Christ If the term Mother Church be from hence that from it the Gospel went forth it can be meant of none but Jerusalem from whence the Gospel went into all the world not from the Roman church Nor is it true that the Roman church hath the power of headship over all the rest no not according to the Papists own opinion which is that the Bishop of Rome hath this power and that it belongs to his pastoral office now I suppose they will not say the church hath the pastoral office or that they are Pastors if they should they must make Women who are of the Church as well as Men Pastors and all the Believers who are the church Pastors as well as the Bishop aud if the church be Pastors or have power of jurisdiction who are the Sheep who are to be fed and over whom this jurisdiction is to be exercised But if they mean onely by the church universal the Pope of Rome then all that is to be enquired is who is the true Pope when enquiry is made which is the true church and when there is no Pope then there is no church and when the Pope is uncertain it is uncertain which is the church So ridiculous is the Papists talk and dispute about the church that there is no tolerable sense can be made with truth of the Roman church being catholick the mother of churches having power of Headship and Jurisdiction over all churches Nor is it true that the Pope of Rome hath either of right or in possession such power not of right as shall be shewed art 7. where it will appear that the claim to it is meerly impudent and arrogant without any colour of right nor in possession For besides the Protestant churches the Greek churches neither now nor heretofore when unquestionably orthodox were ever subject to the Romish Bishop Yet were these things granted to H. T. that the Roman church were Mother and Head is this a fit reason to term it catholick Will any call a mother of twenty children all her twenty children Will any man call Julius Caesar because Dictator of Rome or the Roman Senate because Rulers all the Roman people or all the people of that Empire H. T. his instance is frivolous Though men call the Rulers of an Army the Captain General yet not a general man or the universal Army and sutably if it were allowed that the Bishop of Rome were universal Bishop yet in no good sense could he or the Roman church be termed the universal church But this talk about the Roman catholick church is manifestly ridiculous non-sense or false H. T. adds Object You communicate not with us and many others therefore your communion is not catholick or universal Answ I grant the Antecedent but deny the Consequent For universal communion requires not communion with all particular sects or persons but onely with all true believers no A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Tit. 3. 10 11. Answ To catholick communion is requisite communion with all Christian churches though not with all particular sects And that the Protestant churches are no Hereticks is manifest from their confessions which agree with the Scripture Doctrine although Papists do clamorously term them such and destroy them as such and therein shew themselves Successours to Nero not to Peter whereas Papists are the most manifest Schismaticks and greatest Hereticks that ever were I pass on to the next Article ARTIC V. The Roman Church is neither proved to be the Catholick Church nor the highest visible Judge of Controversies nor is it proved that she is infallible both in her Propositions and Definitions of all Points of Faith nor to have power from God to oblige all men to believe her under pain of damnation but all this is a meer impudent and arrogant claim of Romanists that hath no colour of proof from Scripture or Antiquity SECT I. The deceit of H. T. is shewed in asserting an Infallibility and Judicature of Controversies in the Church which he means of the Pope H. T. entitles his fifth Article thus The churches infallibility demonstrated and saith Our Tenet is that the Roman catholick church is the highest visible Judge of controversies and that she is infallible both in her Propositions and Definitions of all points of faith having a power from God to oblige all men to believe her under pain of damnation And six pages after p. 70. he saith thus Note here for your better understanding this whole Question that when we affirm the Church is infallible in things of faith by the word Church we understand not onely the Church diffused over all the World unanimously teaching whose Doctrine of Faith we hold to be infallible but also the Church represented in a Council perfectly oecumenical that is to say called out of the whole world and approved by the Pope whose Definitions of Faith we hold to be infallible Ans WE have here a most arrogant proud claim like that of the King of Tyrus Ezek. 28. 2 3. I am God I sit in the seat of God there is no secret that they can hide from me For what is this less which is here ascribed to meer men often the worst of men than the prerogative of the Son of God surely it's more than Angels have Job 4. 18 But though this Author is bold enough in the title and tenet yet in his after note he hath such subterfuges as shew his despair of making it good and his deceitful mockage of his unwary reader For 1. He deals like a sophister that after his arguments states the question 2. He doth so shift off this infallibility from one to another that he knows not well where to fix it Fain he would fasten it on the Pope as he doth in a manner at last and Hart more plainly confesseth with Rainold ch 7. divis 7. though it behove the Pope to use the advise of his brethren and therefore I spake of Confistories Courts and Councils yet whether he follow their advise or no his decrees are true But then the arguments from Scripture and Fathers which speak of the church not of the Pope had appeared to be impertinent Therefore he doth not in plain words disclaim it's infallibility but saith When we affirm the church is infallible in things of faith by the word church we understand not only the church diffused over all the world unanimously teaching whose doctrines of faith we hold to be infallible Wherein you may perceive 1. Egregious vanity in making the Roman church Catholick 2. The Church diffused over all the world teaching 3. Teaching unanimously which are all like a sick mans dreams of a golden mountain there having never been any such thing as this in the world nor ever is likely to be 2. Egregious deceit in the terming this church infallible Judge of controversies propounding and defining points of faith having power from God to oblige all men under pain of
missals and the vulgar Latin translations of the Bible they confesse they used the help of learned men and one Pope alter what a former did and Judge of controversies from whom none may appeal and all are bound in conscience to stand to his definitions H. T. saith further Object The spiritual man judgeth all things 1 Cor. 2. 15. Answ By the Rule of Apostolical tradition I grant by humane reason or the private spirit I deny and such a spiritual man is in the Church as a part in the whole not out of it with Sectaries I reply It is true the spiritual man judgeth all things by the Rule of Apostolical tradition I mean that which is truly and confessedly Apostolical in the holy Scriptures not by that unwritten tradition which Papists falsly call Apostolical And it is true also that the spiritual man judgeth all things by humane reason not as the rule of faith but as the Organ or means of discerning as the buyer judgeth whether he hath measure by the Ell as the rule and by the eye as the Organ by which he compareth the thing bought and the Ell together And if by private spirit be meant nothing but his own ability to discern the spiritual man judgeth by his private spirit and so doth a Papist that judgeth by the rule of the Councils definition and Popes approbation judge what his Priest suggests to him to be such by humane reason and his private spirit Nor can it be otherwise if the judging be his act but it should be by humane reason unless we imagine a man as a man to act without reason However this is clear by his confession that a spiritual man is not onely the Pope or the Catholick Church but a part in the whole and that he not onely receives all that the Church propounds but judgeth and therefore doth not rest on the judgement of the Church with a blinde assent and that he is in the Church nevertheless and this supposeth that a spiritual man is not to presuppose the Church or Pope or Prelate or Priest infallible but to examine what they say and to judge for himself whether they speak right or not H. T. proceeds thus Object Right reason is the onely Judge of controversies therefore every mans private reason must be Judge for himself Answ The Antecedent I have sufficiently refuted and I also deny the Consequence as the most gross and unreasonable Assertion of all others though Mr. Chillingsworth's chief ground which appears thus I reply No Protestant that I know saith Right reason is the onely Judge of controversies and therefore there was no need of refuting it Nevertheless in what he hath said before about this point he hath refuted nothing except it be a sufficient Refutation to say without any reason or proof for it that we must not try all things by humane reason or the private spirit which is a way of reâ—uting fit enough for this Scribler though unfit for a Disputer 2. Nor do I think any Protestant makes that consequence which is here set down whereas he aâ—cribes it to Master Chillingworth he had dealt honestly if he had quoted the place that we might without reading a whole Book have found it If I mistake not Master Chillingworth chap. 2. part 1. Sect. 104. of his Answer to Charity maintained against Knot asserting a necessity of a personal Judge in points of controversie concerning the Christian faith that the Scripture was not and therefore the church must be it saith Scripture is not a Judge of controversies but a Rule to judge them by being understood of all those that are possible to be judged by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture that it is not necessary that all controversies should be decided that in doubtfull things there is no necessity they should be determined but that each should bear with other and he is safe that useth means to finde the truth though he miss it that fundamentals are plainly delivered in Scripture that the mâ—st unlearned may understand these by the translations of places on no side gainsaid that each mans own reason is Judge for himself that there is no such personal Judge appointed by God as Knot would have that his Reasons from the necessity of a personal Judge in civil controversies hold not in this matter that every mans particular reason is that by which he is to judge whether this or that Doctrine be agreeable to Scripture that even according to the way of the Papists the giving of the Office of Judicature to the Church comes to confer it upon every particular man For 1. Before any man believes the Church infallible he must have reason to induce him to believe it so else why do they set down Arguments to prove it 2. Supposing they are to be guided by the Church they must use their own particular reason to finde out which is the Church and to that end Popish Doctors give notes and marks whereby to discern it which are to no end if a Christian must not use his reason to judge whether they be right or no. So that in effect this is Mr. Chillingworth 's Argument as I conceive it There is neither a necessity of an infallible personal Judge among men to determine all controversies in Religion among Christians nor is any such appointed by God but each is to try for himself what is taught and even by Popish Writers own way he must use his particular reason to discern the validity of their proofs for the Churches infallibility and which is the Church which must be his guide by the marks of iâ— therefore it must of necessity be yielded that every mans particular reason must be Judge for himself Now this which H. T. unskilfully calls the consequence it being the consequent onely is no unreasonable much less gross Assertion and may very well be Mr. Chillingworth 's ground in answering Knot notwithstanding that which here H. T. produceth to the contrary First saith H. T. As contradicting the Word of God wherein we are taught that the things which are of God no man knows but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 11. No man can say Our Lord Jesus with true faith but in the holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12. 3. By which grace we are saved through faith and that not of our selves for it is the gift of God Ephes 2. 8. We are not sufficient to think any good thing our selves as of selves but our sufficiency is from God 2 Cor. 3. 5. We must captivate our understanding to the obedience of faith I reply Mr. Chillingworth's tenet being rightly understood contradicts none of these Texts For 1. when he saith Every mans private reason is to judge for himself he means whether this or that be the meaning of the Scriptures and whether that which some say is revealed in Scripture be so or not so that the judging which he asserts is of things revealed by the words
their usurpations of power The third Lateran Council saith H. T. Fathers three hundred for reformation Pope Alexander the third presiding Anno Domini 1179. condemned Waldensis the Merchant of Lyons who taught the Apostles were lay men that lay men and women might consecrate and preach that clergy men ought to have no possessions or properties that oaths were unlawful in all cases that Priests and Magistrates by mortal sin fell from their dignity and were not to be obeyed c. His tenents were here defined against and he himself anathematized But suppose all this were true that he so taught and that the Pope with his council condemned him what is this to prove H. T. his minor that a council in that age professed the same faith with the now Roman against the Protestants Are the contrary tenents any of the Articles which in his Manual of Controversies H. T. defends against the Protestants do the Protestant churches in their confessions avow the same which he here saith the council ascribed to Waldensis the Merchant of Lyons but to shew the ignorance of this scribler the person who was Merchant of Lyons in France was Petrus Waldus from whom his followers were termed Waldenses whom I find to have been condemned in some council at Rome about that time but in the Lateran council 1179. I find other decrees about Priests continency the number of horses clergy men might have in their visitations and the exemption of Ecclesiasticks from the judgement of Laicks which it seems were the great business of reformation As for the Waldenses there is no cause to believe adversaries in their accusations of them especially such ignorant and malicious men as the Friers and Monks of former and later times have been Besides the experience which after ages yeilded about their belying Wicklef Hus and others our own times yeild many examples of Papists falsly reporting the tenents of Protestants Though Bellarmin be more ingenuous in setting down the Protestants doctrin than many other writers yet there 's scarce a controversie wherein he doth not deal deceitfully in representing the Protestants doctrin or their arguments and answers But the writings professions apologies put forth by Balthasar Lydius in Latin shew that the opinions of the Waldenses were not such as the Papists represent them and the words of Reinerius an inquisitor and enemy to them in his book of inquisition concerning them doth more truely acquaint us what they were which are thus that whereas all other sects by the immanity of their blasphemies against God do make men abhor them this of the Lyonists the same with the Waldenses hath a great shew of godliness because they live justly before men and do believe all things well of God and all the articles which are contained in the Creed only the Church of Rome they do blaspheme and hate And now we have more full knowledge of them by Mr. Morlands history of the Evangelical Churches of Piedmont As for the Catholick professors H. T. adds in this age though Bernardus Abbas commonly called St. Bernard be reckoned as a professor of the new Roman faith and it is not denied that he was superstitious in some points yet he freely noted divers corruptions then arising as the feast of the Virgin Maries conception which tended to uphold the conceit of her freedom from sin Ep. 174. ad can Lugd. the opinion of merits serm 1. de annunt of justification by works cant serm 22. ep 190. of freewill de grat lib. arb of keeping the law cant ser 50 of seven Sacraments ser 1. de Caena Domini of uncertainty of Salvation ep 107. and the Popes greatness in temporalities l. 2. confid ad Eugen. And for Hildegardis the Nunne her speeches and prophecies shewed her dislike of the proceedings of the clergy even of the Popes Noribertus and some others were noted for their superstitious waies of Monkery Thomas Becket of Canterbury for his obstinacy against his Prince Henry the second whom he traiterously opposed to uphold the wickedness of the clergy and others named whether they were of good or bad note it is of little moment sith it s not denied there were too many then infected with the Roman errors and superstitions Nor is it of much advantage