TRUE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES Here note 1. That our Religion hath its Essential parts And its Integral parts and Accidentals I. The Essentials of our Religion are contained in the Baptismal Covenant which is expounded in the CREED the LORDS PRAYER and the DECALOGUE as delivered and expounded by Christ and the Law of Nature II. Our Entire Religion in the Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals is contained wholly in the Law of Nature and the Canonical Scriptures The Essentials are delivered down to us two wayes 1. In Scripture with the rest 2. By the sure tradition of the Vniversality of Christians in actual Baptizings and the daily profession of Christianity This is all the Protestants Religion If you fasten any other on us we deny it we own no other And none know What is my Religion that is What I take for the Rule of my holy Faith Love and Life so well as my self P. This is meer craft you will make that only which is past controversie among us to be Your Religion that so your Religion may be past controversie too R. It is such Craft as containeth that naked truth which we trust all our own salvation on I say that I have no other Religion And if you know better than I disprove me P. I disprove you three wayes I. Because the Name Protestant signifieth no such Religion but somewhat else lately taken up II. Because the Angustane Confession the thirty nine Articles and such like are by your selves called The Articles of your Religion III. Because all your Writings declare that besides these you hold all those controverted points which are contrary to that which you call Popery R. I pray you mark D. that he would perswade you that he knoweth my Religion better than I do my self What if I should pretend the like as to his Religion Were I to be believed P. No but if you have an odd Religion of your own that proveth it not to be the Protestant Religion R. Remember D. that I come not hither to perswade you to any other Religion than this which I have mentioned Let him talk as long as he will what is other mens opinions I perswade you to nothing but this to take Gods Law of Nature and the Scripture for your Religion Either this is Right or Wrong If Right fix here and I have done If Wrong let that be disputed But yet I open to you all his three deceits I. The name Protestant doth not signifie our Religion but our Protesting against the Papists corruptions and additions I have no Religion but Christianity I am a Christian and that signifieth all my Religion I am a Catholick Christian that is of the Common Christian Faith and Church and not of any heretical dividing Sect And I am a Reformed Protestant Christian because I renounce Popery Therefore I rather say The Protestants than the Protestant Religion As if I were among Lepers If I say I am no Leper that signifieth not my Essence But if I say I am a Man and I am not a Leper I speak my Nature and my freedom from that disease So if I say I am a Christian Protestant I mean only that I am a Christian and no Papist or renouncing Popery as by the word Catholick I renounce all Sects and Schisms I tell you This is my meaning when I say I am a Protestant and can you tell my meaning better than my self II. And as to what he saith of the thirty nine Articles and other Church Confessions I answer None of these are our Religion in the sense now in question that is They are not taken by us to be the Divine Revealed-Rule of our Faith Love and Life which is our Religion now disputed of And that this is so I prove to you past all question For 1. Else should we have as many Religions as we have Church Confessions and should alter our Religion as oft as we alter our Confessions and our Religion should be as New as those Confessions All which the Protestants abhor 2. All those very Confessions themselves do assert that Gods Word is our only Religion and all mens Writings and Decrees are lyable to mistakes To pass by all the rest these are the words of our sixth Article Holy Scripture containeth all things Necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of faith or be thought Requisite or necessary to salvation What would you have more plain and full And in the Book of Ordination it is askt Are you perswaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ And are you determined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge and to teach Nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation but that which you shall be perswaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture Is not this plain P. Why then do you call the thirty nine Articles the Articles of your Religion And what is their use And why are all required to subscribe them R. 1. Their Use is to signifie how the Conjunct Pastors who use them do understand the Holy Scriptures in those points And that partly for the satisfaction of all forreign Churches who may hear us accused of Heresie or Error and partly to be a hedge to the Doctrine of young Preachers to keep them from vending mistakes in the Churches and also to try the soundness of their understandings 2. The Confessions and Articles and Catechisms are our Religion as the Writings of Perron Bellarmine Suarez c. or many of these agreeing are