is the Rule of Faith and after he tells you why it must be so because a Rule must be certain and known for if it be not certain it is no Rule and if not known it is no Rule to us now there is nothing more certain or more known than the Scriptures Compare the Marques his infallible Rule of Traditions with this saying of Bellarmine and it will appear they have little of a Rule in them For certainly what is more uncertain When the Primitive Church it self within a hundred years after the Apostolical Times was split into that great Schism about the Celebration of Easter which was but a meer Tradition and was not reconciled till the Councel of Nice And for being known nothing is less seeing in the very Church of Rome they are not yet agreed which are Apostolical Traditions The Scriptures he urgeth are Rom. 12. 6. And there is a Rule of Faith I grant and an infallible one too but it is not praeter besides nor extra without the Scripture but that mentioned in the Scriptures Gal. 6. 16. there is a Rule but a Rule of Doctrine concerning Christian Liberty in the point of Circumcision no Rule of Faith Rom. 6. 17. there is neither Rule nor Faith but a form of Doctrine delivered to them by the preaching of the Gospel what he urged out of 2 Cor. 10. 12 16. is so extremely and grosly impertinent as sure when he cast his eye upon that place his Lordship was either entring into or newly raised from such a nap wherein the Doctor found him M. But lest we should mis-understand what this Rule of Faith is the Marques tells us By it is not meant the holy Scriptures for that cannot do it and he gives the Reason whilest there are unstable men who wrest this way and that way to their own destruction So that Scripture is now with the Marques no infallible Rule at all Traditions have outed her clear and the Reason inferreth plainly that we must not walk abroad at high noon-day without a Torch because some men notwithstanding the Sun shined clear have fallen into a Ditch Of farr more weight I must needs confess are his Humane than Divine Authorities which yet shall not pass without my Animadversions Irenaeus lib. 4. c. 45. speaking of those who succeeded the Apostles saith Hi fidem nostram custodiunt Scripturas sine periculo exponunt These preserve our Faith and expound the Scriptures without peril of error Observe first 't is hi these men who were so near the Apostles as they were instructed by those who were contemporaries with them as himself says Then again 't is exponunt they do expound not that they are infallible or cannot expound otherwise what is this to the infallibility of the Church 1600 years after Christ Irenaeus is full enough in this point and point-blank against the Marques a To expound Scripture decording to Scripture is the truest way and least perilous As for Tertullian his meaning is thus made out b The Heretiques with whom the Church was to dispute did not receive all Scriptures for Canonical and those they did receive intire they did not or if intire they feigned strange Interpretations of their own fancies and a corrupt sense prejudiceth Truth as much as a corrupt Text were they accused for vitiating and falsifying the Text or for introducing absured Expositions They retorted the same Charge upon their Adversaries In this case of malicious obstinacy the Church had onely this remedy to provoke them to declare who founded their Churches for if it appeared they were the Apostles there was no more to be said it being in those days c constat and evidence enough of Truth that their Churches were of Apostolical foundation As for Vincentius having spoke before of the perfection of Scripture with a satis superque that it is all-sufficient and to spare he supposeth it may be demanded what need is there then of the Churches sense to which he answereth because all men understand it not in one sense and alike therefore it is necessary saith he that the line of interpretation be directed according to the rule of the Catholique and Ecclesiastical sense Now what is intended by a Catholique sense is the Question the Papists will have it to be Tradition unwritten but we say it is that which the Universal Church hath always held for Vincentius explains his Catholique to be that a which always every where and of all men hath been believed and this Rule we willingly admit in points essential where variety and different senses are inconsistent but in other points of less concernment we say with Saint Augustin b If any thing be set down in sacred Scriptures more obscurely as an exercise for the mindes of Believers it is commendable if it be interpreted many ways provided no way absurdly M. In matters of Faith Christ bids us do and observe whatsoever they bid us who sit in Moses seat Matth. 23. 2. therefore there is something more to be observed than Scripture True it is to be observed that his Lordship here takes observing and doing to be matters of Faith which I never read in Scripture nor anywhere else But are we to do whatsoever they bid us who sit in Moses seat Surely no if they have any Commission it is not greater than that of Moses was and his was after the tenour of the words delivered him in the Mount Exod. 34. 27. And therefore Christ saith In vain ye worship me teaching for Doctrines the Commandments of men Mat. 15. 9. Wil you not as wel believe what you hear Christ say as what ye hear his Ministers write Yes sure and much more for what Christ says is truth it self believe it I must but what his Ministers write is many times erroneous and then credat Judaeus Apella non ego believe it who will for me Their Commission is All things which I have commanded you M. We say the Scriptures are not easie to be understood you say they are Our Church saith it is full as well of low valleys plain ways and easie for every man to walk in as also of high hills and mountains which few men can climb unto And this the Marques in a manner grants p. 129. saying 't is easie in aliquibus but not in omnibus locis in some places not every where M. We say this Church cannot err you say it can What his Lordship means by this Church we might demand had he not told us at first to what Church he would lead his Majesty and that was the Romish Church of which our Church makes no bones to say It hath erred not onely in living and matters of ceremonies but also in matters of faith Here she is I confess somewhat bolder with the Church of Rome than the Marques was with his Majesty But perhaps the Church of England for she is not infallible may err in her
the Pope as a common Father Adviser and Conductor to them all whereas the Protestants being not united under one Prince nor Patriarch are as severed and scattered Troops c. His Lordship might have remembred that but ten pages before Sir Edwin saith speaking of France The Catholiques are here divided into as different Opinions and in as principal matters of their Religion as they esteem them as the Protestants in any place that ever I heard of By which it is evident both that the Catholiques have jarrs and no small jarrs neither From Divisions the Marques dislodgeth and proceeds next to the bad Lives of Protestants I confesse by the little I have searched I see a great deal of false play in his Lordships Instances to lay all open were time mis-spent I will neither admit all his Accusations for true nor affirm them all false enough I conceive it is for us in this particular to say The best is the Triple Crown it self is able to match them and over-match them too chuse what vice what sin you please for it hath afforded conjurating Popes who have made private Contracts with the Devil Alexander the sixth Paul the third Sylvester the second Benedict the ninth John the thirteenth Gregory the seventh for it hath afforded an idolatrous Pope as Macellinus for it hath afforded incestuous Popes as Paul the third Alexander the sixth and John the thirteenth for it hath afforded bloudy and truculent Popes as Boniface the seventh Paschal the second Vrban the sixth And lastly it hath afforded Whore-masters an innumerable Crue so that Bellarmine himself is so hard put to it to salve the matter of the dissolutenesse of Popes as he hath nothing else to say but Quot numerari possunt qui rectissime credunt tamen perditissime vivunt How many may be reckoned up who are of sound belief yet of wretched lives His Lordship having as he conceives given sufficient caveat what it is to rely upon such mens judgements as Luther Calvin Beza c. Next takes notice of an Objection his Majesty made That the Church of Rome hath fallen from her first Love and old Principles and undertakes to prove an Identity and samenesse of Doctrine in the now Church of Rome and in the Primitive Church during Saint Augustine's time for which Father's worth he produceth the great esteem he hath amongst Protestants themselves and indeed he deserves all the good can be said of him being of all the Fathers the chiefest Florist fullest of Elegancy and therefore most delightfull and also the most judicious and solid and therefore most edifying but yet for all that Saint Augustine himself had his Reâ—â—ctations and he calls it himself a necessary work In this Parallel and comparing both Churches together the Marques spends many pages which I shall answer in as few lines And first I might demand were his Lordship living as David did of the Widow of Tekoah Is not the hand of Joab or Cardinal Peron with thee in all this Could he or durst he deny it Undoubtedly no there being no other difference than between French and English and the Reply of a Cardinal to the Father of a Marques to the Son But as the Cardinal saved the Marques a great deal of labor in penning his eighteenth Chapter of his Reply to King James so a very reverend and learned Bishop hath saved me as much in already answering that eighteenth Chapter of the Cardinal's Reply and he hath done it so full so home that never as yet durst any Jesuit or other of the Romish perswasion take him to task for it to that excellent Piece I shall transmit the Reader with this onely cautionary hint that what the Bishop page 7. citeth out of Saint Augustine de Civit. Dei l. 17. c. 20. is no where to be found in that Tome or Tract but is in his sixth Tome contra Faust Manich. l. 20. c. 21. and instead of Post Adventum in the Bishops reade Post Ascensum for so it is and so it must be I wonder much that his own Manuscript he being so diligently precise should have it so and that the Error should escape also those judicious and exact Supervisors who published those posthume Works After all these borrowed or rather stollen Comparisons the Marques makes no doubt but his Majesties judgement will tell him that the Church of Rome hath not changed her countenance nor the Papists fled from their Colours but that they do antiquum obtinere True indeed the Romish Catholiques do still antiquum obtinere keep their old wont the old wont of the ancient Hereticks and what that was Tertullian can inform us Adjectionibus by foisting in as This is my body which is given for you not to you detractionibus by lopping and laming as leaving out Do this in remembrance of me Scripturas ad dispositionem instituti intervertere wresting the Scriptures to serve their own turns This is all the Antiquity his Majesties judgement could tell him of in the Romish Church where differing from ours Nor is it enough his Lordship proves as he would perswade us the Romish Antiquity but he will also shew the Protestants theirs in the condemned heresies of the ancient Church as for Example the Protestants hold that the Church may err this they had from the Donatists But I would gladly know from whence the Marques had his Information concerning this opinion of the Donatists he quoteth Augustine for it I confesse and with a passion as if every where you might finde it in him where he undertaketh Donatus but sure it is his Lordships every where will come to no where for the opinion of Donatus was clearly this that all Churches but his own were erroneous his own onely infallible and out of which hold he did that none could be saved which I conceive is the very Tenet of the Romish Catholiques and so the Donatists and they are nearest ally'd Protestants deny unwritten Tradit ions this they had from the Arrians I deny that Deny Traditions we hold and grant in Ceremonies and matters not fundamental and we oppose to the Romish party their own comparison of Traditions to a nuncupative will which cannot by the Rule of our Law convey a free-hold and Estate in Fee So it is with Traditions in Divinity they cannot constitute any Articles of Faith or impose any thing of the necessity of salvation for which recourse must be had to the written Word and to that only Though Arrius is branded for an Heretick yet neither Augustine nor Epiphanius so far as I am able to understand them have discovered any such Heresie in him as a Recusant to unwritten Traditions Protestants teach that Priests may marry this they had from Vigilantius This is Heresie now adays but ab initio non fuit sic 't was not so in Saint Paul's opinion who appointed a Bishop should be the Husband of one Wife 't was not so in Tertullian's