that Nicolas the Monke after Pope converted the Pomeranians and Norwegians that Pope being bad enough and the conversion if to Romish superstition rather than Christian faith little crediting the Romish Church SECT XI The defect of H. T. his catalogue of succession in the thirteenth and fourteenth ages is shewed IN the thirteenth century are set down seventeen Popes as chief Pastors of whom the first is Gelasius the second who was first in the former age but I imagin though it be not noted in the Errata for Honorius the third who was a bloody Bishop as others before him setting up Emperor against Emperor cruel Friers against the godly Waldenses besides other wicked acts he did The like were Gregory the ninth in whose time the bloody factions of Guelphs and Gibellius happened and Innocent the fourth whom Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincoln withstood contemning his excommunication and being dead was such a terror to this wicked Pope as to hasten his death Nicolas the third whom H. T. makes the converter of the Pomeranians and Norwegians raised the quarrel between Peter of Arragon and Charles of France for Sicily whence grew the massacre of the French called the Sicilian Vespers and the last and worst of them Boniface the eighth is said to have entred like a Fox reigned like a Lyon died like a dog H. T. adds two general Councils the fourth Lateran council Fathers 1285. Pope Innocent the third presiding Anno 1215. And tells us that this Council desined that the universal Church of the faithful is one out of which no man is saved Which definition we approve and thereby the doctrin of the Protestants is confirmed who teach that the Catholick Church we believe is the invisible Church of true believers and that the Catholick Church is not only the Roman Church and those who subject themselves to the Bishop of Rome and profess the same faith with the now Roman Church but all the believers who believe the doctrin of the Gospel taught by Christ and his Apostles though they neither know nor own the Roman Church in the things therein held against the Protestants nor acknowledge any superiority of the Bishop of Rome are members of the Catholick Church and that it is not the Church of Rome which is falsly called Catholick out of which none can be saved but the universal Church of the faithful in which who ever is by true faith in Christ he may be saved though he disclaims the Bishop of Rome as Antichrist and the faction or party joyning with him as the Synagogue of Satan and consequently that it is not as H. T. saith in his Epistle to the Reader the most important controversie to know the notion and
for this one thousand years are not to be compared their own writers being Judges who have opposed these doctrins of the now Romanists as hath been shewed by many learned men to the eternal confusion of Popish novelties then this Author hath here or any Popish writer elsewhere hath made to prove a succession of Pastors Councils Professors and Nations avouching the present Roman opinions which were never so avouched or enjoyned as now they are in Pope Pius the fourth his new Creed till about one hundred years ago And to this insolent demand where was your Church before Luther Protestants may reply to Papists where was your church which believed as you now do before Boniface the third Gregory the seventh Innocent the third and Leo the tenth The speeches of the Fathers for the churches continued succession do none of them prove the major of H. T. his Syllogism that is the only true Church of God which has had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time meaning it of local personal succession of which H. T. means it but only of succession in holding the same doctrin Nor do any of them prove H. T. his minor that the church now in communion with the See of Rome and no other has had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time for they were all dead above a thousand years afore this time All that can be proved is that in case of heresies or Schisms they made use of the succession in the Roman church which was then less tainted then some others to repress them yet so as that they alleged a succession in other churches as well as it but none ever as this Author held it necessary that all churches should own the Bishop of Romes supremacy or the Roman churches communion how corrupt soever they should prove only while they continued uncorrupt in the faith they held communion with them and so should we if they would embrace the primitive purity of doctrine and worship which Peter and Paul and other Apostles first taught in the churches of Christ of which that at Rome though not the first yet was one of the most famous and till their declining of great esteem SECT XIV H. T. hath not solved the Protestants objection H. T. takes upon him to solve objections against the Churches continued succession and saith thus Obj. Elias complained that he was left alone 3 King 19. therefore the church then failed Answ He spake figuratively for God himself told him in the same Chapter ver 18. that he had seven thousand at that time in Israel where he was who had not howed their knees to Baal and in the Kingdom of Juda there was then publick profession of the true religion in Hierusalem paralip 22. 14 15. so that consequence is false To which I reply this author shews himself deceitful in setting down our tenet and argument and slighty in his answer For the tenet of the Protestants is not that the Church hath failed and that there is no continued succession of men in the visible Church who have held forth the truth against Popish innovations But that sometimes they have been by persecution so obscured as that however they have been discernable among themselves yet not so to adversaries and to others of their brethren at a farther distance nor perhaps have they been so conspicuous as that a catalogue might be made of the succession of Pastors and people in the same place in every age but oft-times they have been so dispersed as to be in one age or time in one Country and another time in another and that the monuments of their being and doctrine have been in part lost and in part obscured by inundations of barbarous nations persecutions of Popes and Popish Princes and their knowledge and profession hath been sometimes larger sometimes less and still misreported by adversaries Nevertheless that is though they have been in such obscurity they have been true Churches of Christ and notwithstanding we cannot prove such a succession in any one City or Country of Pastors and people in every thing agreeing with us yet we may be a true Church as long as we hold the true faith once delivered to the Saints and now upon record in the holy Scriptures though we submit not to the Pope as chief Pastor nor own the now Roman doctrin in the articles required in the Bull of Pope Pius the fourth to be professed over and above the ancient Creeds In a word this we assert that the defect of a catalogue such as H. T. requires and the obscurity of professors nullifies not the verity of the Protestant Churches And this is proved by the objection thus If there were a true Church in Israel in Elias his days which was so hidden as that Elias knew them not and so could make no catalogue of them then there may be a true Church whose professors may be so obscure as that neither in the same nor in after ages a catalogue of them can be assigned But so it was as appears by Elias his complaint and Gods answer 1 King 19. 10 14 18. Ergo there may be a true Church whose professors may be so obscure as that neither in the same nor in after ages a catalogue of them can be assigned Now what doth he answer that Elias spake figuratively because God said there were seven thousand non-Baalites left in Israel and that there was a Church in Juâ—ah then and therefore the consequence false But to shew the slightiness of this shifter for I cannot term him rightly a respondent 1. He tells us not what figure he used nor in what words nor what sense the speech bears according to that figure nor how it serves for his purpose to avoid the objection I do not conceive what figure of speech he or any man can imagin in that speech I am left alone unless he meant Ironically I am left alone that is not left alone which were a frantick conceit or an Hyperbole or a Synecdoche of a part for the whole one for many but such an Hyperbole or Synecdoche would make the speech non-sense I that is a few or many are left alone For this were non-sense and self contradicting and contrary to the intent of the speech I being in the first person and that doubled few or many in the third to say few or many are left alone when alone excludes few many any more then one to say they seek my life that is of few or many when my notes only him that spake to wit Elias and no other to say I have been jealous that is a few or many have been jealous besides the citation Rom. 11. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the occasion end of the speech and answer of God shew such an exposition would be the conceit of a man extreme shallow or impudent And his reason is as ridiculous God himself told Elias in the same chapter ver 18. that
is not as H. T. renders it be obscured but vanish away as the words following shew which are Who had these things He that preacheth hath founded the Heaven and the Earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away Whence it is manifest that he there speaks not of the Churches visibility but permanency as the Sun Augustin lib 3. cont Parmen cap. 5. tom 7. against the Donatists saith thus Who therefore would not sit in the assembly of vanâ—â—y let him not become vain in the type of pride seeking the Conventicls separate from the unity of the just of the whole world which he cannot finde But the just are through the whole City which cannot be hid because it is seated on a Mountain that Mountain I say of Daniel in whom that stone cut out without hands grew and filled the whole earth And after There is no security of unity but in the Church declared by the promises of God which being seated as was said on a Mountain cannot be hid and therefore it is necessary that it be known to all parts of the earth By which it is manifest that in opposition to the Donatists appropriating the Church to their party he asserts it to be manifest not by its outward splendour but its extension to all parts The words l. 2. cont Petilian c. 104 are thus Ye are not in the Mountains of Sion because ye are not in the City seated on the Mountain which hath this certain sign that it cannot be hid therefore it is known to all Nations but the part of Donatus is unknown to many Nations therefore it is not that Church It is evident he spake of the Church at that time which was known or manifestly visible to all Nations not from a potent Monarchy in one City but its diffusion through all parts of the world SECT III. H. T. hath not solved the Protestants Objections against the visibility of the Church H. T. adds Objections solved Object The Church is believed therefore not seen Answ She is believed in the sense of her Doctrines and to be guided to all truths by the Holy Ghost but seen in her Pastours Government and Preaching wherefore I deny the Consequence I Reply Though Protestants deny not the Church militant to be visible in the outward Government and Preaching of the Pastors yet they deny that it is always so conspicuous as that it may be known to every Christian as an Assembly of the People of Rome or Common-wealth of Venice to which all may resort for direction Nor by this Argument do they prove that the Church militant is not visible but that the Church in the Creeds Apostolical and Nicene which is one Catholick and Apostolick as such is not visible but invisible being the Object of Faith not of Sight nevertheless the Answer takes not away the force of the Objection if it had been alleged against the visibility of the Church militant For the Church is believed not as teaching but as being it is the existence of the Church not the Doctrine of it that is believed as even the Trent Catechism expounds it now that being Catholick that is according to the Catechism consisting of all believers from Adam till now in all Nations cannot be the object of sense but of faith and therefore the Catholick Church in the Creeds is the invisible of true Believers not the meer visible now militant H. T. adds Object The Woman the Church fled into the Wilderness Apoc. 12 6. Answ But is followed and persecuted by the Dragon v. 17. therefore visible I reply this Answer is ridiculous For whereas Protestants hence prove that at some times the Church is hid from men this Authour saith It was not hid from the Dragon that is the Devil which is not in question So that it appears he had nothing to answer this Inference from the Womans flying into the Wilderness and being hid that sometimes the Church is so hidden as it were in a Wilderness that though it be yet it is not so visible or conspicuous as that men can discern it so as to repair to it howbeit the Devil knows where they lurk Yet once more H. T. Object The Church of the Predestinate is invisible Answ There is no such thing as a Church of the Predestinate Christ's Church is the congregation of all true believers as well Reprobate as predestinate There is in his Floor both Wheat and Chaff St. Matth. c. 3. and in his Field both Corn and Tares which shall grow together till the Harvest the Day of Judgement St. Matth. c. 13. The Predestinate are as visible as the Reprobate It is true indeed their Predestination is invisible and so is also these mens Reprobation I reply To salve their main Tenet of the Popes being Head of the Church of Christ who is often so wicked as that if the Church of Christ be determined to be of elect persons onely many Popes cannot be termed Members much less Heads of the Church is this audacious Assertion invented that there is no such thing as a Church of the Predestinate contrary to express Scripture which mentions the Church of the first-born written in Heaven Heb. 12. 23. and the Church elected together with Peter or those he wrote to 1 Pet. 5. 13. and saith such things of the Church in many places to wit Ephes 5. 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32. Ephes 1. 22 23 c. as cannot agree to Reprobates who cannot be said to be Christ 's body his fulness to be loved sanctified whom he nourisheth intends to present without spot as he saith there of Christ's Church He that desires more proof may reade Dr. John Rainold his fourth Conclusion where he proves it fully both from Scripture and Fathers that the holy Catholick Church which we believe is the whole company of Gods elect and chosen which hath not been yet answered that I know Nor do I see how the fourth Lateran Council could mean otherwise which determined as H. T. saith here art 1. pag. 30. that the universal Church of the faithfull is one out of which no man can be saved which can be true onely of the Church of the Predestinate As for what H. T. saith here The Church of Christ is the congregation of all true believers as well Reprobate as Predestinate it supposeth true believers may be reprobate but this is false meaning it of the truth of being opposite to feigned counterfeit or in shew onely For our Lord Christ hath said John 5. 24. John 3. 15 16 18 36. that such as believe on him shall not perish come not to condemnation are passed from death to life have everlasting life Nor do the Texts Matth. 3. 12. where the Floor is not Christ's Church but the Jewish people or Matth. 13. 30. where the Field is expresly interpreted vers 38. to be the World not the Church speak to the contrary It is true The Predestinate are as visible as the Reprobate
