and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submitting unto some Iudiciall sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand This is very true Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such a meanes of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to finde it But this wee know that none is fit to pronounce for all the world a judiciall definitiue obliging sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authoriz'd thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to giue to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we doe that all sinne were abolisht yet we haue little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selues with and to persuade others unto an Vnity of Charity and mutuall toleration seeing God hath authoriz'd no man to force all men to Vnity of Opinion Neither doe we think it fit to argue thus To us it seemes convenient there should be one Iudge of all Controversies for the whole world therefore God has appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such judge of Controversies therefore though it seemes to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to haue one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best known to himselfe not to allow us this convenience 86 D. Fields words which follow I confesse are somewhat more pressing and if he had been infallible and the words had not slipt unadvisedly from him they were the best Argument in your Book But yet it is evident out of his Book so acknowledg'd by some of your own That he never thought of any one company of Christians invested with such authority from God that all men were bound to receiue their Decrees without examination though they seem contrary to Scripture and Reason which the Church of Rome requires And therefore if he haue in his Preface strained too high in coÌmendation of the subject he writes of as Writers very often doe in their Prefaces and Dedicatory Epistles what is that to us Besides by all the Societies of the World it is not impossible nor very improbable hee might meane all that are or haue been in the world and so include even the Primitiue Church and her Communion we shall embrace her Direction we shall follow her Iudgement we shall rest in if wee belieue the Scripture endeavour to finde the true sense of it and liue according to it 87 Ad 18. § That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be receaved from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who professe themselves very ready to receiue all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any societie of men nay from any man whatsoever 88 That the Churches Interpretation of Scripture is alwaies true that is it which you would haue said and that in some sense may bee also admitted viz. if your speake of that Church which before you spake of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Vpon the Tradition of which Church you there told us We were to receiue the Scripture and to belieue it to bee the Word of God For there you teach us that our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proofe And that such is Tradition which from hand to hand and age to age bringing us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himselfe commeth to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that wee must receiue the sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to belieue it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from age to age and from hand to hand any interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture we belieue therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us this or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to belieue that also this is too transparent Sophistrie to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89 If there be any Traditiue Interpretation of Scripture produce it and proue it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all ages is one thing and the authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholique Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receiue both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the authority of Originall Tradition yet we receiue neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90 First for the Scripture how can wee receiue them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonicall which formerly you rejected from the Canon I instance in the Book of Macchabees and the Epistle to the Hebrews The first of these you held not to be Canonicall in S. Gregories time or else hee was no member of your Church for it is apparent He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hieroms time as it is evident out of many places of his Works 91 If you say which is all you can say that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholique Church I answer there was none such in his time None that was called so Secondly what he spake of the Roman Church must be true of all other Churches if your Doctrine of the necessity of the Conformity of all other Churches to that Church were then Catholique Doctrine Now then choose whether you will either that the particular Roman Church was not then beleived to be the Mistresse of all other Churches notwithstanding Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est omnes qui sunt undique fideles which Card. Perron and his Translatresse so often translates false Or if you say shee was you will runne into a greater inconvenience and be forced to say that all the Churches of that time rejected from the Canon the Epistle to the Hebrews together with the Roman Church And consequently that the Catholique Church may erre in rejecting from the Canon Scriptures truly Canonicall 92 Secondly How can we receive the Scripture upon the authority of the Roman
Traditions as in defining emergent controversies Again it followes not because the Churches Authority is warrant enough for us to believe some doctrine touching which the Scripture is silent therefore it is Warrant enough to believe these to which the Scripture seemes repugnant Now the Doctrines which S. Austine received upon the Churches Authority were of the first sort the Doctrines for which we deny your Churches infallibility are of the second And therefore though the Churches authority might be strong enough to bear the weight which S. Austine laid upon it yet happily if may not be strong enough to bear that which you lay upon it Though it may support some Doctrines without Scripture yet surely not against it And last of all to deal ingeniously with you and the World I am not such an Idolater of S. Austine as to think a thing proved sufficiently because he saies it nor that all his sentences are oracles and particularly in this thing that whatsoever was practised or held by the Vniversall Church of his time must needs have come from the Apostles Though considering the neerenesse of his time to the Apostles I think it a good probable way and therefore am apt enough to follow it when I see no reason to the contrary Yet I professe I must have better satisfaction before I can induce my selfe to hold it certain and infallible And this not because Popery would come in at this dore as some have vainly feared but because by the Church Vniversall of some time and the Church Vniversall of other times I see plain contradictions held and practised Both which could not come from the Apostles for then the Apostles had been teachers of falshood And therefore the belief or practise of the present Vniversall Church can be no infallible proof that the Doctrine so beleived or the custome so practised came from the Apostles I instance in the doctrine of the Millenaries and the Eucharists necessity for infants both which Doctrines have been taught by the consent of the eminent Fathers of some ages without any opposition from any of their Contemporaries and were delivered by them not as Doctors but as Witnesses not as their own opinions but as Apostolike Traditions And therefore measuring the doctrine of the Church by all the Rules which Cardinall Perron gives us for that purpose both these Doctrines must be acknowledged to have been the doctrines of the Ancient Church of some age or ages And that the contrary Doctrines were Catholique at some other time I believe you will not think it needfull for me to prove So that either I must say the Apostles were fountaines of contradictious doctrines or that being the Vniversall Doctrine of the present Church is no sufficient proof that it came originally from the Apostles Besides who can warrant us that the Vniversall Traditions of the Church were all Apostolicall seeing in that famous place for Traditions in Tertullian Quicunque traditor any author whatsoever is founder good enough for them And who can secure us that Humane inventions and such as came à quocunque Traditore might not in a short time gain the reputation of Apostolique Seeing the direction then was Precepta maâorum Apostolicas Traditiones quisque existimat 45 No lesse you say is S. Chrysost. for the infallible Traditions of the Church But you were to prove the Church infallible not in her Traditions which we willingly grant if they be as universall as the Tradition of the undoubted books of Scripture is to be as infallible as the Scripture is for neither does being written make the word of God the more infallible nor being unwritten make it the lesse infallible Not therefore in her universall Traditions were you to prove the Church infallible but in all her Decrees and definitions of Controversies To this point when you speak you shall have an answer but hitherto you doe but wander 46 But let us see what S. Chrysostome saies They the Apostles delivered not all things in writing who denies it but many things also without writing who doubts of it and these also are worthy of belief Yes if we knew what they were But many things are worthy of belief which are not necessary to be believed As that Iulius Caesar was Emperour of Rome is a thing worthy of belief being so well testified as it is but yet it is not necessary to be believed a man may be saved without it Those many workes which our Saviour did which S. Iohn supposes would not have been contained in a world of bookes if they had been written or if God by some other meanes had preserv'd the knowledge of them had been as worthy to be believed and as necessary as those that are written But to shew you how much a more faith full keeper Records are then report those few that were written are preserved believed those infinitly more that were not written are all lost and vanished out of the memory of men And seeing God in his providence hath not thought fit to preserve the memory of them he hath freed us from the obligation of believing them for every obligation ceases when it becomes impossible Who can doubt but the Primitive Christians to whom the Epistles of the Apostles were written either of themselves understood or were instructed by the Apostles touching the sense of the obscure places of them These Traditive interpretations had they been written and dispersed as the Scriptures were had without question been preserved as the Scriptures are But to shew how excellent a keeper of the Tradition the Church of Rome hath been or even the Catholique Church for want of writing they are all lost nay were all lost within a few ages after Christ. So that if we consult the ancient Interpreters we shall hardly find any two of them agree about the sense of any one of them Cardinall Perron in his discourse of Traditions having alleaged this place for them Hold the Traditions c. tells us we must not answer that S. Paul speaks here only of such Traditions which though not in this Epist. to the Thess. yet were afterwards written and in other bookes of Scripture because it is upon occasion of Tradition touching the cause of the hinderance of the comming of Antichrist which was never written that he laies this iniunction upon them to hold the Traditions Well let us grant this Argument good and concluding and that the Church of the Thessalonians or the Catholique Church for what S. Paul writ to one Church he writ to all were to hold some unwritten Traditions and among the rest what was the cause of the hinderance of the comming of Antichrist But what if they did not performe their duty in this point but suffered this Tradition to be lost out of the memory of the Church Shall we not conclude that seeing God would not suffer any thing necessary to salvation to be lost and he has suffered this Tradition to be lost therefore the
that alwaies hath been so ever since the publication of the Gospell of Christ. The doctrine of your Church may like a snow-ball increase with rowling and again if you please melt away and decrease But as Christ Iesus so his Gospell is yesterday and to day and the same for ever 38 Our Saviour sending his Apostles to preach gave them no other commission then this Goe teach all nations Baptizing them in the name of the Father the Sonne and the Holy-Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you These were the bounds of their commission If your Church have any larger or if she have a commission at large to teach what she pleases and call it the Gospell of Christ let her produce her Letters-patents from heaven for it But if this be all you have then must you give me leave to esteeme it both great sacriledge in you to forbid any thing be it never so small or ceremonious which Christ hath commanded as the receiving of the Communion in both kindes and as high a degree of presumption to enjoyne men to believe that there are or can be any other fundamentall Articles of the Gospell of Christ then what Christ himselfe commanded his Apostles to teach all men or any damnable Heresies but such as are plainly repugnant to these prime Verities 39 Ad § 16. 17. The saying of the most learned Prelate and excellent man the Arch-Bishop of Armach is only related by D. Potter p. 155. and not applauded though the truth is both the Man deserves as much applause as any man and his saying as much as any saying it being as great and as good a truth and as necessary for these miserable times as possibly can be uttered For this is most certain and I believe you will easily grant it that to reduce Christians to unity of Communion there are but two waies that may be conceived probable The one by taking away diversity of opinions touching matters of Religion The other by shewing that the diversity of opinions which is among the severall Sects of Christians ought to be no hinderance to their Vnity in Communion 40 Now the former of these is not to be hoped for without a miracle unlesse that could be done which is impossible to be performed though it be often pretended that is unlesse it could be made evident to all men that God hath appointed some visible Iudge of Controversies to whose judgement all men are to submit themselves What then remaines but that the other way must be taken and Christians must be taught to ser a higher value upon these high points of faith and obedience wherein they agree then upon these matters of lesse moment wherein they differ and understand that agreement in those ought to be more effectuall to joyne them in one Communion then their difference in other things of lesse moment to divide them When I say in one Communion I mean in a common Profession of those articles of faith wherein all consent A joynt worship of God after such a way as all esteem lawfull and a mutuall performance of all those works of charity which Christians own one to another And to such a Communion what better inducement could be thought of then to demonstrate that what was universally believed of all Christians if it were joyned with a love of truth and with holy obedience was sufficient to bring men to heaven For why should men be more rigid then God Why should any errour exclude any man from the Churches Communion which will not deprive him of eternall salvation Now that Christians doe generally agree in all those points of doctrine which are necessary to Salvation it is apparent because they agree with one accord in believing all those Bookes of the Old and New Testament which in the Church were never doubted of to be the undoubted word of God And it is so certain that in all these Bookes all necessary doctrines are evidently contained that of all the four Evangelists this is very probable but of S. Luke most apparent that in every one of their Bookes they have comprehended the whole substance of the Gospell of Christ. For what reason can be imagined that any of them should leave out any thing which he knew to be necessary and yet as apparently all of them have done put in many things which they knew to be only profitable and not necessary What wise and honest man that were now to write the Gospell of Christ would doe so great a work of God after such a negligent âashon Suppose Xaverius had been to write the Gospell of Christ for the Indians think you he would have left out any Fundamentall doctrine of it If not I must beseech you to conceive as well of S. Mathew and S. Marke and S. Luke and S. Iohn as you doe of Xaverius Besides if every one of them have not in them all necessary doctrines how have they complied with their own designe which was as the titles of their Bookes shew to write the Gospell of Christ and not a part of it Or how have thy not deceived us in giving them such titles By the whole Gospell of Christ I understand not the whole History of Christ but all that makes up the Covenant between God and man Now if this be wholly contained in the Gospell of S. Marke and S. Iohn I believe every considering man will bee inclinable to believe that then without doubt it is contained with the advantage of many other very profitable things in the larger Gospells of S. Matthew and S. Luke And that S. Markes Gospell wants no necessary Article of this Covenant I presume you will not deny if you believe Irenaeus when he saies Mathew to the Hebrewes in their tongue published the Scripture of the Gospell When Peter and Paul did preach the Gospell and found the Church or a Church at Rome or of Rome and after their departure Mark the scholler of Peter delivered to us in writing those things which had been preached by Peter and Luke the follwer of Paul compiled in a book the Gospell which was preached by him And afterwards Iohn residing in Asia in the Citty of Ephesus did himselfe also set forth a Gospell 41 In which words of Irenaeus it is remarkable that they are spoken by him against some Heretiques that pretended as you know who doe now adaies that some necessary Doctrines of the Gospell were unwritten and that out of the Scriptures truth he must mean sufficient truth cannot be found by those which know not Tradition Against whom to say that part of the Gospell which was preached by Peter was written by S. Marke and some other necessary parts of it omitted had been to speak impertinently and rather to confirme then confute their errour It is plain therefore that he must mean as I pretend that all the necessary doctrine of the Gospell which was preached by S. Peter was written by S. Marke Now you will
convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unlesse he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the word of God And then no reason can be greater then this God sayes so therefore it is true 63 Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture then the infallibility of your Church appeares to be confirm'd by it and consequently must be so foolish as to believe your Church exempted from error upon lesse evidence rather then subject to the common condition of mankind upon greater evidence Now if I take the Scripture only for my Guide I shall not need to doe any thing so unreasonable 64 If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities and that with an absolute certainty upon motives which are confess'd to be but only Prudentiall and probable That is with a weak foundation I must firmly support a heavy a monstrous heavy building Now following the Scripture I shall have no necessity to undergoe any such difficulties 65 Following your Church I must be servant of Christ and a Subject of the King but only Ad placitum Papae I must bee prepar'd in mind to renounce my allegiance to the King when the Pope shall declare him an Heretique and command me not to obey him And I must be prepar'd in mind to esteem Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue if the Pope shall so determine Indeed you say it is impossible he should doe the latter but that you know is a great question neither is it fit my obedience to God and the King should depend upon a questionable foundation And howsoever you must grant that if by an impossible supposition the Popes commands should be contrary to the law of Christ that they of your Religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope then the law of Christ. Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Soveraign in lawfull things though an Heretique though a Tyrant and though I doe not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angell from heaven should teach any thing against the Gospell of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathemâ to him 66 Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to flesh and blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the world prevail'd and enlarg'd it self in a very short time all the world over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintaines her authority over mens consciences by counterfeiting false miracles forging falle stories by obtruding on the world suppositious writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by warres by persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of carnall meanes whether violent or fraudulent 67 Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first Preachers and Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the world that they could not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this world but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the world could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successor of the Apostles and Guide of faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition by it seekes to entitle himselfe directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the world And besides it is evident to any man that has but halfe an eye that most of those Doctrines which you adde to the Scripture doe make one way or other for the honour or temporall profit of the Teachers of them 68 Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in spirit and truth Whereas your Church and Doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury superstitions and ceremonies and full of that righteousnesse for which Christ shall judge the world 69 Following the Scripture I shall believe that which Vniversall never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernaturall worke of God confirm'd to be the word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame horse cur'd in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seeme to give attestation to some parts of your doctrine yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that Gods providence permitting it and the wickednesse of the world deserving it strange signes and wonders should be wrought to confirme false doctrine that they which love not the truth may be given over to strange delusions Neither does it seeme to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the world 70 If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my selfe Salvation without effectuall dereliction and mortification of all vices and the effectuall practice of all Christian vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continue all my life long in a course of sinne and without the practice of any vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be let in to heaven at a posterne gate even by any act of Attrition at the houre of death if it be joyn'd with confession or by an act of Contrition without confession 71 Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meeknesse fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the world love of God and the love of man kind In a word of all vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The summe whereof is in manner compriz'd in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5. 6. and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodnesse of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather then any other came from God the Fountain of all goodnesse And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universall Sanctions Not every one that sayeth Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the ruine descended and the stood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall
the Gentleman who dealt between us to return this answer or to this effect that I believed the Doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of our Saviour and all other super-naturall verities revealed in Scripture as truly and as heartily as your self or any man and therefore herein your Charity was very much mistaken but much more and more uncharitably in conceiving me a man that was to be wrought upon with these Terribiles visu formae those carnall and base fears which you presented to me which were very proper motives for the Divell and his instruments to tempt poor spirited men out of the way of conscience and honesty but very incongruous either for Teachers of truth to make use of or for Lovers of truth in which Company I had been long agoe matriculated to hearken to with any regard But if you were indeed desirous that I should not answer Charity maintained one way there was and but one whereby you might obtain your desire and that was by letting mee know when and where I might attend you and by a fair conference to be written down on both sides convincing mine understanding who was resolv'd not to be a Recusant if I were convicted that any one part of it any one argument in it which was of moment and consequence and whereon the cause depends was indeed unanswerable This was the effect of my answer which I am well assur'd was delivered but reply from you I received none but this that you would have no conference with me but in Print and soone after finding me of proof against all these batteries and thereby I fear very much enâaged you tooke up the resolution of the furious Goddesse in the Poet madded with the unsuccessefulnesse of her malice Flectere si nequeâ superos Acherontamovebo 6 For certainly those indigne contumelies that masse of portentous and execrable calumnies wherewith in your Pamphlet of Directions to N. N. you have loaded not only my person in particular but all the learned and moderate Divines of the Church of England and all Protestants in generall nay all wise men of all Religions but your own could not proceed from any other fountain 7 To begin with the last you stick not in the beginning of your first Chapter to fasten the imputation of Atheisme irreligion upon all wise and gallant men that are not of your own Religion In which uncharitable and unchristian judgment void of all colour or shadow of probability I know yet by experience that very many of the Bigots of your Faction are partakers with you God forbid I should think the like of you Yet if I should say that in your Religion there want not some temptations unto and some Principles of irreligion and Atheisme I am sure I could make my assertion much more probable then you have done or can make this horrible imputation 8 For to passe by first that which experience justifies that where and when your Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheisme hath most abounded To say nothing Secondly of your notorious and confessed forging of so many false miracles and so many lying Legends which is not unlikely to make suspitious men to question the truth of all Nor to object to you Thirdly the abundance of your weak and silly Ceremonies ridiculous observances in your Religion which in all probability cannot but beget secret contempt and scorne of it in wise and considering men and consequently Atheisme and impiety if they have this perswasion setled in them which is too rise among you and which you account a peece of Wisdome and Gallantry that if they be not of your Religion they were as good be of none at all Nor to trouble you Fourthly with this that a great part of your Doctrine especially in the points contested makes apparently for the temporall ends of the teachers of it which yet I feare is a great scandall to many Beaâx Esprits among you Onely I should desire you to consider attentively when you conclude so often from the differences of Protestants that they have no certainty of any part of their religion no not of those points wherein they agree whether you doe not that which so magisterially you direct me not to doe that is proceed a destructive way and object arguments against your adversaries which tend to the overthrow of all Religion And whether as you argue thus Protestants differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing So an Atheist or a Sceptique may not conclude as well Christians and the Professors of all Religions differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing Again I should desire you to tell me ingenuously whether it be not too probable that your portentous Doctrine of Transubstantiation joyn'd with your fore-mention'd perswasion of no Papists no Christians hath brought a great many others as well as himselfe to Averroes his resolution QuandoquideÌ Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis Whether your requiring men upon only probable and Prudentiall motives to yield a most certaine assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you doe too often that they were as good not believe at all as believe with any lower degree of faith be not a likely way to make considering men scorne your Religion and consequently all if they know no other as requiring things contradictory and impossible to be performed Lastly whether your pretence that there is no good ground to believe Scripture but your Churches infallibility joyn'd with your pretending no ground for this but some texts of Scripture be not a faire way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9 Your calumnies against Protestants in generall are set downe in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it bee followed closely and with coherence to it selfe must of necessity induce Socinianisme This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one errror which may well be tearmed the Capitall and mother Heresy from which all other must follow at ease I mean their heresy in affirming that the perpetuall visible Church of Christ descended by a never interrupted succession from our Saviour to this day is not infallible in all that it proposeth to be believed as revealed truths For if the infallibility of such a publique Authority be once impeached what remaines but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse And talke not here of holy Scripture For if the true Church may erre in defining what Scriptures be Canonicall or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private spirit a foolery now exploâed out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianisme or else upon naturall wit and judgement for examining and determining what Scriptures contain true or false doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected
