and the souls detained there are holp by the Suffrages of the faithfull nor that the Saints reigning with Christ are to be worshipped and prayed unto nor their Relicks to be worshipped nor that the Images of Christ and the Mother of God always a Virgin and other Saints are to be had and retained and that to them honour and veneration is to be given nor that the power of Indulgences such as the Pope grants was left by Christ in the Church nor that the use thereof is most wholesome to Christ's people nor that the Roman Church is the holy Catholick and Apostolick Church nor the Mother and Mistress of all Churches nor that true obedience is to be vowed and sworn to the Bishop of Rome nor that he is the Successor of Peter nor that Peter is the Prince of the Apostles and Vicar of Jesus Christ Neither let them name the Popes Councils or Fathers for the first five hundred years for they held not these points Papists pretence to the Fathers of the first five hundred years is very idle because were it true as it is most false that those Fathers were Papists yet could not that suffice to prove them a continued Succession of sixteen hundred years Secondly because those of the sixth Age must needs know better what was the Religions and Tenets of them who lived in the fifth Age by whom they were instructed and with whom they daily conversed then our modern Papists can now do and they have not protested on their salvation that it was the very same with the now popish Doctrine nor that they received it from them by word of mouth and so from age to age and finally because if our Tenets in which we differ from Papists and are opposed by them be taught and approved by the Fathers of the first five hundred years then it is wholly impossible they should be for Papists and against us But our Doctrines in which we differ from Papists and are opposed by them are taught and approved by the Fathers of the first five hundred years Therefore it is impossible that the Fathers of the first five hundred years should be for Papists and against us The Major is manifest of it self The Minor is proved 1. By what hath been already cited out of those Fathers as also by what shall be cited out of them in the following dispute 2. By the ingenuous confessions of our Adversaries Cardinal Cusanus in his second Book of Catholick Concord cap. 13. saith The Pope is not the universal Bishop but the first above or among others Cardinal Bessarion of the Sacrament of the Eucharist We reade that these two onely Sacraments were delivered plainly in the Gospel Cardinal Cajetan tract de Indulg cap. 1. There can be no certainty found touching the beginning of Indulgences there is no authority of the Scripture or ancient Fathers Greek or Latin that brings it to our knowledge Durand in lib. 4. sent dist 20. qu 3. Of Indulgences few things can be said of certainty because the Scripture speaks not expresly of them Cardinal Fisher Bishop of Rochester Assert Luth. confes art 18. pag. 86. Touching Purgatory there was very little mention or none at all among the ancient as the Greeks to this day believe it not which words are cited by Polyd. Virgil. lib. 8. de invent rerum cap. 1. Cardinal Bellarmine lib. 5. de Just cap 7. For the uncertainty of our own righteousness and for avoiding of vain-glory it is most sure and safe to repose our whole confidence in the alone mercy and goodness of God Cardinal Cajetan in 3. part 2. Th. qu. 80. art 12. qu 3. The custome of the peoples receiving the Wine endured long in the Church Georg. Cass in his Defence of his Book entituled De officio pii viri saith The use of the Blood of our Lord together with his Body in the ministring of this Sacrament is both of the institution of Christ and observed by the custome of the whole Church for above a thousand years and unto this day of the Eastern Churches And although the use of one kinde came up about the year 1200. yet the most learned of those times never taught that it was necessary so to be observed Tonstal Bishop of Durhom de verit corp sanguinis p. 46. till the Council of Lateran it was free for all men to follow their own conjecture concerning the manner of Christs presence in the Eucharist Polydor Virgil. de invent rer l. 6. 13. afore the Index Expurgatorius put them out had these words By the testimony of Hierom it appears how in a manner all the ancient holy Fathers condemned the worship of images for fear of Idolatry Cassand consult tit de imag It is verily manifest out of Augustin writing on Psal 113. that in his age the use of Images in Churches was not Claudius Espencaeus a Bishop in Tit. c. 1. many hundred years after the Apostles by reason of the want of others Priests were married Greg. de Val. tom 4. disp 9. punct 5. sect 9. with others confesseth that in the most ancient times of the Church and after the Apostles death Priests had their wives Harding in his answer to Jewel on the third Article Verily in the primitive Church this was necessary when the faith was in learning And therefore the prayers were made then in a common known tongue to the people for cause of their further instruction who being of late converted to the faith and of Painims made Christians had need in all things to be taught John Hart in his Epistle to the Reader before the conference with Dr. Rainold in the Tower In truth I think that although the spiritual power be more excellent than the temporal yet they are both of God neither doth the one depend of the other Whereupon I gather as a certain conclusion that the opinion of them who hold the Pope to be a temporal Lord over Kings and Princes is unreasonable and improbable altogether For he hath not to meddle with them or theirs civilly much less to depose them or give away their Kingdoms that is no part of his commission He hath in my judgement the Fatherhood of the Church not a Princehood of the world Christ himself taking no such title on him nor giving it to Peter or any other of his Disciples Bishop Jewels challenge and performance is known Bishop Mortons Catholick Apology and Appeal besides many other books are extant by which it may be plainly discerned that Papists have not the Fathers of the first five hundred years for them and that even the learned writers of the Popish party have vented so much in their writings as yeilds an apology for Protestants in all or many of the points in difference between Protestants and Papists SECT III. Protestants have had a sufficient succession to aver their doctrin in the Latin Churches BUt I shall add a direct answer to H. T. his argument 1. By denying his syllogism to
Minister which shews the meaning to be this If any affect to be as the elder greater or superiour to the rest be so far from ascribing or yielding to him such precedency greatness or superiority that my will is that you should account of him as the younger Servant and Minister to the rest and so it shall be ye shall be all equal none above another This is the very drift and purport of Christ's determination that there should be no superiority or inferiority among them but an equality and that which H. T. speaks of the mention of superiority and inferiority is meant of superiority that might be affected but not of any superiority allowed by Christ it being plainly forbidden And for what Bellarmine urgeth from the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if Christ had appointed one Ruler or Prince in the College of the Apostles though the term 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Leader is not the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Prince or Ruler yet if it did note Princedom it is manifested that Christ speaks of a Prince among them not by due constitution but by inordinate usurpation and therefore to infer from thence as if Christ would have one superiour over the rest when he determines there should be equality is the act of a man that is resolved to be lustily impudent By this whole discourse the Objection is fully vindicated against the shifts of H. T. and other Romanists and stands thus That Supremacy is not to be yielded to have been granted to Peter which Christ forbade to every one of the Apostles But to be a supreme Ruler over the rest Christ forbad to every one of the Apostles therefore Christ forbad Peter to be a supreme Ruler over the rest of the Apostles I yet add that were it granted that Christ did onely forbid spiritual Superiours to lord it over Inferiours this very grant would prove the Papal Supremacy which Popes claim and exercise to be certainly forbidden For if ever there were a Superiour that did lord it over Inferiours the Pope is such a one yea I may aver and easily prove it that let all the tyranny and lording which any Tyrants or Princes have exercised from the beginning of the World to this day be considered they will be found incomparable to the Papal tyranny and lording over the Church of God If this be not the highest lording to impose on mens consciences such Laws as Christ never imposed to enjoyn the holy as they term it inquisition with rigour to excommunicate deprive burn men and women old and young who yield not to the Popes Laws though contrary to Christ's to take on him to dispense with Gods Laws to challenge the defining of all controversies supremacy over all Councils power to depose and destroy Emperours and Kings if they acknowledge not his immense power yea if they be not his Butchers to kill their best and most peaceable Subjects if he once term them Hereticks to interdict a whole State for limiting by Law Donations to Ecclesiasticks and imprisoning notorious malefactours who were Ecclesiasticks the use of divine service to subject a King to whipping on the Bare for the death of an Ecclesiastick not by him killed to depose Emperours for investing Bishops to canonize Saints whom he will to be invocated even such an one whose holiness was disobedience to his lawfull Prince and to have a Feast proper to him besides innumerable other acts done against the Laws of God and Man I do utterly despair ever to know what it is to lord or tyrannize over others Surely it is easier to praise Busiris or to justifie Dionysius of Syracuse or Nero of Rome and to acquit them from lording than the Bishop of Rome for many hundreds years last past if we stand to the Relations of Writers of their own Church who speak too favourably of them H. T. proceeds Object Christ is the foundation of the church and other foundation can no man lay 1 Cor. 3. 11. Answ Other principal foundation can no man lay I grant other subordinate I deny for that he himself hath laid Peter thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my church St. Matth. 16. 18. and the rest of the Apostles were built on the foundation of them all although not equally Ephes 2. 20. I reply when it is said Christ is the Foundation of the Church and other Foundation can no man lay it is meant of a principal Foundation not excluding a subordinate But sith the term Foundation as hath been proved before in this Article Sect. 2 3. as applied to the Apostles doth not note settling or upholding by rule or dominion but by teaching the Papists who ascribe to the Pope such a Supremacy and Infallibility in teaching as is proper to Christ do lay another principal Foundation besides Jesus Christ not subordinate but coordinate to him Which that they do is proved by two things which are ascribed by them to the Pope either by himself or with his Council 1. That they can alter the plain express precepts of Christ as namely in determining that it is not necessary that other faithfull people besides the sacrificing Priest should drink the Wine in the Eucharist though the precept of Christ is as express for all the faithfull drinking of it as it is for their eating of the Bread and that it is not lawfull for a Priest to marry though the Scripture expresly saith Marriage is honourable in all men Heb. 13. 4. 2. In enjoyning under pain of Heresie Excommunication and Damnation things to be believed and practised which Christ never enjoyned to be believed or practised as namely Transubstantiation the unbloody Propitiatory Sacrifice properly so called in the Mass Purgatory Fire confession of all a persons known sins into the ears of a Priest the keeping of the Vow of a Monastick profession when the person cannot contain and to live an idle begging life when the person is able to work and hath no other imployment nor pretends to any which is usefull to men besides praying which is the common duty of all Christians Now surely he that takes on him to alter Christ's commands and to put his own in stead thereof doth make himself the principal Foundation equal to Christ which is contrary to Paul 1 Cor. 3. 11. and to Christ Matth. 23. 8 11. and so makes himself a Foundation co-ordinate as indeed more than Christ however he pretend himself the Vicar of Christ or the authority of the Church for his Warrant As for that which is said of Peter here it was answered before Sect. 2 3. that it doth not import any Rule or Dominion but some peculiar success in his preaching besides what others had which was but a personal preheminence derivable to no Successour much less to the rank of Roman Bishops in these last Ages who never build the Church by preaching but pull down Princes and oppress those that would build up Christ's Church Yet it is observable
God Acts 20. 26 27. and elsewhere Ergo. 10. If there were many Saints and Martyrs acknowledged even by the Romanists to be such who did not hold communion with the Bishop of Rome so as to own him to be supreme visible head of the whole church but did oppose him and lived and died in that opposition and yet were in the church of God then they who hold not communion with the See of Rome may be the true church of God But the antecedent is true in Cyprian Augustine and many more opposing the Bishop of Rome about rebaptization appeals from Africa keeping Easter therefore either they must be unsainted or else it must be yielded that persons who are not now in communion with the See of Rome may be true churches of God I need not insist any longer in proving the falsity of a tenet so palpably absurd and demonstrated to be so by Bishop Mortan in his Grand Imposture of the Roman Church and by others elsewhere Let 's view H. T. his proof SECT IV. The succession of Bishops Priests and Laicks required by H. T. is not necessary to the being of a true Church THat saith he is the onely true Church of God which has had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time But the Church now in communion with the See of Rome and no other has had a succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time therefore the Church now in communion with the See of Rome and no other is the true church of God For proof of the major he alledgeth Isa 59. 21. 60. 1 3 11. 62. 6. Ezech. 3. 26. Dan. 7. 13 14. Matth. 28. 20. John 14 16. Ephes 4. 11 12 13 14. Answ The succession he means is expressed p. 45. to be a continued number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same faith This succession may be either in the same place or some place or other indefinite and it may be said to be continued without the least interruption for the smallest space of time or so continued that in each age or century there hath been such a succession though with some intermission The succession in the profession of the same faith may be either universal in every point or limited to fundamentals The succession may be said to be continued either so conspicuously as that there is an Assembly of that people in each age which any Christians in any part of the world did or might know as they do the Commonwealth of the Venetians or Kingdom of France oâ— as heretofore the Roman Commonwealth was known or else obscurely so as to be known onely to themselves and some near neighbors The proof of this succession may be conceived to be out of History or other clear Writings Records or Monuments extant expressing persons and their faith or else it may be conjectured from some more obscure intimations This Author I conceive from many passages following understands his major here thus That is the onely true Church of God which has had in the same place a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time without interruption any notable time in any age of a number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same faith not onely in fundamentals but in other points also so conspicuously that all Christians did or might know it as the Roman Empire French Kingdom or Venetian Republique may be known and this to be proved out of History or other clear Writings Records or Monuments expressing the persons and their faith For such a succession this Author would have necessary to a true church which he imagines may be proved to be in the Roman church and no other But in this sense his Proposition is most false and no whit proved out of the Texts he produceth and nullifies the Roman church it self which he indeavours so much to magnifie as to make it to be the onely true church of God In opposition thereto I say 1. There may be a true church of God where there are no Bishops or Priests at all Which I prove 1. From Acts 14. 23. where it is said that Barnabas and Paul after they had gathered the churches they returned to them and ordained Elders in every Church which supposeth they were churches sometime afore they had Elders ordained for them therefore it follows there may be a true church without Bishops Priests or Elders sith those churches were such afore they had them 2. From the definition of a true church That is a true church which hath the definition of a true church H. T. confesseth often this Proposition to be true But a number of believers in Christ who have no Elders or Priests or Bishops hath the definition of a true church Ergo The minor is proved from the received definitions Bellarm. Tom. 2. Controv. l. de Eccles milit c. 1. Ecclesia est evocatio sive caetus vocatorum the church is the company of the called out and other Authors speak conformably But there may be a caâ—ling out or a company of persons called out though they have no Bishops or Priests therefore they may be a ture church of God 3. That company which hath the essential parts of a true church is a true church of God But a number of believers professing the faith of Christ hath the essential parts of a true church They are the matter of a church in that they are men the form is faith or the profession of it no other thing can be rightly assigned to be essential as constitutive of a true church their governours order special gifts and other things tending to their well-being are common accidents which may be or not be and yet the church remain a true church Therefore a number of believers professing the true faith of Christ without Bishops is a true church of God 2. It is not necessary to the being of a true church that there be a succession of Bishops distinct from Presbyters whom H. T. terms Priests For 1. There are many Fathers and popish Writers who make them but one Order at first Lumbard senâ—ent l. 4. distinct 24. Apud vcteres iidem Episcopi Presbyteri fuerunt The Antients took Bishops and Priests for the same therefore with them there were churches in which were no Bishops distinct from Presbyters 2. Where there were two Orders yet they were not so necessary but that the church may be without them otherwise in the vacancy of the Episcopal See which hath in Rome it self been sometimes some years together often many moneths and days the church should cease to be a true church of God for then it would follow that in such vacancies the Roman church did cease to be 3. It is not necessary to the being of a true church that there be a profession of the same faith in every point for then the Roman church should not be a true church
chief Pastors Councils Nations converted and publique Professors of her Faith But his catalogue proves not that which it is brought for For 1. many hundreds of years there hath been no one of the Roman Popes or very few who have been Pastors at all in the church of God they have been Statesmen have meddled with the civil affairs of many kingdoms disturbed the Empire and many Kingdoms advanced their base sons who are tearmed their nephews and their kindred made wars with christian Princes but have not preached the Gospel nor expounded the Scriptures to the people though even the Council of Treâ—t decree Sessâ—â— de reform c. 1. Sess 23. de reform c. 1. that they ought to be resident because they ought to feed their flock with the Word with Sacraments with Prayers and good Works which is the onely feeding which can denominate men pastors of the church of God But the Popes have for a long time shewed themselves neither to have skill nor will thus to feed the flock by preaching the Gospel but use to stay the flock of Christ by their Bulls Excommunications and Inquisitions 2. Of those he reckons up p. 32. from the year 1300. five or six of them cannot be termed the Roman churches Pastors but hireâ—ings which forsook it they being absent from Rome and inhabiting Avignon in France many hundred miles from Rome seventy years together 3. Some of them who are reckoned in the catalogue could not be Pastors at their entry one to wit Benedict the ninth being a boy almost ten years old as Baronius terms him Ann. 1033. num 6. Another John the thirteenth a lad eighteen years old at most as Baronius Ann. 955. num 2. 3. reckons when they first were Popes And if a great many of their own best Writers in their times do not bely them there was one of the Popes a woman and sate some years as Pope 4. Their succession is a very uncertain thing For 1. It is certain that Jesus Christ was never Pastor of the Roman church as Bishop there seated and it is very audaciously if not blasphemously done by H. T. to reckon him as chief Pastor of the Roman church and to make Peter and others as Successors to him in his pastoral Office as if it were ceased in his own Person and transferred to another as his Successor Nor is it likely that Peter was ever at Rome or Bishop there notwithstanding some of the Ancients by uncertain tradition have conceived he was For neither were the Apostles settled any where as Bishops of one place nor were they to be it being against their commission and peculiar work of planting churches in many places And Peter being the Apostle of the circumcision Gal. 2. 7. and his being many years in the parts about Judea of which the Scripture makes express mention it is very improbable that he was at Rome at all certainly not so as to sit there as Bishop so many years as some Writers do write of him And it is more likely if any where he was Bishop of Antioch where it is certain he was Gal. 2. 11. and as good authority there is of his being Bishop there as of his being Bishop of Rome and therefore the succession to Peter was rather to be there than at Rome nor is there any proof of translation of Peter's See from Antioch to Rome 2. Concerning the succession after Peter there is so much uncertainty as may shew how miserable a people they must needs be who have no better proof for their church than such uncertain succession For 1. There is no certainty but difference among their own Writers who was next after whether Linus or Clemens or whether both together and the like concerning the order of Cletus Anacletus Clemens as may be seen in Platina and Onuphrius and others 2. It is manifest that the succession hath been through dissention about the election sometimes a great while interrupted as Baronius confesseth Ann. 853. num 63. It hath fallen out that the See of Rome hath been void above two years and five moneths the election being delayed through contention 3. There have been many Schisms very near thirty in which there have been two or three Popes at once one opposing cursing and condemning the other and no clear certainty who was the right Pope Nations and Princes being divided some adhering to one some to another 4. A great part of their succession even by the confession of their own Writers is of Monsters as they term them more truly to be termed devils incarnate rather than men so abominably wicked that hell hath not worse in it not worthy of the name of Christians much less of Pastors of the church of God not worse surely in any church I think not the like for wickedness any where so that the succession of such Pastors is fitter to prove the Roman party a Synagogue of Satan the very seat of Antichrist than the onely true church of God Methinks no man that thinks well of Christ should imagine he would trust the Government of the Universal church with such men but rather if he intended to commit that care to any one have chosen a better race than the Popes have been to manage it 5. Their succession is also by their own Writers said to be with such wicked practices of poysoning predecessors corrupting Cardinals power of notorious whores dealing with the devil Simony and bribes fightings and bloodshed as proves them Successors to Nero rather than to Peter So that if a man would draw an Argument to prove the Roman church to be the Mother of barlots and abominations of the earth as Rome is stiled Rev. 17. 5. by the confession of their own Writers the story of the succession of the Popes and their lives might convince one that is not bewitched with their sorceries that such hath been for many hundred years together the Church of Rome 6. It is also false that those he calls cheif Pastors have had a continued succession in the profession of the same Faith with the now Roman sith it is not denied that Pope Liberius joyning with the Arians and subscribing to the condemnation of Athanasius as Hierom in his Chronicle and Catalogue of writers in that of Fortunatianus testifies did as Bellarmin acknowledgeth l. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 9. by interpretation if not expresly consent to the Arian heresie and Pope Honorius the first in the sixth Synod at Constantinople Act. 12. 13. Pope Agatho being President was condemned as a Monothelite by hundreds of Bishops and after by other Synods besides what is charged on sundry other Popes even by Popish writers as Anastasius John the 22. c. As for H. T. his Catalogue of Councils Nations converted and publick Professors of the Romish Faith it proves much less that the Church now in communion with the See of Rome has had a continued succession of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the