besides Scripture Though it be true the Scripture is a river through which a Lamb may wade and an Elephant may swim yet the meaning of that place is not that the child of God may wade through the Scripture without directions help or Judges but that the meanest capacity may find so much of comfort and heavenly knowledge there easily to be obtained that he may easily wade through to his eternal Salvation If the meanest capacity may wade through the Scriptures to his eternal Salvation they are mad men will seek to go therein beyond their depth what can God give us or we desire more than the Salvation of our Souls Seek the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you the most abstruse mysteries of Art and Nature shall there become obvious to us the most transcendent speculations of all sciences shall there be revealed the most intricate and perplexed subtilities of School Divinity shall there be resolved 't is therefore a preposterous curiosity to hunt with so laborious disquisition for that here which will come so cheap and easie to us there Wherefore with pardon craved for my presumption in holding your Majesty in so tedious a discourse as also for my boldnesse in obtruding my opinion which is except as incomparable Hooker in his Ecclesiastical polity hath well observed the Churches Authority be required therein as necessary hereunto we shall be so far from agreeing upon the true meaning of the Scripture that the outward letter sealed with the inward witnesse of the Spirit being all Hereticks have quoted Scripture and pretended spirit will not be a warrant sufficient for any private man to judge so much as the Scripture to be Scripture or the Gospel to be the Gospel of Christ The Doctor is now entered into a weighty point and not more weighty then intricate viz. how we are ascertained that the Scriptures are the word of God The Doctor with the Church of Rome derives that assurance from the Testimony and tradition of the Church and her Testimony is indeed of all sufficient to render us so assured if she be so infallible and in-erring as they pretend for our Faith in this particular cannot be guided by any thing beneath infallible This question being so considerable and of such concernment it will not I hope be thought amisse if I spend a little the more time about it Therefore for elucidation and illustration therof I say That the Scriptures are the word of God is a proposition which must depend upon the evidence either of knowledge or Faith If of knowledge then it must be elicited and extracted from the principles of natural reason But all the reason in the world will never be able to demonstrate either that the Scriptures are the word of God or that they are not Mistake me not I do not exclude reason as a guide nor place it so in the line of incidence as if it stood neuter or indifferently inclined to both the affirmative and negative no I hold vastly otherwayes Arguments she hath many and ponderous to perswade that the Scriptures are of Divine inspiration that they are not so to diswade she hath and can frame none But yet those Arguments are but soluble no Demonstrations for in Demonstrations the understanding is so clearly convinced by reason that it can possibly incline no other way then one Ea est vera Demonstratio quae cogit non quae persuadet and if reason were able to demonstrate the Scriptures to be the word of God then all men who have reason would assent presently without more ado to her dictates and consequently the whole world would become Christian so that impossible it is for us to know that the Scriptures are the word of God and if know it we cannot it resteth onely that we must thereof be assured by Faith and Faith will assure us of it as infallibly to the full though not so evidently in regard the principles thereof are indemonstrable as reason can well then Faith it is which teacheth us infallibly that the Scriptures are Divine and sacred but how that Faith is produced and wrought in us is next inquirable The Doctor tels us out of Hooker that the Authority of the Church produceth it and unlesse that be required the inward witnesse of the spirit will not be a warrant sufficient for any private man to Judge so much as the Scripture to be Scripture or the Gospel to be the Gospel of Christ But the Doctor hath here most shamefully abused that judicious worthy who hath in his whole 5. books of Ecclesiastical Polity no such words and which is more no such thing If I bely the Doctor let the shame lie upon me Hooker hath thrice and no oftener occasion in those books to declare himself in this point whose very words are these 1. Vnlesse besides Scripture there were something which might assure us that we do well we could not think we do well no not in being assured that Scripture is a sacred and holy rule of well doing What that something is besides Scripture Hooker mentions not and if the Doctor say he means the Church I demand of him to prove it for sure I am Hooker doth not so much as name the word Church in all that Section 2. The Scripture is the ground of our belief yet the Authority of man is the key which opens the door of enterance into the knowledge of the Scripture Hooker saith not here that the Authority of man createth in us the belief that the Scriptures are Divine but onely that it is the key to the interpretation of the Scriptures and you may note withall that it is the Authority of but man not of God speaking infallibly by man Lastly The first outward motive leading men so to esteem of the Scriptures is the Authority of Gods Church For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of Scripture we Judge it even an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause Observe here that the Authority of Gods Church is with Hooker the first outward so no inward nor the onely outward motive 2. That it is an outward motive too but onely to us who are born and bred up in the Church and to such I grant the Authority of the Church is a very great motive for nothing brings fools and ignorant persons to knowledge and wisdom a sooner and gainer way then the Authority of wise-men but must Faith acquiess and set up its rest in the Authority of the Church assuredly no The Church may it is possible ten thousand General Councels may saith Hooker be deceived and Authoritate decipi miserum est 't is a lamentable thing to erre with Authority sed certe miserius non moveri but to be obstinate against it and of a contrary mind as Hooker saith without cause is more
be given in an Answer to all particulars cannot be required But this Answer to that Reply cannot comprehend the whole Arrest and content of this Tract there are some Animadversions relating to Dr. Bayly which I have stitcht as an Appendix and Lean-to to that Answer the word is I think concinn and apt enough it relating to that Doctor whom his Majesty suspected a a Lean-to to the Marques And truly that Discourse of his which I have undertaken speaks him little lesse wherein his Majesty not the Marques steps in as Opponent he that pretended so much b wariness of seeming to present the late King worsted was not wary at all of seeming to present himself according to the idiome of speech Worster'd Christian Charity bids me repute him under a notion more modified than Papist but Truth it self enforceth me to say he erreth in some particulars with the Church of Rome yet were he more than popish Papist profest my witness is in Heaven c ill will to the man I bear none a Member of the Church he is and d as the Church is a name of Vnity not of Separation so I heartily beseech God that all those who are Members of that Church and consigned Christians may be of one minde in the Lord and keep the Vnity of the spirit in the bond of peace which peace the Lord of peace himself give us always by all means Vale The late Kings Paper in answer to the Marques of Worcester Introductorily discussing some Controversies between the English and the Romish Church MY Lord I have perused your Paper whereby I finde that it is no strange thing to see Error triumph in Antiquity and flourish all those Ensignes of Vniversality Succession Vnity Conversion of Nations c. in the face of Truth and nothing was so familiar either with the Jews or Gentiles as to besmear the face of Truth with spots of Novelty for this was Jeremiahs case Jer. 44. 16. viz. As for the word which thou hast spoken unto us in the Name of the Lord we will not hearken unto thee but we will certainly do whatsoever thing hath gone forth of our own mouths to burn incense unto the Queen of Heaven and to powre out drink-offering unto her as we have done we and our fathers our Kings and our Princes in the Cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem as we have done there is Antiquity we and our fathers there is Succession In the Cities of Judah and Jerusalem there is Vniversality so Demetrius urged Antiquity and Vniversality for the goddess Diana viz. That her Temple should not be despised nor her Magnificence destroyed whom all Asia and the World Worshipped So Symmachus that wise Senator though a bitter Enemy to the Christians Servanda est inquit tot seculis fides sequendi sunt nobis parentes qui feliciter sequuti sunt suos we must defend that Religion which hath worn out so many Ages and follow our Fathers steps who have so happily followed theirs So Prudentius would have put back Christianity it self viz. Nunc dogma nobis Christianum nascitur post evolutos mille demum Consules Now the Christian Doctrine begins to spring up after the revolution of a thousand Consul-ships But Ezekiel reades us another Lecture Ne obdurate cervices vestras ut patres vestri cedite manum Jehovae ingredimini sanctuarium ejus quod sanctificavit in saeculum colite Jehovam Deum vestrum Be not stiff-necked as your fore-fathers were resist not the mighty God enter into his Sanctuary which he hath consecrated for ever and worship ye the Lord your God Radbodus King of Phrygia being about to be baptized asked the Bishop what was become of all his Ancestors who were dead without being baptized The Bishop answered that they were all in Hell whereupon the King suddenly withdrew himself from the Font saying Ibi profecto me illis Comitem adjungam Thither will I go unto them no less wise are they who had rather err with Fathers and Councels than rectifie their understanding by the Word of God and square their Faith according to its Rules Our Saviour Christ saith we must not so much hearken to what hath been said by them of old time Matth. 21. 12. as to that which he shall tell you where Auditis dictum esse antiquitis is exploded and Ego dico vobis is come in its place which of them all can attribute that credit to be given unto him as is to be given to Saint Paul Yet he would not have us to be followers of him more than he is a follower of Christ 1 Cor. 11. 1. Wherefore if you cry never so loud Sancta mater Ecclesia sancta mater Ecclesia the holy mother Church holy mother Church as of old they had nothing to say for themselves but Templum Domini Templum Domini the Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord we will cry as loud again with the Prophet quomodo facta est meretrix Urbs fidelis How is the faithfull City become an Harlot If you vaunt never so much of your Roman Catholick Church we can tell you out of Saint John that she is become the Synagogue of Sathan neither is it impossible but that the house of prayers may be made a Den of Thieves you call us Hereticks we answer you with Saint Paul Acts 24. 14. After the way which you call Heresie so worship we the God of our fathers believing all things which were written in the Law and the Prophets I will grant you that all those marks which you have set down are marks of the true Church and I will grant you more that they were belonging to the Church of Rome but then you must grant me thus much that they are as well belonging to any other Church who hold and maintain that Doctrine which the Church of Rome then maintained when she wrought those Conversions and not at all to her if she have changed her first Love and fallen from her old Principles for it will do her no good to keep possession of the Keys when the Lock is changed now to try whether she hath done so or no there can be no better way than by searching the Scriptures for though I grant you that the Catholick Church is the white in that Butt of Earth at which we all must aim yet the Scripture is the heart centre or peg in the midst of that white that holds it up from whence we must measure especially when we are all in the white We are all of us in gremio Ecclesiae so that Controversies cannot be decided by the Catholick Church but by the Scriptures which is the thing by which the nearness nnto Truth must be decided for that which must determine Truth must not be fallible but whether you mean the consent of Fathers or the Decrees of General Councels they both have erred I discover no Fathers nakedness but deplore their infirmities that we
should not trust in arms of flesh Tertullian was a Montanist Cyprian a Rebaptist Origin an Anthropomorphist Hierom a Monoganist Nazianzen an Angelist Eusebius an Arrian Saint Augustine had written so many Errors as occasioned the writing of a whole Book of Retractions they have oftentimes contradicted one another and some times themselves Now for General Councels Did not that Concilium Ariminense conclude for the Arrian Heresie Did not that Concilium Ephisinum conclude for the Eutichian Heresie Did not that Concilium Carthaginense conclude it not lawfull for Priests to marry Was not Athanasius condemned In Concilio Tyrio Was not Eiconolatria established In Concilio Nicaeno secundo What should I say more when the Apostles themselves less obnoxious to Error either in Life or Doctrine more to be preferred than any or all the world besides one of them betrays his Saviour another denies him all forsake him They thought Christ's Kingdom to be of this world and a promise onely unto the Jews and not unto the Gentiles and this after the Resurrection They wondred that the holy Ghost should fall upon the Gentiles Saint John twice worshipped the Angel and was rebuked for it Apoc. 22. 8. Saint Paul saw how Peter walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel Gal. 2. 14. Not onely Peter but other of the Apostles were ignorant how the Word of God was to be preached unto the Gentiles But who then shall rowl away the stone from the mouth of the Monument Who shall expound the Scriptures to us One puls one way and another another by whom shall we be directed Scinditur incertum studia in contraria vulgus You that cry up the Fathers the Fathers so much shall hear how the Fathers do tell us that the Scriptures are their own Interpreters Irenaeus who was Scholar to Policarpus that was Scholar to Saint John l. 3. c. 12. thus saith Ostentiones quae sunt in Scripturis non possunt ostendi nisi ex ipsis Scripturis the Evidences which are in Scripture cannot be manifested but out of the same Scripture Clemens Alexandrinus Nos ex ipsis deipsis Scripturis perfecte demonstrantes ex fide persuademus demonstrative Strom. lib. 7. Out of the Scriptures themselves from the same Scriptures perfectly demonstrating do we draw demonstrative Persuasions from Faith Crysost Sacra Scriptura seipsam exponit auditorem errare non sinit Basilius Magnus Quae ambigue quae obscure videntur dici in quibusdam locis sacrae Scripturae ab iis quae in aliis locis aperta perspicua sunt explicantur Hom. 13. in Gen. Those things which may seem to be ambiguous and obscure in certain places of the holy Scripture must be explicated from those places which else-where are plain and manifest Augustinus Ille qui cor habet quod precisum est jungat Scripturae legat superiora vel inferiora inveniet sensum Let him who hath a precise heart joyn it unto the Scriptures and let him observe what goes before and that which follows after and he shall finde out the sense Gregorius saith Ser. 49. De verbis Domini Per Scripturam loquitur deus omne quod vult voluntas Dei sicut in Testamento sic in Evangelio inquiratur By Scripture God speaks his whole minde and the will of God as in the old Testament so in the new is to be found out Optatus contra parmenonem lib. 5. Num quis aequior arbiter veritatis divinae quam Deus aut ubi Deus manifestius loquitur quam in verbo suo Is there a better Judge of the divine Verity than God himself or where doth God more manifestly declare himself than in his own Word What breath shall we believe then but that which is the breath of God the holy Scriptures for it seems all one to Saint Paul to say Dicit Scriptura the Scripture saith Rom. 4. 