have been accomplished in and by the Catholicke Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it 6 Because the doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the doctrine of Protestants contrary to the doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the confession of Protestants themselves I meane those fathers who lived within the compasse of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves doe very frequently and very confidently appeale 7 Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to preach Protestant Doctrine 8 Because Luther to preach against the Masse which containes the most materiall points now in controversy was perswaded by reasons suggested to him by the Divell himselfe disputing with him So himselfe professeth in his Book de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himselfe to follow the Divell 9 Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the begining maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controversy writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty 10 Because by denying all humane authority either of Pope or Councells or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible meanes of suppressing Heresy or restoring unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow brieâly and in order 43 To the first God hath neither decreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwaies visibly prfessed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed nor foretold that there shall be alwaies a visible company of men free from all error in it selfe damnable Neither is it alwaies of necessity Schismaticall to separate from the externall communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church suppos'd to want nothing necessary require me to professe against my conscience that I believe some error though never so small and innocent which I doe not believe and will not allow me her communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismaticall and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records farre more creditable then these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirm'd and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with supernaturall and divine Miracles which for number and glory outshine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sunne doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this book by the confession of all sides confirm'd by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after ages great signes and wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false doctrine and that I am not to believe any doctrine which seemes to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angell from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true doctrine should in all ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signes of false doctrine then much to regard them as certain arguments of the truth Besides setting aside the Bible the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and died in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the members of that Church Lastly it seemes to me no strange thing that God in his Iustice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the professors of the Roman Doctrine have to abuse the World To the fourth All those were not Heretiques which by Philastrius Epiphanius or S. Austine were put in the Catalogue of Heretiques To the fift Kings and Nations have been and may be converted by men of contrary Religions To the sixt The Doctrine of Papists is confess'd by Papists contrary to the Fathers in many points To the seaventh The Pastors of a Church cannot but have authority from it to preach against the abuses of it whether in Doctrine or practice if there be any in it Neither can any Christian want an ordinary commission from God to doe a necessary work of Charity after a peaceable manner when there is no body else that can or will doe it In extraordinary cases extraordinary courses are not to be disallowed If some Christian Lay-man should come into a country of Infidels had ability to perswade them to Christianity who would say he might not use it for want of Commission To the eighth Luthers conference with the Divell might be for ought I know nothing but a melancholy dreame If it were reall the Divell might perswade Luther from the Masse hoping by doing so to keep him constant to it Or that others would make his diswasion from it an Argument for it as we see Papists doe and be afraid of following Luther as confessing himselfe to have been perswaded by the Divell To the ninth Illiacos intra muros peccatur extra Papists are more guilty of this fault then Protestants Even this very author in this very Pamphlet hath not so many leaves as falsifications and calumnies To the tenth Let all men believe the Scripture and that only and endeavour to believe it in the true sense and require no more of others and they shall finde this not only a better but the only meanes to suppresse Heresy and restore Unity For he that believes the Scripture sincerely and endeavours to believe it in the true sense cannot possibly be an Heretique And if no more then this were requir'd of any man to make him capable of the Churches Communion then all men so qualified though they were different in opinion yet notwithstanding any such difference must be of necessity one in Communion The Preface to the READER GIVE me leave good Reader to informe thee by way of Preface of three points The first concernes D. Potters Answere to Charity Mistaken The second relates to this Reply of mine And the third containes some Premonitions or Prescriptions in case D. Potter or any in his behalfe thinke fit to rejoyne 2. For the first point concerning D. Potters Answere I say in generall reserving particulars to their proper places that in his whole Booke he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the point in question which was Whether both Catholiques and Protestants can be saved in their severall professions And therefore Charity Mistaken judiciously pressing those particulars wherein the difficulty doth precisely consist proves in generall
and Charity collect thus They only erre damnably who oppose what they know God hath testified But Protestants sure doe not oppose what they knowe God hath testified at least we cannot with Charity say they doe Therefore they either doe not erre damnably or with charity we cannot say they doe so 13 Ad § 17. Protestants you say according to their own grounds must hold that of Persons contrary in whatsoever point of beleife one part only can be saved therefore it is strangely done of them to charge Papists with want of Charity for holding the same The consequence I acknowledge but wonder much what it should be that laies upon Protestants any necessity to doe so You tell us it is their holding Scripture the sole Rule of Faith for this you say obligeth them to pronounce them damn'd that oppose any least point delivered in Scripture This I grant If they oppose it after sufficient declaration so that either they know it to be contain'd in Scripture or have no just probable Reason and which may moue an honest man to doubt whether or no it be there contained For to oppose in the first case in a man that beliues the Scripture to be the word of God is to giue God the lye To oppose in the second is to be obstinate against Reason and therefore a sinne though not so great as the former But then this is nothing to the purpose of the necessity of damning all those that are of contrary beliefe and that for these Reasons First because the contrary beliefe may be touching a point not at all mentioned in Scripture and such points though indeed they be not matters of Faith yet by men in variance are often over-valued and esteem'd to be so So that though it were damnable to oppose any point contain'd in Scripture yet Persons of a contrary beliefe as Victor and Polycrates S. Cyprian and Stephen might both be saved because their contrary beliefe was not touching any point contained in Scripture Secondly because the contrary beliefe may be about the sense of some place of Scripture which is ambiguous and with probabilitie capable of diverse senses and in such cases it is no marvell and sure no sinne if severall men goe severall waies Thirdly because the contrary beliefe may bee concerning points wherein Scripture may with so great probabilitie bee alleaged on both sides which is a sure note of a point not necessary that men of honest and upright hearts true lovers of God and of truth such as desire aboue all things to know Gods will and to doe it may without any fault at all some goe one way and some another some those as good men as either of the former suspend their judgements and expect some Elias to solue doubts and reconcile repugnancies Now in all such Questions one side or other which soever it is holds that which indeed is opposite to the sense of the Scripture which God intended for it is impossible that God should intend Contradictions But then this intended sense is not so fully declared but that they which oppose it may verily belieue that they indeed maintaine it and haue great shew of reason to induce them to belieue so and therefore are not to be damn'd as men opposing that which they either knowe to be a truth delivered in Scripture or haue no probable Reason to belieue the contrary but rather in Charity to be acquitted and absolv'd as men who endeavour to finde the Truth but fayle of it through humane frailty This ground being laid the Answer to your ensuing Interrogatories which you conceiue impossible is very obvious easie 14 To the first Whether it be not in any man a grievous sinne to deny any one Truth containd'd in holy Writ I answer Yes if he knewe it to be so or haue no probable Reason to doubt of it otherwise not 15 To the second Whether there be in such deniall any distinction between FundameÌtall not FundameÌtall sufficient to excuse from Heresie I answer Yes There is such a Distinction But the Reason is because these points either in themselues or by accident are Fundamentall which are evidently contain'd in Scripture to him that knowes them to be so Those not Fundamentall which are there-hence deducible but probably only not evidently 16 To the third Whether it be not impertinent to alleage the Creed as containing all Fundamentall points of Faith as if believing it alone wee were at Libertie to deny all other Points of Scripture I answer It was never alleag'd to any such purpose but only as a sufficient or rather more then a sufficient Summarie of those points of Faith which were of necessity to be believed actually and explicitely and that onely of such which were meerely and purely Credenda and not Agenda 17 To the fourth drawn as a Corollary from the former Whether this be not to say that of Persons contrary in beliefe one part only can bee saved I answer By no meanes For they may differ about points not contain'd in Scripture They may differ about the sense of some ambiguous Texts of Scripture They may differ about some Doctrines for and against which Scriptures may be alleadged with so great probability as may justly excuse either Part from Haeresie and a selfe condemning obstinacy And therefore though D. Potter doe not take it ill that you believe your selves may be sav'd in your Religion yet notwithstanding all that hath yet been pretended to the contrary hee may justly condemne you and that out of your own principles of uncharitable presumption for affirming as you doe that no man can be saved out of it CHAP. II. What is that meanes whereby the revealed truths of God are conveyed to our Vnderstanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion OF our estimation respect and reverence to holy Scripture even Protestants themselves doe in fact give testimony while they possesse it from us and take it upon the integrity of our custody No cause imaginable could avert our will from giving the function of supreme and sole Iudge to holy writ if both the thing were not impossible in it selfe and if both reason and experience did not convince our understanding that by this assertion Contentions are increased and not ended We acknowledge holy Scripture to be a most perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule We only deny that it excludes either divine Tradition though it be unwritten or an externall Iudge to keep to propose to interpret in a true Orthodoxe and Catholique sense Every single book every Chapter yea every period of holy Scripture is infallibly true and wants no due perfection But must we therefore inferre that all other Books of Scripture are to be excluded least by addition of them we may seem to derogate from the perfection of the former When the first Bookes of the old and new Testament were written they did not exclude unwritten Traditions nor the Authority of
them the argument which S. Augustine opposed to the Manicheans in these words I would not believe the Gospell unlesse the authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyeâ saying Believe the Gospell why should I not obey saying to me Doe not believe Manichaeus Luther Calvin c. Choose what thou pleasest If thou shalt say believe the Catholiques They warne me not to give any credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say Do not believe the Catholiques thou shalt not doe well in forcing me to the faith of Manichaeus because by the preaching of Catholiques I believed the Gospell it selfe If thou say you did well to believe them Catholiques commending the Gospell but you did not well to believe them discommending Manichaeus Dost thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not And doe not Protestants perfectly resemble these men to whom S. Augustine spake when they will have men to believe the Roman Church delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning Luther and the rest Against whom when they first opposed themselves to the Roman Church S. Augustine may seem to have spoken no lesse prophetically then doctrinally when he said Why should I not most diligently inâuire what Christ coÌmanded of them before all others by whose authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Canst thou better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by thee to mee This therefore I believed by fame strengthned with celebrity consent Antiquity But every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving authority What madnesse is this Believe them Catholiques that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said Why I beseech thee Surely if they Catholiques were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my selfe that I were not to believe Christ then that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other then them by whom I believed him If therefore we receive the knowledge of Christ and Scriptures from the Church from her also must we take his doctrine and the interpretation thereof 19 But besides all this the Scriptures cannot be Iudge of Controversies who ought to be such as that to him not only the learned or Veterans but also the unlearned and Novices may have recourse for these being capable of salvation and endued with faith of the same nature with that of the learned there must be some universall Iudge which the ignorant may understand and to whom the greatest Clerks must submit Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such 20 Now the inconveniences which follow by referring all Controversies to Scripture alone are very clear For by this principle all is finally in very deed and truth reduced to the internall private Spirit because there is really no middle way betwixt a publiquâ externall and a private internall voyce and whosoever refuseth the one must of necessity adhere to the other 21 This Tenet also of Protestants by taking the office of Iudicature from the Church comes to conferre it upon every particular man who being driven from submission to the Church cannot be blamed if he trust himselfe as farre as any other his conscience dictating that wittingly he meanes not to cozen himself as others malitiously may doe Which inference is so manifest that it hath extorted from divers Protestants the open Confession of so vast an absurdity Hear Luther The Governours of Churches and Pastors of Christs sheep have indeed power to teach but the sheep ought to give judgement whether they propound the voice of Christ or of Aliens Lubertus saith As we have demonstrated that all publique Iudges may be deceived in interpreting so we affirme that they may erre in judging All faithfull men are private Iudges and they also have power to judge of doctrines and interpretations Whitaker even of the unlearned saith They ought to have recourse unto the more learned but in the meane time we must be carefull not to attribute to them over-much but so that still we retaine our owne freedome Bilson also affirmeth that The people must be discerners and Iudges of that which is taught This same pernicious doctrine is delivered by Brentius Zanchius Cartwright and others exactly cited by Brerely and nothing is more common in every Protestants mouth then that he admits of Fathers Councells Church c. as farre as they agree with Scripture which upon the matter is himselfe Thus Heresy ever fals upon extreames It pretends to have Scripture alone for judge of Controversies and in the meane time sets up as many Iudges as there are men and women in the Christian world What good Statesmen would they be who should ideate or fancy such a CoÌmon wealth as these men haue framed to themselues a Church They verifie what S. Augustine objecteth against certaine Heretiques You see that you goe about to overthrow all authority of Scripture and that every mans minde may be to himselfe a Rule what he is to allow or disallow in every Sââipture 22 Moreover what confusion to the Church what danger to the Common wealth this deniall of the authority of the Church may bring I leaue to the consideration of any judicious indifferent man I will only set down some words of D. Potter who speaking of the Proposition of revealed Truths sufficient to proue him that gain-saith them to be an Heretique saith thus This Proposition of revealed truths is not by the infallible determination of Pope or Church Pope Church being excluded let us heare what more secure rule he will prescribe but by whatsoever meanes a man may be convinced in conscience of divine revelation If a Preacher doe clear any point of faith to his Hearers if a private Christian doe make it appeare to his Neighbour that any conclusion or point of faith is delivered by divine revelation of Gods word if a man himselfe without any Teacher by reading the Scriptures or hearing them read be convinced of the truth of any such conclusion this is a sufficient proposition to proue him that gainsaith any such proofe to be an Heretique and obstinate opposer of the faith Behold what goodly safe Propounders of faith arise in place of Gods universall visible Church which must yeeld to a single Preacher a Neighbour a man himselfe if he can read or at least haue eares to heare Scripture read Verily I doe not see but that every well-governed Civill Commonwealth ought to concurre towards the exterminating of this doctrine whereby the Interpretation of Scripture is taken from the Church and conferred upon every man who whatsoever is pretended to the contrary may be a passionate seditious creature 23 Moreover
heare examine and determine all controversies of faith and so they may be and are Iudges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrine they constitute another Iudge of Controversies besides Scripture alone 26 Lastly ãâã D. Potter whether this Assertion Scripture alone is Iudge of all Controversies in saith be a fundamentall point of faith or no He must be well advised before he say that it is a fundamentall point For he will haue against him as many Protestants as teach that by Scripture alone it is impossible to knowe what Bookes be Scripture which yet to Protestants is the most necessary and chiefe point of all other D. Covell expresly saith Doubtlesse it is a tolerable opinion in the Church of Rome if they goe no further as some of them doe not hee should haue said as none of them doe to affirme that the Scriptures are holy divine in themselves but so esteemed by us for the authority of the Church He will likewise oppose himselfe to those his Brethren who grant that Controversies cannot be ended without some externall living authority as we noted before Besides how can it be in us a fundamentall errour to say the Scripture alone is not Iudge of Controversies seeing notwithstanding this our beliefe wee use for interpreting of Scripture all the meanes which they prescribe as Prayer Conferring of places Consulting the Originals c and to these adde the Instruction and Authority of Gods Church which even by has confession cannot erre damnaâly and may afford us more help then can be expected from the industry learning or wit of any private person and finally D. Potter grants that the Church of Rome doth not maintain any fundamentall errour against faith and consequently he cannot affirme that our doctrine in this present Controversie is damnable If he answer that their Tenet about the Scriptures being the only Iudge of Controversies is not a fundamentall point of faith then as he âeacheth that the universall Church may erre in points not fundamentall so I hope he will nât deny but particular Churches and private men are much more obnoxious to errour in such points and in particular in this that Scripture alone is Iudge of Controversies And so the very principle upon which their whole faith is grounded remaines to them uncertaine and on the other side for the selfe same reason they are not certaine but that the Church is Iudge of Controversies which if she be then their case is lamentable who in generall deny her this authority in particular controversies oppose her definitions Besides among publique Conclusions defended in Oxford the yeare 1633. to the questions Whether the Church haue authority to determine controversies in faith And To interpret holy Scripture The answer to both is Affirmatiue 27 Since then the visible Church of Christ our Lord is that infallible Meanes whereby the revealed truth of Almighty God are conveyed to our understanding it followeth that to oppose her definitions is to resist God himselfe which blessed S. Augustine plainly affirmeth when speaking of the Controversy about Rebaptization of such as were baptized by Heretiques he saith Tâis is neither openly nor evidently read neither by you nor by me yet if there were any wise man of whom our Saviour had given testimony and that he should be consulted in this question we should make no doubt to performe what he should say least we might seem to gainsay not him so much as Christ by whose testimony he was recommended Now Christ beareth witnesse to his Church And a little after Whosoever refuseth to follow the practise of the Church doth resist our Saviour himselfe who by his testimony recommends the Church I conclude therefore with this argument Whosoever resisteth that meanes which infallibly proposeth to us Gods Word or Râvelation commits a sinne which unrepented excludes salvation But whosoever resisteth Christs visible Church doth resist that meanes which infallibly proposeth Gods word or revelation to us Therefore whosoever resisteth Christs visible Church commits a sinne which unrepented excludes salvation Now what visible Church was extant when Luther began his pretended Reformation whetheâ it were the Roman or Protestant Church and whether he and other Protestants doe not oppose that visible Church which was spread over the world before and in Luthers time is easy to be determined and importeth every one most seriously to ponder as a thing whereon eternall salvation dependeth And because our Adversaries doe here most insist upon the distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall and in particular teach that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall it will be necessary to examine the truth and weight of this evasion which shall be done in the next Chapter ANSVVER TO THE SECOND CHAPTER Concerning the meanes whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion AD § 1. He that would usurpe an absolute lordship and tyranny over any people need not put himselfe to the trouble and difficulty of abrogating and disanulling the Lawes made to maintain the common liberty for he may frustrate their intent and compasse his own designe as well if he can get the power and authority to interpret them as he pleases and adde to them what he pleases and to have his interpretations and additions stand for Lawes if he can rule his people by his lawes and his Lawes by his Lawyers So the Church of Rome to establish her tyranny over mens consciences needed not either to abolish or corrupt the holy Scriptures the Pillars and supporters of Christian liberty which in regard of the numerous multitude of copies dispersed through all places translated into almost all languages guarded with all sollicitous care and industry had been an impossible attempt But the more expedite way and therefore more likely to be successefull was to gain the opinion and esteem of the publique and authoriz'd interpreter of them and the Authority of adding to them what doctrine she pleas'd under the title of Traditions or Definitions For by this meanes she might both serve her selfe of all those clauses of Scripture which might be drawen to cast a favourable countenance upon her ambitious pretences which in case the Scripture had been abolished shee could not have done and yet be secure enough of having either her power limited or her corruptions and abuses reformed by them this being once setled in the mindes of men that unwritten doctrines if proposed by her were to be receiv'd with equall reverence to those that were written and that the sense of Scripture was not that which seem'd to mens reason and understanding to be so but that which the Church of Rome should declare to be so seem'd it never so unreasonable and incongruous The matter being once thus ordered and the holy Scriptures being made in effect not your directors and Iudges no farther then you please but your
servants and instruments alwaies prest and in readinesse to advance your designes and disabled wholly with mindes so qualified to prejudice or impeach them it is safe for you to put a crown on their head and a reed in their hands and to bow before them cry Haile King of the Iewes to pretend a great deale of esteem and respect reverence to them as here you doe But to little purpose is verball reverence without entire submission and syncere obedience and as our Saviour said of some so the Scripture could it speak I believe would say to you Why call ye mee Lord Lord and doe not that which I command you Cast away the vaine and arrogant pretence of Infallibility which makes your errors incurable Leave picturing God and worshipping him by pictures Teach not for Doctrine the Commandments of men Debarre not the Laity of the Testament of Christs blood Let your publique Prayers and Psalmes and Hymmes be in such language as is for the edification of the Assistants Take not from the Clergy that liberty of Marriage which Christ hath left them Doe not impose upon men that Humility of worshipping Angels which S. Paul condemnes Teach no more proper sacrifices of Christ but one Acknowledge them that dye in Christ to be blessed and to rest from their labours Acknowledge the Sacrament after consecration to be Bread and Wine as well as Christs body and blood Acknowledge the gift of continency without Marriage not to be given to all Let not the weapons of your warfare be carnall such as are Massacres Treasons Persecutions and in a word all meanes either violent or fraudulent These and other things which the Scripture commands you doe and then we shall willingly give you such Testimony as you deserve but till you doe so to talk of estimation respect and reverence to the Scripture is nothing else but talk 2 For neither is that true which you pretend That we possesse the Scripture from you or take it upon the integrity of your Custody but upon Vniversall Tradition of which you are but a little part Neither if it were true that Protestants acknowledged The integrity of it to have been guarded by your alone Custody were this any argument of your reverence towards them For first you might preserve them entire not for want of Will but of Power to corrupt them as it is a hard thing to poyson the Sea And then having prevailed so farre with men as either not to look at all into them or but only through such spectacles as you should please to make for them and to see nothing in them though as cleere as the sunne if it any way made against you you might keep them entire without any thought or care to conforme your doctrine to them or reforme it by them which were indeed to reverence the Scriptures but out of a perswasion that you could qualify them well enough with your glosses and interpretations and make them sufficiently conformable to your present Doctrine at least in their judgement who were preposses'd with this perswasion that your Church was to judge of the sense of Scripture not to be judged by it 3. For whereas you say No cause imaginable could avert your will from giving the function of supreme and sole Iudge to holy writ but that the thing is impossible and that by this meanes controversies are encreased and not ended you mean perhaps That you can or will imagine no other cause but these But sure there is little Reason you should measure other mens imaginations by your own who perhaps may be so clouded and vail'd with prejudice that you cannot or will not see that which is most manifest For what indifferent and unprejudicate man may not easily conceive another cause which I doe not say does but certainly may pervert your wills and avert your understandings from submitting your religion and Church to a tryall by Scripture I mean the great and apparent and unavoidable danger which by this meanes you would fall into of loosing the Opinion which men have of your Infallibility and consequently your power and authority over mens consciences and all that depends upon it so that though Diana of the Ephesians be cryed up yet it may be feared that with a great many among you though I censure or judge no man the other cause which wrought upon Demetrius and the Craftsmen may have with you also the more effectuall though more secret influence and that is that by this craft we have our living by this craft I mean of keeping your Proselytes from an indifferent tryall of your Religion by Scripture and making them yeeld up and captivate their judgement unto yours Yet had you only said de facto that no other cause did avert your own will from this but only these which you pretend out of Charity I should have believed you But seeing you speak not of your selfe but of all of your side whose hearts you cannot know and professe not only That there is no other cause but that No other is imaginable I could not let this passe without a censure As for the impossibility of Scriptures being the sole judge of Controversies that is the sole rule for man to Iudge them by for we mean nothing else you only affirme it without proofe as if the thing were evident of it selfe And therefore I conceiving the contrary to be more evident might well-content my selfe to deny it without refutation Yet I cannot but desire you to tell me If Scripture cannot be the Iudge of any Controversy how shall that touching the Church and the notes of it be determined And if it be the sole judge of this one why may it not of others Why not of All Those only excepted wherein the Scripture it selfe is the subject of the Question which cannot be determined but by naturall reason the only principle beside Scripture which is common to Christians 4 Then for the Imputation of increasing contentions and not ending them Scripture is innocent of it as also this opinion That controversies are to be decided by Scripture For if men did really and sincerely submit their judgements to Scripture and that only and would require no more of any man but to doe so it were impossible but that all controversies touching things necessary and very profitable should be ended and if others were continued or increased it were no matter 5 In the next wordes we have direct Boyes-play a thing given with one hand and taken away with the other an acknowledgement made in one line and retracted in the next We acknowledge say you Scripture to be a perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule only wee deny that it excludes unwritten tradition A siâ you should have said we acknowledge it to be as perfect a rule as a writing can be only we deny it to be as perfect a rule as a writing may be Either therefore you must revoke your acknowledgement or retract your