for this one thousand years are not to be compared their own writers being Judges who have opposed these doctrins of the now Romanists as hath been shewed by many learned men to the eternal confusion of Popish novelties then this Author hath here or any Popish writer elsewhere hath made to prove a succession of Pastors Councils Professors and Nations avouching the present Roman opinions which were never so avouched or enjoyned as now they are in Pope Pius the fourth his new Creed till about one hundred years ago And to this insolent demand where was your Church before Luther Protestants may reply to Papists where was your church which believed as you now do before Boniface the third Gregory the seventh Innocent the third and Leo the tenth The speeches of the Fathers for the churches continued succession do none of them prove the major of H. T. his Syllogism that is the only true Church of God which has had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time meaning it of local personal succession of which H. T. means it but only of succession in holding the same doctrin Nor do any of them prove H. T. his minor that the church now in communion with the See of Rome and no other has had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time for they were all dead above a thousand years afore this time All that can be proved is that in case of heresies or Schisms they made use of the succession in the Roman church which was then less tainted then some others to repress them yet so as that they alleged a succession in other churches as well as it but none ever as this Author held it necessary that all churches should own the Bishop of Romes supremacy or the Roman churches communion how corrupt soever they should prove only while they continued uncorrupt in the faith they held communion with them and so should we if they would embrace the primitive purity of doctrine and worship which Peter and Paul and other Apostles first taught in the churches of Christ of which that at Rome though not the first yet was one of the most famous and till their declining of great esteem SECT XIV H. T. hath not solved the Protestants objection H. T. takes upon him to solve objections against the Churches continued succession and saith thus Obj. Elias complained that he was left alone 3 King 19. therefore the church then failed Answ He spake figuratively for God himself told him in the same Chapter ver 18. that he had seven thousand at that time in Israel where he was who had not howed their knees to Baal and in the Kingdom of Juda there was then publick profession of the true religion in Hierusalem paralip 22. 14 15. so that consequence is false To which I reply this author shews himself deceitful in setting down our tenet and argument and slighty in his answer For the tenet of the Protestants is not that the Church hath failed and that there is no continued succession of men in the visible Church who have held forth the truth against Popish innovations But that sometimes they have been by persecution so obscured as that however they have been discernable among themselves yet not so to adversaries and to others of their brethren at a farther distance nor perhaps have they been so conspicuous as that a catalogue might be made of the succession of Pastors and people in the same place in every age but oft-times they have been so dispersed as to be in one age or time in one Country and another time in another and that the monuments of their being and doctrine have been in part lost and in part obscured by inundations of barbarous nations persecutions of Popes and Popish Princes and their knowledge and profession hath been sometimes larger sometimes less and still misreported by adversaries Nevertheless that is though they have been in such obscurity they have been true Churches of Christ and notwithstanding we cannot prove such a succession in any one City or Country of Pastors and people in every thing agreeing with us yet we may be a true Church as long as we hold the true faith once delivered to the Saints and now upon record in the holy Scriptures though we submit not to the Pope as chief Pastor nor own the now Roman doctrin in the articles required in the Bull of Pope Pius the fourth to be professed over and above the ancient Creeds In a word this we assert that the defect of a catalogue such as H. T. requires and the obscurity of professors nullifies not the verity of the Protestant Churches And this is proved by the objection thus If there were a true Church in Israel in Elias his days which was so hidden as that Elias knew them not and so could make no catalogue of them then there may be a true Church whose professors may be so obscure as that neither in the same nor in after ages a catalogue of them can be assigned But so it was as appears by Elias his complaint and Gods answer 1 King 19. 10 14 18. Ergo there may be a true Church whose professors may be so obscure as that neither in the same nor in after ages a catalogue of them can be assigned Now what doth he answer that Elias spake figuratively because God said there were seven thousand non-Baalites left in Israel and that there was a Church in Juâ—ah then and therefore the consequence false But to shew the slightiness of this shifter for I cannot term him rightly a respondent 1. He tells us not what figure he used nor in what words nor what sense the speech bears according to that figure nor how it serves for his purpose to avoid the objection I do not conceive what figure of speech he or any man can imagin in that speech I am left alone unless he meant Ironically I am left alone that is not left alone which were a frantick conceit or an Hyperbole or a Synecdoche of a part for the whole one for many but such an Hyperbole or Synecdoche would make the speech non-sense I that is a few or many are left alone For this were non-sense and self contradicting and contrary to the intent of the speech I being in the first person and that doubled few or many in the third to say few or many are left alone when alone excludes few many any more then one to say they seek my life that is of few or many when my notes only him that spake to wit Elias and no other to say I have been jealous that is a few or many have been jealous besides the citation Rom. 11. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the occasion end of the speech and answer of God shew such an exposition would be the conceit of a man extreme shallow or impudent And his reason is as ridiculous God himself told Elias in the same chapter ver 18. that
the Apostles or if restrained to the church of that age it is meant of those that preâ—ched the Gospel to him 2. The words ego vero evangelio non crederem nisi me Catholicae Ecclesâ—ae commoveret authoritas are not well rendred by H. T. as if they did declare his purpose for the future or that he would not believe the Gospel or any other reason but the Roman or present universal churches authority For this had been an impious speech in this sense and unfit for a holy man much more for a Bishop and contrary to many passages of the same Author as particularly lib. confes 9. c. 5. in which he saith that God would not have given so excellent an authority to the Scripture through all lands unless he would that by it God should be believed But either he used the Imperfect tense for the Praeterperfect after the African dialect as he doth in a like speech in his book de beata vita sic exarsi ut omnes illas vellem anchoras rumpere nisi me nonnullorum â—ominum existimatio commoveret where commoveret is used for commovisset which is the same word here used and so the sense is I my self verily had not believed the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholick Church had moved me noting thereby the occasion of his first believing not the sole Reason or Motive of his present believing and to this sense the speeches Obtâ—mperavi dicentibus credite Evangelio ipsi Evangeliâ— catholicis prâ—edicantibus credidi recte credidisti catholicis laudantibus Evangelium quibus prae ipientibus Evangelio credidi per â—os illi credideram which express the means by which he believed and that was not authority of empire in the Church by reason of their infallible Function and right to define what is to be believed but the credit of their persons by reason of their holiness honesty wisdom and such other acts of Gods providence mentioned in the Chapter before which held him in the Church 3. Or else he speaks upon supposition that the Gospel is not believed by reason of its most sincere wisdom unto the knowledge of which few spiritual men come in this life then in that case nothing would move him to believe the Gospel but the authority of the catholick church unto which sense the words chap. 4. and the series of the Dispute seem to lead and Bellarmine lib. 4. de notis Eccles cap. 14. to reconcile Augustine's words in his Dispute against Donatists that the Church is not demonstrated by Miracles but by the Scriptures and yet against Manichaeus his Epistle of the Foundation that the Church is demonstrated by Miracles not by the Scriptures but the Scriptures by the Church saith that he speaks upon supposition because the Manichees did admit Miracles but deny the Scriptures which countenanceth this last sense Any of these ways which have their probabilities the speech may be right but not for H. T. his purpose Certainly they ascribe no infallibility or supreme judicature in controversies of faith to the Roman Pope or Church If the speech be not understood in the last sense of not believing the Gospel but by the Churches authority on supposition of the excluding the innate evidence of wisdom and truth therein or if the second sense hold not that he speaks of what he had not done at first conversion it it certain the first sense must be acknowledged that he means it of the Catholick Church from the Apostles commending it by the authority of their universal tradition in other sense specially that in which the Papists allege it it were an impious speech and contrary to many other places in his Works Sure he that reades his first second and third Chapters of his second Book of Baptism against Donatists will finde him after Cyprian fully against the ascribing to any Bishop on earth supreme judicature over other Bishops or making any Church or Council infallible but asserting that the former fullest general councils may be mended by the later and that there is no determination of any Pope or Council or Church to be rested on as infallible in points of faith but onely the holy Scripture After all this empty scribling of H. T. he yet adds I now resume the priâ—cipal Argument and retort it thus upon our adversaries The Catholick Church is infallible in all her Proposals and Definitions of Faiâ—h But the Protestant Church and the like of all other Sectaries is not infallible in her Proposals or Definitions of Faith therefore the Protestant Church is not the Catholick Church The Major hath been fully proved before The Minor must be granted by our Adversaries because they have no other way to excuse themselves from being Heretickâ— in the revolt from our Church but by falsly pretending the whole Church errs in Faith and taught Idolatry and Superstition for nine or ten hundred years together till they began their blessed Reformation a most blasphemous evasion as hath been proved before by which they have excluded themselves from all possible assurance of true faith or salvation and therefore to arrogate infallibility to themselves which they deny to the whole Church were a most frontless impudence And then he adds his Note whom he means by his infallible Church which is set down in the first Section of the Answer to this Article Answ 1. Understanding by the Protestant Church that Church which hath been since the year 1517. termed Protestants from the protesting against the Decree made at Spires Anno 1529. as Sleidan lib. 6. Com. reports the Conclusion is granted we yield the Protestant Church or Churches are not the Catholick Church but Members of it conceiving it would be indeed to hold the Errour of Donatists if they should appropriate the Title of the Catholick Church to themselves or count all out of it that are not of that party as the Romanists do who are in this Successours to the Donatists But if by the Protestant Church be meant the whole number of them who held the same Faith in the Fundamentals which now the Protestants hold so it is the Catholick Church 2. We deny that the Protestants are justly termed Sectaries meaning by Sectaries a party which hath departed from the primitive Christian faith or doth separate from the universal Church as it is or was at any time in its integrity 3. We deny the Major to have been proved understanding it of the universal Church of this or any Ages in which the Apostles were not and did not concur in the Proposals and Definitions of Faith 4. We grant the Minor but to the proof of it we say it is utterly false that we have no other way to acquit our selves from Heresie than by pretending the whole Church erred in Faith and taught Idolatry and Superstition for nine or ten hundred years together till the Reformation begun 1517. yea we say that the Errours in Faith the Idolatry and Superstition we now accuse the Roman Church of â— were many of
missals and the vulgar Latin translations of the Bible they confesse they used the help of learned men and one Pope alter what a former did and Judge of controversies from whom none may appeal and all are bound in conscience to stand to his definitions H. T. saith further Object The spiritual man judgeth all things 1 Cor. 2. 15. Answ By the Rule of Apostolical tradition I grant by humane reason or the private spirit I deny and such a spiritual man is in the Church as a part in the whole not out of it with Sectaries I reply It is true the spiritual man judgeth all things by the Rule of Apostolical tradition I mean that which is truly and confessedly Apostolical in the holy Scriptures not by that unwritten tradition which Papists falsly call Apostolical And it is true also that the spiritual man judgeth all things by humane reason not as the rule of faith but as the Organ or means of discerning as the buyer judgeth whether he hath measure by the Ell as the rule and by the eye as the Organ by which he compareth the thing bought and the Ell together And if by private spirit be meant nothing but his own ability to discern the spiritual man judgeth by his private spirit and so doth a Papist that judgeth by the rule of the Councils definition and Popes approbation judge what his Priest suggests to him to be such by humane reason and his private spirit Nor can it be otherwise if the judging be his act but it should be by humane reason unless we imagine a man as a man to act without reason However this is clear by his confession that a spiritual man is not onely the Pope or the Catholick Church but a part in the whole and that he not onely receives all that the Church propounds but judgeth and therefore doth not rest on the judgement of the Church with a blinde assent and that he is in the Church nevertheless and this supposeth that a spiritual man is not to presuppose the Church or Pope or Prelate or Priest infallible but to examine what they say and to judge for himself whether they speak right or not H. T. proceeds thus Object Right reason is the onely Judge of controversies therefore every mans private reason must be Judge for himself Answ The Antecedent I have sufficiently refuted and I also deny the Consequence as the most gross and unreasonable Assertion of all others though Mr. Chillingsworth's chief ground which appears thus I reply No Protestant that I know saith Right reason is the onely Judge of controversies and therefore there was no need of refuting it Nevertheless in what he hath said before about this point he hath refuted nothing except it be a sufficient Refutation to say without any reason or proof for it that we must not try all things by humane reason or the private spirit which is a way of reâ—uting fit enough for this Scribler though unfit for a Disputer 2. Nor do I think any Protestant makes that consequence which is here set down whereas he aâ—cribes it to Master Chillingworth he had dealt honestly if he had quoted the place that we might without reading a whole Book have found it If I mistake not Master Chillingworth chap. 2. part 1. Sect. 104. of his Answer to Charity maintained against Knot asserting a necessity of a personal Judge in points of controversie concerning the Christian faith that the Scripture was not and therefore the church must be it saith Scripture is not a Judge of controversies but a Rule to judge them by being understood of all those that are possible to be judged by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture that it is not necessary that all controversies should be decided that in doubtfull things there is no necessity they should be determined but that each should bear with other and he is safe that useth means to finde the truth though he miss it that fundamentals are plainly delivered in Scripture that the mâ—st unlearned may understand these by the translations of places on no side gainsaid that each mans own reason is Judge for himself that there is no such personal Judge appointed by God as Knot would have that his Reasons from the necessity of a personal Judge in civil controversies hold not in this matter that every mans particular reason is that by which he is to judge whether this or that Doctrine be agreeable to Scripture that even according to the way of the Papists the giving of the Office of Judicature to the Church comes to confer it upon every particular man For 1. Before any man believes the Church infallible he must have reason to induce him to believe it so else why do they set down Arguments to prove it 2. Supposing they are to be guided by the Church they must use their own particular reason to finde out which is the Church and to that end Popish Doctors give notes and marks whereby to discern it which are to no end if a Christian must not use his reason to judge whether they be right or no. So that in effect this is Mr. Chillingworth 's Argument as I conceive it There is neither a necessity of an infallible personal Judge among men to determine all controversies in Religion among Christians nor is any such appointed by God but each is to try for himself what is taught and even by Popish Writers own way he must use his particular reason to discern the validity of their proofs for the Churches infallibility and which is the Church which must be his guide by the marks of iâ— therefore it must of necessity be yielded that every mans particular reason must be Judge for himself Now this which H. T. unskilfully calls the consequence it being the consequent onely is no unreasonable much less gross Assertion and may very well be Mr. Chillingworth 's ground in answering Knot notwithstanding that which here H. T. produceth to the contrary First saith H. T. As contradicting the Word of God wherein we are taught that the things which are of God no man knows but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 11. No man can say Our Lord Jesus with true faith but in the holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12. 3. By which grace we are saved through faith and that not of our selves for it is the gift of God Ephes 2. 8. We are not sufficient to think any good thing our selves as of selves but our sufficiency is from God 2 Cor. 3. 5. We must captivate our understanding to the obedience of faith I reply Mr. Chillingworth's tenet being rightly understood contradicts none of these Texts For 1. when he saith Every mans private reason is to judge for himself he means whether this or that be the meaning of the Scriptures and whether that which some say is revealed in Scripture be so or not so that the judging which he asserts is of things revealed by the words
used some of them perhaps fell out according to the course of such diseases as are said to be cured that of the healing of two Cappadocians hath too much suspicion of counterfeiting and Augustin himself though he relates somethings of his own knowledge yet makes none of them like the miracles of Christ and his Apostles which were more frequent and open and manifest in the presence of the adversaries as the raising of Lazarus and many more were and therefore he allegeth them for the stopping of their mouths who called for miracles rather then for any evident proof of religion using this very preface in the beginning of the Chapter Why say they are not those miracles now done which ye say have been done I may say indeed they were necessary before the world should believe for this that the world might believe Whosoever as yet seeks after prodigies that he may believe is himself a great prodigy who the world believing believes not But whatever be to be thought of the relations of Augustin in that place certain it is that Augustin ch 9 10. useth them not to give testimony to the confirmation either of the truth of the Roman Church or any of their doctrines nor for the worshipping of Stephen the Martyr or any other of the Saints but only to prove the resurrection of Christ to which they in their death gave testimony and therefore are all impertinent to the purpose of H. T. to prove the verity of the Roman Church by them SECT VIII The objections against the proof of the verity of the Roman Church from the power of miracles are not solved by H. T. But H. T. takes on him to answer objections thus Ob. Miracles have ceased ever since Christ and his Apostles Answ You contradict the plain promises of Christ made to his Church without limitation as also the histories and records of all Christendom I Reply 1. The objection is not as H. T. frameth it but that so frequent and manifest working of miracles as was in the days of Christ and his Apostles and which may be a note of the true Church or doctrine without consonancy to the Scripture hath ceased and therefore by this mark of it self the Roman Church is not proved to be the true Church 2. The contradictory to this is not proved by Christs promises or the Churches records For 1. The Promises John 14. 10. Mark 16. 17. are indefinite in respect of persons and time and an indefinite proposition is true in a contingent matter if verified but of some at some times and therefore these promises may be true of some believers onely and of the time wherein the Apostles lived and consequently by the promises it cannot be proved that there must be a power of working miracles in the Church in every age 2. That they cannot be understood of any age after the Apostles unto this day is manifest because they are not true of any age after that For however some miracles have been done yet not greater then Christ did which is promised John 14. 10. nor was the speaking with new tongues which is promised Mark 16. 17. in any age but that in which the Apostles lived 3. These promises are as much made to believers in other Churches as the Roman but now they grant there 's no power of Miracles in any other Church and therefore they must yield to understand the words with such a limitation as may make the Proposition true though there be no power of Miracles in the Roman Church 4. There 's no promise of the power of Miracles to confirm the truth of the Roman Church nor of any other point but the Christian faith and therefore none of the Miracles done by virtue of those promises prove the truth of the now Roman Church or Doctrine but onely the true faith which is believed by Protestants who believe the Creed as well as Papists As for the Records there are very few of them of any certainty after the Apostles days and Popish Writers themselves do confess that not onely in their Legends but also in their Liturgies fabulous things have crept so that by saying Miracles are altogether now ceased or else are very rare and are unfit to demonstrate the verity of any present Church is no contradicting Christ's promises or any good Records of Christendom H. T. adds Object Signs and Miracles were given to Unbelievers not to Believers therefore they are now unnecessary Answ No they are not for they very much confirm the immediate care and providence of God over his Church they excellently demonstrate his omnipotence and there be many disbelievers still the more is the pity I reply that Tongues are for a sign to them that believe not is the Apostles saying 1 Cor. 14. 22. not for them that believe and there is the same reason of other Miracles and therefore is this justly urged by Protestants that to believers to prove the truth of Christian Doctrine or of the Christian Church Miracles are unnecessary Now the Answer of H. T. is quite from the point when he tells us that they are necessary for other ends And yet it is not true that Signs and Miracles are necessary to confirm the immediate care and providence of God over his Church sith God doth by his ordinary provision either of Teachers or Christian Princes shew his immediate care and providence over his Church and by his daily works of the motion of the Sun and other acts of governing the World demonstrates his omnipotence nor by his Miracles and Signs hath he shewed so much his immediate care and providence over his Church for the guiding and protecting of them as his care of unbelievers by bringing them into his Church And it is true that there are many dis-believers still the more 's the pity and if God did see it good it would be a blessed hing if he did vouchsafe the gift of doing Miracles to convert the Indians Moors Tartars to the faith of Christ and we wish it were true which the Jesuits boast of Francis Xavier his Miracles in the East Indies though Franciscus a victoria relect 5. Sect. 2. and Josephus Acosta lib. 4. de Indorum salute cap. 4. 12 Blab out that which gives us cause to think that the Relations are but feigned things tending to magnifie the Pope and the Jesuits there being no such evidence of those things from any persons of credit who have traded or travelled into those parts But be they what they will it is certain God never intended Miracles to prove the Popes Supremacy or the verity of the Roman Church but the Christian faith and therefore till both or either of them be proved from Scripture if we be disbelievers we must be disbelievers still knowing this that if there should be never so great Miracles in shew done by Popes or Friers yet we are bound not to believe them without proof of their Doctrine from Scripture and that if any though an Angel from
