a Schismatical Church yet never bowed their knee to Baal 3. Reg. 19. But 't is quite another thing to live in a Schismatical Church and Communicate with it in the Schism and all the Superstitions and Corruptions which that Church teaches nay to live and die in them For certainly here no man can so live in a Schismatical Church but if he be of capacity enough and understand it he must needs be a Formal Schismatick or an Involved One if he understand it not And in this case the Church of Rome is either far worse or more cruel than the Church of Israel even under Ahab and Jezabel was The Synagogue indeed was corrupted a long time and in a great degree But I do not finde that this Doctrine You must sacrifice in the high places Or this You may not go and worship at the one Altar in Jerusalem was either taught by the Priests or maintained by the Prophets or enjoyned the people by the Sanedrim Nay can you shew me when any Jew living there devoutly according to the Law was ever punished for omitting the One of these or doing the Other But the Church of Rome hath solemnly decreed her Errours And erring hath yet decreed withal That she cannot erre And imposed upon Learned men disputed and improbable Opinions Transubstantiation Purgatory and Forbearance of the Cup in the blessed Eucharist even against the express Command of our Saviour and that for Articles of Faith And to keep off Disobedience what ever the Corruption be she hath bound up her Decrees upon pain of Excommunication and all that follows upon it Nay this is not enough unless the Fagot be kindled to light them the way This then may be enough for us to leave Rome though the old Prophet forsook not Israel 3. Reg. 13. And therefore in this present case there 's peril great peril of damnable both Schism and Heresie and other sin by living and dying in the Roman Faith tainted with so many superstitions as at this day it is and their Tyranny to boot So that here I may answer A. C. just as S. Augustine answered Petilian the Donatist in the fore-named case of Baptism For when Petilian pleaded the Concession of his Adversaries That Baptism as the Donatists administred it was good and lawful and thence inferred just as the Jesuite doth against me that it was better for men to joyn with his Congregation than with the Church S. Augustine answers We do indeed approve among Hereticks Baptism but so not as it is the Baptism of Hereticks but as it is the Baptism of Christ. Just as we approve the Baptism of Adulterers Idolaters Witches and yet not as 't is theirs but as 't is Christs Baptism For none of these for all their Baptism shall inherit the Kingdom of God And the Apostle reckons Hereticks among them Galat. 5. And again afterwards It is not therefore yours saith Saint Augustine which we fear to destroy but Christs which even among the Sacrilegious is of and in it self holy Now you shall see how full this comes to our Petilianist A. C. for he is one of the Contractors of the Church of Christ to Rome as the Donatists confined it to Asrick And he cries out That a Possibility of Salvation is a free Confession of the Adversaries and is of force against them and to be thought extorted from them by force of Truth it self I answer I do indeed for my part leaving other men free to their own judgment acknowledge a Possibility of Salvation in the Roman Church But so as that which I grant to Romanists is not as they are Romanists but as they are Christians that is as they believe the Creed and hold the Foundation Christ himself not as they associate themselves wittingly and knowingly to the gross Superstitions of the Romish Church Nor do I fear to destroy quod ipsorum est that which is theirs but yet I dare not proceed so roughly as with theirs or for theirs to deny or weaken the Foundation which is Christs even among them and which is and remains holy even in the midst of their Superstitions And I am willing to hope there are many among them which keep within that Church and yet wish the Superstitions abolished which they know and which pray to God to forgive their errours in what they know not and which hold the Foundation firm and live accordingly and which would have all things amended that are amiss were it in their power And to such I dare not deny a Possibility of Salvation for that which is Christs in them though they hazzard themselves extremely by keeping so close to that which is Superstition and in the Case of Images comes too near Idolatry Nor can A. C. shift this off by adding living and dying in the Romane Church For this living and dying in the Romane Church as is before expressed cannot take away the Possibility of Salvation from them which believe and repent of whatsoever is errour or sin in them be it sin known to them or be it not But then perhaps A. C. will reply that if this be so I must then maintain that a Donatist also living and dying in Schism might be saved To which I answer two ways First that a plain honest Donatist having as is confessed true Baptism and holding the Foundation as for ought I know the Donatists did and repenting of what ever was sin in him and would have repented of the Schism had it been known to him might be saved Secondly that in this Particular the Romanist and the Donatist differ much And that therefore it is not of necessary consequence that if a Romanist now upon the Conditions before expressed may be saved Therefore a Donatist heretofore might For in regard of the Schism the Donatist was in one respect worse and in greater danger of damnation than the Romanist now is And in another respect better and in less danger The Donatist was in greater danger of damnation if you consider the Schism it self then for they brake from the Orthodox Church without any cause given them And here it doth follow if the Romanist have a Possibility of Salvation therefore a Donatist hath But if you consider the Cause of the Schism now then the Donatist was in less danger of Damnation than the Romanist is Because the Church of Rome gave the first and the greatest cause of the Schism as is proved before And therefore here it doth not follow That if a Donatist have possibility of Salvation Therefore a Romanist hath For a lesser Offender may have that possibility of safety which a greater hath not And last of all whereas A. C. adds that confessedly there is no such Peril That 's a most loud untruth and an Ingenuous man would never have said it For in the same place where I grant a possibility of Salvation in the Roman Church I presently add that it is no
edification of the Church Now if he do mean to prove the Pope's Infallibility by this place in his Pastoral Judgement Truly I do not see how this can possibly be collected thence Christ gave some to be Apostles for the Edification of his Church Therefore S. Peter and all his Successors are Infallible in their Pastoral Judgement And if he mean to prove the Continued Visible Succession which he saith is to be found in no Church but the Romane there 's a little more shew but to no more purpose A little more shew Because it is added Vers. 13. That the Apostles and Prophets c. shall continue at their work and that must needs be by Succession till we all meet in unity and perfection of Christ. But to no more purpose For 't is not said that they or their Successors should continue at this work in a personal uninterrupted Succession in any one Particular Church Romane or other Nor ever will A. C. be able to prove that such a Succession is necessary in any one particular place And if he could yet his own words tell us the Personal Succession is nothing if the Faith be not brought down without change from Christ and his Apostles to this day and so to the end of the world Now here 's a piece of Cunning too The Faith brought down unchanged For if A. C. mean by the Faith the Creed and that in Letter 't is true the Church of Rome hath received and brought down the Faith unchanged from Christ and his Apostles to these our days But then 't is apparently false That no Church differing from the Romane in Doctrine hath kept that Faith unchanged and that by a visible and continued Succession For the Greek Church differs from the Romane in Doctrine and yet hath so kept that Faith unchanged But if he mean by the Faith unchanged and yet brought down in a continual visible Succession not onely the Creed in Letter but in Sense too And not that onely but all the Doctrinal Points about the Faith which have been Determined in all such Councels as the present Church of Rome allows as most certainly he doth so mean and 't is the Controversie between us then 't is most certain and most apparent to any understanding man that reads Antiquity with an impartial eye that a Visible Continual Succession of Doctors and Pastors have not brought down the Faith in this sence from Christ and his Apostles to these days of ours in the Romane Church And that I might not be thought to say and not to prove I give instance And with this that if A. C. or any Jesuite can prove That by a Visible Continued Succession from Christ and his Apostles to this day either Transubstantiation in the Eucharist Or the Eucharist in one kinde Or Purgatory Or worship of Images Or the Intention of the Priest of necessity in Baptism Or the Power of the Pope over a General Councel Or his Infallibility with or without it Or his Power to depose Princes Or the publike Prayers of the Church in an unknown tongue with divers other Points have been so taught I for my part will give the Cause Beside for Succession in the general I shall say this 'T is a great happiness where it may be had Visible and Continued and a great Conquest over the Mutability of this present world But I do not finde any one of the Ancient Fathers that makes Local Personal Visible and Continued Succession a Necessary Signe or Mark of the true Church in any one place And where Vincentius Lirinensts calls for Antiquity Universality and Consent as great Notes of Truth he hath not one word of Succession And for that great place in Irenaeus where that Ancient Father reckons the Succession of the Bishops of Rome to Eleutherius who sate in his time and saith That this is a most full and ample proof or Ostension Vivificatricem Fidem that the Living and Life-giving Faith is from the Apostles to this day Conserved and delivered in Truth And of which place Bellarmine boasts so much Most manifest it is in the very same place that Irenaeus stood as much upon the Succession of the Churches then in Asia and of Smyrna though that no prime Apostolical Church where Polycarpus sate Bishop as of the Succession at Rome By which it is most manifest that it is not Personal Succession onely and that tyed to one Place that the Fathers meant but they taught that the Faith was delivered over by Succession in some places or other still to their present time And so doubtless shall be till Time be no more I say The Faith But not every Opinion true or false that in tract of time shall cleave to the Faith And to the Faith it self and all it's Fundamentals we can shew as good and full a Succession as you And we pretend no otherwise to it than you do save that We take in the Greeks which you do not Only we reject your gross Superstitions to which you can shew no Succession from the Apostles either at Rome or else-where much less any one uninterrupted And therefore he might have held his peace that says It is evident that the Roman Catholike Church only hath had a Constant and uninterrupted Succession of Pastors and Doctors and Tradition of Doctrine from Age to Age. For most evident it is That the Tradition of Doctrine hath received both Addition and Alteration since the first five hundred years in which Bellarmine confesses and B. Jewel maintains the Churches Doctrine was Apostolical Num. 8 And once more before I leave this Point Most evident it is That the Succession which the Fathers meant is not tyed to Place or Person but 't is tyed to the Verity of Doctrine For so Tertullian expresly Beside the order of Bishops running down in Succession from the beginning there is required Consanguinitas Doctrinae that the Doctrine be allyed in blood to that of Christ and his Apostles So that if the Doctrine be no kinnâ— to Christ all the Succession become strangers what nearness soever they pretend And Irenaeus speaks plainer than he We are to obey those Presbyters which together with the Succession of their Bishopricks have received Charisma Veritatis the gift of truth Now Stapleton being press'd hard with these two Authorities first Confesses expresly That Succession as it is a Note of the true Church is neither a Succession in place onely nor of Person onely but it must be of true and sound Doctrine also And had he stayed here no man could have said better But then he saw well he must quit his great Note of the Church-Succession That he durst not doe Therefore he begins to cast about how he may answer these Fathers and yet maintain Succession Secondly therefore he tells us That that which these Fathers say do nothing weaken Succession but that it shall still be a main Note of the true
Cyrillus and Ruffinus but he neither tells us where nor cites their words Yet I think I have found the most pregnant place in S. Cyril and that makes clearly against him For I finde expresly these three things First That the Church is Inexpugnable and that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against it but that it shall in perpetuum manere remain for ever And this all Protestants grant But this That it shall not fall away doth not secure it from all kinds of Errour Secondly Bellarmine quotes S. Cyril for the particular Roman Church and S. Cyril speaks not of the Roman at all but of the Church of Christ that is the Catholike Church Thirdly that the Foundation and firmness which the Church of Christ hath is placed not in or upon the Person much less the Successor of S. Peter but upon the Faith which by God's Spirit in him he so firmly professed which is the common received Opinion both of the Ancient Fathers and the Protestants Upon this Rock that is upon this Faith will I build my Church S. Matth. 16. So here 's all the good he hath gotten by S. Cyril unless he can cite some other place of S. Cyril which I believe he cannot Num. 12 And for Ruffinus the place which Bellarmine aims at is in his Exposition upon the Creed and is quoted in part the Chapter before But when all his words shall be laid together they will make no more for Bellarmine and his Cause then the former places have done Ruffinus his words then run thus Before I come to the words of the Creed this I think sit to warn you of that in divers Churches some things are found added to the words of the Creed But in the Church of the City of Rome this is not found done And as I think it is for that no Heresie did take its rise or beginning there And for that the Old Custom is there observed namely that they which are to receive the grace of Baptism do publickly repeat the Creed in the hearing of the people who would not admit such Additions But in other places as far as I can understand by reason of some Hereticks some things were added but such as were to exclude the sense of their Novel Doctrine Now these words make little for Bellarmine who cites them and much against Ruffinus that uttered them They make little for Bellarmine First because suppose Ruffinus his speech to be true yet this will never follow In Ruffinus his time no Heresie had taken its beginning at Rome therefore no Heresie hath had rooting there so many hundred years since Secondly Bellarmine takes upon him there to prove That the particular Church of Rome cannot Erre Now neither can this be concluded out of Ruffinus his words First because as I said before to argue from Non sumpsit to Ergo sumere non potest No Heresie hath yet begun there therefore none can begin there or spring thence is an Argument drawn ab Actu ad Potentiam negative from the Act to the Power of Being which every Novice in Learning can tell proceeds not Negatively And common reason tells every man 't is no consequence to say Such a thing is not or hath not been therefore it cannot be Secondly because though it were true that no Heresie at all did ever take its beginning at Rome yet that can never prove that the particular Church of Rome can never Erre which is the thing in Question For suppose that no Heresie did ever begin there yet if any that began elsewhere were admitted into that Church it is as full a proof that that Church can Erre as if the Heresie had been hatched in that Nest. For that Church erres which admits an Heresie in it as well as that which broaches it Now Ruffinus says no more of the Roman Church then non sumpsit exordium no Heresie took its beginning there but that denies not but that some Heretical Taint might get in there And 't is more then manifest that the most famous Heresies in their several times made their abode even at Rome And 't is observable too that Bellarmine cites no more of Ruffinus his words then these In Ecclesia Urbis Romae neque Haeresis ulla sumpsit exordium mos ibi servatur antiquus as if this were an entire speech whereas it comes in but as a Reason given of the speech precedent and as if Ruffinus made the Church of Rome the great Observer of the Customs of the Church whereas he speaks but of one particular Custom of reciting the Creed before Baptism But after all this I pray did no Heresie ever begin at Rome Where did Novatianism begin At Rome sure For Baronius Pamelius and Petavius do all dispute the point whether that Sect was denominated from Novatianus the Roman Priest or Novatus the African Bishop and they conclude for Novatian He then that gave that Name is in all right the Founder and Rome the Nest of that Heresie and there it continued with a Succession of Bishops from Cornelius to Caelestine which is near upon two hundred years Nay could Ruffinus himself be ignorant that some Heresie began at Rome No sure For in this I must challenge him either for his weak memory or his wilful errour For Ruffinus had not only read Eusebius his History but had been at the pains to translate him Now Eusebius says plainly that some Hereticks spread their venom in Asia some in Phrygia and others grew at Rome and Florinus was the Ring-leader of them And more clearly after Irenaeus saith he directed divers Epistles against this Florinus and his Fellow Blastus and condemns them of such Heresies as threw them and their Followers into great Impiety c. Those at Rome corrupting the sound Doctrine of the Church Therefore most manifest it is that some Heresie had its rise and beginning at Rome But to leave this slip of Ruffinus most evident it is that Ruffinus neither did nor could account the particular Church of Rome Infallible for if he had esteemed so of it he would not have dissented from it in so main a Point as is the Canon of the Scripture as he plainly doth For reckoning up the Canonical Books he most manifestly dissents from the Roman Church Therefore either Ruffinus did not think the Church of Rome was Infallible or else the Church of Rome at this day reckons up more Books within the Canon then heretofore she did If she do then she is changed in a main Point of Faith the Canon of Scripture and is absolutely convinced not to be Infallible for if she were right in her reckoning then she is wrong now and if she be right now she was wrong then and if she do not reckon more now then she did when Ruffinus lived then he reckons fewer then she and so dissents from her which doubtless he durst not have done had he thought her
Thomas holds the first and Durand the later Then you agree not Whether the Soul of Christ did descend really and in essence into the lowest Pit of Hell and place of the Damned as Bellarmine once held probable and proved it or really only into that place or Region of Hell which you call Limbum Patrum and then but vertually from thence into the Lower Hell to which Bellarmine reduces himself and gives his reason because it is the common Opinion of the School Now the Church of England takes the words as they are in the Creed and believes them without farther Dispute and in that sense which the ancient Primitive Fathers of the Church agreed in And yet if any in the Church of England should not be throughly resolved in the sense of this Article Is it not as lawful for them to say I conceive thus or thus of it yet if any other way of his Descent be found truer than this I deny it not but as yet I know no other as it was for Durand to say it and yet not impeach the Foundation of the Faith F. The Bishop said That M. Rogers was but a private man But said I if M. Rogers writing as he did by publike Authority be accounted onely a private man c. B. § 13 Num. 1 I said truth when I said M. Rogers was a private man And I take it you will not allow every speech of every 〈…〉 though allowed by Authority to have his Books Printed to be the Doctrine of the Church of Rome This hath been oft complained of on both sides The imposing particular mens assertions upon the Church yet I see you mean not to leave it And surely as Controversies are now handled by some of your party at this day I may not say it is the sense of the Article in hand But I have long thought it a kinde of descent into Hell to be conversant in them I would the Authors would take heed in time and not seek to blinde the People or cast a mist before evident Truth lest it cause a final descent to that place of Torment But since you will hold this course Stapleton was of greater note with you than M. Rogers his Exposition or Notes upon the Articles of the Church of England is with us And as he so his Relection And is it the Doctrine of the Church of Rome which Stapleton affirms The Scripture is silent that Christ descended into Hell and that there is a Catholike and an Apostolike Church If it be then what will become of the Pope's Supremacie over the whole Church Shall he have his power over the Catholike Church given him expresly in Scripture in the Keyes to enter and in Pasce to feed when he is in and when he had fed to Confirm and in all these not to erre and fail in his Ministration And is the Catholike Church in and over which he is to do all these great things quite left out of the Scripture Belike the Holy Ghost was careful to give him his power Yes in any case but left the assigning of his great Cure the Catholike Church to Tradition And it were well for him if he could so prescribe for what he now Claims Num. 2 But what if after all this M. Rogers there says no such thing As in truth he doth not His words are All Christians acknowledge He descended but in the interpretation of the Article there is not that consent that were to be wished What is this to the Church of England more than others And again Till we know the native and undoubted sense of this Article is M. Rogers We the Church of England or rather his and some others Judgment in the Church of England Num. 3 Now here A. C. will have somewhat again to say though God knows 't is to little purpose 'T is that the Jesuit urged M. Roger's Book because it was set out by Publike Authority And because the Book bears the Title of the Catholike Doctrine of the Church of England A. C. may undoubtedly urge M. Rogers if he please But he ought not to say that his Opinion is the Doctrine of the Church of England for neither of the Reasons by him expressed First not because his Book was publikely allowed For many Books among them as well as among us have been Printed by publike Authority as containing nothing in them contrary to Faith and good manners and yet containing many things in them of Opinion only or private Judgment which yet is far from the avowed Positive Doctrine of the Church the Church having as yet determined neither way by open Declaration upon the words or things controverted And this is more frequent among their School-men than among any of our Controversers as is well known Nor secondly because his Book bears the Title of the Catholike Doctrine of the Church of England For suppose the worst and say M. Rogers thought a little too well of his own pains and gave his Book too high a Title is his private Judgment therefore to be accounted the Catholike Doctrine of the Church of England Surely no No more than I should say every thing said by Thomas or Bonaventure is Angelical or Seraphical Doctrine because one of these is stiled in the Church of Rome Seraphical and the other Angetical Doctor And yet their works are Printed by Publike Authority and that Title given them Num. 4 Yea but our private Authors saith A. C. are not allowed for ought I know in such a like sort to express our Catholike Doctrine in any matter subject to Question Here are two Limitations which will go far to bring A. C. off whatsoever I shall say against him For first let me instance in any private man that takes as much upon him as M. Rogers doth he will say he know it not his Assertion here being no other then for ought he knows Secondly If he be unwilling to acknowledge so much yet he will answer 't is not just in such a like sort as M. Rogers doth it that is perhaps it is not the very Title of his Book But well then Is there never a Private man allowed in the Church of Rome to express your Catholike Doctrine in any matter subject to Question What Not in any matter Were not Vega and Soto two private men Is it not a matter subject to Question to great Question in these Days Whether a man may be certain of his being in the state of Salvation certitudine fidei by the certainty of Faith Doth not Bellarmine make it a Controversie And is it not a part of your Catholike Faith if it be determined in the Councel of Trent And yet these two great Fryers of their time Dominicus Soto and Andreas Vega were of contrary Opinions and both of them challenged the Decree of the Councel and so consequently your Catholike Faith to be as each of
them concluded and both of them wrote Books to maintain their Opinions and both of their Books were published by Authority And therefore I think 't is allowed in the Church of Rome to private men to express your Catholike Doctrine and in a matter subject to Question And therefore also if another man in the Church of England should be of a contrary Opinion to M. Rogers and declare it under the Title of the Catholike Doctrine of the Church of England this were no more than Soto and Vega did in the Church of Rome And I for my part cannot but wonder A. C. should not know it For he says that for ought he knows private men are not allowed so to express their Catholike Doctrine And in the same Question both Catharinus and Bellarmine take on them to express your Catholike Faith the one differing from the other almost as much as Soto and Vega and perhaps in some respect more F. But if M. Rogers be only a private man in what Book may we find the Protestants publike Doctrine The Bishop answered That to the Book of Articles they were all sworn B. § 14 Num. 1 What Was I so ignorant to say The Articles of the Church of England were the Publike Doctrine of all the Protestants Or that all the Protestants were sworn to the Articles of England as this speech seems to imply Sure I was not Was not the immediate speech before of the Church of England And how comes the Subject of the Speech to be varied in the next lines Nor yet speak I this as if other Protestants did not agree with the Church of England in the chiefest Doctrines and in the main Exceptions which they joyntly take against the Roman Church as appears by their several Confessions But if A. C. will say as he doth that because there was speech before of the Church of England the Jesuite understood me in a limited sense and meant only the Protestants of the English Church Be it so there 's no great harm done but this that the Jesuite offers to inclose me too much For I did not say that the Book of Articles only was the Continent of the Church of Englands publike Doctrine She is not so narrow nor hath she purpose to exclude any thing which she acknowledges hers nor doth she wittingly permit any Crossing of her publike Declarations yet she is not such a shrew to her Children as to deny her Blessing or Denounce an Anathema against them if some peaceably dissent in some Particulars remoter from the Foundation as your own School-men differ And if the Church of Rome since she grew to her greatness had not been so fierce in this Course and too particular in Determining too many things and making them matters of Necessary Belief which had gone for many hundreds of years before only for things of Pious Opinion Christendom I perswade my self had been in happier peace at this Day than I doubt we shall ever live to see it Num. 2 Well But A. C. will prove the Church of England a Shrew and such a Shrew For in her Book of Canons She excommunicates every man who shall hold any thing contrary to any part of the said Articles So A. C. But surely these are not the very words of the Canon nor perhaps the sense Not the Words for they are Whosoever shall affirm that the Articles are in any part superstitious or erronious c. And perhaps not the sense For it is one thing for a man to hold an Opinion privately within himself and another thing boldly and publikely to affirm it And again 't is one thing to hold contrary to some part of an Article which perhaps may be but in the manner of Expression and another thing positively to affirm that the Articles in any part of them are superstitious and erroneous But this is not the Main of the Business For though the Church of England Denounce Excommunication as is before expressed Yet she comes far short of the Church of Rome's severity whose Anathema's are not only for 39 Articles but for very many more above one hundred in matters of Doctrine and that in many Poynts as far remote from the Foundation though to the far greater Rack of mens Consciences they must be all made Fundamental if that Church have once Determined them whereas the Church of England never declared That every one of her Articles are Fundamental in the Faith For 't is one thing to say No one of them is superstitious or erroneous And quite another to say Every one of them is fundamental and that in every part of it to all mens Belief Besides the Church of England prescribes only to her own Children and by those Articles provides but for her own peaceable Consent in those Doctrines of Truth But the Church of Rome severely imposes her Doctrine upon the whole World under pain of Damnation F. And that the Scriptures only not any unwritten Tradition was the Foundation of their Faith B. § 15 Num. 1 The Church of England grounded her Positive Articles upon Scripture and her Negative do refute there where the thing affirmed by you is not affirmed by Scripture nor directly to be concluded out of it And here not the Church of England only but all Protestants agree most truly and most strongly in this That the Scripture is sufficient to salvation and contains in it all things necessary to it The Fathers are plain the School-men not strangers in it And have not we reason then to account it as it is The Foundation of our Faith And Stapleton himself though an angry Opposite confesses That the Scripture is in some sort the Foundation of Faith that is in the nature of Testimony and in the matter or thing to be believed And if the Scripture be the Foundation to which we are to go for witness if there be Doubt about the Faith and in which we are to find the thing that is to be believed as necessary in the Faith we never did nor never will refuse any Tradition that is Universal and Apostolike for the better Exposition of the Scripture nor any Definition of the Church in which she goes to the Scripture for what she teaches and thrusts nothing as Fundamental in the Faith upon the world but what the Scripture fundamentally makes materiam Credendorum the substance of that which is so to be believed whether immediately and expresly in words or more remotely where a clear and full Deduction draws it out Num. 2 Against the beginning of this Paragraph A. C. excepts And first he says 'T is true that the Church of England grounded her Positive Articles upon Scripture That is 't is true if themselves may be competent Judges in their own Cause But this by the leave of A. C. is true without making our selves Judges in our own Cause For that all the Positive Articles of the present Church of