that these controversies about Scripture are not decidable by Scripture and have shewed that your deduction from it that therefore they are to be determin'd by the authority of some present Church is irrationall and inconsequent I might well forbeare to tire my selfe with an exact and punctuall examination of your premises ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã which wether they be true or false is to the Question disputed wholly impertinent Yet because you shall not complaine of tergiverâation I will runne over them and let nothing that is materiall and considerable passe without some stricture or animadversion 30 You pretend that M. Hooker acknowledgeth that That whereon we must rest our assurance that the Scripture is Gods word is the Church and for this acknowledgement you referre us to l. 3. Sect. 8. Let the Reader consult the place and he shall finde that he and M. Hooker have been much abused both by you here and by M. Breerly and others before you and that M. Hooker hath not one syllable to your pretended purpose but very much directly to the contrary There he tells us indeed that ordinarily the first introduction and probable motive to the belief of the verity is the Authority of the Church but that it is the last Foundation whereon our belief hereof is rationally grounded that in the same place he plainly denies His words are Scripture teacheth us that saving Truth which God hath discovered unto the world by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it selfe is divine and sacred The Question then being by what meanes we are taught this some answere that to learne it we have no other way then tradition As namely that so we believe because we from our Predecessors and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied and by experience we all know that the first outward motive leading men to esteeme of the Scripture is the Authority of Gods Church For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary minde without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labour upon reading or hearing the mysteries thereof the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our received opinion concerning it so that the former inducement prevailing somewhat with us before doth now much more prevaile when the very thing hath ministred farther reason If Infidels or Atheists chance at any time to call it in question this giveth us occasion to sift what reason there is whereby the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture and our own perswasion which Scripture it selfe hath setled may be proved a truth infallible In which case the ancient Fathers being often constrained to shew what warrant they had so much to rely upon the Scriptures endeavoured still to maintaine the Authority of the bookes of God by arguments such as the unbelievers themselves must needs think reasonable if they judge thereof as they should Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard even by such kinde of proofes so to manifest and cleare that point that no man living shall be able to deny it without denying some apparent principle such as all men acknowledge to be true By this time I hope the reader sees sufficient proofe of what I said in my Reply to your Preface that M. Breerelies great ostentation of exactnesse is no very certain argument of his fidelity 31 But seeing the beliefe of the Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be prov'd by Scripture how can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contain'd in Scripture 32 I have answered this already And here again I say That all but cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the materiall objects of our faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the meanes of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it selfe but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their salvation not to know whether there were any Scripture or no. Those barbarous nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aimes at is the beliefe of the Gospell the covenant between God and man the Scripture he hath provided as a meanes for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last object of our faith but as the instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6. Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the finall and ultimate objects of it and not the meanes and instrumentall objects and then there will be no repugnance between what they say and that which Hooker and D. Covell and D. Whitaker and Luther here say 33 But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. Iames. Kemnitius and other Luth. the second of Peter the second and third of Iohn The Epist. to the Heb. the Epist. of Iames of Iude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonicall 34 So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the authority of the very same bookes and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgement of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonicall or had they not If they had not it seemes there is no such great harme or danger in not having such a certainty whether some books be Canonicall or no as you require If they had why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs 35 You proceed And whereas the Protestants of England in the 6. Art have these words In the name of the Holy Scripture we doe vnderstand those Bookes of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church you demaund what they meane by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonicall I Answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you inferre from hence This is to make the Church Iudge I haue told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Iudge but not the present Church much lesse the present Roman Church but the consent and testimony of the
strongly perswaded that I belieue the Scripture as you are that you belieue the Church And if I may be deceived why may not you Againe what more ridiculous and against sense and experience then to affirme That there are not millions amongst you and us that belieue upon no other reason then their education and the authority of their Parents and Teachers and the opinion they haue of them The tendernesse of the subject and aptnesse to receiue impressions supplying the defect and imperfection of the Agent And will you proscribe from heaven all those believers of your own Creed who doe indeed lay the foundation of their Faith for I cannot call it by any other name no deeper then upon the Authority of their Father or Master or parish Priest Certainly if these haue no true faith your Church is very full of Infidels Suppose Xaverius by the holynesse of his life had converted some Indians to Christianity who could for so I will suppose haue no knowledge of your Church but from him and therefore must last of all build their Faith of the Church upon their Opinion of Xaverius Doe these remain as very Pagans after their conversion as they were before Are they brought to assent in their soules and obey in their liues the Gospell of Christ only to be Tantaliz'd and not saved and not benefited but deluded by it because forsooth it is a man and not the Church that begets faith in them What if their motiue to beleeue be not in reason sufficient Doe they therefore not belieue what they doe belieue because they doe it upon insufficient motiues They choose the Faith imprudently perhaps but yet they doe choose it Vnlesse you will haue us belieue that that which is done is not done because it is not done upoÌ good reason which is to say that never any man living ever did a foolish action But yet I know not why the Authority of one holy man which apparently has no ends upon me joyn'd with the goodnesse of the Christian faith might not be a far greater and more rationall motiue to me to imbrace Christianity then any I can haue to continue in Paganisme And therefore for shame if not for loue of Truth you must recant this fancie when you write again and suffer true faith to be many times where your Churches infallibility has no hand in the begetting of it And be content to tell us hereafter that we belieue not enough and not goe about to perswade us we belieue nothing for feare with telling us what we know to be manifestly false you should gain only this Not to be believed when you speak truth Some pretty sophismes you may happily bring us to make us belieue we belieue nothing but wise men know that Reason against Experience is alwaies Sophisticall And therefore as he that could not answer Zenoe's subtilities against the existence of Motion could yet confute them by doing that which he pretended could not be done So if you should giue me a hundred Arguments to perswade me because I doe not belieue Transubstantiation I doe not believe in God and the Knots of them I could not untie yet I should cut them in peeces with doing that and knowing that I doe so which you pretend I cannot doe 50 In the thirteenth division we haue again much adoe about nothing A great deal of stirre you keep in confuting some that pretend to know Canonicall Scripture to be such by the Titles of the Books But these men you doe not name which makes me suspect you cannot Yet it is possible there may be some such men in the world for Gusman de Alfarache hath taught us that the Fooles hospitall is a large place 51 In the fourteenth § we haue very artificiall jugling D. Potter had said That the Scripture hee desires to bee understood of those books wherein all Christians agree is a principle and needs not be proved among Christians His reason was because that needs no farther proofe which is believed already Now by this you say he meanes either that the Scripture is one of these first Principles and most known in all sciences which cannot be proved which is to suppose it cannot be proved by the Church and that is to suppose the Question Or hee meanes That it is not the most known in Christianity then it may be prov'd Where we see plainly That two most different things Most known in all Sciences Most known in Christianity are captiously confounded As if the Scripture might not be the first and most knowne Principle in Christianity and yet not the most knowne in all Sciences Or as if to be a First Principle in Christianity and in all Sciences were all one That Scripture is a Principle among Christians that is so received by all that it need not be proved in any emergent Controversie to any Christian but may be taken for granted I think few will deny You your selues are of this a sufficient Testimony for urging against us many texts of Scripture you offer no proofe of the truth of them presuming we will not question it Yet this is not to deny that Tradition is a Principle more knowne then Scripture But to say it is a principle not in Christianity but in Reason nor proper to Christians but common to all men 52 But it is repugnant to our practice to hold Scripture a Principle because we are wont to affirme that one part of Scripture may be knowne to be Canonicall and may be interpreted by another Where the former device is againe put in practice For to be known to be Canonicall and to be interpreted is not all one That Scripture may be interpreted by Scripture that Protestants grant and Papists doe not deny neither does that any way hinder but that this assertion Scripture is the word of God may be among Christians a common Principle But the first âThat one part of Scripture may proue another part Canonicall and need no proofe of its own being so for that you haue produc'd divers Protestants that deny it but who they are that affirme it nondum Constat 53 It is superfluous for you to proue out of S. Athanasius S. Austine that we must receiue the sacred Canon upon the credit of Gods Church Vnderstanding by Church as here you explaine your selfe The credit of Tradition And that not the Tradition of the Present Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradition which involues an evidence of Fact and from hand to hand from age to age bringing us up to the times and persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himselfe commeth to be confirm'd by all these Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinc'd their doctrine to be true Thus you Now proue the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Proue your whole doctrine or the infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition we will yeeld to you in all
thereof had been recommended by you to me This therefore that Christ Iesus did those miracles and taught that Doctrine which is contained evidently in the undoubted Bookes of the New Testament I believed by Fame strengthned with Celebrity Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an universall and a constant attestation to them But every one may see that you so few in comparison of all those upon whose consent we ground our belief of Scripture so turbulent that you damne all to the fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you professe it is lawfull for you to use violence and power whensoever you can have it for the planting of your own doctrine and the extirpation of the contrary lastly so new in many of your Doctrines as in the lawfulnesse and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramentall Cup the lawfulnesse and expedience of your Latine Service Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory the Popes infallibility his Authority over Kings c. so new I say in comparison of the undoubted bookes of Scripture which evidently containeth or rather is our Religion and the sole and adequate object of our faith I say every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving Authority with wise and considerate men What madnesse is this Believe them the consent of Christians which are now and have been ever since Christ in the World that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said which contradict and damne all other parts of Christendome Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my selfe that I were not to believe in Christ then that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other then them by whom I believed him at least then that I should learn what his Religion was from you who have wronged so exceedingly his Miracles and his Doctrine by forging so evidently so many false Miracles for the Confirmation of your new Doctrine which might give us just occasion had we no other assurance of them but your Authority to suspect the true ones Who with forging so many false Stories and false Authors have taken a faire way to make the faith of all Stories questionable if we had no other ground for our belief of them but your Authority who have brought in Doctrines plainly and directly contrary to that which you confesse to be the word of Christ and which for the most part make either for the honour or profit of the Teachers of them which if there were no difference between the Christian and the Roman Church would be very apt to make suspicious men believe that Christian Religion was a humane invention taught by some cunning Impostors only to make themselves rich and powerfull who make a profession of corrupting all sorts of Authors a ready course to make it justly questionable whether any remain uncorrupted For if you take this Authority upon you upon the sixe Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not usurpe the same authority upon the Authors of the sixe last Ages before them and so upwards untill we come to Christ himselfe Whose question'd Doctrines none of them came from the fountain of Apostolike tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streames by little and little some in one age and some in another some more Anciently some more lately and some yet are Embrio's yet hatching and in the shell as the Popes infallibility the Blessed Virgins immaculate conception the Popes power over the Temporalties of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be impos'd upon Christians under the Title of Originall and Apostolike Tradition and that with that necessity that they are told they were as good believe nothing at all as not believe these things to have come from the Apostles which they know to have been brought in but yesterday which whether it be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus with themselves I am told that I were as good believe nothing at all as believe some points which the Church teaches me and not others somethings which she teaches to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New False therefore I will believe nothing at all Whether I say the foresaid grounds be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus and whether this conclusion be not too often made in Italy Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgement of those that have wisdome and experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so farre from being a sufficient Foundation for our belief in Christ that it is in sundry regards a dangerous temptation against it why should I not much rather conclude Seeing we receive not the knowledge of Christ and Scriptures from the Church of Rome neither from her must we take his Doctrine or the Interpretation of Scripture 102 Ad. § 19. In this number this Argument is contained The Iudge of Controversies ought to be intelligible to learned and unlearned The Scripture is not so and the Church is so Therefore the Church is the Iudge and not the Scripture 103 To this I answere As to be understandible is a condition requisite to a Iudge so is not that alone sufficient to make a Iudge otherwise you might make your selfe Iudge of Controversies by arguing The Scripture is not intelligible by all but I am therefore I am Iudge of Controversies If you say your intent was to conclude against the Scripture and not for the Church I demand why then but to delude the simple with sophistry did you say in the close of this § Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such but that you would leave it to them to inferre in the end which indeed was more then you undertook in the beginning Therefore the Church is Iudge and the Scripture not I say Secondly that you still runne upon a false supposition that God hath appointed some Iudge of all Controversies that may happen among Christians about the sense of obscure Texts of Scripture whereas he has left every one to his liberty herein in those words of S. Paul Quisque abundet in sensu suo c. I say thirdly Whereas some Protestants make the Scripture Iudge of Controversies that they have the authority of Fathers of warrant their manner of speaking as of Optatus 104 But speaking truly and properly the Scripture is not a Iudge nor cannot be but only a sufficient Rule for those to judge by that believe it to be the word of God as the Church of England and the Church of Rome both doe what they are to believe and what they are not to believe I say sufficiently perfect and sufficiently intelligible in things necessary to all that have
Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can challenge our beliefe Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should haue put it I say That this position Scripture alone is the rule whereby they which belieue it to be Gods Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundameÌtall point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I haue done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We haue said already that necessary Controversies may be are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain meanes for the ending of them And to your Third I say that your pretence of using these meanes is but hypocriticall for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these meanes happily may suggest into you if it any way crosse your pre-conceav'd persuasion of your Churches infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgement in the use of them nor suffer your selves to bee led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth erre therefore it is not Infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is infallible therefore it doth not erre and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to doe so never so plainly 157 You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own You conferre places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrine not that you may judge of them forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originalls but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrine or Translation 158 You adde not only the Authority but the Infallibility not of Gods Church but of the Roman a very corrupt and degenerous part of it whereof D. Potter never confessed that it cannot erre damnably And which being a company made up of particular men can afford you no help but the industry learning and wit of private men and that these helps may not help you out of your errour tell you that you must make use of none of all these to discover any errour in the Church but only to maintaine her impossibility or erring And lastly D. Potter assures himselfe that your Doctrine and practises are damnable enough in themselves Only he hopes and spes est rei incertae nomen he hopes I say that the Truths which you retain especially the necessity of repentance and faith in Christ will bee as an antidote to you against the errours which you maintain and that your superstructions may burne yet they amongst you Qui sequun tur Absalonem in simplicitate cor dis may be saved yet so as by fire Yet his thinking so is no reason for you or me to think so unlesse you suppose him infallible and if you doe why doe you write against him 159 Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrine not Fundamentall Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholly and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performes the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospell and not that it is contained in these or these Bookes So that the Bookes of Scripture are not so much the objects of our faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrine as requisite to the well being of it Irenaeus tels us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrine of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the bookes of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous nations but still by the bare beliefe and practise of Christianity they might be saved God requiring of us under pain of damnation only to believe the verities therein contained and not the divine Authority of the bookes wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should belieue the matter of these bookes and not the Authority of the bookes and therefore if a man should professe the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not alwaies an equall necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equall reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the eight K. of England as that Iesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilaââ yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of of him yet it were no mortall sinne nor no sinne at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should performe the whole will of the dead should fully satisfy the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160 This discourse whether it be rationall and concluding or no I submit to better judgement But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamentaâ is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth
his 7. Sect. he pretendeth then he may be sure that whensoever he meetes with such points in Scripture in them it is infallibly true although it might erre in others and not only true but cleere because Protestants teach that in matters necessary to Salvation the Scripture is so cleere that all such necessary truths are either manifestly contained therein or may be cleerely deduced from it Which Doctrines being put together to wit That Scriptures cannot erre in points fundamentall that they cleerely containe all such points and that they can tell what points in particular be such I mean fundamentall it is manifest that it is sufficient for Salvation that Scripture be infallible only in points fundamentall For supposing these doctrines of theirs to be true they may be sure to find in Scripture all points necessary to Salvation although it were fallible in other points of lesse moment Neyther will they be able to avoid this impiety against holy Scripture till they renounce their other doctrines and in particular till they believe that Christs promise to his Church are not limited to points fundamentall 16 Besides from the fallibility of Christs Catholique Church in some points it followeth that no true Protestant earned or unlearned doth or can with assurance believe the universall Church in any one point of doctrine Not in points of lesser moment which they call not fundamentall because they believe that in such points she may erre Not in fundamentalls because they must know what points be fundamentall before they goe to learn of her least otherwise they be rather deluded then instructed in regard that her certain and infallible direction extends only to points fundamentall Now if before they addresse themselves to the Church they must know what points are fundamentall they learn not of her but will be as fit to teach as to be taught by her How then are all Christians so often so seriously upon so dreadfull menaces by Fathers Scriptures and our blessed Saviour himselfe counselled and commanded to seeke to hear to obey the Church S. Austine was of a very different mind from Protestants If saith he the Church through the whole world practise any of these things to dispute whether that ought to be so done is a most insolent madnesse And in another place he saith That which the whole Church holds and is not ordained by Councels but hath alwaies been kept is most rightly believed to be delivered by Apostolicall authority The same holy Father teacheth that the custome of baptizing children cannot be proved by Scripture alone and yet that it is to be believed as derived from the Apostles The custome of our Mother the Church saith he in baptizing infants iâ in no wise to be contemned nor to be accounted superfluous nor is it at all to be believed unlesse it were an Apostolicall Tradition And elsewhere Christ is of profit to Children baptized Is he therefore of profit to persons not believing But God forbid that I should say infants doe not believe I have already said he believes in another who finned in another It is said be believes and it is of force and he is reckoned among the faithfull that are baptized This the authority of our Mother the Church hath against this strength against this invincible wall whosoever rusheth shall be crushed in pieces To this argument the Protestants in the Conference at Ratishon gaue this round answer Nos ab Augustino hac in parte libere dissentimas In this we plainly disagree from Augustine Now if this doctrine of baptizing Infants be not fundamentall in D. Potters sense then according to S. Augustine the infallibility of the Church extends to points not fundamentall But if on the other side it be a fundamentall point then according to the same holy Doctour we must rely on the authority of the Church for some fundamentall point not contained in Scripture but delivered by Tradition The like argument I frame out of the same Father about the not rebaptizing of those who were baptized by Heretiques whereof he excellently to our present purpose speaketh in this manner Wee follow indeed in this matter even the most certaine authority of Canonicall all Scriptures But how Consider his words Although verily there be brought no example for this point out of the Canonicall Scriptures yet even in this point the truth of the same Scriptures is held by us while we doe that which the authority of Scriptures doth recommend that so because the holy Scripture cannot deceaue us whosoever is afraid to be deceaved by the obscurity of this question must haue recourse to the same Church concerning it which without any ambiguity the holy Scripture doth demonstrate to us Among many other points in the aforesaid words we are to obserue that according to this holy Father when we prove some points not particularly contained in Scripture by the authority of the Church even in that case we ought not to be said to belieue such points without Scripture because Scripture it selfe recommends the Church and therefore relying on her we relye on Scripture without danger of being deceaved by the obscurity of any question defined by the Church And elsewhere he faithi Seeing this is written in no Scripture we must belieue the testimony of the Church which Christ declareth to speak the truth But it seemes D. Potter is of opinion that this doctrine about not rebaptizing such as were baptized by Heretiques is no necessary point of faith nor the contrary an heresie wherein he contradicteth S. Augustine from whom we haue now heard that what the Church teacheth is truly said to be taught by Scripture and consequently to deny this particular point delivered by the Church is to oppose Scripture it selfe Yet if he will needs hold that this point is not fundamentall we must conclude out of S. Augustine as we did concerning the baptizing of Children that the infallibility of the Church reacheth to points not fundamentall The same Father in another place concerning this very question of the validity of Baptisme conferred by Heretiques saith The Apostles indeed haue prescribed nothing of this but this Custome ought to be believed to be originally taken from their tradition as there are many things that the universall Church observeth which are therefore with good reason believed to haue been commanded by the Apostles although they be not written No lesse cleer is S. Chrysoslome for the infallibility of the Traditions of the Church For treating these words 2. Thess. 2. Stand hold the Traditions which you haue learned whether by speech or by Epistle saith Hence it is manifest that they delivered not all things by letter but many things also without writing and these also are worthy of beliefe Let us therefore account the tradition of the Church to be worthy of beliefe It is a Tradition Seek no more Which words are so plainly against Protestants that Whitaker is as plaine with S. Chrysostome