3. and Dicit Deus the Lord saith Rom. 9. 17. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin Gal. 3. 22. For that which Rom. 11. 32 he saith God hath concluded all c. How shall we otherwise conclude than but with the Apostle 1 Cor. 2. 12. We have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given unto us of God They who know not this spirit do deride it but this spirit is the hidden Manna Apoc. 2. 17. which God giveth them to eat who shall overcome it is the white stone wherein the white name is written which no man knoweth but he that received it Wherefore we see the Scripture is the Rule by which all difference may be composed it is the Light wherein we must walk the Food of our Souls an Antidote that expels any Infection the onely Sword that kils the Enemy the onely Plaister that can cure our Wounds and the onely Documents that can be given towards the attainment of everlasting Salvation AN ANSWER TO THE Marqu of WORCESTERS Late Paper to the KING M. YOur Majesty is pleased to wave all the marks of a true Church and to make recourse to Scripture His Majesty waves not the marks of the true Church but waves the frequent Roman Church as not true because she wants those marks That he hath recourse to Scripture why should the Marques blame him it is the witness of God greater than that of men 1 John 5. 9. M. I humbly take leave to aske your Majesty what Heretique that ever was did not so Here the Marques calls his Majesty Heretique by craft but first is at King King by your leave that he might do it with the more civility M. How shall the greatest Heretique in the world be confuted or censured if any man may be permitted to appeal to Scriptures margin'd with his own Notes sensed with his own meaning and enlivened with his own private spirit to what end were those marks so fully both by the Prophets the Apostles and our Saviour himself set down if we make no use of them We deny utterly any such Appeal we say The Scripture must be margin'd with its own Notes for what is doubtfull and dark in one place is elsewhere clearly and evidently explained a Sensed with its own meaning from the Scriptures themselves must we receive the sense of Truth b So Clemens the second Bishop of Rome nay and more than so we must not go out of it to a forreign Interpreter and enlivened with its own Spirit For the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 11. And therefore cursed say I be he that removeth the Lords Land-marks The M. findes the K. firm and close to Scripture and seeing him so resolved pretends in compliance with his Majesty recourse to that too yea and promiseth to lead the K. to his Church through the full body of the Scriptures and it is indeed the best the nearest way to the Church
the avoidance of one for a man may err in retractation of what he hath said as Bellarmine hath done more than once as well as in saying what he retracts but in one place there must of necessity be an Error light that Error where it may that Church which so erreth I shall be loath to trust with matters of Faith The last Rub in his Lordships way is so inconsiderable as I shall stride over it and accompany him to his Church M. First we hold the Real Presence you deny it we say his Body is there you say there is nothing but Bread Before I come to direct Answer I shall briefly and I hope not impertinently premise First it is fit those Opposite Terms of We and You being so considerable should be further explain'd What is meant by We is little question'd the M. certainly intends the Romish Church what by You he does not clearly resolve us till p. 159. and there he tells us in capital letters 't is The Church of England and indeed writing English to an English King not Head but a Member though the noblest of the English Church it cannot in reason be supposed he should under that word You point at any other than the Church of England So then the Church of England is his Lordships Youâ— and being so it is in my opinion a great blemish to his Honours Cause to charge and accriminate a Church with no less than Heresie and not with one onely but many very many and not produce any one Book or one Article where those Heresies are to be found but to accuse a Church of Heresies which are no where to be found and this he hath done very often is a blemish to his Honour as well as to his Cause What the Marques hath omitted in setting down the Doctrine of our Church shall be by me supplied and I will do it with that ingenuous integrity that I will not suppress any one syllable which may advantage her Adversaries in the least And first to the point of Christ's presence Thus The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper onely after an heavenly and spiritual manner Observe here 's the Body of Christ so something more than bare bread then it is given taken and eaten if so 't is there sure and verily and indeed as the Catechisme hath it and the Church of Ireland substantially wee 'll grant that too so that it had been much more for his Lordships credit to have forborn the urging of this Real Presence against us Non opus erat ut ea contra nos diceret quae dicimus secum why should he urge that against us which we assert with him Well but is there no difference between us Yes a very great one Rome holds a Transubstantiation a Conversion of the whole substance of the Elements in the Sacrament into the very body and bloud of Christ as the Councel of Trent hath it why did the Marques suppress this Tenet Durst he not own it He is then no Papist for what that Councel hath determined the Papists do and must hold On the other side our Church saith Christs body is there given taken and eaten onely after an heavenly and spiritual manner Now you have heard what both sides hold wee 'll give the Marques his Scriptures leave to speak next Matth. 20. 26. Take eat this is my body Luke 22. 19. This is my body which is given for you I can see Christ's body here indeed but where 's the Conversion the Transubstantiation the Papists hold I cannot see that and though I can see Christ's body there yet there is something else which should be there I cannot see and that is Do this in remembrance of me which we conceive is an evident Explanation of the Mystery this his Lordship thought too hot for him so that if we stand to his carving we shall be sure to have that we have least minde to Now let his Fathers be produced Ignatius saith The Eucharist is the flesh of Christ so say we too and Ignatius tells you for all that it is Bread still and after Consecration too both are indeed most sure as Saint Hillary saith exceeding well Figura est dum Panis Vinum extra videtur veritas autem dum corpus sanguis Christi in veritate interius creditur It is the figure whilest the Bread and Wine are beheld outwardly but the truth it self when the Body and Bloud are inwardly in truth beleeved Justin Martyr saith That after Consecration the Elements become the body and bloud of Christ who doubts of it but speaks not of any Conversion of the substance nay saith expresly in the same place that the Deacons distribute after consecration the bread and wine clearly implying he thought not of any Transubstantiation but that the Elements kept their substance still Cyprian and Ambrose I confess spake the first of a Change the other of a Conversion of the Elements but 't is not of their substance neither but onely of their use Sunt quae erant in aliud commutantur They are still what they were before but are changed in quality Such a Conversion we grant too we hold the Elements after Consecration differ in use and virtue from common Bread and Wine Rhemigius speaks not of Conversion if Christ's body be there sure his flesh is and I never read of any other flesh he had than what he took in the Virgins womb The difference is not whether Christ's body be here but how And if I did not think it time mis-spent I could destroy this carnal Doctrine by the testimony of twenty several Fathers who all understand the Presence to be no other than as a Symbole Type figure representation signe image likeness and memory of Christ's body crucified upon the Cross and as for Transubstantiation they never dreamt of such a word nor thought of such a thing I will onely instance in one and I hope his word may be taken because a Pope Non desinit substantia vel natura Panis Vini The substance of Bread and Wine is not changed or destroyed So Gelasius M. We hold that there is in the Church an infallible Rule for understanding of Scripture besides the Scripture it self this you deny Our Church hath no where delivered her self expresly in this point yet I take it to be the General Doctrine of Protestants that there is no other Rule besides Scripture to understand Scripture that is infallible For if Scripture be an infallible Rule why should we cumber our selves with more than one unless this one were hard to come by or easie to be lost And it seems his Lordship thought Scripture was one infallible Rule when he said there is another besides it and Bellarmine comes in with his Convenit inter nos omnes omnino haereticos In this point we are all generally agreed Heretiques and all that the Word of God
censure of the Romish Church and his Lordship hopes to prove it out of Scripture If you neglect to hear this Church you shall be a Heathen and a Publican Matth. 18. 17. This Church in the Marques his sense is the Church of Rome and I grant it is but not the Church of Rome onely for it is as well the English the French the Geneva or any other particular Church and admit it were onely the Church of Rome yet the matters wherein that Church is to be obeyed are not Articles of Faith neither the very Text tells us it is onely in points of scandal and breach of unity in civil matters His next Scripture is Ephes. 5. 27. where the Church shall be presented unto Christ a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle Here is a Church I yield that cannot err but it is not the Romish Catholique Church no neither Romish nor Catholique if his Lordship means the Catholique militant Church for it is a Church that can neither err nor sin without spot and therefore their own Salmeron says It must be understood of the Triumphant Church and if his Lordship thought otherwise Augustine would have told him he was a Pelagian M. We say the Church hath been always visible you deny it Our Church saith nothing of this Point and therefore if I say any thing it must be ex abundanti dictum more than Covenants yet something I will say and something shall Liberius say too as a Salmeron quoteth him replying to Constantius his boast of the multitude of Arrians Non refert numerum esse magnum aut parvum nam Judaeorum Ecclesia in Babylone constituta ad tres pueros redacta fuit No matter whether the number be small or great for the Jewish Church in Babylon was reduced to three And at this time Liberius was Pope of Rome and because I am faln upon this time I would gladly have an answer where the Visibility of the Romish Church was unless they mean a Visibility of Heresie when Liberius himself excommunicated Athanasius and turn'd Arrian Nay more and to the very point where was the Visibility of the Catholique and true Church it self at that time but onely in that Pillar of Faith c Athanasius I confess Nazianzen says his Church had it {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} most singular to it self to be preserved from drowning in the Arrian Deluge but the visible shock and storm of Persecution no man stoutly withstood and overcame but Athanasius onely His Fathers Origen in Matth. hom 30. saith The Church is full of light but that light is fulgor veritatis he himself tells us so the brightness of Truth no external splendor what 's this to a visible Church Cyprian the Church of God encompassed with light sheds her beams through all the World Cyprian's light is like Origen's an inward light too and were it as the Sun an outward Light it would not shine always in every Horizon and where it doth shine it may sometimes be eclipsed Chrysost. Hom. 4. in Esay 6. speaketh of the duration and perpetuity not of the Visibility of the Church and saith It is easier for the Sun's light to be extinguished than for the Church utterly to be destroy'd or if you will {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to disappear so saith Chrysostome and so say we too the Church wil be always visible for an Invisibility we hold not absolutly but comparatively it may be reduced to so inconsiderable a number as in regard of the paucity and fewness of the Professors the World will not own it under the notion of a Church Again Persecution may so controul the outward Profession of the Gospel that nothing belonging to external Government Discipline and Exercise of the Ministery shall be performed otherwise than by stealth and in a clandestine way Augustine speakes of the Visibility of the Church in his time that it was then visible not that it had been before or should be after him always so visible M. We hold the perpetual universality of the Church and that the Church of Rome is such a Church you deny it Our Church denieth not the Catholique or universal Church 't is an Article of the three Creeds she holds That the Romish is such a Church she doth deny because 't is in none of their Creeds and yet if it be in the Scripture I dare promise for her she shall and will believe it As to that place of Psalm 2. 8. I will give thee the Heathen for thine Inheritance and the uttermost parts of the Earth for thy Possession It is a most clear Prediction of the calling of the Gentiles and that all the World shall be subdued by the power of the Gospel so here 's an Universality of Christ's Kingdom but not of the Romish Church But I confess the mischief is here is a Tibi dabo I will give thee and wheresoever the Church of Rome findes that she takes all for her own that follows Let us observe now Rom. 1. 8. I thank my God that your Faith is spoken of throughout the whole World That is to all the World it is published that Rome hath embraced the Christian Faith Is she the Catholique Church because of that sure this Text no way enforceth any such Illation for we are told as much of the Church of Thessalonica 1 Thess. 1. 8. that their Faith to God-ward is spread abroad in every place and then we must mend our Creed and say I believe the two Catholique Churches that of Thessalonica and that of Rome For his human Authorities take this note by the way and they are soon cleared The Primitive Church held that consent and unity in Doctrine made all Churches in truth to be One however distinguished by names The Church of Christ is One saith Cyprian divided into several Members through the whole World and this Unity made them al not only One but Apostolical and Primitive also for Omnes primae omnes Apostolicae dum unam omnes probant unitatem saith Tertullian All were Primitive all Apostolical whilest all shewed the same Unity yea and it made all Churches though otherwise particular Catholique too Therefore the Church of Alexandria was called the Catholique Church by Arsenius so Augustine was Catholicae Ecclesiae Episcopus Bishop of that Church which held the Catholique Faith and in this sense Rome was anciently stiled the Catholique Church So it was truly said by Hierome It is all one to say the Roman Faith and the Catholique Faith but though it was true then it is not true now for the Then and Now Roman Church are two M. We hold the Unity of the Church to be necessary in all points of Faith you deny it Our Church is here silent yet an Unity the Protestants hold too in essential matters of Faith and hold it so that if this Unity be a Note of the true Church they have there