truly that Being which it is in truth of Substance But this word Right is not so used but is referr'd more properly to perfection in Conditions And in this sense every thing that hath a true and real Being is not by and by Right in the Conditions of it A man that is most dishonest and unworthy the name a very Thief if you will is a True man in the verity of his Essence as he is a Creature endued with Reason for this none can steal from him nor he from himself but Death But he is not therefore a Right or an upright man And a Church that is exceeding corrupt both in Manners and Doctrine and so a dishonour to the Name is yet a True Church in the verity of Essence as a Church is a Company of men which profess the Faith of Christ and are Baptized into his Name But yet it is not therefore a Right Church either in Doctrine or Manners It may be you meant cunningly to slip in this word Right that I might at unawares grant it Orthodox But I was not so to be caught For I know well that Orthodox Christians are keepers of integrity and followers of right things so St. Augustine of which the Church of Rome at this day is neither In this sense then no Right that is no Orthodox Church at Rome Num. 3 And yet no News it is that I granted the Roman Church to be a True Church For so much very learned Protestants have acknowledged before me and the Truth cannot deny it For that Church which receives the Scripture as a Rule of Faith though but as á partial and imperfect Rule and both the Sà craments as Instrumental Causes and Seals of Grace though they add more and misuse these yet cannot but be a True Church in essence How it is in Manners and Doctrine I would you would look to it with a single eye For if Piety and a Peaceable mind be not joyned to a good understanding nothing can be known in these great things Num. 4 Here A. C. tells us That the Jesuite doth not say that the Lady asked this Question in this or any other precise form of words But saith the Jesuite is sure her desire was to know of me whether I would grant the Roman Church to be the right Church And how was the Jesuite sure the Lady desired to hear this from me Why A. C. tells us that too For he adds That the Jesuite had particularly spoken with her before and wished her to insist upon that Point Where you may see and 't is fit the Clergy of England should consider with what cunning Adversaries they have to deal who can find a way to prepare their Disciples and instruct them before-hand upon what Poynts to insist that so they may with more ease slide that into their hearts and consciences which should never come there And this once known I hope they will the better provide against it But A. C. goes on and tells us That certainly by my Answer the Ladies desire must needs be to hear from me not whether the Church of Rome were a right Church c. but whether I would grant that there is but one holy Catholike Church and whether the Roman Church that is not only that which is in the City or Diocess of Rome but all that agreed with it be not it About A Church and The Church I have said enough before and shall not repeat Nor is there any need I should For A. C. would have it The Church The One Holy Catholike Church But this cannot be granted take the Roman Church in what sense they please in City or Diocess or all that agree with it Yet howsoever before I leave this I must acquaint the Reader with a perfect Jesuitism In all the Primitive Times of the Church a Man or a Family or a National Church were accounted Right and Orthodox as they agreed with the Catholike Church But the Catholike was never then measured or judged by Man Family or Nation But now in the Jesuites new School The One Holy Catholike Church must be measured by that which is in the City or Diocess of Rome or of them which agreed with it and not Rome by the Catholike For so A. C. says expresly The Lady would know of me not whether that were the Catholike Church to which Rome agreed but whether that were not the Holy Cathotholike Church which agreed with Rome So upon the matter belike the Christian Faith was committed to the Custody of the Roman not of the Catholike Church and a man cannot agree with the Catholike Church of Christ in this new Doctrine of A. C. unless he agree with the Church of Rome but if he agree with that all 's safe and he is as Orthodox as he need be Num. 5 But A. C. is yet troubled about the form of the Ladies Question And he will not have it That she desired to know whether I would grant the Roman Church to be the Right Church Though these be her words according to the Jesuites own setting down but he thinks the Question was Whether the Church of Rome was not the Right Church Not Be not but was not Was not That is was not once or in time past the Right Church before Luther and others made a breach from it Why truly A. C. needed not have troubled himself half so much about this For let him take his Choice It shall be all one to me whether the Question were asked by Be oâ— by Was For the Church of Rome neither is nor waâ— the Right Church as the Lady desired to hear A Particular Church it is and was and in some times right and in some times wrong and then in some things right and in some things wrong But The Right Church or The Holy Catholike Church it never was nor ever can be And therefore was not such before Luther and Others either left it or were thrust from it A particular Church it was But then A. C. is not distinct enough here neither For the Church of Rome both was and was not a Right or Orthodox Church before Luther made a Breach from it For the word Anâ—e Before may look upon Rome and that Church a great way off or long before and then in the Prime times of it it was a most Right and Orthodox Church But it may look also nearer home and upon the immediate times before Luther or some Ages before that And then in those times Rome was a Corrupt and a tainted Church far from being Right And yet both these times Before Luther made his Breach So here A. C. should have been more distinct For the word Before includes the whole time before Luther in part of which time that Church of Rome was Right and in other part whereof it was wrong But A. C. adds yet That I suspected the Lady would iâ—ser if once that Church were Right what
free hearing is more than ever the English Catholikes could obtain though they have often offered and desired it and that but under the Princes word And that no Answer hath nor no good Answer can be given And he cites Campian for it How far or how often this hath been asked by the English Romanists I cannot tell nor what Answer hath been given them But surely Campian was too bold and so is A. C. too to say Honestum responsum nullum no good Answer can be given For this I think is a very good Answer That the Kings and the Church of England had no Reason to admit of a Publike Dispute with the English Romish Clergy till they shall be able to shew it under the Seal or Powers of Rome That that Church will submit to a Third who may be an Indifferent Judge between us and them or to such a General Councel as is after mentioned And this is an Honest and I think a full Answer And without this all Disputation must end in Clamour And therefore the more publike the worse Because as the Clamour is the greater so perhaps will be the Schism too F. Moreover he said he would ingenuously acknowledge That the Corruption of Manners in the Romish Church was not a sufficient Cause to justifie their Departing from it B. § 22 I would I could say you did as ingenously repeat as I did Confess For I never said That Corruption of Manners was or was not a sufficient Cause to justifie their Departure How could I say this since I did not grant that they did Depart otherwise than is before expressed There is difference between Departure and causless Thrusting from you For out of the Church is not in your Power God be thanked to thrust us Think on that And so much I said expresly then That which I did ingenuously confess was this That Corruption in Manners only is no sufficient Cause to make a Separation in the Church Nor is it It is a Truth agreed on by the Fathers and received by Divines of all sorts save by the Cathari to whom the Donatist and the Anabaptist after accorded And against whom Calvin disputes it strongly And S. Augustine is plain There are bad fish in the Net of the Lord from which there must be ever a Separation in heart and in manners but a corporal separation must be expected at the Sea-shore that is the end of the world And the best fish that are must not tear and break the Net because the bad are with them And this is as ingenuously Confessed for you as by me For if Corruption in Manners were a just Cause of Actual Separation of one Church from another in that Catholike Body of Christ the Church of Rome hath given as great cause as any since as Stapleton grants there is scaree any sin that can be thought by man Heresie only excepted with which that Sea hath not been foully stained especially from eight hundred years after Christ. And he need not except Heresie into which Biel grants it possible the Bishops of that Sea may fall And Stella and Almain grant it freely that some of them did fall and so ceased to be Heads of the Church and left Christ God be thanked at that time of his Vicars defection to look to his Cure himself F. But saith he beside Corruption of Manners there were also Errors in Doctrine B. § 23 This I spake indeed And can you prove that I spake not true in this But I added though here again you are pleased to omit it That some of the Errors of the Roman Church were dangerous to Salvation For it is not every light Error in Disputable Doctrine and Points of curious Speculation that can be a just Cause of Separation in that Admirable Body of Christ which is his Church or of one Member of it from another For he gave his Natural Body to be rent and torn upon the Cross that his Mystical Body might be One. And St. Augustine infers upon it That he is no way partaker of Divine Charity that is an enemy to this Unity Now what Errors in Doctrine may give just Cause of Separation in this Body or the Parts of it one from another were it never so easie to determine as I think it is most difficult I would not venture to set it down in particular lest in these times of Discord I might be thought to open a Door for Schism which surely I will never do unless it be to let it out But that there are Errors in Doctrine and some of them such as most manifestly endanger Salvation in the Church of Rome is evident to them that will not shut their Eyes The proof whereof runs through the Particular Points that are between us and so is too long for this Discourse Now here A. C. would fain have a Reason given him Why I did endeavour to shew what Cause the Protestants had to make that Rent or Division if I did not grant that they made it Why truly in this reasonable demand I will satisfie him I did it partly because I had granted in the general that Corruption in Manners was no sufficient cause of Separation of one Particular Church from another and therefore it lay upon me at least to Name in general what was and partly because he and his Party will needs have it so that we did make the Separation And therefore though I did not grant it yet amiss I thought it could not be to Declare by way of Supposition that if the Protestants did at first Separate from the Church of Rome they had reason so to do For A. C. himself confesses That Error in Doctrine of the Faith is a just Cause of Separation so just as that no Cause is just but that Now had I leasure to descend into Particulars or will to make the Rent in the Church wider 't is no hard matter to prove that the Church of Rome hath erred in the Doctrine of Faith and dangerously too And I doubt I shall afterwards descend to Particulars A. C. his Importunity forcing me to it F. Which when the General Church would not Reform it was lawful for Particular Churches to Reform themselves B. § 24 Num. 1 Is it then such a strange thing that a Particular Church may reform it self if the General will not I had thought and do so still That in Point of Reformation of either Manners or Doctrine it is lawful for the Church since Christ to do as the Church before Christ did and might do The Church before Christ consisted of Jews and Proselytes This Church came to have a Separation upon a most ungodly Policie of Jeroboam's so that it never pieced together again To a Common Councel to reform all they would not come Was it not lawful for Judah to reform her self when Israel would not joyn Sure it was or else the Prophet deceives me that
says expresly Though Israel transgress yet let not Judah sin And S. Hierome expounds it of this very particular sin of Heresie and Error in Religion Nor can you say that Israel from the time of the Separation was not a a Church for there were true Prophets in it Elias and Elizaeus and others and thousands that had not bowed knees to 〈◊〉 And there was Salvation for these which cannot be in the Ordinary way where there is no Church And God threatens to cast them away to wander among the Nations and be no Congregation no Church therefore he had not yet cast them away in Non Ecclesiam into No-Church And they are expresly called the People of the Lord in 〈◊〉 time and so continued long after Nor can you plead that Judan is your part and the Ten Tribes ours as some of you do for if that be true you must grant that the Multitude and greater number is ours and where then is Multitude your â—â—merous Note of the Church For the Ten Tribes were more than the two But you cannot plead it For certainly if any Calves be set up they are in Dan and in Bethel They are not ours Num. 2 Besides to reform what is amiss in Doctrine or Manners is as lawful for a Particular Church as it is to publish and promulgate any thing that is Catholike in either And your Question Quo Judice lies alike against both And yet I think it may be proved that the Church of Rome and that as a Particular Church did promulgate an Orthodox Truth which was not then Catholikely admitted in the Church namely The Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son If she erred in this Fact confess her Error if she erred not why may not another Particular Church do as she did A learned School-man of yours saith she may The Church of Rome needed not to call the Grecians to agree upon this Truth since the Authority of publishing it was in the Church of Rome especially since it is lawful for every particular Church to promulgate that which is Catholike Nor can you say he means Catholike as fore-determined by the Church in general for so this Point when Rome added Filioque to the Creed of a General Councel was not And how the Grecians were used in the after-Councel such as it was of Florence is not to trouble this Dispute But Catholike stands there for that which is so in the nature of it and Fundamentally Nor can you justly say That the Church of Rome did or might do this by the Pope's Authority over the Church For suppose he have that and that his Sentence be Infallible I say suppose both but I give neither yet neither his Authority nor his Infallibility can belong unto him as the particular Bishop of that Sâ—a but as the Ministerial Head of the whole Church And you are all so lodged in this that Bellarmine professes he can neither tell the year when nor the Pope under whom this Addition was made A Particular Church then if you judge it by the School of Rome or the Practice of Rome may publish any thing that is Catholike where the whole Church is silent and may therefore Reform any thing that is not Catholike where the whole Church is negligent or will not Num. 3 But you are as jealous of the honour of Rome as Capellus is who is angry with Baronius about certain Canons in the second Milevitane Councel and saith That he considered not of what consequence it was to grant to Particular Churches the Power of making Canons of Faith without consulting the Roman Sea which as he saith and you with him was never lawful nor ever done But suppose this were so my Speech was not Not consulting but in Case of Neglecting or Refusing Or when the difficulty of Time and Place or other Circumstances are such that a General Councel cannot be called or not convene For that the Roman Sea must be consulted with before any Reformation be made First most certain it is Capellus can never prove And secondly as certain that were it proved and practised we should have no Reformation For it would be long enough before the Church should be cured if that Sea alone should be her Physitian which in truth is her Disease Num. 4 Now if for all this you will say still that a Provincial Councel will not suffice but we should have born with Things till the time of a General Councel First 't is true a General Councel free and entire would have been the best Remedy and most able for a Gangrene that had spread so far and eaten so deep into Christianity But what Should we have suffered this Gangrene to endanger life and all rather than be cured in time by a Physitian of a weaker knowledge and a less able Hand Secondly We live to see since if we had stayed and expected a General Councel what manner of one we should have had if any For that at Trent was neither general nor free And for the Errors which Rome had contracted it confirmed them it cured them not And yet I much doubt whether ever that Councel such as it was would have been called if some Provincial and National Synods under Supreme and Regal Power had not first set upon this great work of Reformation Which I heartily wish had in all places been as Orderly and Happily pursued as the Work was right Christian and good in it self But humane frailty and the Heats and Distempers of men as well as the Cunning of the Devil would not suffer that For even in this sense also The wrath of man doth not accomplish the will of God S. James 1. But I have learned not to reject the Good which God hath wrought for any evil which men may fasten to it Num. 5 And yet if for all this you think 't is better for us to be blind than to open our own eyes let me tell you very Grave and Learned Men and of your own Party have taught me That when the Universal Church will not or for the Iniquities of the Times cannot obtain and settle a free general Councel 't is lawful nay sometimes necessary to Reform gross Abuses by a National or a Provincial For besides Alb. Magnus whom I quoted before Gerson the Learned and devout Chancellor of Paris tells us plainly That he will not deny but that the Church may be reformed by parts And that this is necessary and that to effect it Provincial Councels may suffice and in some things Diocesan And again Either you should reform all estates of the Church in a General Councel or command them to be reformed in Provincial Councels Now Gerson lived about two hundred years since But this Right of Provincial Synods that they might decree in Causes of Faith and in Cases of Reformation where Corruptions had crept into the Sacraments of Christ was practised much
that is the Scripture or if there be a jealousie or Doubt of the sense of the Scripture they must either both repair to the Exposition of the Primitive Church and submit to that or both call and submit to a General Councel which shall be lawfully called and fairly and freely held with indifferencie to all parties And that must judge the Difference according to Scripture which must be their Rule as well as Private Mens Num. 2 And here after some lowd Cry against the Pride and Insolent madness of the Protestants A. C. adds That the Church of Rome is the Principal and Mother-Church And that therefore though it be against common equity that Subjects and Children should be Accusers Witnesses Judges and Executioners against their Prince and Mother in any case yet it is not absurd that in some cases the Prince or Mother may Accuse Witness Judge and if need be execute Justice against unjust and rebellious Subjects or evil Children How far forth Rome is a Prince over the whole Church or a Mother of it will come to be shewed at after In the mean time though I cannot grant her to be either yet let 's suppose her to be both that A. C's Argument may have all the strength it can have Nor shall it force me as plausible as it seems to weaken the just power of Princes over their Subjects or of Mothers over their Children to avoid the shock of this Argument For though A. C. may tell us 't is not absurd in some Cases yet I would fain have him name any one Moderate Prince that ever thought it just or took it upon him to be Accuser and Witness and Judge in any Cause of moment against his Subjects but that the Law had Liberty to Judge between them For the great Philosopher tells us That the Chief Magistrate is Custos juris the Guardian and keeper of the Law and if of the Law then both of that equity and equality which is due unto them that are under him And even Tiberius himself in the Cause of Silanus when Dolabella would have flatter'd him into more power than in wisdom he thought fit then to take to himself he put him off thus No the Laws grow less where such Power enlarges Nor is absolute Power to be used where there may be an orderly proceeding by Law And for Parents 't is true when Children are young they may chastise them without other Accuser or Witness than themselves and yet the children are to give them reverence And 't is presumed that natural affection will prevail so far with them that they will not punish them too much For all experience tells us almost to the loss of Education they punish them too little even when there is cause Yet when Children are grown up and come to some full use of their own Reason the Apostles Rule is Colos. 3. Parents provoke not your Children And if the Apostle prevail not with froward Parents there 's a Magistrate and a Law to relieve even a son against unnatural Parents as it was in the Case of T. Manlius against his over-Imperious Father And an express Law there was among the Jews Deut. 21. when Children were grown up and fell into great extremities that the Parents should then bring them to the Magistrate and not be too busie in such cases with their own Power So suppose Rome be a Prince yet her Subjects must be tryed by Gods Law the Scripture and suppose her a Mother yet there is or ought to be Remedy against her for her Children that are grown up if she forget all good Nature and turn Stepdame to them Num. 3 Well the Reason why the Jesuite asked the Question Quo Judice Who should be Judge He says was this Because there 's no equity in it that the Protestants should be Judges in their own Cause But now upon more Deliberation A. C. tells us as if he knew the Jesuites mind as well as himself as sure I think he doth That the Jesuite directed this Question chiefly against that speech of mine That there were Errors in Doctrine of Faith and that in the General Church as the Jesuite understood my meaning The Jesuite here took my meaning right For I confess I said there were Errors in Doctrine and dangerous ones too in the Church of Rome I said likewise that when the General Church could not or would not Reform such it was lawful for Particular Churches to Reform themselves But then I added That the General Church not universally taken but in these Western parts fell into those Errors being swayed in these later Ages by the predominant Power of the Church of Rome under whose Government it was for the most part forced And all men of understanding know how oft and how easily an Over-potent Member carries the whole with it in any Body Natural Politick or Ecclesiastical Num. 4 Yea but A. C. tells us That never any Competent Judge did so censure the Church And indeed that no Power on Earth or in Hell it self can so far prevail against the General Church as to make it Erre generally in any one Point of Divine Truth and much less to teach any thing by its full Authority to be a Matter of Faith which is contrary to Divine Truth expressed or involved in Scriptures rightly understood And that therefore no Reformation of Faith can be needful in the General Church but only in Particular Churches And for proof of this he cites S. Mat. 16. and 28. S. Luk. 22. S. John 14. and 16. In this troublesome and quarrelling Age I am most unwilling to meddle with the Erring of the Church in general The Church of England is content to pass that over And though She tells us That the Church of Rome hath Erred even in matters of Faith yet of the Erring of the Church in general She is modestly silent But since A. C. will needs have it That the whole Church did never generally Erre in any one Point of Faith he should do well to Distinguish before he be so peremptory For if he mean no more than that the whole Universal Church of Christ cannot universally Erre in any one Point of Faith simply necessary to all mens salvation he fights against no Adversary that I know but his own fiction For the most Lear ned Protestants grant it But if he mean that the whole Church cannot Erre in any one Point of Divine Truth in general which though by sundry Consequences deduced from the Principles is yet made a Point of Faith and may prove dangerous to the Salvation of some which believe it and practise after it as his words seem to import especially if in these the Church shall presume to determine without her proper Guide the Scripture as Bellarm. says She may and yet not Erre Then perhaps it may be said and without any wrong to the Catholike Church that the Whole Militant Church hath
of the Primitive Church The Text there is A Patriarchâ non datur Appellatio From a Patriarch there lies no Appeal No Appeal Therefore every Patriarch was alike Supreme in his own Patriarchate Therefore the Pope then had no Supremacie over the whole Church Therefore certainly not then received as Universal Pastor And S. Gregory himself speaking of Appeals and expresly citing the Laws themselves says plainly That the Patriarch is to put a final end to those Causes which come before him by Appeal from Bishops and Archbishops but then he adds That where there is nor Metropolitan nor Patriarch of that Diocess there they are to have recourse to the Sea Apostolike as being the Head of all Churches Where first this implies plainly That if there be a Metropolitan or a Patriarch in those Churches his Judgment is final and there ought to be no Appeal to Rome Secondly 'T is as plain That in those Ancient times of the Church-Government Britain was never subject to the Sea of Rome For it was one of the Six Diocesses of the West Empire and had a Primate of its own Nay John Capgrave one of your own and Learned for those times and long before him William of Malmesbury tell us that Pope Urban the second at the Councel held at Barâ— in Apulia accounted my Worthy Predecessor S. Anselm as his own Compeer and said he was as the Apostolike and Patriarch of the other world So he then termed this Island Now the Britains having a Primate of their own which is greater than a Metropolitan yea a Patriarch if you will He could not be Appealed from to Rome by S. Gregorie's own Doctrine Thirdly it will be hard for any man to prove there were any Churches then in the World which were not under some either Patriarch or Metropolitane Fourthly if any such were 't is gratis dictum and impossible to be proved that all such Churches where ever seated in the world were obliged to depend on Rome For manifest it is that the Bishops which were Ordained in places without the Limits of the Roman Empire which places they commonly called Barbarous were all to be Ordained and therefore most probable to be governed by the Patriarch of Constantinople And for Rome's being the Head of all Churches I have said enough to that in divers parts of this Discourse Num. 11 And since I am thus fallen upon the Church of Africk I shall borrow another reason from the Practice of that Church why by Principatus S. Augustine neither did nor could mean any Principality of the Church or Bishop of Rome over the Whole Church of Christ. For as the Acts of Councels and Stories go the African Prelates finding that all succeeding Popes were not of Melciades his temper set themselves to assert their own Liberties and held it out stoutly against Zozimus Boniface the first and Coelestine the first who were successively Popes of Rome At last it was concluded in the sixth Councel of Carthage wherein were assembled two hundred and seventeen Bishops of which S. Augustine himself was one that they would not give way to such a manifest incroachment upon their Rights and Liberties and thereupon gave present notice to Pope Coelestine to forbear sending his Officers amongst them lest he should seem to induce the swelling pride of the world into the Church of Christ. And this is said to have amounted into a formal Separation from the Church of Rome and to have continued for the space of somewhat more than one hundred years Now that such a Separation there was of the African Church from Rome and a Reconciliation after stands upon the Credit and Authority of two publike Instruments extant both among the Ancient Councels The one is an Epistle from Boniface the Second in whose time the Reconciliation to Rome is said to be made by Eulalius then Bishop of Carthage but the Separation instiganâ—e Diabolo by the Temptation of the Devil The other is an Exemplar Precum or Copy of the Petition of the same Eulalius in which he damns and curses all those his Predecessors which went against the Church of Rome Amongst which Eulalius must needs Curse S. Augustine And Pope Boniface accepting this Submission must acknowledge that S. Augustine and the rest of that Councel deserved this Curse and dyed under it as violating Rectae Fidei Regulam the Rule of the Right Faith so the Exemplar Precum begins by refusing the Popes Authority I will not deny but that there are divers Reasons given by the Learned Romanists and Reformed Writers for and against the Truth and Authority of both these Instruments But because this is too long to be examin'd here I will say but this and then make my use of it to my present purpose giving the Church of Rome free leave to acknowledge these Instruments to be true or false as they please That which I shall say is this These Instruments are let stand in all Editions of the Councels and Epistles Decretal As for Example in the Old Edition by Isidor Anno 1524. And in another Old Edition of them Printed Anno 1530. And in that which was published by P. Crabbe Anno 1538. And in the Edition of Valentinus Joverius Anno 1555. And in that by Surius Anno 1567. And in the Edition at Venice by Nicolinus Anno 1585. And in all of these without any Note or Censure upon them And they are in the Edition of Binius too Anno 1618. but there 's a Censure upon them to keep a quarter it may be with Baronius who was the first I think that ever quarrelled them and he doth it tartly And since Bellarmine follows the same way but more doubtfully This is that which I had to say And the Use which I shall make of these Instruments whether they be true or false is this They are either true or false that is of necessity If they be false then Boniface the Second and his Accomplices at Rome or some for them are notorious Forgers and that of Records of great Consequence concerning the Government and Peace of the whole Church of Christ and to the perpetual Infamy of that Sea and all this foolishly and to no purpose For if there were no such Separation as these Records mention of the African Churches from the Roman to what end should Boniface or any other counterfeit an Epistle of his own and a Submission of Eulalius On the other side if these Instruments be true as the sixth Councel of Carthage against all other Arguments makes me incline to believe they are in Substance at least though perhaps not in all Circumstances then 't is manifest that the Church of Africk separated from the Church of Rome That this Separation continued above one hundred years That the Church of Africk made this Separation in a National Councel of their own which had in it two hundred and seventeen Bishops That this Separation was made