themselves I reply were not this man bewitched or as the Prophet speaks Isai 44. 20. Fed on Ashes having a deceived heart that turneth him aside so as that he cannot say Is there not a Lie in my right hand he would never have preferred oral Tradition seconded by erecting and use of Images made by idolatrous Sots and termed Teachers of Lies by the Prophet Hab 2. 18. as a safer and more infallible Rule of Faith than the holy Scriptures inspired by God and his great gift to men though impiously termed by this Wretch dead Letters ' But it is the just judgement of God that they that make Images and adore them should be like them Psalm 115. 8. that is as blockish as the Images are How uncertain oral Tradition is hath been shewed and how impossible it is to be a true and right Rule since the departure of those who could preach infallibly That there is any such uniform and outward practise of the Roman Church which can second oral Tradition aud make any Point of Christian Doctrine much less the whole frame of necessary Points of Christian Doctrine in a manner visible and sensible is a Lie with a witness Christian Doctrine doth not consist in the History of the things sensible to the eye but in the opening of the true causes and ends and uses of things done which can onely be apprehended by the understanding and is brought to it by hearing and reading whence Faith is said to come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God Rom. 10. 14 15 17. It is most false that the erecting of Images of Christ and of the Cross hath been the uniform practise of the Church It is certain by many Writers that Christians had no Images in their Churches for many hundred years yea it is certain that the best Emperours and Bishops of the East and West were against the having them in Churches however Gregory the first Bishop of Rome by his superstitious opposing Serenus his taking them down counting them Lay-men's Books opened a Gap to that Deluge of Ignorance and Idolatry which hath since spread over the Western Churches which have gone a whoring after them This Authour calls them holy Image which the Scripture counts abominable as defiling places and making them not sacred but polluted He saith The Incarnation and all the Mysteries thereof are made sensible by the Images of Christ erected in all sacred places the passion by the sign of the Cross used in Sacraments and set up in Churches But what a notorious falshood is this One Mystery sure is the Holy Ghost's overshadowing the Virgin Mary another the Union of the two Natures Can any Image of Christ teach these What can the sign of the Cross teach but that there was such a kinde of punishment to put men to Death If Images did teach these Mysteries then Image-makers would be Stewards of the Mysteries of God and Successours of the Apostles and Michael Angelo and such like Painters and Carvers more truly Peter's Successours and Bishops of Rome than Popes as doing more to teach the Mysteries of God than Popes do The unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass is a meer figment of a thing present which all the sense of all the men in the World contradicts full of apish gestures and toyish fashions fitter for a Stage-play than a spiritual Service of the Christian Church and being in a Tongue not commonly understood without teaching informs not the Hearers or Seers in the Mystery of the Death of Christ nor makes any lively Commemoration of his Passion but pleaseth superstitious and womanish or childish spirits which are taken with such shews the Sacrament opens no Mystery thereof without the Word written Accedat Verbum ad Elementum fit Sacramentum was the old resolution Put the Word to the Element then it is made a Sacrament Nor is it true that the practice hath been uniform therein the variety of Missals and the corruptions purged out of the Roman Missal as is confessed in Pope Pius the fifth his Bull according to the Decree of the Trent Council prove the contrary The Trinity is known by the institution and practise of Baptism but that is learned out of the written Word not oral Tradition None of these practises do at all open the Mystery of the Gospel as experience shews it being manifest by conference that none of the People in Italy and elsewhere who go to Mass and look on Pictures and have no other teaching do understand any thing of the Mystery of the Gospel the end reason use of Christ's Birth or Death but content themselves with a meer theatrical shew without any true understanding of the grace of God inward feeling or effectual change in their souls thereupon Perhaps it is better with Papists in England where their Superstitions are not altogether so gross and their understanding bettered by neighbourhood and converse with Protestants But that Images should conserve revealed verities or oral Tradition seconded with Images more explicate them than Books which this man again impiously terms dead Letters unless the Images be animated as that was that it's said told Thomas Aquinas Thou hast written well of me which was fit to be silenced by telling it that it had no allowance to speak in the Church is to me unintelligible And if these be such a safe and infallible Rule or means to teach and conserve the whole frame of Christian Doctrine then sure Christ did inconsiderately appoint Writers and Preachers to teach and guide the Church till we all meet in the unity of the Faith Ephes 4. 11 12 13. he should rather for the times after the Apostles have appointed Massing Priests and Painters to have taught the People nor were the Council of Trent and some of the Popes so advised as they might have been in appointing the unnecessary businesses of framing a Catechism and amending the vulgar Latin Edition of the Bible and much more foolish have been all the learned Papists who have in late years and formerly made large Commentaries and other Treatises to conserve revealed verities there being a more compendious way by oral Traditions with the use of Images and Masses and some other things if this impudent Scribler say true Yet H. T. continues thus Object If all things necessary to salvation be not contained in the whole Bible now shall a man ever come to know what is necessary to be known either by the whole Church in general or himself in particular Answ For the whole Church in general she is obliged to know all divinely revealed verities which are necessary to the salvation of all mankinde she being made by Christ the Depository of all and having the Promise of divine assistance to all And for each particular man so much onely it necessary to be believed as is sufficiently proposed to him by the Church and her Ministers for the Word of God or would at the least be so proposed if he himself were not in fault
framed But James who spake after was he according to whose sentence the decree was framed entirely however Peter began before so that by this reason James had the primacy and not Peter A like in consequent is this Peter remained not always at Antioch as all that Church acknowledgeth nor did she ever challenge the first chair in any general Council as appears in the Councils ergo Peter translated his chair from Antioch to Rome risum teneat is araici As if Peter did always remain at Rome or that because we read not of Antioch's challenge therefore it was not made or as if the not challenging the first chair were because of Peters translation of his chair from thence to Rome whereas the very decree of the Chalcedon Council Can. 28. gives Rome the first chair because of the dignity of the City not by reason of Peters supremacy or translation of his chair from Antioch to Rome of the same sort of inconsequence is the next The Council of Sardis Sardica in Illyria Anno Domini 400. Western Fathers 300. Estern 76. decreed that in cases of Bishops for honour of St. Peters memory it should be lawful to appeal from whatsoever Bishop to the Bishop of Rome Can. 3. therefore the primacy was in Peter and after him in the Bishop of Rome For 1. This Council whatever it were was not in the first or second ages 2. Nor was it reckoned no not by the Roman Church of old among Oâ—cumenical Councils much less by the Greeks who refused to be present as Socrates relates l. 2. c. 16. unless Athanaâ—ius were removed for not yielding whereto the Bishops of the East met by themselves at Philippi in Thracia and made decrees apart saith Sozom. l. 3. c. 10. yea however in the late edition of the Councils at Paris corrupt devices are used to gain the credit of a general Council to it and for some advantage to the Papacy to make its Canons of authority yet H. T. makes it to have had but seventy six Eastern Fathers when there were three hundred Western and the ignorance of any general Councils establishing appeals from Africa to Rome in the sixth Council of Carthage shews that it was not taken for an Oâ—cumenical Council 3. Nor doth the Canon it self decree as H. T. sets down that the Bishop of Rome should have power to receive appeals and to judge the cause but in case of the deposition of a Bishop they permit the Bishop of Rome to deliberate whether the judgement should be renewed and then consider whether he should send some from his side who might be present at the renewed cognizance of it and if it should seem meet also appoint judges out of a neighbouring Province none of which give the Bishop of Rome a judiciary power but onely a Directory Nor was this to be extended to any other than those of the western countreys the Africans and Greeks ever rejecting it 4. The very canon it self expresseth the reason of it not any divine appointment or ancient use the Council of Nice having to the contrary Can. 5. determined that such controversies should be ended in a provincial Council but it was then proposed first by Hosius for honour of St. Peter's memory and the last determination of the cause to be by a Council Can. 13. 14. No betis that which H. T. adds The Council of Chalcedon Anno 451. said All primary and chief honour according to the Canons was to be kept for the Archbishop of old Rome therefore this is good evidence that in the first Age the primacy was in Peter and the Pope For neither doth that Council held in the fifth Age mention what honour or primacy the Bishop of Rome had in the two first Ages nor doth it ascribe to the Bishop of Rome any superiority but doth expresly in that very Canon ascribe to the other Patriarchs equality with the Roman Bishop in power however he were first in order and this was determined notwithstanding the reluctancy of the Popes Legates The rest is as vain Pope Antherus Anno 238. said Peter was changed from Antioch to Rome Gregory in the sixth Age said he knew no Bishop but is subject to the See of Rome Epist 62. Ergo Peter and the Pope had the supreme Headship over the whole Church in the first Age. As if the counterfeit writing of a Pope in the third Age or the saying of a Pope in the sixth Age of what was then in use though not true sith the Greek Bishops to his knowledge were not subject without telling them by what means it was so were a sufficient proof either of right or possession in the first Age of so great a power as the Bishop of Rome now claims What he adds that the falsely so called Canons of the Apostles define that if any Bishop or Priest the oblation H. T. â—oysts in the word Mass being made shall not communicate he should be excommunicate as giving suspition of him who hath sacrificed that he hath not rightly offered Can. 9. approved in the sixth general Synod therefore the Apostles professed a sacrifice properly so called propitiatory for quick and dead in the Mass is as frivolous For neither were those canons made by the Apostles as many things in them shew and if they were private Masses used by Papists should be condemned nor doth it follow there is mention of a Sacrifice and Offering therefore in the Mass was Christ offered as a propitiatory Sacrifice properly so called sith it might be termed as it is in many of the Ancients an eucharistical or commemorative Sacrifice not a propitiatory Sacrifice properly so called This H. T. in the two first Ages brings for the proof of his Minor let us go on to view his catalogue in the next Age. He sets down fifteen Bishops of Rome whereof the last Pope Marcellinus was condemned in a Council at Sinuessa if there were such a Council for his Idolatry confesseth no Councils in the second and third Ages yet claims a Succession of Popes Martyrs and Confessors sufficient for his purposes and then sets down Decrees of eight Popes in their Epistles which have been long since proved counterfeit by Dr. John Rainold confer with Hart chap. 8. divis 3. in which the Forger tells us that Pope Anacletus decreed Anno Dom. 101. that Priests when they sacrifice to our Lord must not do it alone which is against private Masses and proves not a propitiatory sacrifice properly so called in the Mass that the Apostles so appointed and the Roman Church holds if so then the Roman Church which now holds private Masses holds not the same tenet it did then if more difficult questions shall arise let them be referr'd to the Apostolick See of Rome which is H. T. his Addition for so the Apostles have ordained by the commandment of our Lord no where extant nor any way probable that Pope Alexander decreed that Bread onely and Wine mingled with Water should be
will and operation to be in Christ But this Author deceitfully conceals it that the same Council in the thirteenth action did solemnly condemn Honorius the Pope of old Rome as a Monothelite together with the rest and again in the Greek edition the first Chapter and that Pope Agatho in his Epistle to the sixth Council doth anathematize his predecessor Honorius as a Monothelite and Pope Leo the second in his Epistle to Constantine the Emperor inserted in the eighth action of the sixth Synod which was also done in the second Nicene Council termed the seventh synod in the last action As for that which H. T. adds of the definitions of the sixth Council against Priests marriage not giving grapes mingling water and wine adoration of the Crosse consideration in him that binds and looseth invocating Saints it is not worth while to insist on the examination thereof partly because some of the definitions serve not the purpose for though it be granted that there ought to be a particular knowledge of the sin of him that is to be absolved by his confession of it yet is not thereby the necessity of Popish auricular confession proved or the Priests power judicially and authoritatively to absolve and remit sins established partly because they are not all points of faith but either of disciplin as about the marriage of men in orders or of Ceremonies as about the mingling of water and wine in the Eucharist and partly because it is doubtful whether those Canons are truely ascribed to that Council there being some reasons tending to the contrary and partly because if they were their determinations there is little reason to ascribe any authority to them after the first six hundred years barbarism and many corruptions being gotten into the Christian Churches and the simplicity of the Christian profession very much changed into contentions about Bishops Sees Ecclesiastical priviledges humane ceremonies and such like abuses yet were all granted which he allegeth of the councils definitions neither the now Roman supremacy nor faith is proved nor from the Catholick professors as he terms them or Nations converted are either of them avouched in that age In the eighth Century things grew worse In it H. T. reckons thirteen Popes among whom there 's not a man of whom their own writers relate any thing that belongs to the Pastors of the Church of Christ to wit the Preaching of the Gospel but their intermedling with the business of the Empire and Kingdoms making Kings monks contentions about images in Churches enlarging their dominions building walls making decrees about shaven crowns and such like toyes ... Two Popes Zacharias and Stephen the second can hardly be acquitted from being sinfully instrumental in the deposing of Childerick King of France and the traiterous usurpation of Pepin As for the second Nicene Council in which H. T. saith were three hundred and fifty Fathers Pope Adrian presiding Anno Domini 787. against image breakers in which were decreed for images in Temples and the veneration and worship of the Saints Reliques Images and the Council of Sens about traditions though these things are but a few of the Popish doctrins yet we grant that then the Popes had gotten to such heighth as to justle Emperors and that the Churches in Communion with the Papacy were in that age and the following so corrupt as that traditions of men and decrees of Bishops were more regarded than the written Word and that thereby placing of images in Temples and their worship got into the Christian Churches to the promoting of that Idolatry in the Roman Church which hath made her the mother of harlots and of abominations of the earth yet this was not done without opposition not only in the Greek Empire but also in the Western Charles the great calling a Council at Frankford which condemned the second Nicene Council And for the Catholick Professors such as venerable Bede and others though they were tainted with the superstitions of those times about monkery and ceremonies and ecclesiastical dignities and orders yet that they held the now Roman faith cannot be demonstrated nor that the Nations mentioned to be converted were converted to it And for the miracles mentioned there is no credit to be given to them many such tales having been made or such miracles counterfieted in those dayes for deceiving the ignorant people nor were they done in such manner and to such purposes as the miracles of Christ and his Apostles were by which the Gospel was confirmed In the nineteenth age H. T. reckons up eighteen Popes omitting the mention of one of them as a woman though a great number of Popish writers set her down as Pope and relate the story of her sitting in the chair some years till she travailed with child in procession But if that were not true yet the things related by themselves of Formosus Stephanus Romanus shew cruelty and wickedness in the Popes of that age one hating and undoing what another had done and thereby shewing that they were rather of Cadmus than St. Peters race And for the fourth Constantinopolitan Council Fathers one hundred and one Pope Adrian presiding Anno Domini 869. against Photius and for the Pope and images and against temporal Princes medling in the election of Bishops it is an argument that the Roman Bishops were gotten then by many wicked practices to a great heighth of unjust power And the deposition of Photius for reproving the Emperor together with his opposition of the Pope whose works extant do shew him to have been of more worth for learning than any Pope in that age and the Epistle of Ulderick Bishop of Auspurg to Pope Nicolas the first in which he rebukes the wickedness of Popes in denying marriage to the Clergy do prove that the doctrin and tyranny of the Popes of Rome did not freely pass without controul even in that age which by the confession of Genebrard himself Chron. l. 4. was an unhappy age for want of any writer of worth in the Latin Church As for the Catholick professors mentioned by H. T. in this age that they were all of the Roman church or professed her faith is not shewed not that the Nations converted were either converted by the Roman Bishops or owned their now claimed supremacy or professed faith H. T. saith the Russians were converted by a Priest sent by the Emperor Basilius and therefore had their conversion from the Greek church whom they followed and with whom they now hold communion not acknowledging the Bishop of Romes supremacy to this day and therefore that instance is manifestly against H. T. his purpose In the tenth age are reckoned twenty six Popes whereof there 's scarce any that may be termed a Christian much less a chief Pastor of the Christian churches Their own stories tell us of some of them that got the Popedome by means of Mororia a notorious whore others by cruel practises one to wit Sylvester the second by the help of the Devil
whose agents they were in bringing a deluge of ignorance and wickedness into the world which made that age to be termed a miserable age in which were neither famous writers nor Councils nor Popes that cared for the publick by Bellarmin in his book of Ecclesiastical writers and of it H. T. here saith in this tenth age or century I find no general council nor yet provincial in which any controversie of moment was decided So that by his own confession his catalogue of councils fails him And for his succession of chief Pastors it is of such persons and so uncertain a succession and by such irregular ways as yeilds proof that Rome was the Synagogue of Satan not the church of Christ Of the catholick professors added some of them as Dunstan c. were such as it may be well doubted whether they are in heaven or in hell And for the Nations converted it is not proved they were of the now Roman faith SECT X. The defect of H. T. his catalogue of succession in the eleventh and twelfth age is shewed IN the eleventh age are reckoned eighteen Popes worse if it may be as bad as any in hell most of them magicians if their own writers speak truth from Sylvester the second to Gregory the seventh all Necromancers saith Benno a Cardinal of Rome John the seventeenth or eighteenth H. T. himself is not resolved whether so uncertain is his succession on which he builds the truth of his church Their practises were to poyson one another and to set up one King and Emperor against another to advance their own greatness and to domineer over the greatest Princes by the terror of their excommunications and giving away their dominions which was brought to a stupendous heighth by Hildebrand otherwise Gregory the seventh under whose reign Satan seems to have been let loose for the executing of vengeance on the Emperors that had so adored Popes as to become their vassals whom Pope Gregory the great acknowledged his Lord and committed fornication with the whore of Babylon Of councils H. T. names but one telling us that in this eleventh age about the year 1049. Berengarius an Archdeacon of Ghent of Aniou he should have said mistaking Gaudavensis for Adegavensis began to broach his heresie he should more truely have said the doctrin of Christ his Apostles the Fathers even Gelasius himself Bishop of Rome in the first five hundred years and of the most learned to that time concerning the B. Sacrament affirming it to be only a sign or figure of the body and blood of Christ not his true body and blood for which saith H. T. he was condemned in the council of Lateran under Pope Nicolas the second 1057. As also in the Roman council under Pope Gregory the seventh Anno 1073. where he abjured his heresie in open council and died a Catholick after divers penances done for his sin But methinks H. T. should be ashamed to mention Berengarius his forced abjuration in which Pope Nicolas made him say I believe that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ sensibly and in very deed is touched with the hands of the Priests and broken with and rent and ground with the teeth of the faithful de con dist 2. Ergâ— Berengarius which occasioned the gloss it self to say unless you warily understand these words of Berengarius you will fall into a greater heresie than ever he held any And for his Catholick professors and Nations converted wherein or how far they avowed the Popes supremacy and the now Roman faith is not shewed by him nor do I believe he is able to prove that they did avouch the Popes supremacy which is now challenged or in all things the now Roman doctrin though Romish superstitions and the excessive esteem of the Popish Bishops did very much corrupt men in those days If the ignorant devotion of one Henricus the Emperor with his wife make any thing for the credit of the Roman papacy the story of another Henricus to wit the fourth his wife and childs usage by Gregory the seventh and other Popes is such as that it demonstrates the Popes of those times to have been no successors of Peter either in doctrine or practice but devils incarnate rather than men And however Anselms learning seem to credit the papacy yet in many points of doctrin he is not for the now Roman tenents as where he saith on Rom. 12. salvation consisteth not in mans merits but in Gods grace and his contention with the King of England being animated by the Pope is an evidence that the faith of Christ was not so much professed then as the greatness of Bishops and the unrighteous ways of Clergymen In the twelfth age are reckoned up eighteen Popes and three Lateran councils of which Popes it will be hard for H. T. to shew what their faith was or to prove they did orderly succeed especially considering how many Antipopes were set up and what abominable practices were used to get up into the chair and how wickedly they lived as men that cared not what rebellions they raised what wars and bloodsheds they caused not against infidels but of subjects against their soveraign Christian Emperors not for the Gospel of Christ or their lawful liberties but for the Popes most impudent claim of freedom from subjection to Emperors and investiture of Bishops and Abbats things which Jesus Christ and his Apostles never granted but commanded the contrary Their own writers tell us so much of them specially of Calixtus the second Innocent the second Adrian the fourth Alexander the third and their monstrous pride in oppressing and insulting on the Emperors beyond what is to be found in any Priests of Pagan Gods towards the Princes of the earth as shews them to be inspired by the devil not guided by the Spirit of God H. T. adds three Lateran councils for instauration of discipline for the right of the Clergy for reformation with presidency of Calixtus the second Anno 1122 of Innocent the second Anno 1139. which he tells us defined little in matters of controversie and so by his own confession prove not his succession in the profession of the same faith As for the ends in those two councils which he mentions all the instauration of disciplin therein was concerning monks in the former and in the later the right of the clergy was about the Bishop of Romes power in civil things at Rome and exempting of clergy men from the Senate and Consuls of Rome Wherein the Romans desired to be restored to their ancient power in civil things but the Pope and his council withstood it anathematizing them that laid hands on a clergy man yet limiting the Bishop of Rome in some sort These are the great businesses of three hundred at one time and one thousand Bishops and Abbats at another time Which may shew how little the Popes and councils then regarded Christs doctrin or precepts but minded the upholding their own inventions and