Commandments we hold it impossible for any man in what state soever to observe any one much less all should God be extreme to mark what is done amiss yet we hold too that in some sort the whole Law may be fulfilled and that is in Saint Augustines sense a All the Commandments are then accounted observed when what is defective in our obedience is forgiven The Scripture Luke 1. 6. urged by his Lordship was produced long since by Pelagius and Augustines Answer shall be mine b Zachary was a man of singular sanctity yet was it necessary for him to offer sacrifice first for his own sins Hebr. 7. 28. So then if Zachary had sins he kept not all the Commandments for sin is but the transgression of the Law But it is said 1 John 5. 3. His Commandments are not grievous nor are they but are his Commandments there spoken of the Moral Law assuredly No Saint John will tell you clearly what they are chap 3. v. 23. That we should believe on the Name of his Son Jesus Christ And love one another Nor can we fulfill these Commandments but we must first be born of God v. 1. chap. 4. 7. So that an unregenerat person will not be able to set a step forward to that performance nor can our new birth render us so perfect as to say we have not sinned for that were to make God a Lyar 1 John 1. 10. The Marques saith the Fathers are for us But if they be why then did he not cite their words as well as vouch the places but I fear 't is otherwise for I cannot make out no not by conjecture what either Origen or Cyril or Hillary hath to his advantage Hierome indeed saith a It is in our power either to sin or not to sin but it is with this caution and Salvo pro conditione fragilitatis humanae as far as human frailty will admit And how little Hierome is for them his Commentary upon the Galatians ch. 3. will inform us where he saith b No man can fulfill the Law and perform all things which are commanded M. We say Faith cannot justifie without Works you say good Works are not absolutely necessary to salvation Here the Marques slides from the point and wilfully leaves his old wont of challenging our opposition for whereas he should have said You say Faith alone can justifie he tells us here we say good Works are not absolutely necessary to salvation Necessary to salvation is one thing necessary to justification another salvation and justification are different things one is the cause the other the effect We hold good Works are necessary to salvation but not absolutely The Thief upon the Cross was saved without them thousands who believe and are prevented by Death before their Faith can shew it self in Works are saved without them Infants dying are saved without them so they are not absolutely necessary no not to salvation but to justification they are not so much as necessary for as our Church saith We are justified by faith onely this will appear first by considering what things are required to justification and those are three first God's great mercy and grace secondly Christ's Justice in satisfying and paying our ransome and fulfilling the Law for us lastly by a true and lively faith in Gods free grace and Christ's merits So that good works are clearly outed Secondly faith alone justifieth without works because we are justified by faith before we can do good works and works are not good till justifying faith makes them so But though faith alone justifieth without works yet it cannot be alone and without them for impossible it is for any man to believe God will be gratious to him and that Christ's righteousness and merits shall be ever imputed to him who at that instant of believing doth not seriously and unfainedly resolve to obey and observe to his uttermost all God's Commandments The places of Scripture alleadged by the Marques against our Faith alone without Works are first 1 Cor. 13. 2. Though I have all Faith and have no Charity I am nothing There is faith indeed but no justifying faith 't is the faith of miracles Saint Paul tells us so chap. 12. v. 9. The faith mentioned Luke 17. 8. of removing mountains and so the Apostle would have told us in this very Text had not his Lordship by what faith I know not removed those mountains those words out of his way Secondly James 2. v. 24. By works a man is justified and not by faith onely This I confesse is an eminent place and hath exercised the wits of all Expositors how to reconcile it to that of Saint Paul Rom. 3. 28. A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law Many have gone several ways and some not the right Luther having beaten his brains about it a good while at last threw the whole Epistle of Saint James out of the Volume of Canonical Scripture Hugo Grotius that great Scholar of the latter Age hath taken it to task by it self and hath indeed shewn great Reading but I confesse as to the elucidation and clearing of the difficulty he makes me no wiser than I was before and indeed after all hath been said Aquinas his sense will I think have most voices that good works justifie declarative by declaring our faith before men not offective by making us just before God M. This opinion of yours Saint Augustine saith l. de fid. op. c. 14. was an old Heresie Augustine mentions it not as an Heresie but onely saith that in the Apostles time some misunderstanding that place of Paul Rom. 5. Where sin abounded there grace superaboundeth thought faith onely necessary to salvation and therefore neglected moral duties and sanctity of life and this we call the high way to Hell as well as Augustine Hillary in his 7. chapter or canon upon Matth. hath nothing tending to justification either solitary without or associated with works but can. 8. he is expresly at Fides sola justificat Faith alone justifieth Ambrose saith Eternal rest belongeth to those who have that faith Quae per dilectionem operatur which worketh together by charity So Ambrose and so say we M. We hold good works to be meritorious you deny it we have Scripture for it Our Church saith All the good works that we can do be imperfect and therefore not able to deserve our justification His Lordship produceth out of Scripture Matth. 16. 27. He shall reward every man according to his works Answer I confesse our Translation gives it so but the word in the original is not He will reward but {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} He will render But though reward be not there yet Matth. 5. 12. 't is said Great is your reward in Heaven and there is reward and great reward too and the Marques inferreth that Reward in the end presupposeth merit in the work but sure it is
We hold Purgatory fire where satisfaction shall be made for sins after death you deny it Our Church saith The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather repugnant to the word of God But his Lordship hath Scripture for it 1 Cor. 3. 13. and 15. The fire shall trie every mans work of what sort it is if any mans work shall be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire I cannot see Purgatory by this fire-light and Bellarmine is at his nusquam again There is no where mention of fire in the Scripture saith he where it is plainly meant of Purgatory And tells us that Augustine and Gregory understood this place of tribulations and Chrysostome and Theophylact of Hell But his Lordship saith Augustine and Ambrose Hierome Gregory and Origen understood it of Purgatory For Augustine I confesse he is in many several tales one of his last tracts that de Civitate Dei and one book of that Tract represents him thrice differing from himself lib. 21. cap. 16. Let not any man think of Purgatory pains to come before the day of Judgement Go 8 chapters further cap. 24. there he comes in with a constat it is manifest some are purged before the day of Judgement by temporal pains But 2 chapters beyond there be some who think the fire in this place to be meant of a purging fire after this life I do not contradict it perhaps it is true Who can tell what to make of S. Augustine now yet this we may infallibly conclude had Purgatory been then an Article of Faith as the Councel of Trent hath now made it Augustine would not have come off so staggering with a forsitan perhaps it is true Ambrose doth not interpret this place at all for 't is no Interpretation that leaves the Text as dubious as before all he saith that he who shall be saved shall endure the punishment of Fire that he may be purged by it But whither in this life or that to come not a word But in another Treatise he applieth it clearly to the day of Judgement Hierome speaks of a purging fire but neither saith where nor when All this time Purgatory fire was not heard of and though I confesse about five hundred years after Christ it began to be kindled so as one might discern the smoak of it yet it did not burn out till Saint Gregories time which was Anno Christi six hundred and ever since then the Popes have had a special care to keep it from going out seeing their cake would be very dough without it But I must retract here for Origen who lived about two hundred and thirty was clear for Purgatory so clear that he took away Hell it self and thought the very Devils themselves should be saved at the last day Lastly we hold extreme Unction to be a Sacrament you neither hold it to be a Sacrament nor practice it as a duty The M. did extremely proper to reserve Extreme Unction for the last wch 't is true we hold not to be a Sacrament for there 's to us no precept for it the Text in James only relateth to those times whilest that miraculous gift of healing lasted had we the same gift we should continue the same practice As to the Fathers who he said are on his side they speak clear beside the point Origen onely of Remission of sins by Repentance Chrysostome of saving the souls of dying persons by the help not onely of doctrinal Admonitions but of prayers also The two pieces of Augustine alleadged are confessed to be Impostures Beda is short of the Marques his thousand years it being but nine hundred since his time M. Thus most sacred Sir we have no reason to wave the Scriptures Umpirage c. The Marques here triumphs over-early the bitterness of Death is past said one yet lived few hours after it And what ever his Lordship was perswaded of his Scripture proofs sure I am his Majesty concludes with an Otherwise to his Thus After this preposterous boast his Lordship with much ado scrueth himself into the discourse of the Authority of the Church and invalidity of Scripture light which because I have already in part and shall more largely elsewhere insist upon for this time I shall pretermit But the M. is not yet empty a vent he hath found and we shall have him now dregs and all And perceiving he could not in solidity of Arguments overtake our Church he now throweth stones at her which Balsack saith is but boys play The two Objections against her are first the maintaing a Woman to be Head in the Church but this is already answered with a capite cane talia I will not make up the Verse let him chant that to his own Church The other against our Lay Chancellors excommunicating To which I answer Lay Chancellors do not excommunicate but some Ministers assistant to them but the Truth is as their Authority was too much so their practise exceeding their Authority made our Church obnoxious to such reproach as his Lordship is pleased to cast upon it and though this one be a blemish to our Church yet may she glory that she hath but one Now for the Church of Saxony you shall finde Luther c. The Marques his next Task is to discover and rip up what Luther Melanchthon Musculus Calvin c. being under the notion of Protestants have been guilty of either in Doctrine and manners 'T is well known his Authors are not very credible Witnesses nor are all the points urged matters of Faith or Morality nor are they all so to be understood as represented nor all represented so faithfully as they ought but admit them all for such and in that sense his Lordsh would have them meant yet what are Luther Calvin c. to us being not of our Church or were they of our Church they are not our Church which is not to be measured by particular men 'T was well said by Tertullian Ex personis probamus fidem an ex fide personas Doth our faith contract esteem by the persons who profess it or are not they rather the better thought on for the faith they professe But then perhaps they will demand after all his Lordship's 45. pages of elaborate pains of rendring these men thus odious Quorsum haec To what purpose did he sweat so much in the matter Answer to very good purpose both against our Church and against his Majesty Against our Church who had been bold with the Popes of Rome Against his Majesty whose Father spake his minde of them also as freely as our Church Well and what hath he gained by it very little certainly For what if Luther denied some parts of the Canonical Scripture It was but some part it was not all as Luthers great and first adversary Pope Leo