of all doubt For if there be reason of doubting the one there 's as much reason of doubting the other since they stand both on the same foot The Validity of Christ's Prayer for Saint Peter Num. 17 Yea but Christ charged S. Peter to govern and feed his whole stock S. John 21. Nay soft T is but his Sheep and his Lambs and that every Apostle and every Apostles Successor hath charge to do S. Matth. 28. But over the whole Flock I find no one Apostle or Successor set And 't is a poor shift to say as A. C. doth That the Bishop of Rome is set over the whole Flock because both over Lambs and Sheep For in every Flock that is not of barren Weathers there are Lambs and Sheep that is weaker and stronger Christians not People and Pastors Subjects and Governors as A. C. expounds it to bring the Necks of Princes under Roman Pride And if Kings be meant yet then the command is Pasce feed them But Deponere or Occidere to depose or kill them is not Pascere in any sense Lanii id est non Pastoris that 's the Butchers not the Shepherds part If a a Sheep go astray never so far 't is not the Shepherds part to kill him at least if he do non pascit dum oâ—cidit he doth not certainly feed while he kills Num. 18 And for the Close That the Bishop of Rome shall never refuse to feed and govern the whole stock in such sort as that neither particular Man nor Church shall have just cause under pretence of Reformation in Manners or Faith to make a Separation from the whole Church By A. C's favour this is meer begging of the Question He says the Pope shall ever govern the whole Whole Church so as that there shall be no just Cause given of a Separation And that is the very Thing which the Protestants charge upon him Namely that he hath governed if not the Whole yet so much of the Church as he hath been able to bring under his Power so as that he hath given too just Cause of the present continued separation And as the Corruptions in the Doctrine of Faith in the Church of Rome were the Cause of the first Separation so are they at this present day the Cause why the separation continues And farther I for my part am clear of Opinion that the Errors in the Doctrine of Faith which are charged upon the whole Church at least so much of the whole as in these parts of Europe hath been kept under the Roman Jurisdiction have had their Original and Continuance from this that so much of the Universal Church which indeed they account All hath forgotten her own Liberty and submitted to the Roman Church and Bishop and so is in a manner forced to embrace all the Corruptions which the Particular Church of Rome hath contracted upon it self And being now not able to free her self from the Roman Jurisdiction is made to continue also in all her Corruptions And for the Protestants they have made no separation from the General Church properly so called for therein A. C. said well the Popes Administration can give no Cause to separate from that but their Separation is only from the Church of Rome and such other Churches as by adhering to her have hazarded themselves and do now miscal themselves the Whole Catholike Church Nay even here the Protestants have not left the Church of Rome in her Essence but in her Errors not in the Things which Constitute a Church but only in such Abuses and Corruptions as work toward the Dissolution of a Church F. I also asked who ought to judge in this Case The B. said a General Councel B. § 26 Num. 1 And surely What greater or surer Judgment you can have where sense of Scripture is doubted than a General Councel I do not see Nor do you doubt And A. C. grants it to be a most Competent Judge of all Controversies of Faith so that all Pastors be gathered together and in the Name of Christ and pray unanimously for the promised assistance of the Holy Ghost and make great and diligent search and examination of the Scriptures and other Grounds of Faith And then Decree what is to be held for Divine Truth For then saith he 't is Firm and Infallible or else there is nothing firm upon earth As fair as this Passage seems and as freely as I have granted that a General Councel is the best Judge on Earth where the sense of Scripture is doubted yet even in this passage there are some things Considerable As first when shall the Church hope for such a General Councel in which all Pastors shall be gathered together there was never any such General Councel yet nor do I believe such can be had So that 's supposed in vain and you might have learn'd this of Bellarmine if you will not believe me Next saith he If all these Pastors pray unanimously for the promised Assistance of the Holy Ghost Why but if all Pastors cannot meet together all cannot pray together nor all search the Scriptures together nor all upon that Search Decree together So that is supposed in vain too Yea but Thirdly If all that meet do pray unanimously What then All that meet are not simply All. Nor doth the Holy Ghost come and give his Assistance upon every Prayer that is made unanimously though by very many Prelates or other Faithful People met together unless all other Requisites as well as Unanimity to make their prayer to be heard and granted be observed by them So that an Unanimous Prayer is not adequately supposed and therefore Concludes not But lastly how far a General Councel if all A. C's Conditions be observed is firm and Infallible that shall be more fully discussed at after In the mean time these two words Firm and Infallible are ill put together as Synonima's For there are some things most Infallible in themselves which yet could never get to be made firm among men And there are many things made firm by Law both in Churches and Kingdoms which yet are not Infallible in themselves So to draw all together to settle Controversies in the Church here is a Visible Judge and Infallible but not living And that is the Scripture pronouncing by the Church And there is a visible and a Living Judge but not Infallible and that is a General Councel lawfully called and so proceeding But I know no formal Confirmation of it needful though A. C. require it but only that after it is ended the Whole Church admit it be it never so tacitely Num. 2 In the next Place A. C. interposes new matter quite out of the Conference And first in case of Distractions and Disunion in the Church he would know what is to be done to Re-unite when a General Councel which is acknowledged a fit Judge cannot be had by reason of manifold impediments Or
Argument thus Neither the Church nor any Member of the Church can know that this Pope which now sits or any other that hath been or shall be is Infallible For he is not Infallible unless he be Pope and he is not Pope unless he be in Holy Orders And he cannot be so unless he have received those Holy Orders and that from one that had Power to Ordain And those Holy Orders in your Doctrine are a Sacrament And a Sacrament is not perfectly given if he that Administers it have not intentionem faciendi quod facit Ecclesia an intention to do that which the Church doth by Sacraments Now who can possibly tell that the Bishop which gave the Pope Orders was first a man qualified to give them and secondly so devoutly set upon his Work that he had at the instant of giving them an Intention and purpose to do therein as the Church doth Surely none but that Bishop himself And his testimony of himself and his own Act such especially as if faulty he would be loth to Confess can neither give Knowledge nor Belief sufficient that the Pope according to this Canon is in Holy Orders So upon the Whole matter let the Romanists take which they will I will give them free Choice either this Canon of the Councel of Trent is false Divinity and there is no such Intention necessary to the Essence and Being of a Sacrament Or if it be true it is impossible for any man to know and for any advised man to Believe That the Pope is Infallible in his Judicial Sentences in things belonging to the Faith And so here again a General Councel at least such a one as that of Trent is can Erre or the Pope is not Infallible Num. 12 But this is an Argument ad Hominem good against your Party onely which maintain this Councel But the plain Truth is Both are Errours For neither is the Bishop of Rome Infallible in his Judicials about the Faith Nor is this Intention of either Bishop or Priest of Absolute Necessity to the Essence of a Sacrament so as to make void the gracious Institution of Christ in case by any Tentation the Priests Thoughts should wander from his Work at the instant of using the Essentials of a Sacrament or have in him an Actual Intention to scorn the Church And you may remember if you please that a Neapolitan Bishop then present at Trent disputed this Case very Learnedly and made it most evident that this Opinion cannot be defended but that it must open a way for any unworthy Priest to make infinite Nullities in Administration of the Sacraments And his Arguments were of such strength ut caeteros Theologos dederint in stuporem as amazed the other Divines which were present And concluded That no Internal Intention was required in the Minister of a Sacrament but that Intention which did appear Opere externo in the Work it self performed by him And that if he had unworthily any wandring thoughts nay more any contrary Intention within him yet it neither did nor could hinder the blessed effect of any Sacrament And most certain it is if this be not true besides all other Inconveniences which are many no man can secure himself upon any Doubt or trouble in his Conscience that he hath truly and really been made partaker of any Sacrament whatsoever No not of Baptism and so by Consequence be left in doubt whether he be a Christian or no even after he is Baptized Whereas 't is most impossible That Christ should so order his Sacraments and so leave them to his Church as that poor Believers in his Name by any unworthiness of any of his Priests should not be able to know whether they have received His Sacraments or not even while they have received them And yet for all this such great lovers of Truth and such careful Pastors over the Flock of Christ were these Trent-Fathers that they regarded none of this but went on in the usual track and made their Decree for the Internal Intention and purpose of the Priest and that the Sacrament was invalid without it Num. 13 Nay one Argument more there is and from your own Grounds too that makes it more than manifest That the Pope can erre not Personally onely but Judicially also and so teach false Doctrine to the Church which Bellarmine tells us No Pope hath done or can do And a Maxime it is with you That a General Councel can erre if it be confirmed by the Pope But if it be confirmed then it cannot erre Where first this is very improper Language For I hope no Councel is confirmed till it be finished And when 't is finished even before the Popes confirmation be put to it either it hath Erred or not Erred If it have Erred the Pope ought not to confirm it and if he do 't is a void act For no power can make Falshood Truth If it have not Erred then it was True before the Pope confirmed it So his Confirmation addes nothing but his own Assent Therefore his confirmation of a General Councel as you will needs call it is at the most Signum non Causa a Signe and that such as may fail but no Cause of the Councels not Erring But then secondly if a General Councel Confirmed as you would have it by the Pope have Erred and so can Erre then certainly the Pope can Erre Judicially For he never gives a more solemn Sentence for Truth than when he decrees any thing in a General Councel Therefore if he have Erred and can Erre there then certainly he can Erre in his Definitive Sentence about the Faith and is not Infallible Now that he hath Erred and therefore can Erre in a General Councel confirmed in which he takes upon him to teach all Christendom is most clear and evident For the Pope teaches in and by the Councel of Lateran Confirmed by Innocent the third Christ is present in the Sacrament by way of Transubstantiation And in and by the Councel of Constance the Administration of the Blessed Sacrament to the Laity in one kinde notwithstanding Christs Institution of it in both kindes for all And in and by the Councel of Trent Invocation of Saints and Adoration of Images to the great Scandal of Christianity and as great hazard of the Weak Now that these Particulars among Many are Errours in Divinity and about the Faith is manifest both by Scripture the Judgement of the Primitive Church For Transubstantiation first That never was heard of in the Primitive Church nor till the Councel of Lateran nor can it be proved out of Scripture and taken properly cannot stand with the Grounds of Christian Religion As for Communion in one kinde Christs Institution is clear against that And not onely the Primitive Church but the Whole Church of Christ kept it so till within less than four hundred years For Aquinas confesses it was so in use even to
Calvinists if they might be rightly understood they also maintain a most true and Real presence though they cannot permit their Judgement to be Transubstantiated And they are Protestants too And this is so known a Truth that ‖ Bellarmine confesses it For he saith Protestants do often grant that the true and real Body of Christ is in the Eucharist But he addes That they never say so far as he hath read That it is there Truely and Really unless they speak of the Supper which shall be in Heaven Well first if they grant that the true and Real Body of Christ is in that Blessed Sacrament as Bellarmine confesses they do and 't is most true then A. C. is false who charges all the Protestants with denyal or doubtfulness in this Point And secondly Bellarmine himself also shews here his Ignorance or his Malice Ignorance if he knew it not Malice if he would not know it For the Calvinists at least they which follow Calvin himself do not onely believe that the true and real Body of Christ is received in the Eucharist but that it is there and that we partake of it verè realitèr which are Calvins own words and yet Bellarmine boldly affirms that to his reading no one Protestant did ever affirm it And I for my part cannot believe but Bellarmine had read Calvin and very carefully he doth so frequently and so mainly Oppose him Nor can that Place by any Art be shifted or by any Violence wrested from Calvin's true meaning of the Presence of Christ in and at the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist to any Supper in Heaven whatsoever But most manifest it is that Quod legerim for ought I have read will not serve Bellarmine to excuse him For he himself but in the very Chapter going before quotes four Places out of Calvin in which he says expresly That we receive in the Sacrament the Body and the Bloud of Christ Verè truly So Calvin says it four times and Bellarmine quotes the places and yet he says in the very next Chapter That never any Protestant said so to his Reading And for the Church of England nothing is more plain than that it believes and teaches the true and Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist unless A. C. can make a Body no Body and Bloud no Bloud as perhaps he can by Transubstantiation as well as Bread no Bread and Wine no Wine And the Church of England is Protestant too So Protestants of all sorts maintain a true and Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and then where 's any known or damnable Heresie here As for the Learned of those zealous men that died in this Cause in Q. Maries days they denied not the Real presence simply taken but as their Opposites forced Transubstantiation upon them as if that and the Real presence had been all one Whereas all the Ancient Christians ever believed the one and none but Modern and Superstitious Christians believe the other if they do believe it for I for my part doubt they do not And as for the Unlearned in those times and all times their zeal they holding the Foundation may eat out their Ignorances and leave them safe Now that the Learned Protestants in Queen Mary's days did not deny nay did maintain the Real presence will manifestly appear For when the Commissioners obtruded to Jo. Frith the Presence of Christ's natural Body in the Sacrament and that without all figure or similitude Jo. Frith acknowledges That the inward man doth as verily receive Christ's Body as the outward man receives the Sacrament with his Mouth And he addes That neither side ought to make it a necessary Article of Faith but leave it indifferent Nay Archbishop Cranmer comes more plainly and more home to it than Frith For if you understand saith he by this word really Reipsa that is in very deed and effectually so Christ by the grace and efficacie of his Passion is indeed and truly present c. But if by this word Really you understand Corporalitèr Corporally in his natural and Organical Body under the Forms of Bread and Wine 't is contrary to the Holy Word of God And so likewise Bishop Ridley Nay Bishop Ridley addes yet farther and speaks so fully to this Point as I think no man can adde to his Expression And 't is well if some Protestants except not against it Both you and I faith he agree in this That in the Sacrament is the very true and natural Body and Bloud of Christ even that which was born of the Virgin Mary which ascended into heaven which sits on the right hand of God the Father which shall come from thence to judge the quick and the dead Onely we differ in modo in the way and manner of being We confess all one thing to be in the Sacrament and dissent in the Manner of Being there I confess Christs natural Body to be in the Sacrament by Spirit and Grace c. You make a grosser kinde of Being inclosing a natural Body under the shape and form of Bread and Wine So far and more Bishop Ridley And Archbishop Cranmer confesses That he was indeed of another Opinion and inclining to that of Zuinglius till Bishop Ridley convinced his Judgement setled him in this Point And for Calvin he comes no whit short of these against the Calumny of the Romanists on that behalf Now after all this with what face can A. C. say as he doth That Protestants deny or doubt of the true and Real presence of Christ in the Sacrament I cannot well tell or am unwilling to utter Fifthly whereas 't is added by A. C. That in this present case there is no peril of any damnable Heresie Schisme or any other Sin in resolving to live and die in the Roman Church That 's not so neither For he that lives in the Roman Church with such a Resolution is presumed to believe as that Church believes And he that doth so I will not say is as guilty but guilty 〈…〉 is more or less of the Schism which that Church first caused by her Corruptions and now continues by them and her power together And of all her Damnable Opinions too in point of Misbelief though perhaps A. C. will not have them called Heresies unless they have been condemned in some General Councel And of all other sins also which the Doctrine and Misbelief of that Church leads him into And mark it I pray For 't is one thing to live in a Schismatical Church and not Communicate with it in the Schism or in any false Worship that attends it For so Elias lived among the Ten Tribes and was not Schismatical 3 Reg. 17. And after him Elizaeus 4 Reg. 3. But then neither of them either countenanced the Schism or worshipped the Calves in Dan or in Bethel And so also beside these Prophets did those Thousands live in
him in both all the rest of his life for this blessing thus bestowed on him Now thus far these dissenting Churches agree that in the Eucharist there is a Sacrifice of Duty and a Sacrifice of Praise and a Sacrifice of Commemoration of Christ. Therefore according to the former Rule and here in truth too 't is safest for a man to believe the Commemorative the the Praising and the Performing Sacrifice and to offer them duely to God and leave the Church of Rome in this Particular to her Superstitions that I may say no more And would the Church of Rome stand to A. C's Rule and believe dissenting Parties where they agree were it but in this and that before of the Real presence it would work far toward the Peace of Christendom But the Truth is They pretend the Peace of Christendom but care no more for it than as it may uphold at least if not increase their own Greatness My fourth Instance shall be in the Sacrament of Baptism and the things required as necessary to make it effectual to the Receiver They in the common received Doctrine of the Church of Rome are three The Matter the Form and the Intention of the Priest to do that which the Church doth and intends he should do Now all other Divines as well ancient as modern and both the dissenting Churches also agree in the two former but many deny that the Intention of the Priest is necessary Will A. C. hold his Rule That 't is safest to believe in a controverted Point of Faith that which the dissenting Parties agree on or which the Adverse Part Confesses If he will not then why should he press that as a Rule to direct others which he will not be guided by himself And if he will then he must go professedly against the Councel of Trent which hath determined it as deside as a Point of Faith that the Intention of the Priest is necessary to make the Baptism true and valid Though in the History of that Councel 't is most apparent the Bishops and other Divines there could not tell what to answer to the Bishop of Minors a Neapolitane who declared his Judgement openly against it in the face of that Councel My fifth Instance is We say and can easily prove there are divers Errours and some gross ones in the Roman Missal But I my self have heard some Jesuites confess that in the Liturgie of the Church of England there 's no positive Errour And being pressed why then they refused to come to our Churches and serve God with us They answered they could not do it Because though our Liturgie had in it nothing ill yet it wanted a great deal of that which was good and was in their Service Now here let A. C. consider again Here is a plain Concession of the adverse Part And both agree there 's nothing in our Service but that which is holy and good What will the Jesuite or A. C. say to this If he forsake his ground then it is not safest in point of Divine Worship to joyn in Faith as the dissenting Parties agree or to stand to the Adversaries own Confession If he be so hardy as to maintain it then the English Liturgy is better and safer to worship God by than the Roman Mass. Which yet I presume A. C. will not confess Num. 8 In all these Instances the Matter so falling out of it self for the Argument enforces it not the thing is true but not therefore true because the dissenting Parties agree in it or because the adverse Part Confesses it Yet lest the Jesuite or A. C. for him farther to deceive the weak should infer that this Rule in so many Instances is true and false in none but that one concerning Baptism among the Donatists and therefore the Argument is true ut plerumque as for the most and that therefore 't is the safest way to believe that which dissenting Parties agree on I will lay down some other Particulars of as great Consequence as any can be in or about Christian Religion And if in them A. C. or any Jesuite dare say that 't is safest to believe as the dissenting Parties agree or as the adverse Party confesses I dare say he shall be an Heretick in the highest degree if not an Insidel And First where the Question was betwixt the Orthodox and the Arrian whether the Son of God were consubstantial with the Father The Orthodox said he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same substance The Arrian came within in a Letter of the Truth and said he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of like substance Now he that says he is of the same substance confesses he is of like substance and more that is Identity of Substance for Identity contains in it all Degrees of likeness and more But he that acknowledges and believes that He is of like nature and no more denies the Identity Therefore if this Rule be true That it is safest to believe that in which the dissenting Parties agree or which the Adverse Part Confesses which A. C. makes such great vaunt of then 't is safest for a Christian to believe that Christ is of like nature with God the Father and be free from Belief that He is Consubstantial with him which yet is Concluded by the Councel of Nice as necessary to Salvation and the Contrary Condemned for Damnable Heresie Secondly in the Question about the Resurrection between the Orthodox and diverse â—ross Hereticks of old and the Anabaptists and Libertines of late For all or most of these dissenting Parties agree that there ought to be a Resurrection from sin to a state of Grace and that this Resurrection only is meant in divers Passages of holy Scripture together with the Life of the Soul which they are content to say is Immortal But they utterly deny any Resurrection of the Body after Death So with them that Article of the Creed is gone Now then if any man will guide his Faith by this Rule of A. C. The Consent of dissenting Parties or the Confession of the Adverse Part he must deny the Resurrection of the Body from the Grave to Glory and believe none but that of the Soul from sin to Grace which the Adversaries Confess and in which the Dissenting Parties agree Thirdly in the great Dispute of all others about the Unity of the Godhead All dissenting Parties Jew Turk and Christian Among Christians Orthodox and Anti-Trinitarian of old And in these later times Orthodox and Socinian that Horrid and mighty Monster of all Heresies agree in this That there is but one God And I hope it is as necessary to believe one God our Father as one Church our Mother Now will A. C. say here 't is safest believing as the dissenting Parties agree or as the Adverse Parties Confess namely That there is but one God and so deny the Trinity and therewith the Son of God the Saviour of
of the principal Contents A AFricanes their opposing the Romane Church and separating from it 112. c. they are cursed and damned for it by Eulalius and this accepted by the Pope Ibid. S. Augustine involved in that curse 113 Ja. Almain against the Popes Infallibility 172. his absurd Tenet touching the belief of Scripture and the Church 53 Alphonsus à Castro his confession touching the Popes fallibility 173 his moderation touching heresie 17. his late Editions shrewdly purged 173 S. Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury how esteemed of by Pope Urban the second 111 Apocrypha some Books received by the Trent-Fathers which are not by Sextus Senensis 218 Of Appeals to forreign Churches 110 111 112. no Appeal from Patriarchs or Metropolitans ib. Aristotle falsly charged to hold the mortality of the Soul 72 Arrians the large spreading of them 179. wherein they dissented from the Orthodox Christians 201 Assistance what promised by Christ to his Church what not 60 106 c. 151 c. what given to his Church and Pastors thereof 62 64 156 157 166 233 Assurance infallible even by humane proof 80 81 S. Augustine cleared 22 37 38 53 54 82 110 123 c. righted 89 158 159 229 his proofs of Scripture 65 The Author bis small time to prepare for this conference 15. his submission to the Church of England and the Church Catholike 150 151. the Rule of his faith 246. pride imputed to him and retorted upon the imputors 246 247 B BAptism of anointing use of spittle and three dippings in it 44. that of Infants how proved out of Scripture 36 37. acknowledged by some Romanists that it may be proved thence 37. the necessity of it 36. how proved by tradition and S. Augustine's minde therein 37 38. that by Hereticks Schismaticks and Sinners not theirs but Christs 195 S. Basil explained 59 Beatitude supreme how to be attained 73 Belief of some things necessary before they be known 51. Vid. Faith Bellarmine his cunning discovered and confuted 7 8 9 136 his dissent from Stapleton 26. and from Catharinus 32 his absurd and impious tenet touching belief of Scripture confuted 56 Berengarius his gross recantation 214 S. Bernard righted 88 89 Biel his true assertion touching things that be de Fide 252 Bishops their calling and authority over the Inferious Clergy 114 115. their places and precedencies ordered Ibid. the titles given them of old 110. all of the same merit and degree 131 Bodies representing and represented their power priviledges c. compared together 150 c. 171 Britanny of old not subject to the Sea of Rome 111 112. S. Gildas his testimony concerning the Antiquity of the conversion of it 203. and that testimony vindicated ibid. C CAlvin and Calvinists for the Real presence 191 c. 193 Campanella his late Eclogue 138 Campian his boldness 94 Canterbury the ancient place and power of the Archbishops thereof 111 112 Capellus his censure of Batonius 98 Certainty vid. Faith Certainty of Salvation vid. Salvation Christs descent into Hell vid. Descent Church whereon founded 8 9. wherein it differeth from a General Councel 18 no particular one infallible 3 4 58 59 c. not that of Rome 3 4 6 7 c. 11 12. Catholike Church which is it 203. c. her declarations what fundamental what not 20. how far they binde 20 21. her authority not divine 22. not in those things wherein she cannot erre 42. wherein she cannot universally erre 90 91 104 157. what can take holiness from her 91 92. in what points of faith she may erre 104 105. her errours corruptions how and by whom caused 126. what required of her that she may not erre 127. she in the Common-wealth not the Common-wealth in her 132 c. how she must be always visible 207. the invisible in the visible 90. of her double Root 240 241. what the opinion of the Ancients concerning it 237 238 c. 240. A Church and the Church how they differ 82 83 84 c. by what assistance of the Spirit the Church can be made infallible 58. the authority of the Primitive compared with that of the present Church 52 Church of Caesarea her title given by Gregory Naz. 110 Greek Church vid. G. Church of England a part of the Catholike 104 c. where her Doctrine is set down 32 33. her Motherly dealing with her Children ibid. her Articles and Canons maintained 33. of her positive and negative Articles 34 35. her purity 245. how safe to communicate with her 243. what Judges and Rules in things spiritual she hath and acknowledgeth 138. how she is wronged by the Romane 204. Salvation more certain in her than in the Romane 212 c. How one particular Church may judge another 108 c. mutual criminations of the Eastern and Western 116 A Church in Israel after her separation from Judah 97 Church of Rome wherein she hath erred 12 58. sometimes right not so now 85. though she be a true Church yet not Right or Orthodox 82 83. her want of charity 16 17. her determining of too many things the cause of many evils 30 33. her severity in cursing all other Christians 33 34. how fâ—â— she extendeth the authority of her testimony 41. her rash condemning of others 90 92. how she and how other Churches Apostolike 242. how corrupted in Doctrine and Manners 95 96. she not the Catholike Church 120 240 241. false titles given her 237. her belief how different from that of the ancient Church 213. other Churches as well as she called Matres and Originales Ecclesiae 237. A Church at Jerusalem Antioch and probably in England before one at Rome 103. Cardinal Peron his absurd tent that the Romane Church is the Catholike causally 104. vid. Errours Pope Rome Concomitancy in the Eucharist vid. Eucharist Conference the occasion of this 1 2 the Jesuites manner of dealing in this and in two former 311 Confessions Negative made by Churches in what case needful 101 Controversies that in them consent of parties is no proof of truth 188 190 198 c. Counsels their fallibility 150 158 162 163 c. 225. the infallibility they have is not exact but congruous infallibility 166. whence and where it is principally resident 166 172. none of the present Church absolutely infallible 59. confirmation of them by the Pope a Romane novelty 128. who may dispute against them who not 22 25. how inferiours may judge of their decrees 161. a general Councel the onely fit judge of the present Controversies 136 139. and how that to be qualified 99 101 127 145 146 c. the Bishop of Rome not always President in general Councels 140 141. what impediments have been and now are of calling and continuing them 129. what confirmation they need 127 128 147. what of them lawful what not 141 c. what obedience to be yielded to them erring 146 147 168 169 c. what 's the utmost they can do 20. the words Visum est