authority of the Church but to know the true faith by which alone the true Church is known and it is a most impudent assertion which H. T. takes on him in his first Article to maintain that the Church now in communion with the See of Rome is the only true Church of God unless he can prove none are believers but they So that this very definition of the Lateran council is sufficient to overthrow the main drift of H. T. in this book and to shew how heedless or impudent a writer he is H. T. tells us also that the fourth Lateran council defin'd in the profession of faith can 1. that the true body and blood of Christ is in the Sacrament of the Altar under the forms of bread and wine the bread being transubstantiated by the divine power into the body and the wine into the blood Which is granted if it be true that the Council it self did define any thing and not Pope Innocent himself three years after the Council Platina saith in his life that many things then came into consultation indeed and yet not any thing could be openly decreed But were it the Council or the Pope alone that thus decreed it was a most bold and presumptuous act in either or both to make that a point of faith of which as Bellarm. tom 3. cont l. 3 c. 23. confesseth Scotus in quartum sent dist 11. q. 3. said that the tenent of transubstantiation was no tenet of faith before the Lateran Council and Scotus and Cameracensis expresly say that neither by words of Scripture nor by the Creeds nor sayings of the ancients are we compelled to the tenet of transubstantiation And Cardinal Cairt in 3. Aq. q. 75. art 1. saith that nothing out of the Gospel doth appear to compel us to understand these words this is my body properly To the same purpose John Fisher Bishop of Rochester contra capt Babylon c. 1. For which reason Cuthbert Tonstal l. 1. of the Eucharist p. 46. said perhaps it had been better to have left every curious man to his conjecture concerning the manner of Christs body being in the Eucharist as before the Lateran Council it was left at liberty and therefore he was ost heard to say if he had been present at the Lateran Council he would have endeavoured to perswade Pope Innocent to have forborn the decreeing of transubstantiation as an article of faith And indeed the reason of the Council is so grosly absurd that had there been any understanding men at the making of the decree it 's likely it had not passed For this reason they give of their decree that to perfect the mystery of unity we our selves may take of his what he received of ours the bread being transubstantiate into the body the wine into blood by the divine power intimates 1. That the bread is transubstantiate into the body and wine into the blood not either into body and blood and then he that drinks not the wine drinks not the blood nor is it said to be transubstantiate into it as an animate body so that that determination makes it a transubstantiation without life 2. It faith that we may receive of his what he receives of ours which in plain sense intimates that Christ receives our body and blood by eating and drinking as we do his 3. It makes this the mystery of our unity as if the mystery of our unity by faith were not perfect without this gross Capernaitish Cannibalitish eating Christs very flesh made from bread by a Priest and drinking his very blood with our mouth in drinking transubstantiate wine All which are such gross irrational unchristian absurdities as had not the age been blockish and Popes and popish writers and people dementate they would with abhorrency have rejected that determination H. T. adds that the fourth Lateran Council can 1. defined in the profession of faith that no man can make this Sacrament but a Priest rightly ordained by the keys of the Church given to the Apostles and their successors which although it be otherwise in the text Matth. 16. 19. expresseth wherein the keys not of the Church but of the Kingdom of heaven are mentioned as given to Peter not to the Apostles and their successors yet were it true that the keys were given to the Apostles and their successors this would overthrow the Popes supremacy if it be deduced from that gift of the keys For if Christ himself gave the keys of the Church to the Apostles and their successors then not to Peter only and his successors but to other Apostles and their successors as well as Peter and consequently according to their own principles to other Bishops as well as the Bishop of Rome As for the definition of the Council that none can make this Sacrament but a Priest then it is to Priests only that it is said do this for from those words he deduceth p. 215. the power to make Christs body but that is most absurd for then they only should eat the doing this being meant plainly of eating the bread being spoken not to the Priest conficient only but to all the Apostles at table also and if so not only the cup should be kept from the people but the bread also contrary to 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. 11. 28. H. T. tells us that they defined that baptism profits little ones as well as those who are of riper years unto salvation and condemned the heresie of Abbas Joachim which is nothing against the common tenet of the Protestants though it be suspected that if Abbat Joachim had not been a man whose reputed holiness and free speeches against the Popes and the clergy troubled them he might have escaped that censure The definition concerning confession and receiving at Easter are points of disciplin not part of the profession of faith and so impertinent to the present business H. T. mentions also the Council of Lyons Fathers one hundred Pope Gregory the tenth presiding Anno 1274. against the Grecians which is nothing against the common tenet of the Protestants and that which is added this hitherto saith the Council the holy Roman Church the mother and mistris of all Churches hath preach'd and taught besides the non-sense how frequently soever it be used of the Churches preaching and teaching who preach not nor teach but they are preached to and taught it is but a piece of palpably false flattery the Church of Rome being not the mother of all Churches it being certain that the Church of Jerusalem was before that of Rome and the Jerusalem from above is stiled the mother of us all Gal. 4. 26. Among his Catholick professors of this age H. T. nominates St. Dominick and St. Francis Institutors of their holy orders of Friers but how they should be Saints whereof one was a bloody instigator of war against the innocent sheep of Christ the Waldenses and the other an observer of humane inventions with neglect of Gods command to work with his
he had seven thousand at that time in Israel where he was therefore Elias spake figuratively when he complained he was left alone 3 Kings 19. Nay the contrary follows that he did not speak figuratively because God corrects him and shews his mistake in saying he was left alone that is there were no more besides himself left 2. But yet if it were granted that the speech is figurative and the meaning as H. T. would have it it no whit avoids our objection that the Church of God though consisting of seven thousand yet were so obsâ—ure that they appeared so few to Elias as that he took himself to be left alone As for the other exception of the Kingdom of Juda it takes not away the objection as the Protestants frame it but as H. T. frames it it is not our objection and so though the consequence be false yet it hurts not us who gather not hence the failing of the Church but the obscurity of it and that there may be a true Church which is so hidden that it is not discerned at some times no not by such an eminent Prophet as Elias and so though we cannot shew our Church in every age before Luther yet there might be then and we may be now a true Church for all that The next objection he brings is that though Arian heresie infected the whole world Ergo c. and answers you mistake the fury of that lasted not full fouâ— years viz. from the council of Ariminum to the death of Constantine and that only in the Eastern Churches the Western feeling little or nothing by it St. Augustin answers the Donatists objecting the same that even the canonical Scriptures have this custome that the word seems to be addressed to all when it reaches home only to some few Epist 48. To which I reply If the Arian fury lasted but four years and in the Eastern Churches only yet it might have been more than one hundred and then the succession had ceased and the Eastern Churches then were so obscure that a catalogue of professors could not be given though there were doubtless then true Churches in the East But it is false which H. T. writes that the Western felt little or nothing by the Arian fury for in Italy the Arians prevailed so far as to bring Liberius Bishop of Rome to subscribe to the council of Ariminum Nor do I know how the words of Augustin yeild any thing in answer to the objection that in the time of the Arian prevalency the Church was so obscured that the whole world seemed to be Arians therefore the Churches succession may be so interrupted or obscured at least as that a catalogue of it's pastors and professors at all times cannot be framed For suppose the meaning of the speech should be that the words concerning the number of Arians seem to be addressed to all when they reach home only to some few yet if the words shew the number so great as that the other part of the Church were obscured so as not to be discerned they serve to prove there may be Churches which are so hidden as that a catalogue cannot be framed But the objection is further pressed thus Object St. Hierom says the whole world groan'd and admired to see it self become Arian in his book against Luciferius To which H. T. saith Answ If she wondred she knew not when it was done if she groaned she approved it not being done therefore the major part were still Catholick To which I reply if H. T. did not presume he should meet with silly readers he would not have thus frivolously inferred from those words which were delivered to shew the Arians to be the greater part that the major part was still Catholick For who knows not that the expression is Rhetorical and the meaning this that Arians prevailed so much that the whole world that is all the churches of the East and West were so infected that they were burdened with Arians as a man that groans under a burden and that on such a sudden as that the accident was as it were a wonder now from such Catachrestical metaphors to infer as if they were proper that while the world was Arian it knew not it was done or approved it not is all one as to say when they were Arians they knew not nor liked Arian doctrine that is while they were Arians they were not Arians which is to make Hieroms speech self-contradicting But H. T. adds Let St. Hierom answer for himself The Bishops saith he against Luciferius that did the fact of Ariminum were deluded viz. by the new Creed there made which might have born a good sense few defending the fact and some lamenting it And St. Augustin tells us that the church then appeared in her most constant members Athanasius and others ep 48. To which I reply It is true that when they came to see their error they did lament it yet were for the time Arians and though Athanasius did not yeild to subscribe to it yet Liberlus Bishop of Rome did And I believe H. T. his fellow Papists will not allow his speech that the decree made at Ariminum might have born a good sense It is added by H. T. thus Obj. The church will fail in the time of Antichrist according to that unless there come a revolt first c. 2 Thes 2. 3. Answ No she will not she shall then suffer great persecution Apoc. 20. 8. and therefore shall be to suffer many will revolt all shall not I reply that if the revolt be of so many and the persecution so great as that they shall be dispersed and obscured so as not to appear it is sufficient to prove the succession to be then either so interrupted as not to be or so obscured as not to be discerned by enemies or brethren further off and so as that the making a catalogue of Pastors and professors in that age cannot be expected justly from the churches in after ages which is enough for our purpose to shew that the defect of such a catalogue shews not the nullity of the Protestant churches nor is with any justice or reason such a catalogue of Pastors and professors in all ages required of them by Papists Yet however this Author conceives his fellows the Rhemists Annot. on 2 Thes 2. 3. think the Apostasie shall be so great as that Antichrist shall pull down generally all kind of religious worship saving that which must be done to himself alone nor is that Apoc. 20. 8. to the contrary For neither is it certain that time is the time of Antichrists reign nor if it were doth it appear that the thing done is afore the end of that reign But H. T. adds Obj. What if men would not persevere how then you hold freewill I hope Answ With St. Augustine to the Donatists as if the holy Ghost were ignorant what would be the freewill of men which yet foreseeing he foretold that the church
of Christ should endure for ever de unit Eccles cap. 12. I reply what Protestant hath thus objected I know not The possibility of the militant churches ceasing is sufficiently proved by the holding of the acts of freewill to be undetermined or undeterminable by God Nor doth the answer avoid it For though if the answer be good the futurition of the churches failing follows not from the holding of free-will yet it shews not but that it may be and perhaps it will be hard for him to avoid the objection that if mans will be not determined by Gods decree which is meant by freewill among that sort of writers then the Holy Ghost cannot foresee that the church militant will endure for ever it being in reason impossible that there should be certain foresight of that which is not certain to be afore that act of freewill in man which God himself cannot determine A certain prescience of that which is purely contingent may be or not be before it notwithstanding any purpose in God is according to all principles of reason impossible If this Author hold with many of the Romanists mans freewill not to be determined by Gods decree and influx on the will of man or the Jesuits middle knowledge he hath enough of Papists to oppose him I have sufficiently shewed the futility of his dispute in the first Article of his Manual the second follows ARTIC II. Protestants Succession sufficient Protestants have that Succession which is sufficient to demonstrate them to be a true Church of God SECT I. Protestant Churches need not prove such a Succession as Papists demand ART 2. H. T. thus disputes The true Church of God hath had a continued Succession from Christ to this time and shall have from hence to the end of the world as hath been proved But the Protestant Church and so of all other Sectaries hath not a continued Succession from Christ to this time Therefore the Protestant Church is not the true Church of God The Minor which onely remains unproved is cleared by the concession of our most learned Adversaries who freely and unanimously confess that before Luther made his separation from the Church of Rome for nine hundred or a thousand years together the whole world was Catholick and in obedience to the Pope of Rome there being no Protestants any where to be found or heard of Let therefore our Enemies be our Judges Calvin Hospinian White Norton Bancroft Jewel Chamier Brochard Whitaker Bucer Perkins Bale Voyon Bibliander Answ IT hath not been proved that every true Church of God hath had a continued Succession from Christ to this time many true Churches have had no Predecessors and so no Succession the Primitive Churches certainly had not Succession there being none before them they had not been primitive if there had been precedent and sundry Churches have been true Churches who have had none after them in the same place when their Candlestick hath been removed And therefore it is most false which he here vainly saith he hath proved that the true Church of God meaning every true Church of God without which his Major is not universal and so his Syllogism naught hath had a continued succession meaning without interruption of persons which may be named in the same place professing the same Faith with the now Roman Church in every point which is his meaning and is onely for his purpose from Christ to this time he hath not proved it no not in the Roman Church nor in those that are in communion with it under the Pope Nor hath he proved at all that every true visible Church on earth shall have such a continued Succession from hence to the end of the world The prophecies he alleged are shewed not to speak what he averres And for his Minor though it is granted that the Protestant Church under that name as so termed hath not been ancient yet the Protestant Church in respect of that Faith they hold hath been from the beginning and hath continued as the Church of God in persecution sometimes more sometimes less pure sometimes larger sometimes smaller sometimes more obscure sometimes more conspicuous sometimes in one place sometimes in another and in respect of their Protestation against popish Doctrines the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation half-communion propitiatory Sacrifice of the Mass prayer in an unknown Tongue Worship and Invocation of Saints and other popish Errours it hath had Churches and persons who have as they have been urged on them opposed them sometime more sometime fewer sometimes in a more open sometimes in a more secret way as persecution permitted and God stirred up their spirits It is most false that the most learned Adversaries of the Romanists do freely and unanimously confess that before Luther made his Separation from the Church of Rome for nine hundred or a thousand years together the whole World was Catholick and in obedience to the Pope of Rome there being no Protestants any where to be found or heard of Sure the Grecians were part of the World and H. T. himself confesseth here pag. 48. there was a Revolt of them from the Roman Church after seven or eight hundred years and they were united again to the Church of Rome in the Council of Florence Sess last which himself saith p. 34 was in the year 1439. so that by his own account their Revolt was six hundred years at least besides what is manifest of the Arminians and others And sure the Hussites Wicklevists Waldenses and those who went before them whom Rainerius saith Some counted to have been from Pope Sylvester 's time some from the Apostles were a part of the whole World and many Protestants Illyricus Fox White with others deny to have obeyed the Pope of Rome afore Luther and averre that they were though not in name yet in truth Protestants in some at least of the chief points against the now popish Doctrine And therefore that which H. T. hath recited in this Speech is manifest untruth Yea Dr. Richard Field a learned man in his Appendix to his third Book of the Church hath proved it notwithstanding Brerely his wonderment that the Western Churches afore Luther were Protestant and the maintainers of the now Roman Faith onely a Faction in it And Mr. Perkins hath demonstrated in his Demonstration of the Probleme this Position No Apostle no holy Father no sound Catholik for twelve hundred years after Christ did ever hold or profess that Doctrine of all the Principles and Grounds of Religion that is now taught by the Church of Rome and authorized by the Council of Trent Nor do the Speeches of the Protestant Writers amount to that which he produceth them for He himself allegeth p. 41. out of Augustin Epist 48. that even the Canonical Scriptures have this custome that the word seems to be addressed to all when it reaches home onely to some few and thereby he would interpret the complaints that were made of the whole world becoming Arian
