most certain and infallible wherein it surpasseth humane Opinion it must relie upon some motive and ground which may be able to give it certainly and yet not release it from Obscurity For if this motive ground or formal Object of Faith were any thing evidently presented to our understanding and if also we did evidently know that it had a necessary connection with the Articles which we believe our assent to such Articles could not be obscure but evident which as we said is against the nature of our faith If likewise the motive and ground of our faith were obscurely propounded to us but were not in it self infallible it would leave our assent in obscurity but could not endue it with certainty We must therefore for the ground of our faith find out a motive obscure to us but most certain in it self that the act of faith may remain both obscure and certain Such a motive as this can be no other but the divine authority of Almighty God revealing or speaking those truths which our faith believes For it is manifest that God's infallible testimony may transfâ—â—â— Certainty to our faith and yet not draw it out of obscurity because no humane discourse or demonstration can evince that God revealeth any supernatural truth since God hath been no less perfect than he is although hâ—â—â—â— never revealed any of those objects which we now believe 4 Nevertheless because Almighty God out of his infinite wisdom and sweetness doth conour with his Creatures in such sort as may befit the temper and exigence of their natures and because Man is a Creature endued with reason God doth not exact of his Will or Understanding any other then as the Apostle faith rationabile (f) Rom. 12.1 obsequium an Obedience sweetned with good reason which could not so appear if our Understanding were summoned to believe with certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain And therefore Almighty God obliging us under pain of eternal camnation to believe with greatest certainty divers verities not known by the light of natural reason cannot fail to furnish our Understanding with such inducements motives and arguments as may sufficiently perswade any mind which is not partial or passionate that the objects which we believe proceed from an Authority so Wise that it cannot be deceived so Good that it cannot deceive according to the words of David Thy Testimonies are made (g) Psal 92. credible exceedingly These inducements are by Divines called argumenta credibilitatis arguments of credibility which though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in one wisdom and prudence the objects of faith deserve credit and ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons and inducements our judgment of faith could not be conceived prudent holy Scripture telling us that be who soon (h) Eccles 19. â— believes is light of heart By these arguments and inducements our Understanding is both satisfied with evidence of credibility and the objects of faith retain their obsenrity because it is a different thing to be evidently credible and evidently true as those who were present at the Miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles did not evidently see their doctrin to be true for then it had not been Faith but Science and all had been necessitated to believe which we see fell out otherwise but they were evidently convinced that the things confirmed by such Miracles were most credible and worthy to be imbraced as truth revealed by God 5 These evident arguments of Credibility are in great abundance found in the Visible Church of Christ perpetually existing on earth For that there hath been a company of men professing such and such doctrines we have from our next Predecessors and these from theirs upward till we come to the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour which gradation is known by evidence of sense by reading books or hearing what one man delivers to another And it is evident that there was neither cause nor possibility that men so distant in place so different in temper so repugnant in private ends did or could agree to tell one and the self same thing if it had been but a fiction invented by themselves as ancient Tertullian well saith How is it likely that so many (i) Praescript c. 28. and so great Churches should err in one saith Among many events there is not one issue the error of the Churches must needs have varied But that which among many is sound to be One is not mistaken but delivered Dare then any body say that they erred who delivered it With this never-interrupted existence of the Church are joyned the many and great miracles wrought by mâ—n of that Congregation or Church the sanctity of the persons the renowned victories over so many persecutions both of all sorts of men and of the infernal spirits and lastly the perpetual existence of so holy a Church being brought up to the Apostles themselves she comes to partake of the same assurance of truth which They by so many powerful ways did communicate to their Doctrin to the Church of their times together with the divine Certainty which they received from our blessed Saviour himself revealing to Mankind what he heard from his Father and so we conclude with Tertullian We receive it from the Churches the Churches (k) Praese c. 21. 37. from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from his Father And if we once interrupt this line of succession most certainly made known by means of holy Tradition we cannot conjoyn the present Church and doctrin with the Church and doctrin of the Apostles buâ— must invent some new means and arguments sufficient of themselves to find out and prove a true Church and faith independently of the preaching and writing of the Apostles neither of which can be known but by Tradition as is truly observed by Tertullian saying I will prescribe that (l) Praesc c. 22. there is no means to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Church which they sounded 6 Thus then we are to proceed By evidence of manifest and incorrupt Tradition I know that there hath always been a never interrupted Succession of men from the Apostles time believing professing and practising such and such doctrines By evident arguments of credibility as Miracles Sanctity Unity c. and by all those ways whereby the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour himself confirmed their doctrin we are assured that what the said never-interrupted Church proposeth doth deserve to be accepted and acknowledged as a divine truth By evidence of Sense we see that the same Church proposeth such and such doctrins as divine truths that is as revealed and testified by Almighty God By this divine Testimony we are infallibly assured of what we believe and so the last period ground motive and formal object of our Faith is the infallible testimony of that supreme Verity which
if you will needs comprehend all those Churches which want succession you must confess that your Church doth not only communicate with Schismatical and Heretical Churches but is also compounded of such Churches and your selves cannot avoid the note of Schismatiques or Heretiques if it were but for participating with such heretical Churches For it is impossible to retain Communion with the true Catholique Church and yet agree with them who are divided from her by Schism or Heresie because that were to affirm that for the self same time they could be within and without the Catholique Church as proportionably I discoursed in the next precedent Chapter concerning the communicating of moderate Protestants with those who maintain that Heresie of the Latency and Invisibility of Gods Church where I brought a place of S. Cyprian to this purpose which the Reader may be pleased to review in the fifth Chapter and 17 Number 22 But besides this defect in the personal Succession of Protestant Bishops there is another of great moment which is that they want the right Form of ordaining Bishops and Priests because the manner which they use is so much different from that of the Roman Church at least according to the common opinion of Divines that it cannot be sufficient for the Essence of Ordination as I could demonstrate if this were the proper place of such a Treatâ—fe and will not faâ—l to do if D. Potter give me occasion In the mean time the Reader may be pleased to read the Author (z) See Adam Tannerum tom 4. disp 7. quaest 2. dub 3. 4. cited here in the margent and the compare the form of our Ordination with that of Protestants and to remember that if the form which they use either in consecrating Bishops or in ordaining Priests be at least doubtful they can neither have undoubted Priests nor Bishops For Priests cannot be ordained but by true Bishops nor can any be a true Bishop unless he first be Priest I say their Ordination is at least doubtful because that sufficeth for my present purpose For Bishops and Priests whose Ordination is notoriously known to be but doubtful are not to be esteemed Bishops or Priests and no man without Sacriledge can receive Sacraments from them all which they administer unlawfully And if we except Baptism with manifest danger of invalidity and with obligation to be at least conditionally repeated so Protestants must remain doubtful of Remission of sins of their Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and may not pretend to be a true Church which cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests nor without due administration of Sacraments which according to Protestants is an essential note of the true Church And it is a world to observe the proceeding of English Protestants in this point of their Ordinations For first An 3. Edw. 6. cap. 2. when he was a Child about 12. years of age It was enacted that such (a) Dyer fol. 234. term Mich. 6 7. Eliz. form of making and consecrating of Bishops and Priests as by six Prelates and six other to be appointed by the King should be divised mark this word devised and set forth under the great Seal should be used and none other But after this Act was repealed 1. Mar. Sess 2. in so much as that when afterward An. 6. 7. Reg. Eliz. Bishop Bonner being endicted upon a certificate made by D. Horn a Protestant Bishop of Winchester for his refusal of the Oath of Supremacy and he excepting against the indictment because D. Horn was no Bishop all the Judges resolved that his exception was good if indeed D. Horn was not Bishop and they were all at a stand till An S. Eliz. cap. 1. the Act of Edw 6. was renewed and confirmed with a particular proviso that no man should be impeached or molested by means of any certificate by any Bishop or Archbishop made before this last Act. Whereby it is clear that they made some doubt of their own ordination and that there is nothing but uncertainty in the whole business of their Ordination which forsooth must depend upon Six Prelates the great Seal Acts of Parliament being contrary one to another and the like 23 But though they want Personal Succession yet at least they have succession of Doctrin as they say and pretend to prove because they believe as the Apostles believed This is to beg the Question and to take what they may be sure will never be granted For if they want Personal Succession and slight Ecclesiastical Tradition how will they perswade any man that they agree with the doctrin of the Apostles We have heard Tertullian saying I will prescribe (b) Sup. c. 5. against all Heretiques that there is no means to prove what the Apustles preached but by the same Churches which they founded And S. Irenaeus tells us that We may (c) L. 3. c. 5. behold the Tradition of the Apostles in every Church if men be desirous to hear the truth and we can number them who were made Bishops by the Apostles in Churches and their Successors even to us And the same Father in another place saith We ought to obey (d) L. 4. c. 43. those Priests who are in the Church who have Succession from the Apostles and who together with Succession in their Bishopricks have received the certain gift of truth S. Augustine saith I am kept in the Church (e) Contâ— epist Fundam c. 4. by the succession of Priests from the very Sea of Peter the Apostle to whom our Saviour after his Resurrection committed his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishop Origen to this purpose giveth us a good and wholsome Rule happy if himself had followed the same in these excellent words Since there be many who think (f) Praef. ad lib. Periarchon they believe the things which are of Christ and some are of different opinion from those who went before them let the preaching of the Church be kept which is delivered by the Apostles by order of Succession and remains in the Church to this very day that only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagrees from the Tradition of the Church In vain then do these men brag of the doctrin of the Apostles unless first they can demonstrate that they enjoyed a continued succession of Bishops from the Apostles and can shew us a Church which according to S. Austin is deduced by undoubted SUCCESSION from the Sea (g) Cont. Faust cap. 2. of the Apostles even to the present Bishops 24 But yet nevertheless suppose it were granted that they agreed with the doctrin of the Apostles this were not sufficient to prove a Succession in Doctrine For Succession besides agreement or similitude doth also require a never-interrupted conveying of such doctrine from the time of the Apostles till the dayes of those persons who challenge such a Succession And so S Augustine saith we are to believe that Gospel which from the time
of the Apostles the (h) Lib. 28. cont Faust cap. 2. Church hath brought down to our days by a never-interrupted course of times and by undoubted succession of connection Now that the Reformation begun by Luther was interrupted for divers ages before him is manifest our of History and by his endeavouring a Reformation which must presuppose Abuses He cannot therefore pretend a continued Succession of that Doctrin which he sought to revive and reduce to the knowledge and practise of men And they ought not to prove that they have a Succession of doctrin because they agreee with the doctrin of the Apostles but contrarily we must infer that they agree not with the Apostles because they cannot pretend a never-interrupted succession of doctrin from the times of the Apostles till Luther And here it is not amiss to note that although the Waldeases Wickliff c. had agreed with Protestants in all points of doctrin yet they could not brag of Succession from them because their doctrin hath not been free from interruption which necessarily crosseth Succession 25 And as want of Succession of Persons and Doctrin cannot stand with that Universality of Time which is inseparable from the Catholique Church so likewise the disagreeing Sects which are dispersed throughout divers Countries and Nations cannot help towards that Universality of Place wherewith the true Church must be endued but rather such local multiplication doth more and more lay open their division and want of succession in Doctrin For the excellent Observation of S. Augustine doth punctually agree with all modern Heretiques wherein this holy Father having cited these words our of the Prophet Ezechiel (i) Cap. 24. My flocks are dispersed upon the whole face of the Earth he adds this remarkable sentence Not all Heretiques (k) Lib. de Pastorib c. 8. are spread over the face of the Earth and yet there are Heretiques spread over the whole face of the Earth some here some there yet they are wanting in no place they know not one another One Sect for example in Africa another Heresie in the East another in Egypt another in Mesopotania In divers places there are divers one Mother pride hath begot them all as our own Mother the Catholique Church hath brought forth all saithful people dispersed throughout the whole world No wonder then if Pride breed Dissention and Charity Union And in another place applying to Heretiques those words of the Canticles If thou know not (l) Cant. 1. thy self go forth and follow after the steps of the flocks and seed the kids he saith If thou know not thy self go (m) Ep. 48. thou forth I do not cast thee out but go thou out that it may be said of thee They went from us but they were not of us Go thou out in the steps of the flocks not in my steps but in the steps of the flocks nor of one flock but of divers and wandring flocks And feed thy Kids not as Peter to whom is said Feed thy sheep but seed thy kids in the Tabernacle of the Pastors not in the Tabernacle of the Pastor where there is one flock and one Pastor In which words this holy Father doth set down the Marks of Heresie to wit going out from the Church and Want of Unity among themselves which proceed from not acknowledging one supreme Visible Pastor and Head under Christ And so it being Proved that Protestants havâ—â— neither succession of Persons nor Doctrin nor Universality of Time or Place cannot avoid the just note of Heresie 26 Hitherto we have brought arguments to prove that Luther and all Protestants are guilty of Heresie against the Negative Precept of saith which obligeth 〈◊〉 under pain of damnation not to imbrace any one errour contrary to any Truth sufficiently propounded as testified or revealed by Almighty God Which were enough to make good that among Persons who disagree in any one Point of Faith one part only can be saved Yet we will now prove that whosoever erreth in any one point doth also break the Affirmative Precept of Faith whereby we are obliged positively to believe some revealed truth with an infallible and supernatural Faith which is necessary to salvation even necessitate sinis or medii as Divines speak that is so necessary that not any after he is come to the use of Reason was or can be saved without it according to the words of the Apostle Without saith (n) Heb. 11.6 it is impossible to please God 27 In the beginning of this Chapter I shewed that to Christian Catholique faith are required Certainty Obscurity Prudence and Supernaturality All which Conditions we will prove to be wanting in the belief of Protestants even in those points which are true in themselves and to which they yield assent as happeneth in all those particulars wherein they agree with us from whence it will follow that they wanting true Divine saith want means absolutely necessary to salvation The faith of Protestants wanteth Certainty 28 And first that their belief wanteth Certainty I prove because they denying the Universal infallibility of the Church can have no certain ground to know what Objects are revealed or testified by God Holy Scripture is in it self most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain means to know what Scâ—ipture is Canonical nor what Translations be faithful nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Every Protestant as I suppose is perswaded that his own opinions be true and that he hath used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer Conferring of divers Texts c. and yet their disagreements shew that some of them are deceived And therefore it is clear that they have no one certain ground whereon to relie for understanding of Scripture And seeing they hold all the Articles of Faith even concerning fundamental points upon the self same ground of Scripture interpreted not by the Churches Authority according to some other Rules which as experience of their contradictions teach do sometimes fail it is clear that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all And albeit sometime it chance to hit on the truth yet it is likewise apt to lead them to error As all Arch-heretiques believing some truths and withall divers errors upon the same ground and motive have indeed no true divine infallible faith but only a fallible humane opinion and perswasion For if the ground upon which they rely were certain it could never produce any errour 29 Another cause of uncertainty in the faith of Protestants must rise from their distinction of points fundamental and not fundamental For since they acknowledge that every error in fundamental points destroyeth the substance of faith and yet cannot determine what points be fundamental it followeth that they must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error and so want the substance of faith
had said By shewing the Tradition of the Roman Church we confound all Heretiques For to this Church all Churches must agree what had this been but to give for a reason that which was more questionable than the thing in question as being neither evident in it self and plainly denyed by his adversaries not at all proved nor offered to be proved here or elsewhere by Irenaeus To speak thus therefore had been weak and ridiculous But on the other side if we conceive him to say thus You Heretiques decline a trial of your Doctrin by Scripture as being corrupted and imperfect and not fit to determin Controversies without recourse to Tradition and instead hereof you fly for a refuge to a secret Tradition which you pretend that you received from your Ancestors and they from the Apostles certainly your calumnies against Scripture are most unjust and unreasonable but yet more-ever assure your selves that if you will be tryed by Tradition even by that also you will be overthrown For our Tradition is far more famous more constant and in all respects more credible than that which you pretend to It were easie for me to muster up against you the uninterrupted successions of all the Churches founded by the Apostles all conspiring in their Testimonies against you But because it were too long to number up the Successions of all Churches I will content my self with the Tradition of the most ancient and most glorious Church of Rome which alone is sufficient for the confutation and confusion of your Doctrin as being in credit and authority as farr beyond the Tradition you build upon as the light of the Sun is beyond the light of a Gloworm For to this Church by reason it is placed in the Imperial City whither all mens affairs do necessarily draw them or by reason of the powerful principality it hath over all the adjacent Churches there is and always hath been a necessity of a perpetual recourse of all the faithful round about who if there had been any alteration in the Church of Rome could not in all probability but have observed it But they to the contrary have always observed in this Church the very Tradition which came from the Apostles and no other I say if we conceive his meaning thus his words will be intelligible and rational which if instead of resort we put in agree will be quite lost Herein therefore we have been beholding to your honesty which makes me think you did not wittingly falsifie but only twice in this sentence mistake Undique for Ubique and translate it every where and of what place soever in stead of round about For that it was necessary for all the faithful of what place soever to resort to Rome is not true That The Apostolique Tradition hath alwayes been conserved there from those who are every where is not Sense Now instead of conservata read observata as in all probability it should be and translate undique truly round about and then the sense will be both plain and good for then it must be rendred thus For to this Church by reason of a more powerful principality there is a necessity that all the Churches that is all the faithful round about should resort in which the Apostolique Tradition hath been alwayes observed by those who were round about If any man say I have been too bold a Critick in substituting observata instead of conservata I desire him to know that the conjecture is not mine and therefore as I expect no praise for it so I hope I shall be farr from censure But I would intreat him to consider whether it be not likely that the same Greek word signifying observo and conservo the Translater of Irenaeus who could hardly speak Latin might not easily mistake and translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conservata est instead of observata est Or whether it be not likely that those men which anciently wrote Books and understood them not might not easily commit such an errour Or whether the sense of the place can be salved any other way if it can in God's name let it if not I hope he is not to be condemned who with such a little alteration hath made that sense which he found non-sense 30. But whether you will have it Observata or Conservata the new sumpsimus or the old mumpsimus possibly it may be something to Irenaeus but to us or our cause it is no way material For if the rest be rightly translated neither will Conservata afford you any argument against us nor Observata help us to any evasion For though at the first hearing of the glorious attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome The confounding Heretiques with her Tradition and saying It is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet he that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rational in Irenaeus having to do with Heretiques who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholiques declined a tryal by Scripture as not containing the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rational in Irenaeus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit than their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contain'd in it and yet that it may be irrational in you to urge us who do not decline Scripture but appeal to it as a perfect rule of faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many wayes repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition farr more general than it self which gives Testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrins plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a farr greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was United with all other Apostolique Churches than now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be Error but Tradition and therefore Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that fourteen hundred years may have made a great deal of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though neer the fountain they may retain their native and unmixt sincerity yet in long progress cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corruptand impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus playes the Historian only and not the Prophet and sayes only that the Apostolique Tradition had been alwayes there as in other Apostolique Churches
every one Is Achaia near thee there thou hast Corinth If thou art not far from Macedonia thou hast Philippi thou hast Thessalonica If thou canst go into Asia there thou hast Ephesus If thou be adjacent to Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is neer at hand to us in Africk A happy Church into which the Apostles powred forth all their Doctrin together with their blood c. Now I pray you Sir tell me if you can for blushing why this place might not have been urg'd by a Corinthian or Philippian or Thessalonian or an Ephesian to shew that in the judgment of Tertullian separation from any of their Churches is a certain mark of Heresie as justly and rationally as you alledge it to vindicate this priviledge to the Roman Church only Certainly if you will stand to Tertullian's judgment you must either grant the authority of the Roman Church though at that time a good Topical Argument and perhaps a better than any the Heretiques had especially in conjunction with other Apostolique Churches yet I say you must grant it perforce but a fallible Guide as well as that of Ephesus and Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth or you must maintain the Authority of every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in general yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equal and therefore makes them chuse you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shews he erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he erred in doing so 35 From the saying of S. Basil certainly nothing can be gathered but only that the Bishop of Rome may discern between that which is counterfeit and that which is lawful and pure and without any diminution may preach the faith of our Ancestors Which certainly he might do if ambition and covetousness did not hinder him or else I should never condemn him for doing otherwise But is there no difference between may and must Between he may do so and he cannot but do so Or doth it follow because he may do so therefore he always shall or will do so In my opinion rather the contrary should follow For he that saith you may do thus implies according to the ordinary sense of words that if he will he may do otherwise You certainly may if you please leave abusing the world with such Sophistry as this but whether you will or no of that I have no assurance 36 Your next Witness I would willingly have examined but it seems you are unwilling he should be found otherwise you would have given us your direction where we might have him Of that Maximianus who succeeded Nestorius I can find no such thing in the Councels Neither can I believe that any Patriarch of Constantinople twelve hundred years ago was so base a parasite of the Sea of Rome 37 Your last Witness John of Constantinople I confess speaks home and advanceth the Roman Sea even to heaven But I fear it is that his own may go up with it which he there professes to be all one sea with the sea of Rome and therefore his Testimony as speaking in his own case is not much to be regarded But besides I have little reason to be confident that this Epistle is not a forgery for certainly Binius hath obtruded upon us many a hundred such This though written by a Grecian is not extant in Greek but in Latin only Lastly it comes out of a supicious place an old book of the Vatican Library which Library the world knows to have been the Mint of very many Impostures 38 Ad § 20 21 22 23. The sum of your discourse in the four next Sections if it be pertinent to the Question in agitation must be this Want of succession of Bishops and Pastors holding always the same doctrin and of the forms of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie but Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Heretiques To which I answer that nothing but want of truth and holding error can make or prove any man or Church heretical For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhonian or Epicurean who holds the doctrin of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assign any that held it before him for many ages together why should I not be made a true and orthodox Christian by believing all the doctrin of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetual Succession that believ'd it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastor or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conform my will and actions to the Commandments of God why may I not embrace his doctrin with my understanding although my predecessor do not so You have above in this Chapter defin'd Faith A free Infallible obscure supernatural assent to divine Truths because they are revealed by God and sufficiently propounded This definition is very phanrastical but for the present I will let it pass and desire you to give me some piece or shadow of reason why I may not do all this without a perpetual Succession of Bishops and Pastors that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as malitiously of me as your blind zeal to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I do believe the Gospel of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted books of Canonical Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I believe it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be divine Revelation and yet in this I do not depend upon any Succession of men that have alwayes believed it without any mixture of Errour nay I am fully perswaded there hath been no succession and yet do not find my self any way weakned in my faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your Divels at Lowden do tricks against it but though an Angel from heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I perswade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so hypersceptical as to perswade me that I am not sure that I do believe all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you believe the Church of Rome For if