the Roman Religion They are not the Divine Revelation and Rule of faith and practice to us But they are the expression of our own conceptions of the sense of several chief matters in that Rule or Revelation So that they are the Expression of our faith or Religion taken subjectively for acts and habits and not our objective Rule it self Our Sermons and Prayers are our Religion in this sense that is The Expression of our own Religious Conceptions And so are your Sermons and your Writings also to you But if this were our Rule of Faith and Life and so our Divine Objective Religion then we should be of as many Religions as we are several persons For every one hath his several Expressions And every new Sermon or Book or Prayer would be a new part of Religion And so with you also So that this doubt is past all doubt Our Confessions are but the expressions of our personal belief and not our Rule of Faith III. And as to your third pretence that we have other Articles as opposite to Popery I answer Our Religion as a Rule of Faith and Worship is one thing And our Rejecting all Corruptions and Additions is another E. g. My Religion is that our God is only the true God
now calling our Religion and disputing of though this Religion teach us to obey Parents Pastors and Princes and that obedience may be consequentially and reductively called Religious if you please But if really your Religion be not Divine but Humane let us know it For by the word Religion we essentially mean that which is Divine P. Men were the speakers and writers of the Scriptures and so far they are humane as well as the Decrees of the present Church R. The Decalogue was witten by God and delivered by the Ministry of Angels Christ was owned by a Voice from Heaven And himself spake and did most recited by the four Evangelists And the Prophets and Apostles spake by the immediate Infallible Inspiration of the Holy Ghost So that the Holy Ghost is the Author of the Scriptures But the present Pastors of the Church instead of that Immediate Revelation from God by the Spirits Inspiration have but the ordinary help of the Spirit to understand those same Revelations and that proportioned to the measure of their diligence natural parts and helps of Art as the knowledge of Theologie is attained by other Students who are none of them perfect or free from error P. I will tell you what our Religion is It is Gods Word concerning things to be Believed and Done delivered partly in the Canonical Scriptures and partly by Oral Tradition and received by the Church and by it delivered to us The Trent Catech. Prefac q. 12. saith Omnis doctrinae ratio quae fidelibus tradenda sit verbo Dei continetur quod in Scripturam Traditionesque distributum est The Reason of every doctrine which is to be delivered to the faithful is contained in the Word of God which is distributed into the Scripture and Traditions Vide Concil Senonens in Bin. Decr. 5. p. 671. Concil Tridentini Sess 4. p. 802. Perspiciensque hanc Veritatem disciplinam contineri in libris sacris sine scripto Traditionibus quae ex ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptae ab ipsi Apostolis Spiritu sancto dictante quasi per manus traditae ad nos usque pervenerunt orthodoxorum patrum sententiam sequuta omnes libros tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti nec non Traditiones ipsas tum ad fidem tum ad mores pertinentes tanquam vel ore tenus a Christo vel a Spiritu sancto dictaâ—as continua successione in Ecclesia Catholica conservatas pari pietatis affectu reverentia suscipit ac veneratur Bellarmin de Verbo Dei lib. 4. c. 2 3. sheweth the divers sorts of unwritten Traditions which are part of Gods Word some de side as the perpetual Virginity of Mary that there are but four Gospels c. and some of Manners as Crossing Fast-dayes c. Easter Whitsontide and other Festivals Veron de Reg. fid cap. 2. saith The total and only Rule of the Catholick faith to which all are obliged under pain of Heresie and Excommunication is Divine Revelation delivered to the Prophets and Apostles proposed by the Catholick Church in her General Councils or by her Universal practice to be believed as an Article of Catholick faith All that is of this nature is an Article or doctrine of faith And no other doctrine can be of faith if either the first Condition fail viz. Divine Revelation or the second which is a Proposal by the Universal Church p. 5. No doctrine grounded on Scripture diversly interpreted either by the antient Fathers or our Modern Doctors is an Article of faith For such a doctrine though it may be revealed yet the revelation is not ascertained to us nor proposed by the Church Nor any Proposition which can be proved only by consequence drawn from Scripture though the consequences were certain and evident and deduced from two propositions of Scripture Yet these doctrines are Certain when the premises are so Gratians decrees the Papal decrees contained in the body of the Canon Law none of them do constitute an Article of saith Nor that which is defined in Provincial Councils though the Pope preside in person for the second condition is alwayes wanting in this case and very often the first p. 11. I did not say that such definitions were not of faith but they