did by consequence though not expresly to the Cardinal Bembus saying concerning the treasure of indulgences in a mockery what a mighty revenue make we of the fable of Christ Make a fable of Christ and what becomes of either Testament What if he or Calvin erred concerning the Trinity did not Liberius as I shewed before subscribe to the Arrian Heresy What if Calvin held with Nestorius two Persons in Christ did not Pope Honorius hold but one will in him an heresy full as grosse and for which he was condemned by the 6 General Councel of Constantinople What need we run into exact paralleels with them it is enough we can produce a Caelestine the 3. teaching that heresy is a sufficient cause of Divorce in Matrimony A John 22. who taught that the Souls of the just did not see God before the Resurrection Another John 23. that denied the Resurrection of the body And how I pray do the great Clerks of the Romish Interest come off here very poorly most certain even just as S. Augustine said quasi hoc sit respondere posse quod est tacere non posse as if to answer and not to say nothing were all one For if the evidence be given in so full against their Popes that find them guilty they must and all other shifts fail then such a Pope did not define e Cathedra fitting in his in-erring-chair but ut Doctor peculiaris exposuit obiter opinionem suam onely delivered his opinion as a private Doctor which is a plain confession that this rare knack of Infallibility is not by his Holinesse carried alwayes about him Again sometimes 't is no heresie what such a Pope thought because nulla adhuc praecesserat Ecclesiae Definitio the Church never desired any thing in the Point so that be the opinion never so grosse and absurd never so destructive to the many principles of Faith never so repugnant to the expresse Text of sacred Scripture yet heresie it is not with them till the Church define it Lastly some have held erroneous oppinions but upon their death-beds have been of another minde and would have defin'd the Truth but see the ill luck of it the good men have been prevented by death this is Bellarmines excuse for John 22. And yet the Cardinal's relation out of Villarius of this John's retractation represents his holinesse in no Definitive posture and as far from the thought that he was as Pope Summus judex controversiarum in Ecclesia Supreme Judg of controversies in the Church which is the main Subject of the Jesuites fourth book de Romano Pontifice For first the Pope saith Existimare se jam probabiliorem esse sententiam eam He is now of the minde that it is the more probable mark that he goes no further than probability in his Retractation and Palinody and probability is no good foundation for a Decernimus for a definition opinion that the Souls of the Saints enjoy the beatifical vision before the day of judgement And that he did now adhere to that opinion unlesse the Church mark that too to whose definition he would subject most willingly his own judgement should otherwise determine sure the Pope was brought as low in minde as body who did thus pusillanimously submittere fasces and vail to the judgement of the Church or else was certainly perswaded that whatever their Parasites give out Popes in truth differ little from meaner persons in the point of deciding Theological questions The M. his next remove is from the Protestants Doctrine to their divisions in Doctrine denied it cannot it must not be But divisions there are this sad bleeding Church of England is a most lamentable a most deplorable demonstration of it And what if there be divisions amongst us are they alwayes the marks of the false Church and unity the note of the True His Lordship will scarce be able to prove that Tertullian did I am certain think otherwise Schismata apud haereticos fere non sunt Hereticks saith he seldom differ they agree too well But why should his Lordship urge our differences so against us Are the Protestants only guilty of these dissentions Did not Paul and Barnabas grow into such a paroxisme and cholerique fit as they parted upon it Acts 15. 39. Did not Paul and Peter strive about a thing indifferent Gal. 2. 11. Were not Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus and Pope Victor at defiance Did not Chrysostome and Epipharius proclaim {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} implacable War each against nother And is the Church of Rome so unison so all of a piece as to afford no jarres The happier she sure and happier now than of old when she had as good as prudent Governours as now and I think a little better And though St. Paul had charge of her as a Gentile Church yet could he not look so narrowly into her but some there were who caused dissentions in her contrary to the Doctrine he had delivered But if such harmony there be at Rome how cometh it then to passe that in that great Article of the Romish-Catholique Faith about the Popes-Infallibility Bellarmine himself undertaketh Durandus and Adrian for accriminating Gregory the First of errour How cometh it then to passe that he taketh Panormitan and Gerson to task for saying that a private man furnished with better Authority of Scripture is to be preferred for his opinion before the Pope How cometh it then to passe that he censureth Nilus Gerson Almain Alphonsus de Castro and Pope Adrian the sixth for teaching that a Pope may be an heritique And to be short how cometh it then to passe that in his vast volume of controversies there is very rarely any one wherein the Cardinal hath not to do with some one or other of his own party as dissenting from his own Thesis and Position so that a grave Author hath cull'd out no lesse then 303 oppositions amongst the Marquis his un-jarring Catholiques And he that knoweth nothing of the quarrel between the Jesuits and Seminary Priests may see enough in Watson the Seminary who is so liberal a libeller so full of gall and bitternesse as me thinks I hear the Jesuit expostulating with him as Absalon did with Hushai Is this thy kindnesse to thy Friend Nor are they onely the smaller Bells in the Romish Church that ring thus awake the great ones the Popes themselves interfere witnesse the difference about the Translation of the Bible between Sixtus the fifth and Clement the eighth and that so great an one as all the Wits of Rome will never be able to make them Friends again So that if his Lordship takes these to be no jarrs his ear is not I think very musical And because the Marques voucheth for the Catholiques no jarrs Sir Edwin Sands True it is he saith the Catholiques have a readier way to reconcile their Enmities and to decide their Differences having
opinion who was a married Presbyter 't was not so in the opinion of those Bishops Athanasius a speaks of who were married nor so in our Island b for near six hundred years Protestants deny Prayer for the Dead this they had from Aerius Aerius was not condemned for an Heretique by Saint Augustine for denying Prayer for the Dead he onely saith that Aerius fell into Arrius his Heresie Propria quoque dogmata addidisse nonnulla dicens orare pro mortuis non oportere and added some private opinions of his own saying that we ought not to pray for the Dead So Augustine and Dogmata opinions are not Heresies Protestants deny Invocation of Saints this they had from Vigilantius for which he is condemned by Saint Hierome To deny Invocation of Saints was no Heresie in Hieromes time for Augustine his Contemporary saith that the Martyrs whose names are celebrated at the Altar non tamen a sacerdote invocantur are not yet invocated by the Priest Protestants deny Reverence to Images this they had from Xenias 'T is well known Worshiping of Images came first into the Church by the second Councel of Nice and as well known that that Councel was condemned by the Councel of Frankford And the Fathers ancienter far than both enroll the Gnosticks and Garpocratians aamongst Heretiques for adoring of Images and if it be Heresie to adore them it is certainly none to deny them Adoration Protestants deny the Real presence this they had from the Capernaites The Capernaites were no more Heretiques than the Disciples themselves of Christ for as one said How can this man give us his flesh to eat John 6. 52. So the other This is an hard saying who can hear it v. 60. Protestants deny Confession of sins to a Priest so did the Novatian Heretiques and the Montanists Protestants deny not Confession Auricular Luther who saith it is not necessary nor to be exacted yet withall saith it is utilis non contemnenda Profitable and not to be slighted Bucer commends it and saith It is the duty of Ministers to exhort rich persons to it Our Church in some cases injoyns it Nor did Novatus deny it his Error was that they who in Times of persecution fell away to Idolatry and delivered up the sacred Scriptures to be burnt should never be admitted to communicate with the faithfull in the Congregation not excluding them from all hope of mercy with God but from Communion with the Church that the strictnesse of this Discipline might strike into men the terror of Apostatizing And the Catholique Church her self went but one degree but one step further in her Indulgence beyond Novatus for whereas he in Reconciliation thought once was too much she her self thought but once enough and this was done as Augustine said Ne medicina vilis minus utilis esset aegrotis Lest the cheapness of the medicine should hinder the cure Nor did Montanus though too rigid in this particular deny it wholly for his Excommunication was but ad omne pene delictum for almost every offence and almost is a word of qualification of abatement Protestants say we are justified by faith onely this they had from the Pseudo-Apostles Our Justification by faith onely we had from Saint Paul Rom. 3. 28. and we hope he was no Counterfeit no false Apostle The false Apostles Saint Augustine speaks of were they who held that justifying Faith might be severed from and without works such an Opinion the Church of Rome maintains to this day and Protestants undertake the Papists for it Lastly as I have shewed your Majesty that your Church as it stands in opposition to ours is but a Congeries of so many Heresies so you shall finde our Doctrine amongst your own Doctors At last the Marques is come to his Lastly and if his So here proves no better than his former As his Lordships shews will be but So So And first he begins with the Greek Church who he saith holds Invocation of Saints Adoration of Images Transubstantiation Communion in one kinde but his Lordship is clearly out in the last for they communicat under both kindes though received at once {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} The Bread sopt in the Wine as Christophorus Angelus a Native of that place assures us And for Worshiping of Images he is half out there too for though they worship Images yet in their Churches they will not endure them as the Papists do In many points it cannot be deny'd they have confederacy with the Church of Rome they have their Errors and are censured for them by us and so they are by Bocardus a Monk with a Faxit Deus c. God grant there be no Fopperies crept into our Church meaning the Romish also His Lordship did toto coelo errare was Heaven wide when he reckon'd the Greek Church amongst our Doctors though true it is they hold indeed with us in the weightiest with the Papists in the most points And to little better purpose was it that he urgeth against us Luther the Hussites Wickliff and the Waldenses we own them not for our predecessors they had their Errors the Rancidity of Rome was not wholly out of them nor could it be expected otherwise For Illumination is not in Divinity as in Philosophy an instantaneous action we blesse God for the light they had though umbrageous and clouded yet was it such as discovered the nakednesse and shame of the Church of Rome And since the Marques hath begun to us we will requite him with shewing the Romanists our Tenets amongst their own Doctors whom they do and always account undoubted Catholiques and because he begins with Transubstantiation we will follow him in his own Order And first take notice when this opinion began to be an Article of Faith and for that hear Scotus Transubstantiation was not a point of Faith till the Lateran Councel And Tonstal Of the manner how Christs body is in the Bread it were better to leave every man to his own opinion as it was free before the Lateran Councel This Councel was celebrated as Bellarmine holds Anno 1215. And yet her decision hath not passed very currant neither For Scotus saith it doth not seem to be deduced out of Scripture that the substance of the Bread is not in the Eucharist Petrus de Alliaco That the substance of the Bread ceaseth to be there is not evidently imply'd out of Scripture Durandus T is rashnesse to affirm the body of Christ cannot be in the Sacrament but by conversion of the Bread into it Cajetan There appeareth not in the Gospel any coercive Argument that these words This is my Body are to be understood properly Walfridus Strabo After the celebration of the passe-over Christ delivered the Sacrament of his body and bloud in the Substance of bread and wine Ferus Since certain