nothing that is material and considerable pass without some stricture or animadversion 30. You pretend that M. Hooker acknowledgeth that That whereon we must rest our assurance that the Scripture is God's Word is the Church and for this acknowledgement you referre us to l. 3. § 8. Let the Reader consult the place and he shall find that he and M. Hooker have been much abused both by you here and by M. Breerly and others before you and that M. Hooker hath not one syllable to your pretended purpose but very much directly to the contrary There he tells us indeed That ordinaly the first Introduction and probable Motive to the belief of the verity is the Authority of the Church but that it is the last Foundation whereon our belief hereof is rationally grounded that in the same place he plainly denies His words are Scripture teacheth us that saving Truth which God hath discovered unto the world by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it self is Divine and Sacred The Question then being by what means we are taught this * Some answer so but he doth not some answer that to learn it we have no other way than Tradition As namely that so we believe because we from our Predecessors and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied and by experience we all know that (a) The first outward Motive not the last assurance whereon we rest the first outward Motive leading men to esteem of the Scripture is the Authority of God's Church For when we know (b) The whole Church that he speaks of seems to be that particular Church wherein a man is bred and brought up and the Authority of this he makes an Argument which presseth a man's modesty more than his reason And in saying It seems impudent to be of a contrary mind without cause he implies There may be a just cause to be of a contrary mind and that then it were no impudence to be so the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labour upon reading or hearing the mysteries thereof (c) Therefore the Authority of the Church is not the pause whereon we rest we had need of more assurance and the intâ—insâ—cal Arguments afford â—t the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our received opinion concerning it so that the former inducement prevailing (d) Somewhat bâ—t not much until it be backed and inforced by farther reason it self therefore is not the farthest reason and the last resolution somewhat with us before doth now much more prevail when the very thing hath ministred farther reason If Infidels or Atheists chance at any time to call it in question this giveth us occasion to sift what reason there is whereby the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture and our own perswasion which Scripture it self hath setled may be proved a truth infallible (e) Observe I pray Our perswasion and the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture may be proved true Therefore neither or them was in his account the farthest proof In which case the ancient Fathers being often constrained to shew what warrant they had so much to relie upon the Scriptures endeavoured still to maintain the Authority of the Books of God by Arguments such as the unbelievers themselves must needs think reasonable if they judge thereof as they should Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard even by such kind of proofs so to manifest and clear that Point that no man living shall be able to deny it without denying some apparent Principle such as all men acknowledg to be true (f) Natural reason thâ—n built on principles common to all men is the last resolution unto which the Churches Authority is but the first inducement By this time I hope the Reader sees sufficient proof of what I said in my Reply to your Preface that M. Breerelie's great ostentation of exactness is no very certain Argument of his fidelity 31. But seeing the belief of Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be proved by Scripture How can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contained in Scripture 32. I have answered this already And here again I say That all but cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the material objects of our Faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the means of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the Doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their salvation not to know whether there were any Scripture or no. Those barbarous Nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aims at is the belief of the Gospel the Covenant between God and Man the Scripture he hath provided as a means for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last Object of our Faith but as the Instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6 Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the final and ultimate Objects of it and not the Means and instrumental Objects and then there will be no repugnance between what they say and that which Hooker and D. Covel and D. Whitaker and Luther here say 33. But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of Holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. James Kemnitius and other Lutherans the second of Peter the second and third of John The Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of James of Jude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonical 34. So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the Authority of the very same Books and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgement of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonical or had they not If they had not it seems there is no great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical or no as you require If they had Why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs
of Irenaeus alledged here by you is utterly and plainly impertinent Or whether by this discourse you mean as I think you do not your Discourse but your Conclusion which you discourse on that is that Your Church is the Infallible Judge in Controversies For neither hath Irenaeus one syllable to this purpose neither can it be deduced out of what he says with any colour of consequence For first in saying What if the Apostles had not left Scripture ought we not to have followed the order of Tradition And in saying That to this order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of GOD without Letters or Ink and diligently keeping ancient Tradition Doth he not plainly shew that the Tradition he speaks of is nothing else but the very same that is written nothing but to believe in Christ To which whether Scripture alone to them that believe it be not a sufficient guide I leave it to you to judge And are not his words just as if a man should say If God had not given us the light of the Sun we must have made use of Candles and Torches If we had no eyes we must have felt out our way If we had no legs we must have used crutches And doth not this in effect import that while we have the Sun we need no Candles While we have our eyes we need not feel out our way While we enjoy our legs we need not crutches And by like reason Irenaeus in saying If we had no Scripture we must have followed Tradition and they that have none do well to do so Doth he not plainly import that to them that have Scripture and believe it Tradition is unnecessary Which could not be if the Scripture did not contain evidently the whole Tradition Which whether Irenaeus believed or no these words of his may inform you Non enim per alios c. we have received the disposition of our Salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospel came unto us Which Gospel truly the Apostles first preached and afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to us to be the Pillar and Foundation of our Faith Upon which place Bellarmine's two Observations and his acknowledgment ensuing upon them are very considerable and as I conceive as home to my purpose as I would wish them His first Notandum is That in the Christian Doctrin some things are simply necessary for the Salvation of all men as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostle's Creed and besides the knowledge of the ten Commandments and some of the Sacraments Other things are not so necessary but that a man may be saved without the explicit knowledge and belief and profession of them His second Note is That those things which were simply necessary the Apostles were wont to preach to all men But of other things not all to all but some things to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelates and Priests These things premised he acknowledgeth That all those things were written by the Apostles which are necessary for all and which they were wont openly to preach to all But that other things were not all written And therefore when Irenaeus says that the Apostles wrote what they preached in the World it is true saith he and not against Traditions because they preached not to the People all things but only those things which were necessary or profitable for them 145. So that at the most you can infer from hence but only a suppositive necessity of having an infallible Guide and that grounded upon a false supposition in case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity hereof and to them who have and believe the Scripture which is your Assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary 146. Neither because as He says it was then easie to receive the Truth from God's Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the Ancient and Apostolique Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentals of Faith Will it therefore follow that now 1600 years after when the ancient Churches are divided almost into as many Religions as they are Churches every one being the Church to it self and Heretical to all other that it is as easie but extreamly difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrin and then to find the truth by the Church 147. As for the last clause of the sentence it will not any whit advantage but rather prejudice your Assertion Neither wil I seek to avoid the pressure of it by saying that he speaks of small Questions and therefore not of Questions touching things necessary to Salvation which can hardly be called small Questions But I will favour you so far as to suppose that saying this of small Questions it is probable he would have said it much more of the Great but I will answer that which is most certain and evident and which I am confident you your self were you as impudent as I believe you modest would not deny That the Ancient Apostolique Churches are not now as they were in Irenaeus his time then they were all at Unity about matters of Faith which Unity was a good assurance that what they so agreed in came from some one common Fountain and that no other than of Apostolique Preaching And this is the very ground of Tertullian's so often mistaken Prescription against Heretiques Variâsse debuerat Errer Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unum est non est erratum sed traditum If the Churches had erred they could not but have varied but that which is one among so many came not by Error but Tradition But now the case is altered and the mischief is that these ancient Churches are divided among themselves and if we have recourse to them one of them will say This is the way to heaven another that So that now in place of receiving from them certain and clear truths we must expect nothing but certain and clear contradictions 148. Neither will the Apostle's depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and sincere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithful men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the careful keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus says The Apostles fully deposited
after this manner Concerning which matter we do not amiss if we produce a testimony out of Books although not Canonical yet set forth for the edification of the Church For Eleazar in the Book of Macchabees c. Which if it be not to reject it from being Canonical is without question at least to question it Moreover because you are so punctual as to talk of words and syllables I would know whether before Sixtus Quintus his time your Church had a defined Canon of Scripture or not If not then was your Church surely a most Vigilant Keeper of Scripture that for 1500. years had not defined what was Scripture and what was not If it had then I demand Was it that set forth by Sixtus or that set forth by Clement or a third different from both If it were that set forth by Sixtus then is it now condemned by Clement if that of Clement it was condemned I say but sure you will say contradicted and questioned by Sixtus If different from both then was it questioned and condemned by both and still lies under the condemnation But then lastly Suppose it had been true That both some Book not known to be Canonical had been received and that never any after receiving had been questioned How had this been a sign that the Church is infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost In what mood or figure would this Conclusion follow out of these Premisses Certainly your flying to such poor signs as these are is to me a great sign that you labour with penury of better Arguments and that thus to catch at shadows and bulrushes is a shrewd sign of a sinking cause 3. Ad. § 13. We are told here That the general promises of Infallibility to the Church must not be restrained only to points Fundamental Because then the Apostles words and writings may also be so restrained The Argument put in form and made compleat by supply of the concealed Proposition runs thus The Infallibility promised to the present Church of any Age is as absolute and unlimited as that promised to the Apostles in their Preaching and Writings But the Apostles Infallibility is not to be limited to Fundamentals Therefore neither is the Churche's Infallibility thus to be limited Or thus The Apostles Infallibility in their Preaching and Writing may be limited to Fundamentals as well as the Infallibility of the present Church But that is not to be done Therefore this also is not to be done Now to this Argument I answer that if by may be as well in the Major Proposition be understood may be as possibly it is true but impertinent If by it we understand may be as justly and rightly It is very pertinent but very false So that as D. Potter limits the infallibility of the Present Church unto Fundamentals so another may limit the Apostles unto them also He may do it de facto but de jure he cannot that may be done and done lawfully this also may be done but not lawfully That may be done and if it be done cannot be confuted This also may be done but if it be done may easily be confuted It is done to our hand in this very Paragraph by five words taken out of Scripture All Scripture is divinely inspired Shew but as much for the Church Shew where it is written That all the Decrees of the Church are divinely inspired and the Controversie will be at end Besides there is not the same reason for the Churche's absolute Infallibility as for the Apostles and Scripture's For if the Church fall into error it may be reformed by comparing it with the Rule of the Apostles Doctrine and Scripture But if the Apostles have erred in delivering the Doctrine of Christianity to whom shall we have recourse for the discovering and correcting their error Again there is not so much strength required in the Edifice as in the Foundation and if but wise men have the ordering of the building they will make it much a surer thing that the foundation shall not fail the building than that the building shall not fall from the foundation And though the building be to be of Brick or Stone and perhaps of Wood yet if it may be possibly they will have a Rock for their Foundation whose stability is a much more indubitable thing than the adherence of the structure to it Now the Apostles and Prophets and Canonical Writers are the Foundation of the Church according to that of S. Paul Built upon the Foundation of Apostles and Prophets therefore their stability in reason ought to be greater then the Churche's which is built upon them Again a dependant Infallibility especially if the dependance be voluntary cannot be so certain as that on which it depends But the Infallibility of the Church depends upon the Infallibility of the Apostles as the straitness of the thing regulated upon the straitness of the Rule and besides this dependance is voluntary for it is in the power of the Church to deviate from this Rule being nothing else but an aggregation of men of which every one hath free-will and is subject to passions and error Therefore the Churche's Infallibility is not so certain as that of the Apostles 31. Lastly Quid verba audiam cum facta videam If you be so Infallible as the Apostles were shew it as the Apostles did They went forth saith S. Mark and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming their words with signs following It is impossible that God should lye and that the eternal Truth should set his hand and seal to the confirmation of a falshood or of such Doctrine as is partly true and partly false The Apostles Doctrine was thus confirmed therefore it was intirely true and in no part either false or uncertain I say in no part of that which they delivered constantly as a certain divine Truth and which had the Attestation of Divine Miracles For that the Apostles themselves even after the sending of the Holy Ghost were and through inadvertence or prejudice continued for a time in an errour repugnant to a revealed Truth it is as I have already noted unanswerably evident from the Story of the Acts of the Apostles For notwithstanding our Saviour's express Warrant and Injunction To go and preach to all Nations yet until S. Peter was better informed by a Vision from Heaven and by the conversion of Cornelius both he and the rest of the Church held it unlawful for them to go or preach the Gospel to any but the Jews 32. And for those things which they profess to deliver as the dictates of humane reason and prudence and not as divine Revelations why we should take them to be divine Revelations I see no reason nor how we can do so and not contradict the Apostles and God himself Therefore when S. Paul says in the 1. Epist to the Corinth 7.12 To the rest speak I not the Lord And again Concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the
Teacher why are we commanded to hear to seek to obey the Church I answer For Commands to seek the Church I have not yet met with any and I believe you if you were to shew them would be your self to seek But yet if you could produce some such we might seek the Church to many good purposes without supposing her a Guide infallible And then for hearing and obeying the Church I would fain know Whether none may be heard and obeyed but those that are Infallible Whether particular Churches Governors Pastors Paretns be not to be heard and obeyed Or whether all these be infallible I wonder you will thrust upon us so often these worn-out Objections without taking notice of their Answers 42. Your Argument from S. Austines first place is a Fallacy A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter If the whole Church practise any of these things matters of order and decency for such only there he speaks of to dispute whether that ought to be done is insolent madness And from hence you inferr If the whole Church practise any thing to dispute whether it ought to be done is insolent madness As if there were no difference between any thing and any of these things Or as if I might not esteem it pride and folly to contradict and disturb the Church for matter of order pertaining to the time and place and other circumstances of Gods worship and yet account it neither pride nor folly to go about to reform some errors which the Church hath suffered to come in and to vitiate the very substance of Gods worship It was a practice of the whole Church in S. Austines time and esteemed an Apostolique Tradition even by Saint Austin himself That the Eucharist should be administred to Infants Tell me Sir I beseech you Had it been insolent madness to dispute against this practice or had it not If it had how insolent and mad are you that have not only disputed against it but utterly abolished it If it had not then as I say you must understand Saint Austines words not simply of all things but as indeed he himself restrained them of these things of matter of Order Decency and Uniformity 43. In the next place you tell us out of him That that which hath been alwaies kept is most rightly esteemed to come from the Apostles Very right and what then Therefore the Church cannot erre in defining of Controversies Sir I beseech you when you write again do us the favour to write nothing but Syllogisms for I find it still an extreame trouble to find out the concealed Propositions which are to connect the parts of your Enthymems As now for example I profess unto you I am at my wits end and have done my best endeavour to finde some glue or sodder or cement or chain or thred or any thing to tye this antecedent and this consequent together and at length am enforced to give it over and cannot do it 44. But the Doctrines That Infants are to be baptized and those that are baptized by Heretiques are not to reâ— baptized are neither of them to be proved by Scripture And yet according to S. Austine they are true Doctrines and we may be certain of them upon the Authority of the Church which we could not be unless the Church were Infallible therefore the Church is infallible I answer that there is no repugnance but we may be certain enough of the Universal Traditions of the ancient Church such as in S. Austins account these were which here are spoken of and yet not be certain enough of the definitions of the present Church Unless you can shew which I am sure you can never do that the Infallibility of the present Church was alwaies a Tradition of the Ancient Church Now your main business is to prove the present Church infallible not so much in consigning ancient Tradition as in defining emergent Controversies Again it follows not because the Churches Authority is warrant enough for us to believe some Doctrin touching which the Scripture is silent therefore it is Warrant enough to believe these to which the Scripture seems repugnant Now the Doctrines which S. Austin received upon the Churches Authority were of the first sort the Doctrines for which we deny your Churches Infallibility are of the second And therefore though the Churches Authority might be strong enough to bear the weight which S. Austin laid upon it yet haply it may not be strong enough to bear that which you lay upon it Though it may support some Doctrines without Scripture yet surely not against it And last of all to deal ingenuously with You and the World I am not such an Idolater of S. Austin as to think a thing proved sufficiently because he says it not that all his sentences are Oracles and particularly in this thing that whatsoever was practised or held by the Universal Church of his time must needs have come from the Apostles Though considering the neerness of his time to the Apostles I think it a good probable way and therefore am apt enough to follow it when I see no reason to the contrary Yet I profess I must have better satisfaction before I can induce my my self to hold it certain and infallible And this not because Popery would come in at this door as some have vainly feared but because by the Church Universal of some time and the Church Universal of other times I see plain contradictions held and practised Both which could not come from the Apostles for then the Apostles had been teachers of falshood And therefore the belief or practice of the present Universal Church can be no infallible proof that the Doctrine so believed or the Custom so practised came from the Apostles I instance in the Doctrine of the Millenaries and the Eucharists necessity for Infants both which Doctrines have been taught by the consent of the eminent Fathers of some Ages without any opposition from any of their Contemporaries and were delivered by them not as Doctors but as Witnesses not as their own opinions but as Apostolike Traditions And therefore measuring the Doctrin of the Church by all the Rules which Cardinal Perron gives us for that purpose both these Doctrins must be acknowledged to have been the Doctrins of the ancient Church of some Age or Ages And that the contrary Doctrines were Catholique at some other time I believe you will not think it needful for me to prove So that either I must say the Apostles were Fountains of contradictious Doctrines or that being the Universal Doctrin of the present Church is no sufficient proof that it came originally from the Apostles Besides who can warrant us that the Universal Traditions of the Church were all Apostolical seeing in that famous place for Traditions in Tertullian (a) De Corona Militis c. 3. 4. Where having recounted sundry unwritten Traditions then observed by Christians many whereof by the way notwithstanding the Councel of
of Charity mistaken demands a particular Catalogue of Fundamental points And We say you again and again demand such a Catalogue And surely If this one Proposition which here you think to stop our mouths with be a Catalogue yet at least such a Catalogue it is not and therefore as yet you have not performed what you require For if to set down such a Proposition wherein are comprized all points taught by us to be necessary to salvation will serve you instead of a Catalogue you shall have Catalogues enough As we are obliged to believe all under pain of damnation which God commands us to believe There 's one Catalogue We are obliged under Pain of damnation to believe all whereof we may be sufficiently assured that Christ taught it his Apostles his Apostles the Church There 's another We are obliged under pain of damnation to believe Gods Word and all contained in it to be true There 's a third If these generalities will not satisfie you but you will be importuning us to tell you in particular what those Doctrins are which Christ taught his Apostles and his Apostles the Church what points are contained in Gods Word Then I beseech you do us reason and give us a particular and exact Inventory of all your Church-proposals without leaving out or adding any such a one which all the Doctors of your Church will subscribe to and if you receive not then a Catalogue of Fundamentals I for my part will give you leave to proclaim us Bankrupts 54. Besides this deceitful generality of your Catalogue as you call it another main fault we find with it that it is extreamly ambiguous and therefore to draw you out of the Clouds give me leave to propose some Questions to you concerning it I would know therefore whether by Believing you mean explicitely or implicitely If you mean implicitely I would know Whether your Churches Infallibility be under pain of damnation to be believed explicitely or no Whether any other point or points besides this be under the same penalty to be believed explicitely or no and if any what they be I would know what you esteem the Proposals of the Catholike visible Church In particular whether the Decree of the Pope ex Cathedra that is with an intent to oblige all Christians by it be a sufficient and an obliging Proposal Whether men without danger of Damnation may examin such a Decree and if they think they have just cause refuse to obey it Whether the Decree of a Councel without the Pope's Confirmation be such an obliging Proposal or no Whether it be so in case there be no Pope or in case it be doubtful who is Pope Whether the Decree of a general Councel confirmed by the Pope be such a Proposal and whether he be an Heretique that thinks otherwise Whether the Decree of a particular Councel confirmed by the Pope be such a Proposal Whether the General uncondemned practice of the Church for some Ages be such a sufficient Proposition Whether the consent of the most eminent Fathers of any Age agreeing in the affirmation of any Doctrin not contradicted by any of their Contemporaries be a sufficient Proposition Whether the Fathers testifying such or such a Doctrin or practice to be Tradition or to be the Doctrin or practice of the Church be a sufficient assurance that it is so Whether we be bound under pain of damnation to believe every Text of the vulgar Bible now authorized by the Roman Church to be the true Translation of the Originals of the Prophets and Evangelists and Apostles without any the least alteration Whether they that lived when the Bible of Sixtus was set forth were bound under pain of damnation to believe the same of that And if not of that of what Bible they were bound to believe it Whether the Catholike visible Church be alwaies that Society of Christians which adheres to the Bishop of Rome Whether every Christian that hath ability and opportunity be not bound to endevour to know explicitely the Proposals of the Church Whether Implicite Faith in the Churches Veracity will not save him that actually and explicitely disbelieves some Doctrin of the Church not knowing it to be so and actually believes some damnable Heresie as that God hath the shape of a man Whether an ignorant man be bound to believe any point to be decreed by the Church when his Priest or ghostly Father assures him it is so Whether his ghostly Father may not erre in telling him so and whether any man can be obliged under pain of damnation to believe an Errour Whether he be bound to believe such a thing defined when a number of Priests perhaps ten or twenty tell him it is so And what assurance he can have that they neither erre nor deceive him in this matter Why Implicite Faith in Christ or the Scriptures should not suffice for a mans Salvation as well as implicite faith in the Church Whether when you say Whatsoever the Church proposeth you mean all that ever she proposed or that only which she now proposeth and whether she now proposeth all that ever she did propose Whether all the Books of Canonical Scripture were sufficiently declared to the Church to be so and proposed as such by the Apostles And if not from whom the Church had this Declaration afterward If so whether all men ever since the Apostles time were bound under pain of damnation to believe the Epistle of S. James and the Epistle to the Hebrews to be Canonical at least not to disbelieve it and believe the contrary Lastly why it is not sufficient for any mans Salvation to use the best means he can to inform his conscience and to follow the direction of it To all these demands when you have given fair and ingenuous Answers you shall hear farther from me 55. Ad § 20. At the first entrance into this Paragraph From our own Doctrin That the Church cannot erre in Points necessary it is concluded if we are wise we must forsake it in nothing lest we should forsake it in something necessary To which I answer First that the supposition as you understand it is falsly imposed upon us and as we understand it will do you no service For when we say that there shall be a Church alwaies some where or other unerring in Fundamentals our meaning is but this that there shall be alwaies a Church to the very being whereof it is repugnant that it should erre in Fundamentals for if it should do so it would want the very Essence of a Church and therefore cease to be a Church But we never annexed this priviledge to any one Church of any one Denomination as the Greek or the Roman Church which if we had done and set up some setled certain Society of Christians distinguishable from all others by adhering to such a Bishop for our Guide in Fundamentals then indeed and then only might you with some colour though with no certainty have