He that knoweth God heareth us and he that heareth us not is not of God in this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error 1 John 4. 6. Go ye preaching the Gospel to all creatures c. He that believeth not shall be condemned St. Mark 16. 16. Answ 1. The conclusion is not the same with H. T. his tenet and so the proof is in the same manner faulty as in the first argument 2. The Minor is denied nor doth any one of the texts alleged prove it or any thing like it For 1. The text Matth. 18 17 or 18. is not as this Author cites it be that will not hear the Church as if it were an indefinite speech equipollent to this universal every man that will not hear the Church without which H. T. proves not his Minor but thus but and if he hear not the Church restraining it to the brother finning against his brother And first reproved singly 2. Before two or three witnesses 3. Of whom the Church hath been told 4. And he doth not obey the Church 2. The text speaks not at all of believing the Church in a point of faith but doing right to an injured brother For the phrase of sinning against a brother ver 15. can neither be meant of heresie or error in faith no nor sinfulnesse in life which is termed commonly though for the most part mistakingly a publick scandal or scandalous practise but only of a particular injury such as he against whom the sin was might forgive as is manifest from ver 21. and the parable following whereas to forgive heresies or errors in faith or publick scandalous practises is not in the power of a private brother 3. That by the Church is meant the Christian Church is not certain sith it is not as Matth. 16. 18. my Church but the Church nor if it were can it be understood either of the universal Church diffused over all the world sith it is impossible for every injured brother to tell his injury to it not of a perfectly Oecumenical council called out of the world for either there never was such a Church or if ever there were it hath not been in many ages together H. T. confesseth p. 7. 25. the second third and tenth ages produced no councils Nor if there were in every age or every year could every injured brother addresse their complaints to them And the same may be said of the Pope sometimes there hath been none for some years together sometimes it hath been uncertain which was the true Pope sometimes by reason of persecutions and for other causes no accesse could be to him sometimes the wronged brother could not travel to him nor he hear his cause Nor is there any direction to go to his legate or any assurance that he can commit his power to another or that such a legate is infallible Undoubtedly by the Church Matth. 18. 17. must be meant such an assembly whether regularly formed or otherwise occasionally convening which is of near accesse and which is fit to hear the cause and to determin And I must confesse that I cannot deprehend that by the Church is meant the meer Ecclesiastical authority nor is here appointed that disciplin Ecclesiastical which is termed the power of the keyes to excommunicate hereticks and scandalous livers in the Church but a direction to a wronged brother how to deal in case of particular injuries the neglect of which the Apostle Paul blames so much in the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. 4. Neither doth let him be to thee as a heathen and a Publican import excommunication out of the Church For it is said let him be to thee not to the Church as a heathen or a Publican nor is any power at all therein given to the Church to excommunicate all that the Church is to do is to injoyn what the injurious brother should do that excommunication which is here mentioned is appointed or permitted to the wronged brother Nor did the being a Publican exclude out of the Jewish assembly or service the Publican went up to the Temple to pray Luke 18. 10. Matthew a Publican was a Jew and had the priviledge of a Jew though a Publican nor was a heathen as such damned there were proselytes as Cornâ—lius who were heathens and yet were accepted with God only the publicans and heathens were such as the Jews would not have familiar arbitrary converse with as Luke 15. 2. 19. 7. Acts 11. 3. appears and therefore the speech can have no other sense but this If thy brother who wrongs thee will neither right thee after private rebuke nor after rebuke before two or three witnesses nor after the monition of the Church that is either that particular assembly of Christians to which ye are joyned or some other competent number of Christian brethren fit to hear such differences then mayst thou shun his society in such a manner as Jews are wont to shun heathens and publicans by not going in to them to eat or inviting them or other unnecessary society that so they may know how evil their dealing is and be ashamed and amended Which is nothing to that Ecclesiastical discipline or juridical excommunication which is at this day arrogantly claimed by Popes even over Emperours and by other Ecclesiastical prelates for breaking their Canons much lesse doth this text infer damnation to him that shall not hear the universal Church or Oecumenical council or Roman Pope The other text 1 John 4. 6. is lesse to H. T. his purpose For it speaks not a word of hearing the Catholick Roman Chuâ—ch or universal diffused over all the world or Oecumenical council or Roman Popâ— but of hearing the Apostles and other teachers of the Gospel opposite to false Prophâ—â—s ver 1. who denyed Jesus Christ to become in the flesh and of hearing them not in every thing but in the doctrine of Christs coming in the flesh And in like sort Marke 16 15 16. is a plain command to the Apostles not to the Bishop of Rome or an Oecumenical council or the universal Church for then the Pope should be â—ound to leave his See and the Bishops in a council to be non resident and go into all the world and the Apostles are bid preach not Popes decrees or councils Canons but the Gospel of Christ and the threatning of damnation is not to him that shall not believe the Popes decrees or the determinations of an Oecumenical council or universal Church but the Gospel of Christ which reacheth not them who deny the Popish doctrine of transubstantiation purgatory humane merits worshipping imagâ—â— not eating flesh in Lent Priests single life and such other innovations as neither Christ nor his Apostles taught but such as believe not the doctrine of Jesus being the Christ and salvation by him alone Whence it is apparent to any that are not resolved to shut their eyes against manifest light that none of these texts
the Chalcedon which gave the Patriarch of Constanâ—inople equal power with the Roman in his Province and ascribed the Popes dignity not to any grant of Christ to Peter but to custome out of regard to Rome as the imperial city not to the council of Basil or Constance which made the council above the Pope But H. T. adds an argument for the Churches supreme power of judicature That is the supreme Judge in every cause who hath an absolute power to oblige all dissenters to an agreement and from whom there can be no appeal in such a cause But the Catholick Church hath an absolute power to oblige all that disagree in controverted points of faith nor is there any appeal from her decision therefore the Catholick Church is supreme Judge in controverted points of faith The Major is manifest by induction in all courts of judicature the Minor hath been proved above by the first second and fourth arguments Answ It is denied that the Minor hath been proved or that there is any other Judge besides the sentence of God in holy Scripture which can so oblige dissenters in those points Nor do a great part of Papists themselves at this day namely the French Papists make such account of the Roman church oâ— Popes judgement but that they do conceive they may and sometimes have appealed from them to a general council Occham held that the Pope was haereticabilis that is might be an heretick some of them being suspected of heresie have been fain to acquit themselves to Emperours by Apologies some of them have been condemned as hereticks by general councils Fathers universitie of Paris Gerson wrote a book de auferibilitate Papae and the French churches conceive their churches may be without a Pope and well governed by a Patriarch of their own It is but a new and late invented doctrine of Jesuits and other flatterers of Popes that the Roman church or Pope or a general council approved by him are infallible nor is there a word in any of the Fathers cited by H. T. to that purpose The words of Irenaeus l. 3. c. 40. are cited maimedly by H. T. they are entirely thus For where the Church is there is also the spirit and where the spirit of God is there is the Church and all grace but the spirit is truth By which it may appear that truth is ascribed to the Church by reason of the spirit and that by the Church he means not only the Roman but any where the Spirit of God is and in the words before he sets down the truth he means to wit that if one God and salvation by Christ which he terms the constant preaching of the Church on every side and equally persevering having testimony from Prophets and from Apostles and from all Disciples By which it is manifest that he commends no other preaching of the Church then is in the Scriptures not the definitions of any now existent Church or after Church without the Scriptures The next words of Irenaeus are not as here H. T. themâ— 1. c. 49. there being not in my book so many chapters but l. 4. c. 43. and are alleged by H. T. art 4. and answered by me before art 4. sect 7. The other words of Irenaeus The Church shall be under no mans judgement for to the Church all things are known in which is perfect faith of the Father and of all the dispensation of Christ and firme knowledge of the holy Ghost who teacheth all truth I finde not any where as he cites them In l. 1. there are not sixty two chapters and in l. 4. c. 62. which I suspect by his former quotation he would have cited the words are thus After he had said ch 53. such a Disciple meaning who had read diligently the holy Scripture which is with the Presbyters in the Church with whom is the Apostolical doctrine truely spiritual receiving the Spirit of God c. judgeth indeed all men but he himself is judged of none in several following chapters sets down various hereticks whom he shall judge and ch 62. saith he shall judge also all those who are without the truth that is the Church but he himself is judged of none For all things constant are known or manifest to him both the entire faith in one God omnipotent from whom all things are and in the Son of God Christ Jesus our Lord and the dispositions of him by which the Son of God was made man the firm sentence which is in the spirit of God who causeth the acknowledging of truth who hath expounded the dispositions of the Father and Son according to which he was present with mankind as the Father willeth By which any one may perceive that H. T. if these were the words he meant hath corruptly cited them mangling them and perverting them to prove an infallibility and supreme judicature of the Roman Church or Pope for others which are meant of every true spiritual Disciple and his private judgement for himself and in the main points of faith and according to and by means of the Apostolical doctrine of the Scriptures which is the very doctrine of Protestants concerning the judgement which each Christian may have and hath in points of faith and the certainty of it according to the Scriptures which while he follows he is judged of none nor needs any ones judgement Popes or others to define what he shall believe The words of Origen That only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagreeth from the tradition of the Church And in our understanding Scripture c. We must not believe otherwise than the Church of God hath by succession delivered to us prefat in lib. periarch Whether they be rightly cited I know not having not the book to examine them by and by his other citations as by his citation of Origen art 4. where the same words as I conceive are cited somewhat otherwise which are answered art 4. sect 7. before the words from the Apostles being here left out and his c. here I suspect fraud Yet if the words be as he cites them they prove not what he brings them for there being no restriction to the Roman Church much lesse to the Pope nor is the tradition of the Church said to be that which is unwritten and other then is in the Scriptures and the faith which by succession the Church is said to deliver is not meant of any of those points which the Pope would obtrude on the Church of God and Protestants reject but in probability the points of faith which were in the Apostles Creed professed at baptism which Irenaeus Origen Tertullian c. were wont to hold forth against the hereticks of their times and Protestants do still avouch The words of Cyprian de unitate Eccles are not meant of the Roman Church but of the Church throughout the whole world as the words precedent shew and the freedom from adultery and the uncorruptednesse and chastity of
to discover the truth And though it be that Councils may be and have been usefull when good choice hath been made of persons and undue practises to mis-lead and over-aw them have been removed yet as Nazianzen in his five and fiftieth Epistle ad Procopium complained that he knew no good issue of them so he that shall examine the cariage of things in Councils even the best of them since the Apostles days will finde reason not to take any thing from them on trust meerly by reason of their authority and for the Councils which have been above a thousand years by reason of the activity and prevalency of Factions and the unlearnedness of most of the Bishops in them will find more reason to be jealous of what Councils have determined them to acquiesce in them Nor will it follow that if this judgement be allowed to every private man then all or any Heresies whatsoever have been good and sound Doctrine but that those who have pretended Reason and Scripture have abused both Nor is H. T. his Reason of force because Hereticks pretend to reason and Scripture therefore every one is not to judge for himself and all Heresies were sound Doctrine any more than than this cavillers pretend Law and Reason therefore Judges that use their knowledge in the Law and their Reason in passing Sentence do justifie cavillers or determin no better then cavillers Were the Churches authority infallible hereticks might and did pretend to it's authority and Apostolick tradition and therefore notwithstanding these yet heresie may be taken for sound doctrine as well as if private reason be made a Judge for each ones self yea many heresies have alledged unwritten tradition and have had some council or other perhaps more and more numerous to patronize them then the Orthodox so that I may say setting aside the holy Scripture which is now the rule by which to determine what is error what not neither the Churches authority nor unwritten tradition can prove a point to be heresie or extirpate it but rather propagate and establish error as by experience is manifest there being never more heresies established and propagated by any one or more private mens following their reason then have been by the Popes and Councils supposed to be Oecumenical and infallible nor is there any greater cause of erring then the confidence of infallibility nor any error so fast rooted as that which is decreed by men that will confesse no error As for those heresies which he reckons as unanswerable by humane reason if he mean they are unanswerable by humane reason how or in what manner the things opposed by them are it is granted but of this Mr. Chillingworth doth not make humane reason Judge if any humane reason cannot comprehend how a thing should be nor can answer all objections yet if it judge that God hath revealed it is so it is to believe it even as Mary was to believe her having a son though she knew not how Luk. 1. 34. That which each mans reason is to judge is not how a thing can be which God hath revealed is or shall be but whether it be so revealed and this he is to do not by a blind assent to what the Church or his teachers say but by searching as the Beraeans did Act. 17. 11. with Gods approbation even when Paul preached to them the Scriptures whether they say right And if the Scripture say the contrary to what those named hereticks say then are their tenents to be rejected of which each persons reason is to judge for himself he being to be saved or damned according to his own faith if not the determination of councils against it is not to be received And this manner of judging by reason will neither promote herefie nor Atheism but on the contrary if the Popes Councils Churches determination be counted infallible it will perpetuate an error if once received as too much woful experience shews in the Roman Papacy wherein the error of transubstantiation though it be such as is so contrary to Scripture reason sense Fathers that a man unprejudiced would think them meer mad men or phrenetick persons who hold it yet it is by Papists maintained I dare hardly say by the learned believed most obstinately and furiously to this day Finally saith H. T. because if private reason were the onely Judge of controversies it would evidently follow the general councils of all former ages which have commanded all persons under pain of damnation to obey their definitions and submit to their decrees were the most tyrannical and unjust assemblies that ever were in usurping such a power over mens consciences and consequently that there neither is nor ever was any such thing on earth as a Church or obliging guide in matters of faith and Church Government I reply though Mr. Chillingworth say not private reason to be the onely Judge of controversies nor denies the Church or Council to be Judge of controversies but only the infallibility of them yet if he did say either neither of these things would follow which H. T. makes consequent thereon For notwithstanding such saying he might deem councils to have followed Scripture and therefore not unjust in those commands and that there was a Church and Church government obliging men in matters of faith though not by vertue of their own authority yet by vertue of Gods revelation in the holy Scriptures Neverthelesse if I may be allowed to speak my judgement freely I do think that if not all yet most of the Councils termed general have been for more then one hundred years too unjust and tyrannical in their commands usurping the words of the Synod at Jerusalem Act. 15. 28. too arrogantly as if their authority were equal to the Apostles and imposing on mens consciences burdens too intolerable and that this hath been a most pernicious engine of Satan to cause divisions and mischiefs in the Church of Christ And certainly if any have followed humane reason and a private spirit in deciding controversies of faith and judging matters of religion they have been Popes and the Councils approved by Popes who do almost in every thing in some things expressely forsake the Scripture and adhere to their own reason in their Canons and Decrees and Papists who receive their determinations do forsake the guidance of Gods Spirit and follow humane reason and a private spirit H. T saith further Ob. Your therefore believe the Church to be infallible and whatever else you believe because you judge it reasonable to believe it and your very act of faith it self is an act of reason therefore reason is the only Judge of controversies Answ The discourse and approbation of reason is alwayes a previous and necessary condition to our deliberate and rational acts of faith and the very acts themselves are acts of reason not discoursing but simply assenting All this I grant yes I deny your consequence because our acts of faith are not ultimately resolved into