it is the body of Christ is there what need we dispute whether the Bread remaineth in Substance or not The Glosse of the Canon Law The Bread is called Christs body improperly meaning that it signifieth Christs body Against the Infallibility of the Church that is as the Marques confest to his Majesty p. 79. of the Church of Rome that is as Valentia saith the Bishop of Rome Alphonsus de Castro Every man may err in Faith yea though he be the Pope himself Gerson The Pope as well as an inferiour Bishop is obnoxious to erre in Faith Catharinus Nothing hindereth but the Pope may err in Faith though some Novellists are so impudent to hold the contrary against the common sence of all antiquity Adrian the sixth a Pope himself affirmeth it for certain That a Pope may erre in asserting heresy by his Decree and that many Popes have been heretiques Bannes It was the general opinion of all the ancient both Popes and School-men till Pighius and since him of the more sober Doctors as Cajetan Turrecremata Victoria Soto Canus and others that the Pope of Rome may become an heretique Against Merits and Supererogation Waldensis He is the best Catholique who confesseth that simply no man meriteth the Kingdom of heaven but obtaineth it of Gods free grave Ferus If thou desirest to keep in Gods favour make no mention of thine own Merits Durandus If God give any reward to our good deeds it is not because he is a debter to our works but out of his own bounty Ariminensis No work performed by man is condignely meritorious of eternal life no nor of any temporal reward Pighius We are made righteous not by our own righteousnesse but by the righteousnesse of God in Christ This is that Pighius who Bellarmine saith was miserably seduced by reading Calvins works But who was it seduced the Cardinal himself to pray that God would admit of him amongst the Elect not a priser of his Merit but a dispenser of pardon and forgivenesse Against Invocation of Saints Halensis our Country-man God alone is simply to be prayed to the Saints are rather assistants in the behalf of those who pray then fit to be prayed to Bannes That Saints are to be prayed to and images to be worshipped is neither expresly nor by implication taught in Scripture Suarez That in the Old Testament any one did directly pray to the Saints departed either to help them or pray for them we no where read Salmeron Invocation of Saints is not mentioned in the New Testament and it may administer occasion to the Gentiles of worshipping many Gods Durandus Adoration must be bestowed onely upon God not upon the Angels lest we fall into the sin of Idolatry Against Communion halfed Halensis whole Christ is not conteined in either kind Sacramentally but his flesh under the species of bread and his bloud under the species of wine Lorichius 'T is heresy and execrable blasphemy of Bastard-Catholiques who say that Christ spake onely to the Apostles saying Drink ye all of this when both these words Eat and Drink were spoken to the whole Church Valentia Communion under one kind began to be generally received a little before the Councel of constance Pope Gelasius We find that one part of the Sacrament cannot be received without the other without committing great Sacriledge Against the Sacrifice of the Masse The Master of the sentences It is demanded if what the Priest consecrateth be properly a Sacrifice to this it may be briefly replied that what is offered by the Priest is called a Sacrifice because it is a Memorial and representation of the ture Sacrifice made once upon the Crosse Against the seven Sacraments Cardinal Bessarion Baptisme and the Lords Supper are the onely Sacrament delivered evidently in the Gospels Thomas Aquinas The form of Baptisme and the Eucharist are extant in the Scriptures but not the form of other Sacraments Matrimony is not to speak properly a Sacrament Durandus There want not some Catholiques who grant that Matrimony is no Sacrament of the new Law Bellarmine Penance is divided amongst the Papists into Confession absolution and satisfaction But Confession is denied to be any part of this Sacrament by Scotus Major Gabriel and absolution is denied by Dominicus a Soto and Bellarmine himself saith that inward contrition is sufficient to save us without either absolution or Confession The Sacrament of confirmation as it is a Sacrament was neither instituted by Christ nor his Apostles Halensis The Apostles delivered neither the matter nor form of this Sacrament but onely confirm'd some without the Ministery of a Sacrament Bonaventute Of the form of this Sacrament we read nothing in Scripture if we resort to tradition we shall find a great deal of variety amongst the Fathers Sudres There are but two places urged from Scripture for extream unction Marc. 6. vers. 13. is the first where it is said that the Apostles anointed with oyl many that were sick and healed them But Bellarmine denieth that unction to be Sacramental because saith he the Apostles were not yet made Priests The other is James 5. 14. cited by the Marques and Cajetan saith neither from the words nor from the effect can it be gathered that the Apostle speaks thereof the Sacramental union Against Purgatory Roffensis Purgatory cannot be proved by Scripture and amongst the antients there is none at all or very rawly any mention of Purgatory and the Greek Church denieth it to this day Otho Fris That there is any such place of Purgatory in hell wherein they who are to be saved must be purified by an expiatory fire some but not all assert By this time I hope I have made good my promise for I think the Romish Catholiques nor can nor will deny but all these are their own Doctors and all this our Doctrine Finally If neither prescription of 1600 years possession and continuance of our Churches Doctrine nor our evidence out of the Word of God nor the Fathers witnessing to that evidence nor the decrees of Councels nor your own acknowledgements be sufficient to mollify and turn your Royal heart there is no more means left for truth or me but I must leave it to God in whose hand are the hearts of Kings This Finally contradicts his Lordships late lastly and it is a formidable a terrible conclusion a conclusion able to make the stoutest Protestant reel did we not know that these are but words of course and meer set forms of Ostentation what is indeed more feasable then to be foyl'd when he who is our enemy {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} is become all he can desire accuser witnesse Judge But shall his Lordship carry away this conclusion {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman}
without controul No sure admit they could prescribe for 1600 years must prescription prescribe and out Truth But can they prescribe for 1600 years in any one point where in they differ from us Can they in many for 1000 can they in some for 600 their grand Novelty of Transubstantiation will tell them no and it is well known the slender possession their errours have had hath not been so quiet so peaceable so undisturbed but that Truth hath made her constant and continual claim As for their evidence out of the word of God out of the word of God it is I confesse but it would do much better in it And in it they have so little as their greatest Clerks acknowledge that prayer to the Saints worshipping of their Images celebrating their festivals the not iterating of the Sacraments of Orders and confirmation are taught in Scripture neither expresly nor by implication So Bannes from whom Canus differeth onely in superadding the Sacrifice of the Eucharist As for the Fathers and Councels witnessing to that evidence such as the Scripture evidence is for the Papists such is their witnessing to that evidence just so and no more which more explicitely is just none at all For I challange them to produce any one Father of the first 500 years who held and maintained any one point of Doctrine as the Councel of Trent now holds where differing from us of Doctrine I say for in ceremonies they may I grant find many presidents in antiquity conformable to theirs As for our own acknowledgements sure his Lordship did not in good earnest and seriously think we Reputed and own'd Luther the Hussites the Waldenses for Ours no we always constantly urge them as Romish Catholiques though in some particulars they oppugned her Doctrine Thus his Lordships specious and flashy conclusion is reduced to a meer nothing And his Majesty was at this brunt in no great danger of becoming the Marques his convert Certain Considerations upon Dr BAYLY'S Interlocution concerning the True Church its being Judge of Scripture THe Doctor's Invective against Sacriledge shall create him no trouble from me I desire not to meddle with Impertinencies Since your Majesty was pleased to discharge the Watch which I had set before the Door of my Lips The Watch before the Door of your Lips was it seems of your own setting and because so 't is like his Majesty thought fit to discharge it not desiring to leave them without a Guard but hoping they might be relieved with that which the Prophet David call'd to God for Psalm 141. v. 3. I shall make bold to put your Majesty in minde of holding my Lord to the Demand which your Majesty once made unto his Lordship concerning the true Church for if once that Question were throughly determined all Controversies not onely between your Majesty and his Lordship but also all Controversies that ever were would soon be decided at a short race end And is there no way no means to end Controversies but by that which this fifteen hundred years and upward hath been disputed what it is and where to finde it Did God provide so ill for us as to leave us in suspense concerning the main points of Faith untill that Church which is yet in the clouds shall define what is the true sense of that Scripture which must guide us to eternal happinesse And if after 15 hundred years debate this Church were but in view some comfort it were to us but clear it is and a miserable case she is as far off for ought we know as ever for we are not agreed upon those marks and tokens by which she must be known Our Church the Church of England holds the purity of Doctrine preached agreeable to God's Word and Sacraments administred according to Christ's Ordinance to be the notes of it The papists hold they know not how many Bellarmine reckons fifteen but at last reduceth them to four according to the most usual and received Opinion amongst them Unity Holinesse Universality Succession as they are in the Nicene Creed but yet he comes reeling off too giving them no more than an Evidence of Credibility so that if a man will believe them he may and may not if he will and if we were agreed upon the true marks yet should we not be agreed upon the true Church for suppose the four mentioned before and urged by the Church of Rome be they yet we say they are more visible in our Church than in that of Rome There are not amongst us three hundred and three differences in points of Religion as hath been demonstrated in the Church of Rome and therefore ours the greater Unity For Holinesse that is a grace keeps home and stirs little abroad yet if we may judge of it by its fruits the papists cannot shew us more wicked members of our Church than we can them Heads of theirs so the thing Holinesse is ours let the Title be theirs For Universality Rome wherein she differeth from us cannot prove her Assertions from the testimony of the primitive Church in some points for a thousand years not in any for five hundred after Christ so we are the more Catholique Lastly for Succession of Doctrine which is the best Succession we derive ours from all the Apostles Rome onely from Peter derives onely a Succession of Chairs and yet it is not infallibly certain that ever Peter was at Rome much lesse Bishop there and therefore our Succession the best too so that as the case now stands between us we are not like to agree in haste Doctor I wish you could set us through and truly I must needs say in my opinion you have made a fair offer at deciding this Controversie when you said The true Church must be a Society of Men though I can go no further with you for that That Society of Men are to be supreme Judge of Scripture and Controversies Theological will not down with me nor I believe with many more For let that Society of Men be a General Councel which is a supposition of as much advantage to you as you can desire because it represents the Catholique Church and it is but a supposition too for though there have been before the Empire was split General Councels in former times yet as the case stands now it seemeth to wise men an incredible thing that ever such a Councel shall be again and Religion would be in a most sad condition were all controversies to stay for decision till then Besides Doctor it hath befallen some General Councels that there hath been shamefull packing and fore-stalling of Suffrages and Voices before they met and when met many have been frighted and minaced to vote clean contrary to their own sense and such Councels are but ill to be trusted with Questions of Faith in my poor opinion But suppose your Councel met and assembled and with all the fairest carriage and freedom you can desire they are but
weak finite and erring men still their Canons are no Articles of Faith their Decrees no infallible Rules Not so in the primitive Church I am assured by the confession of both sides Augustine being to dispute with Maximinus his first demand was Dic mihi fidem Rehearse to me thy faith the subtle Heretique supposing Augustine would urge the Nicene Creed against him reply'd I believe as the Councel of Ariminum believes but finding after that Augustine would not take this for an Answer says further I did not plead the Councel of Ariminum to excuse my opinion but to shew the Authority of the Fathers who according to Scripture delivered to us a Confession of Faith which they had out of the Scripture Augustine perceiving Maximinus let go the Councel of Ariminum was resolved to stand as little upon the Councel of Nice but closed with him thus Neither ought I to produce the Councel of Nice against thee nor thou that of Ariminum against me I am not bound to the authority of this nor thou of that let us in our conflict urge the authority of scripture witness indifferent to both and not peculiar to either See here the Orthodox and Heretique both compromise to abide the order of Scripture and both wave the Authority and Judgement of two General Councels which certainly they would not have done had they reputed them infallible and a Judge not infallible shall rule no Faith of mine But the Doctor tells us page 79. His Society of Men must be such as can say It seemed good unto us and to the holy Ghost Now Doctor you speak to the point indeed that Society of Men that Church would I fain see but are you well advised what you say If yea then it must seem good to the holy Ghost because so to us whereas the first form if he ever promised to be there with infallible assistance I dare take his word for it but had it to the holy Ghost first and then to us But assign the holy Ghost what place ye please if he be there 't is all I look for and I will not take yours unless you shew me that promise which hitherto you have not done But we will not part so neither admit for once you finde the Church you so hunt for and a spirit of infallibility directing her in that Councel must and will all Controversies presently cease Certainly no such matter for may not perverse spirits wrest to their own destruction what the holy Ghost shall declare in a General Councel as well as what he hath delivered in the sacred Scripture Did not the Nestorians vouch for their Heresie the Authority of the Councel of Nice as General a Councel and as much endowed with the holy Ghost as ever any since that of Hierusalem was or I believe shall be Nor do I speak onely of what the malice of Satan sowing Tares and man's crooked untoward will a soil proper for them may produce for the holy Ghost speaks in a manner signanter and expresly there must be notwithstanding such assistance Controversies still For if there must be Heresies there will be without controversie Controversies still and that Heresies must be the holy Ghost tells us 1 Cor. 11. 