between him and Amerbachius and he shall confess as much is and hath been the only fountain of all the Schisms of the Church and that which makes them immortal the common incendiary of Christendom and that which as I said before tears into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo Take away these Walls of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man Master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaim it disclaim it likewise in their actions In a word take away Tyranny which is the Devils instrument to support errors and superstitions and impieties in the several parts of the world which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away Tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage run all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by God's blessing that Universal Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendom to Truth and Unity These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to His blessing I commend them and proceed 18. Your fifth and last Objection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it self nothing else but a Doctrin Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great Ones among you stick not to profess in plain terms who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrin is Catholique and Apostolique So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibet aetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to ' All So that every Age hath its proper verities which the former Age was ignorant of Dis 57. in Epist ad Rom. And again in the Margent Habet unumquodque saeculum peculiares revelationes divinas Every Age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he give us a little before in these words Unius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrin of Augustine only hath brought into the Church the Worship of the Assumption of the Mother of God c. Others again mince and palliate the matter with this pretence that your Church undertakes not to coyn new Articles of Faith but only to declare those that want sufficient Declaration But if sufficient declaration be necessary to make any Doctrin an Article of Faith then this Doctrin which before wanted it was not before an Article of Faith and your Church by giving it the Essential form and last complement of an Article of Faith makes it though not a Truth yet certainly an Article of Faith But I would fain know whether Christ and his Apostles knew this Doctrin which you pretend hath the matter but wants the form of an Article of Faith that is sufficient declaration whether they knew it to be a necessary Article of the Faith or no. If they knew it not to be so then either they taught what they knew not which were very strange or else they taught it not and if not I would gladly be informed seeing you pretend to no new Revelations From whom you learned it If they knew it then either they concealed or declared it To say they concealed any necessary part of the Gospel is to charge them with far greater sacriledge than what was punished in Ananias and Saphira It is to charge these glorious Stewards and Dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ with want of the great vertue requisite in a Steward which is Fidelity It is to charge them with presumption for denouncing Anathema's even to Angels in case they should teach any other Doctrin than what they had received from them which sure could not merit an Anathema if they left any necessary part of the Gospel untaught It is in a word in plain terms to give them the lye seeing they profess plainly and frequently that they taught Christians the whole Doctrin of Christ If they did know and declare it then it was a full and formal Article of faith and the contrary a full and formal Heresie without any need of further declaration and then their Successors either continued the declaration of it or discontinued it If they did the latter How are they such faithful Depositaries of Apostolique Doctrin as you pretend Or what assurance can you give us that they might not bring in new and false Articles as well as suffer the oldand true ones to be lost If they did continue the declaration of it and deliver it to their Successors and they to theirs and so on perpetually then continued it still a full and formal Article of Faith and the repugnant doctrin a full and formal Heresie without and before the definition or declaration of a Councel So that Councels as they cannot make that a truth or falshood which before was not so so neither can they make or declare that to be an Article of Faith or an Heresie which before was not so The supposition therefore on which this Argument stands being false and ruinous whatsoever ' is built upon it must together with it fall to the ground This explication therefore and restriction of this doctrin whereof you make your advantage was to my understanding unnecessary The Fathers of the Church in after-times might have just cause to declare their judgment touching the sense of some general Articles of the Creed but to oblige others to receive their declarations under pain of damnation what warrant they had I know not He that can shew either that the Church of all Ages was to have this Authority or that it continued in the Church for some Ages and then expired He that can shew either of these things let him for my part I cannot Yet I willingly confess the judgment of a Councel though not infallible is yet so far directive and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sin to reject it at least not to afford it an outward submission for publique peace sake 19. Ad § 7 8 9. Were I not peradventure more fearful than I need to be of the imputation of tergiversation I might very easily rid my hands of the remainder of this Chapter For in the Question there discussed you grant for ought I see as much as D. Potter desires and D. Potter grants as much as
being prepared in mind to come out of all Error in Faith or material Heresie which certainly you will not deny or if you do you pull down the only pillar of your Church and Religion and deny that which is in effect the only thing you labour to prove through your whole Book 79. The latter Creed which now we have is so uneffectual for these good purposes that you your self tell us of innumerable gross damnable Heresies that have been are and may be whose contrary Truths are neither explicitly nor by consequence comprehended in this Creed So that no man by the belief of this Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary Points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to mis-guide men into this as you conceive it pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary Points of Faith whereas indeed according to you they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better than that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed propos'd by me I believe the Roman Church to be infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 80. But say you by this kind of arguing one might infer quite contrary If the Apostles Creed contain all Points necessary to Salvation What need have we of any Church to teach us And consequently what need of the Article of the Church To which I answer that having compared your inference and D. Potter's together I cannot discover any shadow of resemblance between them nor any shew of Reason why the perfection of the Apostles Creed should exclude a necessity of some body to deliver it Much less why the whole Creed's containing all things necessary should make the belief of a part of it unnecessary As well for ought I understand you might avouch this inference to be as good as D. Potters The Apostles Creed contains all things necessary therefore there is no need to believe in God Neither doth it follow so well as D. Potter's Argument follows That if the Apostles Creed contains all things necessary that all other Creeds and Catechisms wherein are added divers other Particulars are superfluous For these other Particulars may be the duties of obedience they may be profitable Points of Doctrine they may be good expositions of the Apostles Creed and so not superfluous and yet for all this the Creed may still contain all Points of Belief that are simply necessary These therefore are poor consequences but no more like D. Potters than an apple is like an oister 81. But this consequence after you have sufficiently slighted and disgraced it at length you promise us news and pretend to grant it But what is that which you mean to grant That the Apostles did put no Article in their Creed but only that of the Church Or that if they had done so they had done better than now they have done This is D. Potter's inference out of your Doctrin and truly if you should grant this this were news indeed Yes say you I will grant it but only thus far that Christ hath referred us only to his Church Yea but this is clean another thing and no news at all that you should grant that which you would fain have granted to you So that your dealing with us is just as if a man should proffer me a courtesie and pretend that he would oblige himself by a note under his hand to give me twenty pound and instead of it write that I owe him forty and desire me to subsctibe to it and be thankful Of such favours as these it is very safe to be liberal 82. You tell us afterward but how it comes in I know not that it were a childish argument The Creed contains not all things necessary Ergo It is not profitable Or The Church alone is sufficient to teach us by some convenient means Ergo She must teach us without means These indeed are childish arguments but for ought I see you alone are the father of them for in D. Potter's book I can neither meet with them nor any like them He indeed tels you that if by an impossible supposition your Doctrin were true another and a far shorter Creed would have been more expedient even this alone I believe the Roman Church to be infallible But why you should conclude he makes this Creed which we have unprofitable because he says another that might be conceived upon this false supposition would be more profitable or that he lays a necessity upon the Church of teaching without means or of not teaching this very Creed which now is taught these things are so subtil that I cannot apprehend them To my understanding by those words And sent us to the Church for all the rest he does rather manifestly imply that the rest might be very well not only profitable but necessary and that the Church was to teach this by Creeds or Catechisms or Councels or any other means which she should make choice of for being Infallible she could not chuse amiss 83. Whereas therefore you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholique Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if in stead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the Faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion For then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary Points of simple Belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbol should
that those amongst you who were invincibly ignorant of the truth might by Gods great mercy have their errors pardoned and their souls saved And this is all he says and this you confess to be all he says in divers places of your Book which is no more than you your self do and must affirm of Protestants and yet I believe you will not suffer us to inferr from hence that you grant Protestants to have for the substance the true preaching of the Word and due administration of the Sacraments and want nothing fundamental or necessary to salvation And if we should draw this consequence from your concession certainly we should do you injury in regard many things may in themselves and in ordinary course be necessary to salvation to those that have means to attain them as your Church generally hath which yet by accident to these which were by some impregnable impediment debarred of these means may by Gods mercy be made unnecessary 27. Lastly whereas you say that Protestants must either grant that your Church then was the visible Church or name some other disagreeing from yours and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrin or acknowledge there was no visible Church It is all one as if to use S. Paul's similitude the head should say to the foot Either you must grant that I am the whole body or name some other member that is so or confess that there is no body To which the foot may answer I acknowledge there is a body and yet that no member beside you is this body nor yet that you are it but only a part of it And in like manner say we We acknowledge a Church there was corrupted indeed universally but yet such a one as we hope by Gods gracious acceptance was still a Church We pretend not to name any one Society that was this Church and yet we see no reason that can inforce us to confess that yours was the Church but only a part of it and that one of the worst then extant in the World In vain therefore have you troubled your self in proving that we cannot pretend that either the Greeks Waldenses Wickliffites Hussites Muscovites Armenians Georgians Abyssines were then the visible Church For all this discourse proceeds upon a false and vain supposition and begs another point in Question between us which is that some Church of one denomination and one Communion as the Roman the Greek c. must be always exclusively to all other Communions the whole visible Church And though perhaps some weak Protestant having this false principle setled in him that there was to be always some Visible Church of one denomination pure from all error in doctrin might be wrought upon prevailed with by it to forsake the Church of Protestants yet why it should induce him to go to yours rather than the Greek Church or any other which pretends to perpetual succession as well as yours that I do not understand unless it be for the reason which Aeneus Sylvius gave why more held the Pope above a Council than a Council above the Pope which was because Popes did give Bishopricks and Archbishopricks but Councils gave none and therefore suing in Forma Pauperis were not like to have their cause very well maintained For put the case I should grant of meer favour that there must be always some Church of one Denomination and Communion free from all errours in doctrin and that Protestants had not always such a Church it would follow indeed from thence that I must not be a Protestant But that I must be a Papist certainly it would follow by no better consequence than this If you will leave England you must of necessity go to Rome And yet with this wretched Fallacy have I been sometimes abused my self and known many other poor souls seduced not only from their own Church and Religion but unto yours I beseech God to open the eyes of all that love the truth that they may not always be held captive under such miserable delusions 28. We see then how unsuccessful you have been in making good your accusation with reasons drawn from the nature of the thing and which may be urged in common against all Protestants Let us come now to the Arguments of the other kind which you build upon D. Potter's own words out of which you promise unanswerable reasons to convince Protestants of Schism 29. But let the understanding Reader take with him but three or four short Remembrances and I dare say he shall find them upon examination not only answerable but already answered The Memorandums I would commend to him are these 30. 1. That not every separation but only a causeless separation from the external Communion of any Church is the Sin of Schism 31. 2. That Imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alleage to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome 32. 3. That to leave the Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church at least as D. Potter understands the words is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to have those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and Obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publike worship of God This little Armour if it be rightly placed I am perswaded will repel all those Batteries which you threaten shall be so furious 33. Ad § 13 14 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austine against Donatus applyed to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madness moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoyd the Communion of bad men Whereunto one fair answer to let pass many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospel as it is not is impertinently applyed to Luther and Lutherans whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties And your not substituting Luther instead of Donatus in the later part of the Dilemma as well as in the former would make a suspicious man conjecture that you your self took notice of this exception of disparity between Donatus and Luther 34. Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrin if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you do understand it is a certain truth and it is easier for you to declaim as you do than to dispute against it But these men you say must
3. Church in the house and territory of a Spanish Lady called Lucilla who went flying out of the Catholique Church because she had been justly checked by Caecilianus And the same Saint speaking of the conference he had with Fortunius the Donatist saith Here did he first (x) Ep. 163. attempt to affirm that his Communion was spread over the whole Earth c. but because the thing was evidently false they got out of this discourse by confusion of language whereby nevertheless they sufficiently declared that they did not hold that the true Church ought necessarily to be confined to one place but only by meer necessity were forced to yield that it was so in fact because their Sect which they held to be the only true Church was not spread over the world In which point Fortunius and the rest were more modest than he who should affirm that Luther's reformation in the very beginning was spread over the whole Earth being at that time by many degrees not so far diffused as the Sect of the Donatists I have no desire to prosecure the similitude of Protestanes with Donatists by remembring that the Sect of these men was begun and promoted by the passion of Lucilla and Who is ignorant what influence two women the Mother and Daughter ministred to Protestancy in England Nor will I stand to observe their very likeness of phrase with the Donatists who called the Chair of Rome the Chair of pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot which is D. Potter's own phrase wherein he is less excusable than they because he maintaineth her to be a true Church of Christ and therefore let him duly ponder these words of S. Augustin against the Donatists If I persecute him justly who detracts (y) Conc. super gest cum Emerit from his Neighbour why should I not presecute him who detracts from the Church of Christ and saith This is not she but this is an Harlot And least of all will I consider whether you may not be well compared to one Ticonius a Dona i st who wrote against Parmenianus likewise a Donatist who blasphemed that the Church of Christ had perished as you do even in this your Book write against some of your Protestant Brethren or as you call them Zelots among you who hold the very same or rather a worse Heresie and yet remained among them even after Parmenianus had excommunicated him as those your Zealous Brethren would proceed against you if it were in their power and yet like Ticonius you remain in their Communion and come nor into that Church which is hath been and shall ever be universal For which very cause S. Augustin complains of Ticonius that although he wrote against the Donatists yet he was of an heart (z) De doctr Christ lib. 3. cap. 30. so extremely absurd as not to forsake them altogether And speaking of the same thing in another place he observes that although Ticonius did manifestly confute them who affirmed that the Church had perished yet he saw not saith this holy Father that which in good consequence (a) Cont. Parm. l. 1. cap. 1. he should have seen that those Christians of Africa belonged to the Church spread over the whole world who remained united not with them who were divided from the communion and unity of the same world but with such as did communicate with the whole world But Parmenianus and the rest of the Donatists saw that consequence and resolved rather to settle their mind in obstinacy against the most manifest truth which Ticonius maintained than by yielding thereto to be overcome by those Churches in Africa which enjoyed the Communion of that Unity which Ticonius defended from which they had divided themselves How firly these words agree to Catholiques in England in respect of the Protestants I desire the Reader to consider But these and the like resemblances of Protestants to the Donatists I willingly let pass and only urge the main point That since Luther's Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was because so forsooth they will needs have it in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true and unsported Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O blasphemy an Harlot Moreover the same heresie follows out of the doctrin of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may err in points not fundamental because we have shewed that every errour against any one revealed truth is Heresie and damnable whether the matter be otherwise of it self great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie Besides we will hereafter prove that by any act of Heresie all divine faith is lost and to imagine a true Church of faithful persons without any faith is as much as to fancy a living man without life It is therefore clear that Donatist-like they hold that the Church of Christ perished yea they are worse than the Donatists who said that the Church remained at least in Africa whereas Protestants must of necessity be forced to grant that for a long space before Luther she was no where at all But let us go forward to other reasons 18 The holy Scripture and Ancient Fathers do assign Separation from the Visible Church as a mark of Heresie according to that of S. John They went out (b) 2. Joan. 19. from us And Some who (c) Act. 15.24 went out from us And Out of you shall (d) Act. 20.30 arise men speaking perverse things And accordingly Vincentius Lyrinensis saith Who ever (e) Lib. adversus haer c. 34. began heresies who did not first separate himself from the Universality Antiquity and Consent of the Catholique Church But it is manifest that when Luther appeared there was no visible Church distinct from the Roman out of which she could depart as it is likewise wel known that Luther and his followers departed out of her Therefore she is no way liable to this Mark of Heresie but Protestants cannot possibly avoid it To this purpose S. Prosper hath these pithy words A Christian communicating (f) Dimid temp cap. 5. with the universal Church is a Catholique and he who is divided from her is an Heretique and Antichrist But Luther in his first Reformation could not communicate with the visible Catholique Church of those times because he began his Reformation by opposing the supposed Errors of the then visible Church we must therefore say with S. Prosper that he was an Heretique c. Which likewise is no less clearly proved out of S. Cyprian saying Not we (g) Ep. 57. ad Damas departed from them but they from us and since Heresies and Schisms are bred afterwards while they make to themselves divers Conventicles they have forsaken the head and origin of Truth 19. And that we might not remain doubtful what Separation
it is which is the mark of Heresie the Ancient Fathers tell us more in particular that it is from the Church of Rome as it is the Sea of Peter And therefore D. Potter need not to be so hot with us because we say and write that the Church of Rome in that sense as she is the Mother-Church of all others and with which all the rest agree is truly called the Catholique Church S. Hierome writing to Pope Damasus saith I am in the Communion (h) Lib. 1. Apolog of the Chair of Peter I know that the Church is built upon that Rock Whosoever shall eat the Lamb out of this house he is prophane If any shall not be in the Ark of Noe he shall perish in the time of the deluge Whosoever doth not gather with thee doth scatter that is he that is not of Christ is of Antichrist And elsewhere Which doth he (i) Ibid. lib. 3. call his faith That of the Roman Church Or that which is contained in the Books of Origen If he answer The Roman then we are Catholiques who have translated nothing of the error of Origen And yet farther Know thou that the k Roman faith commended by the voyce of the Apostle doth not receive these delusions though an Angel should denounce otherwise than it hath once been preached S. Ambrose recounting how his Brother Satyrus inquiring for a Church wherein to give thanks for his delivery from shipwrack saith He called unto him (l) De obitu Satyri fratris the Bishop neither did he esteem any favour to be true except that of the true faith and he asked of him whether be agreed with the Catholique Bishops that is with the Roman Church And having understood that he was a Schismatique that is separated from the Roman Church he abstained from communicating with him Where we see the privâ—ledge of the Roman Church confirmed both by word and deed by doctrin and practice And the same Saint saith of the Roman Church From thence the Rites (m) Lib. 1. ep 4. ad Imperatores of Venerable Communion do flow to all Saint Cyprian saith They are bold (n) Epist 55. ad Cornel. to sail to the Chair of Peter and to the principal Church from whence Priestly Unity hath sprung Neither do they consider that they are Romans whose faith was commended by the preaching of the Apostle to whom falshood cannot have access Where we see this holy Father joyns together the principal Church and the Chair of Peter and affirmâ—th that falshood not only hath not had but cannot have access to that Sea And elsewhere Thou wrotest that I should send (o) Epist 52. a Copy of the same letters to Cornelius our Colleague that laying aside all sollicitude he might now be assured that thou didst communicate with him that is with the Catholique Church What think you M. Doctor of these words Is it so strange a thing to take for one and the same thing to communicate with the Church and Pope of Rome and to communicate with the Catholique Church S. Irenaeus saith Because it were long to number the succession of all Chuâ—ches (p) Lib. 3 cont haer c. 3. we declaring the Tradition and faith preached to men and coming to us by Tradition of the most great most ancient and most known Church founded by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul which Tradition it hath from the Apostles coming to us by succession of Bishops we confound all those who any way either by evil complacence of themselves or vain glory or by blindness or ill opinion do gather otherwise than they ought For to this Church for a more powerful Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithful people of what place soever in which Roman Church the Tradition which is from the Apostles hath alwayes been conserved from those who are every where Saint Augustine saith It grieves us (q) In Psal coâ—t patrâ—m Donati to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeded to whom She is the Rock which the proud Gates of Hell do not overcome And in another place speaking of Caecilianus he saith He might contemâ— the conspiring (r) Ep. 162. multitude of his Enemies because he knew himself to be united by Communicatory letters both to the Roman Church in which the Principality of the Sea Apostolique did alwayes flourish and to other Countâ—ies from whence the Gospel came first into Africa Ancient Tertullian saith If thou be neer Italy thou hast Rome whose (s) Praescr cap. 36. Authority is nâ—er at hand to us a happy Church into which the Apostles have poured all Doctrine together with their bloud Saint Basil in a letter to the Bishop of Rome saith In very deed that which was given (t) Epist ad Pont. Rom. by our Lord to thy Piety is worthy of that must excellent voyce which procâ—â—â—med thee Blessed to wit that thou mayst discern betwixt that which is counterfeit and that which is lawful and pure and without any diminution mayest preach the faith of our Ancestours Maximâ—nianus Bishop of Constantinople about twelve hundred years ago said All the bounds of the earth who have siâ—ccrely acknowledged our Lord and Catholiques through the whole world professing the true faith look upon the power of the Bishop of Rome as upon the Sun c. For the Creator of the world amongst all men of the world elected him he speaks of S. Peter to whom he granted the Chair of Dectour to be principally possessed by a perpetual right of Priviledge that whosoever is desirous to know any Divine and profound thing may have recourse to the Oracle and Doctrin of this Instruction John Patriarch of Constantinople more than eleven hundred years ago in an Epistle to Pope Hormisda writeth thus Because (u) Epist ad Hormis P. P. the beginning of salvation is to conserve the rule of right Faith and in no wise to swarve from the Tradition of our Fore Fathers because the words of our Lord cannot fail saying Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church the proofs of deeds have made good those words because in the Sea Apostolical the Catholique Religion is alwayes conserved inviolable And again We promise hereafter not to recite in the sacred Mysteries the names of them who are excluded from the Communion of the Catholique Church that is to say who consent not fully with the Sea Apostolique Many other Authorities of the Ancient Fathers might be produced to this purpose but these may serve to shew that both the Latin and Greek Fathers held for a Note of being a Catholique or an Heretique To have been united or divided from the Sea of Rome And I have purposely alleadged only such Authorities of Fathers as speak of the priviledges of the Sea of Rome as of things permanent and depending