used some of them perhaps fell out according to the course of such diseases as are said to be cured that of the healing of two Cappadocians hath too much suspicion of counterfeiting and Augustin himself though he relates somethings of his own knowledge yet makes none of them like the miracles of Christ and his Apostles which were more frequent and open and manifest in the presence of the adversaries as the raising of Lazarus and many more were and therefore he allegeth them for the stopping of their mouths who called for miracles rather then for any evident proof of religion using this very preface in the beginning of the Chapter Why say they are not those miracles now done which ye say have been done I may say indeed they were necessary before the world should believe for this that the world might believe Whosoever as yet seeks after prodigies that he may believe is himself a great prodigy who the world believing believes not But whatever be to be thought of the relations of Augustin in that place certain it is that Augustin ch 9 10. useth them not to give testimony to the confirmation either of the truth of the Roman Church or any of their doctrines nor for the worshipping of Stephen the Martyr or any other of the Saints but only to prove the resurrection of Christ to which they in their death gave testimony and therefore are all impertinent to the purpose of H. T. to prove the verity of the Roman Church by them SECT VIII The objections against the proof of the verity of the Roman Church from the power of miracles are not solved by H. T. But H. T. takes on him to answer objections thus Ob. Miracles have ceased ever since Christ and his Apostles Answ You contradict the plain promises of Christ made to his Church without limitation as also the histories and records of all Christendom I Reply 1. The objection is not as H. T. frameth it but that so frequent and manifest working of miracles as was in the days of Christ and his Apostles and which may be a note of the true Church or doctrine without consonancy to the Scripture hath ceased and therefore by this mark of it self the Roman Church is not proved to be the true Church 2. The contradictory to this is not proved by Christs promises or the Churches records For 1. The Promises John 14. 10. Mark 16. 17. are indefinite in respect of persons and time and an indefinite proposition is true in a contingent matter if verified but of some at some times and therefore these promises may be true of some believers onely and of the time wherein the Apostles lived and consequently by the promises it cannot be proved that there must be a power of working miracles in the Church in every age 2. That they cannot be understood of any age after the Apostles unto this day is manifest because they are not true of any age after that For however some miracles have been done yet not greater then Christ did which is promised John 14. 10. nor was the speaking with new tongues which is promised Mark 16. 17. in any age but that in which the Apostles lived 3. These promises are as much made to believers in other Churches as the Roman but now they grant there 's no power of Miracles in any other Church and therefore they must yield to understand the words with such a limitation as may make the Proposition true though there be no power of Miracles in the Roman Church 4. There 's no promise of the power of Miracles to confirm the truth of the Roman Church nor of any other point but the Christian faith and therefore none of the Miracles done by virtue of those promises prove the truth of the now Roman Church or Doctrine but onely the true faith which is believed by Protestants who believe the Creed as well as Papists As for the Records there are very few of them of any certainty after the Apostles days and Popish Writers themselves do confess that not onely in their Legends but also in their Liturgies fabulous things have crept so that by saying Miracles are altogether now ceased or else are very rare and are unfit to demonstrate the verity of any present Church is no contradicting Christ's promises or any good Records of Christendom H. T. adds Object Signs and Miracles were given to Unbelievers not to Believers therefore they are now unnecessary Answ No they are not for they very much confirm the immediate care and providence of God over his Church they excellently demonstrate his omnipotence and there be many disbelievers still the more is the pity I reply that Tongues are for a sign to them that believe not is the Apostles saying 1 Cor. 14. 22. not for them that believe and there is the same reason of other Miracles and therefore is this justly urged by Protestants that to believers to prove the truth of Christian Doctrine or of the Christian Church Miracles are unnecessary Now the Answer of H. T. is quite from the point when he tells us that they are necessary for other ends And yet it is not true that Signs and Miracles are necessary to confirm the immediate care and providence of God over his Church sith God doth by his ordinary provision either of Teachers or Christian Princes shew his immediate care and providence over his Church and by his daily works of the motion of the Sun and other acts of governing the World demonstrates his omnipotence nor by his Miracles and Signs hath he shewed so much his immediate care and providence over his Church for the guiding and protecting of them as his care of unbelievers by bringing them into his Church And it is true that there are many dis-believers still the more 's the pity and if God did see it good it would be a blessed hing if he did vouchsafe the gift of doing Miracles to convert the Indians Moors Tartars to the faith of Christ and we wish it were true which the Jesuits boast of Francis Xavier his Miracles in the East Indies though Franciscus a victoria relect 5. Sect. 2. and Josephus Acosta lib. 4. de Indorum salute cap. 4. 12 Blab out that which gives us cause to think that the Relations are but feigned things tending to magnifie the Pope and the Jesuits there being no such evidence of those things from any persons of credit who have traded or travelled into those parts But be they what they will it is certain God never intended Miracles to prove the Popes Supremacy or the verity of the Roman Church but the Christian faith and therefore till both or either of them be proved from Scripture if we be disbelievers we must be disbelievers still knowing this that if there should be never so great Miracles in shew done by Popes or Friers yet we are bound not to believe them without proof of their Doctrine from Scripture and that if any though an Angel from
not to do so still why doth this Authour allege Scripture for the Churches Infallibility the Popes Supremacy c. and tells us here pag. 113. There is no better way to decide Controversies than by the Scripture expounded by the Church and according to the Rule of Apostolical Tradition But this is an evidence of Gods infatuating these Romanists that though they have no shew of proof for Peter's Supremacy and consequently the Popes without the Scripture and therefore allege it yet determine it not to be the Rule of Faith and so make void their own proof and the very Rule of Faith which they would fain establish SECT II. Unwritten Traditions are not proved to be the true Rule of Faith from the assurance thereby of the Doctrine and Books of Christ and his Apostles But let us view what he adds A second Argument is That is the true Rule of Faith by which we may be infallibly assured both what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote and without which we can never be infallibly assured of these things But by Apostolical Tradition we may infallibly be assured both what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote and by no other means Therefore Apostolical Tradition is the true Rule of Faith The Major is manifest because in the Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith therefore the infallible means of knowing them is the infallible and true Rule of Faith The Minor is proved because a full report from whole worlds of fathers to whole worlds of sons of what they heard and saw is altogether infallible since sensible evidence in a world of Witnesses unanimously concurring is altogether infallible how fallible soever men may be in their particulars and such a report such an evidence is Apostolical Tradition for all the Doctrinos Christ and his Apostles taught and all the Books they wrote therefore infallible Answ THe Popish Tenet is that unwritten Traditions of other points than what are in the written Books are the Rule of Faith that so what they cannot prove out of Scripture of Peter's being at Rome being Bishop there Purgatory-fire Invocation of Saints Adoration of the Host mixing Water with Wine in the Eucharist and many more which Popes and Popish Councils obtrude on the Church of God as Apostolical Traditions may be received as Objects of Faith But here H. T. concludes Apostolical Tradition is the true Rule of Faith and proves it of no other Apostolical Tradition but that whereby the Books written are known to be the Apostles which I might grant and yet H. T. gain nothing for his purpose sith Apostolical Tradition may be the true Rule of Faith and yet not Apostolical Tradition unwritten much less that which Popes and Councils call Apostolical Tradition which is every corruption that hath been any long time received in the Roman Church and this Apostolical Tradition infallible that the Books of holy Scripture were written by the holy men whose names they bear and that the things in them related are certain and yet other Traditions of other things not so But to his Argument I say the Major is not true nor is it proved by his reason which in form is this That is the true Rule of Faith in which are contained all things that are of Faith But in the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith The Conclusion which followeth from these premises is not his Major that is the true Rule of Faith by which we may be infallibly assured both what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote and without which we can never be infallibly assured of those things nor the Conclusion set down therefore the infallible means of knowing them is the infallible and true Rule of Faith for these terms that by which we may be assured of the Doctrines or Books the infallible means of knowing them are not the same with the Books or Doctrines in which are contained all things that are of Faith and therefore the Major is not proved but indeed the very Protestant Doctrine which he gainsays is proved unawares thus That in which are contained all things that are of Faith is the true Rule of Faith But in the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith therefore the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are the true Rule of Faith Which proves directly what H. T. denies that the Scripture is the true Rule of Faith and shews that he mistook the means of Faith for the Rule of Faith between which there is manifest difference the means of Faith being any outward or inward efficient principal or instrumental by which a person comes to believe the Rule is that by which we know what we are to believe the same means may be the means of believing contrary things Caiaphas and Balaam may prophesie right things of Israel and be a means of expectation of the Messiab and yet also be a means of laying a stumbling-block to overthrow them A messenger that brings a grant wherein a Prince grants a thing is the means of belief and so is the Seal but the Rule of believing is the words of the grant Thomas his seeing and feeling were the means of his believing Christ's Resurrection but the Rule was Christ's words 2. I deny his Minor For though I grant such a full report as he speaks of is infallible nor do I deny that there is such a a report or such an evidence for all the Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and all the Books they wrote yet I say 1. That this is not the Apostolical Tradition which Papists assert for with them any thing used in their Church a long time and approved by a Pope or a Council confirmed by him is an Apostolical Tradition though it have not such report or evidence 2. That there are other means by which we may be assured what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote besides this full report as 1. The inward testimony of the holy Spirit 2. The innate characters of the Doctrine and Books themselves foretelling things to come opening the Mysteries of God advancing Gods glory enlightning and converting the soul with many more which shew whos 's the Doctrine and Books were Yet by the way I observe 1. That notwithstanding he makes here such an Infallibility in the report and evidence of sense yet pag. 205. he denies evidence of sense infallible in the Sacrament and thereby overthrows his Position here 2. From his words here I argue against his opinion of Transubstantiation thus A full report from whole worlds of fathers to whole worlds of sons of what they heard and saw is altogether
necessity of Infant baptism or for changing the Saturday into Sunday c. all which notwithstanding are necessary to be known by the whole Church and to be believed by us in particular as Protestants will acknowledge if they be once sufficiently proposed to us by the Church Nor is it sufficient we believe all the Bible unless we believe it in the true sense and be able to confute all Heresies out of it I speak of the whole Church which she can never do without the Rule of Apostolical Tradition in any of the Points forementioned I Reply unless the man had a minde to plead for Arians Photinians Macedorians and Socinians I know not why he should so often make the Doctrines of three distinct Persons in one divine nature the Sons consubstantiality to the Father the Procession of the Holy Ghost from both and his Godhead as Apostolical unwritten Tradition Sure this is the way to bring into question these Doctrines which if they be not in Scripture will never be believed by intelligent Christians for the Pope and Council of Trent's sayings whose proceedings never tended to clear truth but to juggle with the World This is one certain evidence that they never intended to clear truth because they condemned the Doctrines of Protestants unheard nor would ever permit them to come to plead for themselves in any impartial assembly till which be done no man can construe the proceedings of a Council to be any other than practises to suppress truth And for their juggling they were so notorious that many Papists themselves have observed them as may be seen in the History of the Council of Trent especially about the divine right of Bishops of the Laity having the Cup Priests Marriages in which Papists themselves found that they were meerly mocked by the Pope and Court of Rome As for this mans denying the Antecedent it seems to me to savour of such an imputation of a defect in God as tends to Atheism For sure he is not to be termed a provident and just God who declaring his minde in the Scripture and promising life to them that observe his Word and threatning Death and Damnation to them that do not believe and obey yet doth not set down all necessary points therein to be believed and obeyed unto life Yea doth not H. T. by denying it contradict himself who saith pag. 105. In the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith And for the Consequence if it be not good The Bible contains all things necessary to salvation either for belief or practise for all sorts of men whatsoever and that explicitly and plainly therefore the Bible is the Rule of Faith neither is his own second argument good for Tradition pag. 105. In the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith therefore the infallible means of knowing them is the infallible and true Rule of Faith in both the Consequence being the same As for his Instances I say If the three Creeds and four first Councils be not in the Scripture they are not necessary to be known for the whole Church and to be believed by us in particular though they be sufficiently proposed to us by the Church that is in their non-sense gibberish the Pope or a general Council approved by him require us to receive them Neither hath the Church as he terms it power to propose any thing as necessary to be known for the whole Church and to be believed by us in particular but what is contained in the Bible nor hath it such authority as that we are bound to believe them if it do propound them though never so sufficiently but are bound to reject them as contrary to the duty we ow to Christ of acknowledging him our onely Master much more reason have we to contend against them when they are propounded by the Popes of Rome who teach not the Doctrine of Christ but cruelly and proudly tyrannize over the souls and bodies of the Saints in a most Antichristian manner and impose on them as Apostolical traditions things contrary to Christ and his Apostles in the Bible Nor is it true that all Protestants will acknowledge all thsse Points he mentioneth as necessary to be known for the whole Church and to be believed by us in particular I grant it not sufficient for us to believe all the Bible unless we believe it in the true sense but aver we can believe it in the true sense and be able to confute all Heresies out of it without the Rule of Apostolical tradition unwritten in any of those points in which the Errour is as our Lord Christ was able by it to vanquish Satan for which reason it is termed the Sword of the Spirit Ephes 6. 