necessaria esse quibus ad Evangelli fidem inducamur Quomodo enim credent ei quem non audierunt c. Canus â— 2. de â—ocis c. 8. S. Primum ergo Et iterum Si Fides infusa ita Fidei acquisitae uiteretur tanquam suo Fundamento ipsum Fundamentum Fidei nostrae non esset Divina sed Humana Veritas Ibid. S Cui tertium Therefore surely A. C. abuses this place of the Apostle very boldly A. C. p. 71. Rom. 3. 4. A. C. p. 71. §. 10. N. 15. A. C. p. 71. * §. 21. N. 5. A. C. p. 72. A. C. p. 72. * §. 32. N. 5. §. 33. Consid. 7. Num. 4. †Arist. 1. Post. Tex 6. 4. Metaph. T. 14. ‖ §. 38. Nu. 15. * Hic non loquiâ—ur â—e Deâ—isâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 Determinatione Doctrinali quâ— ad â—â—â—â—quemque virum peritum spectare dignoscitur sed de Authoritativâ— Judiciali c. la. Almain L. de Author Eccles. c. 10. Pri◠†§. 38. Nu. 1. ‖ Sunt qui nescio quà ductiratione sentiunt non esse opus Generali Concillo â—e Constantâ—enâ— loquitur dicentes omnia bene à Patribus nostris Ordinata ac Constituta modò ab omnibus â—egitiâ—â— fidâ—liter serâ—â—rentur Fatemur equidâ—m iâ— ipsum esse verissimum Tamen cum nihil ferè servetur c. Pet. de Aliaco â— de reformat Eccles. â—ine So that after-Councels are rather to Dâ—â—râ—â— for Observance than to make any new Determinations of the Faith * Non omnis Error in his que fidei sunt est aut Infidelitas aut Haeresis Holkot in 1 Sent. q. 1. ad 4. ◠†Scimus quosdam quod semel imbiberint nolle deponere nec propositum suum facilè mutare sed salvo inter Collegaa pacis concordia vinculo quaedam propria quae apud se semel siâ—t usurpata retiuere Quâ— in re nec nos vim cuiquam facimus aut legem damus c. S. Cypr. â— 2. Epist. 1. Concordia quae est Charitatis effectus est unio Voluntatum non Opinionum Tho. 2. 2. q. 37. Ar. 1. c. Dissensio de Minimis de Opinionibus repugnat quidem paci perfectae in qua plenè veritaâ— cognoscetur omnis appetitus complebitur Non tamen repugnat paci imperfectae quaâ—â—s habetur in via Tho. 2. 2â— q. 29. A 3. ad 2. ‖ 1 Cor. 1. 10 Phil. 2. 2. A. C. p. 72. 1 Cor. 11. 19. A. C. p. 72. * §. 38. Nu. 1. †§ 38. Num. 8. ‖ S. Luc. 12. 48. Unicuique secuoâ—â—m proportionem suam secunaù◠disserentiam Scienâ—iae vel Ignorantiae c. Et postâ—a Extenditur doctrina haec non solù◠ad Donum Scientiae c. Caietan in S. Luc. 12. Ecce quomodo Scientia aggravat Culpam Unde Gregorius c. Gorran in S. Luc. 12. Therefore many things may be necessary for a knowing mans Salvasion which are not so for a poor Ignorant soul. Si quiâ— de Antecessoribus nostris vel ignorentér vel simplicitèr non hoc observavit tenuit quod nos Domnius facere exemplo magisterio suo doçuit potest simplicitati ejus de Indulgentid Domini Venia concedi Nobis verè non poterit ignosci qui nunc à Domino admâ—niti instructi sumus S. Cyprlan L. 2. Epist. 3. * § 38. Num. 1. †Articuli Fidei sunt sicut Principia per se nota Et sicut quaedam eorum in aljis implicitè continentur it a omnes Articuli implicitè continentur in aliquibus primis Credibilibus c. secundum illudad Heb. 11. Tho. 2. â— a q. 1. A. 10. c. Iu absoluto nobis facili est aeternitas Jeâ—um suscitatum à mortuis per Deum â—redere ipsum esse Dominum confiterâ— c. S. Hilar. L. 10. de Trin. ad finem S. Matth. 22. 37. Heb. 11. 6. Acts 4. 12. †And yet before in this Conference apud A. C. p. 42. the Jesuire whom he defends hath said it expresly that all those are Pundamental which are necessary to Salvation * A. C. p. 72. †Romana Ecclesia particularis Bellar. L. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 4. § 1. Catholica autem est illa quae diffusaâ—est pâ—r universum Orbâ—m S. Cyril Hierosol Catech. 18. ‖ Catholica enim dicitur Ecclesia illa quae universalitèr docet sine ullo defectu vel differentiâ dogmatum S. Cyril Hierosol Catech. 18. Unde Augustinus subscripsit se Episcopum Catholica Ecclesiae Hipponiregensis L. 1. de Actis cum Foelice Manich. c. 20. Et l. 2. c. 1. Et Catholicà Alexandrinorum Soz. L. 1. Hist. 9. Et L. 2. c. 3. And so every particular Church is or may be called Catholike and that truly so long as it teaches Catholike Doctrine In which sense the Particular Roman Church was called Catholike so long as it taught all and only those things to be de Fide which the Catholike Church it self maintain'd But now Rome doth not so * Suprâ § 35. Num. 9. Other Churches beside the Romane are called Matres and Originales Ecclesiae as in Tertul. de prisceipt advers Heres c. 21. Et Ecclesia Hierosolymitana quae aliarum omniumâ— Mater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Theodoret. L. 5. Hist. Eccl. c. 9. ex â—ibello Synodico à Concil Constantinopol 2. transmissâ— ad Concilium sub Damaso tum Roma coactum Et Constantinopolitana Ecclesia dicitur omnium aliarum Caput Cod. L. 1. Tit. 2. Lâ—g 24. That is not simply of all Churches but of all in that Patriarchate And â—so Rome is the Head of all in the Romane Patriarchate †Et Ecclesiae Catholicae radicem Matricem agnoscereat tenerent S. Cyp. L. 4. Epist. 8. ‖ Edit Basiliâ—ns 1530. And Simaâ—ca also applies this speech of S. Cyprian to Rome Tit. 24. § 17. And so also Pamellus upon S. Cyprian But they wrong him * Baron Annal 254. Num. 64. where he cites this Epistle †Nos autemqui Ecclesiae unius Caput Radicem tenemus pro certo sciâ—â—â— credimus â—ihil extra Ecclesiam licâ—â—â— Baptismatis quod est unum Caput nos esse ubi ipse Baptizatus pâ—ths fuerat quando Divinae â—ivitatis Rationem veritatem tenebat S. Cypr. ad Jubain Epist 73. Edit Pamâ—l * Elaborarent ut ad Catholicae Ecclesie unitatem sciâ—â—i corporis membra compontrent Christianae Charitatis vinculum câ—pularent Seâ—â— quontam diversae partis obstinata inflexibilis pertinacia non tantum Radicis Matris sinum atqut complexum recusavit sed etiam gliscence in pejus recrudescente discordiâ Episcopum sibi constituit c. S. Cypr. â— 2. Epist. 10. †Tâ—t at tantae Reclesiae Una est illa aâ— Apostolis prima ex quâ Omnes Sic omnes primae â—mnes Apostolicae dum unam omnes probant Unitatem Terr de praes advers Haer. â— 20. Porro unam esse primam Apostolicam ex quâ reliquae
the Name of Persecution and in the mean time let M. Fisher and his Fellows Angle in all parts of your Dominions for your Subjects If in your Grace and Goodness you will spare their Persons Yet I humbly beseech You see to it That they be not suffer'd to lay either their Weels or bait their Hoooks or cast their Nets in every stream lest that Tentation grow both too general and too strong I know they have many Devices to work their Ends But if they will needs be fishing let them use none but Lawful Nets Let 's have no dissolving of Oathes of Allegiance No deposing no killing of Kings Noblowing up of States to settle Quod Volumus that which fain they would have in the Church with many other Nets as dangerous as these For if their Profession of Religion were as good as they pretend it is if they cannot Compass it by Good Means I am sure they ought not to attempt it by Bad. For if they will do evil that good may come thereof the Apostle tells me Their Damnation's just Rom. 3. Now as I would humbly Beseech Your Majesty to keep a serious Vatch upon these Fsher-men which pretend S. Peter but fish not with His Net So whould I not have You neglect another sort of Anglers in a Shallower Water For they have some ill Nets too And if they may spread them when and whore they will God know what may become of it These have not so strong a Back abroad as the Romanists have but that 's no Argument to suffer them to encrease They may grow to equal Strength with Number And Factious People at home of what Sect or fond Opinion soever they be are not to be neglected Partly because they are so Near. And 't is ever a dangerous Firâ— that begins in the Bedstraw And partly because all those Domestick Evils which threaten a Rent in Church or State are with far more safety prevented by Wisdom than punished by Justice And would men consider it right they are far more beholding to that man that keeps them from falling than to him takes them up though it be to set the Arm or the Leg that 's broken in the Fall In this Discourse I have no aim to displease any nor any hope to please all If I can help on to Truth in the Church and the Peace of the Church together I shall be glad be it in any measure Nor shall I spare to speak necessary Truth out of too much Love of Peace Nor thrust on Unnecessary Truth to the Breach of that Peace which once broken is not so easily sâ—der'd again And if for Necessary Truths sake onely any man will be offended nay take nay snatch at that offence which is not given I know no fence for that 'T is Truth and I must tell it 'T is the Gospel and I must preach it 1 Cor. 9. And far safer it is in this Case to bear Anger from men than a Woe from God And where the Foundations of Faith are shaken be it by Superstition or Prophaneness he that puts not to his hand as firmly as he Can to support them is too wary and hath more Care of himself then of the Cause of Christ. And 't is a Wariness that brings more danger in the end then it shuns For the Angel of the Lord issued out a Curse against the Inhabitants of Meroz because they came not to help the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty Judg. 5. I know 't is a Great ease to let every Thing be as it will and every man believe and do as he list But whether Governors in Statâ— or Church do their duty there while is easily seen since this is an effect of no King in Israel Judg. 17. The Church of Christ upon Earth may be compared to a Hive of Bees and that can be no where so steddily placed in this world but it will be in some danger And men that care neither for the Hive nor the Bees have yet a great mind to the Honey And having once tasted the sweet of the Churches Maintenance swallow that for Honey which one day will be more bitter than Gall in their Bowells Now the King and the Priest more than any other are bound to look to the Integrity of the Church in Doctrine and Manners and that in the first place For that 's by farre the Best Honey in the Hive But in the second place They must be Careful of the Churches Maintenance too else the Bees shall make Honey for others and have none left for their own necessary sustenance and then all 's lost For we see it in daily and common use that the Honey is not taken from the â—ees but they are destroyed first Now in this great and Busie Work the King and the Priest must not fear to put their hands to the Hive though they be sure to be stung And stung by the Bees whose Hive and House they preserve It was King Davids Caâ—e God grant it be never Yours They came about me saith the Psal. 118. like Bees This was hard usage enough yet some profit some Honey might thus be gotten in the End And that 's the Kings Case But when it comes to the Priest the Case is alter'd They come about him like Waspes or like Hornets rather all sting and no Honey there And all this many times for no offence nay sometimes for Service done them would they see it But you know who said Behold I come shortly and my reward is with me to give to every man according as his Works shall be Revel 22. And he himself is so exceding great a Reward as that the manifold stings which are in the World howsoever they smart here are nothing when they are pressed out with that exceeding weight of Glory which shall be revealed Rom. 8. Now one Thing more let me be bold to Observe to Your Majesty in particular concerning Your Great Charge the Church of England 'T is in an hard Condition She professes the Ancient Catholike Faith And yet the Romanist condemns Her of Novelty in her Doctrine She practises Church-Government as it hath been in use in all Ages and all Places where the Church of Christ hath taken any Rooting both in and ever since the Apostles Times And yet the Separatist condemns Her for Antichristianism in her Discipline The plain truth is She is between these two Factions as between two Milstones and unless Your Majesty look to it to Whose Trust She is committed She 'l be grownd to powder to an irrepairable both Dishonour and loss to this Kingdom And 't is very Remarkable that while both these press hard upon the Church of England both of them Cry out upon Persecution like froward Children which scratch and kick and bite and yet cry out all the while as if themselves were killed Now to the Romanist I shall say this The Errors of the Church of Rome
and without Choyce by which their most hated Adversaries climb'd up and could not crie up themselves and their Cause as they do but by them And Divines of all the rest might learn and teach this Wisdom if they would since they see all other Professions which help to bear down their Ceremonies keep up their own therewhile and that to the highest I have been too bold to detain Your Majesty so long But my Grief to see Christendom bleeding in Dissention and which is worse triumphing in her own Blood and most angry with them that would study her Peace hath thus transported me For truely it Cannot but grieve any man that hath Bowels to see All men seeking but as S. Paul foretold Phil. 2. their own things and not the things which are Jesus Christs Sua Their own surely For the Gospel of Christ hath nothing to do with them And to see Religion so much so Zealously pretended and called upon made but the Stalking-Horse to shoot at other Fowl upon which their Aym is set In the mean time as if all were Truth and Holiness it self no Salvation must be possible did it lye at their Mercy but in the Communion of the One and in the Conventicles of the Other As if either of these now were as the Donatists of old reputed themselves the only men in whom Christ at his coming to Judgment should find Faith No faith S. Augustine and so say I with him Da veniam non Credimus Pardon us I pray we cannot believe it The Catholike Church of Christ is neither Rome nor a Conventicle Out of that there 's no Salvation I easily Confess it But out of Rome there is and out of a Conventicle too Salvation i◠not shut up into such a narrow Conclave In this ensuing Discourse therefore I have endeavour'd to lay open those wider-Gates of the Catholike Church confined to no Age Time or Place Nor knowing any Bounds but That Faith which was once and but once for all deliver'd to the Saints S. Jude 3. And in my pursuit of this way I have searched after and deliver'd with a single heart that Truth which I profess In the publishing whereof I have obeyed Your Majesty discharg'd my Duty to my power to the Church of England Given account of the Hope that is in me And so testified to the world that Faith in which I have lived and by God's blessing and favour purpose to dye But till Death shall most unfainedly remain Your MAJESTIES Most faithful Subject And Most Humble and Obliged Servant W. CANT A RELATION OF THE CONFERENCE BETWEEN WILLIAM LAWD Then L. Bishop of S. DAVIDS afterwards Lord Arch-Bishop of CANTERBURY AND M. FISHER the JESUITE F. The occasion of this Conference was B. § 1 THe occasion of this Third Conference you should know sufficiently You were an Actor in it as well as in two other VVhether you have related the two former truly appears by D. White the late Reverend L. Bishop of Ely his Relation or Exposition of them I was present at none but this Third of which I here give the Church an Account But of this Third whether that were the Cause which you alledge I cannot tell You say F. It was observed That in the second Conference all the Speech was about particular matters little or none about a continual infallible visible Church which was the chief and only Point in which a certain Lady required satisfaction as having formerly setled in her minde That it was not for her or any other unlearned persons to take upon them to judge of particulars without depending upon the judgment of the True Church B. § 2 The Opinion of that Honourable Person in this was never opened to me And it is very fit the people should look to the Judgment of the Church before they be too busie with Particulars But yet neither Scripture nor any good Authority denies them some moderate use of their own understanding and judgment especially in things familiar and evident which even ordinary Capacities may as easily understand as read And therefore some Particulars a Christian may judge without depending F. This Lady therefore having heard it granted in the first Conference That there must be a continual visible Company ever since Christ teaching unchanged Doctrine in all Fundamental Points that is Points necessary to Salvation desired to hear this confirmed and proof brought which was that continual infallible visible Church in which one may and out of which one cannot attain Salvation And therefore having appointed a time of Meeting between a B. and Me and thereupon having sent for the B. and Me before the B. came the Lady and a Friend of hers came first to the Room where I was and debated before me the aforesaid Question and not doubting of the first part to wit That there must be a continual visible Church as they had heard granted by D. VVhite and L. K. c. B. Num. 1 § 3 VVhat D. White and L. K. granted I heard not But I think both granted a continual and a visible Church neitherof them an Infallible at least in your sense And your self in this Relation speak distractedly For in these few lines from the beginning hither twice you adde Infallible between continual and visible and twice you leave it out But this concerns D. W. and he hath answered it Num. 2 Here A. C. steps in and says The Jesuite did not speak distractedly but most advisedly For saith he where he relates what D. VVhite or L. K. granted he leaves out the word Infallible because they granted it not But where he speaks of the Lady there he addes it because the Jesuite knew it was an Infallible Church which she sought to rely upon How far the Catholick Militant Church of Christ is Infallible is no Dispute for this place though you shall finde it after But sure the Jesuite did not speak most advisedly nor A. C. neither nor the Lady her self if she said she desired to relye upon an Infallible Church For an Infallible Church denotes a Particular Church in that it is set in opposition to some other Particular Church that is not Infallible Now I for my part do not know what that Lady desired to relye upon This I know if she desired such a Particular Church neither this Jesuite nor any other is able to shew it her No not Bellarmine himself though of very great ability to make good any Truth which he undertakes for the Church of Rome But no strength can uphold an Errour against Truth where Truth hath an able Defendant Now where Bellarmine sets himself purposely to make this good That the Particular Church of Rome cannot erre in matter of Faith Out of which it follows That there may be found a Particular Infallible Church you shall see what he is able to perform Num. 3 1 First then after he hath distinguished to express his meaning in what sense the
is not Infallible F. The Question was Which was that Church A Friend of the Ladies would needs defend That not only the Roman but also the Greek Church was right B. § 4 When that Honourable Personage answered I was not by to hear But I presume he was so far from granting that only the Roman Church was right as that he did not grant it right and that he took on him no other defence of the poor Greek Church then was according to truth F. I told him That the Greek Church had plainly changed and taught false in a Point of Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost and that I had heard say that even his Majesty should say That the Greek Church having erred against the Holy Ghost had lost the Holy Ghost B. § 5 You are very bold with His Majesty to relate him upon Hear-say My intelligence serves me not to tell you what His Majesty said But if he said it not you have been too credulous to believe and too sudden to report it Princes deserve and were wont to have more respect then so If His Majesty did say it there is Truth in the speech the Errour is yours only by mistaking what is meant by losing the Holy Ghost For a particular Church may be said to lose the Holy Ghost two ways or in two degrees 1 The one when it loses such special assistance of that Blessed Spirit as preserves it from all dangerous Errours and sins and the temporal punishment which is due unto them And in this sense the Greek Church did perhaps lose the Holy Ghost for they erred against him they sinned against God And for this or other sins they were delivered into another Babylonish Captivity under the Turk in which they yet are and from which God in his mercy deliver them But this is rather to be called an Errour circa Spiritum Sanctum about the Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost then an Errour against the Holy Ghost 2 The other is when it loses not only this assistance but all assistance ad hoc to this that they may remain any longer a true Church and so Corinth and Ephesus and divers other Churches have lost the Holy Ghost but in this sense the whole Greek Church lost not the Holy Ghost For they continue a true Church in the main substance to and at this day though Erroneous in this Point which you mention and perhaps in some other too F. The Ladies Friend not knowing what to answer called in the Bishop who sitting down first excused himself as one unprovided and not much studied in Controversies and desiring that in case he should fail yet the Protestant Cause might not be thought ill of B. § 6 This is most true For I did indeed excuse my self and I had great reason so to do And my Reason being grounded upon Modesty for the most part there I leave it Yet this it may be fit others should know that I had no information where the other Conferences brake off no instruction at all what should be the ground of this third Conference nor the full time of four and twenty hours to bethink my self And this I take upon my Credit is most true whereas you make the sifting of these and the like Questions to the very Bran your daily work and came throughly furnished to the business and might so lead on the Controversie to what your self pleased and I was to follow as I could S. Augustine said once Scio me invalidum esse I know I am weak and yet he made good his Cause And so perhaps may I against you And in that I preferr'd the Cause before my particular Credit that which I did was with modesty and according to Reason For there is no reason the weight of this whole Cause should rest upon any one particular man And great reason that the personal defects of any man should press himself but not the Cause Neither did I enter upon this service out of any forwardness of my own but commanded to it by Supreme Authority F. It having an hundred better Scholars to maintain it then he To which I said there were a thousand better Scholars then I to maintain the Catholike Cause B. § 7 In this I had never so poor a Conceit of the Protestants Cause as to think that they had but an hundred better then my self to maintain it That which hath an hundred may have as many more as it pleases God to give and more then you And I shall ever be glad that the Church of England which at this time if my memory reflect not amiss I named may have far more able Defendants then my self I shall never envy them but rejoyce for her And I make no question but that if I had named a thousand you would have multiplied yours into ten thousand for the Catholike Cause as you call it And this confidence of yours hath ever been fuller of noise then proof But you proceed F. Then the Question about the Greek Church being proposed I said as before that it had erred B. § 8 Then I think the Question about the Greek Church was proposed But after you had with confidence enough not spared to say That what I would not acknowledge in this Cause you would wring and extort from me then indeed you said as before that it had erred And this no man denied But every Errour denies not Christ the Foundation or makes Christ deny it or thrust it from the Foundation F. The Bishop said That the Errour was not in Point Fundamental B. § 9 Num. 1 I was not so peremptory My speech was That divers Learned men and some of your own were of Opinion that as the Greeks expressed themselves it was a Question not simply Fundamental I know and acknowledge that Errour of denying the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son to be a grievous Errour in Divinity And sure it would have grated the Foundation if they had so denied the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as that they had made an inequality between the Persons But since their form of speech is That the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father by the Son and is the Spirit of the Son without making any difference in the Consubstantiality of the Persons I dare not deny them to be a true Church for this though I confess them an erroneous Church in this particular Num. 2 Now that divers Learned men were of Opinion that à Filio and per Filium in the sense of the Greek Church was but a Question in modo loquendi in manner of speech and therefore not Fundamental is evident The Master and his Scholars agree upon it The Greeks saith he confess the Holy Ghost to be the Spirit of the Son with the Apostle Galat. 4. and the Spirit of Truth S. John 16. And since Non est aliud it is not another thing to say The Holy Ghost is the Spirit of the Father and
can neither deceive nor be deceived And he adds That the Probation of the Church can make it known to all that the Object of Divine Faith is revealed from God and therefore certain and not to be doubted but the Church can adde no certainty no firmness to the Word of God revealing it Num. 6 Nor is this hard to be farther proved out of your own School for Scotus professeth it in this very particular of the Greek Church If there be saith he a true real difference between the Greeks and the Latines about the Point of the Procession of the Holy Ghost then either they or we be verè Haeretici truly and indeed Hereticks And he speaks this of the old Greeks long before any Decision of the Church in this Controversie For his instance is in S. Basil and Greg. Nazianz. on the one side and S. Hierome Augustine and Ambrose on the other And who dares call any of these Hereticks is his challenge I deny not but that Scotus adds there That howsoever this was before yet ex quo from the time that the Catholike Church declared it it is to be held as of the substance of Faith But this cannot stand with his former Principle if he intend by it That whatsoever the Church defines shall be ipso facto and for that Determinations sake Fundamental For if before the Determination supposing the Difference real some of those Worthies were truly Hereticks as he confesses then somewhat made them so And that could not be the Decree of the Church which then was not Therefore it must be somewhat really false that made them so and fundamentally false if it made them Hereticks against the Foundation But Scotus was wiser then to intend this It may be he saw the stream too strong for him to swim against therefore he went on with the Doctrine of the Time That the Churches Sentence is of the substance of Faith but meant not to betray the truth For he goes no farther then Ecclesia declaravit since the Church hath declared it which is the word that is used by divers Num. 7 Now the Master teaches and the Scholars too That every thing which belongs to the Exposition or Declaration of another intus est is not another contrary thing but is contained within the Bowels and nature of that which is interpreted from which if the Declaration depart it is faulty and erroneous because instead of declaring it gives another and contrary sense Therefore when the Church declares any thing in a Councel either that which she declares was intus or extra in the nature and verity of the thing or out of it If it were extra without the nature of the thing declared then the Declaration of the thing is false and so far from being fundamental in the Faith If it were intus within the compass and nature of the thing though not open and apparent to every eye then the Declaration is true but not otherwise fundamental then the thing is which is declared for that which is intus cannot be larger or deeper then that in which it is if it were it could not be intus Therefore nothing is simply fundamental because the Church declares it but because it is so in the nature of the thing which the Church declares Num. 8 And it is slight and poor Evasion that is commonly used that the Declaration of the Church makes it Fundamental quoad nos in respect of us for it doth not that neither For no respect to us can vary the Foundation The Churches Declaration can binde us to Peace and External Obedience where there is not express Letter of Scripture and sense agreed on but it cannot make any thing fundamental to us that is not so in its own Nature For if the Church can so adde that it can by a Declaration make a thing to be fundamental in the Faith that was not then it can take a thing away from the foundation and make it by declaring not to be Fundamental which all men grant no power of the Church can do For the power of adding any thing contrary and of detracting any thing necessary are alike forbidden and alike denied Now nothing is more apparent then this to the eye of all men That the Church of Rome hath determined or declared or defined call it what you will very many things that are not in their own nature fundamental and therefore neither are nor can be made so by her adjudging them Now to all this discourse that the Church hath not power to make any thing fundamental in the Faith that intrinsecally and in its own nature is not such A. C. is content to say nothing Num. 9 2 For the second That it is proved by this place of S. Augustine That all points defined by the Church are fundamental You might have given me that place cited in the Margin and cased my pains to seek it but it may be there was somewhat in concealing it For you do so extraordinarily right this place that you were loth I think any body should see how you wrong it The place of S. Augustine is this against the Pelagians about Remission of Original Sin in Infants This is a thing founded an erring Disputer is to be born with in other Questions not diligently digested not yet made firm by full Authority of the Church their errour is to be born with but it ought not to go so far that it should labour to shake the foundation it self of the Church This is the place but it can never follow out of this place I think That every thing defined by the Church is fundamental Num. 10 For first he speaks of a foundation of Doctrine in Scripture not a Church-definition This appears for few lines before he tells us There was a Question moved to S. Cyprian Whether Baptism was concluded to the eighth day as well as Circumcision And no doubt was made then of the beginning of sin and that out of this thing about which no Question was moved that Question that was made was Answered And again That S. Cyprian took that which he gave in Answer from the foundation of the Church to confirm a stone that was shaking Now S. Cyprian in all the Answer that he gives hath not one word of any Definition of the Church therefore ea res that thing by which he answered was a Foundation of prime and setled scripture-Scripture-Doctrine not any Definition of the Church Therefore that which he took out of the Foundation of the Church to fasten the stone that shook was not a Definition of the Church but the Foundation of the Church it self the Scripture upon which it is builded as appeareth in the Milevitane Councel where the Rule by which Pelagius was condemned is the Rule of Scripture Therefore S. Augustine goes on in the same sense That the Disputer is not to be born any longer