on our Saviour's promise to S. Peter from which a general rule and ground ought to be taken for all Ages because Heaven and Earth shall (w) Mat. 24.35 pass but the word of our Lord shall remain for ever So that I here conclude that seeing it is manifest that Luther and his followers divided themselves from the Sea of Rome they bear the inseparable Mark of Heresie 20. And though my meaning be not to treat the point of Ordination or Succession in the Protestants Church because the Fathers alleadged in the last reason assign Succession as one mark of the true Church I must not omit to say that according to the grounds of Protestants themselves they can neither pretend personal Succession of Bishops nor Succession of Doctrin For whereas Succession of Bishops signifies a never-interrupted line of Persons endued with an indelible Quality which Divines call a Character which cannot be taken away by deposition degradation or other means whatsoever and endued also with Jurisdiction and Authority to teach to preach to govern the Church by laws precepts censures c. Protestants cannot pretend Succession in either of these For besides that there was never Protestant Bishop before Luther and that there can be no continuance of Succession where there was no beginning to succeed they commonly acknowledge no Character and consequently must affirm that when their pretended Bishops or Priests are deprived of Jurisdiction or degraded they remain meer lay persons as before their Ordination fulfilling what Tertullian objects as a mark of Heresie To day a Priest to morrow (x) Praescr cap. 41. a Lay-man For if here be no immoveable Character their power of Order must consist only in Jurisdiction and authority or in a kind of moral deputation to some function which therefore may be taken away by the same power by which it was given Neither can they pretend Succession in Authority or Jurisdiction For all the Authority or Jurisdiction which they had was conferred by the Church of Rome that is by the Pope Because the whole Church collectively doth not meet to ordain Bishops or Priests or to give them Authority But according to their own doctrin they believe that the Pope neither hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm which they swear even when they are ordained Bishops Priests and Deacons How then can the Pope give Jurisdiction where they swear he neither hath or OUGHT to have any Or if yet he had how could they without Schism withdraw themselves from his obedience Besides the Roman Church never gave them Authority to oppose Her by whom it was given But grant their first Bishops had such Authority from the Church of Rome after the decease of those men Who gave Authority to their pretended Successours The Primate of England But from whom had he such Authority And after his decease who shall conferr Authority upon his Successors The Temporal Magistrate King Henry neither a Catholique nor a Protestant King Edward a Child Queen Elizabeth a Woman An Infant of one hours Age is true King in case of his Predecessor's decâ—ase But shall your Church lie fallow till that Infant-King and green Head of the Church come to years of discretion Do your Bishops your Hierarchy your Succession your Sacraments your being or not being Heretiques for want of Succession depend on this new-found Supremacy-doctrin brought in by such a man meerly upon base occasions and for shameful ends impugned by Calvin and his followers derided by the Christian world and even by chief Protestants as D. Andrews Wotton c. not held for any necessary point of Faith And from whom I pray you had Bishops their Authority when there were no Christian Kings Must the Greek Patriarchs receive spiritual Jurisdiction from the Great Turk Did the Pope by the Baptism of Princes lose the spiritual Power he formerly had of conferring spiritual Jurisdiction upon Bishops Hath the Temporal Magistrate authority to preach to assoil from sins to inflict Excommunications and other Censures Why hath he not power to excommunicate as well as to dispense in Irregularity as our late Soveraign Lord King James either dispensed with the late Archbishop of Canterbury or else gave commission to some Bishops to do it And since they were subject to their Primate and not he to them it is clear that they had no power to dispense with him but that power must proceed from the Prince as Superiour to them all and head of the Protestants Church in England If he have no such authority how can he give to others what himself hath not Your Ordination or Consecration of Bishops and Priests imprinting no Character can only consist in giving a Power Authority Jurisdiction or as I said before some kind of Depuration to exercise Episcopal or Priestly functions If then the Temporal Magistrate conferrs this power c. he can nay he cannot chuse but Ordain and Consecrate Bishops and Priests as often as he conferrs Authority or Jurisdiction and your Bishops assoon as they are designed and confirmed by the King must ipso facto be Ordained and Consecrated by him without intervention of Bishops or Matter and Form of Ordination Which absurdities you will be more unwilling to grant than well able to avoid if you will be true to your own doctrins The Pope from whom originally you must beg your Succession of Bishops never received nor will nor can acknowledge to receive any Spiritual Jurisdiction from any Temporal Prince and therefore if Jurisdiction must be derived from Princes he hath none at all and yet either you must acknowledge that he hath true Spiritual Jurisdiction or that your selves can receive none from him 21. Moreover this new Reformation or Reformed Church of Protestants will by them be pretended to be Catholique or Universal and not confined to England alone as the Sect of the Donatists was to Africa and therefore it must comprehend all the Reformed Churches in Germany Holland Scotland France c. In which number they of Germany Holland and France are not governed by Bishops nor regard any personal succession unless of such fat-beneficed Bishops as Nicholas Amsfordius who was consecrated by Luther though Luther himself was never Bishop as witnesseth (y) In Millenario sexto Pag. 187. Dresserus And though Scotland hath of late admitted some Bishops I much doubt whether they hold them to be necessary or of divine Institution and so their enforced admitting of them doth not so much furnish that Kingdom with personal succession of Bishops as it doth convince them to want succession of doctrin since in this their neglect of Bishops they disagree both from the milder Protestants of England and the true Catholique Church And by this want of a continued personal Succession of Bishops they retain the note of Schism and Heresie So that the Church of Protestants must either not be universal as being confined to England Or
in the very next Chapter before that which you alledge Against these men being thus necessitated to do so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joint Tradition of all the Apostolique Churches with one mouth and one voice teaching the same doctrin Or if for brevity sake they produced the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alledged by me This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So near that one of them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. John the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an age remov'd from him and the last of them all little more then an age from them Yet after all this they urg'd it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater then any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should err in one faith it should be should have erred into one faith And this was the condition of this argument as the Fathers urg'd it Now if you having to deal with us who question no Book of Scripture which was not anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholiques nay who refuse not to be tried by your own Canon and your own Translation who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Judges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much dross and corruption and for the mysterie of iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholique to it self alone and Heretical to all the rest nay not only with her ancient and original Traditions but also with her post-nate introduc'd Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent trial by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumny of the old Heretiques that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urg'd the old Heretiques certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41 But now suppose I should be liberal to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetual mark of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain sign of an Heretical company Truly if you say so either you want Logick which is a certain sign of an ill disputer or are not pleas'd to use it which is a worse For speech is a certain sign of a living man yet want of speech is no sure argument that he is dead for he may be dumb and yet living still and we may have other evident tokens that he is so as eating drinking breathing moving So though the constant and universal delivery of any doctrin by the Apostolique Churches ever since the Apostles be a very great argument of the truth of it yet there is no certainty but that truth even Divine truth may through mens wickedness be contracted from its universality and interrupted in its perpetuity and so lose this argument and yet not want others to justifie and support it self For it may be one of those principles which God hath written in all mens hearts or a conclusion evidently arising from them It may be either contain'd in Scripture in express terms or deducible from it by apparâ—â—â— consequence If therefore you intend to prove want of a perpetual Succession of Professors a certain note of Heresie you must not content your self to shew that having it is one sign of truth but you must shew it to be the only sign of it and inseparable from it But this if you be well advis'd you will never undertake First because it is an impossible attempt and then because if you do it you will marr all for by proving this an inseparable sign of Catholique doctrin you will prove your own which apparently wants it in many points not to be Catholique For whereas you say this Succession requires two things agreement with the Apostles doctrin and an uninterrupted conveyance of it down to them that challenge it It will be prov'd against you that you fail in both points and that some things wherein you agree with the Apostles have not been held alwayes as your condemning the Doctrine of the Chiliasts and holding the Eucharist not necessary for Infants and that in many other things you agree not with them nor with the Church for many ages after For example In mutilation of the Communion in having your Service in such a language as the Assistants generally understand not your offering to Saints your picturing of God your worshipping of Pictures 42 Ad § 24. As for Universality of place the want whereof you object to Protestants as a mark of Heresie You have not set down clearly and univocally what you mean by it Whether universality of fact or of right and if of fact Whether absolute or comparative and if comparative Whether of the Church in comparison of any other Religion or only of heretical Christians or if in comparison of these whether in comparison of all other Sects conjoyn'd or in comparison only of any One of them Nor have you proved it by any good argument in any sense to be a certain mark of heresie For those places of S. Austin do not deserve the name And truly in my judgment you have done advisedly in proving it no better For as for Universality of right or a right to Universality all Religions claim it but only the true has it and which has it cannot be determin'd unless it be first determin'd which is the true An absolute Universality and diffusion through all the world if you should pretend to all the world would laugh at you If you should contend for latitude with any one Religion Mahumetism would carry the victory from you If you should oppose yourselves against all other Christians besides you it is certain you would be cast in this suit also If lastly being hard driven you
a middle way To the authority of S. Austin and these School-men this may be adjoyned That it is usual with good Christians to say that Heretiques have not the entire faith Whereby it seems to be intimated that some part of it they do retain Whereof this may be another reason That if the truths which a Jew or a Heretique holds be should not hold 〈◊〉 by faith but after some other manner to wit by his own proper will and judgment it will follow that all the excellent knowledge of God and divine things which is found in them is to be attributed not to the grace of God but the strength of Free-will which is against S. Austine both elsewhere and especially in the end of his book De potentia As for the reason alleaged to the contrary We answer It is impertinent to faith by what means we believe the prime Verity that is by what means God useth to confer upon men the gift of faith For although now the ordinary means be the Testimony and teaching of the Church yet it is certain that by other means faith hath been given heretofore and is given still For many of the Ancients as Adam Abraham Melchisedeck Job received faith by special revelation the Apostles by the Miracles and preaching of Christ others again by the preaching and miracles of the Apostles And Lastly others by other means when as yet they had heard nothing of the infallibility of the Church To little Children by Baptism without any other help faith is infus'd And therefore it is possible that a man not adhering to the Churches doctrin as a Rule infallible yet may receive some things for the word of God which do indeed truly belong to the faith either because they are now or heretofore have been confirm'd by miracles or because he manifestly sees that the ancient Church taught so or upon some other inducement And yet nevertheless we must not say that Heretiques and Jewes do hold the Faith but only some part of the Faith For the Faith signifies an entire thing and compleat in all parts whereupon an Heretique is said to be simply an Infidel to have lost the Faith and according to the Apostle 1 Tim. 1. to have made shipwrack of it although he holds some things with the same strength of assent and readiness of will wherewith by others are held all those points which appertain to the Faith And thus farre Aestius Whose discourse I presume may pass for a sufficient refutation of your argument out of Aquinas And therefore your Corollaries drawn from it That every errour aqainst faith involves opposition against God's testimony That Protestants have no Faith no certainty And that you have all Faith must together with it fall to the ground 50. But If Protestants have certainty they want obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing This argument you prosecute in the next Paragraph But I can find nothing in it to convince or perswade me that Protestants cannot have as much certainty as is required to faith of an object not so evident as to beget science If obscurity will not consist with certainty in the highest degree then you are to blame for requiring to faith contradicting conditions If certainty and obscurity will stand together what reason can be imagin'd that a Protestant may not entertain them both as well as a Papist Your bodies and souls your understandings and wills are I think of the same condition with ours And why then may not we be certain of an obscure thing as well as you And as you make this long discourse against Protestants why may not we putting Church instead of Scripture send it back again to you And say If Papists have certainty they want obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing or not necessitating our understanding to an assent For the whole edifice of the faith of Papists is setled on these two principles These particular propositions are the propositions of the Church And the sense and meaning of them is clear and evident at least in all points necessary to salvation Now these principles being once suppos'd it clearly followeth that what Papists believe as necessary to salvation is evidently known by them to be true by this argument It is certain and evident that whatsoever is the word of God or Divine Revelation is true But it is certain and evident that these propositions of the Church in particular are the word of God and Divine Revelations Therefore it is certain and evident that all propositions of the Church are true Which conclusion I take for a Major in a second argument and say thus It is certain and evident that all propositions of the Church are true But it is certain and evident that such particulars for example The lawfulness of the halfe Communion The lawfulness and expedience of Latine Service the Doctrin of Transubstantiation Indulgences c. are the Propositions of the Church Therefore it is certain and evident that these particular objects are true Neither will it avail you to say that the said principles are not evident by natural discourse but only by the eye of reason clear'd by grace For supernatural evidence no less yea rather more drowns and excludes obscurity than natural evidence doth Neither can the Party so enlightned be said voluntarily to captivate his understanding to that light but rather his understanding is by necessity made captive and forc'd not to disbelieve what is presented by so clear a light And therefore your imaginary faith is not the true faith defined by the Apostle but an invention of your own And having thus cryed quittance with you I must intreat you to devise for truly I cannot some answer to this argument which will not serve in proportion to your own For I hope you will not pretend that I have done you injurie in setling your faith upon principles which you disclaim And if you alleadge this disparitie That you are more certain of your principles than we of ours and yet you do not pretend that your principles are so evident as we do â—hat ours are what is this to say but that you are more confident than we but confess you have less reason for it For the evidence of the thing assented to be it more or less is the reason and cause of the assent in the understanding But then besides I am to tell you that you are here as every where extreamely if not affectedly mistaken in the doctrin of Protestants who though they acknowledge that the things which they believe are in themselves as certain as any demonstrable or sensible verities yet pretend not that their certainty of adherence is most perfect and absolute but such as may be perfected and increas'd as long as they walk by faith and not by sight And consonant hereunto is their doctrin touching the evidence of the objects whereunto they
false Church may preserve the Scripture trure as now the old Testament is preserved by the Jewes either not being arriv'd to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawful Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we aske your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrin it is a thing we need not and you have as little as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependance that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may pass for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you do somtimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant souls may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seems you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your scale nothing but smoak and wind vain shadows and phantastical pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Scale but those negative commendations which you are pleas'd to afford them nothing but No unity nor means to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose than Luthers body no Universality of time or place no Visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of persons or doctrin no leader but Luther in a quarel begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they receiv'd from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three grains of partiality your Scale might seem to turne But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsely made against them the rest vainly that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this trial and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alleadged for Protestants which is here dissembled Then I hope our cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55. I say then that want of Universality of time and place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrin before Luther Luther's being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordination Scriptures personal and yet not doctrinal Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrin and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your house upon the sand And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I do not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Heretiques I tell you that though all Heretiques are choosers yet all choosers are not Heretiques otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Heretiques As for our wanting Unity and Means of proving it Luther 's opposing your Church upon meere passion Our following private men rather than the Catholique Church the first and last are meere untruths for we want not Unity nor Means to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our means to obtain it Neither do we follow any private men but only the Scripture the word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luther's opposing your Church upon meere passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposition not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemne us unless you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56. It remains now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may be alleaged for the justification of Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the ballance Know then Sir that when I say The Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferr'd before yours as on the one side I do not understand by your Religion the doctrin of Bellarmin or Baronius or any other private man amongst you nor the Doctrin of the Sorbon or of the Jesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or profess to agree the Doctrin of the Councel of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrin of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelberg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their faith and actions that is The BIBLE The BIBLE I say The BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides It and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to eternal hapiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councels against Councels some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one age against a Consent of Fathers of another age the Church of one age against the Church of
repugnant to the word of God Ibid. p. 201 202 203 204 205. Lastly his discourse wherein he shews that it is unlawful for the Church of after Ages to add any thing to the Faith of the Apostles And many of his Arguments whereby he proves that in the judgement of the Ancient Church the Apostles Creed was esteem'd a sufficient summary of the necessary Points of simple belief and a great number of great authorities to justifie the Doctrin of the Church of England touching the Canon of Scripture especially the old Testament S. 7. p. 221 223 228 229. All these parts of Doctor Potter's book for reason best known to your self you have dealt with as the Priest and Levite in the Gospel did with the wounded Samaritan that is only look't upon them and pass'd by But now at least when you are admonish't of it that my Reply to your second part if you desire it may be perfect I would entreat you to take them into your consideration and to make some shew of saying something to them lest otherwise the world should interpret your obstinate silence a plain confession that you can say nothing FINIS THE Apostolical Institution OF EPISCOPACY DEMONSTRATED BY WILL. CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD NOSCE TE IPSVM NE QUID NIMIS LONDON Printed by E. Cotes dwelling in Aldersgate-street Anno Dom. M.DC.LXIV THE Apostolical Institution OF EPISCOPACY DEMONSTRATED SECT I. IF we abstract from Episcopal Government all accidentals and consider only what is essential and necessary to it we shall finde in it no more but this An appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocess and furnishing him with authority not absolute or arbitrary but regulated and bounded by Laws and moderated by joyning to him a convenient number of assistants to the intent that all the Churches under him may be provided of good and able Pastors and that both of Pastors and people conformity to Laws and performance of their duties may be required under penalties not left to discretion but by Law appointed SECT II. To this kind of Government I am not by any particular interest so devoted as to think it ought to be maintained either in opposition to Apostolick Institution or to the much desired reformation of mens lives and restauration of Primitive discipline or to any Law or Precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end for Obedience to our Saviour is the end for which Church-Government is appointed But if it may be demonstrated or made much more probable than the contrary as I verily think it may I. That it is not repugnant to the government setled in and for the Church by the Apostles II. That it is as complyable with the Reformation of any evill which we desire to reform either in Church or State or the introduction of any good which we desire to introduce as any other kind of Government And III. That there is no Law no Record of our Saviour against it Then I hope it will not be thought an unreasonable Motion if we humbly desire those that are in Authority especially the High Court of Parliament That it may not be sacrificed to Clamour or over-born by Violence and though which God forbid the greater part of the Multitude should cry Crucifie Crucifie yet our Governours would be so full of Justice and Counage as not to give it up until they perfectly understand concerning Episcopacy it self Quid mali fecit SECT III. I shall speak at this time only of the first of these three points That Episcopacy is not repugnant to the Government setled in the Church for perpetuity by the Apostles Whereof I conceive this which follows is as clear a Demonstration as any thing of this nature is capable of That this Government was received universally in the Church either in the Apostles time or presently after is so evident and unquestionable that the most learned adversaries of this Government do themselves confess it SECT IV. Petrus Molinaeus in his Book De munere pastorali purposely written in defence of the Presbyterial-government acknowledgeth That presently after the Apostles times or even in their time as Ecclesiastical story witnesseth it was ordained That in every City one of the Presbytery should be called a Bishop who should have pre-eminence over his Colleagues to avoid confusion which oft times ariseth out of equality And truly this form of Government all Churches every where received SECT V. Theodorus Beza in his Tract De triplici Episcopatûs genere confesseth in effect the same thing For having distinguished Episcopacy into three kinds Divine Humane and Satanical and attributing to the second which he calls Humane but we maintain and conceive to be Apostolical not only a priority of Order but a superiority of Power and Authority over other Presbyters bounded yet by Laws and Canons provided against Tyranny he clearly professeth that of this kind of Episcopacy is to be understood whatsoever we read concerning the authority of Bishops or Presidents as Justin Martyr calls them in Ignatius and other more ancient Writers SECT VI. Certainly from * To whom two others also from Geneva may be added Daniel Chamierus in Panstratia tom 2. lib. 10. cap. 6. Sect. 24. and Nicol. Vedelius Exereitat 3. in epist Ignatii ad Philadelph cap. 14. Exercit. 8. in Epist ad Mariam cap. 3. which is fully also demonstrated in D. Hammond's Dissertations against Blondel which never were answered and never will by the testimonies of those who wrote in the very next Age after the Apostles these two great Defenders of the Presbytery we should never have had this free acknowledgement so prejudicial to their own pretence and so advantagious to their adversaries purpose had not the evidence of clear and undeniable truth enforced them to it It will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that uningenuous assertion of the anonymous Author of the Catalogue of Testimonies for the equality of Bishops and Presbyters who affirms That their disparity began long after the Apostles times But we may safely take for granted that which these two learned Adversaries have confessed and see whether upon this foundation laid by them we may not by unanswerable reason raise this superstructure That seeing Episcopal Government is confessedly so Ancient and so Catholique it cannot with reason be denyed to be Apostolique SECT VII For so great a change as between Presbyterial Government and Episcopal could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a little time Had Episcopal Government been an aberration from or a corruption of the Government left in the Churches by the Apostles it had been very strange that it should have been received inany one Church so suddainly or that it should have prevailed in all for many Ages after Variâsse debuerat error Ecclesiarum quod
autem apud omnes unum est non est erratum sed traditum Had the Churches err'd they would have varied What therefore is one and the same amongst all came not sure by error but tradition Thus Tertullian argues very probably from the consent of the Churches of his time not long after the Apostles and that in matter of opinion much more subject to unobserv'd alteration But that in the frame and substance of the necessary Government of the Church a thing alwayes in use and practice there should be so suddain a change as presently after the Apostles times and so universal as received in all the Churches this is clearly impossible SECT VIII For What universal cause can be assigned or faigned of this universal Apostasie You will not imagine that the Apostles all or any of them made any decree for this change when they were living or left order for it in any Will or Testament when they were dying This were to grant the question to wit That the Apostles being to leave the Government of the Churches themselves and either seeing by experience or foreseeing by the Spirit of God the distractions and disorders which would arise from a multitude of equals substituted Episcopal Government instead of their own General Councels to make a Law for a general change for many ages there was none There was no Christian Emperour no coercive power over the Church to enforce it Or if there had been any we know no force was equal to the courage of the Christians of those times Their lives were then at command for they had not then learnt to fight for Christ but their obedience to any thing against his Law was not to be commanded for they had perfectly learn't to die for him Therefore there was no power then to command this change or if there had been any it had been in vain SECT IX What device then shall we study or to what fountain shall we reduce this strange pretended alteration Can it enter into our hearts to think that all the Presbyters and other Christians then being the Apostles Schollers could be generally ignorant of the Will of Christ touching the necessity of a Presbyterial Government Or dare we adventure to think them so strangely wicked all the World over as against knowledge and conscience to conspire against it Imagine the spirit of Diotrephes had entred into some or a great many of the Presbyters and possessed them with an ambitious desire of a forbidden superiority was it possible they should attempt and atchieve it once without any opposition or contradiction and besides that the contagion of this ambition should spread it self and prevail without stop or controul nay without any noise or notice taken of it through all the Churches in the World all the watchmen in the mean time being so fast asleep and all the dogs so dumb that not so much as one should open his mouth against it SECT X. But let us suppose though it be a horrible untruth that the Presbyters and people then were not so good Christians as the Presbyterians are now that they were generally so negligent to retain the government of Christ's Church commanded by Christ which we now are so zealous to restore yet certainly we must not forget nor deny that they were men as we are And if we look upon them but as meer natural men yet knowing by experience how hard a thing it is even for Policy arm'd with Power by many attempts and contrivances and in along time to gain upon the liberty of any one people undoubtedly we shall never entertain so wild an imagination as that among all the Christian Presbyteries in the World neither conscience of duty nor love of liberty nor aversness from pride and usurpation of others over them should prevail so much with any one as to oppose this pretended universal invasion of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the liberty of Christians SECT XI When I shall-see therefore all the Fables in the Metamorphosis acted and prove Stories when I shall see all the Democracies and Aristocracies in the World lye down and sleep and awake into Monarchies then will I begin to believe that Presbyterial Government having continued in the Church during the Apostles times should presently after against the Apostles doctrine and the will of Christ be whirl'd about like a scene in a masque and transformed into Episcopacy In the mean time while these things remain thus incredible and in humane reason impossible I hope I shall have leave to conclude thus Episcopal Government is acknowledged to have been universally received in the Church presently after the Apostles times Between the Apostles times and this presently after there was not time enough for nor possibility of so great an alteration And therefore there was no such alteration as is pretended And therefore Episcopacy being confessed to be so Ancient and Catholique must be granted also to be Apostolique Quod erat demonstrandum FINIS NINE SERMONS The First Preached before His MAJESTY King CHARLES the FIRST The other Eight upon special and eminent Occasions BY WILL. CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD NOSCE TE IPSVM NE QUID NIMIS LONDON Printed by E. Cotes dwelling in Aldersgate-street Anno Dom. M.DC.LXIV TO THE READER Christian Reader THese Sermons were by the Godly and Learned Author of them fitted to the Congregations to which he was to speak and no doubt intended only for the benefit of Hearers not of Readers Nevertheless it was the desire of many that they might be published upon the hope of good that might be done to the Church of God by them There is need of plain Instructions to incite men to holiness of life as well as accurate Treatises in Points Controverted to discern Truth from Error For which end I dare promise these Sermons will make much where they find an honest and humble Reader It was the Author's greatest care as you may find in the reading of them To handle the Word of God by manifestation of the truth commending himself to every mans conscience in the fight of God as once St. Paul pleaded for himself 2 Cor. 4.2 And if that be the property which they say of an eloquent and good speaker Non ex ore sed ex pectore To speak from his heart rather than his tongue then surely this Author was an excellent Orator one that spake out of sound understanding with true affection How great his parts were and how well improved as may appear by these his Labours so they were fully known and the loss of them sufficiently bewailed by those among whom he lived and conversed Many excellencies there were in him for which his memory remains but this above all was his crown that he unfeignedly sought God's glory and the good of mens souls It remains that these Sermons be read by thee with a care to profit and thanks to God for the benefit thou hast by them sith they are such talents