are not of Catholick faith or which all as Catholicks are bound to hold as of faith and the contrary to which is heretical and removeth from the bosome of the Church p. 12 13. The Practice even of the Vniversal Church is no sufficient ground for an Article of Catholick faith by reason the object of faith is Truth and oft times the Church proceeds in matter of practice upon probable Opinions and this probability is sufficient to justifie the practice which the Church on just cause may change As e. g. as Vasquez teacheth the Church did antiently pray in the Mass for Infidels alive and Catechumens dead and the Sacrifice of the Mass was offered for them and yet he rather inclineth to the contrary that the Sacrifice of the Mass ought not to be offered but for the faithful living and dead by which Opinion the Church seemeth guided at present But Vasquez answers that the Church following a probable opinion did practise that which she did not declare to be of faith p. 15. So General Councils when they mention any thing in this manner by way of simple assertion and do not properly define For as Bellarmine affirms it is necessary that General Councils properly define the thing in question as a Decree which ought to be held as of Catholick faith Hence Bellarmine adds they are not properly Hereticks who hold the Pope not to be above all Councils though he say the last Laterane Council under Leo the tenth Ses 11. expresly and professedly teacheth that the Pope is above all Councils and rejects the contrary Decree of the Council of Basil because it is doubtful whether the Laterane Council defined that doctrine properly as a Decree to be believed with Catholick faith The same Bellarm. de Concil l. 2. c. 19. also requireth that the definition be made Conciliarly Pope Martin the fifth said he only confirmed those Decrees of faith which were made in the Council of Constance Conciliariter that is after the manner of other Councils the question being first diligently examined But its clear saith he that this Decree that a General Council hath immediate authority from Christ which all even the Pope are bound to obey was made without any examining p. 17. The object defined must be truly and properly an object of faith and a Decree ought to be on a thing universally proposed to the whole Church Vasquez holds It is not at all erroneous to affirm that a General Council may err in Precepts and in particular Judgements and p. 19. in framing Laws not necessary to salvation or making superfluous Laws Without all doubt a General Council may err in a question of fact which depends on testimony and
information of men So the sixth General Council condemned Honorius of Heresie by false Information and misunderstanding his Epistles p. 20. The Pope saith Suarez to a particular action belonging to humane Prudence hath no infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost As that such or such an excommunication is valid or that such or such a Kingdom is disposable by the Pope for such and such causes So far Veron who is most favourable to you in narrowing our faith R. Thus far you have resolved me but I must crave somewhat more Qu. I. Are there no Essential Constitutive parts of your Religion more necessary than the Integrals and Accidentals Have you no description for it but that It is Divine Revelation proposed by the Church The Doctrine of Sacrificing was a Divine Revelation to Adam and the difference of clean and unclean Beasts to Noah and the Jewish Law was Gods Revelation to Moses and them And yet I suppose Christianity is somewhat different from all these Is not Christianity your Religion Hath Christianity no Constitutive special Essence but only the Genus of Divine Revelation which is common to that with all other Divine Revelations And what if you add to a Prophet or Apostle Was Agabus Prophesie of Paul or Pauls of the event of the shipwrack c. essential to Christianity Hath Christianity no Essence Or is all Divine Revelation essential to it P. You take advantage of the disagreement of our Doctors You know that some few acknowledg distinct fundamentals and some deny the distinction in your sense And most of us say that no man can enumerate the things necessary to all but that it dependeth upon mens various capacities educations and means of knowing And in sum that no more is necessary to all to be explicitly believed but that Gods Revelations are true and that All are Gods Revelations which the Church proposeth as such You may take our judgement much from him that cometh nearest to you whom I have heard you much praise as most moderate and judicious viz. Dr. H. Holden Anal. fid l. 1. c 5. Lect. 2. p. 53. Divines disputing of the necessity of points to be believed do commonly tend this way to denote the Articles of things revealed the explicite and express belief whereof is as they opine altogether necessary to all Christians The resolution of which question is among them so doubtful and uncertain as that they are in this as ☞ they are in all things else distracted and divided into various Opinions which they that care for them may seek To me they are as Nothing while the Authors of them profess that they have nothing of Certainty Yea to one that meditateth the matter it