that shall endeavour to shake the foundation it self upon which the whole Church is grounded Num. 11 Secondly If S. Augustine did mean by Founded and Foundation the definition of the Church because of these words This thing is founded this is made firm by full Authority of the Church and the words following these to shake the foundation of the Church yet it can never follow out of any or all these Circumstances and these are all That all points defined by the Church are fundamental in the Faith For first no man denies but the Church is a Foundation That things defined by it are founded upon it And yet hence it cannot follow That the thing that is so founded is Fundamental in the Faith For things may be founded upon Humane Authority and be very certain yet not Fundamental in the Faith Nor yet can it follow This thing is founded therefore every thing determined by the Church is founded Again that which follows That those things are not to be opposed which are made firm by full Authority of the Church cannot conclude they are therefore Fundamental in the Faith For full Church-Authority always the time that included the Holy Apostles being past by and not comprehended in it is but Church-Authority and Church-Authority when it is at Full Sea is not simply Divine therefore the Sentence of it not fundamental in the Faith And yet no erring Disputer may be indured to shake the foundation which the Church in Councel lays But plain Scripture with evident sense or a full demonstrative Argument must have room where a wrangling and erring Disputer may not be allowed it And there 's neither of these but may convince the Definition of the Councel if it be ill founded And the Articles of the Faith may easily prove it is not Fundamental if indeed and verily it be not so Num. 12 And I have read some-body that says is it not you That things are fundamental in the Faith two ways One in their Matter such as are all things which be so in themselves The other in the Manner such as are all things that the Church hath defined and determined to be of Faith And that so some things that are de modo of the manner of being are of Faith But in plain truth this is no more then if you should say Some things are fundamental in the Faith and some are not For wrangle while you will you shall never be able to prove that any thing which is but de modo a consideration of the manner of being only can possibly be fundamental in the Faith Num. 13 And since you make such a Foundation of this place I will a little view the Mortar with which it is laid by you It is a venture but I shall finde it untempered Your Assertion is All Points defined by the Church are fundamental Your proof this place Because that is not to be shaken which is setled by full Authority of the Church Then it seems your meaning is that this point there spoken of The remission of Original Sin in Baptism of Infants was defined when S. Augustine wrote this by a full Sentence of a General Councel First if you say it was Bellarmine will tell you it is false and that the Pelagian Heresie was never condemned in an Oecumenical Councel but only in Nationals But Bellarmine is deceived For while the Pelagians stood out impudently against National Councels some of them defended Nestorius which gave occasion to the first Ephesine Councel to Excommunicate and depose them And yet this will not serve your turn for this place For S. Augustine was then dead and therefore could not mean the Sentence of that Councel in this place Secondly if you say it was not then defined in an Oecumenical Synod Plena Authoritas Ecclesiae the full Authority of the Church there mentioned doth not stand properly for the Decree of an Oecumenical Councel but for some National as this was condemned in a National Councel And then the full Authority of the Church here is no more then the full Authority of the Church of Africk And I hope that Authority doth not make all Points defined by it to be fundamental You will say Yes if that Councel be confirmed by the Pope And then I must ever wonder why S. Augustine should say The full Authority of the Church and not bestow one word upon the Pope by whose Authority only that Councel as all other have their fulness of Authority in your Judgment An inexpiable Omission if this Doctrine concerning the Pope were true Num. 14 But here A. C. steps in again to help the Jesuite and he tells us over and over again That all points made firm by full Authority of the Church are fundamental so firm he will have them and therefore fundamental But I must tell him That first 't is one thing in Nature and Religion too to be firm and another thing to be fundamental These two are not Convertible 'T is true that every thing that is fundamental is firm But it doth not follow that every thing that is firm is fundamental For many a Superstructure is exceeding firm being fast and close joyned to a sure foundation which yet no man will grant is fundamental Besides whatsoever is fundamental in the Faith is fundamental to the Church which is one by the unity of Faith Therefore if every thing defined by the Church be fundamental in the Faith then the Churches Desinition is the Churches foundation And so upon the matter the Church can lay her own foundation and then the Church must be in absolute and perfect Being before so much as her foundation is laid Now this is so absurd for any man of Learning to say that by and by after A. C. is content to affirm not only that the prima Credibilia the Articles of Faith but all which so pertains to Supernatural Divine and Infallible Christian Faith as that thereby Christ doth dwell in our hearts c. is the foundation of the Church under Christ the Prime Foundation And here he 's out again For first all which pertains to Supernatural Divine and Infallible Christian Faith is not by and by fundamental in the Faith to all men And secondly the whole Discourse here is concerning Faith as it is taken Objectivè for the Object of Faith and thing to be believed but that Faith by which Christ is said to dwell in our hearts is taken Subjective for the Habit and Act of Faith Now to confound both these in one period of speech can have no other aim then to confound the Reader But to come closer both to the Jesuite and his Defender A. C. If all Points made firm by full Authority of the Church be fundamental then they must grant that every thing determined by the Councel of Trent is fundamental in the Faith For with them 't is firm and Catholike which that
Councel Decrees Now that Councel Decrees That Orders collated by the Bishop are not void though they be given without the consent or calling of the People or of any Secular Power And yet they can produce no Author that ever acknowledged this Definition of the Councel fundamental in the Faith 'T is true I do not grant that the Decrees of this Councel are made by full Authority of the Church but they do both grant and maintain it And therefore 't is Argumentum ad hominem a good argument against them that a thing so defined may be firm for so this is and yet not fundamental for so this is not Num. 15 But A. C. tells us further That if one may deny or doubtfully dispute against any one Determination of the Church then he may against another and another and so against all since all are made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation sufficiently applied by one and the same full Authority of the Church which being weakned in any one cannot be firm in any other First A. C. might have acknowledged that he borrowed the former part of this out of Vincentius Lirinensis And as that Learned Father uses it I subscribe to it but not as A. C. applies it For Vincentius speaks there de Catholico Dogmate of Catholick Maximes and A. C. will force it to every Determination of the Church Now Catholike Maximes which are properly fundamental are certain prime truths deposited with the Church and not so much determined by the Church as published and manifested and so made firm by her to us For so Vincentius expresly Where all that the Church doth is but ut hoc idem quod anteà that the same thing may be believed which was before believed but with more light and clearness and in that sense with more firmness then before Now in this sense give way to a Disputator errans every Cavilling Disputer to deny or quarrel at the Maximes of Christian Religion any one or any part of any one of them and why may he not then take liberty to do the like of any other till he have shaken all But this hinders not the Church her self nor any appointed by the Church to examine her own Decrees and to see that she keep Dogmata deposita the Principles of Faith unblemished and uncorrupted For if she do not so but that Novitia veteribus new Doctrines be added to the old the Church which is Sacrarium veritatis the Repository of Verity may be changed in lupanar errorum I am loath to English it By the Church then this may nay it ought to be done however every wrangling Disputer may neither deny nor doubtfully dispute much less obstinately oppose the Determinations of the Church no not where they are not Dogmata Deposita these deposited Principles But if he will be so bold to deny or dispute the Determinations of the Church yet that may be done without shaking the foundation where the Determinations themselves belong but to the fabrick and not to the foundation For a whole frame of Building may be shaken and yet the foundation where it is well laid remain firm And therefore after all A. C. dares not say the foundation is shaken but only in a sort And then 't is as true that in a sort it is not shaken Num. 16 2 For the second part of his Argument A. C. must pardon me if I dissent from him For first All Determinations of the Church are not made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation For some Determinations of the Church are made firm to us per chirographum Scripturae by the hand-writing of the Scripture and that 's Authentical indeed Some other Decisions yea and of the Church too are made or may be if Stapleton inform us right without an evident nay without so much as a probable Testimony of Holy Writ But Bellarmine falls quite off in this and confesses in express terms That nothing can be certain by certainty of Faith unless it be contained immediately in the Word of God or be deduced out of the Word of God by evident consequence And if nothing can be certain but so then certainly no Determination of the Church it self if that Determination be not grounded upon one of these either express Word of God or evident consequence out of it So here 's little agreement in this great Point between Stapleton and Bellarmine Nor can this be shifted off as if Stapleton spake of the Word of God Written and Bellarmine of the Word of God Unwritten as he calls Tradition For Bollarmine treats there of the knowledge which a man hath of the certainty of his own Salvation And I hope A. C. will not tell us there 's any Tradition extant unwritten by which particular men may have assurance of their several Salvations Therefore Bellarmine's whole Disputation there is quite beside the matter or else he must speak of the written Word and so lye cross to Stapleton as is mentioned But to return If A. C. will he may but I cannot believe that a Definition of the Church which is made by the express Word of God and another which is made without so much as a probable Testimony of it or a clear Deduction from it are made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation Nay I must say in this case that the one Determination is firm by Divine Revelation but the other hath no Divine Revelation at all but the Churches Authority only ◠Secondly I cannot believe neither That all Determinations of the Church are sufficiently applied by one and the same full Authority of the Church For the Authority of the Church though it be of the same fulness in regard of it self and of the Power which it commits to General Councels lawfully called yet it is not always of the same fulness of knowledge and sufficiency nor of the same fulness of Conscience and integrity to apply Dogmata Fidei that which is Dogmatical in the Faith For instance I think you dare not deny but the Councel of Trent was lawfully called and yet I am of Opinion that few even of your selves believe that the Councel of Trent hath the same fulness with the Councel of Nice in all the forenamed kinds or degrees of fulness Thirdly suppose that all Determinations of the Church are made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation and sufficiently applied by one and the sante full Authority yet it will not follow that they are all alike fundamental in the Faith For I hope A. C. himself will not say that the Definitions of the Church are in better condition then the Propositions of Canonical Scripture Now all Propositions of Canonical Scripture are alike firm because they all alike proceed from Divine Revelation but they are not all alike fundamental in the Faith For this Proposition of Christ to S. Peter and S. Andrew
peradventure all this be contained I believe those things which the Church teacheth yet this is not necessarily understood That I believe the Church teaching as an Infallible Witness And if they did not confess this it were no hard thing to prove Num. 5 But her'e 's the cunning of this Devise All the Authorities of Fathers Councels nay of Scripture too though this be contrary to their own Doctrine must be finally Resolved into the Authority of the present Roman Church And though they would seem to have us believe the Fathers and the Church of old yet they will not have us take their Doctrine from their own Writings or the Decrees of Councels because as they say we cannot know by reading them what their meaning was but from the Infallible Testimony of the present Roman Church reaching by Tradition Now by this two things are evident First That they ascribe as great Authority if not greater to a part of the Catholike Church as they do to the whole which we believe in our Creed and which is the Society of all Christians And this is full of Absurdity in Nature in Reason in All things that any Part should be of equal worth power credit or authority with the Whole Secondly that in their Doctrine concerning the Infallibility of their Church their proceeding is most unreasonable For if you ask them Why they believe their whole Doctrine to be the sole true Catholike Faith Their Answer is Because it is agreeable to the Word of God and the Doctrine and Tradition of the Ancient Church If you ask them How they know that to be so They will then produce Testimonies of Scripture Councels and Fathers But if you ask a third time By what means they are assured that these Testimonies do indeed make for them and their Cause They will not then have recourse to Text of Scripture or Exposition of Fathers or Phrase and propriety of Languagâ— in which either of them were first written or to the scope of the Author or the Causes of the thing uttered or the Conference with like Places or the Antecedents and Consequents of the same Places or the Exposition of the dark and doubtful Places of Scripture by the undoubted and manifest With divers other Rules given for the true knowledge and understanding of Scripture which do frequently occur in S. Augustine No none of these or the like helps That with them were to admit a Private Spirit or to make way for it But their final Answer is They know it to be so because the present Roman Church witnesseth it according to Tradition So arguing â— primo ad ultimum from first to last the Present Church of Rome and her Followers believe her own Doctrine and Tradition to be true and Catholike because she professes it to be such And if this be not to prove idem per idem the same by the same I know not what is which though it be most absurd in all kind of Learning yet out of this I see not how 't is possible to winde themselves so long as the last resolution of their Faith must rest as they teach upon the Tradition of the present Church only Num. 6 It seems therefore to me very necessary that we be able to prove the Books of Scripture to be the Word of God by some Authority that is absolutely Divine For if they be warranted unto us by any Authority less than Divine then all things contained in them which have no greater assurance than the Scripture in which they are read are not Objects of Divine belief And that once granted will enforce us to yield That all the Articles of Christian Belief have no greater assurance than Humane or Moral Faith or Credulity can afford An Authority then simply Divine must make good the Scriptures Infallibility at least in the last Resolution of our Faith in that Point This Authority cannot be any Testimony or Voice of the Church alone For the Church consists of men subject to Error And no one of them since the Apostles times hath been assisted with so plentiful a measure of the Blessed Spirit as to secure him from being deceived And all the Parts being all liable to mistaking and fallible the Whole cannot possibly be Infallible in and of it self and priviledged from being deceived in some Things or other And even in those Fundamental Things in which the Whole Universal Church neither doth nor can Erre yet even there her Authority is not Divine because She delivers those supernatural Truths by Promise of Assistance yet tyed to Means And not by any special immediate Revelation which is necessarily required to the very least Degree of Divine Authority And therefore our Worthies do not only say but prove That all the Churches Constitutions are of the nature of Humane Law And some among you not unworthy for their Learning prove it at large That all the Churches Testimony or Voyce or Sentence call it what you will is but suo modo or aliquo modo not simply but in a manner Divine Yea and A. C. himself after all his debate comes to that and no further That the Tradition of the Church is at least in some sort Divine and Infallible Now that which is Divine but in a sort or manner be it the Churches manner is aliquo modo non Divina in a sort not Divine But this Great Principle of Faith the Ground and Proof of whatsoever else is of Faith cannot stand firm upon a Proof that is and is not in a manner and not in a manner Divine As it must if we have no other Anchor than the External Tradition of the Church to lodge it upon and hold it steddy in the midst of those waves which daily beat upon it Num. 7 Now here A. C. confesses expresly That to prove the Books of Scripture to be Divine we must be warranted by that which is Infallible He confesses farther that there can be no sufficient Infallible Proof of this but Gods Word written or unwritten And he gives his Reason for it Because if the Proof be meerly Humane and Fallible the Science or Faith which is built upon it can be no better So then this is agreed on by me yet leaving other men to travel by their own way so be they can come to make Scripture thereby Infallible That Scripture must be known to be Scripture by a sufficient Infallible Divine Proof And that such Proof can be nothing but the Word of God is agreed on also by me Yea and agreed on for me it shall be likewise that Gods Word may be written and unwritten For Cardinal Bellarmine tells us truly that it is not the writing or printing that make Scripture the Word of God but it is the Prime Unerring Essential Truth God himself uttering and revealing it to his Church that makes it Verbum Dei the Word of God And this Word of
ordinarily have Tradition to prepare the mind of a man to receive it And in the next place where he speaks so sensibly That Scripture cannot bear witness to it self nor one part of it to another that is grounded upon Nature which admits no created thing to be witness to it self and is acknowledged by our Saviour If I bear witness to my self my witness is not true that is is not of force to be reasonably accepted for Truth But then it is more than manifest that Hooker delivers his Demonstration of Scripture alone For if Scripture hath another proof nay many other proofs to usher it and lead it in then no Question it can both prove and approve it self His words are So that unless besides Scripture there be c. Besides Scripture therefore he excludes not Scripture though he call for another Proof to lead it in and help in assurance namely Tradition which no man that hath his brains about him denies In the two other Places Brierly falsifies shamefully for folding up all that Hooker says in these words This other means to assure us besides Scripture is the Authority of Gods Church he wrinkles that Worthy Author desperately and shrinks up his meaning For in the former place abused by Brierly no man can set a better state of the Question between Scripture and Tradition than Hooker doth His words are these The Scripture is the ground of our Belief The Authority of man that is the Name he gives to Tradition is the Koy which opens the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture I ask now When a man is entred and hath viewed a house and upon viewing likes it and upon liking resolves unchangeably to dwell there doth he set up his Resolution upon the Key that let him in No sure but upon the Goodness and Commodiousness which he sees in the House And this is all the difference that I know between us in this Point In which do you grant as you ought to do that we resolve our Faith into Scripture as the Ground and we will never deny that Tradition is the Key that lets us in In the latter place Hooker is as plain as constant to himself and Truth His words are The first outward Motive leading men so to esteem of the Scripture is the Authority of Gods Church c. But afterwards the more we bestow our Labour in reading or learning the Mysteries thereof the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our received opinion concerning it so that the former inducement prevailing somewhat with us before doth now much more prevail when the very thing hath ministred farther Reason Here then again in his Judgment Tradition is the first Inducement but the farther Reason and Ground is the Scripture And Resolution of Faith ever settles upon the Farthest Reason it can not upon the First Inducement So that the State of this Question is firm and yet plain enough to him that will not shut his eyes Num. 26 Now here after a long silence A. C. thrusts himself in again and tells me That if I would consider the Tradition of the Church not only as it is the Tradition of a Company of Fallible men in which sense the Authority of it as himself confesses is but Humane and Fallible c. But as the Tradition of a Company of men assisted by Christ and his Holy Spirit in that sense I might easily sinde it more than an Introduction indeed as much as would amount to an Infallible Motive Well I have considered The Tradition of the present Church both these ways And I find that A. C. confesses That in the first sense the Tradition of the Church is meer humane Authority and no more And therefore in this sense it may serve for an Introduction to this Belief but no more And in the second sense as it is not the Tradition of a Company of men only but of men assisted by Christ and His Spirit In this second sense I cannot finde that the Tradition of the present Church is of Divine and Infallible Authority till A. C. can prove That this Company of men the Roman Prelates and their Clergy he means are so fully so clearly so permanently assisted by Christ and his Spirit as may reach to Infallibility to a Divine Infallibility in this or any other Principle which they teach For every Assistance of Christ and the Blessed Spirit is not enough to make the Authority of any Company of men Divine and infallible but such and so great an Assistance only as is purposely given to that effect Such an Assistance the Prophets under the Old Testament and the Apostles under the New had but neither the High-Priest with his Clergy in the Old nor any Company of Prelates or Priests in the New since the Apostles ever had it And therefore though at the intreaty of A. C. I have considered this very well yet I cannot no not in this Assisted sense think the Tradition of the present Church Divine and Infallible or such Company of men to be worthy of Divine and infallible Credit and sufficient to breed in us Divine and Infallible Faith Which I am sorry A. C. should affirm so boldly as he doth What That Company of men the Roman Bishop and his Clergy of Divine and Infallible Credit and sufficient to breed in us Divine and Infallible Faith Good God! Whither will these men go Surely they are wise in their generation but that makes them never a whit the more the Children of Light S. Luk. 16. And could they put this home upon the world as they are gone far in it what might they not effect How might they and would they then Lord it over the Faith of Christendom contrary to S. Peters Rule whose Successors certainly in this they are not But I pray if this Company of men be infallibly assisted whence is it that this very Company have erred so dangerously as they have not only in some other things but even in this Particular by equaling the Tradition of the present Church to the written Word of God Which is a Doctrine unknown to the Primitive Church and which frets upon the very Foundation it self by justling with it So belike he that hath but half an indifferent eye may see this Assisted Company have erred and yet we must wink in obedience and think them Infallible Num. 27 But A. C. would have me consider again That it is as easie to take the Tradition of the present Church in the two fore-named senses as the present Scriptures printed and approved by men of this Age. For in the first sense The very Scriptures saith he considered as printed and approved by men of this Age can be no more than of Humane Credit But in the second sense as printed and approved by men assisted by God's Spirit for true Copies of that which was first written then we may give Infallible Credit to them Well I
C's words are very considerable For he charges the Protestants to be the Authors of the Schism for obstinate holding and teaching contrary Opinions To what I pray Why to the Roman Faith To the Roman Faith It was wont to be the Christian Faith to which contrary Opinions were so dangerous to the Maintainers But all 's Roman now with A. C. and the Jesuite And then to countenance the Business S. Bernard and S. Augustine are brought in whereas neither of them speak of the Roman and S. Bernard perhaps neither of the Catholike nor the Roman but of a Particular Church or Congregation Or if he speak of the Catholike of the Roman certainly he doth not His words are Quae major superbia c. What greater pride than that one man should prefer his judgment before the whole Congregation of all the Christian Churches in the world So A. C. out of Saint Bernard But Saint Bernard not so For these last words of all the Christian Churches in the world are not in Saint Bernard And whether Toti Congregationi imply more in that Place than a Particular Church is not very manifest Nay I think 't is plain that he speaks both of and to that particular Congregation to which he was then preaching And I believe A. C. will not easily find where tota Congregatio the whole Congregation is used in Saint Bernard or any other of the Fathers for the whole Catholike Church of Christ. And howsoever the meaning of S. Bernard be 't is one thing for a private man Judicium suum praeferre to prefer and so follow his private Judgment before the Whole Congregation which is indeed Lepra proprii Consilii as S. Bernard there calls it the proud Leprosie of the Private Spirit And quite another thing for an Intelligent man and in some things unsatisfied modestly to propose his doubts even to the Catholike Church And much more may a whole National Church nay the whole Body of the Protestants do it And for S. Augustine the Place alledged out of him is a known Place And he speaks indeed of the Whole Catholike Church And he says and he says it truly 'T is a part of most insolent madness for any Man to dispute whether that be to be done which is usually done in and through the whole Catholike Church of Christ Where first here 's not a word of the Roman Church but of that which is tota per Orbem all over the World Catholike which Rome never yet was Secondly A. C. applies this to the Roman Faith whereas S. Augustine speaks there expresly of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church and particularly about the Manner of Offering upon Maundy Thursday whether it be in the Morning or after Supper or both Thirdly 't is manifest by the words themselves that S. Augustine speaks of no Matter of Faith there Roman nor Catholike For Frequentat and Faciendum are for Things done and to be done not for Things believed or to be believed So here 's not One Word for the Roman Faith in either of these Places And after this I hope you will the less wonder at A. C's Boldness Lastly a right sober man may without the least Touch of Insolencie or Madness dispute a Business of Religion with the Roman either Church or Prelate as all men know Irenaeus did with Victor so it be with Modesty and for the finding out or Confirming of Truth free from Vanity and purposed Opposition against even a Particular Church But in any other way to dispute the Whole Catholike Church is just that which S. Augustine calls it Insolent Madness Num. 5 But now were it so that the Church of Rome were Orthodox in all things yet the Faith by the Jesuite's leave is not simply to be called the Roman but the Christian and the Catholike Faith And yet A. C. will not understand this but Roman and Catholike whether Church or Faith must be one and the same with him and therefore infers That there can be no just Cause to make a Schism or Division from the whole Church For the whole Church cannot universally erre in Doctrine of Faith That the whole Church cannot universally erre in the Doctrine of Faith is most true and 't is granted by drivers Protestants so you will but understand it s not erring in Absolute Fundamental Doctrines And therefore 't is true also that there can be no just Cause to make a Schism from the whole Church But here 's the Jesuite's Cunning. The whole Church with him is the Roman and those parts of Christendom which subject themselves to the Roman Bishop All other parts of Christendom are in Heresie and Schism and what A. C. pleases Nay soft For another Church may separate from Rome if Rome will separate from Christ. And so far as it separates from Him and the Faith so far may another Church fever from it And this is all that the Learned Protestants do or can say And I am sure all that ever the Church of England hath either said or done And that the whole Church cannot erre in Doctrines absolutely Fundamental and Necessary to all mens Salvation besides the Authority of thoso Protestants most of them being of prime Rank seems to me to be clear by the Promise of Christ S. Matth. 16. That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Whereas most certain it is that the Gates of Hell prevail very far against it if the Whole Militant Church universally taken can Erre from or in the Foundation But then this Power of not Eâ—ring is not to be conceived as if it were in the Church primò per se Originally or by any power it hath of it self For the Church is constituted of Men and Humanum est errare all men can erre But this Power is in it partly by the vertue of this Promise of Christ and partly by the Matter which it teacheth which is the unerring Word of God so plainly and manifestly delivered to her as that it is not possible she should universally fall from it or teach against it in things absolutely necessary to Salvation Besides it would be well weighed whether to believe or teach otherwise will not impeach the Article of the Creed concerning the Holy Catholike Church which we profess we believe For the Holy Catholike Church there spoken of contains not only the whole Militant Church on earth but the whole Triumphant also in Heaven For so S. Augustine hath long since taught me Now if the whole Catholike Church in this large extent be Holy then certainly the whole Militant Church is Holy as well as the Triumphant though in a far lower degree in as much as all Sanctification all Holiness is imperfect in this life as well in Churches as in Men Holy then the whole Militant Church is For that which the Apostle speaks of Abraham is true of the Church which is a Body Collective made
up of the spiritual seed of Abraham Rom. 11. If the root be holy so are the branches Well then the whole Militant Church is Holy and so we believe Why but will it not follow then That the whole Militant Church cannot possibly erre in the Foundations of the Faith That she may erre in Superstructures and Deductions and other by and unnecessary Truths if her Curiosity or other weakness carry her beyond or cause her to fall short of her Rule no doubt need be made But if She can erre either from the Foundation or in it She can be no longer Holy and that Article of the Creed is gone For if she can erre quite from the Foundation then She is nor Holy nor Church but becomes an Infidel Now this cannot be For all Divines Ancient and Modern Romanists and Reformers agree in this That the whole Militant Church of Christ cannot fall away into general Apostacie And if She Erre in the Foundation that is in some one or more Fundamental Points of Faith then She may be a Church of Christ still but not Holy but becomes Heretical And most Certain it is that no Assembly be it never so general of such Hereticks is or can be Holy Other Errors that are of a meaner alay take not Holiness from the Church but these that are dyed in grain cannot consist with Holiness of which Faith in Christ is the very Foundation And therefore if we will keep up our Creed the whole Militant Church must be still Holy For if it be not so still then there may be a time that Falsum may subesse Fidei Catholicae That falshood and that in a high degree in the very Article may be the Subject of the Catholike Faith which were no less than Blasphemy to affirm For we must still believe the Holy Catholike Church And if She be not still Holy then at that time when she is not so we believe a Falshood under the Article of the Catholike Faith Therefore a very dangerous thing it is to cry out in general terms That the whole Catholike Militant Church can Erre and not limit nor distinguish in time that it can erre indeed for Ignorance it hath and Ignorance can Erre But Erre it cannot either by falling totally from the Foundation or by Heretical Error in it For the Holiness of the Church consists as much if not more in the Verity of the Faith as in the Integrity of Manners taught and Commanded in the Doctrine of Faith Num. 6 Now in this Discourse A. C. thinks he hath met with me For he tells me That I may not only safely grant that protestants made the Division that is now in the Church but further also and that with a safe Confidence as one did was it not you saith he That it was ill done of those who first made the Separation Truly I do not now remember whether I said it or no. But because A. C. shall have full satisfaction from me and without any Tergiversation if I did not say it then I do say it now and most true it is That it was ill done of those who ere they were that first made the separation But then A. C. must not understand me of Actual only but of Causal separation For as I said before the Schism is theirs whose the Cause of it is And he makes the Separation that gives the first just Cause of it not he that makes an Actual Separation upon a just Cause preceding And this is so evident a Truth that A. C. cannot deny it for he says 't is most true Neither can he deny it in this sense in which I have expressed it for his very Assertion against us though false is in these Terms That we gave the first Cause Therefore he must mean it of Causal not of Actual Separation only Num. 7 But then A. C. goes on and tells us That after this Breach was made yet the Church of Rome was so kind and careful to seek the Protestants that She invited them publikely with Safe-conduct to Rome to a General Councel freely to speak what they could for themselves Indeed I think the Church of Rome did carefully seek the Protestants But I doubt it was to bring them within their Net And she invited them to Rome A very safe place if you mark it for them to come to just as the Lyon in the Apologue invited the Fox to his own Den. Yea but there was Safe-Conduct offered too Yes Conduct perhaps but not safe or safe perhaps for going thither but none for coming thence Vestigia nulla retrorsum Yea but it should have been to a General Councel Perhaps so But was the Conduct safe that was given for coming to a Councel which they call General to some others before them No sure John Hus and Jerome of Prage burnt for all their Safe-Conduct And so long as Jesuites write and maintain That Faith given is not to be kept with Hereticks And the Church of Rome leaves this lewd Doctrine uncensured as it hath hitherto done and no exception put in of force and violence A. C. shall pardon us that we come not to Rome nor within the reach of Roman Power what freedom of Speech soever be promised us For to what end Freedom of Speech on their part since they are resolved to alter nothing And to what end Freedom of speech on our part if after speech hath been free life shall not Num. 8 And yet for all this A. C. makes no doubt but that the Romane Church is so far from being Cause of the continuance of the Schism or hinderance of the Re-union that it would yet give a free hearing with most ample Safe-Conduct if any hope might be given that the Protestants would sincerely seek nothing but Truth and Peace Truly A. C. is very Resolute for the Roman Church yet how far he may undertake for it I cannot tell But for my part I am of the same Opinion for the continuing of the Schism that I was for the making of it That is that it is ill very ill done of those whoever they be Papists or Protestants that give just Cause to continue a Separation But for free-hearings or Safe-Conducts I have said enough till that Church do not only say but do otherwise And as for Truth and Peace they are in every mans mouth with you and with us But lay they but half so close to the hearts of men as they are common on their tongues it would soon be better with Christendom than at this day it is or is like to be And for the Protestants in general I hope they seek both Truth and Peace sincerely The Church of England I am sure doth and hath taught me to pray for both as I most heartily do But what Rome doth in this if the world will not see I will not Censure Num. 9 And for that which A. C. adds That such a