19. So that the revenue and product of all I have said is this That the true Church hath not the supreme Judicature over Questions of Faith and if she had yet Controversies would and must still continue and all this I hope I have not onely said but proved I confesse ingeniously sure he meant ingenuously for there was no great wit in his confession that there is not a thing that I ever understood lesse than that Assertion of the Scriptures being Judge of Controversies though in some sort I must and will acknowledge it The Doctor was here going a step beyond the Papists themselves who all hold the Scriptures to be an infallible Rule but resum'd himself and modifieth his speech with an acknowledgement of it to be so in some sense but in what he thought us not worthy to know Nor since he is so reserved will we much inquire because when known it can extend little to our satisfaction But though we must not know in what sense it is sole Judge yet in what it is not he tells us and that is Not as it is a Book consisting of papers words and letters for as we commonly say in matters of civil Differences The Law shall be Judge between us we do not meane that every man shall run unto the Law-books or that any Lawyer himself shall search his Law-cases and thereupon possesse himself of the thing in question without a legal Triall by lawfull Judges constituted to that same purpose How the Doctor thinks he hath nickt it and yet I fear he is so far from hitting the White as he hath mist the But For first the Comparison is extremely wide Things ad extra and what are without us may be stated and determined by civil Judicatories but Faith is a thing mixt of the understanding and the will over which none can claim Jurisdiction Man may adjudge away my Land my Faith he cannot and therefore I must say with the Poet Hane animam concede mihi tua eaetera sunto Secondly in civil Differences will the Doctor say that the Judges decide the Question or the Law For if the Judgement be given according to the Law then the Law is the Judge I take it and if contrary to Law or not according to it he who so determineth is not a Judge but an Arbitrator Our Law judgeth no man c. saith Nicodemus there the Law was the Judge And though with us in England the Law is a kinde of Craft or Mystery full of Quirks and Intricacies yet in other places as in Denmark Onely the Parties at variance plead their own Cause and then a Man stands up and reades the Law and there 's an end for the very Law-book is the onely Judge saith my royal Author and adds Happy were all Kingdoms if they could be so Lastly where the Doctor saith It is not our meaning that every man shall run unto the Law-books We will though not yield it yet suppose it so in other Differences but in Divinity it is clearly otherwise for there is an expresse Command given by Christ himself not to the Pharisees onely but generally to all Search the Scriptures and it were a meer mockery in our Saviour to bid us Reade the Scriptures if they were like Caligula's Laws written in so smal an hand that we cannot reade them or in so obscure words as we cannot without the help of the Church in matters of Salvation understand them In like manner saving knowledge and divine Truths are the Portion that all God's Children lay fast claim to yet they must not be their own Carvers though it be their own meat that is before them whilest they have a Mother at the Table It is no Argument of ill
nurture for Children who are adult and grown to full stature and past the danger of cutting their own fingers sometimes to be their own Carvers though their Mother be at the Table But how commeth it to passe that the Doctor here placeth our Mother the Church in no obscure place neither but in the Carvers place at the Tables end where she should be visible enough and yet say afterward he would fain finde out this Church And if at the Table she be the more hard-hearted is she sure for truly Doctor I must say as Powhaton did to the Jesuit or Attaliba an Indian Prince too to Frier Vincent she hath carved me nothing no nor any man else for these fifteen hundred years and 't is an hard case that Children should cry and pine and sterve and die eternally for want of this Food everlasting which is before them and all because their Mother will not carve them and themselves they must not 'T is time then for God to take away and I heartily pray he may not take away and deprive this Church of that blessed Food for such wicked Tenets as this They must not slight all Orders Constitutions Appeals and Rules of Faith Most true the Churches Orders are not to be slighted nor yet to be obeyed without further disquisition and scrutiny the Apostle spake as to wise men yet left them to judge what he said so may the Church determine what she please and if not agreeable to my sense endeavour I will to inform my self better and if after after all my study I cannot subdue my Reason to hers yet to her Orders my outward conformity I will provided she makes no Rules of Faith and obtrudeth nothing destructive to saving principles things above her sphere Saving knowledge and divine Truths must not be wrested from the Scripture by private hands This is that we desire let them there remain fit it is that in what every man hath equal propriety he also should to it have equal accesse and most unfit that the means of eternal livelihood should be monopolized Doct. There is nothing more absurd to my understanding than that the thing contested which is the true meaning of the Scriptures should be Judge of the Contestation Nor to mine that any one should tell us what God meaneth better than he doth himself or that the Church a thing subordinate to Scripture and not to be known or discovered but by Scripture should tell us the minde of the Scripture better than it doth it self Doct. No way inferior to that absurdity which would follow would be this if we should leave the deciding of the sense of the words of the Law to the pre-occupated understanding of one of the Advocates Neither is this all the Absurdity that doth arise upon this supposition for if you grant this to one you must grant it to any one and to every one if there were but two how will you reconcile them both If you grant that this Judicature must be in many there are many manies which of those manies will you have Decide but this and you satisfie all Decide you it Doctor whence it concerns for your Church must be one of those manies and yet I believe you will not satisfie all not those I am perswaded whose suffrage is for the Scripture against all manies whatsoever If you make the Scripture the Judge of Controversies you make the Reader Judge of the Scripture Not so Doctor no Judge yet a more competent Judge to himself than any other or all the World can be seeing Knowledge and Understanding cannot be produced and perfected in any man any other way than by his own Reason If I make the dead Letter my Judge I am the greatest Idolater in the World A great Idolater you should then be I grant but not the greatest in the World for you worship then but what you see and something really existing but to worship such a thing as hath not yet been nor can be divin'd when it shall be as your Church is certainly must be the greater Idolatry of the two Doct. It will tell me no more than it told the Indian Emperor Powhaton who asking the Jesuit how he knew all that to be true which he had told him and the Jesuit answering him that God's Word did tell him so the Emperor asked him where it was He shewed him his Bible the Emperor after he had held it in his hands a pretty while answered it tells me nothing But you will say you can reade and so you will finde the meaning out of the significant Character and when you have done as you apprehend it so it must be and so the Scripture is nothing else but your meaning Not so Doctor but so it must be to me be it to the Doctor what he please nor perhaps shall it be always so to me as I now apprehend it for I am no infallible Judge to my self rectifie I may and will upon better reason what I formerly mis-apprehended upon worse Wherefore necessity requireth an external Judge for Determination of Differences besides the Scriptures If an external Judge besides Scriptures be necessary then necessary also it is that that Judge be first infallible for else better it were the Dissentions continued than the Error be stated and put into possession as may well be feared in an erring Judge Secondly that that Judges authority be allow'd of for infallible by general consent for else all will not abide her arrest and doom Lastly that that Judge be always ready and forth coming upon all emergent Differences to still them never out of the way never to seek for else the Differences will the more increase and fructifie by staying the longer for judicial sentence and decision Now because for these fifteen hundred years controversies have been and no such Judge as yet discovered in rerum natura to quiet them we may safely conclude from the no Judge a no necessity or accuse God for improvidence and neglect in leaving us destitute all this time of so necessary a Requisite Doct. And we can have no better recourses to any than to such as the Scripture it self calls upon us to hear which is the Church which Church would be found out The Scripture calls upon us to hear the Church but is this to hear to obey her Glosse and Interpretation of the Scripture to give up and resign our judgements to her sense Calvin Beza Grotius all Expositors the Context it self will tell you no it is to submit to her censure in point of satisfaction for mutual offence whereby she is scandalized so that Doctor you must before you finde the Church you so look for finde some other Text to warrant her Authority or she is like to be no external Judge whom all must obey in matters of Faith Here the Doctor takes breath and gives his most Excellent Majesty leave to speak who like himself most judiciously catechiseth the Doctor in the
all-sufficiency of Scripture after which the Doctor rejoyns All that your Majesty hath said concerning the scriptures sufficiency is true provided that those Scriptures be duly handled for as the Law is sufficient to determine right and keep all in peace and quietnesse yet the execution of that sufficienciency cannot be performed without Courts and Judges The Doctor holds his own Comparison still Well Doctor we have a Court too Forum conscientiae the Court of every mans conscience and a Judge also of that Court if you demand Who 'T is every mans self and therefore they who controul that Court are by the voice of truth it self {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} condemned of themselves For as Hierome tells us who was no great Friend to Popes or Bishops If there be not admitted in the Church the Authority of one eminent and peerlesse Power above others there will be as many Schismes in the Church as Priests Doctor you are out let me put you in the Questions we speak of are of Heresie not of Schisme that relates to dogmatical points of Faith this to outward Rites Ceremonies are the Garments of Religion not the Body and Cloath are for Ornament yet not for that only they are also to keep the Body warm a Religion naked without Ceremonies will have but little outward warmth but a frozen zeal if I may so say and too many Cloaths are as bad and cumbersome on the other side Fit it is the Church should appoint her self what and how many she will wear for leave it at liberty there will indeed be Schismes as many as Hierome speaks of Wherefore I would fain finde out that which the Scripture bids me hear Audi Ecclesiam c. The Doctor is again at his Hear the Church Matth. 18. and I again must tell him that place is onely applyable to Ecclesiastical discipline But that the Church may the better be heard the Doctor tells us from Saint Paul that she is the Pillar and Foundation of Truth from Ezekiel that God will place his sanctification in the midst of her for ever from Esay that the Lord will never forsake her from our Saviour that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against her and that he will be always with her unto the end of the world All this we grant and yet deny all that the Doctor would from these Texts infer for first it is evident not any one of all these is to be understood or hath any reference to a Representative Church or General Councel but to the Universal Catholique Church Secondly if a General Councel were intended by them yet there is not any grant of an infallible spirit to direct that Councel and without the spirit of infallibility men will be and no more than need very cautelous of yielding plenary obedience to her Decrees Doct. For although the Psalmist tells us that the word of the Lord is clear enlightening the eyes yet the same Prophet said to God enlighten mine eyes that I may see the marvels of thy Law c. The Doctor labours here to prove the obscurity of the Scriptures and that they are so in some places I never heard and man yet deny but that they are so in all the Doct. himself dares not cannot deny The truth is as Augustine said Excellently The holy Ghost hath so modified and tempered the Scriptures that there are clear places to satisfie the hunger and darker to procure the appetite of the Soul and if {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} whatsoever is necessary for us to believe is there clear and manifest we are well enough But the Doct. saith no man hath ever yet defin'd what are necessary and what not what points are fundamental and what not Hath no man defin'd what is necessary what is fundamental Yes Doctor Learned Hooker tells you it is the Doctrine which the Prophets and Apostles professe the late Reverend Arch-Bishop tells you the Articles of the Creed which is but the summary of that Doctrine are such and so is the belief of the Scriptures to be the word of God and infallible Necessary to salvation is one thing and necessary to knowledge as an improvement of our Faith is another thing True Doctor there are different things but quid refert what matter is it what is necessary to that knowledge which is not necessary to salvation T is a learned ignorance not to know that which our great Master will not teach us T is fides tua said Tertullian thy Faith not the curiosity of being skilfull in the Scriptures hath saved thee cedat curiositas Fidei cedat gloria saluti Let curiosity give place to Faith vanity and ostentation to Salvation For the first if a man keeps the Commandments and believes all the Articles of the Creed he may be saved though he never read a word of Scripture May he be saved Doctor I hope it is more then possible then may be he shall undoubtedly be saved and so he shall if he believes all the Scripture though he never read a word of it But why Doctor do you distinguish between the Articles of the Creed and the Scriptures are not those Articles the word of God as well as the Scripture I take it they are First as framed by the Apostles themselves men Divinely inspired as all the Fathers agree Secondly because they containe the pith and marrow of the Scriptures all the Doctrine necessary to salvation being there abbreviated He who means to walk by the rules of Gods word must lay hold upon the means that God hath ordained whereby he may attain to the true understanding of them for as St. Paul saith God hath placed in the Church Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors to the end we should be no more little children blown about with every wind of Doctrine Were I disposed to quarrel I could tell you Doctor Bayly or Doctor Stapleton chuse you which that your Text is out of date and that the Prophets and Evangelists there mentioned were extraordinary and proper onely to those times and the Presbyterian party will tell you as much of the Apostles so that there will be onely left Pastors and Doctors which with St. Augustine I conceive to be both one of perpetual use in the Church for the work of the Ministery part of which work I freely grant is the interpretation of the Scriptures Again I might expostulate as the Apostle doth 1. Cor. 12. 30. do all interpret have all Pastors that gift And admit they have have they all that assistance of the Holy Ghost in an infallible guidance which those Pastors of the Apostolical times had Nay is that infallible assistance now afforded to any one of all the Pastors in the world If yea let us know the man so qualified if not then what remedy but we may be still blown about with every puff of Doctrine and what will then become of your external Judge