it to be Canonicall whether it be True If the former sense were yours I must then againe distinguish of the terme received For it may signify either received by some particular Church or by the present Church Vniversall or the Church of all Ages If you meant the word in either of the former senses that which you say is not tââe A man may justly and reasonably doubt of some Texts or some Book received by some particular Church or by the Vniversall Church of this present time whether it be Canonicall or no and yet haue just reason to belieue no reason to doubt but that other Books are Canonicall As Eusebius perhaps had reason to doubt of the Epistle of S. Iames the Church of Rome in Hierom's time of the Epistle to the Hebr. And yet they did not doubt of all the Books of the Canon nor had reason to doe so If by Received you meant Received by the Church of all Ages I grant he that doubts of any one such Book has as much reason to doubt of all But yet here again I tell you that it is possible a man may doubt of one such book and yet not of all because it is possible men may doe not according to reason If you meant your words in the latter sense then I confesse he that belieues such a Book to be Canonicall i. e. the word of God and yet to make an impossible supposition believes it not to be true if he will doe according to reason must doubt of all the rest and belieue none For there being no greater reason to believe any thing true then because God hath said it nor no other reason to belieue the Scripture to be true but only because it is Gods word hee that doubts of the Truth of any thing said by God hath as much reason to belieue nothing that he saies and therefore if he will doe according to reason neither must nor can believe any thing he saies And upon this ground you conclude rightly that the infallibility of true Scripture must be Vniversall and not confin'd to points fundamentall 36 And this Reason why we should not refuse to beleiue any part of Scripture upon pretence that the matter of it is not Fundamentall you confesse to be convincing But the same reason you say is as convincing for the Vniversall infallibility of the Church For say you unlesse shee be Infallible in all things we cannot belieue her in any one But by this reason your Proselytes knowing you are not Infallible in all things must not nor cannot belieue you in any thing Nay you your selfe must not belieue your selfe in any thing because you know that you are not Infallible in all things Indeed if you had said wee could not rationally belieue her for her own sake and upon her own word and authority in any thing I should willingly grant the consequence For an authority subject to errour can be no firm or stable foundation of my beliefe in any thing and if it were in any thing then this authority being one the same in all proposalls I should haue the same reason to belieue all that I haue to belieue one and therefore must either doe unreasonably in believing any one thing upon the sole warrant of this authority or unreasonably in not believing all things equally warranted by it Let this therefore be granted and what will come of it Why then you say we cannot belieue her in propounding Canonicall Books If you mean still as you must doe unlesse you play the Sophister not upon her own Authority I grant it For we belieue Canonicall Books not upon the Authority of the present Church but upon Vniversall Tradition If you mean Not at all and that with reason we cannot believe these Books to be Canonicall which the Church proposes I deny it There is no more consequence iââhe Argument then in this The Divell is not infallible therefore if he saies there is one God I cannot believe him No Geometritian is Infallible in all things therefore not in these things which the domonstrates M. Knot is not Infallible in all things therefore he may not believe that he wrote a Book entituled Charity Maintained 37 But though the reply be good Protestants cannot make use of it with any good coherence to this distinction and some other Doctrine of theirs because they pretend to be able to tell what points are Fundamentall and what not and therefore though they should believe Scripture erroneous in others yet they might be sure it err'd not in these To this I answer That if without dependance on Scripture they did know what were Fundamentall and what not they might possibly believe the Scripture true in Fundamentalls and erroneous in other things But seeing they ground their beliefe that such and such things only are Fundamentalls only upon Scripture and goe about to prove their assertion true only by Scripture then must they suppose the Scripture true absolutely and in all things or else the Scripture could not be a sufficient warrant to them to believe this thing that these only points are Fundamentall For who would not laugh at them if they should argue thus The Scripture is true in something the Scripture saies that these points only are Fundamentall therefore this is true that these only are so For every Fresh-man in Logick knowes that from meer particulars nothing can be certainly concluded But on the other side this reason is firme and demonstrative The Scripture is true in all things But the Scripture saies that these only points are the Fundamentalls of Christian Religion therefore it is true that these only are so So that the knowledge of Fundamentalls being it selfe drawen from Scripture is so farre from warranting us to believe the Scripture is or may be in part True and in part False that it selfe can have no foundation but the Vniversall truth of Scripture For to be a Fundamentall truth presupposes to be a truth now I cannot know any Doctrine to be a divine and supernaturall Truth on a true part of Christianity but only because the Scripture saies so which is all true Therefore much more can I not know it to be a Fundamentall truth 33 Ad § 16. To this Parag. I answer Though the Church being not Infallible I cannot believe her in every thing she saies yet I can and must believe her in every thing she proves either by Scripture Reason or universall Tradition be it Fundamentall or be it not Fundamentall This you say we cannot in points not Fundamentall because in such we believe she may erre But this I know we can because though she may erre in some things yet she does not erre in what she proves though it be not Fundamentall Again you say we cannot doe it in Fundamentalls because we must know what points be Fundamentall before we goe to learn of her Not so but I must learn of the Church or of some part of the Church or I
instruction acquaint the universall Church with my particular scruples You say the Prelates of Gods Church meeting in a lawfull generall Councel may erre damnably It remaines then that for my necessary instruction I must repaire to every particular member of the universall Church spread over the face of the earth and yet you teach that the promises which our Lord hath made unto his Church for his assistance are intended not to any particular persons or Churches but only to the Church Catholique with which as I said it is impossible for me to confer Alas O most uncomfortable Ghostly Father you driue me to desperation How shall I confer with every Christian soule man and woman by sea and by land close prisoner or at liberty c. Yet upon supposall of this miraculous Pilgrimage for Faith before I haue the faith of Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely rely Procure will you say to knew whether he belieue all fundamentall points of faith For if he doe his faith for point of beliefe is sufficient for salvation though he erre in a hundred things of lesse moment But how shall I know whether hee hold all fundamentall points or no For till you tell me this I cannot know whether or no his beliefe be sound in all fundamentall points Can you say the Creed Yes And so can many damnable Heretiques But why doe you aske me this question Because the Creed containes all fundamentall points of faith Are you sure of that not sure I hold it very probable Shall I hazard my soule on probabilities or even wagers This yeelds a new cause of despaire But what doth the Creed contain all points necessary to be believed whether they rest in the understanding or else doe further extend to practise No. It was composed to deliver Credenda not Agenda to us Faith not Practise How then shall I know what points of beliefe which direct my practise be necessary to salvation Sâll you chalk our new paths for Desperation Well are all Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter fundamentall I cannot say so How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not fundamentall Read my Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. there you shall finde that fundamentall doctrines are such Catholique Verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those grand and capitall doctrines which make up our Faith in Christ that is that common faith which is alike precious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer which the Apostle else-where cals the first principles of the oracles of God the forme of sound words But how shall I apply these generall definitions or descriptions or to say the truth these only varied words and phrases for I understand the word fundamentall as well as the words principall essentiall grand and capitall doctrines c. to the particular Articles of the Creed in such sort as that I may be able precisely exactly particularly to distinguish fundamentall Articles from points of lesse moment You labour to tell us what fundamentall points be but not which they be and yet unlesse you doe this your Doctrine serues only either to make men despaire or else to haue recourse to those whom you call Papists and which giue one certain Rule that all points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of Faith in such sense as that to deny any one cannot stand with salvation And seeing your selfe acknowledges that these men doe not erre in points fundamentall I cannot but hold it most safe for me to joyn with them for the securing of my soule and the avoiding of desperation into which this your doctrine must cast all them who understand and belieue it For the whole discourse and inferences which here I haue made are either your own direct Assertions or evident consequences cleerly deduced from them 20 But now let us answer some few Objections of D. Potters against that which wee haue said before to avoid our argument That the Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed he saith The Creed is an abstract of such necessary Doctrines as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it and therefore needs not expresse the authority of that which it supposes 21 This answer makes for us For by giving a reason why it was needlesse that Scripture should be expressed in the Creed you grant as much as we desire namely that the Apostles judged it needlesse to expresse all necessary points of faith in their Creed Neither doth the Creed suppose or depend on Scripture in such sort as that we can by any probable consequence infer from the Articles of the Creed that there is any Canonicall Scripture at all and much lesse that such Books in particular be Canonicall Yea the Creed might haue been the same although holy Scripture had never been written and which is more the Creed even in priority of time was before all the Scripture of the new Testament except the Gospell of S. Mathew And so according to this reason of his the Scripture should not mention Articles contained in the Creed And I note in a word how little connexion D. Potters arguments haue while he tells us that the Creed is an Abstraââ of such necessary doctrines as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it therefore needs not expresse the authority of that which it supposes it doth not follow The Articles of the Creed are delivered in Scripture therefore the Creed supposeth Scripture For two distinct writings may well deliver the same truths and yet one of them not suppose the other unlesse D. Potter be of opinion that two Doctors cannot at one time speak the same truth 22 And notwithstanding that D. Potter hath now told us it was needlesse that the Creed should expresse Scripture whose Authority it supposes he comes at length to say that the Nicene Fathers in their Creed confessing that the holy Ghost spake by the Prophets doth thereby sufficiently avow the divine Authority of all Canonicall Scripture But I would ask him whether the Nicene Creed be not also an Abstract of Doctrines delivered in Scripture as he said of the Apostles Creed and thence did infer that it was needlesse to expresse Scripture whose authority it supposes Besides we doe not only belieue in generall that Canonicall Scripture is of divine authority but we are also bound under pain of damnation to belieue that such and such particular Booksâ not mentioned in the Nicene Creed are Canonicall And lastly D. Potter in this Answer grants as much as we desire which is that all points of faith are not contained in the Apostles Creed even as it
way or other but also to disbelieve that is to believe the contrary of that which Faith proposeth as the examples of innumerable Arch-heretiques can beare witnesse This obscurity of faith we learne from holy Scripture according to those words of the Apostle Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for the argument of things not appearing And We see by a glasse in a dark manner but then face to face And accordingly S. Peter saith Which you doe well attending unto as to a Candle shining in a dark place 3 Faith being then obscure whereby it differeth from naturall Sciences and yet being most certain and infallible wherein it surpasseth humane Opinion it must relie upon some motive and ground which may be able to give it certainty and yet not release it from obscurity For if this motive ground or formall Object of Faith were any thing evidently presented to our understanding and if also we did evidently know that it had a necessary connection with the Articles which we believe our assent to such Articles could not be obscure but evident which as we said is against the nature of our Faith If likewise the motive or ground of our faith were obscurely propounded to us but were not in it selfe infallible it would leave our assent in obscurity but could not endue it with certainty We must therefore for the ground of our Faith find out a motive obscure to us but most certain in it selfe that the act of faith may remaine both obscure and certain Such a motive as this can be no other but the divine authority of almighty God revealing or speaking those truths which our faith believes For it is manifest that God's infallible testimony may transfuse Certainty to our faith and yet not draw it out of obscurity because no humane discourse or demonstration can evince that God revealeth any supernaturall Truth since God had beene no lesse perfect then he is although he had never revealed any of those objects which we now believe 4 Neverthelesse because Almighty God out of his infinite wisdome and sweetnesse doth concurre with his Creatures in such sort as may be fit the temper exigence of their natures and because Man is a Creature endued with reason God doth not exact of his Will or Vnderstanding any other then as the Apostle saith rationabile obsââuium an Obedience sweetned with good reason which could not so appeare if our Vnderstanding were summoned to believe with certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain And therâfore Almighty God obliging us under paine of eternall damnation to believe with greatest certainty divers verities not knowne by the light of naturall reason cannot saylâ to furnish our Vnderstanding with such inducements motives and arguments as may sufficiently perswade any mind which is not partiall or passionate that the objects which we believe proceed from an Authority so Wise that it cannot be deceived so Good that it cannot deceive according to the words of David Thy Testimonies are made credible exceedingly These inducements are by Divines called argumeÌta credibilitatis arguments of credibility which though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in true wisdome prudence the objects of âaith deserve credit ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons inducemeÌts our judgment of faith could not be conceived prudent holy Scripture telling us that he who soone believes is light of heart By these arguments and inducements our Vnderstanding is both satisfied with evidence of credibility and the objects of faith retaine their obscurity because it is a different thing to bee evidently credible and evidently true as those who were present at the Miracles wroughâ by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles did not evidently see their doctrine to be true for then it had not been Faith but Science and all had been necessitated to believe which we see fell out otherwise but they were evidently convinced that the things confirmed by such Miracles were most credible and worthy to be imbraced as truths revealed by God 5. These evident Arguments of Credibility are in great abundance found in the Visible Church of Christ perpetually existing on earth For that there hath been a company of men professing such and such doctrines we have from our next Predecessours and these from theirs upward till we come to the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour which gradation is knowne by evidence of sense by reading bookes or hearing what one man delivers to another And it is evident that there was neither cause nor possibility that men so distant in place so different in temper so repugnant in private ends did or could agree to tell one and the selfe same thing if it had been but a fiction invented by themselves as ancient Tertullian well saith How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should erre in one faith Among many events there is not one issue the error of the Churches must needs have varied But that which among many is found to be One is not mistaken but delivered Dare then any body say that they erred who delivered it With this never interrupted existence of the Church are joyned the many and great miracles wrought by men of that Congregation or Church the sanctity of the persons the renowned victories over so many persecutions both of all sorts of men and of the infernall spirits and lastly the perpetuall existence of so holy a Church being brought up to the Apostles themselves she comes to partake of the same assurance of truth which They by so many powerfull wayes did communicate to their Doctrine and to the Church of their times together with the divine Certainty which they received from our Blessed Saviour himselfe revealing to Man-kind what he heard from his Fatheâ and so we conclude with Tertullian We receive it from the Churches the Churches from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from his Father And if we once interrupt this line of succession most certainly made knowne by meanes of holy Tradition we cannot conjoyn the present Church and doctrine with the Church and doctrine of the Apostles but must invent some new meanes and arguments sufficient of themselves to find out and prove a true Church and faith independently of the preaching and writing of the Apostles neither of which can be knowne but by Tradition as is truely observed by Tertullian saying I will prescribe that there is no meanes to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Church which they founded 6 Thus then we are to proceed By evidence of manifest and incorrupt Tradition I know that there hath alwaies been a never-interrupted Succession of men from the Apostles time believing professing and practising such and such doctrines By evident arguments of credibility as Miracles Sancââty Vnity c. and by all those wayes whereby the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour
selfe same time they could be within and without the Catholique Church as proportionably I discoursed in the next precedent Chapter concerning the communicating of moderate Protestants with those who maintaine that Heresy of the Latency and Invisibility of Gods Church where I brought a place of S. Cyprian to this purpose which the Reader may be pleased to review in the fift Chapter and 17. Number 22 But besides this defect in the personall Succession of Protestant Bishops there is another of great moment which is that they want the right Forme of ordaining Bishops and Priests because the manner which they use is so much different from that of the Roman Church at least according to the common opinion of Divines that it cannot be sufficient for the Essence of Ordination as I could demonstrate if this were the proper place of such a Treatise and will not faile to doe if D. Potter give me occasion In the mean time the Reader may be pleased to read the Author cited here in the margent and then compare the forme of our Ordination with that of Protestants and to remember that if the forme which they use either in Consecrating Bishops or in ordaining Priests be at least doubtfull they can neither have undoubted Priests nor Bishops For Priests cannot be ordained but by true Bishops nor can any be a true Bishop unlesse he first be Priest I say their Ordination is at least doubtfull because that sufficeth for my present purpose For Bishops and Priests whose Ordination is notoriously known to be but doubtfull are not to be esteemed Bishops or Priests and no man without Sacriledge can receive Sacraments from them all which they administer unlawfully And if we except Baptisme with manifest danger of invalidity and with obligation to be at least conditionally repeated so Protestants must remain doubtfull of Remission of sinnes of their Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy and may not pretend to be a true Church which cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests not without due administration of Sacraments which according to Protestants is an essentiall note of the true Church And it is a world to observe the proceeding of English Protestants in this point of their Ordinations For first Ann. 3. Edw. 6. cap. 2. when he was a Child about twelve yeares of age It was enacted that such forme of making and consecrating of Bishops and Priests as by sixe Prelates and sixe other to be appointed by the King should be devised marke this word devised and set forth under the great Seale should be used and none other But after this Act was repealed 1. Mar. Sess. 2. in so much as that when afterward An. 6. 7 Reg. Eliz. Bishop Bonner being endicted upon a certificate made by D. Horne a Protestant Bishop of Winchester for his refusall of the Oath of Supremacy and he excepting against the endictment because D Horne was no Bishop all the Iudges resolved that his exception was good if indeed D. Horne was not Bishop and they were all at a stand till An. 8. Eliz cap. 1. the act of Edw. 6. was renewed and confirmed with a particular proviso that no man should be impeached or molested by meanes of any certificate by any Bishop or Archbishop made before this last Act. Whereby it is cleere that they made some doubt of their own ordination and that there is nothing but uncertainty in the whole businesse of their Ordination which forsooth must depend upon sixe Prelats the great Seale Acts of Parliaments being contrary one to another and the like 23 But though they want Personall Succession yet at least they have Succession of doctrine as they say and pretend to prove because they believe as the Apostles believed This is to begg the Question and to take what they may be sure will never be granted For if they want Personall Succession and sleight Ecclesiasticall Tradition how will they perswade any man that they agree with the doctrine of the Apostles We have heard Tertullian saying I will prescribe against all Heretiques that there is no meanes to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Churches which they founded And S. Irenaeus tels us that We may behold the Tradition of the Apostles in every Church if men be desirous to hear the truth and we can number them who were made Bishops by the Apostles in Churches and their Successors even to us And the same Father in another place saith We ought to obey those Priests who are in the Church who have Succession from the Apostles and who together with Succession in their Bishopricks have received the certain gift of truth S. Austine saith I am kept in the Church by the succession of Priests from the very Sea of Peter the Apostle to whom our Saviour after his Resurrection committed his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishop Origen to this purpose giveth us a good and wholsome Rule happy if himselfe had followed the same in these excellent words Since there be many who think they believe the things which are of Cârist and some are of different opinion from those who went before them let the preaching of the Church be kept which is delivered by the Apostles by order of Succession and remaines in the Church to this very day that only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagrees from the Tradition of the Church In vain then doe these men brag of the doctrine of the Apostles unles first they can demonstrate that they enjoyed a continued succession of Bishops from the Apostles and can shew us a Church which according to S. Austine is deduced by undoubted SVCCESSION from the Sea of the Apostles even to the present Bishops 23 But yet neverthelesse suppose it were granted that they agreed with the doctrine of the Apostles this were not sufficient to prove a Succession in Doctrine For Succession besides agreement or similitude doth also require a never-interrupted conveying of such doctrine from the time of the Apostles till the daies of those persons who challenge such a Succession And so S. Augustine saith We are to believe that Gospell which from the time of the Apostles the Church hath brought downe to our daies by a never-interrupted course of times and by undoubted succession of connection Now that the Reformation begunne by Luther was interrupted for divers ages before him is manifest out of History and by his endeavouring a Reformation which must presuppose abuses He cannot therefore pretend a continued Succession of that Doctrine which he fought to revive and reduce to the knowledge and practice of men And they ought not to prove that they have Succession of doctrine because they agree with the doctrine of the Apostles but contrarily we must inferre that they agree not with the Apostles because they cannot pretend a never-interrupted succession of doctrine from the times of the Apostles till Luther And here it is not amisse to note
nature of the habit cannot remain But the formall Obiect of faith is the supreme truth as it is manifested in Scriptures and in the doctrine of the Church which proceeds from the same supreme verity Whosoever therefore doth not rely upon the doctrine of the Church which proceeds from the supreme verity manifested in Scripture as upon an infallible Rule hee hath not the habit of faith but belieues those things which belong to faith by some other me anes then by faith as if one should remember some Conclusion and not know the reason of that demonstration it is cleer that hee hath not certain knowledge but only Opinion Now it is manifest that hee who relies on the doctrine of the Church as upon an infallible Rule will yeeld his assent to all that the Church teacheth For if among those things which she teacheth he hold what he will and doth not hold what he will not hee doth not rely upon the doctrine of the Church as upon an infallible Rule but only upon his own will And so it is cleer that an Heretique who with pertinacity denieth one Article of faith is not ready to follow the doctrine of the Church in all things And therefore it is manifest that whosoever is an Heretique in any one Article of faith concerning other Articles hath not saith but a kind of Opinion or his own will Thus far S. Thomas And afterward A man doth belieue all the Articles of faith for one and the selfe same reason to wit for the Prime Verity proposed to us in the Scripture understood aright according to the Doctrine of the Church and therefore whosoever fals from this reason or motiue is totally deprived of faith From this true doctrine wee are to infer that to retain or want the substance of faith doth not consist in the matter or multitude of the Articles but in the opposition against Gods divine testimony which is involved in every least error against faith And since some Protestants must needs erre and that they haue no certain rule to knowe why rather one then another it manifestly follows that none of them haue any Certainty for the substance of their faith in any one point Moreover D. Potter being forced to confesse that the Roman Church wants not the substance of faith it follows that she doth not erre in any one point against faith because as we haue seen out of S. Thomas every such errour destroies the substance of faith Now if the Roman Church did not erre in any one point of faith it is manifest that Protestants erre in all those points wherein they are contrary to her And this may suffice to prove that the faith of Protestants wants Infallibility 30 And now for the second Condition of faith I say If Protestants haue Certainty they want Obscurity and so haue not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing or not necessiâating our Vnderstanding to an assent For the whole edifice of the faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonicall Scripture And the sense and meaning of these Canonicall Scriptures is cleer and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation Now these Principles being once supposed it cleerly followeth that what Protestants belieue as necessary to salvation is evidently known by them to be true by this argument It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in the word of God is true But it is certain and evident that these Books in particular are the word of God Therefore it is certaine and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true Which Conclusion I take for a Maior in a second Argument and say thus It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true but it is certain and evident that such particular Articles for example the Trinity Incarnation Originall sin c. are contained in these Books Therefore it is certain and evident that these particular Objects are true Neither will it avail you to say that the said Principles are not evident by naturall discourse but onely to the eye of reason cleered by grace as you speak For supernaturall evidence no lesse yea rather more drawes and excludes obscurity then naturall evidence doth neither can the party so enlightned be said voluntarily to captivate his understanding to that light but rather his understanding is by a necessity made captive and forced not to disbelieve what is presented by so cleare a light And therefore your imaginary faith is not the true faith defined by the Apostle but an invention of your own 31 That the faith of Protestants wanteth the third Condition which was Prudence is deduced from all that hitherto hath been said What wisdome was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other visible Church of Christ upon earth A Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation endued with Succession of Bishops with Visibility and Vniversality of Time and Place A Church which if it bee not the true Church her enemies cannot pretend to have any Church Ordination Scriptures Succession c. and are forced for their own sake to maintain her perpetuall Existence and Being To leave I say such a Church and frame a Community without either Vnity or means to procure it a Church which at Luthers first revolt had no larger extent then where his body was A Church without Vniversality of place or Time A Church which can pretend no Visibility or Being except only in that former Church which it opposeth A Church void of Succession of Persons oâ Doctrine What wisedome was it to follow such men as Luther in an opposition against the visible Church of Christ begun upon meer passion What wisdome is it to receive from Vs a Church Ordination Scriptures Personall Succession and not Succession of Doctrine Is not this to verifie the name of Heresie which signifieth Election or Choice Whereby they cannot avoid that note of Imprudency or as S. Augustine calls it Foolishnesse set down by him against the Manichees and by me recited before I would not saith he belieue the Gospell unlesse the Authority of the Church did moue me Those therefore whom I obeyed saying Belieue the Gospel why should I not obey the same meÌ saying to me Doe not belieue Manichaeus Luther Calvin c. Choose what thou pleasest If thou say Belieue the Catholiques they warne me not to belieue thee Wherefore if I belieue them I cannot belieue thee If thou say Doe not belieue the Catholiques thou shalt not doe well in forcing me to the faith of Manichaeus because by the Preaching of Catholiques I believed the Gospell it selfe If thou say you did well to belieue them Catholiques commending the Gospell but you did not well to belieue them discommending Manichaeus dost thou think me so very FOOLISH that without any reason at all I should belieue what