above a thousand years ago by many both National and Provincial Synods For the Councel at Rome under Pope Sylvester An. 324. condemned Photinus and Sabellius And their Heresies were of high Nature against the Faith The Councel at Gangra about the same time condemned Eustathius for his condemning of Marriage as unlawful The first Councel at Carthage being a Provincial condemned Rebaptization much about the year 348. The Provincial Councel at Aquileia in the year 381. in which S. Ambrose was present condemned Palladius and Secundinus for embracing the Arrian Heresie The second Councel of Carthage handled and Decreed the Belief and Preaching of the Trinity And this a litte after the year 424. The Councel of Milevis in Africa in which S. Augustine was present condemned the whole Course of the Heresie of Pelagius that great and bewitching Heresie in the year 416. The second Councel at Orange a Provincial too handled the great Controversies about Grace and Free-will and set the Church right in them in the year 444. The third Councel at Toledo a National one in the year 589. determined many things against the Arrian Heresie about the very Prime Articles of Faith under fourteen several Anathema's The fourth Councel at Toledo did not only handle Matters of Faith for the Reformation of that People but even added also some things to the Creed which were not expresly delivered in former Creeds Nay the Bishops did not only practise this to Condemn Heresies in National and Provincial Synods and so Reform those several Places and the Church it self by parts But They did openly challenge this as their Right and Due and that without any leave asked of the Sea of Rome For in this Fourth Councel of Toledo They Decree That if there happen a Cause of Faith to be setled a General that is a National Synod of all Spain and Galicia shall be held thereon And this in the year 643. Where you see it was then Catholike Doctrine in all Spain that a National Synod might be a Competent Judge in a Cause of Faith And I would fain know what Article of the Faith doth more concern all Christians in general than that of Filióque And yet the Church of Rome her self made that Addition to the Creed without a General Councel as I have shewed already And if this were practised so often and in so many places why may not a National Councel of the Church of England do the like as She did For She cast off the Pope's Usurpation and as much as in her lay restored the King to his right That appears by a Book subscribed by the Bishops in Henry the eighth's time And by the Records in the Arch-bishops Office orderly kept and to be seen In the Reformation which came after our Princes had their parts and the Clergy theirs And to these Two principally the power and direction for Reformation belongs That our Princes had their parts is manifest by their Calling together of the Bishops and others of the Clergy to consider of that which might seem worthy Reformation And the Clergy did their part For being thus called together by Regal Power they met in the National Synod of sixty two And the Articles there agreed on were afterwards confirmed by Acts of State and the Royal Assent In this Synod the Positive Truths which are delivered are more than the Polemicks So that a meer Calumny it is That we profess only a Negative Religion True it is and we must thank Rome for it our Confession must needs contain some Negatives For we cannot but deny that Images are to be adored Nor can we admit Maimed Sacraments Nor grant Prayers in an unknown tongue And in a corrupt time or place 't is as necessary in Religion to deny falshood as to assert and vindicate Truth Indeed this later can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by the former an Affirmative Verity being ever included in the Negative to a Falshood As for any Error which might fall into this as any other Reformation if any such can be found then I say and 't is most true Reformation especially in Cases of Religion is so difficult a work and subject to so many Pretensions that 't is almost impossible but the Reformers should step too far or fall too short in some smaller things or other which in regard of the far greater benefit coming by the Reformation it self may well be passed over and born withal But if there have been any wilful and gross errors not so much in Opinion as in Fact Sacriledge too often pretending to reform Superstition that 's the Crime of the Reformers not of the Reformation and they are long since gone to God to answer it to whom I leave them Num. 6 But now before I go off from this Point I must put you in remembrance too That I spake at that time and so must all that will speak of that Exigent of the General Church as it was for the most part forced under the Government of the Roman Sea And this you understand well enough For in your very next words you call it the Roman Church Now I make no doubt but that as the Universal Catholike Church would have reform'd her self had she been in all parts freed of the Roman Yoke so while she was for the most in these Western parts under that yoke the Church of Rome was if not the Only yet the Chief Hinderance of Reformation And then in this sense it is more than clear That if the Roman Church will neither Reform nor suffer Reformation it is lawful for any other Particular Church to Reform it self so long as it doth it peaceably and orderly and keeps it self to the Foundation and free from Sacriledge F. I asked Quo Judice did this appear to be so Which Question I asked as not thinking it equity that Protestants in their own Cause should be Accusers Witnesses and Judges of the Roman Church B. § 25 Num. 1 You do well to tell the reason now why you asked this Question For you did not discover it at the Conference if you had you might then have received your Answer It is most true No man in common equity ought to be suffered to be Accuser Witness and Judge in his own Cause But is there not as little reason and equity too that any man that is to be accused should be the Accused and yet Witness and Judge in his own Cause If the first may hold no man shall be Innocent and if the last none will be Nocent And what do we here with in their own Cause against the Roman Church Why Is it not your own too against the Protestant Church And if it be a Cause common to both as certain it is then neither Part alone may be Judge If neither alone may judge then either they must be judged by a Third which stands indifferent to both and
that Patriarchs Jurisdiction as it was then practised And he says expresly That according to the old Custome the Roman Patriarchs Charge was confined within the Limits of the Suburbicarian Churches To avoid the force of this Testimony Cardinal Peron lays load upon Ruffinus For he charges him with Passion Ignorance and Rashness And one piece of his Ignorance is That he hath ill translated the Canon of the Councel of Nice Now be that as it may I neither do nor can approve his Translation of that Canon nor can it be easily proved that he purposely intended a Translation All that I urge is that Ruffinus living in that time and Place was very like well to know and understand the Limits and Bounds of that Patriarchate of Rome in which he lived Secondly here 's That it had potentiorem a more powerful Principality than other Churches had And that the Protestants grant too and that not only because the Roman Prelate was Ordine primus first in Order and Degree which some One must be to avoid Confusion But also because the Roman Sea had won a great deal of Credit and gained a great deal of Power to it self in Church-Affairs Because while the Greek yea and the African Churches too were turbulent and distracted with many and dangerous Opinions the Church of Rome all that while and a good while after Irenaeus too was more calm and constant to the Truth Thirdly here 's a Necessity say they required That every Church that is the faithful which are every where agree with that Church But what simply with that Church what ever it do or believe No nothing less For Irenaeus adds with that Church in quâ in which is conserved that Tradition which was delivered by the Apostles And God forbid but it should be necessary for all Churches and all the faithful to agree with that Ancient Apostolike Church in all those Things in which it keeps to the Doctrine and Discipline delivered by the Apostles In Iraeneus his time it kept these better than any other Church and by this in part obtained potentiorem Principalitatem a Greater power than other Churches but not over all other Churches And as they understand Irenaeus a Necessity lay upon all other Churches to agree with this but this Necessity was laid upon them by the Then Integrity of the Christian Faith there professed not by the Universality of the Roman Jurisdiction now challenged And let Rome reduce it self to the Observation of Tradition Apostolike to which it then held and I will say as Irenaeus did That it will be then necessary for every Church and for the Faithful every where to agree with it Lastly let me Observe too That Irenaeus made no doubt but that Rome might fall away from Apostolical Tradition as well as other Particular Churches of great Name have done For he does not say in quâ servanda semper erit sed in quâ servata est Not in which Church the Doctrine delivered from the Apostles shall ever be entirely kept That had been home indeed But in which by God's Grace and Mercy it was to that time of Irenaeus so kept and preserved So we have here in Irenaeus his Judgment the Church of Rome then Entire but not Infallible And endowed with a more powerful Principality than other Churches but not with an Universal Dominion over all other Churches which is the Thing in Question Num. 14 But to this place of Irenaeus A. C. joyns a Reason of his own For he tells us the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter's Successor and therefore to Him we must have recourse The Fathers I deny not ascribe very much to S. Peter But 't is to S. Peter in his own person And among them Epiphanius is as free and as frequent in extolling S. Peter as any of them And yet did he never intend to give an Absolute Principality to Rome in S. Peter's right There is a Noted Place in that Father where his words are these For the Lord himself made S. Peter the first of the Apostles a firm Rock upon which the Church of God is built and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it c. For in him the Faith is made firm every way who received the Key of Heaven c. For in him all the Questions and Subtilties of the Faith are sound This is a great Place at first sight too and deserves a Marginal Note to call young Readers eyes to view it And it hath this Note in the Old Latine Edition at Paris 1564. Petri Principatus Praestantia Peters Principality and Excellencie This Place as much shew as it makes for the Roman Principality I shall easily clear and yet do no wrong either to S. Peter or the Roman Church For most manifest it is That the Authority of S. Peter is urged here to prove the Godhead of the Holy Ghost And then follow the Elogies given to S. Peter the better to set off and make good that Authority As that he was Princeps Apostolorum the Prince of the Apostles and pronounced blessed by Christ because as God the Father revealed to him the Godhead of the Son so did he again the Godhead of the Holy Ghost After this Epiphanius calls Him solidam Petram a solid Rock upon which the Church of God was founded against which the Gates of Hell should not prevail And adds That the Faith was rooted and made firm in him every way in him who received the Key of Heaven And after this he gives the Reason of all Because in Him mark I pray 't is still in Him as he was blessed by that Revelation from God the Father S. Mathew 16. were found all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very Nice-Cities and exactness of the Christian Faith For he professed the Godhead of the Son and of the Holy Ghost And so Omni modo every Point of Faith was rooted in Him And this is the full meaning of that Learned Father in this passage Now therefore Building the Church upon Saint Peter in Epiphanius his sense is not as if He and his Successors were to be Monarchs over it for ever But it is the edifying and establishing the Church in the true Faith of Christ by the Confession which S. Peter made And so He expresses himself elsewhere most plainly Saint Peter saith he who was made to us indeed a solid Rock firming the Faith of our Lord. On which Rock the Church is built juxta omnem modum every way First that he Confessed Christ to be the Son of the Living God and by and by he heard Upon this Rock of solid Faith I will build my Church And the same Confession he made of the Holy Ghost Thus was S. Peter a solid Rock upon which the Church was founded omni modo every way That is the Faith of the Church was ‖ confirmed by him in every Point But that S. Peter was any
must in reason be perfecter than that which is but the Childe of one mans sufficiency If then a General Councel have no ground of Not erring from the Men or the Meeting either it must not be at all or it must be by some assistance and power upon them when they are so met together And this if it be less than the Assistance of the holy Ghost it cannot make them secure against Errour Num. 1 Thirdly I Consider That the Assistance of the Holy Ghost is without Errour That 's no Question and as little there is That a Councel hath it But the Doubt that troubles is Whether all the assistance of the Holy Ghost be afforded in such a High manner as to cause all the Definitions of a Councel in matters Fundamental in the Faith and in remote Deductions from it to be alike Infallible Now the Romanists to prove there is infallible assistance produce some places of Scripture but no one of them infers much less inforces an Infallibility The places which Stapleton there rests upon are these I will send you the Spirit of Truth which will lead you into all Truth And This Spirit shall abide with you for ever And Behold I am with you to the end of the world To these others adde The founding of the Church upon the Rock against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail And Christ's Prayer for S. Peter That his Faith fail not And Christ's Promise That where two or three are gathered together in his Name he will be in the midst of them And that in the Acts It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us Num. 2 For the first which is Leading into all truth and that for ever All is not always universally taken in Scripture Nor is it here simply for All Truth For then a General Councel could no more erre in matter of Fact than in matter of Faith in which yet your selves grant it may erre But into All Truth is a limited all Into all Truth absolutely necessary to Salvation And this when they suffer themselves to be led by the Blessed Spirit by the Word of God And all Truth which Christ had before at least fundamentally delivered unto them He shall receive of mine and shew it unto you And again He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance which I have told you And for this necessary Truth too the Apostles received this Promise not for themselves and a Councel but for themselves and the whole Catholike Church of which a Councel be it never so General is a very little part Yea and this very Assistance is not so absolute not in that manner to the whole Church as it was to the Apostles neither doth Christ in that place speak directly of a Councel but of his Apostles Preaching and Doctrine Num. 3 As for Christ's being with them unto the end of the world the Fathers are so various that in the sense of the Ancient Church we may understand him present in Majestie in Power in Ayd and Assistance against the Difficulties they should finde for Preaching Christ which is the native sense as I take it And this Promise was made to support their weakness As for his Presence in teaching by the Holy Ghost few mention it and no one of them which doth speaks of any Infallible Assistance farther than the succeeding Church keeps to the Word of the Apostles as the Apostles kept to the Guidance of the Spirit Besides the Fathers refer their Speech to the Church Universal not to any Councel or Representative Body And Maldonate addes That this His presence by teaching is or may be a Collection from the place but is not the Intention of Christ. Num. 4 For the Rock upon which the Church is founded which is the next Place we dare not lay any other Foundation than Christ Christ laid his Apostles no question but upon Himself With these S. Peter was laid no man questions and in prime place of Order would his claiming Successours be content with that as appears and divers Fathers witness by his particular designment Tu es Petrus But yet the Rock even there spoken of is not S. Peter's person either onely or properly but the Faith which he professed And to this besides the Evidence which is in Text and Truth the Fathers come with very full consent And this That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it is not spoken of the Not erring of the Church principally but of the Not falling away of it from the Foundation Now a Church may erre and dangerously too and yet not fall from the Foundation especially if that of Bellarmine be true That there are many things even de fide of the Faith which yet are not necessary to Salvation Besides even here again the Promise of this stable edification is to the whole Church not to a Councel at least no further than a Councel builds as a Church is built that is upon Christ. The next Place is Christ's Prayer for S. Peter's Faith The native sense of which Place is That Christ prayed and obtained for S. Peter perseverance in the grace of God against the strong temptation which was to winnow him above the rest But to conclude an Infallibility hence in the Pope or in his Chair or in the Romane Sea or in a General Councel though the Pope be President I finde no one Ancient Father that dare adventure it And Bellarmine himself beside some Popes in their own Cause and that in Epistles counterfeit or falsly alledged hath not a Father to name for this sense of the Place till he come down to Chrysologus Theophylact and S. Bernard of which Chrysologus his speech is but a flash of Rhetorick and the other two are men of yesterday compared with Antiquity and lived when it was God's great grace and Learned mens wonder the corruption of the time had not made them corrupter than they are And Thomas is resolute That what is meant here beyond S. Peter's Person is referred to the whole Church And the Gloss upon the Canon-Law is more peremptory than he even to the Denial that it is meant of the Pope And if this Place warrant not the Popes Faith where is the Infallibility of the Councel that in your Doctrine depends upon it Num. 6 The next Place is Bellarmine's choice one and his first and he says 't is a proper place for Proof of the Infallibility of General Councels This Place is Christ's Promise Where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them S. Matth. 18. And he tells us The strength of the Argument is not taken from these words alone but as they are continued with the former and that the Argument is drawn à Minori
so to be amended in a later Councel I think will thus appear First his word is Emendari to be amended which properly supposes for errour and faultiness not Explanation And S. Augustine needed not to go to a word of such a forced sense nor sure would especially in a Disputation against Adversaries Next S. Augustine's Dispute is against S. Cyprian and the Councel held at Carthage about Baptism by Hereticks in which Point that National Councel erred as now all agree And S. Augustine's Deduction goes on Scripture cannot be other than right that is the Praerogative of it but Bishops may and be Reprehended for it if peradventure they erre from the Truth and that either by more Learned Bishops or by Provincial Councels Here Reprehension and that for deviation from the Truth is I hope Emendation properly and not Explanation onely Then Provincial Councels they must yeeld to General And to yeeld is not in case of Explanation onely Then it follows That even Plenary Councels themselves may be amended the former by the later still retaining that which went before If peradventure they erred or made deviation from the Truth And if this be not so I would fain know why in one and the same tenour of words in one and the same continuing Argument and Deduction of S. Augustine Reprehendi should be in proper sense and à veritate deviatum in proper sense and Cedere in proper sense and onely Emendari should not be proper but stand for an Explanation If you say the Reason is because the former words are applied to men and National Councels both which may erre but this last to General Councels which cannot erre This is most miserable Begging of the Principle and thing in Question Num. 5 Again S. Augustine concludes there That the General Councel preceding may be amended by General Councels that follow When that is known which lay hid before Not as Stapleton would have it Lay hid as in the seed of Ancient Doctrine onely and so needed nothing but explanation but hid in some darkness or ambiguity which led the former into errour and mistaking as appears For S. Augustine would have this amendment made without Sacrilegious Pride doubtless of insulting upon the former Councel that was to be amended and without swelling Arrogancy sure against the weakness in the former Councel and without contention of envie which uses to accompany mans frailty where his or his friends Errour is to be amended by the later Councel and in holy Humility in Catholike Peace in Christian Charity no question that a Schism be not made to tear the Church as here the Donatists did while one Councel goes to reform the lapse of another if any be Now to what end should this Learned Father be so zealous in this work this highest work that I know in the Church Reviewing and Surveying General Councels to keep off Pride and Arrogance and Envie and to keep all in Humility Peace and Charity if after all this noise he thought later Councels might do nothing but amend that is explain the former Num. 6 That Shift which Bellarmine addes to these two of Stapleton is poorest of all namely That S. Augustine speaks of unlawful Councels and it is no question but they may be amended as the second Ephesine was at Chalcedon For this Answer hath no Foundation but a peradventure Nor durst Bellarmine rest upon it And most manifest it is that S. Augustine speaks of Councels in general that they may erre and be amended in Doctrine of Faith and in case they be not amended that then they be condemned and rejected by the Church as this of Ephesus and divers others were And as for that meer Trick of the Popes Instruction Approbation or Confirmation to preserve it from Errour or ratifie it that it hath not erred the most ancient Church knew it not He had his Suffrage as other great Patriarchs had and his Vote was highly esteemed not onely for his Place but for worth too as Popes were then But that the Whole Councel depended upon him and his Confirmation was then unknown and I verily think at this day not Believed by the Wise and Learned of his Adherents Num. 1 Fifthly it must be considered If a General Councel may erre who shall judge it S. Augustine is at priora à posterioribus Nothing sure that is less then a General Councel Why but this yet lays all open to uncertainties and makes way for a Whirlwind of a Private Spirit to ruffie the Church No neither of these First all is not open to uncertainties For General Councels lawfully called and ordered and lawfully proceeding are a Great and an Awful Representation and cannot erre in matters of Faith keeping themselves to God's Rule and not attempting to make a New of their own and are with all submission to be observed by every Christian where Scripture or evident Demonstration come not against them Nor doth it make way for the Whirlwind of a private Spirit For private Spirits are too giddy to rest upon Scripture and to heady and shallow to be acquainted with Demonstrative Arguments And it were happy for the Church if she might never be troubled with Private Spirits till they brought such Arguments I know this is hotly objected against Hooker the Authour calls him a Wise Protestant yet turns thus upon him If a Councel must yeeld to a Demonstrative Proof Who shall judge whether the Argument that is brought be a Demonstration or not For every man that will kick against the Church will say the Scripture he urges is evident and his Reason a Demonstration And what is this but to leave all to the wildness of a Private Spirit Can any ingenuous man read this Passage in Hooker and dream of a Private Spirit For to the Question Who shall judge Hooker answers as if it had been then made An Argument necessary and Demonstrative is such saith he as being proposed to any man and understood the minde cannot chuse but inwardly assent unto it So it is not enough to think or say it is Demonstrative The Light then of a Demonstrative Argument is the Evidence which it self hath in it self to all that understand it Well but because all understand it not If a Quarrel be made Who shall decide it No Question but a General Councel not a Private Spirit first in the intent of the Authour for Hooker in all that Discourse makes the Sentence of the Councel binding and therefore that is made Judge not a Private Spirit And then for the Judge of the Argument it is as plain For if it be evident to any man then to so many Learned men as are in a Councel doubtless And if they cannot but assent it is hard to think them so impious that they will define against it And if that which is thought evident to any man be not evident to such a grave
as I do Num. 2 First then I consider Whether in those places of Scripture before mentioned or any other there be promised to the present Church an absolute Infallibility Or whether such an Infallibility will not serve the turn as Stapleton after much wrigling is forced to acknowledge One not every way exact because it is enough if the Church do diligently insist upon that which was once received and there is not need of so great certainty to open and explicate that which lies hid in the seed of Faith sown and deduce from it as to seek out and teach that which was altogether unknown And if this be so then sure the Church of the Apostles required guidance by a greater degree of Infallibility than the present Church which yet if it follow the Scripture is Infallible enough though it hath not the same degree of Certainty which the Apostles had and the Scripture hath Nor can I tell what to make of Bellarmine that in a whole Chapter disputes five Prerogatives in Certainty of Truth that the Scripture hath above a Councel and at last Concludes That They may be said to be equally certain in Infallible Truth Num. 3 The next thing I Consider is Suppose this not Exact but congruous Infallibility in the Church Is it not residing according to Power and Right of Authority in the whole Church always understanding the Church in this place pro Communitate Praelatorum for Church-Governours which have Votes in Councels and in a General Councel onely by Power deputed with Mandate to determine The Places of Scripture with Expositions of the Fathers upon them make me apt to believe this S. Peter saith S. Augustine did not receive the Keys of the Church but as sustaining the person of the Church Now for this Particular suppose the Key of Doctrine be to let in Truth and shut out Errour and suppose the Key rightly used Infallible in this yet this Infallibility is primely in the Church Docent in whose person not strictly in his own S. Peter received the Keys But here Stapleton lays cross my way again and would thrust me out of this Consideration He grants that S. Peter received these Keys indeed and in the Person of the Church but saith he that was because he was Primate of the Church And therefore the Church received the Keys finally but S. Peter formally that is if I mistake him not S. Peter for himself and his Successors received the Keys in his own Right but to this end to benefit the Church of which he was made Pastor But I keep on in my Consideration still For the Church here is taken pro Communitate Praelatorum for all the Prelates that is for the Church as 't is Docent and Regent as it Teaches and Governs For so onely it relates to a General Councel And so S. Augustine and Stapleton himself understand it in the places before alleadged Now in this sense S. Peter received the Keys formally for himself and his Successours at Rome but not for them onely but as he received them in the person of the whole Church Docent so he received them also in their Right as well as his own and for them all And in this sense S. Peter received the Keys in the person of the Church by Stapleton's good leave both Finally and Formally For I would have it considered also whether it be ever read in any Classick Author That to receive a thing in the person of another or sustaining the person of another is onely meant Finally to receive it that is to his good and not in his right I should think he that receives any thing in the person of another receives it indeed to his good and to his use but in his right too And that the formal right is not in the receiver onely but in him or them also whose person he sustains while he receives it I 'll take one of Stapleton's own Instances A Consul or prime Senator in an Aristocratical Government such as the Churches is Ministerially under Christ receives a Priviledge from the Senate and he receives it as Primarily and as Formally for them as for himself and in the Senates right as well as his own he being but a chief part and they the whole And this is S. Peter's Case in Relation to the whole Church Docent and Regent saving that his Place and Power was Perpetual and not Annual as the Consul 's was This Stumbling-block then is nothing and in my Consideration it stands still That the Church in this Notion by the hands of S. Peter received the Keys and all Power signified by them and transmitted them to their Successours who by the assistance of Gods Spirit may be able to use them but still in and by the same hands and perhaps to open and shut in some things Iufallibly when the Pope and a General Councel too forgetting both her and her Rule the Scripture are to seek how to turn these Keys in their Wards Num. 4 The third Particular I Consider is Suppose in the whole Catholike Church Militant an absolute Infallibility in the Prime Foundations of Faith absolutely necessary to Salvation and that this Power of not erring so is not communicable to a General Councel which represents it but that the Councel is subject to errour This supposition doth not onely preserve that which you desire in the Church an Infallibility but it meets with all inconveniences which usually have done and daily do perplex the Church And here is still a Remedy for all things For if Private Respects if Bandies in a Faction if power and favour of some parties if weakness of them which have the managing if any unfit mixture of State-Councels if any departure from the Rule of the Word of God if any thing else sway and wrench the Councel the Whole Church upon evidence found in express Scripture or demonstration of this miscarriage hath power to represent her self in another Body or Councel and to take order for what was amiss either practised or concluded So here is a means without any infringing any lawful Authority of the Church to preserve or reduce Unity and yet grant as I did and as the Church of England doth That a General Councel may erre And this course the Church heretofore took for she did call and represent her self in a new Councel and define against the Heretical Conclusions of the former as in the case at Ariminum and the second of Ephesus is evident And in other Councels named by Bellarmine Now the Church is never more cunningly abused than when men out of this Truth that she may erre infer this Falshood that she is not to be Obeyed For it will never follow She may Erre Therefore She may not Govern For he that says Obey them which have the Rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls Heb. 13. commands Obedience and