Writer Michael de Montaigne was surely of a far different minde for he will hardly allow any Physitian competent but only for such diseases as himself had passed through And a far greater than Montaigne even he that said Tu conversus confirma fratres gives us sufficiently to understand that they which have themselves been in such a state as to need conversion are not thereby made incapable of but rather engaged and obliged unto and qualified for this charitable function 42. Neither am I guilty of that strange and preposterous zeal as you esteem it which you impute to me for having been so long careless in removing this scandal against Protestants and answering my own Motives and yet now shewing such fervor in writing against others For neither are they other Motives but the very same for the most part with those which abused me against which this Book which I now publish is in a maner wholly imployed And besides though you Jesuits take upon you to have such large and universal intelligence of all State-affairs and matters of importance yet I hope such a contemptible matter as an Answer of mine to a little piece of paper may very probably have been written and escaped your Observation The truth is I made an Answer to them three years since and better which perhaps might have been published but for two reasons One because the Motives were never publique until you made them so The other because I was loath to proclaim to all the world so much weakness as I shewed in suffering my self to be abused by such silly Sophisms All which proceed upon mistakes and false suppositions which unadvisedly I took for granted as when I have set down the Motives in order by subsequent Answers to them I shall quickly demonstrate and so make an end 43. The Motives then were these 1. Because perpetuall visible profession which could never be wanting to the Religion of Christ nor any part of it is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so far as concerns the points in contestation 2. Because Luther and his Followers separating from the Church of Rome separated also from all Churches pure or impure true or false then being in the World upon which ground I conclude that either Gods promises did fail of performance if there were then no Church in the world which held all things necessary and nothing repugnant to Salvation or else that Luther and his Sectaries separating from all Churches then in the World and so from the true if there were any true were damnable Schismaticks 3. Because if any credit may be given to as creditable Records as any are extant the Doctrine of Catholiques hath been frequently confirmed and the opposite Doctrine of Protestants confounded with supernatural and divine Miracles 4. Because many points of Protestant doctrine are the damned opinions of Heretiques condemned by the Primitive Church 5. Because the Prophecies of the old Testament touching the conversion of Kings and Nations to the true Religion of Christ have been accomplished in and by the Catholique Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it 6. Because the doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the Doctrine of Protestants contrary to the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the confession of Protestants themselves I mean those Fathers who lived within the compasse of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves do very frequently and very confidently appeal 7. Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to Preach Protestant Doctrine 8. Because Luther to preach against the Masse which contains the most material points now in Controversie was perswaded by reasons suggested to him by the Devil himself disputing with him So himself professeth in his Bock de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himself to follow the Devill 9. Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the beginning maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controvâ—rsie-Writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty 10. Because by denying all humane authority either of Pope or Councels or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible means of suppressing Heresie or restoring Unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow briefly and in order 44. To the first God hath neither decreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwayes visibly professed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed not foretold that there shall be always a visible company of men free from all error in it self damnable Neither is it always of necessity Schismatical to separate from the external communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church supposed to want nothing necessary require me to profess against my conscience that I believe some errour though never so small and innocent which I do not believe and will not allow me her Communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismatical and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records far more creditable than these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirmed and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with supernatural and divine Miracles which for number and glory outshine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sun doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this Book by the confession of all sides confirmed by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after-ages great signs and wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false doctrin and that I am not to believe any doctrin which seems to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angel from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true doctrine should in all ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false doctrine than much to regard them as certain Arguments of the Truth Besides setting aside the Bible and the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and dyed in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the members of that Church Lastly it seems to me no strange thing that God in his Justice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the Professors of
Apostle and to refuse the Gospel of Thomas who was an Apostle and to retain Luke ' s Gospel who saw not Christ and to reject the Gospel of Nicodemus who saw him 14. Another Answer or rather Objection they are wont to bring That the Scripture being a principle needs no proof among Christians So i Pag. 234. D. Potter But this is either a plain begging of the question or manifestly untrue and is directly against their own Doctrin and Practice If they mean that Scripture is one of those principles which being the first and the most known in all Sciences cannot be demonstrated by other principles they suppose that which is in question Whether there be not some Principle for example the Church whereby we may come to the knowledg of Scripture If they intend that Scripture is a Principle but not the first and most known in Christianity then Scripture may be proved For Principles that are not the first nor known of themselves may and ought to be proved before we can yield assent either to them or to other verities depending on them It is repugnant to their own Doctrine and practice in as much as they are wont to affirm that one part of Scripture may be known to be Canonical and may be interpreted by another And since every Scripture is a Principle sufficient upon which to ground divine Faith they must grant that one Principle may and sometime must be proved by another Yea this their Answer upon due ponderation fals out to prove what we affirm For since all Principles cannot be proved we must that our labour may not be endless come at length to rest in some Principle which may not require any other proof Such is Tradition which involves an evidence of fact and from hand to hand and age to age bringing us up to the times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other arguments whereby they convinced their doctrine to be true Wherefore the ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the sacred Canon upon the credit of God's Church k In Synopsi S. Athanasius saith that only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the holy and Catholique Church have so determined The third Councel of l Can. 47. Carthage having set down the Books of holy Scripture gives the reason because We have received from our Fathers that these are to be read in the Church S. Augustine m Cont. ep Fundam c. 5. speaking of the Acts of the Apostles saith To which book I must give credit if I give credit to the Gospel because the Catholique Church doth alike recommend to me both these Books And in the same place he hath also these words I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholique Church did move me A saying so plain that Zuinglius is forced to cry out Here I n To. 1. fol. 135. implore your equity to speak freely whether this saying of Augustine seem not over-bold or else unadvisedly to have fallen from him 15. But suppose they were assured what Books were Canonical this will little avail them unless they be likewise certain in what language they remain uncorrupted or what Translations be true Calvin o Instit c. 6. Sect. 11. acknowledgeth corruption in the Hebrew Text which if it be taken without points is so ambiguous that scarcely any one Chapter yea period can be securely understood without the help of some Translation If with points These were after S. Hieroms time invented by the perfidious Jews who either by ignorance might mistake or upon malice force the Text to favour their impieties And that the Hebrew Text still retains much ambiguity is apparent by the disagreeing Translation of Novelists which also proves the Greek for the New Testament not to be void of doubâ—fulness as Calvin p Instit c. 7â— Sect. 12. confesseth it to be corrupted And although both the Hebrew and Greek were pure what doth this help if only Scripture be the rule of Faith and so very few be able to examine the Text in these languages All then must be reduced to the certainty of Translations into other Tongues wherein no private man having any promise or assurance of Infallibility Protestants who rely upon Scripture alone will find no certain ground for their faith as accordingly whitaker q Lib. de sancta Scriptura p. 52. affirmeth Those who understand not the Hebrew and Greek do erre often and unavoidably 16. Now concerning the Translations of Protestants it will be sufficient to set down what the laborious exact and judicious Author of the Protestants Apology c. dedicated to our late King James of famous memory hath to this r Tast 1. Sect. 10. subd 4. joyned with Tract 2 cap. 2. Sect. 10 subd 2. purpose To omit saith he particulars whose recital would be infinite and to touch this point but generally only The Translation of the New Testament by Luther is condemned by Andreas Osiander Keckermannus and Zuinglius who saith hereof to Luther Thou dost corrupt the Word of God thou art seen to be a manifest and common corrupter of the holy Scriptures how much are we ashamed of thee who have hitherto esteemed thee beyond all measure and now prove thee to be such a man And in like manner doth Luther reject the Translation of the Zuinglians terming them in matter of Divinity Fooâ—s Asses Antichrists Deceivers and of Asse-like understanding In so much that when Froschoverus the Zuinglian Printer of Zurich sent him a Bible translated by the Divines there Luther would not receive the same but sending it back rejected it as the Protestants Writers Hospinianus and Lavatherus witness The Translation set forth by Oecolampadius and the Divines of Basil is reproved by Beza who affirmeth that the Basil Translation is in many places wicked and altogether differing from the mind of the holy Ghost The Translation of Castalio is condemned by Beza as being sacrilegious wicked and Ethnical As concerning Calvins Translation that learned Protestant Writer Carolus Molinaeus saith thereof Calvin in his Harmony maketh the Text of the Gospel to leap up and down he useth violence to the letter of the Gospel and besides this addeth to the Text. As touching Beza's Translation to omit the dislike had thereof by Selneccerus the German Protestant of the University of Jena the foresaid Molinaeus saith of him de facto mutat textum he actually changeth the text and giveth farther sundry instances of his corruptions as also Castalio that learned Calvinist and most learned in the tongues reprehendeth Beza in a whole Book of this matter and saith that to note all his errors in translation would require a great volume And M. Parkes saith As for the Geneva Bibles it is to be wished that either they may be purged from those manifold errors which are both in the text and in the margent or else utterly
Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradition which involves an â—â—ndence of Fact and from hand to hand from age to age bringing us up to the times and persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their doctrine to be true Thus you Now prove the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Prove your whole doctrine or the infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition and we will yield to you in all things Take the alleaged places of S. Athanasius and S. Austin in this sense which is your own and they will not press us any thing at all We will say with Athanasius That only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholique Church understand of all Ages since the perfection of the Canon have so determined 54. We will subscribe to S. Austin and say That we also would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholique Church did move us meaning by the Church the Church of all Ages and that succession of Christians which takes in Christ himself and his Apostels Neither would Zwinglius have needed to cry out upon this saying had he conceived as you now do that by the Catholique Church the Church of all Ages since Christ was to be understood As for the Councel of Carthage it may speak not of such Books only as were certainly Canonical and for the regulating of Faith but also of those which were only profitable and lawful to be read in the Church Which in England is a very slender Argument that the book is Canonical where every body knows that Apocryphal books are read as well as Canonical But howsoever if you understand by Fathers not only their immediate Fathers and Predecessors in the Gospel but the succession of them from the Apostles they are right in the Thesis that whatsoever is received from these Fathers as Canonical is to be so esteemed Though in the application of it to this or that particular book they may haply erre and think that book received as Canoniel which was only received as profitable to be read and think that Book received alwaies and by all which was rejected by some and doubted of by many 55. But we cannot be certain in what language the Scriptures remain uncorrupted Not so certain I grant as of that which we can demonstrate But certain enough morally certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear So certain we may be and God requires no more We may be as certain as S. Austin was who in his second book of Baptism against the Donatists c. 3. plainly implies the Scripture might possibly be corrupted He means sure in matters of little moment such as concern not the Covenant between God and Man But thus he saith The same S. Austin in his 48. Epist cleerly intimates (a) Neque enim sic poturt integrit as atque notitia literarum quamlibet illust is Episcopi castodiri quemadmodum Scritura Canonica tet linguarum literis ordine successione celebrationis Ecclesiasticae custoditur contra quam non desuerunt tamâ—n qui sub nominibus Aposiolorum multa consiagerent Frustra quidem quia illa sic commendata sic celebrata sic nota est Verum quid possit adversus literas non Canonica authoritate sundatas etiam hinc demonstrabit impiae conatus audaciae quòd adversus cos quae tanta notitiae mole firmatae sunt sese erigere non praetermisit Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent cont Donat. Rogat That in his judgement the only preservative of the Scriptures integrity was the translating it into so many Languages and the general and perpetual use and reading of it in the Church for want whereof the works of particular Doctors were more exposed to danger in this kind but the Canonical Scripture being by this means guarded with universal care and diligence was not obnoxious to such attempts And this assurance of the Scriptures incorruption is common to us with him we therefore are as certain hereof as S. Austin was and that I hope was certain enough Yet if this does not satisfie you I say farther We are as certain hereof as your own Pope Sixtus Quintus was He in his Preface to his Bible tells us (b) In hac germani textus peâ—vestigatione satis perspicue inter omnes constat nullum argumenum esse certius ac sirmius quà m antiquorum probatorum codicum Latinorum fidem c. sie Sâ—xtus in Praef. That in the pervestigation of the true and genuine Text it was perspicuously manifest to all men that there was no Argument more firm and certain to be relied upon than the Faith of Ancient Books Now this ground we have to build upon as well as he had and therefore our certainty is as great and stands upon as certain ground as his did 56. This is not all I have to say in this matter For I will add moreover that we are as certain in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted as any man in your Church was until Clement the eighth set forth your own approved Edition of your Vulgar Translation For you do not nor cannot without extream impudence deny that until then there was great variety of Copes currant in divers parts of your Church and those very frequent in various lections all which Copies might possibly be false in some things but more than one sort of them could not possibly be true in all things Neither were it less impudence to pretend that any man in your Church could until Clement's time have any certainty what that one true Copie and Reading was if there were one perfectly true Some indeed that had got Sixtus his Bible might after the Edition of that very likely think themselves cock-sure of a perfect true uncorrupted Translation without being beholding to Clement but how foully they were abused and deceived that thought so the Edition of Clemens differing from that of Sixtus in a great multitude of places doth sufficiently demonstrate 57. This certainty therefore in what language the Scripture remains uncorrupted is it necessary to have it or is it not If it be not I hope we may do well enough without it If it be necessary What became of your Church for 1500 years together All which time you must confess she had no such certainty no one man being able truly and upon good ground to say This or that Copy of the Bible is pure and perfect and uncorrupted in all things And now at this present though some of you are grown to a higher degree of Presumption in this Point yet are you as far as ever from any true real and rational assurance of the absolute purity of your Authentique Translation which I suppose my self to have proved unanswerably in divers places 58. In the sixteenth Division It is objected to
must be the Rule to judge of the goodness of ours this is but a vain flourish For to say of our Translations That is the best which comes nearest the Vulgar and yet it is but one man that says so is not to say it is therefore the best because it does so For this may be true by accident and yet the truth of our Translation no way depend upon the truth of yours For had that been their direction they would not only have made a Translation that should come near to yours but such a one which should exactly agree with it and be a Translation of your Translation 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if God's will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submitting unto some Judicial sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand This is very true Neither should you need to perswade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the world a judicial definitive obliging sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to perswade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge of all Controversies for the whole world therefore God hath appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such Judge of Controversies therefore though it seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best know to Himself not to allow us this convenience 86. D. Field's words which follow I confess are somewhat more pressing and if he had been infallible and the words had not slipt unadvisedly from him they were the best Argument in your Book But yet it is evident out of his Book and so acknowledged by some of your own That he never thought of any one company of Christians invested with such authority from God that all men were bound to receive their Decrees without examination though they seem contrary to Scripture and Reason which the Church of Rome requires And therefore if he have in his Preface strained too high in commendation of the Subject he writes of as Writers very often do in their Prefaces and Dedicatory Epistles what is that to us Besides by all the Societies of the World it is not impossible nor very improbable he might mean all that are or have been in the world and so include even the Primitive Church and her Communion we shall embrace her Direction we shall follow her Judgement we shall rest in if we believe the Scripture endeavour to find the true sense of it and live according to it 87. Ad § 18. That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churche's Interpretation of Scripture is alwayes true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. if you speak of that Church which before you spake of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us we were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us That our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from hand to hand and age to age bringing us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrin to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to believe it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from age to age and from hand to hand any interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture and we believe it therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us This or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all ages is one thing and the Authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholique Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the Authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture How can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical which
they judge aright and that they proceed according to the Evidence that is given when they condemn a Thief or a murderer to the Gallows A Traveller is not always certain of his way but often mistaken and doth it therefore follow that he can have no assurance that Charing-cross is his right way from the Temple to White-Hall The ground of your Error here is your not distinguishing between Actual Certainty and Absolute Infallibility Geometricians are not infallible in their own Science yet they are very certain of those things which they see demonstrated And Carpenters are not Infallible yet certain of the straightness of those things which agree with their Rule and Square So though the Church be not infallibly certain that in all her Definitions whereof some are about disputable and ambiguous matters she shall proceed according to her Rule yet being certain of the Infallibility of her Rule and that in this or that thing she doth manifestly proceed according to it she may be certain of the Truth of some particular Decrees and yet not certain that she shall never decree but what is true 27. Ad § 12. But if the Church may err in points not fundamental she may err in proposing Scripture and so we cannot be assured whether she have not been deceived already The Church may err in her Proposition or custody of the Canon of Scripture if you understand by the Church any present Church of one denomination for example the Roman the Greek or so Yet have we sufficient certainty of Scripture not from the bare testimony of any present Church but from Universal Tradition of which the testimony of any present Church is but a little part So that here you fall into the Fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter For in effect this is the sense of your Argument Unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty of Scripture from the Authority of the Church Therefore unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty hereof at all As if a man should say If the Vintage of France miscarry we can have no Wine from France Therefore if that Vintage miscarry we can have no Wine at all And for the incorruption of Scripture I know no other rational assurance we can have of it than such as we have of the incorruption of other ancient Books that is the consent of ancient Copies such I mean for the kind though it be far greater for the degree of it And if the Spirit of God give any man any other Assurance hereof this is not rational and discursive but supernatural and infused And Assurance it may be to himself but no Argument to another As for the infallibility of the Church it is so far from being a proof of Scriptures Incorruption that no proof can be pretended for it but incorrupted places of Scripture which yet are as subject to corruption as any other and more likely to have been corrupted if it had been possible than any other and made to speak as they do for the advantage of those men whose ambition it hath been a long time to bring all under their Authority Now then if any man should prove the Scriptures uncorrupted because the Church says so which is infallible I would demand again touching this very thing That there is an Infallible Church seeing it is not of it self evident how shall I be assured of it And what can he answer but that the Scripture says so in these and these places Hereupon I would ask him how shall I be assured that the Scriptures are incorrupted in these places seeing it is possible and not altogether improbable that these men which desire to be thought Infallible when they had the government of all things in their own hands may have altered them for their purpose If to this he answer again that the Church is infallible and therefore cannot do so I hope it would be apparent that he runs round in a circle and proves the Scriptures incorruption by the Churches infallibility and the Churches infallibility by the Scriptures incorruption and that is in effect the Churches infallibility by the Churches infallibility and the Scriptures incorruption by the Scriptures incorruption 28. Now for your Observation that some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received for such But never any Book or Syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal I demand touching the first sort Whether they were commended to the Church by the Apostles as Canonical or not If not seeing the whole Faith was preached by the Apostles to the Church and seeing after the Apostles the Church pretends to no new Revelations How can it be an Article of Faith to believe them Canonical And how can you pretend that your Church which makes this an Article of Faith is so assisted as not to propose any thing as a Divine Truth which is not revealed by God If they were How then is the Church an infallible keeper of the Canon of Scripture which hath suffered some Books of Canonical Scripture to be lost and others to lose for a long time their being Canonical at least the necessity of being so esteemed and afterwards as it were by the law of Postliminium hath restored their Authority and Canonicalness unto them If this was delivered by the Apostles to the Church the point was sufficiently discussed and therefore your Churche's omission to teach it for some Ages as an Article of Faith nay degrading it from the number of Articles of Faith and putting it among disputable problems was surely not very laudable If it were not revealed by God to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the Church then can it be no Revelation and therefore her presumption in proposing it as such is inexcusable 19. And then for the other part of it that never any Book or Syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal Certainly it is a bold Asseveration but extremely false For I demand The Book of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom the Epistle of St. James and to the Hebrews were they by the Apostles approved for Canonical or no If not With what face dare you approve them and yet pretend that all your doctrin is Apostolical Especially seeing it is evident that this point is not deducible by rational discourse from any other defined by them If they were approved by them this I hope was a sufficient definition and therefore you were best rub your forehead hard and say that these Books were never questioned But if you do so then I shall be bold to ask you what Books you meant in saying before Some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received Then for the Book of Macchabees I hope you will say it was defined for Canonical before S. Gregorie's time and yet he lib. 19. Moral c. 13. citing a testimony out of it prefaceth to it