that time did then whosoever communicates with him cannot but communicate with the Catholique Church and then by accident one may truly say such a one communicates with you that is with the Catholique Church and that to communicate with him is to communicate with the Catholique Church As if Titius and Sompronius be together he that is in company with Titius cannot but be at that time in company with Sempronius As if a Generall be marching to some place with an Army he that then is with the Generall must at that time be with the Army And a man may say without absurdity such a time I was with the Generall that is with the Army and that to be with the Generall is to be with the Army Or as if a mans hand be joyned to his body the finger which is joyned to the hand is joyned to the body and a man may say truly of it this finger is joyned to the hand that is to the body and to be joyned to the hand is to be joyned to the Body because all these things are by accident true And yet I hope you would not deny but the finger might possibly be joyned to the hand and yet not to the Body the hand being cut off from the Body and a man might another time be with his Generall and not with his Army he being absent from the Army And therefore by like Reason your collection is sophisticall being in effect but this to communicate with such a Bishop of Rome who did communicate with the Catholique Church was to Communicate with the Catholique Church therefore absolutely and alwaies it must be true that to communicate with him is by consequent to communicate with the Catholique Church and to be divided from his Communion is to be an Heretique 28 In urging the place of Irenaeus you have shewed much more ingenuity then many of your Fellowes For whereas they usually beginne at Declaring the Tradition of the c. and conceale what goes before you have set it down though not so compleatly as you should have done yet sufficiently to shew that what Authority in the matter he attributed to the Roman Church in particular the same for the kind though perhaps not in the same degree he attributed to all other Apostolique Churches Either therefore you must say that he conceived the Testimony of other Apostolique Churches divine and infallible which certainly he did not neither doe you pretend he did and if he had the confessed Errors and Heresies which after they fell into would demonstrate plainly that he had erred or else that he conceived the testimony of the Roman Church only humane and credible though perhaps more credible then any one Church beside as one mans Testimony is more credible then anothers but certainly much more Credible which was enough for his purpose then that secret Tradition to which those Heretiques pretended against whom he wrote overbearing them with an argument of their own kinde farre stronger then their own Now if Irenaeus thought the Testimony of the Roman Church in this point only humane and fallible then surely he could never think either adhering to it a certain marke of a Catholique or separation from it a certain marke of a Heretique 29 Again whereas your great Achilles Cardinall Perron in French as also his noble Translatresse misled by him in English knowing that mens resorting to Rome would doe his cause little service hath made bold with the Latine tongue as he does very often with the Greek and rendred Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam To this Church it is necessary that every Church should agree you have Translated it as it should be to this Church it is necessary that all Churches resort wherein you have shewed more sincerity and have had more regard to make the Author speak sense For if he had said By shewing the Tradition of the Roman Church we confound all Heretiques For to this Church all Churches must agree what had this been but to give for a reason that which was more questionable then the thing in question as being neither evident in it selfe and plainly denied by his adversaries and not at all proved nor offered to be proved here or elsewhere by Irenaeus To speak thus therefore had been weak and ridiculous But on the other side if we conceive him to say thus You Heretiques decline a tryall of your Doctrine by Scripture as being corrupted and imperfect and not fit to determine Controversies without recourse to Tradition and instead hereof you fly for refuge to a secret Tradition which you pretend that you received from your Ancestors and they from the Apostles certainly your calumnies against Scripture are most uniust and unreasonable but yet moreover assure your selves that if you will be tryed by Tradition even by that also you will be overthrown For our Tradition is farre more famous more constant and in all respects more credible then that which you pretend to It were easy for me to muster up against you the uninterrupted successions of all the Churches founded by the Apostles all conspiring in their Testimonies against you But because it were too long to number up the Successions of all Churches I will content my selfe with the Tradition of the most ancient and most glorious Church of Rome which alone is sufficient for the confutation and confusion of your Doctrine as being in credit and authority as farre beyond the Tradition you build upon as the light of the Sunne is beyond the light of the Gloworme For to this Church by reason it is placed in the Imperiall Citty whither all mens affaires doe necessarily draw them or by reason of the powerfull Principality it hath over all the adiacent Churches there is and alwaies hath been a necessity of a perpetuall recourse of all the faithfull round about who if there had been any alteration in the Church of Rome could not in all probability but have observed it But they to the contrary have alwaies observed in this Church the very Tradition which came from the Apostles and no other I say if we conceive his meaning thus his words will be intelligible and rationall which if in stead of resort we put in agree will be quite lost Herein therefore we have been beholding to your honesty which makes me think you did not wittingly falsify but only twice in this sentence mistake Vndique for Vbique and Translate it every where and of what place soever in stead of round about For that it was necessary for all the faithfull of what place soever to resort to Rome is not true That the Apostolike Tradition hath alwaies been conserved there from those who are every where is not Sense Now instead of conservata read observata as in all probability it should be and translate undique truly round about and then the sense will be both plain and good for then it must be rendred thus For to this Church by reason
of a more powerfull principality there is a necessity that all the Churches that is all the faithfull round about should resort in which the Apostolique Tradition hath been alwaies observed by those who were round about If any man say I have been too bold a Critick in substituting observata instead of conseruata I desire him to know that the conjecture is not mine and therefore as I expect no praise for it so I hope I shall be farre from censure But I would intreat him to consider whether it be not likely that the same greek word signifying observo and conservo the Translater of Irenaeus who could hardly speak Latine might not easily mistake and translate ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã conservata est instead of observata est Or whether it be not likely that those men which ancienly wrote Books and understood them nor might not easily commit such an error Or whether the sense of the place can be salved any other way if it can in Gods name let it if not I hope he is not to be condemned who with such a little alteration hath made that sense which he found non sense 30 But whether you will have it Observata or Conservata the new sumpsimus or the old mumpsimus possibly it may be something to Irenaus but to us or our cause it is no way materiall For if the rest be rightly translated neither will Conservata afford you any argument against us nor Observata helpe us to any evasion For though at the first hearing the glorious attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Heretiques with her tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet hee that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rationall in Irenaeus having to doe with Heretiques who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholiques declining a tryall by Scripture as not contayning the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rationall in Iraeneus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit then their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contain'd in it and yet that it may be irrationall in you to urge us who doe not decline Scripture but appeale to it as a perfect rule of faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many wayes repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more generall then it self which gives Testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrines plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a far greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was Vnited with all other Apostolique Churches then now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be errour but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that foureteen hundred yeares may have made a great deale of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though neere the fountain they may retaine their native and unmixt syncerity yet in long progresse cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corrupt and impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus plaies the Historian only and not the Prophet and saies only that the Apostolique Tradition had been alwayes there as in other Apostolique Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be alwayes so he saies not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Anti-christ that the Roman Church in particular was forewarned that she also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they look not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appeares manifestly out of this book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his judgment Apostolique Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appeares to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgments in the point are any way recorded are for it and Iustine Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodoxe Christians of his time beleeved it and those that did not he reckons amongst Heretiques Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Irenaeus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Hereticall and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto Errour by holding contradictions Fiftly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noone that though Irenaeus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the doctrine which he there delivers and defends against the Heretiques of his time viz that there was one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witnesse of Tradition in generall Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaim'd the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon the Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Irenaeus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrine and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of his excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Heretiques though separated and cut off from the Roman Church Cardinall Perron to avoyd the stroak of this conuincing argument raiseth a cloud of eloquent words which because you borrow them of him in your Second part I will here insert and with short censures dispell and let his Idolaters see that Truth is
certainty I prove because they denying the universall Infallibility of the Church can have no certain ground to know what objects are revealed or testified by God But if there be no other ground of certainty but your Churches infallibility upon what certain ground doe you know that your Church is infallible Upon what certain ground doe you know all those things which must be known before you can know that your Church is infallible As that there is a God that God hath promised his assistance to your Church in all her Decrees that the Scripture wherein this promise is extant is the word of God that those texts of Scripture which you alleage for your infallibility are incorrupted that that which you pretend is the true sense of them When you have produc'd certain grounds for all these things I doubt not but it will appeare that we also may have grounds certain enough to believe our whole Religion which is nothing else but the Bible without dependance on the Churches infallibility Suppose you should meet with a man that for the present believes neither Church nor Scripture nor God but is ready willing to believe them all if you can shew some sufficient grounds to build his faith upon will you tell such a man there are no certain grounds by which he may be converted or there are If you say the first you make all Religion an uncertain thing If the second then either you must ridiculously perswade that your Church is infallible because it is infallible or else that there are other certain grounds besides your Churches infallibility 46 But you proceed and tell us that Holy Scripture is in it selfe most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain meanes to know what Scripture is Canonicall nor what Translations be faithfull nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Answ. But all these things must be known before we can know the direction of your Church to be infallible for no other proofe of it can be pretended but only some Texts of Canonicall Scripture truly interpreted Therefore either you are mistaken in thinking there is no other meanes to know these things but your Churches infallible direction or we are excluded from all meanes of knowing her direction to be infallible 47 But Protestants though as you suppose they are perswaded their own oponions are true and that they have used such meanes as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer conferring of Texts c. Yet by their disagreement shew that some of them are deceived Now they hold all the Articles of their faith upon this only ground of Scripture interpreted by these rules and therefore it is cleere that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all The first of these suppositions must needs be true but the second is apparently false I mean that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath used those means which are prescribed for understanding of Scripture But that which you collect from these suppositions is cleerely inconsequent and by as good Logick you might conclude that Logick and Geometry stand upon no certain grounds that the rules of the one and the principles of the other doe sometimes faile because the disagreement of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived Might not a Iew conclude as well against all Christians that they have no certain ground whereon to rely in their understanding of Scripture because their disagreements shew that some are deceived because some deduce from it the infallibility of a Church and others no such matter So likewise a Turke might use the same argument against both Iewes and Christians and an Atheist against all Religions and a Sceptick against all reason Might not the one say Mens disagreement in Religion shew that there is no certainty in any and the other that experience of their contradictions teacheth that the rules of reason doe sometimes faile Doe not you see and feele how void of reason and how full of impiety your sophistry is And how transported with zeale against Protestants you urge arguments against them which if they could not be answered would overthrow not only your own but all Religion But God be thanked the answere is easy and obvious For let men but remember not to impute the faults of men but only to men and then it will easily appear that there may be sufficient certainty in reason in Religion in the rules of interpreting Scripture though men through their faults take not care to make use of them and so run into divers errors and dissentions 48 But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamentall and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamentall error Ans. By like reason since you acknowledge that every error in points defin'd and declared by your Church destroies the substance of faith and yet cannot determine what points be defined it followeth that you must remain uncertain whether or no you be not in some fundamentall error and so want the substance of faith without which there can be no hope of Salvation Now that you are uncertain what points are defined appeares from your owne words c. 4. § 3. of your second Part where say you No lesse impertinent is your discourse concerning the difficulty to know what is Heresy For we grant that it is not alwaies easy to determine in particular occasions whether this or that Doctrine be such because it may be doubtfull whether it be against any Scripture or divine Tradition or Definition of the Church Neither were it difficult to extort from you this confession by naming diverse Points which some of you say are defin'd others the contrary And others hang in suspense and know not what to determine But this I have done elsewhere as also I have shewed plainly enough that though we cannot perhaps say in particular thus much and no more is fundamentall yet believing all the Bible we are certain enough that we believe all that is fundamentall As he that in a receit takes twenty ingredients whereoften only are necessary though he know not which those ten are yet taking the whole twenty he is sure enough that he has taken all that are necessary 49 Ad § 29. But that he who erreth against any one revealed truth looseth all Divine Faith is a very true doctrine delivered by Catholique Divines you mean your own with so generall a consent that the contrary is wont to be censur'd as temerarious Now certainly some Protestants must doe so because they hold contradictions which cannot all be true Therefore some of them at least have no divine faith Ans. I passe by your weaknesse in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines which yet in you might very deservedly be censur'd For when D. Potter to shew the many actuall dissentions between the Romish Doctors notwithstanding their braggs of potentiall Vnity referres
Doctrine of these Protestants taken altogether is not a Doctrine of Liberty not a Doctrine that turnes hope into presumptioÌ and carnall security though it may justly be feared that many licentious persons taking it by halfes have made this wicked use of it For my part I doe heartily wish that by publique Authority it were so ordered that no man should ever preach or print this Doctrine that Faith alone justifies unlesse he joynes this together with it that universall obedience is necessary to salvation And besides that those Chapters of S. Paul which intreat of justification by faith without the works of the Law were never read in the Church but when the 13. Chap. of the 1. Epist. to the Corinth concerning the absolute necessity of Charity should be to prevent misprision read together with them 33 Whereas you say that some Protestants doe expresly affirme the former point to be the soule of the Church c. and that therefore they must want the Theologicall vertue of Hope and that none can have true hope while they hope to be saved in their Communion I Ans. They have great reason to believe the Doctrine of Iustification by faith only a Point of great weight and importance if it be rightly understood that is they have reason to esteeme it a principall and necessary duty of a Christian to place his hope of justification and salvation not in the perfection of his own righteousnesse which if it be imperfect will not justify but only in the mercies of God through Christs satisfaction and yet notwithstanding this nay the rather for this may preserve themselves in the right temper of good Christians which is a happy mixture and sweet composition of confidence and feare If this Doctrine be otherwise expounded then I have here expounded I will not undertake the justification of it only I will say that which I may doe truly that I never knew any Protestant such a soli-fidian but that he did believe these divine truths That he must make his calling certain by good workes That he must work out his salvation with Fear and Trembling and that while he does not so he can have no well-grounded hope of Salvation I say I never met with any who did not believe these divine Truths and that with a more firme and a more unshaken assent then he does that himselfe is predestinate and that he is justified by believing himselfe justified I never met with any such who if he saw there were a necessity ãâã doe either would not rather forgoe his beliefe of these Doctrines then the former these which he sees disputed and contradicted and opposed with a great multitude of very potent Arguments then those which being the expresse words of Scripture whosoever should call into question could not with any modesty pretend to the title of Christian. And therefore there is no reason but we may believe that their full assurance of the former Doctrines doth very well qualify their perswasion of the latter and that the former as also the lives of many of them doe sufficiently testify are more effectuall to temper their hope and to keep it at a stay of a filiall and modest assurance of Gods favour built upon the conscience of his love and fear then the latter can be to swell and puffe them up into vain confidence and ungrounded presumption This reason joyn'd with our experience of the honest and religious conversation of many men of this opinion is a sufficient ground for Charity to hope well of their hope and to assure our selves that it cannot be offensive but rather most acceptable to God if notwithstanding this diversity of opinion we embrace each other with the strict embraces of love communion To you and your Church we leave it to separate Christians from the Church and to proscribe them from heaven upon triviall and trifling causes As for our selves we conceive a charitable judgement of our Brethren and their errors though untrue much more pleasing to God then a true judgement if it be uncharitable and and therefore shall alwaies choose if we doe erre to erre on the milder and more mercifull part and rather to retain those in our Communion which deserve to be ejected then eject those that deserve to be retain'd 34 Lastly whereas you say that seeing Protestants differ about the point of Iustification you must needs inferre that they want Vnity in faith and consequently all faith and then that they cannot agree what points are fundamentall I Answer to the first of these inferences that as well might you inferre it upon Victor Bishop of Rome and Poliârates upon Stephen Bishop of Rome and S. Cyprian in as much as it is indeniably evident that what one of those esteemed necessary to salvation the other esteemed not so But points of Doctrine as all other things are as they are and not as they are esteemed neither can a necessary point be made unnecessary by being so accounted nor an unnecessary point be made necessary by being overvalued But as the ancient Philosophers whose different opinions about the soule of man you may read in Aristotle de Anima and Cicero's Tusculan Questions notwithstanding their divers opinions touching the nature of the soule yet all of them had soules and soules of the same nature Or as those Physitians who dispute whether the braine or heart be the principall part of a man yet all of them have braines and have hearts and herein agree sufficiently So likewise though some Protestants esteeme that Doctrine the soule of the Church which others doe not so highly value yet this hinders not but that which is indeed the soule of the Church may be in both ãâã of them and though one account that a necessary truth which ãâã account neither necessary nor perhaps true yet this notwithstanding in those truths which are truly really necessary they may all agree For no Argument can be more sophisticall then this They differ in some points which they esteeme necessary Therefore they differ in some that indeed and in truth are so â35 Now as concerning the other inference That they cannot agree what points are fundamentall I have said and prov'd formerly that there is no such necessity as you imagin or pretend that men should certainly know what is and what is not fundamentall They that believe all things plainly delivered in Scripture believe all things fundamentall and are at sufficient Vnity in matters of faith though they cannot precisely and exactly distinguish between what is fundamentall and what is profitable nay though by error they mistake some vaine or perhaps hurtfull opinions for necessary and fundamentall Truths Besides I have shewed above that as Protestants doe not agree for you overreach in saying they cannot touching what points are fundamentall so neither doe you agree what points are defin'd so to be accounted and what are not nay nor concerning the subject in which God hath placed this pretended
men and deducing according to the never failing rules of Logick consequent deductions from them if this be it which you mean by discourse it is very meet reasonable necessary that men as in all their actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to happinesse should be left unto it and he that followes this in all his opinions and actions and does not only seeme to doe so followes alwaies God whereas he that followeth a Company of men may oftimes follow a company of beasts And in saying this I say no more then S. Iohn to all Christians in these words Dearly beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God or no and the rule he gives them to make this tryall by is to consider whether they confesse Iesus to be the Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their actions noâ whether they acknowledge the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more then S. Paul in exhorting all Christians to try all things and to hold fast that which is good then S. Peter in coÌmanding all Christians to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them then our Saviour himselfe in forewarning all his followers that if they blindly followed blind guides both leaders and followers should fall into the ditch and again in saying even to the people Yea why of your selves iudge ye not what is right And though by passion or precipitation or preiudice by want of reason or not using that they have men may be and are oftentimes led into error and mischiefe yet that they cannot be misguided by discourse truly so called such as I have described you your selfe have given them security For what is discourse but drawing conclusions out of premises by good consequence Now the principles which we have setled to wit the Scriptures are on all sides agreed to be infallibly true And you have told us in the fourth chap. of this Pamphlet that from truth no man can by good consequence inferre falshood Therefore by discourse no man can possibly be led to error but if he erre in his conclusions he must of necessity either erre in his principles which here cannot have place or commit some error in his discourse that is indeed not discourse but seeme to doe so 13 You say thirdly with sufficient confidence that if the true Church may erre in defining what Scriptures be Canonicall or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the privat Spirit or else naturall wit and iudgement and by them examine what Scriptures containe true or false doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or reiected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proofe of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly erre in her judgement touching this matter yet have we other directions in it besides the privat spirit and the examination of the contents which latter way may conclude the negative very strongly to wit that such or such a book cannot come from God because it containes irreconcileable contradictions but the affirmative it cannot conclude because the contents of a book may be all true and yet the book not written by divine inspiration other direction therefore I say we have besides either of these three that is the testimony of the Primitive Christians 14 You say Fourthly with convenient boldnesse That this infallible Authority of your Church being denied no man can be assur'd that any parcell of Scripture was written by Divine inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proofe is pretended and besides void of modesty and full of impiety The first because the experience of innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assur'd that the Scripture is divinely inspir'd and yet deny the infallible authority of your Church or any other The second because ifâ I cannot have ground to be assur'd of the divine authority of Scripture unlesse I first believe your Church infallible then I can have no ground at all to believe it because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe your Church infallible unlesse I first beleeve the Scripture divine 15 Fiftly and lastly You say with confidence in abundance that none can deny the infallible authority of your Church but he must abandon all infus'd faith and true religion if he doe but understand him selfe Which is to say agreeable to what you had said before and what out of the abundance of your hearts you speak very often That all Christians besides you are open Fooles or conceal'd Atheists All this you say with notable confidence as the manner of Sophisters is to place their confidence of prevailing in their confident manner of speaking but then for the evidence you promised to maintaine this confidence that is quite vanished and become invisible 16 Had I a mind to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you doe Protestants that they lead men to Socinianisme I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence then you have done For I would not tell you you deny the infallibility of the Church of England ergo you lead to Socinianisme which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the infallibility of the Roman Church ergo they induce Socinianisme Nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes infallibility you submit your selfe to that capitall and Mother Heresy by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe vertue vice and vice vertue to believe Antichristianity Christianisme and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianisme to Turcisme nay to the Divell himselfe if he have a mind to it But I would shew you that divers waies the Doctors of your Church doe the principall and proper work of the Socinians for the undermining the Doctrine of the Trinity by denying it to be supported by those pillars of the Faith which alone are fit and able to support it I mean Scripture and the Consent of the ancient Doctors 17 For Scripture your men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very earnestly by Cardinall Hosius De Author Sac. Scrip. l. 3. p. 53. By Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. Tom. 1. Controv. 1. De verbo Dei C. 19. by Gretserus and Tanerus in Colloquio Ratesbon And also by Vega Possevin Wiekus and Others 18 And then for the Consent of the Ancients that that also delivers it not by whom are we taught but by Papists only Who is it that makes known to all the world that Eusebius that great searcher and devourer of the Christian libraries was an Arrian Is it not your great Achilles Cardinall Perron in his 3. Book 2. Chap. of his Reply to K. Iames Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any error in this matter in or