her Corruptions were part of the Catholike Faith of Christ. So the whole passage is a meer begging of the Question and then threatning upon it without all ground of Reason or Charity In the mean time let A. C. look to himself that in his false security he run not into the danger and loss of his own salvation while he would seem to take such care of ours But though this Argument prevails with the weak yet it is much stronger in the cunning than the true force of it For all Arguments are very moving that lay their ground upon the Adversaries Confession especially if it be confessed and avouched to be true But if you would speak truly and say Many Protestants indeed confess there is salvation possible to be attained in the Roman Church but yet they say withal that the Errours of that Church are so many and some so great as weaken the Foundation that it is very hard to go that way to Heaven especially to them that have had the Truth manifested the heart of this Argument were utterly broken Besides the force of this Argument lies upon two things one directly Expressed the other but as upon the By. Num. 3 That which is expressed is We and our Adversaries consent that there is salvation to some in the Roman Church What would you have us as malicious at least as rash as your selves are to us and deny you so much as possibility of Salvation If we should we might make you in some things strain for a Proof But we have not so learned Christ as either to return evil for evil in this heady course or to deny salvation to some ignorant silly souls whose humble peaceable obedience makes them safe among any part of men that profess the Foundation Christ And therefore seek not to help our Cause by denying this comfort to silly Christians as you most fiercely do where you can come to work upon them And this was an old trick of the Donatists For in the Point of Baptism whether that Sacrament was true in the Catholike Church or in the part of Donatus they exhorted all to be baptized among them Why Because both parts granted that Baptism was true among the Donatists which that peevish Sect most unjustly denied the sound part as S. Augustine delivers it I would ask now Had not the Orthodox true Baptism among them because the Donatists denied it injuriously Or should the Orthodox against Truth have denied Baptism among the Donatists either to cry quittance with them or that their Argument might not be the stronger because both parts granted But Mark this how far you run from all common Principles of Christian Peace as well as Christian Truth while you deny salvation most unjustly to us from which you are farther off your selves Besides if this were or could be made a concluding Argument I pray why do not you believe with us in the Point of the Eucharist For all sides agree in the Faith of the Church of England That in the most Blessed Sacrament the Worthy receiver is by his Faith made spiritually partaker of the true and real Body and Blood of Christ truly and really and of all the Benefits of his Passion Your Roman Catholikes add a manner of this his Prefence Transubstantiation which many deny and the Lutherans a manner of this Presence Consubstantiation which more deny If this Argument be good then even for this Consent it is safer Communicating with the Church of England than with the Roman or Lutheran Because all agree in this Truth not in any other Opinion Nay Suarez himself and he a very Learned Adversary what say you to this A. C doth Truth force this from him Confesses plainly That to Believe Transubstantiation is not simply necessary to Salvation And yet he knew well the Church had determined it And Bellarmine after an intricate tedious and almost inexplicable Discourse about an Aductive Conversion A thing which neither Divinity nor Philosophy ever heard of till then is at last forced to come to this Whatsoever is concerning the manner and forms of speech illud tenendum eâ—t this is to be held that the Conversion of the Bread and Wine into the Body and the Blood of Christ is substantial but after a secret and ineffable manner and not like in all things to any natural Conversion whatsoever Now if he had left out Conversion and affirmed only Christs real Presence there after a mysterious and indeed an ineffable manner no man could have spoke better And therefore if you will force the Argument always to make that the safest way of Salvation which differing Parties agree on why do you not yield to the force of the same Argument in the Belief of the Sacrament one of the most immediate means of Salvation where not onely the most but all agree And your own greatest Clarks cannot tell what to say to the Contrary Num. 4 I speak here for the force of the Argument which certainly in it self is nothing though by A. C. made of great account For he says 'T is a Confession of Adversaries extorted by Truth Just as Petilian the Donatist brag'd in the case of Baptism But in truth 't is nothing For the Syllogism which it frames is this In Point of Faith and Salvation 't is safest for a man to take that way which the differing Parties agree on But Papists and Protestants which are the differing Parties agree in this that there is salvation possible to be found in the Roman Church Therefore 't is safest for a man to be and continue in the Roman Church To the Minor Proposition then I observe this only that though many Learned Protestants grant this all do not And then that Proposition is not Universally true nor able to sustain the Conclusion For they do not in this all agree nay I doubt not but there are some Protestants which can and do as stifly and as churlishly deny them Salvation as they do us And A. C. should do well to consider whether they do it not upon as good reason at least But for the Major Proposition Namely That in Point of Faith and Salvation 't is safest for a man to take that way which the Adversary confesses or the Differing Parties agree on I say that is no Metaphysical Principle but a bare Contingent Proposition and being indefinitely taken may be true or false as the matter is to which it is applied but being taken universally is false and not able to lead in the Conclusion Now that this Proposition In point of Faith and Salvation 't is safest for a man to take that way which the differing Parties agree on or which the Adversary confesses hath no strength in it self but is sometimes true and sometimes false as the Matter is about which it is conversant is most evident First by Reason Because Consent of disagreeing Parties is neither Rule nor Proof of Truth For Herod and
would fain through Master Roger's sides wound the Church of England as if she were unsetled in the Article of Christs Descent into Hell pag. 21. And he endeavours the same in this pag. 46. In the first he is very earnest to prove That the Schism was made by the Protestants pag. 23. And he is as earnest for it in this pag. 55. In the first he lays it for a Ground That Corruption of Manners is no just Cause of separation from Faith or Church pag. 24. And the same Ground he lays in this pag. 55. In the first he will have it That the Holy Ghost gives continual and Infallible Assistance to the Church pag. 24. And just so will he have it in this pag. 53. In the first he makes much adoe about the Erring of the Greek Church pag. 28. And as much makes he in this pag. 44. In the first he makes a great noyse about the place in St. Augustine Ferendus est disputator errans c. pag. 18. and 24. And so doth he here also pag. 45. In the first he would make his Proselytes believe That he and his Cause have mighty advantage by that Sentence of S. Bernard 'T is intolerable Pride And that of S. Augustine 'T is insolent madness to oppose the Doctrine or Practice of the Catholike Church pag. 25. And twice he is at the same Art in this pag. 56. and 73. In the first he tells us That Calvin confesses That in the Reformation there was a Departure from the whole world pag. 25. And though I conceive Calvine spake this but of the Roman world and of no Voluntary but a forced Departure and wrote this to Melancthon to work Unity among the Reformers not any way to blast the Reformation Yet we must hear of it again in this pag. 56. But over and above the rest one Place with his own gloss upon it pleases him extreamly 'T is out of S. Athanasius his Creed That whosoever doth not hold it entire that is saith he in all Points and Inviolate that is saith he in the true unchanged and uncorrupted sense proposed unto us by the Pastors of his Catholike Church without doubt he shall perish everlastingly This he hath almost verbatim in the first page 20. And in the Epistle of the Publisher of that Relation to the Reader under the Name of W. I. and then agian the very same in this if not with some more disadvantage to himself page 70. And perhaps had I leasure to search after them more Points than these Now the Reasons which moved me to set down these Particulars thus distinctly are two The One that whereas the Jesuite affirms that in a second Conference all the speech was about Particular matters and little or nothing about the main and great general Point of a Continual Infallible Visible Church in which that Lady required satisfaction and that therefore this third Conference was held It may hereby appear that the most material both Points and Proofs are upon the matter the very same in all the three Conferences though little be related of the second Conference by A. C. as appears in the Preface of the Publisher W. I. to the Reader So this tends to nothing but Ostentation and shew The Other is that Whereas these men boast so much of their Cause and their Ability to defend it It cannot but appear by this and their handling of other Points in Divinity that they labour indeed but no otherwise then like an Horse in a Mill round about in the same Circle no farther at night then at noon The same thing over and over again from Tu es Petrus to Pasce oves from thou art Peter to Do thou feed my Sheep And back again the same way F. The Lady asked Whether she might be saved in the Protestant Faith Upon my soul said the Bishop you may Upon my soul said I there is but one saving Faith and that is the Roman B. § 38 Num. 1 So it seems I was consident for the Faith professed in the Church of England else I would not have taken the salvation of another upon my soul. And sure I had reason of this my Confidence For to believe the Scripture and the Creeds to believe these in the sense of the Ancient Primitive Church To receive the four great General Councels so much magnified by Antiquity To believe all Points of Doctrine generally received as Fundamental in the Church of Christ is a Faith in which to live and die cannot but give salvation And therefore I went upon a sure ground in the adventure of my soul upon that Faith Besides in all the Points of Doctrine that are controverted between us I would fain see any one Point maintained by the Church of England that can be proved to depart from the Foundation You have many dangerous Errours about the very Foundation in that which you call the Roman Faith But there I leave you to look to your own soul and theirs whom you seduce Yet this is true too That there is but one saving Faith But then every thing which you call De Fide of the Faith because some Councel or other hath defined it is not such a Breach from that One saving Faith as that he which expresly believes it not nay as that he which believes the Contrary is excluded from Salvation so his Disobedience therewhile offer no violence to the Peace of the Church nor the Charity which ought to be among Christians And Bellarmine is forced to grant this There are many things de Fide which are not absolutely necessary to salvation Therefore there is a Latitude in the Faith especially in reference to different mens salvation To set Bounds to this and strictly to define it for particular men Just thus far you must believe in every Particular or incur Damnation is no work for my Pen. These two things I am sure of One That your peremptory establishing of so many things that are remote Deductions from the Foundation to be believed as Matters of Faith necessary to Salvation hath with other Errours lost the Peace and Unity of the Church for which you will one day Answer And the other That you of Rome are gone farther from the Foundation of this One saving Faith than can ever be proved we of the Church of England have done Num. 2 But here A. C. bestirs himself finding that he is come upon the Point which is indeed most considerable And first he answers That it is not sufficient to beget a Confidence in this Case to say we believe the Scriptures and the Creeds in the same sense which the Ancient Primitive Church believed them c. Most true if we onely say and do not believe And let them which believe not while they say they do look to it on all sides for on all sides I doubt not but such there are But if we do say it
for the Inference which you would draw out of it that 's answered at large already But than A. C. adds That I say but without any proof that the Romanists have many dangerous errours but that I neither tell them which they be nor why I think them dangerous but that I leave them to look to their own souls which he says they do and have no cause to doubt How much the Jesuite and A. C. have said in this Conference without any solid Proof I again submit to judgment as also what Proofs I have made If in this very place I have added none 't is because I had made proof enough of the self-same thing before Where lest he should want and call for Proof again I have plainly laid together some of the many Dangerous errours which are charged upon them So I tell you which at least some of which they be and their very naming will shew their danger And if I did remit you to look to your own souls I hope there was no offence in that if you do it and do it so that you have no cause to doubt And the reason why you doubt not A. C. tells us is Because you had no new device of your own or any other mens nor any thing contrary to Scripture but all most conformable to Scriptures interpreted by Union Consont of Fathers and Definitions of Councels Indeed if this were true you had little cause to doubt in point of your Belief But the truth is you do hold new Devices of your own which the Primitive Church was never acquainted with And some of those so far from being conformable as that they are little less than contradictory to Scripture In which particulars and divers others the Scriptures are not interpreted by Union or Consent of Fathers or Definitions of Councels unless perhaps by some late Councels packed of purpose to do that ill service I have given Instances enough before yet some you shall have here lest you should say again that I affirm without proof or Instance I pray then whose Device was Transubstantiation And whose Communion under one kinde And whose Deposition and Unthroning nay Killing of Princes and the like if they were not yours For I dare say and am able to prove there 's none of these but are rather contrary than conformable to Scripture Neither is A. C. or any Jesuite able to shew any Scripture interpreted by Union or Consent of Fathers of the Primitive Church to prove any one of these Nor any Definition of Ancient Councels but only Lateran for Transubstantiation and that of Constance for the Eucharist in one kinde which two are Modern at least far downward from the Primitive Church and have done more mischief to the Church by those their Determinations than will be cured I fear in many Generations So whatever A. C. thinks yet I had reason enough to leave the Jesuite to look to his own soul. Num. 11 But A. C. having as it seems little new matter is at the same again and over and over it must go That there is but one saving Faith That this one Faith was once the Romane And that I granted one might be saved in the Romane Faith To all which I have abundantly answered before Marry then he infers That he sees not how we can have our souls saved without we entirely hold this Faith being the Catholike Faith which S. Athanasius saith unless a man hold entirely he cannot be saved Now here again is more in the Conclusion than in the Premises and so the Inference fails For say there was a time in which the Catholike and the Romane Faith were one and such a time there was when the Romane Faith was Catholike and famous through the world Rom. 1. Yet it doth not follow since the Councel of Trent hath added a new Creed that this Romane Faith is now the Catholike For it hath added extranea things without the Foundation disputable if not false Conclusions to the Faith So that now a man may Believe the whole and entire Catholike Faith even as S. Athanasius requires and yet justly refuse for dross a great part of that which is now the Romane Faith And Athanasius himself as if he meant to arm the Catholike Faith against all corrupting Additions hath in the beginning of his Creed these words This is the Catholike Faith This and no other This and no Other then here follows And again at the end of his Creed This is the Catholike Faith This and no more than is here delivered always presupposing the Apostles Creed as Athanasius did and this is the largest of all Creeds So that if A. C. would wipe his eyes from the mist which rises about Tyber he might see how our souls may be saved believing the Catholike Faith and that entire without the Addition of Romane Leaven But if he cannot or I doubt will not see it 't is enough that by Gods grace we see it And therefore once more I leave him and his to look to their own souls Num. 12 After this A. C. is busie in unfolding the meaning of this great Father of the Church S. Athanasius And he tells us That he says in his Creed That without doubt every man shall perish that holds not the Catholike Faith entire that is saith A. C. in every Point of it and inviolate that is in the right sense and for the true formal reason of divine Revelation sufficiently applied to our understanding by the Infallible Authority of the Catholike Church proposing to us by her Pastors this Revelation Well we shall not differ much from A. C. in expounding the meaning of S. Athanasius yet some few things I shall here observe And first I agree that he which hopes for Salvation must believe the Catholike Faith whole and entire in every Point Next I agree that he must likewise hold it inviolate if to believe it in the right sense be to hold it inviolate But by A. C's leave the Believing of the Creed in the right sense is comprehended in the first branch The keeping of it whole and entire For no man can properly be said to believe the Whole Creed that believes not the Whole Sense as well as the Letter of it and as entirely But thirdly for the word inviolate 't is indeed used by him that translated Athanasius But the Father 's own words following the Common Edition are That he that will be saved must keep the Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the sound and entire Faith And it cannot be a sound Faith unless the Sense be as whole and entire as the Letter of the Creed And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is compounded of the Privative particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is reproach or infamy So that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the holding of the entire
at Credimus we believe eternal Punishment but he goes no farther than Arbitramur we think there is a Purging So with him it was Arbitrary And therefore sure no Matter of Faith then And again he saith That some Christians may be saved post poenas after some punishments indured but he neither tells us Where nor When. S. Basil names indeed Purgatory fire but he relates as uncertainly to that in 1 Cor. 3. as S. Ambrose doth As for Paulinus he speaks for Prayer for the dead but not a word of Purgatory And the Place in S. Gregory Nazianzen is far from a manifest Place For he speaks there of Baptism by fire which is no usual phrase to signifie Purgatory But yet say that here he doth there 's a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a fortassis a peradventure in the words which Bellarmine cunningly leaves out And if it be a Peradventure ye shall then be Baptized with fire why then 't is at a Peradventure too that ye shall not Now such Casual stuff as this peradventure you shall and peradventure you shall not is no Expression for things which are valued to be de side and to be believed as Matters of Faith Bellarmine goes on with Lactantius but with no better success For he says indeed That some men perstringentur igne shall be sharply touched by fire But he speaks of such quorum peccata praevaluerunt whose sins have prevailed And they in Bellarmine's Doctrine are for Hell not Purgatory As for S. Hilary he will not come home neither 'T is true he speaks of a Fine too and one that must be indured but he tells us 't is a punishment expiandae à peccatis animae to purge the soul from sins Now this will not serve Bellarmine's turn For they of Rome teach That the sins are forgiven here and that the Temporal Punishment onely remains to be satisfied in Purgatory And what need is there then of purging of sins Lest there should not be Fathers enough he reckons in Boetius too But he though not long before a Convert yet was so well seen in this Point that he goes no farther than Puto I think that after death some souls are exercised purgatoriâ clementiâ with a Purgative Clemency But Puto I think 't is so is no expression for Matter of Faith The two pregnant Authorities which seem to come home are those of Gregory Nyssen and Theodoret But for Theodoret in Scholiis Graecis which is the Place Bellarmine quotes I can finde no such Thing And manifest it is Bellarmine himself took it but upon trust And for S. Gregory Nyssen 't is true some places in him seem plain But then they are made so doubtful by other Places in him that I dare not say simply and roundly what his Judgment was For he says Men must be purged from Perturbations and either by Prayers and Philosophy or the study of Wisdome or by the furnace of Purgatory-fire after this life And again That a man cannot be partaker 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Divine nature unless the Purging-fire doth take away the stains that are in his Soul And again That after this life a Purgatory-fire takes away the blots and propensity to evil And I deny not divers other like places are in him But first this is quite another thing from the Roman Purgatory For S. Gregory tells us here that the Purgatory he means purges Perturbations and stains and blots and propensity to evil Whereas the Purgatory which Rome now teaches purges not sin but is only satisfactory by way of punishment for sins already forgiven but for which satisfaction was not made before their Death Secondly S. Gregory Nyssen himself seems not obscurely to relate to some other Fire For he says expresly That the soul is to be punished till the Vitiosity of it be consumed Purgatorio igne So the Translation renders it but in the Original it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is in a fire that sleeps not which for ought appears may be understood of a Fire that is eternal whereas the fire assigned to Purgatory shall cease Besides S. Gregory says plainly The Soul cannot suffer by sire but in the Body and the Body cannot be with it till the Resurrection Therefore he must needs speak of a fire after the Resurrection which must be either the Fire of the General Conflagration or Hell Purgatory he cannot mean Where according to the Romish Tenet the Soul suffers without the Body The truth is Divers of the Ancient especially Greeks which were a little too much acquainted with Plato's School philosophized and disputed upon this and some other Points with much Obscurity and as little Certainty So upon the whole matter in the fourth and fifth hundred year you see here 's none that constantly and perspicuously affirm it And as for S. Augustine he said and unsaid it and at the last left it doubtful which had it then been received as a Point of Faith he durst not have done Indeed then in S. Gregory the Great 's time in the beginning of the sixth Age Purgatory was grown to some perfection For S. Gregory himself is at Scio 't was but at Puto a little before I know that some shall be Expiated in Purgatory flames And therefore I will easily give Bellarmine all that follow For after this time Purgatory was found too warm a business to be suffered to Cool again And in the after Ages more were frighted than led by proof into the Belief of it Num. 17 Now by this we see also That it could not be a Tradition For then we might have traced it by the smoke to the Apostles times Indeed Bellarmine would have it such a Tradition For he tells us out of S. Augustine That that is rightly believed to be delivered by Apostolical Authority which the whole Church holds and hath ever held and yet is not Instituted by any Councel And he adds That Purgatory is such a Tradition so Constantly held in the whole Church Greek and Latine And that we do not finde any beginning of this Belief Where I shall take the boldness to Observe these three things First that the Doctrine of Purgatory was not held ever in the whole Catholike Church of Christ. And this appears by the proofs of Bellarmine himself produced and I have before examined For there 't is manifest that scarce two Fathers directly affirm the belief of Purgatory for full six hundred years after Christ. Therefore Purgatory is no Matter of Faith nor to be believed as descending from Apostolical Authority by S. Augustine's Rule Secondly that we can finde a beginning of this Doctrine and a Beginner too namely Origen And neither Bellarmine nor any other is able to shew any one Father of the Church that said it before him Therefore Purgatory is not to be believed as a Doctrine delivered
necessary it is not that therefore or for prevention thereof there should be such a Certainty an Infallible Certainty in these things For he understood himself well that said Oportet esse Haereses 1 Cor. 11. There must there will be Heresies And wheresoever that Necessity lies 't is out of doubt enough to prove that Christ never left such an Infallible Assurance as is able to prevent them Or such a Mastering Power in his Church as is able to over-awe them but they come with their Oportet about them and they rise and spring in all Ages very strangely But in particular for that which first caused and now continues the loss of Unity in the Church of Christ as I make no doubt but that the Pride of men is one Cause so yet can I not think that Pride is the adaequate and sole Cause thereof But in part Pride caused it and Pride on all sides Pride in some that would not at first nor will not since submit their private judgments where with good Conscience they may and ought And Pride in others that would not first nor will not yet mend manifest great and dangerous errours which with all good Conscience they ought to do But 't is not Pride not to submit to known and gross Errours And the Definitions of some Councels perhaps the Lateran Constance and Trent have been greater and more urgent Causes of breach of Unity than the Pride of men hath been which yet I shall never excuse where-ere it is Num. 25 How far this one soul-saving Faith extends A. C. tells me I have confessed it not a work for my Pen But he says it is to be learned from that One Holy Catholike Apostolike always Visible and Infallible Romane Church of which the Lady once doubting is now fully satisfied c. Indeed though A. C. sets this down with some scorn which I can easily pass over 't is true that thus I said There is a Latitude in Faith especially in reference to different mens Salvation But to set a Bound to this and strictly to define it Just thus far you must Believe in every particular or incur domnation is no work for my Pen. Thus I said and thus I say still For though the Foundation be one and the same in all yet a Latitude there is and a large one too when you come to Consider not the Foundation common to all but things necessary to many particular mens Salvation For to whomsoever God hath given more of him shall more be required S. Luc. 12. as well in Belief as in Obedience and Performance And the gifts of God both ordinary and extraordinary to particular men are so various as that for my part I hold it impossible for the ablest Pen that is to express it And in this respect I said it with Humility and Reason That to set these Bounds was no work for my Pen. Nor will I ever take upon me to express that Tenet or Opinion the denial of the Foundation onely excepted which may shut any Christian out of heaven And A. C. I believe you know very well to what a narrow Sâ—antling some Learned of your own side bring the very Foundation it self rather than they will lose any that lay hold on Christ the Son of God and Redeemer of the World And as Christ Epitomizes the whole Law of Obedrence into these two great Commandments The love of God and our Neighbour S. Mat. 22. So the Apostle Epitomizes the whole Law of Belief into these two great Assents That God is and That he is a rewarder of them that seek him Heb. 11. that seek him in Christ. And S. Peter was full of the Holy Ghost when he exprest it That there is no salvation to them that seek it in or by another Name Act. 4. Num. 26 But since this is no work for my Pen it seems A. C. will not say 't is a work for his But he tells us 'T is to be learned of the One Holy Catholike Apostolike always Visible and Infallible Romane Church ' Titles enough given to the Romane Church and I wish she deserv'd them all for then we should have peace But 't is far otherwise One she is as a particular Church but not The One. Holy she would be counted but the world may see if it will not blinde it self of what value Holiness is in that Court and Country Catholike she is not in any sense of the word for she is not the Universal and so not Catholike in extent Nor is she sound in Doctrine in things w ch come neer upon the Foundation too so not Catholike in Belief Nor is she the Prime mother-Mother-Church of Christianity Jerusalem was that and so not Catholike as a Fountain or Original or as the Head or Root of the Catholike Num. 27 And because many Romanists object here though A. C. doth it not that S. Cyprian called the Romane Church The Root and Matrix of the Catholike Church of Christ I hope I shall have leave to explain that difficult place also First then S. Cyprian names not Rome That stands onely in the Margin and was placed there as his particular judgement led him that set out S. Cyprian Secondly the true Story of that Epistle and that which led S. Cyprian into this Expression was this Cornelius then chosen Pope expostulates with S. Cyprian That his Letters to Rome were directed onely to the Clergie there and not to Him and takes it ill as if S. Cyprian had thereby seemed to disapprove his Election S. Cyprian replies That by reason of the Schism mov'd then by Novation it was uncertain in Africk which of the Two had the more Canonical Right to the See of Rome and that therefore he nam'd him not But yet that during this uncertainty he exhorted all that sailed thither ut Ecclesiae Catholicae Radicem Matricem agnoscerent tenerent That in all their carriage they should acknowledge and so hold themselves unto the Unity of the Catholike Church which is the Root and Matrix of it and the onely way to avoid participation in the Schism And that this must be S. Cyprian's meaning I shall thus prove First because This could not be his meaning or Intention That the Sea of Rome was the Root or Matrix of the Catholike Church For if he had told them so he had left them in as great or greater difficulty than he found them For there was then an Open and an Apparent Schism in the Church of Rome Two Bishops Cornelius and Novation Two Congregations which respectively attended and observed them So that a perplexed Question must needs have divided their thoughts which of these Two had been that Root and Matrix of the Catholike Church Therefore had S. Cyprian meant to pronounce Rome the Root and Matrix of the Catholike Church he would never have done it at such a time when Rome it self was