that she must For seeing the Church is a Society of men whereof every one according to the Doctrin of the Romish Church hath freewill in believing it follows that the whole Aggregate hath freewill in believing And if any man say that at least it is morally impossible that of so many whereof all may believe aright not any should do so I answer It is true if they did all give themselves any liberty of judgment But if all as the case is here captivate their understandings to one of them all are as likely to err as that one And he more likely to err than any other because he may err and thinks he cannot and because he conceives the Spirit absolutely promised to that succession of Bishops of which many have been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because he seeth him not neither knoweth him Besides let us suppose that neither in this nor in any other place God had promised any more unto them but to lead them into all Truth necessary for their own and other mens salvatition Doth it therefore follow that they were de facto led no farther God indeed is obliged by his Veracity to do all that he hath promised but is there any thing that binds him to do no more May not he be better than his word but you will quarrel at him May not his Bounty exceed his Promise And may not we have certainty enough that oft-times it doth so God at first did not promise to Solomon in his vision at Gibeon any more than what he askt which was wisdom to govern his people and that he gave him But yet I hope you will not deny that we have certainty enough that he gave him something which neither God had promised nor he had asked If you do you contradict God himself For Behold saith God because thou hast asked this thing I have done according to thy word Lo I have given thee a Wise and an Understanding heart so that there was none like thee before thee neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked both riches and honour so that there shall not be any among the Kings like unto thee in all thy days God for ought appears never obliged himself by promise to shew S. Paul those Unspeakable mysteries which in the third Heaven he shewed unto him and yet I hope we have certainty enough that he did so God promises to those that seek his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof that all things necessary shall be added unto them and in rigour by his promise he is obliged to do no more and if he give them necessaries he hath discharged his obligation Shall we therefore be so injurious to his bounty towards us as to say it is determined by the narrow bounds of meer Necessity So though God had obliged himself by promise to give his Apostles infallibility only in things necessary to salvation nevertheless it is utterly inconsequent that he gave them no more than by the rigour of his promise he was engaged to do or that we can have no assurance of any farther assistance that he gave them especially when he himself both by his word and by his works hath assured us that he did assist them farther You see by this time that your chain of fearful consequences as you call them is turned to a rope of sand and may easily be avoided without any flying to your imaginary infallibility of the Church in all her proposals 35. Ad § 14. 15 Doubting of a Book received for Canonical may signifie either doubting whether it be Canonical or supposing it to be Canonical whether it be True If the former sense were yours I must then again distinguish of the term Received For it may signifie either received by some particular Church or by the present Church Universal or the Church of all Ages If you meant the word in either of the former senses that which you say is not true A man may justly and reasonably doubt of some Texts or some Book received by some particular Church or by the Universal Church of this present time whether it be Canonical or no and yet have just reason to believe and no reason to doubt but that other Books are Canonical As Eusebius perhaps had reason to doubt of the Epistle of S. James the Church Rome in Hieromes time of the Epistle to the Hebrews And yet they did not doubt of all the Books of the Canon nor had reason to do so If by Received you mean Received by the Church of all Ages I grant he that doubts of any one such Book hath as much reason to doubt of all But yet here again I tell you that it is possible a man may doubt of one such Book and yet not of all because it is possible men may do not according to reason If you meant your words in the latter sense then I confess he that believes such a Book to be Canonical i. e. the word of God and yet to make an impossible Supposition believes it 〈◊〉 not to be true if he will do according to reason must doubt of all the rest and believe none For there being no greater reason to believe any thing true than because God hath said it nor no other reason to believe the Scripture to be true but only because it is Gods word he that doubts of the Truth of any thing said by God hath as much reason to believe nothing that he sayes and therefore if he will do according to reason neither must nor can believe any thing he sayes And upon this ground you conclude rightly that the infallibility of true Scripture must be Universal and not confined to Points Fundamental 36. And this Reason why we should not refuse to believe any part of Scripture upon pretence that the matter of it is not Fundamental you confess to be convincing But the same reason you say is as convincing for the Universal infallibility of the Church For say you unless She be infallible in all things we cannot believe her in any one But by this reason your Proselytes knowing you are not infallible in all things must not nor cannot believe you in any thing Nay you your self must not believe your self in any thing because you know that you are not infallible in all things Indeed if you had said We could not rationally believe her for her own sake and upon her own word and authority in any thing I should willingly grant the consequence For an authority subject to errour can be no firm or stable foundation of my belief in any thing and if it were in any thing then this authority being one and the same in all proposals I should have the same reason to believe all that I have to believe one and therefore must either do unreasonably in believing any
done nothing your bridge is too short to bring you to the bank where you would be unless you can shew that by Truth here is certainly meant not only all necessary to salvation but all that is profitable absolutely and simply All. For that the true Church always shall be the maintainer and teacher of all necessary Truth you know we grant and must grant for it is of the essence of the Church to be so and any company of men were no more a Church without it than any thing can be a man and not be reasonable But as a man may be still a man though he want a hand or an eye which yet are profitable parts so the Church may be still a Church though it be defective in some profitable truth And as a man may be a man that hath some biles and botches on his body so the Church may be the Church though it have many corruptions both in doctrine and practice 79. And thus you see we are at liberty from the former places having shewed that the sense of them either must or may be such as will do your Cause no service But the last you suppose will be a Gordian knot and tie us fast enough The words are He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministery c. Until we all meet into the Unity of faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carryed up and down with every wind of Doctrin Out of which words this is the only Argument which you collect or I can collect for you There is no means to conserve Unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrin unless it be a Church universally infallible But it is impious to say There is no means to conserve Unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrin Therefore there must be a Church Universally Infallible Whereunto I answer that your Major is so far from being confirmed that it is plainly confuted by the place alleadged For that tels us of another means for this purpose to wit the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension and that their consummating the Saints doing the work of the Ministery and edifying the body of Christ was the means to bring those which are there spoken of be they who they will to the Unity of Faith and to perfection in Christ that they might not be wavering and carryed about with every wind of false Doctrin Now the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors are not the present Church therefore the Church is not the only means for this end nor that which is here spoken of 80. Peradventure by he gave you conceive is to be understood he promised that he would give unto the worlds end But what reason have you for this conceit Can you shew that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath this signification in other places and that it must have it in this place Or will not this interpretation drive you presently to this blasphemous absurdity that God hath not performed his promise Unless you will say which for shame I think you will not that you have now and in all Ages since Christ have had Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists for as for Pastors and Doctors alone they will not serve the turn For if God promised to give all these then you must say He hath given all or else that he hath broke his promise Neither may you pretend that the Pastors and Doctors were the same with the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and therefore having Pastors and Doctors you have all For it is apparent that by these names are denoted several Orders of men clearly distinguished and diversified by the Original Text but much more plainly by your own Translations for so you read it some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors and yet more plainly in the parallel place 1 Cor. 12. to which we are referred by your Vulgar Translation God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers therefore this subterfuge is stopped against you Object But how can they which died in the first Age keep us in Unity and guard us from Error that live now perhaps in the last This seems to be all one as if a man should say that Alexander or Julius Caesar should quiet a mutiny in the King of Spain 's Army Answ I hope you will grant that Hippocrates and Galen and Euclid and Aristotle and Salust and Caesar and Livie were dead many Ages since and yet that we are now preserved from error by them in a great part of Physick of Geometry of Logick of the Roman Story But what if these men had writ by Divine Inspiration and writ compleat bodies of the Sciences they professed and writ them plainly and perspicuously You would then have granted I believe that their works had been sufficient to keep us from error and from dissention in these matters And why then should it be incongruous to say that the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension by their writings which some of them writ but all approved are even now sufficient means to conserve us in Unity of Faith and guard us from error Especially seeing these writings are by the confession of all parts true and divine and as we pretend and are ready to prove contain a plain and perfect Rule of Faith and as the * Perron Chiefest of you acknowledge contain immediately all the Principal and fundamental Points of Christianity referring us to the Church and Tradition only for some minute particularities But tell me I pray the Bishops that composed the Decrees of the Councel of Trent and the Pope that confirmed them are they means to conserve you in Unity and keep you from Error or are they not Peradventure you will say Their Decrees are but not their Persons but you will not deny I hope that you owe your Unity and freedome from Error to the Persons that made these Decrees neither will they deny that the writings which they have left behind them are sufficient for this purpose And why may not then the Apostles writings be as fit for such a purpose as the Decrees of your Doctors Surely their intent in writing was to conserve us in Unity of Faith and to keep us from errour and we are sure God spake in them but your Doctors from whence they are we are not so certain Was the Holy Ghost then unwilling or unable to direct them so that their writings should be fit and sufficient to attain that end they aimed at in writing For if he were both able and willing to do so then certainly he did do so And then their writings may be very sufficient means if we would use them as we should do to preserve us in Unity in all necessary
who were chosen to the Ministry unmarried it was not lawful to take any wife afterward is affirmed by Protestants And your grand Reformer Luther lib. de Contiliis parte prima saith that he understands not the holy Ghost in that Councell For in one Canon is saith that those who have gelded themselves are not fit to be made Priests in another it forbids them to have wives Hath saith he the holy Ghost nothing to do in Councels but to bind and load his Ministers with impossible dangerous and unnecessary laws I forbear to shew that this very Article I confess one Baptism for the Remission of sins will be understood by Protestants in a far different sense from Catholiques yea Protestants among themselves do not agree How Baptism forgives sins nor what grace it conferrs Only concerning the Unity of Baptism against re-baptization of such as were once baptized which I noted as a Point not contained in the Apostles Creed I cannot omit an excellent place of S. Augustine where speaking of the Donatists he hath these words They are so bold as (l) Lib. de Haeres in 69. to re-baptize Catholiques wherein they shew themselves to be greater Heretiques since it hath pleased the universal Catholique Church not to make Baptism void even in the very Heretiques themselves In which few words this holy Father delivereth against the Donatists these Points which do also make against Protestants That to make an Heresie or an Heretique known for such it is sufficient to oppose the definition of God's Church That a Proposition may be Heretical though it be not repugnant to any Texts of Scripture For S. Augustine teacheth that the doctrine of reâ—baptization is heretical and yet acknowledgeth it cannot be convinced for such out of Scripture And that neither the Heresie of re-baptization of those who were baptized by Heretiques nor the contrary Catholique truth being expressed in the Apostles Creed it followeth that it doth not contain all Points of Faith necessary to Salvation And so we must conclude that to believe the Creed is not sufficient for Unity of Faith and Spirit in the same Church unless there be also a total agreement both in belief of other Points of Faith and in external profession and Communion also whereof we are to speak in the next Chapter according to the saying of S Augustine (m) Aug. ep 48. with us in Baptism and in the Creed but in the Spirit of Unity and bâ—nd of peace and lastly in the Catholique church you are not with us The ANSWER to the FOURTH CHAPTER Wherein is shewed that the Creed contains all necessary Points of meer Belief 1. AD § 1 2 3 4 5 6. Concerning the Creed's containing the Fundamentals of Christianity this is D. Potter's Assertion delivered in the 207. p. of his Book The Creed of the Apostles as it is explained in the latter Creeds of the Catholique Church is esteemed a sufficient Summary or Catalogue of Fundamentals by the best learned Romanists and by Antiquity 2. By Fundamentals he understands not the Fundamental Rules of good life and action though every one of these is to be believed to come from God and therefore virtually includes an Article of Faith but the Fundamental Doctrines of Faith such as though they have influence upon our lives as every essential doctrin of Christianity hath yet we are commanded to believe them and not to do them The assent of our understandings is required to them but no obedience from our wills 3. But these speculative Doctrines again he distinguisheth out of Aquinas Occham and Canus and others into two kinds of the first are those which are the Objects of Faith in and for themselves which by their own nature and God's prime intention are essential parts of the Gospel such as the Teachers in the Church cannot without Mortal sin omit to teach the learners such as are intrinsecal to the Covenant between God and man and not only plainly revealed by God and so certain truths but also commanded to be preacht to all men and to be believed distinctly by all and so necessary truths Of the second sort are Accidental Circumstantial Occasional objects of Faith millions whereof there are in holy Scripture such as are to be believed not for themselves but because they are joyned with others that are necessary to be believed and delivered by the same Authority which delivered these Such as we are not bound to know to be divine Revelations for without any fault we may be ignorant hereof nay believe the contrary such as we are not bound to examine Whether or no they be divine Revelations such as Pastors are not bound to teach their Flock nor their Flock bound to know and remember no nor the Pastors themselves to know them or believe them or not to disbelieve them absolutely and always but then only when they do see and know them to be delivered in Scripture as divine Revelations 4. I say when they do so and not only when they may do For to lay an obligation upon us of believing or not disbelieving any Verity sufficient Revelation on God's part is not sufficient For then seeing all the express Verities of Scripture are either to all men or at least to all learned men sufficiently revealed by God it should be a damnable sin in any learned man actually to disbelieve any one particular Historical verity contained in Scripture or to believe the contradiction of it though he knew it not to be there contained For though he did not yet he might have known it it being plainly revealed by God and this revelation being extant in such a Book wherein he might have found it recorded if with diligence he had perused it To make therefore any Points necessary to be believed it is requisite that either we actually know them to be divine Revelations and these though they be not Articles of Faith nor necessary to be believed in and for themselves yet indirectly and by accident and by consequence they are so The necessity of believing them being in forced upon us by a necessity of believing this Essential and Fundamental Article of Faith That all Divine Revelations are true which to disbelieve or not to believe is for any Christian not only impious but impossible Or else it is requisite that they be First actually revealed by God Secondly commanded under pain of damnation to be particularly known I mean known to be divine Revelations and distinctly to be believed And of this latter sort of speculative divine Verities D. Potter affirmed that the Apostles Creed was a sufficient summary yet he affirmed it not as his own opinion but as the doctrin of the ancient Fathers and your own Doctors And besides he affirmed it not as absolutely certain but very probable 5. In brief all that he says is this It is very probable that according to the judgment of the Roman Doctors and the Ancient Fathers the Apostles Creed is to be èsteemed a
which doth propose and indeed believe them hath for matter of Faith the essence of a true Church that which doth not hath not Now to this Question though not to yours D. Potter's Assertion if it be true is apparently very pertinent And though not a full and total satisfaction to it yet very effectual and of great moment towards it For the main Question being What Points are necessary to Salvation and Points necessary to Salvation being of two sorts some of simple belief some of Practice and Obedience he that gives you a sufficient summary of the first sort of necessary Points hath brought you half way towards your journies end And therefore that which he doth is no more to be slighted as vain and impertinent than an Architect's work is to be thought impertinent towards the making of a house because he doth it not all himself Sure I am if his Assertion be true as I believe it is a Corollary may presently be deduced from it which if it were embraced cannot in all reason but do infinite service both to the Truth of Christ and the peace of Christendom For seeing falshood and errour could not long stand against the power of Truth were they not supported by Tyranny and worldly advantages he that could assert Christians to that liberty which Christ and his Apostles left them must needs do Truth a most Heroical service And seeing the overvaluing of the differences among Christians is one of the greatest maintainers of the Schisms of Christendom he that could demonstrate that only those Points of Belief are simply necessary to Salvation wherein Christians generally agree should he not lay a very fair and firm foundation of the peace of Christendom Now the Corollary which I conceive would produce these good effects and which flows naturally from D. Potter's Assertion is this That what Man or Church soever believes the Creed and all the evident consequences of it sincerely and heartily cannot possibly if also he believe the Scripture be in any Error of simple belief which is offensive to God nor therefore deserve for any such Error to be deprived of his life or to be cut off from the Churches Communion and the hope of Salvation And the production of this again would be this which highly concerns the Church of Rome to think of That whatsoever Man or Church doth for any error of simple belief deprive any man so qualified as above either of his temporal life or livelihood or liberty or of the Churches Communion and hope of Salvation is for the first unjust cruel and tyrannous Schismatical presumptuous and uncharitable for the second 13. Neither yet is this as you pretend to take away the necessity of believing those verities of Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true How doth he believe in God Unless you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is How it will not take away the necessity of believing Scripture to be the Word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient Summary of Articles of meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which Reason assures him to be the Will of God Now Reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never-failing Tradition having given this testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable if I oblige my self to say but little to the Rest 14. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it Fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental Truth that All Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by areal belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory Propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 15. To the Third I answer That the certainty I have of the Creed that it was from the Apostles and contains the Principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 16. To the Fourth I answer plainly thus that you find fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he had not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it 's for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this Vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the words of God This Deifying our own Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them (a) This peâ—â—sâ—asion is no singularity of mine but the doctrin which 〈◊〉 have learned â—â—om Divinâ—s of gâ—eâ—t learning and judgment Let the 〈◊〉 Reader be pleased to peruse the seventh book of Acont de Strat. Satanae And Zanch. his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord
you desire and therefore that I should disease my self or my Reader with a punctual examination of it may seem superfluous First that which you would have and which your Arguments wholly drive at is this That the Creed doth not contain all main and principal points of Faith of all sorts whether they be speculative or practical where they contain matter of simple belief or whether they contain matter of practice and obedience This D. Potter grants page 215.235 And you grant that he grants it § 8. Where your words are even by D. Potter's own confession it the Creed doth not comprehend Agenda or things belonging to practice as Sacraments Commandements the Acts of Hope and duties of Charity And if you will inferr from hence that therefore C.M. hath no reason to rest in the Apostles Creed as a perfect catalogue of Fundamentals and a full satisfaction to his demand I have without any offence of D. Potter granted as much if that would content you But seeing you go on and because his assertion is not as neither is it pretended to be a total satisfaction to the demand casheer it as impertinent and nothing towards it here I have been bold to stop your proceeding as unjust and unreasonable For as if you should request a Friend to lend you or demand of a debtor to pay you a hundred pounds and he could or should let you have but fifty this were not fully to satisfie your demand yet sure it were not to do nothing towards it Or as this rejoynder of mine though it be not an answer to all your Book but only to the First considerable Part of it and so much of the Second as is material and falls into the first yet I hope you will not deal so unkindly with me◠as for this reason to condemn it of impertinence So D. Potter being demanded a Catalogue of Fundamentals of Faith and finding them of two kinds and those of one kind summ'd up to his hand in the Apostles Creed and this Creed consigned unto him for such a summary by very great Authority if upon these considerations he hath intreated his Demander to accept of thus much in part of payment of the Apostles Creed as a sufficient Summary of these Articles of Faith which are meerly Credenda me-thinks he hath little reason to complain that he hath not been fairly and squarely dealt with Especially seeing for full satisfaction by D. Potter and all Protestants he is referred to Scripture which we affirm contains evidently all necessary points of Faith and rules of obedience and seeing D. Potter in this very place hath subjoyned though not a Catalogue of Fundamentals which because to some more is Fundamental to others less to others nothing at all had been impossible yet such a comprehension of them as may serve every one that will make a conscionable use of it instead of a Catalogue For thus he says It seems to be Fundamental to the Faith and for the salvation of every Member of the Church that he acknowledg and believe all such Points of Faith whereof he may be sufficiently convinced that they belong to the Doctrin of Jesus Christ This general rule if I should call a Catalogue of Fundamentals I should have a President for it with you above exception I mean your Self for Chap. 3. § 19. just such another Proposition you have called by this name Yet because it were a strange figure of speech I forbear it only I will be bold to say that this Assertion is as good a Catalogue of Fundamentals as any you will bring of your Church Proposals though you take as much time to do it as he that undertook to make an Ass speak 20. I come now to shew that you also have requited D. Potter with a mutual courteous acknowledgment of his Assertion That the Creed is a sufficient Summary of all the necessary Articles of Faith which are meerly Credenda 21. First then § 8. you have these words It cannot be denyed that the Creed is most full and compleat to that purpose for which the holy Apostles inspired by God meant that it should serve and in that manner as they did intend it which was not to comprehend all particular Points of Faith but such general heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the Faith of Christ to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred These words I say being fairly examined without putting them on the rack will amount to a full acknowledgment of D. Potters Assertion But before I put them to the question I must crave thus much right of you to grant me this most reasonable postulate that the Doctrine of Repentance from dead works which S. Paul saith was one of the two only things which he preacht and the Doctrin of Charity without which the same S. Paul assures us that the knowledge of all mysteries and all faith is nothing were Doctrins more necessary and requisite and therefore more fit to be preacht to Jews and Gentiles than these under what Judge our Saviour suffered that he was buryed and what time he rose again which you have taught us cap. 3. § 2. for their matter and nature in themselves not to be Fundamental 22. And upon this grant I will ask no leave to conclude that whereas you say the Apostles Creed was intended for a comprehension of such heads of faith as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the faith of Christ c. You are now for fear of too much debasing those high Doctrins of Repentance and Charity to restrain your Assertion as D. Potter doth his and though you speak indefinitely to say you meant it only of those heads of Faith which are meerly Credenda And then the meaning of it if it have any must be this That the Creed is full for the Apostles intent which was to comprehend all such general heads of Faith which being points of simple belief were most fit and requisite to be preached to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred Neither I nor you I believe can make any other sense of your words then this And upon this ground thus I subsume But all the points of belief which were necessary under pain of damnation for the Apostles to preach and for those to whom the Gospel was preached particularly to know and believe were most fit and requisite nay more then so necessary to be preached to all both Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred Therefore the Apostle's intent by your confession was in this Creed to comprehend all such points And you say The Creed is most full and compleat for the purpose which they intended The Major of this Syllogism is your own The Minor I should think needs no proof yet because all men may not be of my mind I will prove it by
