation that are not contained in Scripture the World is for ought I see at a great loss where to seek them For nothing can be necessary to Salvation which was not necessary in the Primitive and will be so to all succeeding Ages But where to find those things thus necessary out of Scripture that have been of a date and Authority equal to it I know none that have attempted the discovery Nor could we ever yet be favoured with an account of what these Necessaries are and where each of them may be found So that Scripture must contain these Necessary things or else we are left without any means of knowing them And the Scripture must fail of its end and we of the Salvation therein revealed if that be not as sufficient in its kind to beget Faith in us as Faith is to save us For faith St. John 20.31 These things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing ye might have life through his name Nay we are as much assured of this as we are of its Divine Authority for the same Apostle that saith All Scripture is given by Inspiration of God doth immediately before as positively affirm that the Scriptures are able to make us wise unto Salvation 2 Tim. 3.15 16. From which Consideration it was that all doubts relating to Salvation were hereby to be resolved which could not be were not all things necessary to Salvation contained in it So when that Question was put to our Saviour Master what shall I do to inherit eternal life He answered What is written in the Law How readest thou Thou knowest the Commandments Luke 10.25 26. Mark 10.17 19. And that they had Moses and the Prophets was in his estimation sufficient to dispose them to Repent without any other Revelation than was therein contained Luke 16.29 30 31. Till it can therefore be shewn that the Scripture was not written to make men wise unto salvation or that men might be wise to Salvation without knowing the things necessary to it Till it can be proved that the Old Testament was not a Rule of Faith and Manners to the Jews in all points necessary to their Salvation Or that both Old and New-Testament have not the same end or not the same sufficiency to that End now to the Christian as the Old Testament alone had to the Jewish Church we have no reason to think the Scripture defective in any thing necessary to Salvation or that there is any other means provided by God to supply its deficiency therein And in this Doctrine we are not alone but have the concurrence of the most Authentick Writers of the Christian Church of which sort in particular is that memorable saying of St. Austin All things which concern Faith and Manners of Life are found in those things which are plainly contained in Scripture A Truth that the Writers of the Church of Rome in their soberer thoughts do often acknowledg So Antoninus A. B. of Florence God saith he hath spoken but once and that in the Holy Scripture and that so
John Item in S. John ' s Gospel signifies a strict Identity which notwithstanding I conceive ought to be if all Necessaries to Salvation be clearly contained in Scripture Now if the Belief of a Trinity be not necessary to Salvation I desire it may be clearly owned in these or the like words 'T is not necessary for Salvation to believe Three Persons and one God notwithstanding the Creed of S. Athanasius and Definition of the first Council of Nice when the Church was in her Purity not the least corrupted The sum of our Author's Argument is this That the Doctrine of the Trinity is not clearly contained in Scripture because Unity in some places signifies not a Unity of Essence but of Will which way of arguing supposes that if a word be taken in two or more different senses then the Scripture doth not clearly contain the things contained in those words As for Example the word Door is sometimes taken in Scripture in a proper sense sometimes in a Metaphorical and being thus differently taken we cannot according to him certainly know when it is to be understood Properly and when Metaphorically and must be at a perfect loss to understand whether when our Saviour is called a Door John 10.7 it 's not meant properly and when St. Peter is said to stand at the Door John 18.16 it 's not meant Metaphorically Or to come nearer to our Author the Body of Christ is sometimes taken for a Natural sometimes for a Mystical Body and therefore we cannot be certainly assured whether when Joseph begg'd the Body of Jesus it 's not to be understood of the Mystical Body and that when the Apostles and Prophets c. were given for the edifying the Body of Christ Eph. 4.11 12. it 's not to be understood of Christ's Natural Body In this so difficult a case which is absolutely necessary to be answer'd for the salvation of his Soul p. 4. if you will believe the Addresser What is to be done What in reason will content him It 's nothing less than this That it be shewn that in some Verse and Chapter in Scripture we have these or the like words The Word One in St. John ' s Epistle signifies a strict Identity And he might have gone on without end in the same way and one as obstinate as himself may say Shew me some other Chapter and Verse wherein it is said that the word Door John 10. is to be understood Metaphorically and the word Body Ephes. 4. is to be understood Mystically or else it is apparent that we cannot know what Door Proper or Metaphorical or what Body whether Natural or Mystical is meant in those places for This ought to be if these things are clearly contained in Scripture This is a Thought for ought I know peculiar to our Author for I don't find this Address comes out with other Allowance than Printed for R. Taylor and as I do not envy him the Glory of the Invention so I shall leave him the satisfaction of self-enjoyment Indeed his Friends the Learned Arrians went not his way in opposing the Trinity nor the Orthodox in defending it and therefore if this Point was now to be argued the Ministers of the Church of England that hold with the Orthodox and amongst other places produce this of 1 John 5.7 for it would say that it 's as plainly said The Father Word and Holy Ghost are One as that they are Three and that tho Unity is sometimes taken in a Moral sense as John 17.21 yet the arguing of St. John in the former place shews it not to be understood in the same sense as the latter he making a plain difference betwixt the Unity that is betwixt the Three that bear record in Heaven and the Three that bear witness in Earth for of the Three that bear Record in Heaven it 's said They are one but of the Three that bear witness on Earth it 's said They agree in One. Now if it had been a mere Moral Union that was betwixt the Father Word and Holy Ghost who are the Three in Heaven it would have been as well said of them as of the Spirit the Water and the Blood which are the Three in Earth that they Agree in One. In like manner would the Ministers of the Church of England support the proof of this Article from John 10.30 I and my Father are One and shew that it 's to be understood of the Unity of Essence and not of mere Will and Consent because the Jews took up stones to stone him for blasphemy and because that thou being a man makest thy self God. But since there is a Union that may be betwixt God and Man without making man to be God as it is John 17.21 it follows that neither did our Saviour speak nor the Jews understand him to have spoken of a Moral but a Natural Union but for this let me recommend the Addresser to the Second Part of the Dialogue concerning the Doctrine of the Trinity and Transubstantiation compared p. 10 11. and Published the last Year His second Instance is of the Incarnation of which he saith Again Is the Belief of the Incarnation necessary for Salvation Where is it clearly expressed in Scripture You refer me to S. John chap. 1. The Word is made Flesh. But you know that many Learned Men Nestorius and others denied that word to signifie a strict Incarnation but either a Moral Vnion or a meer external appearance of a Man as those who held Christ not to have a real but a phantastick Body Now be pleased to shew me in what Verse or Chapter it is clearly expressed that the said words signifie a strict Incarnation But if you deny the belief of this Mystery to be necessary to Salvation own it for our satisfaction in these or the like words It is not necessary for Salvation to believe that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity was made true Man. And if the Belief of neither Trinity nor Incarnation are necessary shew me what 't is and where expressed in Scripture Setting aside what the Opinion of Nestorius was which our Author for ought I perceive understands not the sum of what is said amounts to this That the Scripture is not clear in this Point because as he saith Many learned Men Nestorius and others deny that word he means that phrase to signifie strict Incarnation So that if a learned Man or learned Men dispute the Point that Point so disputed or the words expressing it cannot be clear or the Sense certain But I have before shewed that this is no reason against the perspicuity of Scripture in such a case because nothing can be clearer express'd than many of those things which are sometimes made matter of Disputation As what can be clearer than that Christ had a Body of Flesh and Bones Yet there were some of our Authors Learned men that held Christ was a meer external appearance of a man and not