V. The Romanists Doctrine as it is now was not the Doctrine of the Fathers of the first five hundred years nor is acknowledged to be so by the learned Protestants H. T adds a third Argument to prove that his with other Romanists Doctrines in which they differ from Protestants and are opposed by them are taught and approved by the Fathers of the first five hundred years which he thinks to prove by that he hath cited and shall cite out of the Fathers and the confessions of his Adversaries and to that end cites some Speeches of Fulk Kemnitius Whitgrft Calvin Whitaker Peter Martyr Duditius Rainolds Jewel and then infers triumphantly therefore the Father of the first five hundred years are not for Protestants but for us therefore Protestants are utterly at a loss in the point of continued Succession Answ 1. WHat is before cited hath been shewed to be insufficient and so will what is after if God vouchsafe me time and strength to that end 2. Of the passages cited the two last are not to the purpose and they are maimedly and corruptly cited The Speeches as they are cited say not any thing of the popish Doctrin taught and approved by the Fathers of the first five hundred years but the uncertainty of finding out the truth by their sayings without the Scriptures And that the dealing of this Author may appear I shall set down the words as I finde them in Jewel's Apology part 4. cap. 22. divis 3. For where these men bid the holy Scriptures away as dumb and fruitless and procure us to come to God himself who speaks in the Church and in their Councils that is to say to believe their fancies and opinions this way finding out the truth is very uncertain and exceeding dangerous and in a manner a fantastical and mad way and by no means allowed of the holy Fathers Which Speech is a most true and savoury Speech yet not in the least intimating a diffidence of the Fathers of the first five hundred years being for the Papists the contrary to which Bishop Jewel shewed in his famous Challenge at Paul's Cross and his making it good against Harding but onely vindicating the holy Scriptures from the foul Speeches of Hosius Pighius and other Romanists and asserting the authority of the holy Scriptures The other passage which is cited out of Dr. Rainold's Conference in H. T. it is printed Confess cap. 5. divis 1. is as corruptly and maimedly cited the words being thus at large Indeed Vincentius Lirinensis preferreth this mark of truth the consent of the Fathers before the rest as having held when they failed Nevertheless he speaketh not of it neither as that it may serve for trial and decision of questions between us For what doth he acknowlege to be a point approved and such as we are bound to believe by this mark even that which the Fathers all with one consent have held written taught plainly commonly continually And who can avouch of any point in question that not one or two but all the Fathers held it nor onely held it but also wrote it nor onely wrote it but alotaught it not darkly but plainly not seldom but commonly not for a short season but continually which so great consent is partly so rare and so hard to be found partly so unsure though it might be found that himself to fashion it to some use and certainty is fain to limit and restrain it Which words were sound and are necessary but not spoken out of any distrust of his cause or imagination as if the Fathers of the first five hundred years were for the Papists For in that very conference he largely proves that not onely the Fathers of the first five hundred years but also the succeeding Councils and Fathers till the sixteenth Century did onely yield the Pope a Primacy among other Patriarchs but not a Supremacy over the whole Church and that Primacy that was given him was by custome of the Church for the honour of the Imperial City which was auserible not because of any grant of Christ which was irrevocable Duditius was one whom by Thranus his description of him Hist l. 96. towards the end Martyr's Speech respects onely the point of vows which is not a point of saith Whitaker's Speech is not of the Fathers of the first 500. years but of the ancient Church which might be after or onely in some part of that time The words of Calvin lib 3. instit cap. 5. parag 10. are not rightly alleged being not together as H. T. cites them but injuriously pieced out of Speeches that are distant one from another He doth not deny nor yet expresly say that it was a custome thirteen hundred years ago to pray for the dead but whereas it was objected by the Adversaries he urgeth that if it were so it was without Scripture that it came out of carnal affection that what we reade in the Ancients done therein was yielded to the common manner and ignorance of the vulgar he confesseth they were carried away into errour but faith not they were all of that time carried away into errour that same testimonies of the Ancients might be brought which overthrow all those prayers for the dead that their prayers for the dead were not without hesitancy that they were different from the popish in divers things The words of Whitgifts Defense pag. 473. are mis-cited being not as H. T. cites them All the Bishops and learned Writers of the Greek and Latin Church too for the most part were spotted with the Doctrines of Free will Merit Invocation of Saints but thus How greatly were almost all the Bishops and learned Writers of the Greek Church yea and the Latins also for the most part spotted with the Doctrines of Free-will of Merits Invocation of Saints and such like Surely you are not able to reckon in any Age since the Apostles time any company of Bishops that taught and held so sound and perfect Doctrine in all points as the Bishops of England do at this time The words of Kemnitius I finde not perhaps because the Edition is not named with the Page But this I finde in the third part of his Examen pag. 628. Francos Edit 1609. that he not onely asserted but also proved that in the Primitive Church unto two hundred years after Christ born the Doctrine of the Suffrages Patronages Intercessions Merits Aid Help and Invocation of Saints in Heaven was altogether unknown and the reason or account of the veneration of Saints was then far other as we have shewed than that which was brought in I have not Fulk's Retentives against Bristow's Motives by me which I imagine is the Book which H. T. cites under the Title of Riot Briston but his citing with an c. and so small a shred of the Authour makes me conceive that he wronged Fulk by that maimed citation however sith the confession is but of three Fathers and the Saints whether living or dead
and their invocation of what sort he meant being not expressed it serves not the turn to prove his confession of the Fathers of the first five hundred years holding Popish Invocation of Saints deceased SECT VI. The Answers of H. T. to the Objections of Protestants concerning their Succession are shewed to be vain and the Apostacy of the Roman Church proved AFter the rest of his scribling H. T. under the Title of Objection solved saith thus Object In all the Ages before Luther Protestants had a Church though it were invisible Answ This is a meer Mid-summer nights Dream that a Church which is a congregation of visible men preaching baptizing and converting Nations should be extant for a thousand years and yet be all this while invisible neither to be seen or heard of in the World I reply who frames the Objection as this Authour sets it down I know not sure I am that many of the Protestants do frame it otherwise that the Protestants had Churches afore Luther who did oppose popish innovations and that these were visible though not to their Enemies nor in so conspicuous a manner as the Roman Senate or Common-wealth of Venice and this is no Mid-summer nights Dream any more than that Papists have a Church in England in communion with the See of Rome and that they have Masses Baptizing c. although it be not known to Protestants nor so conspicuous as that we know where to go to them And these Churches have been seen and known in the World partly separate from the Roman Church partly continuing within the Roman Church but yet opposing the pâ—pal usurpations and corruptions As for H. T. his Definition of a Church it is to me more like a Mid-Summer nights Dream For is the Church a congregation of visible men preaching baptizing and converting Nations Are all the visible men in the congregation which is the Church men preaching baptizing and converting Nations May not a Church be a congregation of men that convert not any Nation if themselves be converted that baptize not others if themselves be baptized that preach not if they have heard received and profess the Word preached Are not Women part of the congregation which is the Church Do they preach and baptize However it is well this Authour sets down Preaching and Baptizing as acts whereby the men who are of the congregation which is the Church are visible which is all one with the marks of the visible Church given by the Protestants to wit preaching the Word and administring the Sacraments H. T. adds Object The Church in communion with the See of Rome was the true Church till she apostatized and fell from the faith Answ If she were once the true Church she is and shall be so for ever she cannot fail as hath been proved nor erre in faith as shall be proved hereafter I reply It is true Protestants yield that the Churches in communion with the Bishops of Rome were true Churches while they held the faith of Christ entire and did not by their innovations subvert it which was in process of time done by altering of the rule of faith the Apostolical tradition of the holy Scripture into unwritten tradition the Popes determinations and canons of councils as the sense of the Scripture or the revelations of the Spirit of God and by bringing in the invocation and worship of the Virgin Mary and other Saints altering the Sacrament of the Lords Supper instituted for a commemoration of his death into a propitiatory sacrifice for quick and dead asserting transubstantiation and adoring of the bread worshipping images and reliques perverting the Gospel by bringing in the doctrines of humane satisfactions for sin power to fulfill the law justification by works and meriting eternal life instead of free remission of sins to the penitent believer only through the blood of Christ and justification by faith in Christ without the works of the law In which points that the Churches now in communion with the See of Rome have apostatized is apparent by this argument Those Churches have apostatized who have left the faith once delivered to the Saints by the Apostles of Christ But the Churches now in communion with the See of Rome have left the faith once delivered to the Saints by the Apostles of Christ therefore the Churches now in communion with the See of Rome have apostatized The Major is evident from the terms apostasie being no other thing than leaving the faith once delivered to the Saints by the Apostles of Christ The minor is manifest by comparing the doctrine of the council of Trent and Pope Pius the fourth his Creed with the Apostles writings especially the Epistle to the Romans by Paul which shews what once the church of Rome believed For instance it is said Rom. 15. 4. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Eph. 2. 20. And are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone which plainly prove the Scriptures use for all sorts sufficiency and divinity and the needlesness of unwritten traditions to guide us to salvation Rom. 12. 5. We being many are one body in Christ and every one members one of another 1 Cor. 12. 12. For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ Ver. 13. For by one spirit we are all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free ver 27. Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular ver 28. And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles c. Ephes 1. 22. and gave him to be head over all things to the Church which is his body which prove the Catholick Church to have extended to all believers of Jews and Gentiles and that they and not the Roman only or those that are in communion with it are that one body or Catholick Church and that there is no other head of the whole Church but Christ nor any Apostle above another and consequently the Roman Church and Pope have no supremacy over the rest of the Churches Rom. 10 14. How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed 1 Tim. 2. 5. There is one God and one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus which prove they then received not the invocation of Saints nor made the Virgin Mary or any other deceased Saint Mediators between God
not fail but be in some place or other more or less conspicuous in greater or smaller numbers yet it is not proved that the church militant definite of this or that place shall not fail nor is there a word in Scripture to prove this the priviledge of the Roman church or those that are in communion with the See of Rome that they cannot fail nor erre in faith nor do the words of Fathers rightly understood prove it But Scripture and experience do plainly refute it What hath been alleged is examined the rest will be in its place I proceed to that which remains in this Article Object The Catholick succession was one succession for the first five centuries Answ You may as well tell me of a white blackmore a Catholick is not a Protestant nor a Catholick succession a Protestant succession Who ever heard of a Protestant Pope The Catholick church was always governed by a Pope in the first five centuries as now it is and hath defined our tenets and condemned yours as you have seen It is the very essence of a Protestant as a Protestant to protest against the Catholick church as Lutherans and you have done To this I reply To an objection of such moment as this is the answer is but meer trifling For he knows that we mean by catholick succession not that which he calls catholick succession to wit of Popes of Rome but that the teachers who are reputed catholick whether of the Greek or Latin churches who have succeeded one after another in the five first centuries of years from Christs incarnation according to the account now used taught not the doctrine now professed in the Bull of Pope Pius the fourth or in the Tridentin canons but that in all or most of the points in difference between Protestants and Papists they taught the doctrine which Protestants now hold which hath been proved by Jewel and many other Protestant writers And in this sense it is no more absurdity to call a Protestant a catholick then to call a spade a sapde a straw a straw Protestants are truely Catholicks Papists are but falsly called Catholicks affecting the name as some that were of the Synagogue of Satan said they were Jews and were not but did lye Revel 3. 9. and impudently claiming that which they have no right to that they may be it as a stalking horse catch ignorant people who are taken with shews and confident talk being unable to sift out truth and discern it from pretences A Catholick succession is in true construction a Protestant succession and the Popes of Rome it self Protestant Popes teaching in such writings as remain not the now Papal doctrine but in the main the Protestant though by some of them excessively magnifying their See and promoting rites of mens invention way was made for the after corruptions of the Papacy The term Pope was in former times given to other Bishops Presbyters yea and Deacons too besides the Bishop of Rome though now the title is appropriated to him who deserves not the name of Papa or Father as it was heretofore used as an honourable title of the reverend and godly teachers and officers in the church of God nor any other way I know except it be in the sense in which an Italian said of Innocent the eighth Octo nocens pueros genuit totidemque puellas Hunc merito poteris dicere Roma patrem Many of whose predecessors and successors have made it their work to advance their bastards rather then beget children to God by preaching the Gospel It is a notorious falshood that the catholick church was alwayes governed by a Pope in the first five centuries if he mean by Pope a Bishop of Rome It s manifest by many instances that the African and Asian churches were not governed by him in the second third fourth and fifth centuries sith they did oppose him as appears by the contentions between Victor and Polycrates and others That which we have seen in H. T. or Bellarmin or any other writer of the Popish party hath not yet made it so much as probable that the Catholick church hath now defined the now Roman tenets or condemned the Protestants nor is it of the essence of a Protestant as such to Protest against the Catholick church but against the errors and abominations of the now Roman party Nor hath H. T. or any other proved that the Protestant teachers protest against manifest revealed verities and the very fundamentals of the Christian faith however they do protest against the fundamentals of the new Popish faith the Popes monarchy transubstantiation c. H. T. adds St. Augustin St. Hierom and many others are divided in their opinions whether Linus or Clement immediately succeeded Peter Answ Be it so yet they all agreed in this that the succession was morally continued to which it is a thing indifferent whether Clement immediately succeeded him as he well might being his scholar or first Linus then Cletus and then Clement which is now the more common opinion of the church I reply what he means by morally continued I understand not nor know I any sense of that speech which serves to take away the force of the objection which is that if it be uncertain who succeeded Peter immediately then the tradition of the church unwritten or not written in the Bible is uncertain and that too in a main point which is fundamental with the Romanists the succession of their chief Pastors upon which the truth of their church and the rule of their faith depends and consequently the rule of the Romanists whereby to know what we are to believe hath a meer sandy foundation not being sufficient to build a divine and firm faith upon and the Protestants are no more to be blamed than the Romanists if they do not so exactly set down and prove their succession of Bishops as the Papists require sith the Papists themselves are deficient in their own catalogue and if the Protestants can prove their faith out of Scripture though they prove not such a succession as is demanded they may as well be concluded a true church as the Roman which answers the two first Articles of H. T. his Manual of controversies Besides the most ancient tradition they have to wit Irenaeus l. 3. adver haeres c. 3. saith that Peter and Paul founded the church in Rome and then delivered the Episcopacy of the church to be administred to Linus which was done in their life time and so Linus did not succeed Peter as Bishop of Rome for he was Bishop while Peter lived and so if Peter died Bishop of Rome there were more Bishops together and Irenaeus makes them successors of Paul as well as Peter nor were they successors to them as having the same office with them For they could not be Bishops of particular places fixed there as now the term is used it stood not with their commission which enjoyned them to go into all the world and to
but they are not meerly visible believers as some Reprobates are who profess faith which they have not But the true Church of Christ against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail Matth. 16. 18. contains onely such believers as have that faith which is true and that Election of God which with their faith are invisible and so are rightly denominated the invisible Church from that which is more excellent and the Reprobate have not ARTIC IV. One Catholick Church not the Roman The Church of Rome is not that one Catholick Church which in the Apostolick and Nicene Creeds is made the Object of Christian Faith SECT I. Unity in non-fundamentals of Faith and Discipline is not essentially presupposed to the Universality of the Church Militant H. T. to his fourth Article gives this Title The true Church demonstrated by her Unity and Universality and then saith Unity being essentially presupposed to Universality I thought it not improper to joyn these two in one Article Answ IF this Authour had meant to deal plainly he should have told us what Unity is essentially presupposed to Universality and how the true Church is demonstrated by her Unity and Universality Unity in general is so far from being essentially presupposed to Universality in general that the contrary seems more true that one is not universal Unity not consistent with Universality it being in effect as if iâ— were said One is many or all yet I deny not some unity in special may be essentially presupposed to some universality in special There are many sorts of unity which Logicians and Writers of Metaphysicks reckon up in respect of which it is certain that the true Church of Christ cannot be said to be one as it cannot be said to be one with generical or specifical unity for that is not essentially presupposed to universality of time and place but is abstracted from it But he seems to mean unity in Doctrine Discipline and Faith by the words following Universality likewise is manifold as Logicians and Writers of Metaphysicks shew as there is an universality of predication of essence and existence Now this Authour seems to mean universality of existence for time and place and his meaning is this that unity of Doctrine Discipline and Faith is essentially presupposed to universality of existence for time and place that is that Church which hath not the same Doctrine Faith and Discipline which all Churches of Christ in all times and places have had is not the true Church of Christ and that which hath is the true Church of Christ Now these Propositions I grant if meant of Doctrine and Faith in the Fundamentals but not if meant of meer outward Church-discipline or Doctrine and Faith in points not fundamental having learned from the Apostle 1 Cor. 3. 11 12 13 14. that some may build Hay and Stubble that is some errors upon the foundation Christ who yet may be saved which they could not be if they were not of the true Church of Christ or that is no true Church of Christ which consists of such In like manner the Apostle Rom. 14. 2. expresly tells us in the Church of Rome one did believe he might eat all things and another did eat herbs one esteemed one day above another others esteemed every day alike and yet God received them both and they were Gods servants v. 3 4 5. And that in Discipline there may be disagreement yea Schism and disorder is apparent from the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 1. 11 12. 51. 6. 7. 11. 17 c. 14. 26. 15. 12. who are termed the Church of God 1 Cor. 1. 2. And therefore without distinction and due limitation which this Authour omits his Position is not true But let 's view what he writes SECT II. The antiquity of H. T. his saying of the Roman Church its unity and universality is shewed Now saith H. T. that the church of Rome is both perfectly one and also universal for time and place is thus demonstrated Answ HEre again this Authour deals sophistically putting the Roman church for the true church as if they were the same and not explaining what he means by the Roman church which may eitherâ— signifie the church that is in Rome which is the expression of the Apostle Rom. 1. 7. or the Church where ever it be which holds the Roman faith And this Roman faith may be either the faith in all points which now at this day the Bishop and Priests and People dwelling at Rome hold or which the Christians at Rome held in the days of Paul and some Ages after If it be meant in this this last sense the true Church is no more the Roman church than Corinthian nor so much as the Hierosolymitan whence all churches received the faith if in the former sense the term is not according to the ancient use either in Scripture or ancient Ecclesiastick Writers though I conceive it so meant by this Authour To be perfectly one is also ambiguous it may be meant either that they have not the least disagreement in Doctrine Discipline and Faith or they hold the same Faith and Doctrine in the main or points fundamental To be universal for time and place may be either meant thus that the persons now termed the Roman church are universal for time and place But this is contrary to sense it being known by it that they were born within a certain definite time at certain definite places not in all times and every place existent or that the faith which now the Romanists hold is that which in all times and places the true church of God hath held And this we deny if it be meant of the Articles in Pope Pius the fourth his Creed and are willing to put all our controversies to this issue But H. T. looks quite awry from this as will appear by viewing his dispute which is thus SECT III. Unity under one visible bead without division in lesser points and disciplin is not proved from 1 Cor. 10. 17. Ephes 1. 22 23. John 10. 16. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Act. 4. 32. John 17. 11. and the Nicene Creed H. T. saith The argument for unity The church of Christ is one body one fold or flock of which he himself is the supreme invisible head and the Pope his deputy on earth the visible or ministerial But the Roman Catholick church and no other is this one body one sold or flock therefore the Roman Catholick church and no other is the church of Christ The Major is proved We are one bread and one body as many as participate of one bread 1 Cor. 10. 18. He hath made him Christ head over all the Church which is his body Ephes 1. 22 23. There shall be made one fold and one Pastor John 10. 16. I beseech you that you all speak one thing and that there be no Schisms among you but that ye be perfect in one sense and one judgement 1 Cor. 1. 10