17. And for Traditions or Popes Decrees they are but a Leaden Sword without Fire and Faggot yea there is so much vanity in them as makes them ridiculous and so unfit for refutation and were it not for the horrid butchery and cruelty which Princes drunken with the Wine of the Cup of the Fornication of the Whore of Babylon make of their best Subjects at the instigation of Popes and Popish Priests nothing would appear more contemptible than their decisions Yet more Object Doubtless for speculative Points of Christian Doctrine Books are a safer and more infallible Way or Rule than oral Tradition Answ You are mistaken Books are infinitely more liable to Casualties and Corruptions than Traditions as well by reason of the variety of Languages into which they are translated as the diversity of Translations scarce any two Editions agreeing but all pretending one to mend the other besides the multiplicity of Copies and Copists with the Equivocation and uncertainty of dead and written words if captiously wrested or literally insisted on Who can prove any one Copy of the Bible to be infallible or uncorrupted those that were written by the Apostles own hands we have not or who can convince that any one Text of the Bible can have no other sense and meaning than what is convenient for his purpose insisting onely on the dead Letter All which dangers and difficulties are avoided by relying on Apostolical tradition which bindes men under pain of Damnation to deliver nothing for Faith but what they have received as such by hand to hand from Age to Age and in the same sense in which they have received it Think me not foolish says St. Augustin for using these terms for I have so learned these things by Tradition neither dare I deliver them to thee any other way than as I have received them Lib. de utilit cred cap. 3. I reply A more impudently and palpably false Discourse than this is a man shall seldom meet with it being contrary to all experience and use among men and condemns all the customes of the most civil people of folly
all which we may easily come to know by means of Apostolical tradition without which we can have no infallible assurance of any Point of Christian Doctrine I reply neither the Church nor her Ministers can sufficiently propose to any man for the Word of God any other than the Scripture by which we may have infallible assurance of any Point of Christian Doctrine without oral Tradition unwritten And to say that the whole Church in general and not each man in particular is obliged to know all divinely revealed verities which are necessary to the salvation of all mankinde is to speak contradictions Yet once more saith H. T. Object You dance in a vicious Circle proving the Scripture and the Churches infallibility by Apostolical tradition and tradition by the Scripture and the Churches infallibility Answ No we go on by a right Rule towards Heaven We prove indeed the Churches infallibility and the credibility of the Scriptures by Apostolical tradition but that is evident of it self and admits no other proof When we bring Scripture for either we use it onely as a secondary testimony or argument ad hominem I reply if this be so then doth H T. in his Title-page pretend demonstration of his falsly called Catholick Religion by Tents of holy Scripture in the first place onely as a secondary testimony or argument ad hominem but it is oral Apostolical tradition which he principally relies on for his demonstration as being evident of it self and admits no other proof which oral Apostolical Tradition being no other than what Popes and Councils approved by him have approved it follows that what Papists call Catholick Religion is not what the Scriptures teach but what Popes and their Councils define into which their Faith is ultimately resolved No marvel then they decline Scripture or if they use it do it onely because of Protestants importunity not because they think it is to be rested on and if so sure H. T. plays the Hypocrite in pretending to demonstrate his Religion out of Texts of holy Scripture If other Papists would stick to this which H. T. here saith we should take it as a thing confessed that Popery is not Scripture doctrine but onely unwritten Tradition and to have for its bottom foundation the Popes determination and so to be imbraced upon his credit which sure can beget no other than a humane faith and in fine doth make the Pope Lord of their Faith which is all one as to make him their Christ and that is to make him an Antichrist Therefore I conceive other Romanists will disown this resolution of H. T. and seek other ways to get out of this Circle and herein they go divers ways Dr. Holden an English man and Doctor of Paris in his Book of the Analysis of divine Faith chap. 9. rejects the common way and sticks to that of universal Tradition which by natural reason is evident and firm But when he hath urged this as far as he can this must be the evidence that what all say and was so manifestly know by so many Miracles as Christ and his Apostles wrought must be infallibly true But the being of Christ the Mossiah and his Doctrine from God as the holy Scriptures declare is avouched by all the Church and manifestly known by Miracles therefore it must be true which is no other than Chillingworth's universal Tradition confirming the truth of the Scriptures and deriving our Faith from thence which if Papists do relinquish and adhere to the Popes resolutions whether they be with Scripture or without they do expresly declare themselves Papists or Disciples of the Pope not Christians that is Disciples of Christ I conclude therefore that H. T. and such as hold with him according to the Principle he here sets down are not Believers in Christ whose Doctrine is delivered in the Scripture but in men whether Popes or Councils or the universal Church or any other who delivers to him that oral Tradition which is his Rule as being evident of it self and admits no other proof though I have shewed it to be uncertain yea not so much as probable I go on to the next Article ARTIC IX Schism and Heresie are ill charged on Protestants Protestants in not holding Communion with the Roman Church as now it is in their Worship in not subjecting themselves to the Pope as their visible Head in denying the new Articles of the Tridentin Council and Pope Pius the fourth his Bull are neither guilty of Schism nor Heresie But Papists by rejecting them for this cause and seeking to impose on them this Subjection are truly Schismaticks and in holding the Articles which now they do are Hereticks SECT I H. T. his definitions of Heresie and Schism are not right H. T. intitles his ninth Article of Schism and Heresie and begins thus Nothing intrenching more on the Rule of Faith or the Authority of the Church than Schism or Heresie we shall here briefly shew what they are and who are justly chargeable therewith Our Tenet is that not onely Heresie which is a wilfull separation from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church but also Schism which is a separation from her government is damnable and sacrilegious and that most Sectaries are guilty of both Answ I Think Infidelity doth more intrench on the Rule of Faith than Heresie and Heresie may be where there is no intrenching on the Authority of the Church in this Authour 's own sense as when a man living in communion with the Roman Church and owning the Pope or being the Pope himself is an Arian as Pope Liberius or a Monothelite as Pope Honorius And for his definition of Heresie it is in mine apprehension too obscure and imperfect For it neither shews what is the Catholick Church the separation from whose Doctrine makes Heresie nor what Doctrines of it the separation from which makes Heresie nor what separation in heart or profession or other act nor when it is wilfull when not nor how it may be known to be wilfull Nor doth this definition agree with their own Tenets who acquit many from Heresie who wilfully separate from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church as they define it to wit that which is defined by a general Council approved by a Pope As for instance The Popish French Church is acquitted from Heresie yet they hold a Council to be above the Pope contrary to the last Lateran Council approved by Pope Leo the tenth Nor is this definition at all proved by this Authour but taken as granted though it may be justly questioned And for the use of the terms Heresie and Hereticks in the Ancients it is certain that many are put in the Catalogue of Hereticks by Philastrius Epiphanius Augustin and also by other Writers elder and later and those opinions termed Heresies which were not so The like faults are in the definition of Schism in not setting down which is the Catholick Church what is her government what separation of heart or outward
drawing of the Net on the shore at the Day of Judgement is damnable and the Sacrilege of Schism which surpasseth all other crimes lib. 2. cont Epist Parmen I reply it is a Scolds trick to say we slander and not to prove it We prove out of Paul's Epistle to the Romans that the Roman Church then held Justification by Faith without Works that every Soul even Popes were to be subject to Princes that the Scriptures are to be the Rule of Faith that the Church of Rome might fail that the Roman church is but a particular Church that it is evil to judge Christians for not observing difference of Meats and Days that it is Idolatry to do as Papists now do worshiping the Creature with such Worship as belongs to the Creatour that we are not to invocate Saints in whom we believe not with sundry more in which the present Roman church hath sweâ—ved from the primitive We prove out of Gregory the Great himself that the Doctrine and Discipline of the Roman church is not the same now as it was in all precedent Ages for he rejected the Title of Universal Bishop now usurped by the Pope and disavowed the Worship of Images with other things now received at Rome and before him Pope Gelasius termed the denying the Cup to the Lay-people sacrilegious Augustine himself hath taught us to account his words below Scripture-canon yet his speeches touch not us who do not separate our selves from the church of Christ on pretence of avoiding communion of bad men but from the Papacy on full proof that the communion of the Popish church is imposed on conditions of acknowledging such Errours and practising such Idolatry as are damnable We do not say that the church perished but that it was continued in a remnant of persecuted Saints We need not allege any Church for our Mother but the Jerusalem which is abovâ— which is the Mother of us all Gal. 4. 26. I judge it no better than an inconsiderate speech to say any visible church is the Mother of Christians it is in my apprehension all one as to say the church is the Mother of the church Christians or believers being all one with the church and therefore count such speeches whoever Father or Prelate he be that useth them no better than ridiculous non-sense and much more to call Bishops our Fathers in Christ and yet to term them the Church also and our Mother Nor need we allege a Church that brought us forth it is sufficient we can prove our Faith to be according to the Gospel and allege that we have been begotten by it which way soever it be Were not the â—berians a church of Christians who were converted by â— captive Maid when there was no church there before and the Indians by â—rumentius without a Church to bring them forth May not a man have Faith and Salvation in a Wilderness where he knows of no church Neither did Luther nor Tyndal separate themselves from all Nations but were expelled and peâ—secuted by the devilish Popes and Popish Clergy of Rome when they endeavoured to restore the purity of the Gospel to the Germans English and other Nations If Augustine meant simply that all Separation made before the Day of Judgement is damnable he wrote that which is not true it being contrary to Paul's practise Acts 18. 9. God's command 2 Cor. 6. 17. 2 Tim. 3 5. 2 Thess 3. 8. Revel 18. 4. He himself acknowledgeth lib. 2. cont Epist Pâ—rmen cap. 21. A man is not to associate with others when he cannot have society with them but by doing evil with them But if he meant it of such Separation as the Donatists made as it is likely he doth it toucheth not us who separate not from the Romanists because some evil men are tolerated but because Errour Idolatry and other evils are urged on us by them and such is their tyranny that without yielding to them there is no communion but in stead thereof Banishment or Burning Once more saith H. T. Object We did but separate from the particular Church of Rome Therefore not from the whole Church Answ I told you it the Question of the Churches universality in what sense the Church of Rome iâ— universal or Catholick and in what sense she is particular take it in which acception you will your Consequence is false for whosoever separates from an acknowledged true Member of the Catholick Church and such the Church of Rome then was in her particular he consequently separates from the whole and is an Heretick or Schismatick I reply neither as it is taken for the congregation of Rome or Italy nor as it notes a collection of all the Churches holding communion with the See of Rome is the Roman Church rightly termed the Catholick Church the non-sense and falshood thereof is shewed before Art 5. Sect. 8. Nor is it true that he that separates from the Catholick Roman Church in either sense is an Heretick or Schismatick And to his proof I say 1. That many Protestants deny the Roman Church a true Member of the Catholick Church when Luther separated but call it an Antichristian and malignant Church and they that acknowledge it a true Church in respect of the truth of being yet not of Doctrine and they that say it had the truth of being say it not of the predominant part but of the latent conceiving it was with them as it was with Israel in the days of Elijah that they did not own those Errours and evils which were practised in them or avouched by them though living among them or if they did yield to them or some of them they had pardon as doing it in ignorance retaining the old Creed of the Apostles And they attribute the truth of it to the few fundamental Articles which they held who were in it though very unsoundly by reason of the errours and corruptions mixed with them which made the Church among the Romanists as a leprous man unfit for converse and communion with whom though they might continue for a time in expectation of their repentance yet they might say to Rome being found uâ—câ—rable as the Jews to Babylon Jer. 51. 9. We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her and let us go every one into his own countrey for her Judgement reacheth unto the Heaven and is lifted up unto the Skies 2. That it is not universally true that he who separates from an acknowledged true Member of the Catholick Church separtes from the whole there may be a Separation partial not total privative not positive out of prejudice and passion in heat not in heart as between Paul and Barnabas Acts 15. 39. Chrysostome and Epiphanius temporary not perpetual in prudence though not out of absolute necessity necessary not voluntary just and not rash without revolt from the Faith or persecution of those from whom it is made In many of these sorts there may be a Separation which may be from