self laying by all preoccupation it is most clearly manifest that the Resolution of this question is not only unprofitable that I say not pernicious as it is handled by Divines but also vain and impossible It is unprofitable because no good accrueth by it to souls ☞ It is pernicious while Divines for the most part assert that only One or Two Articles yea as some say no singular Article at all is necessary to be believed of all by an explicite faith For hence however the truth of the matter be the colder Christians taking occasion do little care to obtain that degree of Knowledge in the Mysteries of faith which they might commodiously and easily attain It is Impossible seeing it is Manifest that no particular Rule or Points to be believed or Number of Articles can in this Matter be given or assigned which shall be wholly common and necessary to all Christians For this dependeth on every individual mans natural capacity means of instruction and all the other circumstances of each mans life and disposition which are to each man so special that we can determine of nothing at all that is common to all But I handle the Necessity of points to be Believed in a far other sense For the Articles of the Christian faith which I now call necessary I do not at all understand to be such as all and every one must distinctly know or hold by explicite assent But I mean only such the belief of which is accounted universally by the whole Catholick Church so substantial and essential as that he that will deservedly be esteemed and truly be a member of it must needs adhere to them all at least Implicitely and Indirectly that is by believing whatsoever the holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of divine faith And therefore he is for that cause to be removed from its Communion and Society who shall pertinaciously and obstinately deny the least of them much more if he maintain the contrary while he knoweth and seeth that it is the Universal sentence of that Church that we must adhere to that as an Article of faith And in this sense I will henceforth use the word Necessity R. This might have been said in fewer and plainer words viz. That your Divines herein do commonly err and that perniciously and yet that indeed he is of the same mind viz. that It is impossible to name the Articles necessary to be believed explicitely of all because each mans divers capacity means and circumstances diversifie them to each But that only this one thing is explicitely to be believed That whatsoever the Holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of faith is true And therefore that no man must pertinaciously deny any thing which he knoweth the Church so holdeth So that nothing is necessarily to be believed actually and indeed but Gods and the Churches Veracity P. Another of ours that cometh as near you as most openeth this more fully Davenport alias Fr. a Sancta Clara De. Nat. Grat. p. 111 c. As to the Ignorance of those things that are of necessity of Means or End there is difference among the Doctors For Soto 4. d. 5. q. 5. l. de Nat. Grat. c. 12. Vega l. 6. c. 20. sup Trid. hold that now in the Law of Grace there is no more explicite faith required than in the Law of Nature Yea Vega ib. Gabriel 2. d. 21. q. 2. ar 3. 3. d. 21. q. 2. think that in the Law of Nature and in Cases in the Law of Grace some may be saved with only natural knowledge and that the habit of faith is not required Whom Horantius terms men of great name and will not accuse of heresie I would this great mans modesty were more frequent with modern Doctors Yea Alvarez de aux disp 56. with others seemeth to hold that to justification there is not at all required the knowledge of a supernatural object or the supernatural knowledge of the object Others hold That both to Grace and Glory is required an explicite belief of Christ Bonav 3. d. 25 c. Others that at least to salvation is an explicite belief of the Gospel or
When you come to prove us heretical denyers of any of its essence we will give you a sufficient answer The twelfth Principle That the Essence of our Religion or Christianity as Active and Saving is Faith that worketh by Love Or such a Belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as is accompanied with a true devoting of our selves to him by Love and willingness to obey his Laws so far as we know them in opposition to the temptations of the world the flesh and the Devil And he that is truly such shall be saved P. I grant that he that truly Loveth God shall be saved But a Protestant cannot truly love God because he hath not true faith R. Do you not agree and confess then that If any Protestants do truly Love God and are sincerely willing to obey his will and to know it that they may obey it such are of the true Religion and shall be saved and that popery which denyeth their salvation is false P. If your false supposition were true these false consequents would be true But you are all deceived when you think that you sincerely Love God and are willing to know and do his will R. 1. Let all Protestants note this first that you grant that none but ☞ falshearted Hypocrites that are not what they profess to be and Love not God nor would obey him should turn Papists 2. And if a man