truth discretion and honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gain'd with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I can not tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your selfe did never believe it 21 For did you indeed conceive or had any probable hope that such men as you describe men of worth of learning and authority too were friends and favourers of your Religion inclinable to your Party can any man imagine that you would proclaim it and bid the world take heed of them Sic notus Vlysses Doe we know the lesuites no better then so What are they turned prevaricators against their own Faction Are they likely men to betray and expose their own Agents and instruments and to awaken the eyes of jealousy and to raise the clamor of the people against them Certainly your Zeal to the Sea of Rome testified by your fourth Vow of speciall obedience to the Pope proper to your Order and your cunning carriage of all affairs for the greater advantage and advancement of that Sea are clear demonstrations that if you had thought thus you would never have said so The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull downe your infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your tyranny and exercise it themselves over otheres are the Adversaries that give you greatest advantage and such as you love to deale with whereas upon men of temper moderatioÌ such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as neere to you that they may draw you to them as the truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will damne no man nor Doctrine without expresse and certaine warrant from gods word upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weaknesse of your cause laid open to all men And this I verily believe is the true reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other Adversaries gave you no more advantage then they doe 22 In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the sillynesse and poornesse of those suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked calumny For what if out of devotion towards God out of a desire that he should be worshipped as in Spirit and truth in the first place so also in the beauty of holinesse what if out of feare that too much simplicity and nakednesse in the publique Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward state and glory of it being well dispos'd and wisely moderated may ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Gods Soveraign Majesty and power what if out of a perswasion and desire that Papists may be wonne over to us the sooner by the removing of this scandall out of their way and out of an holy jealousy that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the magnificence and pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say what if out of these considerations the Governors of our Church more of late then formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where Gods honour dwells and to make them as heavenly as they can with earthly ornaments Is this a signe that they are warping towards Popery Is this Devotion in the Church of England an argument that shee is coming over to the Church of Rome Sir Edwin Sands I presume every man will grant had no inclination that way yet he forty years since highly commended this part of devotion in Papists and makes no scruple of proposing it to the imitation of Protestants Litle thinking that they who would follow his counsell and endeavour to take away this disparagement of Protestants and this glorying of Papists should have been censur'd for it as making way and inclining to Popery His words to this purpose are excellent words and because they shew plainly that what is now practis'd was approv'd by Zealous Protestants so long agoe I will here set them down 23 This one thing I cannot but highly commend in that sort and Order They spare nothing which either cost can perform in enriching or skill in adorning the Temple of God or to set out his Service with the greatest pompe and magnificence that can be devised And although for the most part much basenesse and childishnesse is predominant in the Masters and contrivers of their Ceremonies yet this outward state and glory being well disposed doth ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Soveraign Majesty and Power And although I am not ignorant that many men well reputed have embraced the thrifty opinion of that Disciple who thought all to be wasted that was bestowed upon Christ in that sort and that it were much better bestowed upon him on the poor yet with an eye perhaps that themselves would be his quarter Almoners notwithstanding I must confesse it will never sink into my heart that in proportion of reason the allowance for furnishing out of the service of God should be measured by the scant and strict rule of meere necessity a proportion so low that nature to other most bountifull in matter of necessity hath not fayled no not the most ignoble creatures of the world and that for our selves no measure of heaping but the most we can get no rule of expence but to the utmost pompe we list Or that God himself had so inrich'd the lower parts of the world with such wonderfull varieties of beauty and glory that they might serve only to the pampering of mortall man in his pride and that in the Service of the high creator Lord and giver the outward glory of whose higher pallace may appear by the very lamps that we see so farre of burning gloriously in it only the simpler baser cheaper lesse noble lesse beautifull lesse glorious things should be imployed Especially seeing as in Princes courts so in the service of God also this outward state and glory being well dispos'd doth as I have said ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due to so Soveraign majesty and power Which those whom the use there of cannot perswade unto would easily by the want of it be brought to confesse for which cause I crave leave to be excused by them herein if in Zeal to the common Lord of all I choose
sufficiently propounded as Divine Truths all that your Church propounds for such That you may not neither For the Question betweene us is this Whether your Churches Proposition be a sufficient Proposition And therefore to suppose this is to suppose the question which you knowe in Reasoning is alwaies a fault Or Lastly doe you mean for I knowe not else what possibly you can meane by sufficiently presented to his vnderstanding as revealed by God that which all things considered is so propos'd to him that he might and should and would belieue it to be true and revealed by God were it not for some voluntary and avoidable fault of his owne that interposeth it selfe betweene his understanding and the truth presented to it This is the best construction that I can make of your words and if you speake of truths thus propos'd and rejected let it be as damnable as you please to deny or disbelieue them But then I cannot but be amaz'd to heare you say That D. Potter never tells you whether there be any other points of faith besides those which we are bound to belieue explicitely which a man may deny or disbelieue though they be sufficiently presented to his understanding as truths revealed or testified by Almighty God seeing the light it selfe is not more cleare then D. Potters Declaration of himselfe for the Negatiue in this Question p. 245. 246. 247. 248. 249. 250. of his Book Where he entreats at large of this very Argument beginning his discourse thus It seemes fundamentall to the faith and for the salvation of every member of the Church that he acknowledge and belieue all such points of faith as whereof he may be convinced that they belong to the doctrine of Iesus Christ. To this conviction he requires three things Cleare Revelation Sufficient Proposition and Capacity understanding in the hearer For want of cleare Revelation he frees the Church before Christ the Disciples of Christ from any damnable errour though they believed not those things which he that should now deny were no Christian. To sufficient Proposition he requires two things 1. That the points be perspicuously laid open in themselues 2. So forcibly as may serue to remoue reasonable doubts to the contrary and to satisfie a teachable minde concerning it against the principles in which he hath been bred to the contrary This Proposition he saies is not limited to the Pope or Church but extended to all meanes whatsoever by which a man may be convinced in conscience that the matter proposed is divine Revelation which he professes to be done sufficiently not only when his conscience doth expresly beare witnesse to the truth but when it would doe so if it were not choaked and blinded by some unruly and unmortified lust in the will The difference being not great between him that is wilfully blind him that knowingly gainesaieth the Truth The third thing he requires is Capacity and Abilitie to apprehend the Proposall and the Reasons of it the want whereof excuseth fooles and madmen c. But where there is no such impediment and the will of God is sufficiently propounded there saith hee hee that opposeth is convinced of errour and he who is thus convinced is an Heretique and heresie is a work of the Flesh which excludeth from salvation he meanes without Repentance And hence it followeth that it is fundamentall to a Christians faith and necessary for his salvation that he belieue all revealed truths of God whereof he may be convinced that they are from God This is the Conclusion of Dr Potters discourse many passages whereof you take notice of in your subsequent disputations and make your advantage of them And therefore I cannot but say againe that it amazeth me to heare you say that he declines this Question and never tells you whether or no there bee any other points of faith which being sufficiently propounded as divine Revelations may be denied and disbelieved Hee tells you plainely there are none such and therefore you cannot say that he tels you not whether there be any such Againe it is almost as strange to mee why you should say this was the only thing in question Whether a man may deny or disbelieue any point of faith sufficiently presented to his understanding as a truth revealed by God For to say that any thing is a thing in question me thinks at the first hearing of the words imports that it is by some affirm'd and deni'd by others Now you affirme I grant but what Protestant ever denied that it was a sinne to giue God the lye Which is the first and most obvious sense of these words Or which of them ever doubted that to disbelieue is then a fault when the matter is so proposed to a man that he might and should and were it not for his owne fault would beleiue it Certainly he that questions either of these justly deserues to haue his wits call'd in question Produce any one Protestant that ever did so and I will giue you leaue to say it is the only thing in question But then I must tell you that your ensuing Argument viz To deny a truth witnessed by God is damnable But of two that disagree one must of necessity deny some such truth Therefore one only can be saved is built upon a ground cleane different from this postulate For though it be alwaies a fault to deny what either I doe know or should knowe to be testified by God yet that which by a cleanly conveyance you put in the place hereof To deny a truth witnessed by God simply without the circumstance of being knowne or sufficiently proposed is so farre from being certainely damnable that it may be many times done without any the least fault at all As if God should testifie something to a man in the Indies I that had no assurance of this testification should not be oblig'd to beleiue it For in such cases the Rule of the Law has place Idem est non esse non apparere not to be at all and not to appeare to me is to me all one If I had not come and spoken unto you saith our Saviour you had had no sinne 10 As little necessitie is there for that which followes That of two disagreeing in a matter of faith one must deny some such truth Whether by such you understand Testified at all by God or testified and sufficiently propounded For it is very possible the matter in controversie may be such a thing wherein God hath not at all declare himselfe or not so fully and clearely as to oblige all men to hold one way and yet be so overvalued by the parties in variance as to bee esteemed a matter of faith and one of those things of which our Saviour saies He that beleiveth not shall be damn'd Who sees not that it is possible two Churches may excommunicate and damne each other for keeping Christmasse tenne daies sooner or later as well as Victor excommunicated the
Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter day And yet I beleiue you will confesse that God had not then declared himselfe about Easter nor hath now about Christmasse Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would faine know on which side was the sufficient proposall The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point of predetermination as a matter of faith I would knowe in this thing also which way God hath declar'd himselfe whether for Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of faith Apostolique tradition That Heretiques gaue true Baptisme Others there were and they as good Catholiques as hee that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Iustin Martyr and Irenaeus held the doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of faith and though Iustin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirme that some good Christians held the contrary St Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolique tradition as the Baptising of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of faith that the Bishops of Rome were Iudges of Appeales from all parts of the Church Catholique no not in Major causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary doe you resolve me but now I am resolv'd they doe so In all these differences the point in question is esteem'd and propos'd by one side at least as a matter of faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of faith or you will have no meanes to shew that we doe disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the foundation is on which the whole fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer mee briefly to this Dilemma Eyther in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts err'd damnably and denyed Gods truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which doe deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded may goe to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of faith one should deny Gods truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are prov'd false Yet though they were as true as Gospell and as evident as Mathematicall Principles the conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can inferre either as the immediat production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I doe not understand unlesse you will pretend that this consequence is good such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sinnes upon repentance and consequently to ruine the Gospell of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinalls to determine For if against this it be alleadged that no man can repent of the sinne wherein he dies This muche I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sinne of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 11 To the fourth You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your Adversary Pretending his objections are mean and vulgar and such as have been answered a thousand times But if your cause were good these Arts would be needlesse For though some of his objections have been often shifted by men that make a profession of devising shifts and evasions to save themselves and their Religion from the pressure of truth by men that are resolv'd they will say something though they can say nothing to purpose yet I doubt not to make it appear that neither by others have they beene truly and really satisfied and that the best Answere you give them is to call them Mean and vulgar objections 12 To the Fift But this paines might have been spared For the substance of his discourse is in a Sermon of D. Vshers and confuted four yeares agoe by Paulus Veridicus It seemes then the substance of your Reply is in Paulus Veridicus and so your paines also might well have been spared But had there been no necessity to help and peece out your confuting his Arguments with disgracing his person which yet you cannot doe you would have considered that to them who compare D. Potters Book the Arch-Bishops Sermon this aspersion will presently appear a poore detraction not to be answered but scorn'd To say nothing that in D. Potter being to answere a book by expresse Command from Royall Authority to leave any thing materiall unsaid because it had been said before especially being spoken at large and without any relation to the Discourse which he was to Answere had been a ridiculous vanity and foule prevarication 13 To the sixt In your sixt parag I let all passe saving only this That a perswasion that men of different Religions you must mean or else you speak not to the point Christians of divers Opinions and Communions may be saved is a most pernitious heresy and even a ground of Atheisme What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would inferre this conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain in Logick then you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it And whether contradictions will flow from the same fountaine let the Learned judge Perhaps you will say you intended not to deliver here a positive and measur'd truth and which you expected to be call'd to account for but only a high and tragicall expression of your just detestation of the wicked doctrine against which you write If you mean so I shall let it passe only I am to advertize the lesse-wary Reader that passionate expressions and vehement asseverations are no arguments unlesse it be of the weaknesse of the cause that is defended by them or the man that defends it And to remember you of what Boethius saies of some such things as these Nubila mens est haec ubi regnant For my part I am not now in Passion neither will I speak one word which I think I cannot justify to the full and I say and will maintaine that to say That Christians of different Opinions
and Communions such I mean who hold all those things that are simply necessary to Salvation may ãâã obtain pardon for the Errours wherein they dye ignorantly by a generall Repentance is so farre from being a ground of Atheisme that to say the contrary is to crosse in Diameter a main Article of our Creed and to overthrow the Gospell of Christ. 14 To the Seaventh and Eight To the two next Paragraphes I have but two words to say The one is that I know no Protestants that hold it necessary to be able to prove a Perpetuall Visible Church distinct from Yours Some perhaps undertake to doe so as a matter of curtesy but I believe you will be much to seeke for any one that holds it necessary For though you say that Christ hath promised there shall be a Perpetuall Visible Church yet you yourselves doe not pretend that he hath promised there shall be Histories and Records alwaies extant of the Professors of it in all ages nor that he hath any where enjoyned us to read those Histories that we may be able to shew them 14 The other is That Breerelie's great exactnesse which you magnify so and amplify is no very certaine demonstration of his fidelity A Romance may be told with as much variety of circumstances as a true Story 16 To the Ninth and Tenth Your desires that I would in this rejoynder Avoid impertinencies Not impose doctrines upon you which you disclayme Set down the substance of your Reasons faithfully and entirely Not weary the reader with unnecessary quotations Object nothing to you which I can answere my selfe or which may be return'd upon my selfe and lastly which you repeat again in the end of your Preface speak as cleerly and distinctly and univocally as possibly I can are all very reasonable and shall be by me most punctually and fully satisfied Only I have Reason to complain that you give us rules only and not good example in keeping them For in some of these things I shall have frequent occasion to shew that Medice curateipsum may very justly be said unto you especially for objecting what might very easily have been answered by you and may be very justly returned upon you 17 To your ensuing demands though some of them be very captious and ensnaring yet I will give you as clear and plain and ingenuous Answers as possibly I can 18 To the Eleventh To the first then about the Perpetuity of the visible Church my Answer is That I believe our Saviour ever since his Ascention hath had in some place or other a Visible true Church on earth I mean a company of men that professed at least so much truth as was absolutely necessary for their Salvation And I believe that there will be somewhere or other such a Church to the Worlds end But the contrary doctrine I doe at no hand believe to be a damnable heresy 19 To the twelfth To the second what Visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman I answere that before Luther there were many Visible Churches in many things disagreeing from the Roman But not that the whole Catholique Church disagreed from her because she her selfe was a Part of the Whole though much corrupted And to undertake to name a Catholique Church disagreeing from her is to make her no Part of it which we doe not nor need not pretend And for men agreeing with Protestants in all points wee will then produce them when you shall either prove it necessary to be done which you know we absolutely deny or when you shall produce a perpetuall succession of Professors which in all points have agreed with you and disagreed from you in nothing But this my promise to deal plainly with you I conceive so intended it to be very like his who undertook to drink up the Sea upon condition that he to whom the promise was made should first stop the Rivers from runing in For this unreasonable request which you make to us is to your selves so impossible that in the very next Age after the Apostles you will never be able to name a man whom you can prove to have agreed with you in all things nay if you speak of such whose Works are extant and unquestioned whom we cannot prove to have disagreed from you in many things Which I am so certain of that I will venture my credit and my life upon it 20 To the Thirteenth To the third Whether seeing there cannot be assign'd any visible true Church distinct from the Roman it followes not that she err'd not fundamentally I say in our sence of the word Fundamentall it does follow For if it be true that there was then no Church distinct from the Roman then it must be either because there was no Church at all which we deny Or because the Roman Church was the whole Church which we also deny or because she was a Part of the Whole which we grant And if she were a true part of the Church then she retained those truths which were simply necessary to Salvation and held no errours which were inevitably and unpardonably destructive of it For this is precisely necessary to constitute any man or any Church a member of the Church Catholique In our sence therefore of the word Fundamentall I hope shee erred not fundamentally but in your sence of the word I fear she did That is she held something to be Divine Revelation which was not something not to be which was 21 To the fourteenth To the fourth How it could be damnable to maintain her errors if they were not fundamentall I answere 1. Though it were not damnable yet if it were a fault it was not to be done For a veniall sinne with you is not damnable yet you say it is not to be committed for the procuring any good Non est faciendum malum vel minimum ut eveniat bonum vel maximum 2. It is damnable to mantaine an error against conscience though the errour in it selfe and to him that believes it be not damnable Nay the profession not only of an errour but even of a truth if not believ'd when you think on it again I believe you will confesse to be a mortall sinne unlesse you will say Hypocrisie and Simulation in Religion is not so 3. Though we say the errors of the Roman Church were not destructive of Salvation but pardonable even to them that dyed in them upon a generall repentance yet we deny not but in themselves they were damnable Nay the very saying they were pardonable implies they needed pardon and therefore in themselves were damnable damnable meritoriously though not effectually As a poyson may be deadly in it selfe and yet not kill him that together with the poyson takes an antidote or as felony may deserve death and yet not bring it on him that obtaines the Kings pardon 22 To the fifteenth To the fift How they can be excus'd from Schisme who forsook her Communion upon pretence of