The multitude of believers had one heart one soul Act. 4. 32. Christ prayed that his Disciples might be one St. John 17. 11. I believe one holy Catholick and Apostolick church The Nicene Creed Ans 1. THe thing pretended to be demonstrated by her unity was the true church after he changeth it into this that the church of Rome is both perfectly one and also universal for time and place is thus demonstrated here the conclusion is the Roman Catholick church and no other is the church of Christ By comparing of which it is apparent that this Author supposeth the true church the church of Rome and the Roman Catholick church to be synonymous or diverse names of the same thing which is supposed but not proved nor yeilded nor can be true as shall be shewed after 2. This Author pretends to demonstrate by this argument the church of Rome to be perfectly one which should have been his conclusion whereas not heeding his words he makes it the Minor 3. He puts in by a parenthesis in the Major many words which are not in the Minor though they belong to the middle term which should be the same in both premises nor is any proof brought for them here to wit that the Pope is Christs deputy on earth the visible or ministerial head of that church which is one body one fold or flock 4. That the Major might be for his purpose it should have been thus that church which is one body one fold or flock of which he himself is the supreme invisible head and the Pope his deputy on earth the visible or ministerial and no other is the church of Christ but such is the church of Rome ergo But as it is now framed it is in the second figure of all affirmatives which is against Logick rules and makes the syllogism naught as the very freshmen know But to it as it is now framed I answer If the words and the Pope his deputy on earth the visible or ministerial be left out the Major is granted in this sense that the universal church of Christ are one body by unity of one spirit and faith of the fundamentals and one flock by unity of one head and supreme Pastor But in H. T. his sense it is most false that it is one by the same faith in every point without any difference in lesser points or without any divisions in rites and disciplin and in subjection to one universal Bishop on earth as Christs deputy and the churches visible head Nor do any of the texts prove it in this sense For the first doth not express what all Christians were in respect of their state but profession and the unity is not derived from either subjection to one universal Bishop on earth or agreement in all points but from participating of one bread in the Lords Supper For it is not to be read as this Author after the vulgar translation reads it as many as participate of one bread but for we all partake of one bread it being in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in some copies of the vulgar nam omnes as in the Plantin edition by the Lovain Divines 1574. I finde it in the margin so that the meaning is this we do shew our selves one body one bread forasmuch as we all partake of one bread in the Lords Supper The next text Ephes 1. 22 23. proves only that the church is one body by unity of one head to wit Christ as H. T. rightly interprets it And the third text John 10. 16. also makes the whole church one flock as it should be read not one fold in respect of one Pastor which the very words ver 11. 14 15 16. do shew plainly to be Christ himself who gave his life for them and no other and therefore none of these texts derive the unity of the church from subjection to the Bishop of Rome as visible head or chief Pastor The next text 1 Cor. 1. 10. doth only prove that the church ought to be of one mind and one judgement without Schisms not that they are or must be if they be the true church but the text proves the contrary that they may be a true church though there be Schisms and difference of judgement among them The fifth Acts 4. 32. only proves that the church at Jerusalem once were so at which time they had also all things common which doubtless H. T. will not say must or doth agree to the whole church at all times but not that the whole church shall be so still The last John 17. 11. is a prayer of Christ that it may be so and so will be accomplished but by the words ver 21 22 23. it seems most likely not to be till they be consummate in glory or if afore yet certainly the unity cannot be meant of unity in every thing for so Peter and Paul did not agree as Gal. 2. 11 12 13 14. it appears but of such unity in communion with God and aiming at his glory as is only in the elect by vertue of Christs indwelling by his Spirit which is nothing to the unity which H. T. here requires as peculiar to the Roman church The passage of the Nicene creed proves only an unity of the church but not an unity by agreement in all points and subjection to one Catholick Bishop on earth So that H. T. after his fashion cites many texts but not one for his purpose SECT IV. It is notoriously false that the Romanists are perfectly one or have better unity or means of unity than Protestants and H. T. his argument for the truth of the Roman church from its unity proves the contrary H. T. adds The minor is made evident even to the weakest understanding by the present manifold Schisms and divisions which are now among Protestants and all other Sectaries as well in doctrine as government whereas Catholicks are perfectly one both in disciplin and doctrine all the world over even to the least Article or point of faith being all united to one supreme invisible head Christ Jesus and all subordinate to one visible and ministerial head the Pope his Vicar on earth we all resolve our selves in points of faith into one safe and most unchangeable principle I believe the holy Catholick church we look on her as the immediate and authorized proponent of all revealed verities and the infallible Judge of controversies God himself being the prime Author and his authority the formal motive and object of our faith Answ 1. The Protestants are not Sectaries nor divided from the Catholick church but from the now Roman party who are really a faction divided from the Catholick church holding a new faith never established till the Tridentin council though with an impudent face H. T. avouch a most palbable falshood of the Romanists universality and arrogates to the Roman the title of Catholick church Nor are the now divisions of Protestants in doctrine or government such as cut them
and councils are ambiguous as they were in the council of Trent and are often in the Decrees Breves and other edicts of Popes as is manifest by the writers on the Canon law and disputes about the councils and Popes meaning in which are so many ambiguities that there is scarce a point in which there are not many opposite opinions If Pappus have overcounted who reckons out of Bellarmin alone two hundred thirty seven contradictions in Popish writers yet he that reads Bellarmins controversies shall finde very few questions in which the Schoolmen and other Papists do not gainsay each other And as for their resolution into the principle I believe the Catholick church They are not agreed what the church is from whom they may have resolution whether the Pope who is with them the church virtual or a general council which is either never or very rare which they call the church representative or the uniform consent of the Fathers according to which only the profession of faith of Pope Pius the fourth requires all Papists to receive and expound the holy Scriptures and yet this uniform consent of Fathers is either a nullity it being scarce found in any point or it is impossible to be known H. T. by his words pag. 108. resolves his faith into the next precedent age and so upwards and here pag. 30. into the church and this church is pag. 70. not the whole church which yet is all one with the Catholick but a council approved by the Pope into whose authority they finally resolve their faith for though they pretend to resolve it into the Scripture yet as it is expounded by the church pag. 109 113. which is the Pope So that whatever pretence they make of resolving their faith into the church as the proponent or God as the Author in conclusion they acquiesce in what the Pope dictates by himself or with a council approved by him As for the Scriptures the Papists are not all agreed which be the Canonical Scriptures which not nor can they set down certain rules to know what are the unwritten traditions of the church which they are to admit and embrace with a like affection of piety as the written Word as the Trent council decreed sess 4. nor can they have any bottom to rest on by their principles sometimes one Pope and one council crossing another some having been condemned in general councils as hereticks nor can they tell but by information of others as Priests or Carriers of their Bulls or Breves which are many of them not only fallible but also false as some of their own have complained what the Popes determin and what fraud is used in procuring Popes Bulls or Breves sometimes is many ways testified as that the Bull of Pius the fifth wherein Queen Elizabeth was excommunicated and deprived was gotten in a fraudulent way by Morton and Webb there is no certainty from the reports of others what the Pope determins except a man hear him preach or pronounce sentence or see him write and seal he must rely on the testimony of those that may and are like enough to deceive Nor if a man see or hear the Pope decree can he be certain whether he spake from Peters chair or determine what is to be believed by the whole church out of which case they say he is fallible or give his opinion as a private Doctor So that it is most false that either Papists agree as H. T. saith or resolve themselves into one safe and most unchangeable principle or have any infallible judge of controversies or have God himself for the prime Author and his authority the formal object and motive of their faith but their faith in what they differ from us rests only on mens sayings for the most part ignorant and wicked for such have been most of the Popes for a thousand years whom they follow against the plain and confessed words of the Scripture as in their communion under one kinde worshipping of Images and ascribe to them power by their authority to declare new Scriptures and Articles of faith and make the Scripture only to be believed because of the churches determination that is the Popes which in respect of us they make of more authority than the Scripture and so make the churches not Gods authority the formal motive and object of their faith So that if unity be a note of the church of all others the Popish church can lay least claim to it and H. T. his argument may be retorted The Catholick church is one the Roman church is not one therefore the Roman church is not the Catholick church On the other side the Protestants have better unity and means of unity than Papists For however they differ in ceremonies and disciplin yet in points of faith they differ little as may appear by the harmony of their confessions which shews agreement in their churches however in explication of points private Doctors differ and they have a more sure principle and safe in owning one Master even Christ and one certain rule to know the minde of God to wit the holy Scripture which the Papists themselves make the object of faith and the translation into the English tongue makes plain in the chief points to be believed so that every ordinary man may be certain what it delivers concerning them and this translation appears to be certain in those things by comparing it even with the Papists own English translation at Rhemes and Dowâ—y which had they left out their corrupt Annotations and permitted it to be read as God requires by all sorts of persons the falshood and errors of Popish Priests would soon appear and be rejected by all that love truth SECT V. The argument of H. T. from the unity of a natural body is against him and for Protestants But H. T. adds a second argument for the unity of the Catholick church thus As a natural unity and connexion of the parts among themselves and to the head is necessary for the being and conservation of a natural body so the spiritual unity and connexion of the members amongst themselves and to the head is necessary for the being and conservation of a mystical body But the church of Christ as I have proved is a mystical body Therefore a spiritual unity and connexion of the members amongst themselves and to the head is necessary for the being and conservation of the church of Christ The Major is proved by the parity of reason which is between a natural and mystical body for as a natural body must needs dye if all it's parts by which it should subsist be torn and divided one from another so also a mystical body perishes if all it's members be divided from one another and from the head whence it hath it's spiritual life by Schism and heresie Answ THough it be that this argument is only from a similitude which doth only illustrate not prove as Logicians say truely and there
do prove the infallibility of the Roman Church or Oecumenical council or Pope but are impiously wrested to uphold the most cruel tyranny that ever was in the world SECT IV. None of these texts Matth. 28. 20. 1 Tim. 3. 15. Matth. 16. 18. John 14. 26. John 16. 23. Act. 15. 28. do prove the infallibility in points of faith of the Catholick or Roman Church or the Pope or a general council approved by him H. T. adds a third argument for the Churches infallibilâ—ty thus If Christ be alwayes with his Church and have made her the pillar and firmament of truth against which the gates of hell heresies shall not prevail and given her the holy Ghost to assist her to all truth so that her definitions in an approved general council are the very dictates of the holy Ghost then is it impossible the Church should erre in faith But all this Christ hath done for his Church therefore it is impossible the Church should erre in faith The sequel of the Major is manifest by the very terms of the supposition the Minor is proved go ye teaching all Nations c. And behold I am with you all daies he is with her teaching St. Matth. 28. 20. The house of God which is the pillar and firmament of truth 1 Tim. 3. 15. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it St. Matth. 16. 18. He will give you another paraclere that he may abide with you for ever â—c He shall teach you all things and suggest to you all things whatsoever I shall say to you in all points of faith St. John 14. 26. He shall â—â—ach you all truth no errors St. John 16. 13. It hath seemed good say the Apostles in council to the holy Ghost and to us Act. 15. 28. Answ This Author still abuseth his reader by putting his conclusion otherwise then his tenet For whereas his tenet was that the Roman Catholick Church is infallible he puts his conclusion thus the Church is infallible as if the Church and the Catholick Church were all one and the Catholick and the Roman were all one and the Church of Christ and the visible Church militant were the same which are indeed fallacies which easily take with silly or prejudiced Papists that take what is said of the Church to be meant of the visible militant Church and what is said of the visible militant to be said of the Catholick Church and by the Catholick imagin the Roman meant and by the Roman the Pope But to discover the vanity of this argument 1. The sequel of the Major is denied nor is it manifest by the terms of the supposition For Christs presence is with every believer and he hath made every believer a pillar and firmament of truth and against every true believer the gates of hell heresies shall not prevail and he hath given the holy Ghost to every true believer to assist him to all truth as well as to the Church and his definitions are the very dictates of the holy Ghost when he defines according to Scripture and yet it is not impossible he should erre in faith Christ hath made promises of his presence and of his spirit and his spirit is said to be in and with every true believer as well as the Church Rom. 8. 1 9 15. 1 Cor. 6. 19. 2 Cor. 1. 22. and 13. 5. Gal. 4 6. Ephes 1. 13. 2 Cor. 6. 16. John 10 16 27 28 29. and yet believers may erre in faith Rom. 14. 2 3 5. 1 Cor. 15. 12. Gal. 3. 1. and 4. â—0 21. And therefore it is not true which this Author supposeth manifest Not is the Minor trâ—e or proved by the texts he brings For the promise Matth. 28 20. is not to the Church but to the Apostles and other teachers who succeed them nor is the promise made to them that they should teach no error in faith but that teaching as H. T. speaks or as long as they teach the true faith he would be with them by assisting and prospering them in their work The words 1 Tim. 3. 15 may be meant of the mystery of godliness mentioned v. 16. thus the Mystery of godliness is the pillar and firmament ground or seat of truth and without controverâ—ie great which I do conceive after Cameron and others to be the truest exposition as the same Apostle in other places gives such elogies to the great points of faith 1 Tim. 1. 15. and 4. 9. and 2 Tim. 2. 11. and the conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and ver 16. doth make it very probable Nor doth Grotius his reason avoid it For the mystery even according to this exposition is the subject not the predicate Others refer it to Timoâ—hy but then it should be in the accusative case But let it be granted that it is meant of the Church which is said that it is the pillar and firmament of truth yet it is certain from the very words that it is meant of that Church in which Timothy was directed how to behave himself which was the Church of Ephesus as appears 1 Tim. 1. 3. not the Church of Rome and therefore must be understood in such a sense as agrees to it which the Papists themselves will not say was infallible or could not erre in faith And therefore they must yeild it to be meant either of what they were in duty to be or what they were actually thus they were such as by profession and practice did hold forth and maintain and uphold the truth in those parts not that they held nothing but tenets nor so held forth the truth but that they might erre and decay in their holding out the truth For it is certain they did so Rev. 2. 4 5. Act. 20. 29 30. The terms the pillar and firmament or ground or seat of truth are but metaphors and whereas there are these two things signified by hem 1. The upholding of the truth so as that otherwise it should fall 2. The fixing of the truth there so as that it should abide and be permanent there doubtlesse the former sense cannot be true For though God should have no Church on earth or in heaven no Apostle Prophet Bishop yet his truth would be upheld his word is for ever settled in heaven Psal 119. 89. Christ who is the truth John 14. 6. abides for ever and the spirit of truth remains for ever and will uphold his truth If it were as some of the Romanists say the Church only abode in the Virgin Mary at Christs death or as others say in the time of Antichrist there shall be no sacrifice nor ceremonies nor religion yet the Gospel of Christ shall be everlasting as the Angel terms it Revel 14. 6. therefore of necessity it must be understood in that sense in which it notes stability permanency fixednesse or abiding and the sense is the Church is the company among whom the truth abides unshaken in which sense Revel 3. 12. it is said him that overcometh will
in his days of which he warns Christians and our Lord Christ commands Revel 2. 2. the Angel of the Church of Ephesus in that he had tried some that said they were Apostles and were not and had found them Liars As for some of those things which Ancients have called Apostolical tradition the Papists themselves do reject them as the opinion of the Millenaries the keeping of Easter as the Quartodeciman held the giving the communion to Infants and many more and therefore all Apostolical traditions so termed cannot be the Rule of trial nor can they give us any sure Notes by which we may distinguish genuine Apostolical tradition unwritten from them that are supposititious It is true the oral tradition of the Apostles while they lived and there was access to them might be fit to be a means to try spirits by but the relation of Irenaeus lib. 2. adv haeres cap. 39. about Christ's age and the censure given of Papias in Eusebius plainly shew how quickly such traditions came to be mistakes and the very reason of John 1 Epist 4. 1. doth take us off from trying by such tradition because of the multitude of deceivers and therefore requires that such spirits as pretended tradition should be tried by an unerring Rule which is the holy Scripture But H. T. takes up the blasphemous reproach which some impudent railing Papists have heretofore given to the holy Scripture when it bids us not try by the dead letter by which he means the Scripture in contradistinction to unwritten tradition Which sure is not the language of the holy Ghost but of such impure mouths as in love to their Romish Idols endeavour to disgrace the holy Scripture 'T is true the Law ingraven in stone is termed 2 Cor. 3. 6. the killing letter yet not of it self for elsewhere Act. 7. 38. the law of Moses is termed the living Oracles but by accident in that it could not give life Gal 3. 21. in that it was weak through the flesh Rom. 8. 3. it did kill that is condemn men as guilty of sin and so accursed by it Gal. 3. 10. But on the contrary the Word of God is termed living Heb. 4. 12. the word of life Phil. 2. 16. And our Lord Christ bids the Jews search the Scriptures because in them they did think they had eternal life John 5. 39. and John 20. 31. These things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and believing ye might have life through his name So that justly may H. T. with such other as before him have done the like be charged with impiety in his disparagingly terming the holy Scriptures especially of the New Testament the dead letter which Paul calls the word of life But it 's likely he meant that the Scriptures cannot hear both parties and so pronounce sentence in a point of controversie If this be his meaning he might term the churches sentence printed or written in parchment and Apostolical tradition unwritten the dead letters as well as the holy Scriptures For surely the authority of the church in an Oecumenical council approved by the Pope suppose the Trent council approved by Pope Pius the fourth and the Apostolical tradition doth no more hear or speak then the Scripture And it sure discovers an extream perversness and malignity of spirit in Papists that refuse to be tried by Scripture as being dead and require a living Judge to end controversies when the council and Pope and Apostolical tradition they would try by are as much dead as the Scripture which there is reason to conceive they do as foreseeing that if their proselytes would try their doctrines by the Scripture they could not stand As for humane reason no Protestant that I know makes that the rule by which he is to try the spirits nor his own private spirit if by it be meant his own councils But we say that every man is to make use of his own reason or judgement of discretion and the ability of his own intelligent spirit as the instrument or means by which he is to try whether that doctrine which is propounded to him be according to holy Scripture and in this he doth no more then Christ requires Luke 12. 57. yea and why even of your selves judge ye not what is right without the use of which it is impossible for men to make trial as men And this the Papists themselves must allow men to do according to their own principles For how else can they hear and believe the church if they do not use their reason to know the church and what it saith they must make men blocks or brutes if they allow them not the use of reason to try by When H. T. brings arguments from texts of Scripture Councils Fathers common sense and experience as his title page pretends would he not have men to use their reason to try whether he do it rightly would he have us go to a council approved by the Pope to know whether his arguments be good what a meer mockery is this of men to write books to teach people and yet not permit people to use humane reason to try their tenets whether they be according to Scripture Council Fathers common sense and experience as if we must not only take an Oâ—cumenical council approved by the Pope but also H. T. and every Popish writer whose book is licensed to be infallible If he write is it not that we may read and will he have us read and not judge and can we judge without humane reason But it is the fashion of these men to write and speak in points of controversie but not to permit their Disciples unless they judge them firm to them whatever they meet with to the contrary to examine their adversaries tenents arguments and answers by reading the Scripture and such impartial writers as would discover their deceit but either by some device or plain prohibition to deter them from searching after the truth that they may rest on the Popes and prelates determinations without examining H. T. further adds Obj. The Church may erre at least in points not fundamental Answ All that God hath revealed is fundamental at least for the formal motive of belief to wit the Divine authority revealing though not always for the matter and if it be once sufficiently proposed to us by the Church as so revealed we are then bound to believe it so that their distinction of fundamentals and not fundamentals is idle Besides if the Church be infallible in fundamentals then Protestants are Schismaticks at least in revelting from her in points not fundamental or necessary to salvation and sin against charity by accusing us of Idolatry I reply 1. Sure this exception is idle to argue the distinction of fundamental and not fundamental points of faith which the users of it take from the matter according to which he confesseth all is not fundamental that God revealeth to be idle because all