universal Church profess that Tradition is against the Papal Monarchy and other Points depending on it they cast Tradition behinde their backs 4. They cry up the Fathers and when we bring their judgements against the substance of Popery they sometime vilifie or accuse them as erroneous and sometime tell us that Fathers as well as Scripture must be no otherwise understood than their Church expoundeth them 5. They plead for and appeal to Councils and though we easily prove that none of them were universal yet such as they were they call them all Reprobate which were not approved by their Pope let the number of Bishops there be never so great And those that were approved if they speak against them they reject also either with lying shifts denying the approbation or saying the acts are not de fide or not conciliariter facta or the sense must be given by their present Church or one such contemptible shift or other 6. At least one would think they should stand to the judgement of the Pope which yet they will not for shame forbids them to own the Doctrine of those Popes that were Hereticks or Infidels and by Councils so judged And others they are forced to disown because they contradict their Predecessours And at Rome the Cardinals are the Pope while he that hath the name is oft made light of And how infallible he is judged by the French and the Venetians how Sixtus the fifth was valued by the Spaniards and by Bellarmine is commonly known 7. But all this is nothing to their renunciation of humanity even of the common senses and reason of the world When the matter is brought to the Decision of their eys and taste and feeling whether Bread be Bread and Wine be Wine and yet all Italy Spain Austria Bavaria c. cannot resolve it yea generally unless some latent Protestant do pass their judgement against their senses and the senses of all sound men in the World and that not in a matter beyond the reach of sense as whether Christ be there spiritually but in a matter belonging to sense if any thing belong to it as whether Bread be Bread c. Kings and Nobles Prelates and Priests do all give their judgement that all their senses are deceived And is it possible for these men than to know any thing or any controversie between us and them to be decided If we say that the Sun is light or that the Pope is a man and Scripture legible or that there are the Writings of Councils and Fathers extant in the World they may as well concur in a denial of all this or any thing else that sense should judge of If they tell us that Scripture requireth them to contradict all their senses in this point I answer 1. Not that Scripture before mentioned that calleth it Bread after the Consecration thrice in the three next Verses 2. And how know they that there is such a Scripture if all their senses be so fallible If the certainty of sense be not supposed a little Learning or Wit might satisfie them that Faith can have no certainty But is it not a most dreadfull judgement of God that Princes and Nations Learned men and some that in their way are consciencious should be given over to so much inhumanity and to make a Religion of this brutishness and worse and to persecute those with Fire and Sword that are not so far forsaken by God and by their reason and that they should so sollicitously labour the perversion of States and Kingdoms for the promoting of stupidity or stark madness 8. And if we go from their Principles to their Ends or Ways we shall soon see that they are also against the Unity of the Church while they pretend this as their chiefest Argument to draw men to their way They set up a corrupted Faction and condemn the far greater part of the Church and will have no unity with any but those of their own Faction and Subjection and fix this as an essential part of their Religion creating thereby an impossibility of universal concord 9. They also contradict the Experience of many thousand Saints asserting that they are all void of the Love of God and saving Grace till they become subject to the Pope of Rome when as the Souls of these Believers have Experience of the Love of God within them and feel that Grace that proveth their Justification I wonder what kinde of thing it is that is called Love or Holiness in a Papist which Protestants and other Christians have not and what is the difference 10. They are most notorious Enemies to Charity condemning most of the Christian World to Hell for being out of their subjection 11. They are notorious Enemies to Knowledge under pretence of Obedience and Unity and avoiding Heresie They celebrate their Worship in a Language not understood by the vulgar Worshippers They hinder the People from Reading the holy Scriptures which the ancient Fathers exhorted men and women to as an ordinary thing The quality of their Priests and People testifie this 12. They oppose the Purity of divine Worship setting up a multitude of humane Inventions in stead thereof and idolatrously for no less can be said of it adoring a piece of consecrated Bread as their God 13. They are Opposers of Holiness both by the foresaid enmity to Knowledge Charity and purity of Worship and by many unholy Doctrines and by deluding Souls with an outside historical way of Religion never required by the Lord consisting in a multitude of Ceremonies and worshiping of Angels and the Souls of Saints and Images and Crosses c. Let Experience speak how much the Life of Holiness is promoted by them 14. They are Enemies to common Honesty teaching the Doctrines of Equivocations and Mental Reservations and making many hainous sins venial and many of the most odious sins to be Duties as killing Kings that are excommunicated by the Pope taking Oaths with the foresaid Reservations and breaking them c. For the Jesuits Doctrine Montaltus the Jansenist and many of the French Clergy have pretty well opened it and the Pope himself hath lately been fain to publish a condemnation of their Apology And yet the power and interest of the Jesuits and their followers among them is not altogether unknown to the World 15. They are Enemies to Civil Peace and Government if there be any such in the World as their Doctrine and Practise of killing and deposing excommunicate Princes breaking Oaths c. shews Bellarmine that will go a middle way gives the Pope power in ordine ad spiritualia and indirectly to dispose of Kingdoms and tells us that it is unlawfull to tolerate heretical Kings that propagate their Heresie that is the ancient Faith How well Doctor Heylin hath vindicated their Council of Laterane in this whose Decrees stand as a Monument of the horrid treasonable Doctrine of the Papists I shall if God will hereafter manifest In the mean time let any
whose agents they were in bringing a deluge of ignorance and wickedness into the world which made that age to be termed a miserable age in which were neither famous writers nor Councils nor Popes that cared for the publick by Bellarmin in his book of Ecclesiastical writers and of it H. T. here saith in this tenth age or century I find no general council nor yet provincial in which any controversie of moment was decided So that by his own confession his catalogue of councils fails him And for his succession of chief Pastors it is of such persons and so uncertain a succession and by such irregular ways as yeilds proof that Rome was the Synagogue of Satan not the church of Christ Of the catholick professors added some of them as Dunstan c. were such as it may be well doubted whether they are in heaven or in hell And for the Nations converted it is not proved they were of the now Roman faith SECT X. The defect of H. T. his catalogue of succession in the eleventh and twelfth age is shewed IN the eleventh age are reckoned eighteen Popes worse if it may be as bad as any in hell most of them magicians if their own writers speak truth from Sylvester the second to Gregory the seventh all Necromancers saith Benno a Cardinal of Rome John the seventeenth or eighteenth H. T. himself is not resolved whether so uncertain is his succession on which he builds the truth of his church Their practises were to poyson one another and to set up one King and Emperor against another to advance their own greatness and to domineer over the greatest Princes by the terror of their excommunications and giving away their dominions which was brought to a stupendous heighth by Hildebrand otherwise Gregory the seventh under whose reign Satan seems to have been let loose for the executing of vengeance on the Emperors that had so adored Popes as to become their vassals whom Pope Gregory the great acknowledged his Lord and committed fornication with the whore of Babylon Of councils H. T. names but one telling us that in this eleventh age about the year 1049. Berengarius an Archdeacon of Ghent of Aniou he should have said mistaking Gaudavensis for Adegavensis began to broach his heresie he should more truely have said the doctrin of Christ his Apostles the Fathers even Gelasius himself Bishop of Rome in the first five hundred years and of the most learned to that time concerning the B. Sacrament affirming it to be only a sign or figure of the body and blood of Christ not his true body and blood for which saith H. T. he was condemned in the council of Lateran under Pope Nicolas the second 1057. As also in the Roman council under Pope Gregory the seventh Anno 1073. where he abjured his heresie in open council and died a Catholick after divers penances done for his sin But methinks H. T. should be ashamed to mention Berengarius his forced abjuration in which Pope Nicolas made him say I believe that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ sensibly and in very deed is touched with the hands of the Priests and broken with and rent and ground with the teeth of the faithful de con dist 2. Ergâ— Berengarius which occasioned the gloss it self to say unless you warily understand these words of Berengarius you will fall into a greater heresie than ever he held any And for his Catholick professors and Nations converted wherein or how far they avowed the Popes supremacy and the now Roman faith is not shewed by him nor do I believe he is able to prove that they did avouch the Popes supremacy which is now challenged or in all things the now Roman doctrin though Romish superstitions and the excessive esteem of the Popish Bishops did very much corrupt men in those days If the ignorant devotion of one Henricus the Emperor with his wife make any thing for the credit of the Roman papacy the story of another Henricus to wit the fourth his wife and childs usage by Gregory the seventh and other Popes is such as that it demonstrates the Popes of those times to have been no successors of Peter either in doctrine or practice but devils incarnate rather than men And however Anselms learning seem to credit the papacy yet in many points of doctrin he is not for the now Roman tenents as where he saith on Rom. 12. salvation consisteth not in mans merits but in Gods grace and his contention with the King of England being animated by the Pope is an evidence that the faith of Christ was not so much professed then as the greatness of Bishops and the unrighteous ways of Clergymen In the twelfth age are reckoned up eighteen Popes and three Lateran councils of which Popes it will be hard for H. T. to shew what their faith was or to prove they did orderly succeed especially considering how many Antipopes were set up and what abominable practices were used to get up into the chair and how wickedly they lived as men that cared not what rebellions they raised what wars and bloodsheds they caused not against infidels but of subjects against their soveraign Christian Emperors not for the Gospel of Christ or their lawful liberties but for the Popes most impudent claim of freedom from subjection to Emperors and investiture of Bishops and Abbats things which Jesus Christ and his Apostles never granted but commanded the contrary Their own writers tell us so much of them specially of Calixtus the second Innocent the second Adrian the fourth Alexander the third and their monstrous pride in oppressing and insulting on the Emperors beyond what is to be found in any Priests of Pagan Gods towards the Princes of the earth as shews them to be inspired by the devil not guided by the Spirit of God H. T. adds three Lateran councils for instauration of discipline for the right of the Clergy for reformation with presidency of Calixtus the second Anno 1122 of Innocent the second Anno 1139. which he tells us defined little in matters of controversie and so by his own confession prove not his succession in the profession of the same faith As for the ends in those two councils which he mentions all the instauration of disciplin therein was concerning monks in the former and in the later the right of the clergy was about the Bishop of Romes power in civil things at Rome and exempting of clergy men from the Senate and Consuls of Rome Wherein the Romans desired to be restored to their ancient power in civil things but the Pope and his council withstood it anathematizing them that laid hands on a clergy man yet limiting the Bishop of Rome in some sort These are the great businesses of three hundred at one time and one thousand Bishops and Abbats at another time Which may shew how little the Popes and councils then regarded Christs doctrin or precepts but minded the upholding their own inventions and
great an opinion Of the four later surely the two last lesse deserve the name the later Nicene council being affronted by the Carolin council about Images at Frankford and the eighth by another of the same place of better note by Michael the Emperor and Photius the learned Parriarch of Constantinople who sure acknowledged not the Popes Monarchy but lived and died in contest against them But neither the four first nor the four last did ever ascribe to the Pope of Rome the monarchy and supremacy which are now arrogated nor did they ever receive what they professed because they professed it nor doth the desire or acceptance much lesse the having the Popes approbation at all prove any authority over them in him it being a thing usual to seek approbation of men who have no authority over the seekers by reason of their esteem for prudence learning and other qualities and for the more ready receipt of what they seek to have approved But the councils determinations and that with Anathema to the gainsayers shewed that they judged themselves to have decisive power without the Pope though his consent also were added as useful for some purposes 3. Saith H. T. The first revolt was made by the Grecians denying the procession of the holy Ghost from God the Son they were united again to the Church of Rome in the council of Florence sess last Answ 1. The denying of the procession of the Holy Ghost from God the Son is shewed to be an error only in manner of speaking by Sir Richard Field of the Church third book ch 1. and other learned men 2. The revolt so long shews the Protestants had predecessors for many hundred years together in opposing the usurpations and errors of the Roman Popes and Churches 3. The reconciliation at Florence was but an imperfect thing by persons whose acts were not avowed afterwards nor did the union hold but was quickly dissolved 4. The council of Florence was a council not allowed by that at Basil as being only of a faction to avoid the questioning of Pope Eugenius See Platina in vita Eugenii 4. 4. Saith H. T. they held transubstantiation seven Sacraments unbloody sacrifice prayer to Saints and for the dead cens eccles orientalis c. 7 10 12 13 21. Answ The Grecians hold not any such transubstantiation as whereby the elements are abolished and cease to be that they were but whereby they become what they were not and the transubstantiation they hold is a change of the communicants into the being of Christ that is partakers of the divine nature as the Apostle means when he saith they are the body of Christ as Dr. Field proves out of Dam. scen Cyril and others in his third book of the Church ch 1. Bishop Jewel reply to Hardings answer art 10. Nor are the speeches of transubstantiation transelementation and such like terms used by the Greeks any other than lofty hyperbolical speeches such as the Apostle useth when he saith Christ was crucified among the Galatians Gal. 3. 1. which abound in Chrysostome Pseudo Dionysius Areopagita c. insomuch that Chrysostom sometimes expresseth the presence of Christ in the eucharist as if it were sensible the communicants touching Christs body seeing his blood having their mouths made red by it sucking his blood receiving him into our house with more of the like as may be seen in Chamier Panstr cath tom 4. lib. 11. c. 9. As for seven Sacraments the Greeks do not teach them to be so many and no more nor the unbloody sacrifice any otherwise then by it to mean a commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ as Chrysostom in his hom on the tenth to the Hebrew expresseth it It cannot be proved that the Greeks use such prayer to Saints as the Papists do directing their prayers to them as hearers and by vertue of their merits helpers to them that call on them Neither do they pray for the dead shut up in purgatory which as I alleged out of Roffensis the Greeks do this day deny and there enduring punishment of sense for deliverance thence but commemorate the dead even the most holy martyrs and confessors and pray for their happy resurrection and acquittal in the last judgement As for the Egyptian Christians and Armenians what they hold is not so easie to know by reason of their remoteness from Europe nor what Succession they have had But this is manifest enough that they did never submit to the Bishop of Rome as their Head except what was done at Florence for which Michael Paleologus the Greek Emperour was abhorred by the Greeks and denied Burial and Isidor Arch-bishop of Kioâ—ia in Russta deposed and put to death or by some obscure persons whose acts the Churches never owned and yet there doth not appear sufficient reason to exclude them out of the Catholick Church notwithstanding such Errours as are imputed to them nor to question their Succession Nor is the Protestants pretence to the Fathers of the first five hundred years idle it being not false but most true and so proved by Jewel and others and the Answers of Harding and other Romanists proved insufficient that they were in the most material points Protestants that is held otherwise than the Romanists now do And though it prove not a Succession of sixteen hundred years continued yet it proves a Succession of so long continuance as will make void the popish claim of Succession as peculiar to them and with any considerate person so far take place as to justifie the Protestants opposition against the modern Papist's Errours and Innovations 'T is true those of the sixth Age must needs know better what was the Religions and Tenets of them who lived in the fifth Age by whom they were instructed and with whom they daily conversed than Protestants can now do in those things which they delivered by word of mouth to them if they were heedfull intelligent and mindefull of what they heard But what they left in writing we may know as well as they And experience shews that oft times upon mistakes and sometimes voluntarily the sayings of men spoken yea sometimes their very Writings either by unskilfulness or negligence or fraud are mis-reported and therefore notwithstanding this reason of the acquaintance of those of the sixth Age with those of the fifth yet it may be that Protestants may know the minde of the Fathers in the fifth Age as well as those that lived in the sixth But that those of the sixth Age have protested on their salvation that the Doctrine taught by the Fathers in the fifth Age was the very same with their in every point or the Doctrine now taught by the Romanists was received from them by word of mouth and so from Age to Age is not true yet if they should we have no more cause to credit them than the Church had to believe the Millenaries and Quartodesimans because of Papias and others their report of John with whom they conversed SECT