its parts and the first part thus There is the same necessity for the doing of these things which are commanded to be done by the same Authority under the same penalty But the same Authority viz. Divine under the same penalty to wit of damnation commanded the Apostles to preach all these Doctrins which we speak of and those to whom they were preached particularly to know and believe them For we speak of those only which were so commanded to be preached and believed Therefore all these points were alike necessary to be preached to all both Jews and Gentiles Now that all these Doctrins we speak of may be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred He that remembers that we speak only of such Doctrins as are necessary to be taught and learned will require hereof no farther demonstration For not to put you in mind of what the Poet say Non sunt long a quibus nihil est quod demere possis who sees not that seeing the greatest part of men are of very mean capacities that it is necessary that that may be learned easily which is to be learned of all What then can hinder me from concluding thus All the Articles of simple belief which are fit and requisite to be preached and may easily be remembred are by your confession comprized in the Creed But all the necessary Articles of Faith are requisite to be preached and easie to be remembred Therefore they are all comprized in the Creed Secondly from grounds granted by you I argue thus Points of belief in themselves Fundamental are more requisite to be preached than those which are not so this is evident But the Apostles have put into their Creed some Points that are not in in themselves Fundamental so you confess ubisupra Therefore if they have put in all most requisite to be preached they have put in all that in themselves are Fundamental Thirdly and lastly from your own words § 26 thus I conclude for my purpose The Apâ—stles intention was particularly to deliver in the Creed such Articles as were fittest for those times concerning the Deity Trinity and Messias Thus you now I subsume But all points simply necessary by vertue of Gods command to be preached and believed in particular were as fit for those times as these here mentioned Therefore their intention was to deliver in it particularly all the necessary points of Belief 23. And certainly he that considers the matter advisedly either must say that the Apostles were not the Authors of it or that this was their design in composing it or that they had none at all For whereas you say Their intent was to comprehend in it such general heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the Faith and elsewhere Particularly to deliver such Articles as were fittest for those times Every wise man may easily see that your desire here was to escape away in a Cloud of indefinite terms For otherwise instead of such general heads and such Articles why did not you say plainly All such or some such This had been plain dealing but I fear cross to your design which yet you have failed of For that which you have spoken though you are loath to speak out either signifies nothing at all or that which I and D. Potter affirm viz. That the Apostles Creed contains all those Points of Belief which were by Gods command of necessity to be preached to all and believed by all Neither when I say so would I be so mistaken as if I said that all points in the Creed are thus necessary For Punies in Logick know that universal affirmatives are not simply converted And therefore it may be true that all such necessary points are in the Creed though it be not true that all points in the Creed are thus necessary which I willingly grant of the points by you mentioned But this rather confirms than any way invalidates my Assertion For how could it stand with the Apostles wisdom to put in any points circumstantial and not necessary and at the same time to leave out any that were essential and necessary for that end which you say they proposed to themselves in making the Creed that is The preaching of the Faith to Jews and Gentiles 24. Neither may you hope to avoid the pressure of these acknowledgments by pretending as you do § that you do indeed acknowledge the Creed to contain all the necessary Articles of Faith but yet so that they are not either there expressed in it or deducible from it by evident consequence but only by way of Implication or Reduction For first not to tell you that no Proposition is implyed in any other which is not deducible from it nor secondly that the Article of the Catholique Church wherein you will have all implyed implyes nothing to any purpose of yours unless out of meer favour we will grant the sense of it to be that the Church is infallible and that yours is the Church to pass by all this and require no answer to it this one thing I may not omit that the Apostles intent was by your own confession particularly to deliver in the Creed such Articles of belief as were fittest for those times and all necessary Articles I have proved were such now to deliver particularly and to deliver only implicitely to be delivered particularly in the Creed and only to be reducible to it I suppose are repugnancies hardly reconcileable And therefore though we desire you not to grant that the Creed contains all Points of Faith of all sorts any other way than by implication or reduction no nor so neither yet you have granted and must grant of the Fundamental Points of simple belief those which the Apostles were commanded in particular to teach all men and all men in particular to know and believe that these are delivered in the Creed after a more particular and punctual manner than implication or reduction comes to 25. Ad § 10 11 12 13 14 15. It is vain for you to hope that the testimonies of the Ancient and Modern Doctors alleadged to this purpose by D. Potter in great abundance will be turned off with this general deceitful Answer That the Allegation of them was needless to prove that the Creed contains all Points of Faith under pretence that you grant it in manner aforesaid For what if you grant it in manner aforesaid yet if you grant it not as indeed you do but inconstantly in the sense which their testimonies require then for all this their testimonies may be alleadged to very good purpose Now let any man read them with any tolerable indifference and he shall find they say plainly that all Points of Faith necessary to be particularly believed are explicitely contained in the Creed and that your Gloss of Implication and Reduction had it been confronted with their sentences would have been much out of countenance as having no ground nor colour of ground in them For example If
Azorius had thought thus of it how could he have called it (a) Azor. part 1. c 5. A brief comprehension of the Faith and a sum of all things to be believed and as it were a sign or cognizance whereby Christians are to be differenced and distinguished from the impious and mis-believers who profess either no faith or not the right If Huntly had been of this mind how could he have said of it with any congruity (b) Cont. 2. c. 10. n. 10. That the rule of Faith is expresly contained in it and all the prime foundations of Faith And That the Apostles were not so forgetful as to omit any prime principal foundation of Faith in that Creed which they delivered to be believed by all Christians The words of Filiucius are pregnant to the same purpose (c) Moral quest Tr. 22. c. 2. n 34. There cannot be a fitter Rule from whence Christians may learn what they are explicitely to believe than that which is contained in the Creed Which words cannot be justified if all Points necessary to be believed explicitely be not comprised in it To this end saith Putean (d) In 2.2 qu. 2. Art 3. Dubuit was the Creed composed by the Apostles that Christians might have a form whereby they might profess themselves Catholiques But certainly the Apostles did this in vain if a man might profess this and yet for matter of Faith be not a Catholique 26. The words of Cardinal Richelieu (e) Instruction du Christien Lecon prâ—miere exact this sense and refuse your gloss as much as any of the former The Apostles Creed is the Summary and Abridgement of that Faith which is necessary for a Christian These holy persons being by the Commandement of Jesus Christ to disperse themselves over the world and in all parts by preaching the Gospel to plant the Faith esteemed it very necessary to reduce into a short sum all that which Christians ought to know to the end that being dispersed into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing in a short Form that it might be the easier remembred For this effect they called this Abridgement a Symbole which signifies a mark or sign which might serve to distinguish true Christians which imbraced it from Infidels which rejected it Now I would fain know how the composition of the Creed could serve for this end and secure the Preachers of it that they should preach the same thing if there were other necessary Articles not comprized in it Or how could it be a sign to distinguish true Christians from others if a man might believe it all and for want of believing something else not be a true Christian 27. The words of the (f) Ch. 3. Confid 1. Sect 5. p. 119. Author of the Consideration of four heads propounded to King James require the same sense and utterly renounce your qualification The Symbole is a brief yet entire Methodical sum of Christian Doctrin including all Points of Faith either to be preached by the Apostles or to be believed by their Disciples Delivered both for a Direction unto them what they were to preach and others to believe as also to discern and put a difference betwixt all faithful Christians and mis-believing Infidels 28. Lastly (g) 2.2 dis 1. q. 2. p. 4. in fin Gregory of Valence affirms our Assertion even in terms The Articles of Faith contained in the Creed are as it were the first principles of the Christian Faith in which is contained the sum of Evangelical Doctrin which all men are bound explicitely to believe 29. To these Testimonies of your own Doctors I should have added the concurrent Suffrages of the ancient Fathers but the full and free acknowledgment of the same Valentia in the place above quoted will make this labour unnecessary So judg saith he the holy Fathers affirming that this Symbole of Faith was composed by the Apostles that all might have a short sum of those things which are to be believed and are dispersedly contained in Scripture 30. Neither is there any discord between this Assertion of your Doctors and their holding themselves obliged to believe all the Points which the Council of Trent defines For Protestants and Papists may both hold that all Points of Belief necessary to be known and believed are summed up in the Creed and yet both the one and the other think themselves bound to believe whatsoever other Points they either know or believe to be revealed by God For the Articles which are necessary to be known that they are revealed by God may be very few and yet those which are necessary to be believed when they are revealed and known to be so may be very many 31. But Summaries and Abstracts are not intended to specifie all the particulars of the Science or Subject to which they belong Yes if they be intended for perfect Summaries they must not omit any necessary doctrin of that Science whereof they are Summaries though the Illustration and Reasons of it they may omit If this were not so a man might set down forty or fifty of the principal Definitions and Divisions and Rules of Logick and call it a Summary or Abstract of Logick But sure this were no more a Summary than that were the picture of a man in little that wanted any of the parts of a man or that a total sum wherein all the particulars were not cast up Now the Apostles Creed you here intimate that it was intended for a Summary otherwise why talk you here of Summaries and tell us that they need not contain all the particulars of their Science And of what I pray may it be a Summary but of the Fundamentals of Christian Faith Now you have already told us That it is most full and compleat to that purpose for which it was intended Lay all this together and I believe the product will be That the Apostles Creed is a perfect Summary of the Fundamentals of the Christian Faith and what the duty of a perfect Summary is I have already told you 32. Whereas therefore to disprove this Assertion in divers particles of this Chapter but especially the fourteenth you muster up whole Armies of Doctrins which you pretend are necessary and not contained in the Creed I answer very briefly thus That the Doctrins you mention are either concerning matters of practice and not simple Belief or else they are such Doctrins wherein God hath not so plainly revealed himself but that honest and good men true Lovers of God and of Truth those that desire above all things to know his will and do it may err and yet commit no sin at all or only a sin of infirmity and not destructive of Salvation or lastly they are such Doctrins which God hath plainly revealed and so are necessary to be believed when they are known to be divine but not necessary to be known and believed not necessary to be known for divine that they may be
believed Now all these sorts of Doctrins are impertinent to the present Question For D. Potter never affirmed either that the necessary duties of a Christian or that all Truths piously credible but not necessary to be believed or that all Truths necessary to be believed upon the supposal of divine Revelation were specified in the Creed For this he affirms only of such speculative divine Verities which God hath commanded particularly to be preached to all and believed by all Now let the Doctrins objected by you be well considered and let all those that are reducible to the three former heads be discarded and then of all these Instances against D. Potter's Assertion there will not remain so much as one 33. First the Questions touching the conditions to be performed by us to obtain remission of sins the Sacraments the Commandements and the possibility of keeping them the necessity of imploring the Assistance of Gods Grace and Spirit for the keeping of them how far obedience is due to the Church Prayer for the Dead the cessation of the old Law are all about Agenda and so cut off upon the first consideration 34. Secondly the Question touching Fundamentals is profitable but not fundamental He that believes all Fundamentals cannot be damned for any error in Faith though he believe more or less to be Fundamental than is so That also of the procession of the Holy-Ghost from the Father and the Son of Purgatory of the Churches Visibility of the Books of the New-Testament which were doubted of by a considerable part of the Primitive Church until I see better reason for the contrary than the bare authority of men I shall esteem of the same condition 35. Thirdly These Doctrins That Adam and the Angels sinned that there are Angels good and bad that those Books of Scripture which were never doubted of by any considerable part of the Church are the Word of God that S. Peter had no such Primacy as you pretend that the Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith and consequently that no necessary Doctrine is unwritten that there is no one Society or Succession of Christians absolutely infallible These to my understanding are Truths plainly revealed by God and necessary to be believed by them who know they are so but not so necessary that every man and woman is bound under pain of damnation particularly to know them to be divine Revelations and explicitely to believe them And for this reason these with innumerable other Points are to be referred to the third sort of Doctrins above-mentioned which were never pretended to have place in the Creed There remains one only Point of all that Army you mustered together reducible to none of these heads and that is that God is and is a Remunerator which you say is questioned by the denyal of Merit But if there were such a necessary indissoluble coherence between this Point and the Doctrine of merit me-thinks with as much reason and more charity you might conclude That we hold Merit because we hold this Point than that we deny this Point because we deny Merit Besides when Protestants deny the Doctrine of Merits you know right-well for so they have declared themselves a thousand times that they mean nothing else but with David that their well-doing extendeth not is not truly beneficial to God with our Saviour when they have done all which they are commanded they have done their duty only and no curtesie And lastly with S. Paul that all which they can suffer for God and yet suffering is more then doing is not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed So that you must either misunderstand their meaning in denying Merit or you must discharge their Doctrin of this odious consequence or you must charge it upon David and Paul and Christ himself Nay you must either grant their denial of true Merit just and reasonable or you must say that our good actions are really profitable to God that they are not debts already due to him but voluntary and undeserved Favours and that they are equal unto and well worthy of eternal glory which is prepared for them As for the inconvenience which you so much fear That the denial of Merit makes God a Giver only and not a Rewarder I tell you good Sir you fear where no fear is And that it is both most true on the one side that you in holding good Works meritorious of eternal glory make God a Rewarder only and not a Giver contrary to plain Scripture affirming that The gift of God is eternal life And that it is most false on the other side that the Doctrin of Protestants makes God a Giver only and not a Rewarder In as much as their Doctrin is That God gives not Heaven but to those which do something for it and so his Gift is also a Reward but withal that whatsoever they do is due unto God before-hand and worth nothing to God worth nothing in respect of Heaven and so mans work is no Merit and Gods Reward is still a Gift 36. Put the case the Pope for a reward of your service done him in writing this Book had given you the honor and means of a Cardinal would you not not only in humility but in sincerity have professed that you had not merited such a Reward And yet the Pope is neither your Creator nor Redeemer nor Preserver nor perhaps your very great Benefactor sure I am not so great as God Almighty and therefore hath no such right and title to your service as God hath in respect of precedent Obligations Besides the work you have done him hath been really advantagious to him and lastly not altogether unproportionable to the fore-mentioned Reward And therefore if by the same work you will pretend that either you have or hope to have deserved immortal happiness I beseech you consider well whether this be not to set a higher value upon a Cardinals cap than a Crown of immortal glory and with that Cardinal to prefer a part in Paris before a part in Paradise 37. In the next Paragraph you beat the air again and fight manfully with your own shadow The Point you should have spoken to was this That there are some Points of simple belief necessary to be explicitely believed which yet are not contained in the Creed Instead hereof you trouble your self in vain to demonstrate That many important Points of Faith are not contained in it which yet D. Potter had freely granted and you your self take particular notice of his granting of it All this pains therefore you have imployed to no purpose saving that to some negligent Reader you may seem to have spoken to the very Point because that which you speak to at the first hearing sounds somewhat near it But such a one I must intreat to remember there be many more Points of Faith than there be Articles of Simple belief necessary to be explicitely believed And that though all of
before I told you if you will believe all the Points of the Creed you cannot choose but believe all the Points of it that are Fundamental though you be ignorant which are so and which are not so Now I believe your desire to know which are Fundamentals proceeds only from a desire to be assured that you do believe them which seeing you may be assured of without knowing which they be what can it be but curiosity to desire to desire to know it Neither may you think to mend your self herein one whit by having recourse to them whom we call Papists for they are as far to seek as we in this Point which of the Articles of the Creed are for their nature and matter Fundamental and which are not Particularly you will scarce meet with any amongst their Doctors so adventurous as to tell you for a certain Whether or no the conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost his being born of a Virgin his Burial his Descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints be Points of their own nature and matter Fundamental Such I mean as without the distinct and explicite knowledge of them no man can be saved 63. But you will say at least they give this certain Rule that all Points defined by Christ's visible Church belong to the foundation of faith in such sense as to deny any such cannot stand with Salvation So also Protestants give you this more certain Rule That whosoever believes heartily those books of Scripture which all the Christian Churches in the world acknowledge to be Canonical and submits himself indeed to this as to the rule of his belief must of necessity believe all things Fundamental and if he live according to his faith cannot fail of Salvation But besides What certainty have you that that rule of Papists is so certain By the visible Church it is plain they mean only their own and why their own only should be the Visible Church I do not understand and as little why all Points defined by this Church should belong to the foundation of faith These things you had need see well and substantially proved before you rely upon them otherwise you expose your self to danger of imbracing damnable errors instead of Fundamental truths But you will say D. Potter himself acknowledges that you do not err in Fundamentals If he did so yet me-thinks you have no reason to rest upon his acknowledgement with any security whom you condemn of error in many other matters Perhaps excess of Charity to your persons may make him censure your errors more favourably than he should do But the truth is and so I have often told you though the Doctor hopes that your errors are not so unpardonably destructive but that some men who ignorantly hold them may be saved yet in themselves he professes and proclaims them damnable and such as he fears will be certainly destructive to such as you are that is to all those who have eyes to see and will not see them 64. Ad § 20 21 22 〈◊〉 In the Remainder of this Chapter you promise to answer D. Potter's Arguments against that which you said before But presently forgetting your self instead of answering his Arguments you fall a confuting his Answers to your own The arguments objected by you which here you vindicate were two 1. The Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed therefore the Creed contains not all things necessary to be believed 2. Baptism is not contained in the Creed therefore not all things necessary To both which Arguments my answer shortly is this that they prove something but it is that which no man here denies For. D. Potter as you have also confessed never said nor undertook to shew that the Apostles intended to comprize in the Creed all Points absolutely which we are bound to believe or after sufficient proposal not to disbelieve which yet here and every where you are obtruding upon him But only that they purposed to comprize in it all such doctrines purely speculative all such matters of simple belief as are in ordinary course necessary to be distinctly and explicitly believed by all men Now neither of these objections do any way infringe or impeach the truth of this Assertion Not the first because according to your own doctrin all men are not bound to know explicitely what books of Scripture are Canonical Nor the second because Baptism is not a matter of Faith but practice not so much to be believed as to be given and received And against these Answers whether you have brought any considerable new matter let the indifferent Reader judge As for the other things which D. Potter rather glanceth at than builds upon in answering these objections as the Creeds being collected out of Scripture and supposing the Authority of it which Gregery of Valentia in the place above cited seems to me to confess to have been the Judgment of the Ancient Fathers and the Nicene Creeds intimating the authority of Canonical Scripture and making mention of Baptism These things were said ex abundanti and therefore I conceive it superfluous to examine your exceptions against them Prove that D. Potter did affirm that the Creed contains all things necessary to be believed of all sorts and then these objections will be pertinent and deserve an answer Or produce some Point of simple belief necessary to be explicitely believed which is not contained either in terms or by consequence in the Creed and then I will either answer your Reasons or confess I cannot But all this while you do but trifle and are so far from hitting the Mark that you rove quite beside the Butt 65. Ad § 23 24 25. D. Potter demands How it can be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed than the Apostles had and the Church of their times You Answer That he trifles not distinguishing between the Apostles belief and that abridgment of some Articles of faith which we call the Apostles Creed I reply that it is you which trifle affectedly confounding what D. Potter hath plainly distinguished the Apostles belief of the whole Religion of Christ as it comprehends both what we are to do and what we are to believe with their belief of that part of it which contains not duties of obedience but only the necessary Articles of simple Faith Now though the Apostles Belief be in the former sense a larger thing than that which we call the Apostles Creed yet in the latter sense of the word the Creed I say is a full comprehension of their belief which you your self have formerly confessed though somewhat fearfully and inconstantly and here again unwillingness to speak the truth makes you speak that which is hardly sense and call it an abridgement of some Articles of Faith For I demand these some Articles which you speak of Which are they Those that are out of the Creed or those that are in it Those that are in it it comprehends at large
without which there can be no hope of Salvation 30 And that he who erreth against any one revealed truth as certainly some Protestants must de because contradictory Propositions cannot both be true doth lose all Divine saith is a very true doctrin delivered by Catholique Divines with so general a consent that the contrary is wont to be censured as temerarious The Angelical Doctor S. Thomas proposeth this Question Whether (o) 23 q. â— aâ—â— 3. in corp he who denieth one Article of saith may retain saith in other Articles and resolveth that he cannot which he proveth Argumento sed contra because As deadly sin is opposite to charity so to deny one Article of saith is opposite to saith But charity doth not remain with any one deadly sin Therefore faith doth not remain after the denial of any one Article of faith Whereof he gives this farther reason Because saith he the nature of every habit doth depend upon the formal Motive and Object thereof which Motive being taken away the nature of the habit cannot remain But the formal object of saith is the supreme Truth as it is manifesied in Scriptures and in the doctrin of the Church which proceed from the same supreme Verity Whosoever therefore doth not relie upon the doctrin of the Church which proceeds from the supreme Verity manifested in Scripture as upon an infallible Rule he hath not the habit of faith but believes those things which belong to faith by some other means than by faith as if one should remember some conclusion and not know the reason of that demonstration it is clear that he hath not certain Knowledge but only Opinion Now it is manifest that he who relies on the doctrin of the Church as upon an infallible Rule will yield his assent to all that the Church teacheth For if among those things which she teacheth he hold what he will and doth not hold what he will not he doth not relie upon the doctrin of the Church as upon an infallible Rule but only upon his own will And so it is clear that an Heretique who with pertinacity denieth one Article of saith is not ready to follow the doctrin of the Church in all things And therefore it is manifest that whosoever is an Heretique in any one Article of faith concerning other Articles hath not faith but a kind of Opinion or his own Will Thus far S. Thomas And afterward A man doth believe (q) Ad. 2. all the Articles of faith for one and the self same reason to wit for the Prime Verity proposed to us in the Scripture understood aright according to the Doctrin of the Church and therefore whosoever falls from this reason or motive is totally deprived of saith From this true doctrin we are to infeâ—r that to retain or want the substance oâ— faith doth not consist in the matter or multitude of the Articles but in the opposition against God's divine testimony which is involved in every least error against faith And since some Protestants must needs eâ—r and that they have no certain rule to know why rather one than another it manifestly follows that none of them have any Certainty for the substance of their faith in any one point Moreover D. Potter being forced to confess that the Roman Church wants not the substance of faith it follows that she doth not err in any one point against faith because as we have seen out of S. Thomas every such error destroys the substance of faith Now if the Roman Church did not err in any one point of faith it is manifest that Protestants err in all those points wherein they are contrary to her And this may suffice to prove that the faith of Protestants wants Infallibility They want the second Condition of Faith Obscurity 31 And now for the second Condition of faith I say If Protestants have Certainly they want Obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing or noâ— necessitating our understanding to an assent For the whole edifice of the faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonical Scripture And the sense and meaning of these Canonical Scriptures is clear and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation Now thâ—se Principles being once supposed it clearly followeth that what Protestants believe as necessary to salvation is evidently known by them to be true by this argument It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in the word of God is true But it is certain and evident that these Books in particular are the word of God Therefore it is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true Which Conclusion I take for a Major in a second Argument and say thus It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true But it is certain and evident that such particular Articles for example The Trinity Incarnation Original sin c. are contained in these Books Thereâ—ore it is certain and evident that these particular Objects are true Neither will it avail you to say that the said Principles are not evident by natural discourse but only to the eye of reason cleared by grace as you speak For supernatural evidence no less yea rather more draws and excludes obscurity than natural evidence doth neither can the party so enlightned be said voluntarily to caprivate his understanding to that light but rather his understanding is by a necessity made captive and forced not to disbelieve what is presented by so clear a light And therefore your imaginary faith is not the true faith defined by the Apostle but an invention of your own Their faith wants Prudence 32 That the faith of Protestants wanteth the third Condition which was Prudence is deduced from all that hitherto hâ—th been said What wisdom was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other visible Church of Christ upon earth A Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation endued with Succession of Bishops with Visibility and Universality of Time and Place A Church which if it be not the true Church her enemies cannot pretend to have any Church Ordination Scriptures Succession c. and are forced for their own sake to maintain her perpetual Existence and Being To leave I say such a Church and frame a Community without either Unity or means to procure it a Church which at Luther's first re-revolt had no larger extent than where his body was a Church without Universality of Place or Time A Church which can pretend no Visibility or Being except only in that former Church which it opposeth a Church void of Succession of Persons or Doctrin What wisdom was it to follow such men as Luther in an opposition against the Visible Church of Christ begun upon meer passion What wisdom is it to receive from Us a Church Ordination Scriptures