is fundamental which God revealeth at least for the formal motive of belief to wit the divine authority revealing in respect of which the Authors who use the distinction acknowledge all fundamental likewise as Dr. Potter Chillingworth and others who make those articles of faith fundamental which in respect of the matter are necessary to salvation to be explicitly known and believed by all nor is it by them denied but if it be sufficiently proposed to us by the church as so revealed all that is revealed by God we are then bound to believe otherwise we should deny Gods infallibility and veracity But we deny the bare determination of the church that is a Pope Oâ—cumenical council or prelates to be a sufficient proposal without proof from Scripture or other demonstration that the revelation is divine 2. It is an idle inference which he makes that because Protestants grant the church doth not erre in fundamentals therefore the Roman church doth not erre or is infallible in fundamentals For that which we grant of the church is meant of other churches besides the Roman 3. It is idle that he chargeth Protestants with schism at least in revolting from the church for points not fundamental For he cannot prove the Protestants did or do revolt from the church but from the Roman court fashion nor that they revolted till they were driven out by excommunication and cruel persecution and could not enjoy communion without yeilding to sin nor that they revolted at all for those errors which are about points not fundamental but for the errors about points fundamental to wit one Mediator salvation by faith in him not by our own works c. 4. It is idle that he imputes to the Protestants uncharitableness for accusing Papists of Idolatry when their profession and worship is openly Idolatrous in their adoration of bread Images wooden crosses invocation of Saints deceased of Angels with other innumerable practises used and maintained by them about crosses reliques feasts of Saints Temples dedicated to them vows swearing Priests of them of which their own Liturgies Canons writers are undoubted witnesses 5. The framing of the Protestants objection by H. T. against the infallibility of the Pope or his council is idle sith it is urged by Protestants against them by shewing its errors even in fundamentals that Popes and councils approved by them have been heretical 6. His answer is much more idle in that it is not at all to the argument by him brought which in form is this That church which may erre in non-â—â—ndamentals is no infallible judge of controversies But the Roman church whether Pope or council by him approved may erre in non-fundamentals Ergo the Roman church is no infallible Judge of controversies Now in his answer there is neither denial of Major Minor nor conclusion but only a denial of the fit use of one term in the premises against which his own exception is but idle as hath been shewed yea and if there be no such distinction of fundamentals and non-fundamentals in points of faith the objection is more strong against them For then if it be proved that the Roman church errs in points of faith it errs in fundamentals if all points of faith be fundamental which will prove not only the fallibility but also the nullity of the Roman church and so H. T. will pull down what he endeavours to build up But H. T. goes on thus Ob. Those things only are fundamental which are absolutely necessary to salvation and every man is bound expliciâ—ly to know and believe Answ If this were true the Bible or written Word which you will have to be the onely rule of faith and Judge of controversies were not a fundamental for faith depends not essentially on writing but on hearing many were good Christians and saved before any of the new Scripture was written or received among them the first Gospel being not written till seven or eight years after the death of Christ I reply 1. This scribling is idle also in which that is brought in as Protestants objection against the infallible and supreme judicature of the Roman church in controversies of faith which is only an explication of one term they use in their dispute against the assertors of it 2. It is idle that he saith they will have the Bible or written Word to be the only Judge of controversies when some of them as Chillingworth whom he after names Answ to Char. Maint part 1. ch 2. p. 114. deny it properly to be the Judge of controversies but make it only the rule of faith or the rule to judge by yea p. 75. H. T. himself chargeth this on Chillingworth as if he had forgotten what he said p. 73. that right reason is the only Judge of controversies and others who term the Bible the Judge of controversies do not make it the only Judge but the Spirit of God by it and the teachers of the church and each believer for himself by it 3 It is idle again that he makes that an absurdity which they will not own when Chillingworth Answ to Char. Maint part 1. ch 2. p. 114. and some others do grant that the Bible or written Word is not a fundamental point of faith in their sence because if the matter of the Bible should be believed by one that never saw or heard of a Bible yet he should have a true faith to salvation And yet they make it necessary to be believed by all to whom it is made known 4. It is yet more idle that he gives that for a reason why it should be absurd to say the written Word is not fundamental to wit for faith depends not essentially on writing but on hearing which concludes it is not absurd For if faith depend not essentially on writing but on hearing which concludes it is not absurd For if faith depend not essentially on writing then is the written Word not fundamental for that is not fundamental without which faith may be 5. It is idle which he saith in opposing writing to hearing whereas faith may be by both and if he had spoken accurately he should have said not by seeing but by hearing or not by writing but by speaking 6. It is idle also and false that faith depends essentially on hearing For then it could never be that deaf men should believe for want of hearing 7. That which he adds to confirm it is as idle For though there were good Christians afore the Gospel was written yet it being written upon supposition there were no other means but writing to beget faith it would depend essentially on writing 8. This discourse of H. T. overthrows himself and his party For if faith depend essentially on hearing not on writing then they have not faith who read except they hear the infallible Judge whether Pope or council approved by him nor is the point of faith sufficiently proposed unlesse it be delivered viva voce and if so there is no Papist hath
and yet H. T. thinks not his infallibility proved thereby 3. That they did well in using such Anathema's or the Church in submitting to them may be doubted 4. But if that be yeilded that they did well yet surely they did not set their Anathema's to their decisions because they took themselves to be infallible either by their own authority or the Popes approbation yea it is certain the Councils did set to their Anathema's when they opposed the Popes and deposed them and defined themselves above him And even the Council of Trent put their Anathema's to their definitions afore they were tendred to the Pope or Pius the fourth had approved them but they took it they might set their Anathema to their definitions because they thought them right though not themselves infallible in them And thus may any particular person pronounce Anathema as Paul did Gal. 1. 8 9. and yet not be thereby demonstrated infallible So vain is this no better then blasphemous speech of H. T. which will further appear by examining what follows SECT VIII The objections of Protestants against the Churches infallibility from Fathers and Councils are vindicated from the answers of H. T. He saith Objections from Fathers and Councils resolved Ob. The Council of Fanckford condemned the second Nicene Council for giving soveraign honour to images as you may see in the Preface to the Carolin books Answ The second Nicene Council allows no such honour to images but onely a salutation or honorary worship not true Latria or soveraign honour which it defines to be due to God onely Act. 1. 7. The Carolin books are of no authority they say that Council was not approved by the Pope which is false and that it was held at Constantinople in Bythinia whereas Constantinople is in Thracia I Reply That honour to Images which Papists will not have to be termed Latria or soveraign honour proper to God the Scripture makes soveraign honour to be given to God onely in a religious respect to wit bowing down the body to them kissing burning incense offering gifts holding up the hands lifting up the eyes praying to them which the Scripture appropriates to God and denies to images Matth. 4. 10. Revel 19. 10. 1 Kings 19. 18. Exod. 20. 4 5. Nor doth the Scripture make such distinction of Latria and Dulia but that it forbids such worship to be given to any image of an invisible being which shews subjection to them or dependence on them for such worship is religious and is an acknowledgement of a Deity in them The Scripture doth no where appropriate Latriam or the soveraign honour or worship due to God onely to offering of sacrifice but that it also condemns as idolatrous the other acts named if they be not given to Magistrates or superiors out of civil respects but to Images Angels or Saints alive or deceased in a religious respect as superiors to us to whom we are subject and on whom we depend for help and succour And therefore this plaister of H. T. is too narrow to cover the foul ulcer that came from the false Synod called the second Nicene For what is that salutation or honorary worship H. T. saith the second council of Nice allows to Images Is it not bowing down to them which Papists themselves call adoration and difference from veneration which consists onely in a decent usage without defiling defacing or such usage as shews hatred and contempt of the thing or person represented such as is done to monuments or treasure laid up to be kept but not as things set up higher then our selves to be worshipped for that is plain Idolatry and the very same with the Gentiles adoration of their Idols now this did the second Nicene Council require to be given to Images ut erigerentur adorarentur c. yea if Bellarm. lib. 2. de Imagin Sanct. c. 21. say true that Council would have them adored not only by accident that is because joyned with the thing adored but also of themselves as that in which is the reason of veneration nor onely improperly that is in the place of another so as that the proper term of the adoration should not be the Image but Christ himself but properly so as that the Image be honoured ratione sui ipsius in respect of it self as he explains his distinctions ch 20. And this adoration it was conceived by Charles the Great and the Synod of Francfurt that Nicene Council intended to give to Images and was refuted by the four books set forth by Charles the Greats authority yet to be seen and condemned by the authority of the Synod of Francfurt Anno 794. at which were present the Popes legats and did approve of the Synods determination or dissembled the Popes opinion I finde not that the Carolin books say that the second Nicene Council was not approved by the Pope if they did and that they were deprived it makes the more against the infallibility of Councils approved by the Pope which those three hundred Fathers acknowledged not who met at Francfurt The mistake of the Country wherein Nice was is not such as Bellarmin or Baronius conceive derogates from the truth of the thing testified by so many authors of credit all the ancient historians nearest that time besides Hinâ—marus Agobardus and after some English writers as Hoveden c. Bellarmin himself l. 2. de concil auth c. 7. confesseth it condemned the seventh Synod and Platina in the life of Hadrian the first saith that two worthy Bishops Theophylact and Stephan held a Synod in the name of Hadrian of German and French Bishops in which the Synod which the Greeks call the seventh was abrogated H. T. adds Ob. The Lateran Council under Pope Leo the tenth Sess 11. defined a Pope to be above a Council and the Council of Constance Sess 4. defined a Council to be above a Pope Answ Neither part was ever yet owned by the Church for an Oecumenical decree or definition and if it were it would be answered that the Lateran Council defined onely a Pope to be above a Council taken without a Pope or not approved and that the Council of Constance onely defined a Council approved by a Pope to be above a Pope without a Council which definitions are not contradictory no more than to say one part of any thing is bigger then another and the whole bigger then both so that from hence it cannot be inferred that either Council erred nor was either decree approved by the Pope I reply this is impudent outfacing with shifts the truth in things manifest to all that enquire into them He cannot deny that these contrary definitions were of two Councils which he himself p. 33 36. terms general Councils and makes Popes president in both and both he sets down in his Catalogue made to prove a succession in the Church of Rome and yet here he denies their definitions to be Oecumenical what is an Oecumenical definition if that an Oecumenical
of Africa tells the Arians they in vain ran about to seek councils since the Scripture is more powerful then all councils Answ He says it was vain for them who had rejected the general council of Nice nor doubt we but the Scripture hath in many respects a preheminence above the definitions of general councils and a higher degree of infallibility yet these also are infallible in points of faith I reply the reason of Athanasius shews it was in vain for Arians to seek to councils because the Scripture was against them not because the council of Nice was against them as the very words recited by H. T. shew who doth well to acknowledge the Scriptures preheminence which justifies Protestants who stick to the Scriptures against councils which do often swerve from them and sometimes oppose them As for the degree of infallibility if there be any degrees of infallibility which perhaps a Logician will deny infallibility being a meer negation of liableness to error or being deceived H. T. ascribes to them it is so uncertain what it is and so weakly proved that none that loves his soul should rest on it and not try what they hold by the Scriptures confessedly more infallible As for the speech of the council of Basil there 's no reason why Protestants or others should rest on it when Papists themselves even H. T. p. 79. rejects it and says it was not approved in any decree but such as concern Church benefices and yet this man concludes with it's speech about the authority of a general council as if it were certain So vertiginous is this Author ARTIC VI. Sanctity and Miracles prove not the Roman Church true The Roman Church is not demonstrated to be the true Church by her Sanctity and Miracles SECT I. The Texts brought by H. T. to prove that the true Church is known by Sanctity and Miracles are shewed to be impertinent H. T. proceeds thus Article 6. The true Church demonstrated by her Sanctity and Miracles Our Tenet is that the Roman Catholick Church is known and evidently distinguished from all false Churches not onely by the marks and properties by us premised but also by her sanctity and power of doing Miracles and is proved thus That is thé true Church and lawfull Spouse of Christ which is eminent for Sanctity of Discipline and Doctrine and for Miracles But the Roman Catholick Church and no other is eminent for Sanctity of Discipline and Doctrine and for Miracles therefore the Roman Catholick Church and no other is the true Church and lawfull Spouse of Christ The Major for Sanctity is proved by that Article of the Apostles Creed I believe the holy Catholick Church as also by these Texts of holy Scripture Christ gave himself for his Church cleansing her by the Laver of Water Baptism in the Word that he might present her to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle but that she might be holy and unspotted Ephes 5. 27. These things ye were saith St. Paul but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6. 10. A good Tree bringeth forth good Fruit by their Fruit ye shall know them St. Matth. 7 17 20. Strait is the Gate and narrow is the Way which leadeth to Life c. If thou wilt be perfect go and sell all thou hast and give to the poor c. and come and follow me St. Matth. 19. 21. There be Eunuchs who have gelded themselves for the Kingdom of Heaven he that can take let him take St. Matth. 10. 12. Obey your Prelates and be subject to them c. Heb. 13. 17. Answ 1. THe Syllogism is not good the words and no other being wanting in the Major Proposition and if they be put in the Major is false That which is eminent for Sanctity of Discipline and Doctrine and for Miracles and no other is the true Church and lawfull Spouse of Christ For a Chnrch may be true and a lawfull Spouse of Christ which is not eminent for Miracles Else it would go ill with all the Churches since Miracles have ceased and with the Church consisting of John Baptist and his Disciples But as it is now expressed by H. T. I grant the Major though except the words of Christ Matth 7. 17 20. the Texts are all impertinent The Article of the Creed is not meant of the meer visible church but of the church which is also the invisible of the elect persons nor is it meant of holiness of outward Discipline and Doctrine but of inward real holiness and so are Ephes 5. 27. 1 Cor. 6. 10 11. yea the former is meant of that holiness which is perfect without spot or wrinkle when the Church is presented to himself at his appearing and the other of that sanctifying which is by the Spirit of God and not onely by Baptism The Texts Matth. 7. 13 14. 19. 11 12. Mark 10. 21. Heb. 13. 17. are not expressions of properties which are marks of the church but Precepts and signifie what duty some did or ought to do Now the doing of some duties is not a mark of the church as v. g. doing justice giving to the poor relieving the Saints selling all we have which may be in Infidels and those duties which are in the three later Texts are special duties of some and therefore not marks which agree to the whole church but such as all members are not tied to every member not a woman is not to geld himself but he that can take it nor to sell all Papists make these Evangelical counsels of more perfection than is ordinary nor to obey Prelates and therefore in such they are no parts of Sanctity much less marks of a true church SECT II. The Sanctity of men in former Ages proves not the holiness of the present Roman Church BUt it is the Minor which is to be denied of which H. T. saith thus Now that the Roman Catholick Church hath abounded with and brought forth Saints in all Ages which is a pregnant and convincing proof of our second Proposition is manifest by the Chronicles and Martyrologies of the whole Christian World Answ 1. To talk of the Roman catholick church is non-sense as is shewed before 2. It is scarce good sense to say The Church brings forth Saints when the church is no other than the Saints or a company of Saints 3. Were it yielded that the Church did abound with and bring forth Saints in all Ages yet this proves not the sanctity of the church but of those Saints in it nor doth it at all prove the sanctity of the Discipline or Doctrine but of the persons much less the power of Miracles the sanctity of the church persons being often Saints as John Baptist who have not power of doing Miracles and unholy persons have it sometimes Matth. 7. 22 23. and if it did prove any thing it would prove
so much malice to the Banchor Monks men of more reputed holiness than himself that he was suspected at least to have been Instigator of a cruel Massacre of two thousand of them for not submitting to him and receiving the Roman Rites And for his converting of England though I am willing to let him have his due commendation yet neither is it true that he converted all England and those he did convert he did also pervert by his obtruding the Romish Orders which Christ never appointed whence a great Deluge of Superstition spread over Britain and much discord and misery followed thereupon as may be seen in the Writers of the English Histories As for Benedict who was before Austin the Monk and Francis and Dominick after that which I finde in the Relation of their Lives by Villegas translated by Heigham gives me no such cause as to judge them to have been men of such holiness as the Popes and Friers have judged them to be but at the best deluded persons with the Errour of those times in which holiness was placed in monastical profession and austere Discipline which the Apostle counts to be no better than will-worship Col. 2. 23. and their talk of their Miracles and Visions are no better than old wives tales upon the report of which Popes as ignorant as themselves or otherwise corrupt have canonized them for their own ends and the preaching of Dominick was against the truth professed by the Albigenses whom Rainerius confesseth to have been men otherwise holy in Life and Doctrine but that they spake against the church of Rome of whose idolatry pride cruelty avarice uncleanness of body there is so much in all the Writers of those times as is sufficient to shew that those men had cause to abhor them and to fear the yielding subjection to them who had departed from Christ by their setting up other Mediatours besides him and changed pure Christian Religion into a corrupt mixture of Paganism Judaism and Christianity the shedding of whose Blood was in a great measure caused by Dominick's Sermons who may be therefore judged a wicked Murderer rather than an holy Saint That which the century Writers say of these men is but a Relation out of the Writers of the Romanists that they were by them accounted eminent for sanctity according to the opinion of those times but that they any where ascribed to them real holiness I finde not SECT IV. The Roman Church is not proved to be the true Church by the holness of their Doctrine but the contrary is true H. T. proceeds thus Adde hereunto what the Catholick Church teaches that the Commandments are possible nay must be kept she teaches the necessity of Contrition Confession aud Satisfaction with many other practices of self-denial she teaches obedience to Priests and spiritual Pastours in things belonging to the soul and the government of the Church she teaches much fasting prayer and mortification she exhorts to good works voluntary poverty chastity and obedience The contrary to all which Doctrines are taught by Protestants and other Sectaries Answ THe Papists teach not onely that the Commandments of God are possible and that they must be kept which Protestants teach also but they also teach that in this life a person in the state of grace may perfectly keep the whole Law of God so as not to sin except venially which is with them not a sin properly as being besides not against the Law and thereby be justified and that many things which are horrid evils are venial sins and that a person may satisfie for them by Works of Penance which are for the most part easie things yea they teach that a man may by his good works merit of condignity either by virtue of Gods promise or the worth of the work eternal life yea that he may do Works of Supererogation and merit for others and that thereby is made up a Treasury in the Church which with the redundance of Christ's sufferings may by Indulgences be laid out for others for the relaxation of their punishment in Purgatory But this Doctrine Protestants abhor as being so far from being holy that they detest it as anti-evangelical proudly evacuating the grace of the Gospel and they teach that most blessed holy and precious Doctrine of the Gospel that the most holy meeâ— man is unable in this life though regenerate according to the measure of renewing grace he hath to keep the Law of God perfectly so as to fail in no point or so as to be justified before God by pleading any Works of his own before or after Regeneration or can merit of condignity in proper acception any thing at Gods hands much lesseternal life but all that are justified are justified by faith in Christ freely by the grace of God through the Redemption that is in Jesus Christ and that eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord and this we are sure as far exceeds in holiness Popish Doctrine as Christ exceeds Moses the Gospel the Law the new covenant the old Protestants teach the necessity of contrition of spirit for sin and confession of sin to God and satisfaction to men whom we have injured if able but the necessity of confession to a Priest and such power of absolution and enjoyning Penance as Papists ascribe to a Priest and such satisfaction to God for sin as they teach and practise we deny as being injurious to the Blood of Christ an arrogant usurpation of what Christ never conferred but a fruit of ignorance of the nature of repentance and of the mystery of the Gospel and a meer Engine to rob the people and to hold them in slavish subjection to their Priests We say that it is true self-denial when Christ requires it and either the glory of God the truth of Christ and obedience to him must be forsaken or our goods liberties and lives than to deny our selves by not retaining them but that it is no part of that self-denial which Christ requires nor any part of Christian mortification for a man unnecessarily to leave his estate and imployment to whip himself creep to a cross go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem and such other things as Christ never required but are meer superstition and hypocrisie Protestants teach obedience to spiritual Pastours in things belonging to the soul and the government of the Church when they teach them to observe what Christ commanded but they justly refuse to subject their consciences to such commands of Prelates and Priests as Christ never appointed but judge it necessary to stand fast in the liberty they have by Christ and not be entangled with the yoke of bondage which Popes and Prelates and Priests under pretence of the Church of which they are the least part about difference of Meats Marriage Holy-days Temples and such like things endeavour to impose on their consciences and practise as being injurious to their Christian freedome and an heavy burden Protestants teach much fasting