blood and treasure when perhaps one Protestant or Popish commentator hath profitably illustrated the whole Bible Why doth H. T. with his collegues if they believe what he saith of the infallibility of the church to be true petition the Pope to do this or call a council and at last together do it To what purpose should any else but Popes and councils study the Scripture compare copies revise Translations examine Interpretation if there be no assurance in points of faith of the meaning of the Scripture without the churches infallibility But alas how far from infallibility Popes are and of all men the unfittest to do any thing in this kinde the shamefull disagreement between Pope Sixtus the fifth and Clement the eighth their Editions of the vulgar Latin Bible doth abundantly declare as may be seen in Dr. James his Bellum Papale whereby it may be perceived how miserably and perpetually the souls of Christians must fluctuate and be tossed up and down and at last drowned if they have no assurance of the meaning of Scripture but from this pretended infallibility of the church which is no better to stay a Soul than an anchor of cork to stay a ship I abhor therefore justly this blasphemous speech of H. T. whereby the souls of men must be brought to waver in faith if they receive it and not onely sinfull but also the weakest and worst of men for such they confess many of the Popes have been idolized by ascribing that to them which is proper onely to him who cannot be deceived nor deceive And I protest that should the Pope and his Consistory or general Council and all the Churches of the World conspire together to say that the Books of Moses the Prophets the Psalms of the four Evangelists Paul James Peter Jude and John are not the Word of God yet I am assured not onely by tradition of the Jews and Christians but also by the very confessions of Adversaries and chiefly by the matter of them which shews it self to come from God the Spirit of God giving me a discerning understanding thereof that they are the Word of God and that the meaning of them is in the main points of faith as the Articles of the Creed express concerning one God and one Lord his Incarnation Preaching Crucifying Death Resurrection Ascension coming to Judgement the holy Spirit the Church of God forgiveness of sins by faith in Christ Resurrection of the body and life eternal which I know by understanding the meaning of the words and thereby am assured that neither is the Popes Supremacy nor his and his Councils infallibility nor his power of granting Absolutions and Indulgences by his Bull nor the Transubstantiation of Bread into Christ's Flesh nor the worshipping of Images nor a Purgatory fire after Death in a part of Hell nor communion under one kinde nor Invocation of dead Saints and holy Angels nor Prayer in an unknown Tongue nor Justification by Works nor good Works meriting eternal life of condignity taught in them And if I did think I were to doubt of any of these Assertions I should turn Sceptick and doubt whether there were a Moses or David or Solomon or Mahomet whether I knew the meaning of their words yea whether there be such a City as Rome or Trent such a man as the Pope such a Council as the Tridentin such Canons as are said to be theirs or such a Creed as is said to be by Pope Pius the fourth required to be confessed by Romanists or that the meaning were as H. T. conceives in a word I should begin to doubt whether I hear what I hear should affirm any thing make any Confession of Faith but think my self to be in a Dream when I write talk eat drink hear or do any acts of a living waking man As for assurance of our salvation the denial of which H. T. counts an absurdity I am glad to read it and that thereby he gives some occasion to question whether he believes the Doctrine of the Trent Council Sess 6. chap. 9. That no man can know by certainty of Faith which cannot be false that he hath obtained the grace of God But for my part as I know that the Doctrine of the Romanists is inconsistent with it self when they teach that the Priests Absolution and ministring Sacraments doth give infallibly Grace and Remission of Sins and yet that a man cannot be certain with certainty of faith that he hatâ— obtained Grace So I am infâ—llibly assured without any Popes or Councils or Churches determination of my salvation through faith in Christ Jesus by the Spirit of adoption and hope to please God by faith in Christ though I reject Popes Councils Churches Decrees or Canons which are not from the holy Scripture but unwritten tradition or invention of men many of them being most foolish and ridiculous toys and abuses of Scripture more like Mahomeâ—'s Alcoran than the Oracles of God SECT VI. Neither can the Church oblige men under pain of damnation to believe her Definitions of Faith nor is there any such judicature as H. T. asserts to be ascribed to her nor do any of the Fathers cited by H. T. say it is but the words of Irenaeus Cyprian lib. 1. epist 3. August conâ— Epist Fund cap. 5. c. are shewed not to be for it but some of them plainly against it H. T. hath one more Argument for his Delilah the Churches infallibility which is his fourth and last thus The Church hath a power from God to oblige all men under pain of Damnation to believe her in her Proposals and Definitions of Faith But she could not have such a Power from God unless she were infallible in her Proposals and Definitions of Faith Therefore she is infallible in her Proposals and Definitions of Faith The Major is proved by all those Texts above cited in the first and second Arguments as also by the Councils of all Ages which command all men under pain of Damnation to believe and subscribe to her Decrees and Definitions of Faith which hath accordingly been done by the Fathers and all true Believers The Minor is proved by reason because it were not consistent with the justice mercy or veracity of God to give a fallible and erring Judge such a power in things of that high consequence Answ 1. THe conclusion is still different from the tenet 2. The Major is denied and it is denied that the texts cited did prove it noâ— doth the practise of the councils putting anathema to their canons prove it For 1. It is not proved they did well in so doing except when their definitions agree with the holy Scriptures and when they do so they do not more then every believer may do whom they will not say to be infallible 2. Nor have all the Fathers or true believers subscribed to the decrees of councils and their definitions of faith nor do the Papists themselves subscribe to those they call general councils not to
Maccabees to be canonical l. 19. Moral c. 17. As for the third Synod of Carthage it was not an Oecumenical Synod and it is over ballanced by the Synod of Laodicea before it who omitted them And if the ancients termed the Apocryphal books canonical or divine they are to be understood according to Ruffinus his explication in his Exposition on the Creed and others that they were canonical in a sort as being read in the Churches by reason of some histories or moral sentences but not so as that they were brought to confirm the authority of faith by them H. T. further saith Ob. The Father 's err'd some in one thing some in another Answ A part I grant all together speaking of any one age I deny and they all submitted to the Church and so do likewise our Schoolmen who differ onely in opinion concerning School points undefined not in faith I reply 1. That the Fathers of some ages did generally hold errors is apparent in many particulars Augustine held it an Apostolical tradition that the Sacrament of the Eucharist was necessary for infants as appears l. 1. de pec merito remiss c. 24. and elsewhere and Maldonat on John 6. v. 53. saith that it was the opinion of Augustin and Pope Innocent the first and that it prevailed in the Church for six hundred years and yet the council of Trent sess 21. c. 4. can 4. saith If any say the communion of the Eucharist to be necessary for little ones afore they come to years of discretion let him be Anathema The like might be said of sundry other points as that of the Millenary opinion the souls not seeing God till the day of judgement c. 2. That all the Fathers did not submit to the Church of Rome is manifest by the Asian Bishops opposition to Victor about Easter to Stephen about rebaptization by Cyprian and others to Boniface Zozimus and Celestin about appeals from Africa to Rome by Aurelius Augustinus and a whole council 3. That the Schoolmen differ in points of faith defined is manifest in Peter Lumbard l. 1. sent dist 17. who held the holy Ghost to be the charity whereby we love God and the dissent from him in that point the differences about the Popes authority above a council power to absolve subjects from the oath of allegiance certainty of faith concerning a mans own justification Gods predetermination of mans will and many more yet controverted between Dominicans and Jesuits Jansenists and Molinists 4. All submit not to the Pope but some appeal from him to a council others by withstanding in disputes and otherwise decline his sentence in their cause of which the opposition against Pope Paul the fifth his interdict by the republick of Venice about their power over Ecclesiasticks is a famous instance evidently shewing that all that live in communion with the See of Rome acknowledge not such a supremacy and infallibility to it as the modern Jesuits ascribe to it Yet again saith H. T. Ob. St. Augustin tells St. Hierom that he esteems none but the writers of the Canonical books to have been infallible in all they write and not to erre in any thing Answ Neither do we we esteem not the writers of councils infallible in all they write nor yet councils themselves but only in the Oecumenical decrees or definitions of faith I reply Augustin Epist 19. to Hierom doth not onely say thus I confess to thy charity that I have learned to give this reverence and honour onely to those books of Scriptures which are now called canonical that I do most firmly believe no author of them to have erred any thing in writing but he adds also But I so read others that how much soever they excel in holiness and doctrine I do not think it true because they have so thought but because they could perswade me either by those Canonical authors or by probable reason that it abhors not from that which is true Which plainly shews 1. That he counted only the writers of Canonical Scriptures and those books infallible 2. That the sentence of others however excellent in sanctity and doctrine is not to be believed because they so thought 3. That their sentence prevailed with him so far as it's proof did perswade 4. That this proof must be by the Canonical Scriptures or probable reason H. T. adds Ob. St. Augustin Epist 112. says we are onely bound to believe the Canonical Scriptures without dubitation but for other witnesses we may believe or not believe them according to the weight of their authority Answ He speaks in a particular case in which nothing had been defined by the Church namely whether God could be seen with corporal eyes But the decrees of general councils are of divine authority as we have proved and therefore according to St. Augustin to be believed without dubitation I reply though he speaks upon occasion of one particular case yet the speech is universal but for other witnesses or testimonies besides the Canonical Scriptures by which any thing is perswaded to be believed it is lawful for thee to believe or not to believe as thou shalt weigh how much moment those things have or not have to beget faith There 's not a word of exception concerning a thing defined by the Church yea the opinion of Augustin is full and plain in his second book of baptism against the Donatists ch 3. to take away infallibility from any Bishops or councils Oecumenical which I think fit to translate to shew how contrary it is to Austin to make any councils after the Apostles infallible Who knows not saith he the holy Canonical Scripture as well of the old as of the new Testament to be contained in it's certain bounds and that it is so to be preferred before all the later letters of Bishops that a man may not doubt or dispute of it at all whether that which it is manifest to be written in it be true or right but for the letters of Bishops which have been or are written after the Canon confirmed it is lawful that they be reprehended if perhaps in them any thing have deviated or gone out of the way from truth both perhaps by the wiser speech of any man more skilful in that thing and by the more grave authority of other Bishops and the prudence of the learned and by councils And those councils which are held in single Regions or Provinces are to give place without any windings to the authority of more full councils which are gathered out of the whole Christian world and oft times those former fuller councils may be mended by later when by some trial of things that is open which was shut up and known which did lye hid without any smoke of sacrilegious pride without any swollen neck of arrogance without any contention of wan envy with holy humility with Catholick peace with Christian charity Yet once more saith H. T. Ob. St. Athanasius in his Epistle to the Bishops