HE that will accuse any one man much more any great multitude of men of any great and horrible crime should in all reason and justice take care that the greatness of his Evidence do equal if not exceed the quality of the crime And such an accusation you would here make shew of by pretending first Ad. Sect. 1. to lay such grounds of it as are either already proved or else yielded on all sides and after to raise a firm and stable structure of convincing arguments upon them But both these I find to be meer and vain pretences and having considered this Chapter also without prejudice or passion as I did the former I am enforc'd by the light of Truth to pronounce your whole discourse a painted and ruinous building upon a weak and sandy Foundation 2 Ad § 2 3. First for your grounds a great part of them is falsely said to be either proved or granted It is true indeed that Man by his natural wit or industry could never have attained to the knowledge of Gods will to give him a supernatural and eternal happiness nor of the means by which his pleasure was to bestow this happiness upon him And therefore your first ground is good That is was requisite his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that end and means by a knowledge supernatural I say this is good if you mean by knowledge an apprehension or belief But if you take the word properly and exactly it is both false for faith is not knowledge no more than three is four but eminently contained in it so that he that knows believes and something more but he that believes many times does not know nay if he doth barely and meerly believe he doth never know and besides it is retracted by your self presently where you require That the object of faith must be both naturally and supernaturally unknown And again in the next page where you say Faith differs from science in regard of the object 's obscurity For that science and knowledge properly taken are Synonymous terms and that a knowledge of a thing absolutely unknown is a plain implicancy I think are things so plain that you will not require any proof of them 3 But then whereas you adde that if such a knowledge were no more than probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbear our will and encounter with humane probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and blood and therefore conclude that it was farther necessary that this supernatural knowledge should be most certain and infallible To this I answer that I do heartily acknowledg and believe the Articles of our faith be in themselves Truths as certain and infallible as the very common Principles of Geometry and Metaphysicks But that there is required of us a knowledge of them and an adherence to them as certain as that offense or science that such a certainty is required of us under pain of damnation so that no man can hope to be in the state of salvation but he that finds in himself such a degree of faith such a strength of adherence This I have already demonstrated to be a great error and of dangerous and pernitious consequence And because I am more and more confirm'd in my perswasion that the truth which I there delivered is of great and singular use I will here confirm it with more reasons And to satisfie you that this is no singularity of my own my Margent presents you with a (a) M. Hooker in his answer to Travers his Supplication I have taught that the assurance of things which we believe by the word is not so certain as of that we perceive by sense And is it as certain Yea I taught that the things which God doth promise in his world are surer unto us than any thing we touch handle or see But are we so sure and certain of them If we be why doth God so often prove his promises unto us as he doth by arguments taken from our sensible experience We must be surer of the proof than the thing proved otherwise it is no proof How is it that if ten men do all look upon the Moon every one of them knows it as certainly to be the Moon as another but many believing one and the same promises all have not one and the same fulness of perswasion How falleth it our that men being assured of any thing by sense can be no surer of it than they are whereas the strongest in faith that liveth upon the earth had alwayes need to labour and strive and pray that his assurance concerning heavenly and spiritual things may grow increase and be augmented Protestant Divine of great authority and no way singular in his opinions who hath long since preached and justified the same doctrin 4 I say that every Text of Scripture which makes mention of any that were weak or of any that were strong in faith of any that were of little or any that were of great faith of any that abounded or any that were rich in faith of encreasing growing rooting grounding establishing confirming in faith Every such Text is a demonstrative refutation of this vain fancy proving that faith even true and saving faith is not a thing consisting in such an indivisible point of perfection as you make it but capable of augmentation and diminution Every prayer you make to God to increase your faith or if you conceive such a prayer derogatory from the perfection of your faith the Apostles praying to Christ to increase their faith is a convincing argument of the same conclusion Moreover if this doctrin of yours were true then seeing not any the least doubting can consist with a most infallible certainty it will follow that every least doubting in any matter of faith though resisted and involuntary is a damnable sin absolutely destructive so long as it lasts of all true and saving faith which you are so far from granting that you make it no sin at all but only an occasion of merit and if you should esteem it a sin then must you acknowledge contrary to your own Principles that there are Actual sins meerly involuntary The same is furthermore invincibly confirmed by every deliberate sin that any Christian commits by any progress in Charity that he makes For seeing as S. John assures us our faith is the victory which overcomes the world certainly if the faith of all true Believers were perfect and if true faith be capable of no imperfection if all faith be a knowledge most certain and infallible all faith must be perfect for the most imperfect that is according to your doctrin if it be true must be most certain and sure the most perfect that is cannot be more than most certain then certainly their victory over the world and therefore over the flesh and therefore over sin must of necessity be perfect and so it should be impossible for any true believer to commit any deliberate sin and therefore he
God unnecessary Which will appear to any man who considers what strict necessity the Scripture imposes upon all men of effectual mortification of the habits of all vices and effectual conversion to newness of life and universal obedience and withal remembers that an act of Attrition which you say with Priestly Absolution is sufficient to salvation is not mortification which being a work of difficulty and time cannot be perform'd in an instant But for the present it appears sufficiently our of this impious assertion which makes it absolutely necessary for men either in Act if it be possible or if not in Desire to be Baptiz'd and Absolv'd by you and that with intention and in the mean time warrants them that for avoiding of sin they may safely follow the uncertain guidance of vain man who you cannot deny may either be deceiv'd himself or out of malice deceive them and neglect the certain direction of God himself and their own consciences What wicked use is made of this Doctrin your own long experience can better inform you than it is possible for me to do yet my own little conversation with you affoords one memorable example to this purpose For upon this ground I knew a young Schollar in Doway licenc'd by a great Casuist to swear a thing as upon his certain knowledge whereof he had yet no knowledge but only a great presumption because forsooth it was the opinion of one Doctor that he might do so And upon the same ground whensoever you shall come to have a prevailing party in this Kingdome and power sufficient to restore your Religion you may do it by deposing or killing the King by blowing up of Parliaments and by rooting out all others of a different faith from you Nay this you may do though in your own opinion it be unlawful because * Bellar. Contr. Barcl c. 7 In 7 c. refutare conaâ—ur Barcl verba illa Romuâ—s Veteres illos imperatores Coastaâ—â—ium Vaâ—entem caeteros nâ—n idâ—ò toleravit Ecclesia quod legiâ—imè successissen sed quod illos sine populi detrimeâ—â—o coâ—rcere â—on potera Et miratur hoc idem scripsisse Bell â—minun l 5 de Poâ—tif c. 7. Sed ut magis miretur sciat hoc idem sensisse S. Thomam 2.2 q 12. art 2. ad 1. Vbi dicit Ecclâ—siam â—nlerasse ut fidâ—les obedâ—reâ—â— Juliano Apostaâ—ae quia sui novitate noaduâ—n habebant vires compescendi Principes teâ—reaos Et postea Sanctus Gregorius dicit Nullum adversus juliani perse cutioâ—â—m suissâ— râ—mâ—dium prae ter Lacrimas quo â—am â—oa bâ—bebat Ecclesia vires quâ—bus ill us tyâ—aâ—â—idi resistere Posset Bellarmine a man with you of approved vertue learning and judgement hath declared his opinion for the lawfulness of it in saying that want of power to maintain a rebellion was the only reason that the primitive Christians did not rebel against their persecuting Emperors By the same rule seeing the Priests and Scribes and Pharisees men of greatest repute among the Jewes for vertue learning and wisdome held it a lawful and a pious work to persecute Christ and his Apostles it was lawful for their people to follow their leaders for herein according to your Doctrin they proceeded prudently and according to the conduct of opinion maturely weighed and approved by men as it seem'd to them of vertue learning and wisdome nay by such as sate in Moses chair and of whom it was said Whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and do which Universal you pretend is to be understood universally and without any restriction or limitation And as lawful was it for the Pagans to persecute the Primitive Christians because Trajan and Pliny men of great vertue and wisdome were of this opinion Lastly that most impious and detestable Doctrin which by a foul calumny you impute to me who abhorre and detest it that men may be saved in any Religion followes from this ground unavoidably For certainly Religion is one of those things which is necessary only because it is commanded for if none were commanded under pain of damnation how could it be damnable to be of any or to be of none Neither can it be damnable to be of a false Religion unless it be a sin to be so For neither are men saved by good luck but only by obedience neither are they damned for their ill fortune but for sin and disobedience Death is the wages of nothing but sin and S. James sure intended to deliver the adequate cause of sin and death in those words Lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Seeing therefore in such things according to your doctrin it is sufficient for avoiding of sin that we proceed prudently and by the conduct of some probable opinion mature y weighed and approv'd by men of learning vertue and wisdome and seeing neither Jews want their Gamaliels nor Pagans their Antoninus's nor any sect of Christians such professors and maintainers of their several sects as are esteem'd by the people which know no better and that very reasonably men of vertue learning and wisdome it followes evidently that the embracing their religion proceeds upon such reason as may warrent their action to be prudent and this say you is sufficient for avoiding of sin and therefore certainly for avoiding damnation for that in humane offairs and discourse evidence and certainty cannot be alwayes expected I have stood the longer upon the refutation of this doctrin not only because it is impious and because bad use is made of it and worse may be but 〈◊〉 because the contrary position That men are bound for avoiding sin alwayes to take the safest way is a fair and sure foundation for a cleer confutation of the main Conclusion which in this Chapter you labour in vain to prove and a certain proof that in regard of the precept of charity towards ones self and of obedience to God Papists unless ignorance excuse them are in state of sin as long as they remain in subjection to the Roman Church 9. For if the safer way for avoiding sin be also the safer way for avoiding damnation then certainly it will not be hard to determin that the way of Protestants must be more secure and the Roman way more dangerous Take but into your consideration these ensuing controversies Whether it be lawful to worship Pictures to picture the Trinity to invocate Saints and Angels to deny Lay-men the Cup in the Sacrament to adore the Sacrament to prohibit certain Orders of men and women to marry to celebrate the publique service of God in a language which the assistants generally understand not and you will not choose but confess that in all these you are on the more dangerous side for the committing of sin and we on that which is more secure For in all these things if we say true you do that which is impious on the other side if you were in the right
Lord but I deliver my judgment If we will pretend that the Lord did certainly speak what S. Paul spake and that his judgment was God's commandment shall we not plainly contradict S. Paul and that Spirit by which he wrote which moved him to write as in other places divine Revelations which he certainly knew to be such so in this place his own judgment touching some things which God had not particularly revealed unto him And if D. Potter did speak to this purpose that the Apostles were Infallible only in these things which they spake of certain knowledg I cannot see what danger there were in saying so Yet the Truth is you wrong D. Potter It is not he but D. Stapleton in him that speaks the words you cavil at D. Stapleton saith he p. 140. is full and punctual to this purpose then sets down the effect of his discourse l. 8. Princ. Doct. 4. c. 15. and in that the words you cavil at and then p. 150. he shuts up this Paragraph with these words Thus D. Stapleton So that if either the Doctrine or the Reason be not good D. Stapleton not D. Potter is to answer for it 33. Neither do D. Potter's ensuing words limit the Apostle's infallibility to truths absolutely necessary to salvation if you read them with any candor for it is evident he grants the Church infallible in Truths absolutely necessary and as evident that he ascribes to the Apostles the Spirit 's guidance and consequently infallibility in a more high and absolute manner than any since them From whence thus I argue He that grants the Church infallible in Fundamentals and ascribes to the Apostles the infallible guidance of the Spirit in a more high and absolute manner than to any since them limits not the Apostles infallibility to Fundamentals But D. Potter grants to the Church such a limited infallibility and ascribes to the Apostles the Spirit 's infallible guidance in a more high and absolute manner Therefore he limits not the Apostles infallibility to Fundamentals I once knew a man out of courtesie help a lame dog over a stile and he for requital bit him by the fingers Just so you serve D. Potter He out of courtesie grants you that those words The Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and shall abide with you ever though in their high and most absolute sense they agree only to the Apostles yet in a conditional limited moderate secundary sense they may be understood of the Church But says that if they be understood of the Church All must not be simply all No nor so large an All as the Apostles all but all necessary to salvation And you to requite his courtesie in granting you thus much cavil at him as if he had prescribed these bounds to the Apostles also as well as the present Church Whereas he hath explained himself to the contrary both in the clause fore-mentioned The Apostles who had the Spirit 's guidance in a more high and absolute manner than any since them and in these words ensuing whereof the Church is simply ignorant and again wherewith the Church is not acquainted But most clearly in those which being most incompatible to the Apostles you with an c I cannot but fear craftily have concealed How many obscure Texts of Scripture which she understands not How many School-Questions which she hath not happily cannot determine And for matters of fact it is apparent that the Church may err and then concludes That we must understand by All truths not simply All But if you conceive the words as spoken of the Church All Truth absolutely necessary to salvation And yet beyond all this the negative part of his answer agrees very well to the Apostles themselves for that All which they were lead into was not simply All otherwise S. Paul erred in saying we know in part but such an All as was requisite to make them the Churches Foundations Now such they could not be without freedom from errour in all those things which they delivered constantly as certain revealed Truths For if we once suppose they may have erred in some things of this nature it will be utterly undiscernable what they have erred in and what they have not Whereas though we suppose the Church hath erred in some things yet we have means to know what she hath erred in and what she hath not I mean by comparing the Doctrine of the present Church with the Doctrin of the Primitive Church delivered in Scripture But then last of all suppose the Doctor had said which I know he never intended that this promise in this place made to the Apostles was to be understood only of Truths absolutely necessary to salvation Is it consequent that he makes their Preaching and Writing not infallible in Points not Fundamental Do you not blush for shame at this Sophistry The Doctor says no more was promised in this place Therefore he says no more was promised Are there not other places besides this And may not that be promised in other places which is not promised in this 34. But if the Apostles were Infallible in all things proposed by them as Divine Truths the like must be affirmed of the Church because D. Potter teacheth the said promise to be verified in the Church True he doth so but not in so absolute a manner Now what is opposed to Absolute but Limited or restrained To the Apostles then it was made and to them only yet the words are true of the Church And this very promise might have been made to it though here it is not They agree to the Apostles in a higher to the Church in a lower sense to the Apostles in a more absolute to the Church in a more limited sense To the Apostles absolutely for the Churches direction to the Church Conditionally by adherence to that direction and so far as she doth adhere to it In a word the Apostles were lead into all Truths by the Spirit efficaciter The Church is led also into all Truth by the Apostles writings sufficienter So that the Apostles and the Church may be fitly compared to the Star and the Wisemen The Star was directed by the finger of God and could not but go right to the place where Christ was But the Wisemen were led by the Star to Christ led by it I say not efficaciter or irresistibiliter but sufficienter so that if they would they might follow it if they would not they might chuse So was it between the Apostles writing Scriptures and the Church They in their writing were infallibly assisted to propose nothing as a divine Truth but what was so The Church is also led into all Truth but it is by the intervening of the Apostles writings But it is as the Wisemen were led by the Star or as a Traveller is directed by a Mercurial Statue or as a Pilot by his Card and Compass led sufficiently but not irresistibly led as that she may follow not so
sufficient summary of all those Doctrines which being meerly Credenda and not Agenda all men are ordinarily under pain of damnation bound particularly to believe 6. Now this Assertion you say is neither pertinent to the question in hand nor in it self true Your Reasons to prove it impertinent put into form and divested of impertinencies are these 1. Because the question was not What Points were necessary to be explicitely believed but what Points were necessary not to be disbelieved after sufficient proposal And therefore to give a Catalogue of Points necessary to be explicitely believed is impertinent 7. Secondly because errors may be damnable though the contrary truths be not of themselves fundamental as that Pontius Pilate was our Saviours Judg is not in it self a Fundamental Truth yet to believe the contrary were a damnable error And therefore to give a Catalogue of Truths in themselves fundamental is no pertinent satisfaction to this demand what errors are damnable 8. Thirdly because if the Church be not universally infallible we cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed which we must receive upon the credit of the Church and if the Church be universally infallible it is damnable to oppose her declaration in any thing though not contained in the Creed 9. Fourthly because not to believe the Articles of the Creed in the true sense is damnable therefore it is frivolous to say the Creed contains all Fundamentals without specifying in what sense the Articles of it are fundamental 10. Fifthly because the Apostles Creed as D. Potter himself confesseth was not a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councel nor then until it was declared in the second c. by occasion of emergent Heresies Therefore now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation and so is not yet nor ever will be a compleat Catalogue of Fundamentals 11. Now to the first of these Objections I say First that your distinction between Points necessary to be believed and necessary not to be disbelieved is more subtil than sound a distinction without a difference There being no Point necessary to be believed which is not necessary not to be disbelieved Nor no Point to any man at any time in any circumstances necessary not to be disbelieved but it is to the same man at the same time in the same circumstances necessary to be believed Yet that which I believe you would have said I acknowledge true that many Points which are not necessary to be believed absolutely are yet necessary to be believed upon a supposition that they are known to be revealed by God that is become then necessary to be believed when they are known to be Divine Revelations But then I must needs say you do very strangely in saying That the Question was What Points might lawfully be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that they are divine Revelation You affirm that none may and so doth D. Potter and with him all Protestants and all Christians And how then is this the question Who ever said or thought that of Divine Revelations known to be so some might safely and lawfully be rejected and disbelieved under pretence that they are not Fundamental Which of us ever taught that it was not damnable either to deny or so much as doubt of the Truth of any thing whereof we either know or believe that God hath revealed it What Protestant ever taught that it was not damnable either to give God the lye or to call his Veracity into question Yet you say The demand of Charity Mistaken was and it was most reasonable that a List of Fundamentals should be given the denial whereof destroys Salvation whereas the denial of other Points may stand with Salvation although both kinds be equally proposed as revealed by God 12. Let the Reader peruse Charity Mistaken and he shall find that this qualification although both kinds of Points be equally proposed as revealed by God is your addition and no part of the demand And if it had it had been most unreasonable seeing he and you know well enough that though we do not presently without examination fall down and worship all your Churches Proposals as divine Revelations yet we make no such distinction of known divine Revelations as if some only of them were necessary to be believed and the rest might safely be rejected So that to demand a particular minute Catalogue of all Points that may not be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition is indeed to demand a Catalogue of all Points that are or may be in as much as none may be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that it is a divine Revelation At least it is to desire us First To transcribe into this Catalogue every Text of the whole Bible Secondly to set down distinctly those innumerous millions of negative and positive consequences which may be evidently deduced from it For these we say God hath revealed And indeed you are not ashamed in plain terms to require this of us For having first told us that the command was What points were necessary not to be disbelieved after sufficient proposition that they are Divine Truths you come to say Certainly the Creed contains not all these And this you prove by asking How many Truths are there in holy Scripture not contained in the Creed which we are not bound to know and believe but are bound under pain of damnation not to reject as soon as we come to know that they are found in holy Scripture So that in requiring a particular Catalogue of all Points not to be disbelieved after sufficient Proposal you require us to set you down all Points contained in Scripture or evidently deducible from it And yet this you are pleased to call a reasonable nay a most reasonable Demand whereas having ingaged your self to give a Catalogue of your Fundamentals you conceive your ingagement very well satisfied by saying All is Fundamental which the Church proposeth without going about to give us an endless Inventory of her Proposals And therefore from us instead of a perfect Particular of Divine Revelations of all sorts of which with a lest Hyperbole than S. John useth we might say If they were to be written the world would not hold the books that must be written me-thinks you should accept of this general All Divine Revelations are true and to be believed Which yet I say not as if I thought the belief of this General sufficient to Salvation but because I conceive it as sufficient as the belief of your General and therefore I said not Me-thinks all should accept of this General but Me-thinks you should accept of it 13. The very truth is The main Question in this business is not What divine Revelations are necessary to be believed or not rejected when they are sufficiently proposed for all without exception all without question are so But what Revelations are simply and absolutely necessary to be proposed to the belief of Christians so that that Society
Personal Succession and not Succession of Doctrin Is not this to verefie the name of Heresie which signifieth Election or Choice Whereby they cannot avoid that note of Imprudency or as S. Augustine calls it Foolishness set down by him against the Manichees and by me recited before I would not saith he believe (r) Cont. ep Fund c. 5. the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Those therefore whom I obeyed saying Believe the Gospel why should I not obey the same men saying to me Do not believe Manichaeus Luther Calvin c. Chuse what thou pleasest If thou say Believe the Catholiques they warn me not to believe thee Wherefore if I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say Do not believe the Catholiques thou shall not do well in forcing me to the saith of Manichaeus because by the Preaching of Catholiques I believed the Gospel it self If thou say you did well to believe them Catholiques commending the Gospel but you did not well to believe them discommending Manichaeus dost thou think me so very FOOLISH that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not Nay this holy Father is not content to call it Fool shness but meer Madness in these words Why should I not most diligently enquire (f) Lib de util Cred. c. 14. what Christ commanded of those before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Canst thou better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the Belief thereof had been recommended by thee to me This therefore I believed by fame strengthned with Celebrity Consent Antiquity But every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing which deserves Authority What MADNESS is this Believe them Catholiques that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said why I beseech thee Surely if they Catholiques were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my self that I were not to believe Christ then I should learn any thing concerning him from other than those by whom I believed him Lastly I ask What wisdom it could be to leave all visible Churches and consequently the true Catholique Church of Christ which you confess cannot err in points necessary to salvation and the Roman Church which you grant doth not err in fundamentals and follow private men who may err even in points necessary to salvation Especially if we add that when Luther rose there was no visible true Catholique Church besides that of Rome and them who agreed with her in which sense she was and is the only true Church of Christ and not capable of any Error in faith Nay even Luther who first opposed the Roman Church yet coming to dispute against other Heretiques he is forced to give the Lye both to his own words and deeds in saying We freely confess (t) In epist cont Anab. ad duos Paroches to 2. Germ. Wit fol. 229 230. that in the Papacy there are many good things worthy the name of Christian which have come from them to us Namely we consess that in the Papacy there is true Scripture true Baptism the true Sacrament of the Altar the true keyes for the remission of sins the true office of Preaching true Catechism as our Lords Prayer Ten Commandments Articles of faith c. And afterward I avouch that under the Papacy is true Christianity yea the Kâ—â—nâ—land Marrow of Christianity and many pious and great Saints And again he affirmeth that the Church of Rome hath the true Spirit Gospel Faith Baptism Sacraments the Keyes the Office of Preaching Prayer Holy Scripture and whatsoever Christianity ought to have And a little before I hear and see that they bring in Anabaptism only to this end that they may spight the Pope as men that will receive nothing from Antichrist no otherwise than the Sacramentaries do who therefore believe only Bread and Wine to be in the Sacrament meerly in hatred against the Bishop of Rome and they think that by this means they shall overcome the Papacy Verily these men rely upon a weak ground for by this means they must deny the whole Scripture and the Office of Preaching For we have all these things from the Pope otherwise we must go make a new Scripture O Truth more forcible as S. Austin says to wring out (x) Cont. Donat. past collat c 24. Confession then is any rack or torment And so we may truly say with Moyses Inimici nostri sunt Judices Our very Enemies give (y) Deut. 32.31 Their faith wants Supernaturality sentence for us 33 Lastly since your faith wanteth Certainty and Prudence it is easie to inferr that it wants the fourth Condition Supernaturality For being but an Humane perswasion or Opinion it is not in nature or essence Supernatural And being imprudent and rash it cannot proceed from Divine Motion and grace and therefore it is neither supernatural in it self not in the cause from which it proceedeth 34 Since therefore we have proved that whosoever errs against any one point of faith loseth all divine faith even concerning those other Articles wherein he doth not err and that although he could still retain true faith for some points yet any one errour in whatsoever matter concerning faith is a grievous sin it clearly follows that when two or more hold different doctrins concerning faith and Religion there can be but one Part saved For declaring of which truth if Catholiques be charged with want of Charity and Modesty and be accused of rashness ambition and fury as D. Potter is very free in this kind I desire every one to ponder the whole words of S. Chrysostom who teacheth that every least error overthrows all faith and whosoever is guilty thereof is in the Church like one who in the Common wealth forgeth false coin Let them hear saith this holy Father what S. Paul saith Namely that they who brought in some small error (z) Gal. 1.7 had overthrown the Gospel For to shew how small a thing ill mingled doth corrupt the whole he said that the Gospel was subverted For as he who clips a little of the stamp from the King's money makes the whole piece of no value so whosoever takes away â—he least particle of sound faith is wholly corrupted always going from that beginning to worse things Where then are they who condemn us as contentious persons because we cannot agree with Heretiques and do often say that there is no difference betwixt us and them but that our disagreement proceeds from Ambition to domineer And thus having shewed that Protestants want true Faith it remaineth that according to my first design I examine whether they do not also want Charity as it respects a mans self The ANSWER to the SIXTH CHAPTER That Protestants are not Heretiques