infallible since sensible evidence in a world of ey-witnesses unanimously concurring is altogether infallible how fallible soever men may be in their particulars But there are worlds of ey-witnesses and hand-witnesses and tongue-witnesses and nose-witnesses and ear-witnesses of fathers and sons who all unanimously concurring discern and say of what they have seen felt heard tasted smelled that there is no flesh nor blood but Bread and Wine in the consecrated Host therefore the report that there is no flesh and blood but Bread and Wine in the Eucharist after Consecration or consecrated Host and consequently no Transubstantiation is altogether infallible So inconsistent are this Authours sayings in one place with that he saith in another as indeed Popish Doctrine being a Lie must of necessity be self-repugnant SECT III. The obligation of the Church not to deliver any thing as a point of Faith but what they received proves not unwritten Traditions a Rule of Faith H. T. proceeds thus A third Argument If Christ and his Apostles have given to the Church of the first Age together with all points of Faith this for the Rule of Faith that nothing on pain of Damnation ought to be delivered for Faith but what they had received from them as such then is was impossible that they should deliver any thing for Faith to the second Age but what they had received from them as such and so from Age to Age to this time But Christ and his Apostles did give to the Church of the first Age together with all points of Faith this for the Rule of Faith that nothing on pain of Damnation ought to be delivered for Faith but what they received from them as such Therefore it was impossible that the Church of the first Age should deliver any thing to the Church of the second Age for Faith but what they had received as such from Christ and his Apostles or consequently that they should erre in Faith The Major is proved because to make her deliver more for Faith than she had received in this supposition the whole Church must either have forgotten what she had been taught from her infancy in matters of Salvation and Damnation which is impossible in a world of ear and ey-witnesses as hath been shewed or else the whole Church must have so far broken with Reason which is the very nature of man as to conspire in a notorious Lie to damn her self and posterity by saying she hath received such or such a point for Faith which in her own conscience she knew she had not received and this is more impossible than the former even as impossible as for men not to be men as shall be shewed in the next Argument The Minor is proved by these positive Texts of Scripture Therefore brethren stand ye fast and hold the Traditions which ye have learned whether by word or our Epistle 2 Thess 2. 15. Those things which ye have been taught and heard and seen in me these do ye Phil. 4. So we have preached and so ye have believed 1 Cor. 14. 15. How shall they believe in whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher Rom. 10. 17. The things that thou hast heard of me before many witnesses the same commend thou to faithfull men which shall be fit to teach others also 2 Tim. 2. 2. If any man shall preach otherwise than ye have received let him be Anathema Gal. 1. 9. Although we or an Angel from Heaven preach to you besides that which we have preached to you be he Anathema Gal. 1. 8. Answ 1. THe Conclusion were it granted is not the Position to be proved that the true Rule of Christian Faith is Apostolical oral Tradition not Books nor is it included in it sith some in the Church although not the whole Church of the first Age might deliver to the Church of the second Age and so from father to son that for Faith which was not received from Christ or his Apostles and it be after received as from the Apostles as is manifest in the reports of keeping Easter on the fourteenth of the Moon of the Millenary opinion as from John and in points of Faith the whole Church might mistake or forget not deliver all truth yea might erre and so not be fit to be a Rule of Faith 2. Were it granted that unwritten Traditions of the whole Church of the first Age to the second were a Rule of Faith yet are not the Romanists Traditions unwritten proved Rules of Faith unless they be proved to be delivered by the whole Church of the first Age to the Church of the second Age and so from father to son without alteration which they cannot prove Nevertheless sith this Argument tends to the asserting of an Infallibility in the Church of the first Age distinctly taken from the Apostles and their Writings I grant the Minor and omit the examining of the Texts brought to prove it though some of them yield a good Argument against unwritten Tradition But I deny the Major as being contrary to experience both in the Jewish Church to whom it was forbidden to add to or diminish from Gods commands Deut. 4. 2. and yet they did Mark 7. 8. 9. and in the Christian Church as is most evident in the Traditions of the Chiliasts about Easter and sundry other things And though the whole Church of the first Age did not deliver points of Faith to the second Age yet in the second and after-ages corruptions did come in which were taken for universal Traditions as in giving Infants the Eucharist which Augustine and Pope Innocentius took for an Apostolical Tradition though the Trent Council condemn it And many things there are now taken for Apostolical Traditions as Worship of Images praying to Saints not allowing the Wine to be drunk by all the Communicants which yet are manifestly repugnant to the Apostles Doctrine As for the proof of H. T. I say 1. The eye and ear-witnesses of all the points of Faith are not a whole World 2. Errours may be traduced as from the whole Church of the first Age and from the Apostles which were not from them 3. The Church delivers not Doctrines but the Teachers in them whereof many sometimes are Hypocrites sometimes weak in understanding all of them being men are liable to mistakes passion forgetfulness inadvertency and those that are not sincere may against their conscience deliver errours Sure if Polycarpus an Auditour of John the Evangelist and Anicetus Bishop of Rome in the second Age Polycrates and Pope Victor in the same Age Cyprian and Pope Stephanus in the next contradicted each other about Traditions no marvel later and inferiour Teachers such as Papias a credulous man and others mistook about them and the after Churches follow them in their mistakes 4. The Churches were in the Apostles days easily drawn away from the Doctrine which Paul had evidently taught them by hearkening to Seducers as the Galatians Gal. 3. 1. though the
Apostle warned them Gal. 1. 8 9. neither therefore the warning given them nor any state of the Church in this life yields sufficient security of not being deceived nor deceiving others The Church and Teachers thereof may not onely be men and have reason but also good men and conscionable and warned not to deliver any thing but Christ's and his Apostle's Doctrine to be believed under pain of Damnation and yet may build Hay and Stubble and be saved as through fire though their Building suffer loss keeping the Foundation and repenting of all sins and errours though some be secret and unknown to them Let us see what is in the next Argument which he terms the last Argument for Traditions SECT IV. Counterfeits might and did come into the Church under the name of Apostolick Tradition without such a force as H. T. imagines necessary thereto even in points of Faith To make saith H. T. a whole world of wise and disinterested men break so far with their own nature as to conspire in a notorioâ—n Lie to damn themselves and their posterity which is the onely means to make an Apostolical Tradition fallible such a force of hopes or fears must fall upon them all at once as may be stronger than nature in them But such a force of hopes or fears can never fall on the whole World or Church at once which is dispersed over all Nations therefore it is impossible for the whole World or Church at once to conspire in such a Lie or consequently to erre in Faith Answ THis Argument concludes for the Churches Infallibility which was the fifth Article not for Traditions as is pretended in this Article But that the Church militant and all their Teachers setting aside the Apostles are fallible is proved before and how the whole Church of later ages may be not onely fallible but also deceived and deceive others without breaking with their own nature so far as to conspire in a notorious Lie to damn themselves and their posterity and without such a force of fears or hopes falling upon them all at once as may be stronger than nature to them hath been shewed before both by reason and experience and our Lord Christ hath told us it would be that while men sleep the Enemy would come and sow Tares Matth. 13. 25. and the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 11. 19. that there must be Heresies by Gods permission that they which are approved may be made manifest Jude 4. there were certain men crept in unawares ordained of old to this condemnation 2 Pet. 2. 1. 1 John 4. 1. And accordingly it fell out in the Christian Church as Eusebius notes out of Egesippus lib. 3. hist cap. 29. The Church of Christ remained a pure and uncorrupt Virgin unto the times of the Apostles but after their decease and those that heard them there was a conspiracy of corrupters which did lurk before that boldly vented knowledge falsly so called much of which was published under the name of Apostolical Tradition Irenaeus lib. 2. advers haeret cap. 39. saith In his days it was reported as from John that Christ lived to the fiftieth year of his Age by all the Elders of Asia which met with John the Disciple of the Lord that John delivered it to them Nor is this to imagine men to break with their nature but to follow their nature which is in all corrupt in the best imperfect As for what H. T. tells us of a whole World of wise and disinterested men it is an Utopia in a countrey called no where but in H. T. his brain Surely the wisest and disinterested men of Fathers and other Preachers have still stood to the Scriptures and have disowned unwritten Traditions as not being a true Rule of Faith Popes and Popish Councils who have been the sticklers for Traditions unwritten as they have been none of the wisest with any holy wisdom but serpentine craft so have they bent all their endeavours to uphold Traditions for their interest of greatness and gain being necessitated to 〈◊〉 unwritten Traditions because their Doctrines cannot be maintained out of Scripture He that shall reade the History of the Council of Trent written by Frier Paul of Venice in which Council Traditions unwritten were first equalled to Scripture may perceive that if ever there were a pack of deceivers and deceived men it was at Trent the Bishops generally being unlearned in the Scriptures many of them meer Canonists and such as understood not the Disputes in the Congregations and the Divines a company of wrangling Sophisters inured onely to School-principles and arguings without skill in the Scriptures and the Popes Legates and Italian Bishops depending on the Court of Rome never applying themselves to search out truth but to hinder any the least breaking forth of it if it opposed any profit or advantage of the Popes and Court of Rome and any thing that tended to justifie the Protestants whom they would never permit to speak for themselves nor were they willing any thing should be concluded but what the Pope of all that ever were in the World the most notorious corrupter and Tyrant in the Church of God liked And he that shall reade the Book not long since published intituled the Mystery of Jesuitism will finde that the chiefest Leaders now in the Popish Churches the Jesuits who are for the Traditions of the Church of Rome are wholly bent though against Scripture and Fathers to carry on their own interest by any devices whatsoever without regard either to Rules of Scripture or of Morality delivered by infidel Philosophers So that the talk of H. T. concerning a World of wise and disinterested men among Popish Teachers is like the talk of a company of honest Women in a society of notorious Whores or of just men in a Band of Robbers H. T. adds It is the assurance of this impossibility that moves the Church of the present Age to resolve her Faith and Doctrines into the precedent Age and so from Age to Age from sons to fathers up to the mouth of Christ and his Apostles teaching it saying We believe it because we have received it Answ 1. This resolution of Faith not into the Scriptures testimony but the testimony of the next age and so upwards and thereby judging what Christ and his Apostles taught can beget no other than a humane Faith sith in this way Christ and his Apostles are supposed to teach what the succeeding ages have taught nor is it any better than an uncertain way sith in some ages it cannot be known what was taught in many points of controversie for as much as this Authour confesseth pag. 25. There was no general or provincial Council that decided any Controversies of moment in the tenth Age which and the next before it are by Genebrard and Bellarmine counted unhappy for want of learned men nor can this be any other than a fraudulent device to draw men from immediate searching into the Scriptures for
all which we may easily come to know by means of Apostolical tradition without which we can have no infallible assurance of any Point of Christian Doctrine I reply neither the Church nor her Ministers can sufficiently propose to any man for the Word of God any other than the Scripture by which we may have infallible assurance of any Point of Christian Doctrine without oral Tradition unwritten And to say that the whole Church in general and not each man in particular is obliged to know all divinely revealed verities which are necessary to the salvation of all mankinde is to speak contradictions Yet once more saith H. T. Object You dance in a vicious Circle proving the Scripture and the Churches infallibility by Apostolical tradition and tradition by the Scripture and the Churches infallibility Answ No we go on by a right Rule towards Heaven We prove indeed the Churches infallibility and the credibility of the Scriptures by Apostolical tradition but that is evident of it self and admits no other proof When we bring Scripture for either we use it onely as a secondary testimony or argument ad hominem I reply if this be so then doth H T. in his Title-page pretend demonstration of his falsly called Catholick Religion by Tents of holy Scripture in the first place onely as a secondary testimony or argument ad hominem but it is oral Apostolical tradition which he principally relies on for his demonstration as being evident of it self and admits no other proof which oral Apostolical Tradition being no other than what Popes and Councils approved by him have approved it follows that what Papists call Catholick Religion is not what the Scriptures teach but what Popes and their Councils define into which their Faith is ultimately resolved No marvel then they decline Scripture or if they use it do it onely because of Protestants importunity not because they think it is to be rested on and if so sure H. T. plays the Hypocrite in pretending to demonstrate his Religion out of Texts of holy Scripture If other Papists would stick to this which H. T. here saith we should take it as a thing confessed that Popery is not Scripture doctrine but onely unwritten Tradition and to have for its bottom foundation the Popes determination and so to be imbraced upon his credit which sure can beget no other than a humane faith and in fine doth make the Pope Lord of their Faith which is all one as to make him their Christ and that is to make him an Antichrist Therefore I conceive other Romanists will disown this resolution of H. T. and seek other ways to get out of this Circle and herein they go divers ways Dr. Holden an English man and Doctor of Paris in his Book of the Analysis of divine Faith chap. 9. rejects the common way and sticks to that of universal Tradition which by natural reason is evident and firm But when he hath urged this as far as he can this must be the evidence that what all say and was so manifestly know by so many Miracles as Christ and his Apostles wrought must be infallibly true But the being of Christ the Mossiah and his Doctrine from God as the holy Scriptures declare is avouched by all the Church and manifestly known by Miracles therefore it must be true which is no other than Chillingworth's universal Tradition confirming the truth of the Scriptures and deriving our Faith from thence which if Papists do relinquish and adhere to the Popes resolutions whether they be with Scripture or without they do expresly declare themselves Papists or Disciples of the Pope not Christians that is Disciples of Christ I conclude therefore that H. T. and such as hold with him according to the Principle he here sets down are not Believers in Christ whose Doctrine is delivered in the Scripture but in men whether Popes or Councils or the universal Church or any other who delivers to him that oral Tradition which is his Rule as being evident of it self and admits no other proof though I have shewed it to be uncertain yea not so much as probable I go on to the next Article ARTIC IX Schism and Heresie are ill charged on Protestants Protestants in not holding Communion with the Roman Church as now it is in their Worship in not subjecting themselves to the Pope as their visible Head in denying the new Articles of the Tridentin Council and Pope Pius the fourth his Bull are neither guilty of Schism nor Heresie But Papists by rejecting them for this cause and seeking to impose on them this Subjection are truly Schismaticks and in holding the Articles which now they do are Hereticks SECT I H. T. his definitions of Heresie and Schism are not right H. T. intitles his ninth Article of Schism and Heresie and begins thus Nothing intrenching more on the Rule of Faith or the Authority of the Church than Schism or Heresie we shall here briefly shew what they are and who are justly chargeable therewith Our Tenet is that not onely Heresie which is a wilfull separation from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church but also Schism which is a separation from her government is damnable and sacrilegious and that most Sectaries are guilty of both Answ I Think Infidelity doth more intrench on the Rule of Faith than Heresie and Heresie may be where there is no intrenching on the Authority of the Church in this Authour 's own sense as when a man living in communion with the Roman Church and owning the Pope or being the Pope himself is an Arian as Pope Liberius or a Monothelite as Pope Honorius And for his definition of Heresie it is in mine apprehension too obscure and imperfect For it neither shews what is the Catholick Church the separation from whose Doctrine makes Heresie nor what Doctrines of it the separation from which makes Heresie nor what separation in heart or profession or other act nor when it is wilfull when not nor how it may be known to be wilfull Nor doth this definition agree with their own Tenets who acquit many from Heresie who wilfully separate from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church as they define it to wit that which is defined by a general Council approved by a Pope As for instance The Popish French Church is acquitted from Heresie yet they hold a Council to be above the Pope contrary to the last Lateran Council approved by Pope Leo the tenth Nor is this definition at all proved by this Authour but taken as granted though it may be justly questioned And for the use of the terms Heresie and Hereticks in the Ancients it is certain that many are put in the Catalogue of Hereticks by Philastrius Epiphanius Augustin and also by other Writers elder and later and those opinions termed Heresies which were not so The like faults are in the definition of Schism in not setting down which is the Catholick Church what is her government what separation of heart or outward
an acknowledged true Member of the Catholick Church and yet no Separation from the whole And therefore this Position of H. T. will not be yielded him without better proof and demonstration that the Separation from the Church of Rome which Protestants have made cannot stand with union with the Catholick Church in Doctrine and Discipline Which sure he hath not yet proved nor is it likely he ever will but as the fashion of these Scriblers is sing over again and again their Cuckoes Song of the Catholick Roman Church and that Protestants are Hereticks and Sectaries with other Popish gibberish though the folly and frivolousness thereof hath been a thousand times demonstrated I have thus at last examined these nine Articles being moved thereto out of hope to do some souls good by recovering them out of the snare in which they are held by Satan and Romish Emissaries If they shut their eys against the light their judgement will be of themselves I shall add prayer for them that God would open their eys and if time health and other concurrences suit with my aims discover the vanity of the rest of H. T. his Manual In the mean time not as some Romanists blasphemously Praise be to the Virgin Mother in the end of their Writings but as Paul concluded his Epistle to the Romans so do I To God onely wise be glory through JESUS CHRIST for ever Amen FINIS The Contents ARTICLE I. THe Church of Rome is not demonstrated to be the true Church of God by its succession Page 1 Sect. 1. Of the Title of H. T. his Manual in which is shewed to be a vain vaunt of what he hath not performed ibid. 2. Of the Epistles prefixed in which he ascribes too much to the Church and deceitfully begins with her Authority 3 3. His Tenet of the falsity of all Churches not owning the Pope is shewed to be most absurd 4 4. The Succession required by H. T. is not necessary to the being of a true Church 7 5. None of the Texts alleged by H. T. prove a necessity to the being of a true Church of such Succession as he imagines 10 6. The Succession pretended in the Roman Church proves not the verity of the Roman Church but the contrary 11 7. The Catalogue of H. T. is defective for the proof of his pretended Succession in the Roman Church in the first three hundred years 13 8. The Catalogue of H. T. is defective for the proof of his pretended Succession in the Roman Church in the fourth and fifth Centuries of years 18 9. The defect of H. T. his Catalogue for proof of his Succession in sixth seventh eighth ninth tenth Centuries is shewed 21 10. The defect of his Catalogue in the eleventh and twelfth Ages is shewed 25 11. The defect of his Catalogue in the thirteenth and fourteenth Ages is shewed 28 12. The defect of his Catalogue in the fifteenth and sixteenth Ages is shewed 32 13. The close of H. T. is retorted 36 14. H. T. hath not solved the Protestants Objections 38 ARTICLE II. PRotestants have that Succession which is sufficient to demonstrate them to be a true Church of God 42 Sect. 1. Protestant Churches need not prove such a Succession as Papists demand ibid. 2. The Argument of H. T. against Protestants doth as well prove the nullity of the Roman Church for want of Succession as of the Protestants 44 3. Protestants have had a Succession sufficient to aver their Doctrine 47 4. The Succession in the Greek Churches may be alleged for Protestants notwithstanding the Exceptions of H. T. 51 5. The Doctrine of Romanists was not the Doctrine of the Fathers of the first five hundred years nor is acknowledged to be so by learned Protestants 53 6. The Answers of H. T. to the Objections of Protestants concerning their Succession are shewed to be vain and the Apostasie of the Roman Church is proved 56 ARTICLE III. SUch visibility of Succession as the Romanists require is not proved to be necessary to the being of a true Church 62 Sect. 1. Exteriour Consecration and Ordination of Ministers is not necessary to the being of a visible Church and what H. T. requires of Ministers preaching and administring Sacraments is most defective in the Roman Church ibid. 2. Neither Isai 2. 2. Matth. 5. 14. Psalm 18. 19 4. nor the words of Irenaeus Origen Cyprian Chrysostome Augustine prove such a Church visibility as H. T. asserts 65 3. H. T. hath not solved the Protestants Objections against the visibility of the Church as it is by H. T. asserted 66 ARTICLE IV. THe Church of Rome is not that one Catholick Church which in the Apostolick and Nicene Creeds is made the object of Christian Faith 69 1. 〈◊〉 in non-fundamentals of Faith and in Discipline is not essentially presupposed to the universality of the Church militant ibid. 2. The ambiguity of H. T. his saying of the Roman Church its unity and universality is shewed 70 3. Unity of Discipline under one visible Head and of Faith without division in lesser Points is not proved from 1 Cor. 10. 17. Ephes 1. 22 23. John 10. 16. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Acts 4. 32. John 17. 11. and the Nicene Creed necessary to the Churches being 71 4. It is notoriously false that the Romanists are perfectly one or have better unity or means of unity than Protestants and H. T. his Argument from the unity of the Church is better against than for the Roman Church 73 5. The Argument of H. T. from the unity of a natural body is against him for Protestants 77 6. The universality which Matth. 28. 20. Ephes 4. 12 13. John 14. 15 16. Luke 1. 33. for time Psalm 85. 86 9. Isai 2. 2. Matth. 28. 20. Psalm 19. 4. for place agrees not to the now Roman Church but may be better said of the Protestants 78 7. The words of Irenaeus Origen Lactantius Cyril of Jerusalem Augustine are not for the universality of H. T. by which he asserts the Catholicism of the Roman Church but against it 80 8. It is non-sense or false to term the Roman Church the Catholick Church and the shifts of H. T. to avoid this Objection are discovered 81 ARTICLE V. THe Roman Church is neither proved to be the Catholick Church nor the highest visible Judge of controversies nor is it proved that she is infallible both in her Propositions and Definitions of all Points of Faith nor to have power from God to oblige all men to obey her under Pain of Damnation but all this is a meer impudent arrogant claim of Romanists that hath no colour of proof from Scriptures or Antiquity 85 Sect. 1. The decit of H. T. in asserting an Infallibility and Judicature of controversies in the Church which he means of the Pope is shewed ibid. 2. Luke 10. 16. proves not the Roman or Catholick Churches Infallibility 87 3. Matth 18. 17. or 18. 1 John 4. 6. Mark 16. 15 16. make nothing for the claim