themselves I reply were not this man bewitched or as the Prophet speaks Isai 44. 20. Fed on Ashes having a deceived heart that turneth him aside so as that he cannot say Is there not a Lie in my right hand he would never have preferred oral Tradition seconded by erecting and use of Images made by idolatrous Sots and termed Teachers of Lies by the Prophet Hab 2. 18. as a safer and more infallible Rule of Faith than the holy Scriptures inspired by God and his great gift to men though impiously termed by this Wretch dead Letters ' But it is the just judgement of God that they that make Images and adore them should be like them Psalm 115. 8. that is as blockish as the Images are How uncertain oral Tradition is hath been shewed and how impossible it is to be a true and right Rule since the departure of those who could preach infallibly That there is any such uniform and outward practise of the Roman Church which can second oral Tradition aud make any Point of Christian Doctrine much less the whole frame of necessary Points of Christian Doctrine in a manner visible and sensible is a Lie with a witness Christian Doctrine doth not consist in the History of the things sensible to the eye but in the opening of the true causes and ends and uses of things done which can onely be apprehended by the understanding and is brought to it by hearing and reading whence Faith is said to come by hearing and hearing by the Word of God Rom. 10. 14 15 17. It is most false that the erecting of Images of Christ and of the Cross hath been the uniform practise of the Church It is certain by many Writers that Christians had no Images in their Churches for many hundred years yea it is certain that the best Emperours and Bishops of the East and West were against the having them in Churches however Gregory the first Bishop of Rome by his superstitious opposing Serenus his taking them down counting them Lay-men's Books opened a Gap to that Deluge of Ignorance and Idolatry which hath since spread over the Western Churches which have gone a whoring after them This Authour calls them holy Image which the Scripture counts abominable as defiling places and making them not sacred but polluted He saith The Incarnation and all the Mysteries thereof are made sensible by the Images of Christ erected in all sacred places the passion by the sign of the Cross used in Sacraments and set up in Churches But what a notorious falshood is this One Mystery sure is the Holy Ghost's overshadowing the Virgin Mary another the Union of the two Natures Can any Image of Christ teach these What can the sign of the Cross teach but that there was such a kinde of punishment to put men to Death If Images did teach these Mysteries then Image-makers would be Stewards of the Mysteries of God and Successours of the Apostles and Michael Angelo and such like Painters and Carvers more truly Peter's Successours and Bishops of Rome than Popes as doing more to teach the Mysteries of God than Popes do The unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass is a meer figment of a thing present which all the sense of all the men in the World contradicts full of apish gestures and toyish fashions fitter for a Stage-play than a spiritual Service of the Christian Church and being in a Tongue not commonly understood without teaching informs not the Hearers or Seers in the Mystery of the Death of Christ nor makes any lively Commemoration of his Passion but pleaseth superstitious and womanish or childish spirits which are taken with such shews the Sacrament opens no Mystery thereof without the Word written Accedat Verbum ad Elementum fit Sacramentum was the old resolution Put the Word to the Element then it is made a Sacrament Nor is it true that the practice hath been uniform therein the variety of Missals and the corruptions purged out of the Roman Missal as is confessed in Pope Pius the fifth his Bull according to the Decree of the Trent Council prove the contrary The Trinity is known by the institution and practise of Baptism but that is learned out of the written Word not oral Tradition None of these practises do at all open the Mystery of the Gospel as experience shews it being manifest by conference that none of the People in Italy and elsewhere who go to Mass and look on Pictures and have no other teaching do understand any thing of the Mystery of the Gospel the end reason use of Christ's Birth or Death but content themselves with a meer theatrical shew without any true understanding of the grace of God inward feeling or effectual change in their souls thereupon Perhaps it is better with Papists in England where their Superstitions are not altogether so gross and their understanding bettered by neighbourhood and converse with Protestants But that Images should conserve revealed verities or oral Tradition seconded with Images more explicate them than Books which this man again impiously terms dead Letters unless the Images be animated as that was that it's said told Thomas Aquinas Thou hast written well of me which was fit to be silenced by telling it that it had no allowance to speak in the Church is to me unintelligible And if these be such a safe and infallible Rule or means to teach and conserve the whole frame of Christian Doctrine then sure Christ did inconsiderately appoint Writers and Preachers to teach and guide the Church till we all meet in the unity of the Faith Ephes 4. 11 12 13. he should rather for the times after the Apostles have appointed Massing Priests and Painters to have taught the People nor were the Council of Trent and some of the Popes so advised as they might have been in appointing the unnecessary businesses of framing a Catechism and amending the vulgar Latin Edition of the Bible and much more foolish have been all the learned Papists who have in late years and formerly made large Commentaries and other Treatises to conserve revealed verities there being a more compendious way by oral Traditions with the use of Images and Masses and some other things if this impudent Scribler say true Yet H. T. continues thus Object If all things necessary to salvation be not contained in the whole Bible now shall a man ever come to know what is necessary to be known either by the whole Church in general or himself in particular Answ For the whole Church in general she is obliged to know all divinely revealed verities which are necessary to the salvation of all mankinde she being made by Christ the Depository of all and having the Promise of divine assistance to all And for each particular man so much onely it necessary to be believed as is sufficiently proposed to him by the Church and her Ministers for the Word of God or would at the least be so proposed if he himself were not in fault
V. The Romanists Doctrine as it is now was not the Doctrine of the Fathers of the first five hundred years nor is acknowledged to be so by the learned Protestants H. T adds a third Argument to prove that his with other Romanists Doctrines in which they differ from Protestants and are opposed by them are taught and approved by the Fathers of the first five hundred years which he thinks to prove by that he hath cited and shall cite out of the Fathers and the confessions of his Adversaries and to that end cites some Speeches of Fulk Kemnitius Whitgrft Calvin Whitaker Peter Martyr Duditius Rainolds Jewel and then infers triumphantly therefore the Father of the first five hundred years are not for Protestants but for us therefore Protestants are utterly at a loss in the point of continued Succession Answ 1. WHat is before cited hath been shewed to be insufficient and so will what is after if God vouchsafe me time and strength to that end 2. Of the passages cited the two last are not to the purpose and they are maimedly and corruptly cited The Speeches as they are cited say not any thing of the popish Doctrin taught and approved by the Fathers of the first five hundred years but the uncertainty of finding out the truth by their sayings without the Scriptures And that the dealing of this Author may appear I shall set down the words as I finde them in Jewel's Apology part 4. cap. 22. divis 3. For where these men bid the holy Scriptures away as dumb and fruitless and procure us to come to God himself who speaks in the Church and in their Councils that is to say to believe their fancies and opinions this way finding out the truth is very uncertain and exceeding dangerous and in a manner a fantastical and mad way and by no means allowed of the holy Fathers Which Speech is a most true and savoury Speech yet not in the least intimating a diffidence of the Fathers of the first five hundred years being for the Papists the contrary to which Bishop Jewel shewed in his famous Challenge at Paul's Cross and his making it good against Harding but onely vindicating the holy Scriptures from the foul Speeches of Hosius Pighius and other Romanists and asserting the authority of the holy Scriptures The other passage which is cited out of Dr. Rainold's Conference in H. T. it is printed Confess cap. 5. divis 1. is as corruptly and maimedly cited the words being thus at large Indeed Vincentius Lirinensis preferreth this mark of truth the consent of the Fathers before the rest as having held when they failed Nevertheless he speaketh not of it neither as that it may serve for trial and decision of questions between us For what doth he acknowlege to be a point approved and such as we are bound to believe by this mark even that which the Fathers all with one consent have held written taught plainly commonly continually And who can avouch of any point in question that not one or two but all the Fathers held it nor onely held it but also wrote it nor onely wrote it but alotaught it not darkly but plainly not seldom but commonly not for a short season but continually which so great consent is partly so rare and so hard to be found partly so unsure though it might be found that himself to fashion it to some use and certainty is fain to limit and restrain it Which words were sound and are necessary but not spoken out of any distrust of his cause or imagination as if the Fathers of the first five hundred years were for the Papists For in that very conference he largely proves that not onely the Fathers of the first five hundred years but also the succeeding Councils and Fathers till the sixteenth Century did onely yield the Pope a Primacy among other Patriarchs but not a Supremacy over the whole Church and that Primacy that was given him was by custome of the Church for the honour of the Imperial City which was auserible not because of any grant of Christ which was irrevocable Duditius was one whom by Thranus his description of him Hist l. 96. towards the end Martyr's Speech respects onely the point of vows which is not a point of saith Whitaker's Speech is not of the Fathers of the first 500. years but of the ancient Church which might be after or onely in some part of that time The words of Calvin lib 3. instit cap. 5. parag 10. are not rightly alleged being not together as H. T. cites them but injuriously pieced out of Speeches that are distant one from another He doth not deny nor yet expresly say that it was a custome thirteen hundred years ago to pray for the dead but whereas it was objected by the Adversaries he urgeth that if it were so it was without Scripture that it came out of carnal affection that what we reade in the Ancients done therein was yielded to the common manner and ignorance of the vulgar he confesseth they were carried away into errour but faith not they were all of that time carried away into errour that same testimonies of the Ancients might be brought which overthrow all those prayers for the dead that their prayers for the dead were not without hesitancy that they were different from the popish in divers things The words of Whitgifts Defense pag. 473. are mis-cited being not as H. T. cites them All the Bishops and learned Writers of the Greek and Latin Church too for the most part were spotted with the Doctrines of Free will Merit Invocation of Saints but thus How greatly were almost all the Bishops and learned Writers of the Greek Church yea and the Latins also for the most part spotted with the Doctrines of Free-will of Merits Invocation of Saints and such like Surely you are not able to reckon in any Age since the Apostles time any company of Bishops that taught and held so sound and perfect Doctrine in all points as the Bishops of England do at this time The words of Kemnitius I finde not perhaps because the Edition is not named with the Page But this I finde in the third part of his Examen pag. 628. Francos Edit 1609. that he not onely asserted but also proved that in the Primitive Church unto two hundred years after Christ born the Doctrine of the Suffrages Patronages Intercessions Merits Aid Help and Invocation of Saints in Heaven was altogether unknown and the reason or account of the veneration of Saints was then far other as we have shewed than that which was brought in I have not Fulk's Retentives against Bristow's Motives by me which I imagine is the Book which H. T. cites under the Title of Riot Briston but his citing with an c. and so small a shred of the Authour makes me conceive that he wronged Fulk by that maimed citation however sith the confession is but of three Fathers and the Saints whether living or dead
do prove the infallibility of the Roman Church or Oecumenical council or Pope but are impiously wrested to uphold the most cruel tyranny that ever was in the world SECT IV. None of these texts Matth. 28. 20. 1 Tim. 3. 15. Matth. 16. 18. John 14. 26. John 16. 23. Act. 15. 28. do prove the infallibility in points of faith of the Catholick or Roman Church or the Pope or a general council approved by him H. T. adds a third argument for the Churches infallibilâ—ty thus If Christ be alwayes with his Church and have made her the pillar and firmament of truth against which the gates of hell heresies shall not prevail and given her the holy Ghost to assist her to all truth so that her definitions in an approved general council are the very dictates of the holy Ghost then is it impossible the Church should erre in faith But all this Christ hath done for his Church therefore it is impossible the Church should erre in faith The sequel of the Major is manifest by the very terms of the supposition the Minor is proved go ye teaching all Nations c. And behold I am with you all daies he is with her teaching St. Matth. 28. 20. The house of God which is the pillar and firmament of truth 1 Tim. 3. 15. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it St. Matth. 16. 18. He will give you another paraclere that he may abide with you for ever â—c He shall teach you all things and suggest to you all things whatsoever I shall say to you in all points of faith St. John 14. 26. He shall â—â—ach you all truth no errors St. John 16. 13. It hath seemed good say the Apostles in council to the holy Ghost and to us Act. 15. 28. Answ This Author still abuseth his reader by putting his conclusion otherwise then his tenet For whereas his tenet was that the Roman Catholick Church is infallible he puts his conclusion thus the Church is infallible as if the Church and the Catholick Church were all one and the Catholick and the Roman were all one and the Church of Christ and the visible Church militant were the same which are indeed fallacies which easily take with silly or prejudiced Papists that take what is said of the Church to be meant of the visible militant Church and what is said of the visible militant to be said of the Catholick Church and by the Catholick imagin the Roman meant and by the Roman the Pope But to discover the vanity of this argument 1. The sequel of the Major is denied nor is it manifest by the terms of the supposition For Christs presence is with every believer and he hath made every believer a pillar and firmament of truth and against every true believer the gates of hell heresies shall not prevail and he hath given the holy Ghost to every true believer to assist him to all truth as well as to the Church and his definitions are the very dictates of the holy Ghost when he defines according to Scripture and yet it is not impossible he should erre in faith Christ hath made promises of his presence and of his spirit and his spirit is said to be in and with every true believer as well as the Church Rom. 8. 1 9 15. 1 Cor. 6. 19. 2 Cor. 1. 22. and 13. 5. Gal. 4 6. Ephes 1. 13. 2 Cor. 6. 16. John 10 16 27 28 29. and yet believers may erre in faith Rom. 14. 2 3 5. 1 Cor. 15. 12. Gal. 3. 1. and 4. â—0 21. And therefore it is not true which this Author supposeth manifest Not is the Minor trâ—e or proved by the texts he brings For the promise Matth. 28 20. is not to the Church but to the Apostles and other teachers who succeed them nor is the promise made to them that they should teach no error in faith but that teaching as H. T. speaks or as long as they teach the true faith he would be with them by assisting and prospering them in their work The words 1 Tim. 3. 15 may be meant of the mystery of godliness mentioned v. 16. thus the Mystery of godliness is the pillar and firmament ground or seat of truth and without controverâ—ie great which I do conceive after Cameron and others to be the truest exposition as the same Apostle in other places gives such elogies to the great points of faith 1 Tim. 1. 15. and 4. 9. and 2 Tim. 2. 11. and the conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and ver 16. doth make it very probable Nor doth Grotius his reason avoid it For the mystery even according to this exposition is the subject not the predicate Others refer it to Timoâ—hy but then it should be in the accusative case But let it be granted that it is meant of the Church which is said that it is the pillar and firmament of truth yet it is certain from the very words that it is meant of that Church in which Timothy was directed how to behave himself which was the Church of Ephesus as appears 1 Tim. 1. 3. not the Church of Rome and therefore must be understood in such a sense as agrees to it which the Papists themselves will not say was infallible or could not erre in faith And therefore they must yeild it to be meant either of what they were in duty to be or what they were actually thus they were such as by profession and practice did hold forth and maintain and uphold the truth in those parts not that they held nothing but tenets nor so held forth the truth but that they might erre and decay in their holding out the truth For it is certain they did so Rev. 2. 4 5. Act. 20. 29 30. The terms the pillar and firmament or ground or seat of truth are but metaphors and whereas there are these two things signified by hem 1. The upholding of the truth so as that otherwise it should fall 2. The fixing of the truth there so as that it should abide and be permanent there doubtlesse the former sense cannot be true For though God should have no Church on earth or in heaven no Apostle Prophet Bishop yet his truth would be upheld his word is for ever settled in heaven Psal 119. 89. Christ who is the truth John 14. 6. abides for ever and the spirit of truth remains for ever and will uphold his truth If it were as some of the Romanists say the Church only abode in the Virgin Mary at Christs death or as others say in the time of Antichrist there shall be no sacrifice nor ceremonies nor religion yet the Gospel of Christ shall be everlasting as the Angel terms it Revel 14. 6. therefore of necessity it must be understood in that sense in which it notes stability permanency fixednesse or abiding and the sense is the Church is the company among whom the truth abides unshaken in which sense Revel 3. 12. it is said him that overcometh will