cannot know his own Mind and Will what he Loveth and what he is willing of no not about his End and greatest concernments how can he know when he Believeth aright Why do you trouble the world thus with your noise about Believing the Proposals of your Church if a man cannot know whether he believe or not ☞ And he that cannot know what he Willeth Chooseth or Loveth can no more know what he believeth For the Acts of the Will are more plenary and easily perceived And do all Papists know their own Hearts or Minds but no Protestants What would you expect but indignation and derision by such arguing as this if you will go about the world and tell men You none of you know your own Minds and wills but we know them You think you Love God and are willing to obey him but you are all mistaken it is not so with you but you must believe our Pope and his Council and then you may know your own minds and hearts They that believe you on these rates deserve the deceit of believing you and punish themselves The thirteenth Principle That when Christ described all the Essence of Christianity by our Believing in and being baptized into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost the Apostles and first Pastors of the Churches instructed people to understand the meaning of these three Articles And the ancient Creed called the Apostles is the exposition of them as to Belief And that this Creed was of old the symbol of the true faith by which men were supposed sufficiently qualified for baptism and distinguished from Hereticks which after was enlarged by occasion of heresies to the Nicene and Constantinopolitane Creed To which that called Athanasius's was added as a fuller explication of the doctrine of the Trinity And he that believed all these was taken for one of the true Christian Religion which was sufficient in suo genere to salvation P. All that was then Necessary to be explicitely believed necessitate medii was expressed in the Creeds if not more But not all that is now necessary when the Church hath proposed more R. 1. Some of you say no more is necessary ut medium but to believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Others say that the chief articles of the Creed also are commonly necessary And in your discord we lay no great weight on your Opinions 2. But is not Christianity the same Thing now as it was at the beginning Is Baptism altered Hath not a Christian now the same definition as then Are not Christs promises and the Conditions the same Shall not he that was a Christian then be saved if he were now alive May not we be Christians and saved by the same Constitutive Causes which made men Christians and saved them in the primitive Churches Subvert not Christianity and confound not the Church and cheat not poor souls by labouring to hide the essence of Christianity and such plain important truths You cannot deny our faith to be true without condemning the ancient Church and Christianity it self While we aloud profess that the Christian faith explained in all the ancient Creeds is the faith which we own in its Essentials explicated The fourteenth Principle That the Books which the Protestants commonly receive as Canonical Scriptures are in the agreeing Original Copies as to the very words and in true Translations as to the sence the most true Infallible word of God R. I grant that where the Copies disagree by various Readings we are no more sure that any of them is the word of God than we are sure that such a Copy is righter than all that differ from it But as long as the essence of Christianity on which our Salvation is laid is in the Covenant of Grace explained in Credondis in the Creed and in Petendis in the Lords Prayer and in Agendis in the Decalogue as explained by Christ And no one Duty or material doctrine of our Religion dependeth on the various Lections but those texts that Agree are sufficient to establish them all yea as Franc. à Sancta Clara system fid professeth the ordinary Translations so agree as that no material point of Religion doth depend on any of their differences It is as much as we assert that the Agreeing Original Copies and the sound-Translations so far as they are such are the True Infallible word of God the former both as to words and sence and the later as to sence alone Do you not grant this P. We grant the Scripture as you say to be Gods Infallible word But 1. You cannot know it to be so because you take it not on the Roman Churches Authoritative Proposal 2. And you leave out part of it R. 1. Whether we can know it shall be tryed in due place 2. And whether we have All of it or enough is another question to be debated when you will You grant us expresly that which we now desire which is the Infallible Truth of our Canonical Scripture And this is All our Religion containing not only the Essentials but all the Integrals and Accidentals needful to be recorded So that All the Protestants Religion is confessed to be Infallibly True And from hence further note that in all our disputes you are obliged to be the defendants as to Truth For we deny the Truth of much of your Religion but you deny not the Truth of one word of ours but only the Plenitude or Sufficiency P. The name of a Protestant was never known till Luthers