errours which were not damnable I answere All that we forfake in you is only the beliefe and practice and profession of your Errors Hereupon you cast us out of your Communion And then with a strange and contradictious and ridiculous hypocrisy complain that we forsake it As if a man should thrust his friend out of doores and then be offended at his departure But for us not to forsake the beliefe of your Errors having discovered them to be Errors was impossible and therefore to doe so could not be damnable believing them to be Errors Not to forsake the practice and profession of them had been damnable hypocrisie supposing that which you vainly runne away with and take for graunted those errors in themselves were not damnable Now to doe so and as matters now stand not to forsake your Communion is apparently contradictious seeing the condition of your Communion is that we must professe to believe all your doctrines not only not to be damnable errors which will not content you but also to be certain and necessary and revealed truths So that to demand why we forsake your Communion upon pretence of Errors which were not damnable is in effect to demand why we forsooke it upon our forsaking it For to pretend that there are Errors in your Church though not damnable is ipso facto to forsake your Communion and to doe that which both in your account and as you think in Gods account puts him as does so out of your Communion So that either you must free your Church from requiring the belief of any errour whatsoever damnable and not damnable or whether you will or no you must free us from Schisme For schisme there cannot be in leaving your communion unlesse we were obliged to continue in it Man cannot be obliged by Man but to what either formally or virtually he is obliged by God for all just power is from God God the eternall truth neither can nor will obliege us to believe any the least and the most innocent falshood to be a divine truth that is to erre nor to professe a known errour which is to lye So that if you require the belief of any errour among the conditions of your Communion our obligation to communicate with you ceaseth and so the imputation of schisme to us vanisheth into nothing but lies heavy upon you for making our seperation from you just and necessary by requiring unnecessary and unlawfull conditions of your Communion Hereafter therefore I intreat you let not your demand be how could we forsake your Communion without Schisme seeing you err'd not damnably But how we could doe so without Schisme seeing you err'd not at all which if either you doe prove or we cannot disprove it we will I at least will for my part returne to your Communion or subscribe my selfe Schismatique In the mean time ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã 23 Yet notwitstanding all your Errors we doe not renounce your Communion totally and absolutely but only leave Communicating with you in the practise and profession of your Errors The tryall whereof will be to propose some forme of worshipping God taken wholly out of Scripture and herein if we refuse to joyn with you then and not till then may you justly say we have utterly and absolutely abandoned your Communion 24 To the sixteenth Your sixt demand I have already satisfied in my answeres to the Second and the Fourth and in my reply Ad § 2. toward the end And though you say your repeating must be excused yet I dare not be so confident and therefore forbear it 25 To the seaventeenth To the seaventh Whether errour against any one truth sufficiently propounded as testified by God destroy not the Nature and Vnity of Faith or at least is not a grievous offence excluding salvation I answere if you suppose as you seem to doe the proposition so sufficient that the party to whom it is made is convinc'd that it is from God so that the denyall of it involves also with it the denyall of Gods veracity any such errour destroyes both faith and salvation But if the Proposall be only so sufficient not that the party to whom it is made is convinc'd but only that he should and but for his own fault would have been convinc'd of the divine verity of the doctrine proposed The crime then is not so great for the beliefe of Gods veracity may well consist with such an Errour Yet a fault I confesse it is and without Repentance damnable if all circumstances considered the proposall be sufficient But then I must tell you that the proposall of the present Roman Church is only pretended to be sufficient for this purpose but is not so especially all the Rayes of the Divinity which they pretend to shine so conspicuously in her proposalls being so darkned and even extinguished with a cloud of contradiction from Scripture Reason and the Ancient Church 26 To the Eighteenth To the eight How of disagreeing Protestants both parts may hope for salvation seeing some of them must needs erre against some Truth testified by God I answere 1. The most disagreeing Protestants that are yet thus farre agree that these books of Scripture which were never doubted of in the Church are the undoubted word of God and a perfect rule of faith 2. That the sense of them which God intended whatsoever it is is certainly true So that they believe implicitely even those very truths against which they erre and why an implicit faith in Christ and his Word should not suffice as well as an implicit faith in your Church I have desired to be resolved by many of your Side but never could 3. That they are to use their best endeavours to beleive the Scripture in the true sense and to live according to it This if they performe as I hope many on all Sides doe truly and syncerely it is impossible but that they should believe aright in all things necessary to salvation that is in all those things which appertain to the Covenant between God and man in Christ for so much is not only plainly but frequently contained in Scripture And believing aright touching the Covenant if they for their parts perform the condition required of them which is syncere obedience why should they not expect that God will performe his promise and give them salvation For as for other things which lye without the Covenant and are therefore lesse necessary if by reason of the seeming conflict which is oftentimes between Scripture and Reason and Authority on the one side and Scripture Reason and Authority on the other if by reason of the variety of tempers abilities educations unavoidable prejudices whereby mens understandings are variously form'd and fashion'd they doe embrace severall Opinions whereof some must be erroneous to say that God will damne them for such errors who are lovers of him and lovers of truth is to rob man of his comfort and God of his goodnesse it is to make Man
from ambiguity before you answer it and to haue recourse to Accidentall Circumstances as if Ignorance were accidentall to error or as if a man could be considered as in errour and not be considered as in ignorance of the Truth from which he erres Certainly Errour against a Truth must needs presuppose a nescience of it unlesse you will say that a man may at once resolue for a Truth and resolue against it assent to it and dissent from it knowe it to be true and beleiue it not to be true Whether Knowledge Opinion touching the same thing may stand together is made a Question in the Schooles But hee that would question whether knowing a thing and doubting of it much more whether knowing it to be true believing it to be false may stand together deserues without question no other Answer but laughter Now if Errour knowledge connot consist then Errour and Ignorance must be inseparable He then that professeth your errours may well be considered either as knowing or as Ignorant But him that does erre indeed you can no more conceiue without ignorance then Long without Quantity Vertuous without Qualitie a Man and not a living Creature to haue gone ten miles and not to haue gone fiue to speak sense and not to speake For as the latter in all these is implied in the former so is Ignorance of a Truth supposed in errour against it Yet such a man though not conceaueable without Ignorance simply may be very well considered either as with or without voluntary and sinfull Ignorance And he that will giue a wise answer to this Question Whether a Papist dying a Papist may be saved according to Gods ordinary proceeding must distinguish him according to these severall considerations and say Hee may be saved If his ignorance were either invincible or at least unaffected and probable if otherwise without repentance he cannot To the rest of this Preface I haue nothing to say saving what hath been said but this That it is no just exception to an argument to call it vulgar and thredbare Truth can neither be too common nor superannuated nor Reason ever worne out Let your Answers be solid pertinent and we will never finde fault with them for being old or common THE FIRST PART The State of the Question with a summary of the reasons for which amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved CHAP. I. NEver is Malice more indiscreet then when it chargeth others with imputation of that to which it selfe becomes more liable even by that very act of accusing others For though guiltinesse be the effect of some errour yet usually it begets a kind of Moderation so far forth as not to let men cast such aspersions upon others as must apparantly reflect upon themselves Thus cannot the Poet endure that Gracchus who was a factious and unquiet man should be inveighing against Sedition and the Roman Oratour rebukes Philosophers who to waxe glorious superscribed their Names upon those very bookes which they entitled Of the contempt of glory What then shall we say of D. Potter who in the Title and Text of his whole book doth so tragically charge Want of Charity on all such Romanists as dare affirme that Protestancy destroyeth Salvation while he himselfe is in act of pronouncing the like heavy doom against Roman Catholiques For not satisfied with much uncivill language in affirming the Roman Church many wayes to have plaid the Harlot and in that regard deserved a bill of divorce from Christ and detestation of Christians in styling her that proud and curst Dame of Rome which takes upon her to revell in the House of God in talking of an Idoll to be worshipped at Rome he comes at length to thunder out this fearfull sentence against her For that Masse of Errors saith he in iudgement and practise which is proper to her and wherein she differs from us we iudge a reconciliation impossible and to us who are convicted in conscience of her corruptions damnable And in another place ho saith For us who are convinced in conscience that she erres in many things a necessity lyes upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those Errors By the acerbity of which Censure he doth not only make himselfe guilty of that which he judgeth to be a haynous offence in others but freeth us also from all colour of crime by this his unadvised recrimination For if Roman Catholikes be likewise convicted in conscience of the Errors of Protestants they may and must in conformity to the Doctor 's own rule judge a reconciliation with them to be also damnable And thus all the Want of Charity so deeply charged on us dissolves it selfe into this poore wonder Roman Catholiques believe in their conscience that the Religion which they professe is true and the contrary false 2. Neverthelesse we earnestly desire and take care that our doctrine may not be defamed by misinterpretation Far be it from us by way of insultation to apply it against Protestants otherwise then as they are comprehended under the generality of those who are divided from the only one true Church of Christ our Lord within the Communion whereof he hath confined salvation Neither doe we understand why our most deere Countrymen should be offended if the Vniversality be particularized under the name of Protestants first given to certain Lutherans who protesting that they would stand out against the Imperiall decrees in defence of the Confession exhibited at Ausburge were termed Protestants in regard of such their protesting which Confessio Augustana disclaiming from and being disclaymed by Calvinists and Zwinglians our naming or exemplifying a generall doctrine under the particular name of Protestantisme ought not in any particular manner to be odious in England 3 Moreover our meaning is not as misinformed persons may conceive that we give Protestants over to reprobation that we offer no prayers in hope of their salvation that we hold their case desperate God forbid We hope we pray for their Conversion and sometimes we find happy effects of our charitable desires Neither is our Censure immediatly directed to particular persons The Tribunall of particular Iudgement is Gods alone When any man esteemed a Protestant leaveth to live in this world we doe not instantly with precipitation avouch that he is lodged in Hell For we are not alwaies acquainted with what sufficiency or meanes he was furnished for instruction we doe not penetrate his capacity to understand his Catechist we have no revelation what light might have cleered his errours or Contrition retracted his sinnes in the last moment before his death In such particular cases we wish more apparent signes of salvation but doe not give any dogmaticall sentence of perdition How greivous sinnes Disobedience Schisme and Heresy are is well knowne But to discerne how farre the naturall malignity of those great offences might be checked by Ignorance or by some such lessening
faith necessary to be explicitely believed is not pertinent to free from sinne the voluntary deniall of any other point knowen to be defined by Gods Church And this were sufficient to overthrow all that D. Potter alleadgeth concerning the Creed though yet by way of Supererogation we will prove that there are divers important matters of Faith which are not mentioned at all in the Creed 14 From the aforesaid maine principle that God hath alwaies had and alwaies will have on earth a Church Visible within whose Communion Salvation must be hoped and infallible whose definitions we ought to believe we will prove that Luther Calvin and all other who continue the division in Communion or Faith from that Visible Church which at and before Luther's appearance was spread over the world cannot be excused from Schisme and Heresy although they opposed her faith but in one only point whereas it is manifest they dissent from her in many and weighty matters concerning as well beliefe as practise 15 To these reasons drawne from the vertue of Faith we will adde one other taken from Charitas propria the Vertue of Charity as it obligeth us not to expose our soule to hazard of perdition when we can put ourselves in a way much more secure as we will prove that of the Roman Catholiques to be 16 We are then to prove these points First that the infallible means to determine controversies in matters of faith is the visible Church of Christ. Secondly that the distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall maketh nothing to our present Question Thirdly that to say the Creed containes all fundamentall points of faith is neither pertinent nor true Fourthly that both Luther and all they who after him persist in division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church cannot be excused from Schisme Fiftly nor from Heresy Sixtly and lastly that in regard of the precept of Charity towards ones selfe Protestants be in state of sinne as long as they remaine divided from the Roman Church And these six points shall be severall Arguments for so many ensuing Chapters 17 Only I will here observe that it seemeth very strange that Protestants should charge us so deeply with Want of Charity for only teaching that both they and we cannot be saved seeing themselves must affirme the like of whosoever opposeth any least point delivered in Scripture which they hold to be the sole Rule of Faith Out of which ground they must be enforced to let all our former Inferences passe for good For is it not a grievous sinne to deny any one truth contained in holy Writ Is there in such deniall any distinction betwixt points fundamentall and not fundamentall sufficient to excuse from heresy Is it not impertinent to alleadge the Creed containing all fundamentall points of faith as if believing it alone we were at liberty to deny all other points of Scripture In a word According to Protestants Oppose not Scripture there is no Errour against faith Oppose it in any least point the error if Scripture be sufficiently proposed which proposition is also required before a man can be obliged to believe even fundamentall points must be damnable What is this but to say with us Of persons contrary in whatsoever point of beliefe one party only can be saved And D. Potter must not take it ill if Catholiques believe they may be saved in that Religion for which they suffer And if by occasion of this doctrine men will still be charging us with Want of Charity and be resolved to take scandall where none is given we must comfort our selves with that grave and true saying of S. Gregory If scandall be taken from declaring a truth it is better to permit scandall then forsake the truth But the solid grounds of our Assertion and the sincerity of our intention in uttering what wee think yield us confidence that all will hold for most reasonable the saying of Pope Gelasius to Anastasius the Emperour Farre âe it from the Roman Emperour that he should hold it for a wrong to have truth declared to him Let us therefore begin with that Point which is the first that can be controverted betwixt Protestants and us for as much as concernes the present Question and is contained in the Argument of the next ensuing Chapter THE ANSWER TO THE FIRST CHAPTER Shewing that the Adversary grants the Former Question and proposeth a New one And that there is no reason why among men of different opinions and Communions one Side only can be sav'd 1. TO the first § Your first onset is very violent D. Potter is charg'd with malice and indiscretion for being uncharitable to you while he is accusing you of uncharitablenesse Verily a great fault and folly if the accusation be just if unjust a great calumnie Let us see then how you make good your charge The effect of your discourse if I mistake not is this D. Potter chargeth the Roman Church with many and great errours judgeth reconciliation betweene her Doctrine and ours impossible and that for them who are convicted in Conscience of her Errors not to forsake her in them or to be reconcil'd unto her is damnable Therefore if Roman Catholiques be convicted in conscience of the Errours of Protestants they may and must judge a reconciliation with them damnable consequently to judge so is no more uncharitable in theÌ then it is in the Doctor to judge as he does All this I grant nor would any Protestant accuse you of want of Charity if you went no further if you judg'd the Religion of Protestants damnable to them only who professe it being convicted in conscience that it is erroneous For if a man judge some act of vertue to be a sinne in him it is a sinne indeed So you have taught us p. 19. So if you be convinc'd or rather to speake properly perswaded in conscience that our Religion is erroneous the profession of it though in it selfe most true to you would be damnable This therefore I subscribe very willingly and withall that if you said no more D. Potter and my selfe should not be to Papists only but even to Protestants as uncharitable as you are For I shall alwaies professe and glory in this uncharitablenesse of judging hypocrisie a damnable sinne Let Hypocrites then and Dissemblers on both sides passe It is not towards them but good Christians not to Protestant Professors but Believers that we require your Charity What think you of those that believe so verily the truth of our Religion that they are resolv'd to die in it and if occasion were to die for it What Charity have you for them What think yee of those that in the dayes of our Fathers laid down their lives for it are you content that they shall be saved or doe you hope they may be so Will you grant that notwithstanding their Errours there is good hope they might die with repentance and if they did so certainly they are
from presuming upon the absolute puritie and perfection even of this best Translation that S. Hierome thought it necessary to make a new Translation of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew fountain which himselfe testifies in his Book de Viris illustribus And to correct the vulgar version of the New Testament according to the truth of the Originall Greek amending many errors which had crept into it whether by the mistake of the Author or the negligence of the Transcribers which work he undertook performed at the request of Damasus Bishop of Rome You constraine mee saith he to make a new work of an old that after the Copies of the Scriptures haue been dispersed through the whole world I should sit as it were an Arbitratour amongst them and because they vary among themselues should determine what are those things in them which consent with the Greek verity And after Therefore this present Preface promises the foure Gospels only corrected by collation with Greek Copies But that they might not be very dissonant from the custome of the Latine Reading I haue so tempered with my stile the Translation of the Ancients that those things amended which did seem to change the sense other things I haue suffered to remain as they were So that in this matter Protestants must either stand or fall with the Primitiue Church 60 The Corruption that you charge Luther with and the falsification that you impute to Zwinglius what haue we to doe with them or why may not we as justly lay to your charge the Errours which Lyranus or Paulus Brugensis or Laurentius Valla or Cajetan or Erasmus or Arias Montanus or Augustus Nebiensis or Pagnine haue committed in their Translations 61 Which yet I say not as if these Translations of Luther and Zwinglius were absolutely indefensible for what such great difference is there between Faith without the Works of the Law and Faith alone without the Works of the Law or why does not Without Alone signifie all one with Alone Without Consider the matter a little better and obserue the use of these phrases of speech in our ordinary talke and perhaps you will begin to doubt whether you had sufficient ground for this invectiue And then for Zwinglius if it bee true as they say it is that the language our Saviour spake in had no such word as To signifie but used alwaies to be insteed of it as it is certain the Scripture does in a hundred places then this Translation which you so declaim against will prove no falsification in Zwinglius but a calumny in you 62 But the faith of Protestants relies upon Scripture alone Scripture is delivered to most of them by Translations Translations depend upon the skill and honesty of Men who certainly may erre because they are Men and certainly doe erre at least some of them because their Translations are contrary It seemes then the Faith and consequently the Salvation of Protestants relies upon fallible and uncertaine grounds 63 This Objection though it may seeme to doe you great service for the present yet I feare you will repent the time that ever you urged it against us as a fault that we make mens salvation depend upon uncertainties For the objection returnes upon you many waies as first thus The salvation of many millions of Papists as they suppose and teach depends upon their having the Sacrament of Pennance truly administred unto them This again upon the Minister's being a true Priest That such or such a man is Priest not himselfe much lesse any other can haue any possible certainty for it depends upon a great many contingent and uncertain supposals He that will pretend to be certain of it must undertake to know for a certain all these things that follow 64 First that he was baptized with due Matter Secondly with the due forme of words which he cannot know unlesse he were both present and attentiue Thirdly he must know that hee was baptiz'd with due Intention and that is that the Minister of his Baptisme was not a secret Iew nor a Moore nor an Atheist of all which kinds I feare experience giues you just cause to feare that Italy and Spaine haue Priests not a few but a Christian in heart as well as Profession otherwise believing the Sacrament to be nothing in giving it he could intend to giue nothing nor a Samâsatenian nor an Arrian but one that was capable of having due intention from which they that belieue not the doctrine of the Trinity are excluded by you And lastly that he was neither drunk nor distracted at the administration of the Sacrament nor out of negligence or malice omitted his intention 65 Fourthly he must undertake to know that the Bishop which ordained him Priest ordained him compleatly with due Matter Form and Intention and consequently that he againe was neither Iew nor Moore nor Atheist nor lyable to any such exception as is unconsistent with due Intention in giving the Sacrament of Orders 66 Fiftly he must undertake to know that the Bishop which made him Priest was a Priest himselfe for your rule is Nihil dat quod non habet And consequently that there was again none of the former nullities in his Baptisme which might make him incapable of Ordination nor no invalidity in his Ordination but a true Priest to ordaine him again the requisite matter and forme and due intention all concurring 67 Lastly he must pretend to know the same of him that made him Priest and him that made Him Priest even untill he comes to the very fountain of Priesthood For take any one in the whole train succession of Ordainers suppose him by reason of any defect only a supposed not a true Priest then according to your doctrine he could not give a true but only a supposed Priesthood and they that receive it of him again they that derive it from theÌ can give no better then they received receiving nothing but a name and shadow can give nothing but a name and shadow and so from age to age from generation to generation being equivocall Fathers beget only equivocall Sons No Principle in Geometry being more certain then this That the unsuppliable defect of any necessary Antecedent must needs cause a nullity of all those Consequences which depend upon it In fine to know this one thing you must first know ten thousand others whereof not any one is a thing that can be known there being no necessity that it should be true which only can qualify any thing for an object of Science but only at the best a high degree of probability that it is so But then that often thousand probables no one should be false that of ten thousand requisites whereof any one may faile not one should be wanting this to mee is extreamly improbable and even cosen german to Impossible So that the assurance hereof is like a machine composed of an innumerable multitude of pieces of which it is strangely
above all the men and Churches of the World whereof I have already given you two very pregnant demonstrations drawn from your presumptions tying God and Salvation to your Sacraments And the efficacy of them to your Priests Qualifications and Intentions 69 Your making the Salvation of Infants depend on Baptisme a Casuall thing and in the power of man to conferre or not conferre would yeild me a Third of the same nature And your suspending the same on the Baptizer's intention a Fourth And lastly your making the Reall presence of Christ in the Eucharist depend upon the casualties of the consecrators true Priesthood and Intention and yet commanding men to believe it for certain that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine for ought they can possibly know may be nothing else but a piece of bread so exposing them to the danger of Idolatry and consequently of damnation doth offer me a Fift demonstration of the same conclusion if I thought fit to insist upon them But I have no mind to draw any more out of this Fountaine neither doe I think it charity to cloy the Reader with uniformity when the subject affords variety 70 Sixtly therefore I returne it thus The faith of Papists relyes alone upon their Churches infallibility That there is any Church infallible and that Theirs is it they pretend not to believe but only upon prudentiall motives Dependance upon prudentiall motives they confesse to be obnoxious to a possibility of erring What then remaineth but Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 71 Seventhly The faith of Papists relies upon the Church alone The Doctrine of the Church is delivered to most of them by their Parish Priest or Ghostly Father or at least by a company of Priests who for the most part sure are men and not Angels in whom nothing is more certain then a most certain possibility to erre What then remaineth but that Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 72 Eightly thus It is apparent and undeniable that many Thousands there are who believe your Religion upon no better grounds then a man may have for the beliefe almost of any Religion As some believe it because their forefathers did so and they were good People Some because they were Christened and brought up in it Some because many Learned and Religious men are of it Some because it is the Religion of their Country where all other Religions are persecuted and proscribed Some because Protestants cannot shew a perpetuall succession of Professors of all their Doctrine Some because the service of your Church is more stately and pompous magnificent Some because they find comfort in it Some because your Religion is farther spread and hath more professors of it then the Religion of Protestants Some because your Priests compasse Sea and Land to gain Proselytes to it Lastly an infinite number by chance and they know not why but only because they are sure they are in the right This which I say is a most certain experimented truth and if you will deale ingenuously you will not deny it And without question he that builds his faith upon our English Translation goes upon a more prudent ground then any of these can with reason be pretended to be What then can you alleadge but that with you rather then with us Truth and Faith and Salvation and all relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 73 Ninthly Your Rhemish and Doway Translations are delivered to your Proselytes such I mean that are dispenâ'd with for the reading of them for the direction of their Faith and lives And the same may be said of your Translations of the Bible into other nationall languages in respect of those that are licenc'd to read them This I presume you will confesse And moreover that these Translations came not by inspiration but were the productions of humane Industry and that not Angels but men were the Authors of them Men I say meere men subject to the same Passions and to the same possibility of erring with our Translatours And then how does it not unavoidably follow that in them which depend upon these translations for their direction Faith and Truth and Salvation and all relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 74 Tenthly and lastly to lay the axe to the root of the tree the Helena which you so fight for your vulgar Translation though some of you believe or pretend to believe it to be in every part and particle of it the pure and uncorrupted word of God yet others among you and those as good zealous Catholiques as you are not so confident hereof 75 First for all those who have made Translations of the whole Bible or any part of it different many times in sense from the Vulgar as Lyranus Cajetan Pagnine Arias Erasmus Valla Steuchus and others it is apparent and even palpable that they never dreamt of any absolute perfection and authenticall infallibility of the Vulgar Translation For if they had why did they in many places reject it and differ from it 76 Vega was present at the Councell of Trent when that decree was made which made the Vulgar Edition then not extant any where in the world authenticall and not to be rejected upon any pretense whatsoever At the forming this decree Vega I say was present understood the mind of the Councell as well as any man and professes that he was instructed in it by the President of it the Cardinall S. Cruce And yet he hath written that the Councell in this decree meant to pronounce this Translation free not simply from all error but only from such errors out of which any opinion pernitious to faith and manners might be collected This Andradius in his defence of that Councell reports of Vega and assents to it himselfe Driedo in his book of the Translation of Holy Scripture hath these words very pregnant and pertinent to the same purpose The See Apostolike hath approved or accepted Hieroms Edition not as so wholly consonant to the Originall and so entire and pure and restored in all things that it may not be lawfull for any man either by comparing it with the Fountaine to examine it or in some places to doubt whether or no Hierome did understand the true sense of the Scripture but only as an Edition to be prefer'd before all others then extant and no where deviating from the truth in the rules of faith and good life Mariana even where he is a most earnest Advocate for the Vulgar Edition yet acknowledges the imperfection of it in these words The faults of the Vulgar Edition are not approved by the Decree of the Councell of Trent a multitude whereof we did collect from the variety of Copies And againe We maintaine that the Hebrew and Greeke were by no meanes rejected by the Trent Fathers And that the Latine edition is indeed approved yet