and still the more they increased saith Dion himself an Heathen It may be here objected that Dion speaketh of the Jews true I grant it and as true it must be granted that Dion tells us also {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} This appellation is given to others also though of different Nations who adhere to the same principles of institution and what those are he tells us viz. {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} They zealously worship a certain one God will not endure Images in their Temples observe the Sabbath and such were the Christians as well as the Jews nor must Dion be understood in this place to imply any so properly as the Christians who like the House of David at that time waxed strenger and stronger whereas the not Christianizing Jews like that of Saul waxed weaker and weaker And that by so inconsiderable so despicable means against so implacable so powerfull Opposites Christianity should so triumph so mightily prevail as that the conquered should command subdue and at length give Laws to the Conquerors till almost the whole World became her Convert Reason cannot conclude lesse than non haec sine numine This must be the Lord's doing that by the foolishness of this Word preached so many millions have been converted and made wise unto salvation The voice the Word of God it must be and not of man Lastly the failing and defection of other Religions about the time of our Saviours Incarnation the Heathen gods durst not abide his coming but forsook their stations abandon'd their Temples and left their Oracles speechlesse as Tully Juvenal and others assure us and Porphyry that sworn Enemy to Christianity confesseth that since Jesus came to be worshipped their gods have stood them in little stead The Jewish Religion which gloried so much in formality and external splendor was deplum'd and stript of all in a few years The Vrim and Thummim those pretious stones of the high Priests pectoral or breast-plate whose sparkling lustre an index of God's atonement and sure presage of Victory even dazled the eys of all Beholders about a hundred years before Christ's Birth lost their wonted radiancy and brightnesse and became ever after totally dusky and obscure evidently presignifying that the glory of the ceremonial Law was bidding the World good night To the fail of these Oracles succeeded the fail of the sacred Priesthood soon after by Herod alien'd and conferr'd in an arbitrary way on whom he pleased without regard had either to Law or Line The Priesthood thus prophan'd what remain'd but the complement and last act of desolation the destruction of the Temple which delay'd not after Christ's Passion above fourty years ever since which time the Jews have had neither true Priests nor true Sacrifices nor true places of Worship nor a true home All these are motives and inductions from Reason to make it credible that the Scriptures are the Word of God but not all these nor the Testimony of the Christian Church it self is able to create faith in us which must be ipso Deo intrinsecus mentem nostram firmante illuminante God himself inlightning and strengthning our inward mind for Faith is the gift of God and be the object never so credible believe we cannot till God's Spirit worketh Faith in us For the final resolution termination and rest of our Faith must be upon God alone and by him alone wrought in us That the Authority of the Church should be the sine qua non so absolutely necessary as that the inward witnesse of God's Spirit cannot warrant us that the Scriptures are divine without her testimony needs no further confutation than the History of the Evangelists and Acts where we reade of thousands converted to Christianity who never entred at that door In short to contract my discourse within a straighter compasse Faith being an Habit infused and every Habit requiring some preceding dispositions and degrees to it Faith must have hers also to make the thing credible before it be actually believed of these motives and preparatory dispositions the Tradition of the Church is I grant to us Christians the first and most prevalent but the Church is not herein in unsociable it is not her testimony alone will make it credible that the Scriptures are divine other deductions and inferences framed by light of Reason must and usually do co-operate in working the minde to that perswasion And by this time that famous place in S. Augustin is easily resolved which the Marques urged against his Maj. and Englished with more advantage to his cause than conformity to the minde of that Father I should not believe the Gospel it self unless I were moved by the Authority of the Church so the Marques But Saint Augustine Nisi commoverit unlesse the Churches Authority together with other inducements did move me to it clearly implying she could not move alone Having dwelt thus long and unavoidably upon this point lest the Doctor should think he hath quite lost me 't is high time to apply my self to him again This Church being found out and her Authority allowed of all controversies would soon be decided You say true indeed Doctor her Authority being allowed of but then it must be allowed of for divine and who will so allow it amongst us Protestants And how can it be proved she hath any such Authority you will send us back I know to Audi Ecclesiam But there will be a controversie what is the genuine interpretation of that place whether hearing implieth an absolute or limited submission and who shall decide that controversie You 'll say the Church I say no she must not for 't is her own case and she must not be {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} witnesse in her own cause that our Saviour held incompotent in himself If I bear witness of my self my witness is not true But the Doct. tells us 'T is one Article of our Creed I believe the holy Catholique Church That 's true too but 't is Credo sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam I believe there is an holy Catholique Church not I believe in the holy Catholique Church As the Lion wants neither strength nor courage nor power nor weapons to seise upon his prey yet he wants a nose to finde it out wherefore by natural instinct he takes to his assistance the little Jack-call a quick-sented beast who runs before the Lion and having found out the prey in his Language gives the Lion notice of it now to apply this to our purpose Christ crucified is the main substance of the Gospel c. The Doctor is here fallen upon a comparison wherewith he is much taken I confesse I am not so well read to tell whence he had it nor of so easie belief to credit the Fable nor is it essential or to the purpose whether a Fable or a Story since the main design
lies in the Moral and Application wherein the Doctor hath rendred himself so impertinently tedious and so intricately perplexed that to use his own words I must confess ingenuously yet under his highest correction there is not a thing that I ever understood less than the Doctor in this particular of whom I may say in part as Socrates did of Heraclitus {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} He requires Delian Diver and no less than Apollo to wade him through I wish I could say also the other part {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} What I understand is excellent and so is I am perswaded what I understand not his scope and meaning being so darkly dispensed I shall adventure to bolt out by conjecture and make his application in what I can follow sute with his Comparison The Lion is as I apprehend him Man's Soul the Prey Christ crucified the place where this Prey is to be found the holy Scriptures the quick-sented beast the Jack-call the Church these put into frame set together seem to exhibit and represent that though the Scriptures contain Christ the food of our souls yet cannot our souls finde out that Food till the Church like a Setter makes her paint directs us where it is But Doctor we say you shall never be able by Reason and Scripture evidence though by words you may to gain-say it that our Souls are not so dull sented nor Christ so obscurely tendred to us in the Scriptures as that the simplest and most ignorant soul which humbly and devoutly seeketh him can possibly misse him and if found he cannot be till the Church cry So ho and shew him to us we are but in an ill plight seeing we have need of a quick-sented Jack-call to direct us to that Church which you Doctor would so fain finde out But will you see the artifice of this devised Plot the cunning of this contrived similitude Behold it here There is a quick sented Assistant called Ecclesia or Church which is derived from a Verb which signifies to call which must be the Jack-call to which this powerfull Seeker after this Prey must joyn it self or else it will never be able to finde it out Here 's the depth of the design laid open the Doctor hapning by chance upon the Fable of the Lion and Jack-call thought it would serve his purpose most happily because the Jack-call was to be resembled by the word Church which he conceived was derived from a Verb signifying to call but here the Doctor is miserably shamefully even to ridiculousnesse grosly out for Ecclesia is derived from {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} which doth not signifie to call but to cull separate chuse appropriate and set apart to elect And whereas he saith Saint Paul confirms the use of this Etymology writing to the Corinthians and elsewhere he must be hinted that the word is constantly there one and the same {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} called not {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} elected or called forth calling is one thing Election another calling is in time Election from all Eternity all that are called are not elected nor are all that are elected called for children dying infants are many elected but not any called But perhaps the Doctor will say the word Church or Ecclesia comprehendeth in a large notion not onely the Elect but all that are called to the external profession of Christianity I answer true but 't is still derived from {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} and that Church is a chosen a peculiar people selected from the masse of all mankinde When dissention arose between Paul and Barnabas concerning Circumcision their disputations could effect nothing but heat till the Apostles and Elders met together and determined the matter Good Doctor if it be not too much trouble to you I pray revise the Text again for I fear you are much out of the story and wide in two points First in affirming Paul and Barnabas to differ in the doctrine of Circumcision who were {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} thought taught and defended one and the same Truth as is evident Acts 15. 2. Secondly in affirming their dissention to be before the Councel of Jerusalem whereas 't is clearly directly said to be after it Acts 15. 39. A Question there was I grant about Circumcision before that Councel but not between Paul and Barnabas but between them and some who came from Judea again a dissention there was a Paroxisme between Paul and Barnabas but it was after that Councel There must be a society of men who can say Bene visum fuit nobis Spiritui sancto or else matters of that nature will never be determined which society is there called the Church which Church we are to finde That your external Judge is a society of men you tell us here but there are many societies of men there is a society of men after the Geneva Model there is a society of men according to the Romish perswasion there is a society of men assembled in a General Council not subordinate to the Pope which of these societies is it you mean If none of all these explain your self why should you be thus reserved like a sullen Cow that will not give down her Milk Come impart communicate your notion freely to us if you say it is a society that can say Bene visum fuit nobis Spiritui sancto you are not explicite not yet clear enough for the Holy Ghost may be so assistant to a society as that form mentioned Acts 15. may be assumed by it though none hath as yet presumed so far yet notwithstanding the definitions of that society may be not absolutely infallible But Doct. I observe an Elegancy in your form singularly and peculiarly your own you have reform'd the visiun est or placuit used by other Interpreters into bene visum the mystery of which diversity I would gladly learn I nor is this all but by what warrant I know not I finde nobis take place of Spiritui sancto whereas the Apostles rendred them counter-changed and put the holy Ghost in the upper hand But it is time to make an end no more but this you say still this Church you are to finde and because if findable your good fortune may be to finde it in case you do let me advise you to proclaim your {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} for assure your self it will be treasure trouve and then it belongs either to the King or State and then Concealment may create your Trouble FINIS Laaet in vit. Chrysâ—p Title page a page â—0 b Epist. to the Reader c {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Chrys. in S. Phoc. d {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Chrys. in 1 Cor. c. 1. â—om 1. Questiorum asceticarum secundum eptt regula trecentessima sexagessima a Quae ambigue