whereas I said the Lady would far more easily be able to answer for her coming to Church than for her leaving the Church of England To this A. C. excepts and says That I neither prove nor can prove that it is lawful for one perswaded especially as the Lady was to go to the Protestant Church There 's a great deal of Cunning and as much Malice in this passage but I shall easily pluck the Sting out of the Tail of this Wisp And first I have proved it already through this whole Discourse and therefore can prove it That the Church of England is an Orthodox Church And therefore with the same labour it is proved that men may lawfully go unto it and communicate with it for so a man not onely may but ought to do with an Orthodox Church And a Romanist may communicate with the Church of England without any Offence in the Nature of the Thing thereby incurred But if his Conscience through mis-information check at it he should do well in that Case rather to inform his Conscience than forsake any Orthodox Church whatsoever Secondly A. C. tells me plainly That I cannot prove that a man so perswaded as the Lady was may go to the Protestant Church that is That a Romane Catholike may not go to the Protestant Church Why I never went about to prove that a Romane Catholike being and continuing such might against his Conscience go to the Protestant Church For these words A man perswaded as the Lady is are A. C's words they are not mine Mine are not simply that the Lady might or that she might not but Comparative they are That she might more easily answer to God for coming to than for going from the Church of England And that is every way most true For in this doubtful time of hers when upon my Reasons given she went again to Church when yet soon after as you say at least she was sorry for it I say at this time she was in heart and resolution a Romano Catholike or she was not If she were not as it seems by her doubting she was not then fully resolved then my speech is most true that she might more easily answer God for coming to Service in the Church of England than for leaving it For a Protestant she had been and for ought I knew at the end of this Conference so she was and then 't was no sin in it self to come to an Orthodox Church nor no sin against her Conscience she continuing a Protestant for ought which then appeared to me But if she then were a Romane Catholike as the Jesuite and A. C. seem confident she was yet my speech is true too For then she might more easily answer God for coming to the Church of England which is Orthodox and leaving the Church of Rome which is Superstitious than by leaving the Church of England communicate with all the Superstitions of Rome Now the cunning and the malignity of A. C. lies in this He would fain have the world think that I am so Indifferent in Religion as that I did maintain the Lady being conscientiously perswaded of the Truth of the Romish Doctrine might yet against both her conscience and against open and avowed profession come to the Protestant Church Num. 3 Nevertheless in hope his cunning Malice would not be discovered against this his own sence that is and not mine he brings divers Reasons As first 't is not lawful for one affected as that Lady was that is for one that is resolved of the Truth of the Romane Church to go to the Church of England there and in that manner to serve and worship God Because saith A. C. that were to halt on both sides to serve two Masters and to dissemble with God and the world Truly I say the same thing with him And that therefore neither may a Protestant that is resolved in Conscience that the profession of the true Faith is in the Church of England go to the Romish Church there and in that manner to serve and worship God Neither need I give other Answer because A. C. urges this against his own fiction not my assertion Yet since he will so do I shall give a particular Answer to each of them And to this first Reason of his I say thus That to Believe Religion after one sort and to practise it after another and that in the main points of worship the Sacrament and Invocation is to halt on both sides to serve two Masters and to dissemble with God and the world And other then this I never taught nor ever said that which might infer the Contrary But A. C. give me leave to tell you your fellow Jesuite Azorius affirms this in express terms And what do you think can he prove it Nay not Azorius onely but other Priests and Jesuites here in England either teach some of their Proselytes or else some of them learn it without teaching That though they be perswaded as this Lady was that is though they be Romane Catholikes yet either to gain honour or save their purse they may go to the Protestant Church just as the Jesuite here says The Lady did out of frailty and fear to offend the King Therefore I pray A. C. if this be gross dissimulation both with God and the world speak to your fellows to leave perswading or practising of it and leave men in the profession of Religion to be as they seem or to seem and appear as they are Let 's have no Mask worn here A. C's second Reason why one so perswaded as that Lady was might not go to the Protestant Church is Because that were outwardly to profess a Religion in Conscience known to be false To this I answer first that if this Reason be true it concerns all men as well as those that be perswaded as the Lady was For no man may outwardly profess a Religion in conscience known to be false For with the heart man believeth to righteousness and with the mouth he confesseth to salvation Rom. 10. Now to his own salvation no man can confess a known false Religion Secondly if the Religion of the Protestants be in conscience a known false Religion then the Romanists Religion is so too for their Religion is the same Nor do the Church of Rome and the Protestants set up a different Religion for the Christian Religion is the same to both but they differ in the same Religion And the difference is in certain gross corruptions to the very endangering of salvation which each side says the other is guilty of Thirdly the Reason given is most untrue for it may appear by all the former Discourse to any Indifferent Reader that Religion as it is professed in the Church of England is nearest of any Church now in being to the Primitive Church And therefore not a Religion known to be false And this I both do and can prove were not the deafness of the Asp upon the
ears of seduced Christians in all humane and divided parties whatsoever Num. 4 After these Reasons thus given by him A. C. tells me That I neither do nor can prove any superstition or errour to be in the Romane Religion What none at all Now truly I would to God from my heart this were true and that the Church of Rome wore so happy and the whole Catholike Church thereby blessed with Truth and Peace For I am confident such Truth as that would soon either Command Peace or confound Peace-Breakers But is there no Superstition in Adoration of Images None in Invocation of Saints None in Adoration of the Sacrament Is there no errour in breaking Christs own Institution of the Sacrament by giving it but in one kinde None about Purgatory About Common Prayer in an unknown tongue none These and many more are in the Romane Religion if you will needs call it so And 't is no hard work to prove every of these to be Errour or Superstition or both But if A. C. think so meanly of me that though this be no hard work in it self yet that I such is my weakness cannot prove it I shall leave him to enjoy that opinion of me or what ever else he shall be pleased to entertain and am far better content with this his opinion of my weakness than with that which follows of my pride for he adds That I cannot prove any Errour or Superstition to be in the Romane Religion but by presuming with intolerable pride to make my self or some of my fellows to be Judge of Controversies and by taking Authority to censure all to be Superstition and Errour too which sutes not with my fancy although it be generally held or practised by the Universal Church Which saith he in S. Augustine's judgment is most insolent madness What not prove any Superstition any Errour at Rome but by Pride and that Intolerable Truly I would to God A. C. saw my heart and all the Pride that lodges therein But wherein doth this Pride appear that he censures me so deeply Why first in this That I cannot prove any Errour or Superstition to be in the Romane Religion unless I make my self or some of my fellows Judge of Controversies Indeed if I took this upon me I were guilty of great Pride But A. C. knows well that before in this Conference which he undertakes to Answer I am so far from making my self or any of my fellows Judge of Controversies that I absolutely make a lawful and free General Councel Judge of Controversies by and according to the Scriptures And this I learned from S. Augustine with this That ever the Scripture is to have the prerogative above the Councel Nay A. C. should remember here that he himself taxes me for giving too much power to a General Councel and binding men to a strict Obedience to it even in Case of Errour And therefore sure most innocent I am of the most intolerable pride which he is pleased to charge upon me and he of all men most unfit to charge it Secondly A. C. will have my pride appear in this that I take Authority to censure all for Errour and Superstition which sutes not with my own fancy But how can this possible be since I submit my judgment in all humility to the Scripture interpreted by the Primitive Church and upon new and necessary doubts to the judgment of a lawful and free General Councel And this I do from my very heart and do abhor in matters of Religion that my own or any private mans fancy should take any place and least of all against things generally held or practised by the Universal Church which to oppose in such things is certainly as S. Augustine calls it Insolentissimae insaniae an Attempt of most insolent madness But those things which the Church of England charges upon the Roman Party to be superstitious and erroneous are not held or practised in or by the Universal Church generally either for time or place And now I would have A. C. consider how justly all this may be turned upon himself For he hath nothing to pretend that there are not gross Superstitions and Errours in the Romane Perswasion unless by intolerable pride he will make himself and his Party Judge of Controversies as in effect he doth for he will be judged by none but the Pope and a Councel of his ordering or unless he will take Authority to free from Superstition and Errour whatsoever sutes with his fancy though it be even Superstition it self and run cross to what hath been generally held in the Catholike Church of Christ Yea though to do so be in S. Augustine's judgment most insolent madness And A. C. spake in this most properly when he called it taking of Authority For the Bishop and Church of Rome have in this particular of judging Controversies indeed taken that Authority to themselves which neither Christ nor his Church Catholike did ever give them Here the Conference ended with this Conclusion Num. 5 And as I hope God hath given that Lady mercy so I heartily pray that he will be pleased to give all of you a Light of his Truth and a Love to it that you may no longer be made Instruments of the Pope's boundless Ambition and this most unchristian brain-sick device That in all Controversies of the Faith he is Infallible and that by way of Inspiration and Prophecy in the Conclusion which he gives To the due Consideration of which and God's mercy in Christ I leave you Num. 6 To this Conclusion of the Conference between me and the Jesuite A. C. says not much But that which he doth say is either the self same which he hath said already or else is quite mistaken in the business That which he hath said already is this That in matters of Faith we are to submit our judgments to such Doctors and Pastors as by Visible Continual Succession without change brought the Faith down from Christ and his Apostles to these our days and shall so carry it to the end of the world And that this Succession is not found in any other Church differing in Doctrine from the Romane Church Now to this I have given a full Answer already and therefore will not trouble the Reader with needless and troublesome repetition Then he brings certain places of Scripture to prove the Pope's Infallibility But to all these places I have likewise answered before And therefore A. C. needed not to repeat them again as if they had been unanswerable Num. 7 One Place of Scripture onely A. C. had not urged before either for proof of this Continued Visible Succession or for the Pope's Infallibility Nor doth A. C. distinctly set down by which of the two he will prove it The Place is Ephes. 4. Christ ascending gave some to be Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists some Pastors Teachers c. for the
Church and in that sense which he would have it And his Reason is * Because sound Doctrine is indivisible from true and lawful Succession Where you shall see this great Clerk for so he was not able to stand to himself when he hath forsaken Truth For 't is not long after that he tells us That the People are led along and judge the Doctrine by the Pastors But when the Church comes to examine she judges the Pastors by their Doctrine And this he says is necessary Because a man may become of a Pastor a Wolf Now then let Stapleton take his choice For either a Pastor in this Succession cannot become a Wolf and then this Proposition's false Or else if he can then sound Doctrine is not inseparable from true and Legitimate Succession And then the former Proposition's false as indeed it is For that a good Pastor may become a Wolf is no news in the Ancient Story of the Church in which are registred the Change of many Great men into Hereticks I spare their Names And since Judas chang'd from an Apostle to a Devil S. John 6. 't is no wonder to see others change from Shepherds into Wolves I doubt the Church is not empty of such Changelings at this day Yea but Stapleton will help all this For he adds That suppose the Pastors do forsake true Doctrine yet Succession shall still be a true Note of the Church Yet not every Succession but that which is legitimate and true Well And what is that Why That Succession is lawful which is of those Pastors which hold entire the Unity and the Faith Where you may see this Sampson's hair cut off again For at his word I 'll take him And if that onely be a Legitimate Succession which holds the Unity and the Faith entire then the Succession of Pastors in the Romane Church is illegitimate For they have had more Schisms among them than any other Church Therefore they have not kept the Unity of the Church And they have brought in gross Superstition Therefore they have not kept the Faith entire Now if A. C. have any minde to it he may do well to help Stapleton out of these briars upon which he hath torn his Credit and I doubt his Conscience too to uphold the Corruptions of the Sea of Rome Num. 9 As for that in which he is quite mistaken it is his Inference which is this That I should therefore consider carefully Whether it be not more Christian and less brain-sick to think that the Pope being S. Peter's Successour with a General Councel should be Judge of Controversies c. And that the Pastoral Judgment of him should be accounted Infallible rather than to make every man that can read the Scripture Interpreter of Scripture Decider of Controversies Controller of General Counsels and Judge of his Judges Or to have no Judge at all of Controversies of Faith but permit every man to believe as he list As if there were no Infallible certainty of Faith to be expected on earth which were instead of one saving Faith to induce a Babylonical Confusion of so many faiths as fancies Or no true Christian Faith at all From which Evils Sweet Jesus deliver us I have considered of this very carefully But this Inference supposes that which I never granted nor any Protestant that I yet know Namely That if I deny the Pope to be Judge of Controversies I must by and by either leave this supream Judicature in the hands and power of every private man that can but read the Scripture or else allow no Judge at all and so let in all manner of Confusion No God forbid that I should grant either For I have expresly declared That the Scripture interpreted by the Primitive Church and a lawful and free General Councel determining according to these is Judge of Controversies And that no private man whatsoever is or can be Judge of these Therefore A. C. is quite mistaken and I pray God it be not wilfully to beguile poor Ladies and other their weak adherents with seeming to say somewhat I say quite mistaken to infer that I am either for a private Judge or for no Judge for I utterly disclaim both and that as much if not more than he or any Romanist whoever he be But these things in this passage I cannot swallow First That the Pope with a General Councel should be Judge for the Pope in Ancient Councels never had more power than any the other Patâ—â—â—râ—hs Precedency perhaps for Orders sake and other respects he had Nor had the Pope any Negative voice against the rest in point of difference No nor was he held superiour to the Councel Therefore the ancient Church never accounted or admitted him a Judge no not with a Councel much less without it Secondly it will not down with me that his Pastoral Judgement should be Infallible especially since some of them have been as Ignorant as many that can but read the Scripture Thirdly I cannot admit this â—eâ—ther though he do most cunningly thereby abuse his Readers That any thing hath been said by me out of which it can justly be inferred That there 's no Infallible certainty of Faith to be expected on earth For there is most Infallible certainty of it that is of the Foundations of it in Scripture and the Creeds And 't is so clearly delivered there as that it needs no Judge at all to sit upon it for the Articles themselves And so entire a Body is this one Faith in it self as that the Whole Church much less the Pope hath not power to add one Article to it nor leave to detract any one the least from it But when Controversies arise about the meaning of the Articles or Superstructures upon them which are Doctrines about the Faith not the Faith it self unless where they be immediate Consequences then both in and of these a Lawful and free General Councel determining according to Scripture is the best Judge on earth But then suppose uncertainty in some of these superstructures it can never be thence concluded That there is no Infallible certainty of the Faith it self But 't is time to end especially for me that have so Many Things of Weight lying upon me and disabling me from these Polemick Discourses beside the Burden of sixty five years compleat which draws on apace to the period set by the Prophet David Psal. 90. and to the Time that I must go and give God and Christ an Account of the Talent committed to my Charge In which God for Christ Jesus sake be merciful to me who knows that however in many Weaknesses yet I have with a faithful and single heart bound to his free Grace for it laboured the Meeting the Blessed Meeting of Truth and Peace in his Church and which God in his own good time will I hope effect To Him be all Honour and Praise for ever AMEN FINIS A Table
sequentes quà m si Deam ipsam sequerentur ‖ S. Joh. 5. 47. * Hom. 57. in S. Joh. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 †a S. Pet. 1. 19. ‖ S. Chrysost. ubi suprd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 * Tantâ hominum temporam consensione firmatum S. Aug. L. de Mor. Eccles. Cath. c. 29. Ii Libri quoquo modo se habent sancti tamen Divinarum Rerum pleni propè totius generis humani Confessione diffamantur c. S. Aug. de util Cred. c. 7. L. 13. cont Faust. c. 15. †Super omnes omnium Gentium Liter as S. Aug. 11. de Civit. Dei c. 1. * Incertum esse non potest hos esse Libros Canonicos Wal. Doct. sid l. 2. a. 2. c. 20. †Canus Loc. l. 2. c. 8. facit Ecclesiam Causam sine qua non ‖ §. 16. * Inter omnes penè constat aut certè id quod satis est inter me illos cum quibus nunc agitur convenit hoc c. Sic in aliâ Causâ cont Manichaeos S. Aug. L. de Mor. Eccl Cath. c. 4. †Vin. Lir. cont Haeres c. 2. * Contra Epist. Fund c. 5. * Pamel in Summar Lib ... Videns Disputationibus nihil aut parâ—m profici †Acts 6. 9. ‖ Acts 9. 29. * Acts 19. 17. †Debilitatur generosa indoles conject a in argutias Sen. Ep. 48. ‖ Here A. C. hath nothing to say but that the Jesuite did not affirm That the Lady asked this Question in this or any other precise form No why the words preceding are the Jesuites own Therefore if these were not the Ladies words he wrongs her not I him * Integritatâ— custodes rect a sectantes De vera Relig. c. 5. †Hooker l. 3. §. 1. Junius l. de Ec. c. 17. Falluntur qui Ecclesiam negant quia Papatus in eâ est Reynold Thes. 5. Negat tantum esse Catholicam vel sanum ejus membrum Nay the very Separatists grant it Fr. Johnson in his Treatise called A Christian Plea Printed 1617. p. 123 c. ‖ Si tamen bono ingenio Pietas Paâ— quaedam mentis accedat fine quà de sanctis rebus nihil prorsus intelligi potest S. Aug. de Util. Cred. c. 18. A. C. p. 53. A. C. p. 54. * And after A. C. saith again p. 54. That the Lady did not ask the Question as if she meant to be satisfied with bearing what I said So belike they take Caution before-hand for that too That whatever we say unless we grant what they would have their Proselytes shall not be satisfied with it A. C. p. 54. * §. 20. N. 1. †And though Stapleton to magnifie the Church of Rome is pleased to say Apud vetâ—râ—s pro eodâ—m habita fuit Ecclesia Romana Ecclesia Catholica yet he is so modest as to give this Reason of it Quia ejus Communio â—rat evidentèr certiâ—â—â—â—â— cum toâ—d Catholied Relect. Con. 1. q. 5. A. 3 Lo The Communion of the Roman was then with the Catholike Church not of the Catholike with it And S. Cyprian imployed his Legates Caldonius and Fortunatus not to bring the Catholike Church to the Communion of Rome but Rome to the Catholike Church Elâ—borarâ—nt â—t ad Catholica Ecclessae unitatem sâ—issâ— Corporis membrâ— câ—â—pâ—â—erent c. Now the Members of this Rent and torn Body were they of Rome then in an open Schism between Corneliuâ— and Nâ—vatian S. Cypr. L. 2. Epist. 10. A. C. p. 54. * Câ—m infiniti Abusus Schismata quoque Haereses per totum nunc Christianum Orbem invalescant Ecclesiam Dei legitimâ indigere Reformatione nemiâ—◠〈◊〉 â—ertum â—rit Peâ— de Aliâ—co Card. Camerâ— ceâ—â—iâ— L. de Refor Ecclesiae And if Schisms and Heresies did then invade the whole Christian world let A. C. consider how Rome sâ—aped free And I think Caâ—eracâ—â—sis was in this Prophetical For sixty years and more before Luther was born and so before the great troubles which have since fallen upon all Christendom he used these words in the Book which himself delivered up in the Councel of Constance Nisi celeriteâ— fiat Reformatio audeo dicere quod licet magna siâ—t quae videmus tamen in brevi incomparabiliter majora vidâ—bimus Et post istae â—onâ—â—rua tam â—â—rreâ—â—a majora alia audiâ—mus c. Camet l. de Refor Eccles. And it will hardly sink into any mans judgment that so great a man as Pet. â—s Aliacâ— was in that Church should speak thus if he did not see some Errors in the Doctrine of that Church as well as in Manners Nay Cassander though he lived and dyed in the Communion of the Church of Rome yet found fault with some of her Doctrines Consult Artiâ— 21 22. And Pope â—uliâ—â—â— the third Professed â—e Bononi◠〈◊〉 Sacramentorum Ecclesiae ministerium iâ—â—umerabiles Abusus irrepâ—isse Espencaeus in Tit. 1. and yet he was onâ— of the Bishops nay the chief Legat in the Councel of Trent †A. C. p. â—4 ‖ S. Mat. 13. 25. * For A. C. knows well what strange Doctrines are charged upon some Popes And all Bellarmines labour though great and full of Art is not able to wish them clean 〈◊〉 â— 4. de Râ—m Pont. c. 8 c. Et Papas quosdam graves errores seminâ—ssâ— in Ecclesid Christi luâ—e claâ—â—â—s est Et proâ—â—tuâ—â—d â—aco Almain Opusâ— de Author Ecclesiae c. 10. And Cassander speaks it out more plainly Utiâ—am 〈◊〉 He speaks of the Bishops and Rectors in the Roman Church ◠〈◊〉 haec Informaâ—â—◠〈◊〉 essâ—â— non Ipsi â—arum Superstitionum Auctores essent vel certè 〈◊〉 iâ— Animi◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—lâ—quand◠〈◊〉 caâ—sâ nutrirâ—â—â— Cassand Consultâ— Art 21. versus finem * Grave omniâ—â— crimen sâ—â— desensionem longinquam non requirit satis est enim negare sicut pro Ecclesiâ olim S. Aug. de â—til Cred. c. ◠◠†Hanc quae respectâ— hominum Ecclesia dicitur observare ejusque Communionem coâ—ere debemus Calv. Inst. 4. c. 1. â— 7. ‖ Rectâ—â—ciaâ— not â—eâ—issâ— reâ—â—dâ—udo â— vobis c. Lucif L. dâ— non coâ—â—â—nitudâ— cum â—aereticis He speaks of the Arrians and I shall not compare you with them nor give any Offence that way I shall only draw the general Argument from it thus If the Orthodox did well in departing from the Arrians then the Schism was to be imputed to the Arrians although the Orthodox did depart from them Otherwise if the Orthodox had been guilty of the Schism he could not have said Rectè scias nos fecisse recedeâ—do For it cannot be that a man should do well in making a Schism There may be therefore a necessary separation which yet incurs not the blame of Schism and that is when Doctrines are taught contrary to the Catholike Faith †S. Matth. 18. 7. A. C. â— 55 56. * A. C. p. 57. A. C. p. 55. A. C. p. 56. †Conventus fuit Ordinum Imperii
Providè in quibâ—â—dâ—m Ecclesiis observatur ut Populâ— Sanguis non detiâ— Thom. p. 3. q. 80. A. 12. c. So it was but in some Churches in his time Negare non possumuâ— etiam in Ecclesiâ Lâ—tinâ fuisse usum utriusque speciei usque ad Tempora S. Tâ—omâ— durasse Vasq. in â— Disput. 216. c. 3. â— 38. * Refecti cibo potâ—â— câ—lesti Deus â—oster Teâ—supplices exâ—ramuâ— c. In proprio Missarum de Sa 〈…〉 Jan. 15. Orat. post Communionem 〈◊〉 Jan. â—1 * Ad quod Sacâ—â—ficium suo loco ordine Homines Dei nomindâ—tur non tamen a Saâ—â—rdoâ—â— quâ— Saâ—râ—â—â—caâ— Invocantur S. Aug. L. 22. Civ Dei c. 10. †Bellarm. L. 1 de Sanctor Bedtitud c. 20. § Ad primum ergo locuÌ„ c. ‖ Sunt Redemptores nostri aliquo modo secun 〈…〉 aliquid Bellar. L. 1. de Indulgenâ— c. 4. Et Sanctos appellat Numina L. 2. de Imagin Sanctorum c. 20. § 3. Now if this word Numen signifie any thing else besides God himself or the power of God or the Oraole of God let Bellarmine shew it or A. C for him * Ut ejuâ— Meritis Precibus â— Geheâ—ne â—â—cendiis liberemur In proprio Missarum de Sanctis Decemb. 6. †Ut Aâ—borum Meritis aeternitatis Glorâ—am consequamâ—â— Ibid. Julii 6. ‖ Ejus intercedentibus Meritis ab Omnibus nos absolve peccatis Ibid. Julli 14. * In Optatus his time the Christians were much troubled upon but a false report That an Image was to be placed upon the Altar What would they have done if Adoration had been Commanded c. Et rectè dictum erat si tasem famam similis veritas sequeretur Optat. L. 3. ad finem †Sicut non licet cum Ethnicis Idola colere Becan L. de side Haeret. servunda c. 8. ‖ Coâ—â—iâ—git aliqâ—aâ—do Hâ—reticâ—s â—irâ—a plura errare quà m Gentiles ut Manichâ—os inquit Thomas Quòd nos possumus verè dicere â—e nostri temporis Sectariis qui culpabilâ—â—èr in pluribus videntur errare Valentia in 2. 2 â— Disp. 1. â— 1â— Punct 3. * Quod quidem à Christianis mâ—lioribus non â—it S Aug. L. 8. de Civ Dei c. 27. †Illa quasi Parâ—uâ—alia superstitioni Gentilium simillima Lud. Vives Ibid. ‖ Quod ergo mortuis litabatur utique Parentationi deputabatur quâ— species proinde Idololatriae est quoniam Idololatriâ— Parentationis â—â—t species Tert. L. de Speâ—â—acuâ—is c. 12. * Manifestus est quà m ut multis verbis explicari deâ—eat Imaginum simulachrorum Cultum nimium invaluisse affectioni seâ— potiùs superstitioni populi plus saâ—â—â— indultum esse it à ut ad summam adorationem quae vel à Paganis suis simulachris â—xbibert consutvit c. Cassand Consult Art 21. C. de Imagibibuâ— Where he names divers of your own â—s namely â—urantâ—s Minatensis Episcoâ—us John Billet Gerson Durand Holkot and Biel rejecting the Opinion of Thomas and other superstitions concerning Images Ibid. †Non quod Credatur â—nesse aliqua in iis Divinitas velutâ— olim fiebat à Gentibus Conc. Trid. Sess. 25. Decret de Invocat ‖ Et â—â—dibus periculosi Erroris Occasiouem c. Ibid. * Et adâ—ò Gens affecta est trancis corrosis deformibus Imaginibus ut me teste quoâ—â—es Episcopi decentiores ponere jubent veteres suas petant plorantes c. Hieron Lamas Sâ—mma p. 3. c. 3 †Imagines Christi S. Matris â—jâ—â—s Sanctorum non sunt vâ—nerandâ— acsi in ipsis Imaginibus esset Divinit aâ— seeundùm quod sunt Materia Arte â—ffigiata non secundùm quod repraesentant Christum Sanctos c. Sic enim adorare vel petere aliquid ab iis esset Idololatria Lam. ibid. Quis ferat populum in Templum irruentem 〈◊〉 haram sues Certè non obsâ—â—t populo Câ—â—â—moniâ— sed prosunt si modus in â—is servetâ—r caveamusâ—è 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 loco habeaatur hoc est nè precipuam pietatem in illis collocemus Rhen. Annot. in Tâ—rtul de Cor. â—â—il * Cave nè dum vâ—s alium notare Culpae ipse uoteris Calum 〈…〉 S. Hier. â— 3. advers Pelagianos A. C. p. 64. * Nos fatemur sub Papatu pluâ—imum esse boni imò omne bonum Christianum atque etiam illinc ad nos devenisse c. Luther contra Anabaptist citante Bellarmino L. 4. de Notis Eccles. c. 16. §. penult Et â—â—â—eld Appendicâ— par 3. c. 2. Et Jos. Hall Bishop of Exeter L. Of the Old Religion c. 1. Many holding Christ the Foundation aright and groaning under the burden of Popish trash c. by a general repentance and assured Faith in their Saviour did finde favour with the Lord. D. Gro. Abbot late Archbishop of Cant. Answer to Hill ad Ration 1. §. 30. For my part I dare not deny the possibility of their Salvation who have been the chiefest Instruments of ours c. Hooker in his Discourse of Justificat §. 17. In former times a man might hold the general Doctrine of those Churches wherein our Fathers lived and be saved And yet since the Councel of Trent some are found in it in such degree of Orthodoxy as we may well hope of their Salvation Field l. 3. Eccl. c 47. The Latine or Western Church subject to the Romish Tyranny was a true Church in which a saving profession of the Truth of Christ was found Jos. Hall Bishop of Exeter L. Of the Old Religion fine in his Advertisement to the Reader p. 202. Non pauci retinuerunt Christum Fundamentum c. Mornaeus Tract de Ecclesia c. 9. fine Inter sordes istas ista quae summo cum periculo expectetur salus non ipsorum Additamentis sed iis quae nobiscum habent communia Fundamentis est attribuenda Jo. Prideaux Lectione 9. fine Papa aliquam adhuc Religionis formam relinquit spem vitae aeternae non tollit c. Calv. Instruct. advers Libertinos c. 4. †Here A. C. gets another snatch and tells us That to grant a Possibility of Salvation in the Romane Church is the free Confession of an Adversary and therefore is of force against us and extorted by Truth But to say that salvation is more securely and easily to be bad in the Protestant Faith that 's but their partial Opinion in their own behalf and of no force especially with Romane Catholikes I easily believe this latter part That this as A. C. and the rest use the matter with their Proselytes shall be of little or no force with Romane Catholikes But it will behove them that it be of Force For let any indifferent man weigh the Necessary Requisites to Salvation and he shall finde this no partial Opinion but very plain and real Verity That the Protestant living according to his belief is upon the safer way to Heaven And as for my Confession let them enforce it as far as they