of plain Texts of Scripture which you will not suffer him to understand Especially seeing the Decrees of divers Popes and Councells are conceived so obscurely that the Learned cannot agree about the sense of them And then they are written all in such languages which the ignorant understand not and therefore must of necessity rely herein upon the uncertain and fallible authority of some particular men who informe them that there is such a Decree And if the Decrees were translated into Vulgar languages why the Translators should not be as fallible as you say the Translators of Scripture are who can possibly imagine 109 Lastly how shall an unlearned man or indeed any man be assured of the certainty of that Decree the certainty whereof depends upon suppositions which are impossible to be known whether they be true or no For it is not the Decree of a Councell unlesse it be confirmed by a true Pope Now the Pope cannot be a true Pope if he came in by Simony which whether he did or no who can answer mee He cannot be true Pope unlesse he were baptized and baptized he was not unlesse the Minister had due Intention So likewise he cannot be a true Pope unlesse he were rightly ordained Priest and that again depends upon the Ordainers secret Intention and also upon his having the Episcopall Character All which things as I have formerly proved depend upon so many uncertain suppositions that no humane judgement can possibly be resolved in them I conclude therefore that not the learnedst man amongst you all no not the Pope himselfe can according to the grounds you goe upon have any certainty that any Decree of any Councell is good and valid and consequently not any assurance that it is indeed the Decree of a Councell 110 Ad § 20. If by a private spirit you mean a particular perswasion that a Doctrine is true which some men pretend but cannot prove to come from the spirit of God I say to referre Controversies to Scripture is not to referre them to this kind of private Spirit For is there not a manifest difference between saying the spirit of God tels me that this is the meaning of such a Text which no man can possibly know to be true it being a secret thing between saying these these Reasons I have to shew that this or that is true doctrine or that this or that is the meaning of such a Scripture Reason being a Publique and certain thing and exposed to all mens tryall and examination But now if by privat spirit you understand every mans particular Reason then your first and second inconvenience will presently be reduced to one and shortly to none at all 111 Ad § 20. And does not also giving the office of Iudicature to the Church come to conferre it upon every particular man For before any man believes the Church infallible must he not have reason to induce him to believe it to be so and must he not judge of those reasons whether they be indeed good and firme or captious and sophisticall Or would you have all men believe all your Doctrine upon the Churches infalliââââây and the Churches infallibility they know not why 112 Secondly supposing they are to be guided by the Church they must use their own particular reason to find out which is the Church And to that purpose you your selves give a great many notes which you pretend first to be Certain notes of the Church and then to be peculiar to your Church and agreeable to none else but you doe not so much as pretend that either of those pretenses is evident of it selfe and therefore you goe about to prove them both by reasons and those reasons I hope every particular man is to judge of whether they doe indeed conclude and convince that which they are alleadged for that is that these markes are indeed certain notes of the Church and then that your Church hath them and no other 113 One of these notes indeed the only note of a true and uncorrupted Church is conformity with Antiquity I mean the most ancient Church of all that is the Primitive and Apostolique Now how is it possible any man should examine your Church by this note but he must by his own particular judgement find out what was the doctrine of the Primitive Church and what is the Doctrine of the present Church and be able to answer all these Arguments which are brought to prove repugnance between them otherwise he shall but pretend to make use of this note for the finding the true Church but indeed make no use of it but receive the Church at a venture as the most of you doe not one in a hundred being able to give any tolerable reason for it So that in stead of reducing men to particular reason you reduce them to none at all but to chance and passion and prejudice and such other waies which if they lead one to the truth they lead hundreds nay thousands to falshood But it is a pretty thing to consider how these men can blow hot and cold out of the same mouth to serve severall purposes Is there hope of gaining a Proselite Then they will tell you God hath given every man Reason to follow and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the Ditch That it is no good reason for a mans religion that he was borne and brought up in it For then a Turke should have as much reason to be a Turke as a Christian to be a Christian. That every man hath a judgement of Discretion which if they will make use of they shall easily finde that the true Church hath alwaies such and such markes and that their Church has them and no other but theirs But then if any of theirs be perswaded to a syncere and sufficient tryall of their Church even by their own notes of it and to try whether they be indeed so conformable to Antiquity as they pretend then their note is changed you must not use your own reason nor your judgement but referre all to the Church and believe her to be conformable to Antiquity though they have no reason for it nay though they have evident reason to the contrary For my part I am certain that God hath given us our Reason to discern between Truth and Falshood and he that makes not this use of it but beleeves things he knowes not why I say it is by chance that he believes the Truth and not by choice and that I cannot but feare that God will not accept of this Sacrifice of fooles 114 But you that would not have men follow their reason what would you have them to follow their Passion Or pluck out their eyes and goe blindfold No you say you would have them follow Authority On gods name let them we also would have them follow Authority for it is upon the Authority of Vniversall Tradition that we would have them believe Scripture But then as
for the Authority which you would have them follow you will let them see reason why they should follow it And is not this to goe a little about to leave reason for a short turne and then to come to it again and to doe that which you condemne in others It being indeed a plain impossibility for any man to submit his reason but to reason for he that does it to Authority must of necessity think himselfe to have greater reason to believe that Authority Therefore the confession cited by Brerely you need not think to have been extorted from Luther and the rest It came very freely from them and what they say you practise as much as they 115 And whereas you say that a Protestant admits of Fathers Councells Church as farre as they agree with Scripture which upon the matter is himselfe I say you admit neither of them nor the Scripture it selfe but only so farre as it agrees with your Church and your Church you admit because you think you have reason to doe so so that by you as well as by Protestants all is finally resolved into your own reason 116 Nor doe Heretiques only but Romish Catholiques also set up as many judges as there are men and women in the Christian world For doe not your men and women judge your Religion to be true before they believe it as well as the men and women of other Religions Oh but you say They receive it not because they think it agreeable to Scripture but because the Church tells them so But then I hope they believe the Church because their own reason tells them they are to doe so So that the difference between a Papist and a Protestant is this not that the one judges and the other does not judge but that the one judges his guide to be infallible the other his way to be manifest This same pernitious Doctrine is taught by Brentius Zanchius Cartwright and others It is so in very deed But it is taught also by some others whom you little think of It is taught by S. Paul where he saies Try all things hold fast that which is good It is taught by S. Iohn in these words Belieue not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God or no. It is taught by S. Peter in these Bee yee ready to render a reason of the hope that is in you Lastly this very pernitious Doctrine is taught by our Saviour in these words If the blinde lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch And why of your selues iudge you not what is right All which speeches if they doe not advise men to make use of their Reason for the choice of their Religion I must confesse my selfe to understand nothing Lastly not to bee infinite it is taught by M. Knot himselfe not in one page only or chapter of his Book but all his Book over the very writing and publishing whereof supposeth this for certaine that the readers are to be Iudges whether his Reasons which he brings be strong and convincing of which sort wee haue hetherto met with none or else captious or impertinences as indifferent men shall as I suppose haue cause to judge them 117 But you demand What good Statesmen would they be who should ideate or fancy such a Commonwealth as these men haue framed to themselues a Church Truly if this be all the fault they haue that they say Every man is to use his own iudgement in the choice of his Religion and not to belieue this or that sense of Scripture upon the bare Authority of any Learned man or men when he conceiues he has reasons to the contrary which are of more weight then their Authority I know no reason but notwithstanding all this they might be as good Statesmen as any of the Society But what has this to doe with Common-wealths where men are bound only to externall obedience unto the Laws and judgements of Courts but not to an internall approbation of them no nor to conceale their Iudgment of them if they disapprove them As if I conceiued I had reason to mislike the law of punishing simple theft with death as St Thomas Moore did I might professe lawfully my judgement and represent my Reasons to the King or Common-wealth in a Parliament as S â Thomas Moore did without committing any fault or fearing any punishment 118 To the place of S. Austin wherewith this Paragraph is concluded I shall need giue no other Reply but onely to desire you to speak like an honest man and to say whether it be all one for a man to allow and disallow in every Scripture what he pleases which is either to dash out of Scripture such Texts or such Chapters because they crosse his opinionâ or to say which is worse Though they be Scripture they are not true Whether I say for a man thus to allow and disallow in Scripture what he pleases be all one and no greater fault then to allow that sense of Scripture which he conceiues to be true and genuine and deduc'd out of the words and to disallow the contrary For Gods sake Sr tell me plainly In those Texts of Scripture which you alleage for the infallibility of your Church doe not you allow what sensâ you think true and disallow the contrary And doe you not this by the direction of your private reason If you doe why doe you condemne it in others If you doe not I pray you tell me what direction you follow or whether you follow none at all If none at all this is like drawing Lots or throwing the Dice for the choice of a Religion If any other I beseech you tell me what it is Perhaps you will say the Churches Authority and that will be to dance finely in a round thus To belieue the Churches Infallible Authority because the Scriptures avouch it to belieue that Scriptures say and mean so because they are so expounded by the Church Is not this for a Father to beget his Sonne and the Sonne to beget his Father For a foundation to support the house and the house to support the foundation Would not Campian haue cryed out at it Ecce quos gyros quos Maeandros And to what end was this going about when you might as well at first haue concluded the Church infallible because she saies so as thus to put in Scripture for a meere stale and to say the Church is infallible because the Scripture saies so and the Scripture meanes so because the Church saies so which is infallible Is it not most evident therefore to every intelligent man that you are enforced of necessity to doe that your selfe which so tragically you declaime against in others The Church you say is infallible I am very doubtfull of it How shall I know it The Scripture you say affirmes it as in the 59. of Esay My spirit that is in thee c. Well I confesse I finde there these words but I am still
doubtfull whether they be spoken of the Church of Christ if they be whether they mean as you pretend You say the Church saies so which is infallible Yea but that is the Question and therefore not to be begg'd but proved Neither is it so evident as to need no proofe otherwise why brought you this Text to proue it Nor is it of such a strange quality aboue all other Propositions as to bee able to proue it selfe What then remaines but that you say Reasons drawn out of the Circumstances of the Text will evince that this is the sense of it Perhaps they will But Reasons cannot convince mee unlesse I judge of them by my Reason and for every man or woman to relye on that in the choice of their Religion and in the interpreting of Scripture you say is a horrible absurditie and therefore must neither make use of your own in this matter nor desire mee to make use of it 119 But Vniversall Tradition you say and so doe I too is of it selfe credible and that has in all ages taught the Churches infallibility with full consent If it haue I am ready to belieue it But that it has I hope you would not haue me take upon your word for that were to build my selfe upon the Church and the Church upon You. Let then the Tradition appeare for a secret Tradition is somewhat like a silent Thunder You will perhaps produce for the confirmation of it some sayings of some Fathers who in every Age taught this Doctrine as Gualterius in his Chronologie undertakes to doe but with so ill successe that I heard an able Man of your Religion professe that in the first three Centuries there was not one Authority pertinent but how will you warrant that none of them teach the contrary Again how shall I be assured that the places haue indeed this sense in them Seeing there is not one Father for 500. yeares after Christ that does say in plain termes The Church of Rome is infallible What shall wee belieue your Church that this is their meaning But this will be again to goe into the Circle which made us giddy before To proue the Church Infallible because Tradition saies so Tradition to say so because the Fathers say so The Fathers to say so because the Church saies so which is infallible Yea but reason will shew this to be the meaning of them Yes if we may use our Reason and rely upon it Otherwise as light shewes nothing to the blinde or to him that uses not his eyes so reason cannot proue any thing to him that either has not or uses not his reason to judge of them 120 Thus you haue excluded your selfe from all proofe of your Churches infallibility from Scripture or Tradition And if you flye lastly to Reason it selfe for succour may not it justly say to you as Iephte said to his Brethren Yee haue cast me out and banished me and doe you now come to me for succour But if there be no certainty in Reason how shall I be assured of the certainty of those which you alleage for this purpose Either I may judge of them or not if not why doe you propose them If I may why doe you say I may not and make it such a monstrous absurdity That men in the choyce of their Religion should make use of their Reason which yet without all question none but unreasonable men can deny to haue been the chiefest ende why Reason was given them 122 Ad § 22. An Heretique he is saith D. Potter who opposeth any truth which to be a divine revelation he is convinced in conscience by any meanes whatsoever Be it by a Preacher or Lay-man be it by reading Scripture or hearing them read And from hence you infer that he makes all these safe propounders of Faith A most strange and illogicall deduction For may not a private man by evident reason convince another man that such or such a Doctrine is divine revelation and yet though he be a true propounder in this point yet propound another thing falsely and without proofe and consequently not be a safe propounder in every point Your Preachers in their Sermons do they not propose to men divine Revelations and doe they not sometimes convince men in conscience by evident proofe from Scripture that the things they speak are Divine revelations And whosoever being thus convinc'd should oppose this Divine revelation should hee not be an Heretique according to your own grounds for calling Gods own Truth into question And would you think your selfe well dealt with if I should collect from hence that you make every Preacher a safe that is an infallible Propounder of Faith Be the meanes of Proposall what it will sufficient or insufficient worthy of credit or not worthy though it were if it were possible the barking of a Dog or the chirping of a Bird or were it the discourse of the Divell himselfe yet if I be I will not say convinc'd but persuaded though falsly that it is a Divine revelation and shall deny to belieue it I shall be a formall though not a materiall Heretique For he that believes though falsly any thing to be Divine revelation yet will not believe it to be true must of necessity believe God to be false which according to your own Doctrine is the formality of an Heretique 123 And how it can be any way advantagious to Civill government that men without warrant from God should usurpe a tyranny over other mens consciences and prescribe unto them without reason and sometimes against reason what they shall believe you must shew us plainer if you desire we should believe For to say Verily I doe not see but that it must be so is no good demonstration For whereas you say that a man may be a passionate seditious creature from whence you would have us inferre that he may make use of his interpretation to satisfie his passion and raise sedition There were some colour in this consequence if we as you doe made private men infallible interpreters for others for then indeed they might lead Disciples after them and use them as instruments for their vile purposes But when we say they can only interpret for themselves what harme they can doe by their passionate or seditious interpretations but only endanger both their temporall and eternall happinesse I cannot imagine For though we deny the Pope or Church of Rome to be an infallible Iudge yet we doe not deny but that there are Iudges which may proceed with certainty enough against all seditious Persons such as draw men to disobedience either against Church or State as well as against Rebells and Traytors and Theeves and Murderers 124 Ad § 23. The next § in the begining argues thus For many ages there was no Scripture in the World and for many more there was none in many places of the world yet men wanted not then and then some certain direction what to believe
know it to be so because the Church saies so which is Infallible If I aske what meane You by your Church You can tell me nothing but the company of Christians which adhere to the Pope I demaund then lastly Why should I beleive this company to be the infallible Propounder of Divine Revelation And then you tell me that there are many Motives to induce a man to this beleife But are these Motives lastly infallible No say you but very credible Well let them passe for such because now we have not leasure to examine them Yet me thinks seeing the Motives to believe the Churches infallibility are only very credible it should also be but as credible that your Church is Infallible and as credible and no more perhaps somewhat lesse that her proposals particularly Transubstantiation are Divine Revelations And me thinks You should require only a Morall and modest assent to them and not a Divine as you call it and infallible Faith But then of these Motives to the Churches Infallibility I hope you will give us leave to consider and judge whether they be indeed Motives and sufficient or whether they be not Motives at all or not sufficient or whether these Motives or inducements to your Church be not impeached and opposed with Compulsives and enforcements from it or lastly whether these Motives which You use be not indeed only Motives to Christianity and not to Popery giue me leave for distinction sake to call your Religion so If we may not judge of these things how can my judgment be moved with that which comes not within its cognizance If I may then at least I am to be a Iudge of all these Controversies 1. Whether every one of these Motives be indeed a Motive to any Church 2. If to some whether to Yours 3. If to Yours whether sufficient or insufficient 4. Whether other Societies haue not as many and as great Motives to draw me to them 5. Whether I haue not greater reason to beleive you doe erre then that you cannot And now Sir I pray let me trouble You with a few more Questions Am I a sufficient Iudge of these Controversies or no If of these why shall I stay here why not of others Why not of all Nay doth not the true examining of these few containe and lay upon me the examination of all What other Motives to your Church have you but your Notes of it Bellarmine gives some 14. or 15. And one of these fifteene containes in it the examination of all controversies and not only so but of all uncontroverted Doctrines For how shall I or can I know the Church of Romes conformity with the Ancient Church unlesse I know first what the Ancient Church hid hold and then what the Church of Rome doth hold and lastly whether they be conformable or if in my judgment they seeme not conformable I am then to think the Church of Rome not to be the Church for want of the Note which she pretends is proper and perpetuall to it So that for ought I can see Iudges we are and must be of all sides every one for himselfe and God for us all 155 Ad § 26. I answere This assertion that Scripture alone is Iudge of all Controversies in Faith if it be taken properly is neither a Fundamentall nor Vnfundamentall point of Faith nor no point of Faith at all but a plaine falshood It is not a Iudge of Controversies but a Rule to Iudge them by and that not an absolutly perfect Rule but as perfect as a written Rule can be which must alwayes need something else which is either evidently true or evidently credible to give attestation to it and that in this case is Vniversall Tradition So that Vniversall Tradition is the Rule to judge all Controversies by But then because nothing besides Scripture comes to us with as full a streame of Tradition as Scripture Scripture alone and no unwritten Doctrine nor no Infallibility of any Church having attestation from Tradition truely Vniversall for this reason we conceive as the Apostles persons while they were liuing were the only Iudges of controversies so their Writings now they are dead are the only Rule for us to judge them by There being nothing unwritten which can goe in upon halfe so faire cards for the title of Apostolike Tradition as these things which by the confession of both Sides are not so I mean the doctrine of the Millenaries and of the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants 156 Yet when we say the Scripture is the only Rule to judge all Controversies by me thinks you should easily conceiue that wee would be understood of all those that are possible to be judg'd by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture For if I had a controversie with an Atheist whether there were a God or no I would not say that the Scripture were a Rule to judge this by seeing that doubting whether there be a God or no he must needs doubt whether the Scripture be the word of God or if hee does not hee grants the Question and is not the man we speak of So likewise if I had a controversie about the Truth of Christ with a lew it would be vainly done of me should I presse him which the Authority of the new Testament which he believes not untill out of some principles common to us both I had persuaded him that it is the Word of God The New Testament therefore while he remaines a Iew would not be a fit Rule to decide this Controversie In as much as that which is doubted of it selfe is not fit to determine other doubts So likewise if there were any that believed Christian Religion and yet believed not the Bible to be the Word of God though they believed the matter of it to be true which is no impossible supposition for I may believe a book of S. Austines to containe nothing but the Truth of God yet not to haue been inspired by God himselfe against such men therefore there were no disputing out of the Bible because nothing in question can be a proof to it selfe When therefore we say the Scripture is a sufficient meanes to determine all controversies we say not this either to Atheists Iewes Turks or such Christians if there be any such as believe not Scripture to be the word of God But among such men only as are already agreed upon this That the Scripture is the Word of God we say all controversies that arise about Faith are either not at all decidable consequently not necessary to be believed one way or other or they may be determined by Scripture In a Word That all things necessary to be believed are evidently contain'd in Scripture and what is not there evidently contained cannot be necessary to be believed And our reason hereof is convincing because nothing can challenge our beliefe but what hath descended to us from Christ by Originall and Vniversall
that there is no falshood at all but only want of divine testification in which case D. Potter must either grant that it is a fundamentall error to apply divine revelation to any point not revealed or else must yeeld that the Church may erre in her Proposition or Custody of the Canon of Scripture And so we cannot be sure whether she have not been deceived already in Bookes recommended by her and accepted by Christians And thus we shall have no certainty of Scripture if the Church want certainty in all her definitions And it is worthy to be observed that some Bookes of Scripture which were not alwaies known to be Canonicall have been afterward received for such but never any one book or syllable defined by the Church to be Canonicall was afterward questioned or rejected for Apocryphall A signe that Gods Church is infallibly assisted by the holy Ghost never to propose as divine truth any thing not revealed by God and that Oâission to define points not sufficiently discussed is laudable but Commission in propounding things not revealed inexcusable into which precipitation our Saviour Christ never hath nor never will permit his Church to fall 13 Nay to limit the generall promises of our Saviour Christ made to his Church to points only fundamentall namely that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her and that the holy Ghost shall lead her into all truth c. is to destroy all faith For we may by that doctrine and manner of interpreting the Scripture limit the Infallibility of the Apostles words preaching only to Points fundamentall and whatsoever generall Texts of Scripture shall be alleadged for their infallibility they may by D. Potter example be explicated and restrained to points fundamentall By the same reason it may be farther affirmed that the Apostles and other writers of Canonicall Scripture were endued with infallibility only in setting down points fundamentall For if it be urged that all Scripture is divinely inspired that it is the word of God c. D. Potter hath afforded you a ready answer to say that Scripture is inspired c. only in those parts or parcels wherein it delivereth fundamentall points In this manner D. Fotherby saith The Apostle twice in one Chapter professed that this he speaketh and not the Lord He is very well content that where he lacks the warrant of the expresse word of God that part of his writings should be esteemed as the word of man D. Potter also speaks very dangerously towards this purpose Sect. 5. where he endeavoureth to prove that the infallibility of the Church is limited to points fundamentall because as Nature so God is neither defective in necessaries nor lavish in supersâuities Which reason doth likewise prove that the infallibility of Scripture and of the Apostles must be restrained to points necessary to salvation that so God be not accused as defective in necessaries or lavish in supersâuities In the same place he hath a discourse much tending to this purpose where speaking of these words The Spirit shall lead you into all truth and shall abide with you for ever he saith Though that promise was directly and primarily made to the Apostles who had the Spirits guidance in a more high and absolute manner then any since them yet it was made to themfor the behoof of the Church and is verified in the Church Vniversall But all truth is not simply all but all of some kind To be led into all truths is to know and believe them And who is so simple as to be ignorant that there are many millions of truths in Nature History Divinity whereof the Church is simply ignorant How many truths lye unrevealea in the infinite treasury of Gods wisdome wherewith the Church is not acquainted c. so then the truth it selfe enforceth us to understand by all truths not simply all not all which God can possibly reveal but all pertaining to the substance of faith all truth absolutely necessary to salvation Mark what he saith That promise The spirit shall lead you into all truth was made directly to the Apostles and is verified in the universall Church but by all truth is not understood simply all but all apperraining to the substance of faith and absolutely necessary to salvation Doth it not hence follow that the promise made to the Apostles of being led into all truth is to be understood only of all truth absolutely necessary to salvation and consequently their preaching and writing were not infallible in points not fundamentall or if the Apostles were infallible in all things which they proposed as divine truth the like must be affirmed of the Church because D. Potter teacheth the said promise to be verified in the Church And as he limits the aforesaid words to points fundamentall so may he restrain what other text soever that can be brought for the universall infallibility of the Apostles or Scriptures So he may and so he must least otherwise he receive this answer of his own from himselfe How many truths lye unrevealed in the infinite treasurie of Gods wisdome wherewith the Church is not acquainted And therefore to verify such generall sayings they must be understood of truths absolutely necessary to Salvation Are not these fearfull consequences And yet D. Potter will never be able to avoid them till he come to acknowledge the infallibility of the Church in all points by her proposed as divine truths and thus it is universally true that she is lead into all truth in regard that our Saviour never permits her to define or teach any falshood 14 All that with any colour may be replied to this argument is That if once we call any one Book or parcell of Scripture in question although for the matter it contain no fundamentall error yet it is of great importance and fundamentall by reason of the consequence because if once we doubt of one Book received for Canonicall the whole canon is made doubtfull and uncertain and therefore the infallibility of Scripture must be universall and not confined within compasse of points fundamentall 15 I answere For the thing it selfe it is very true that if I doubt of any one parcell of Scripture received for such I may doubt of all and thence by the same parity I inferre that if we did doubt of the Churches infallibility in some points we could not believe her in any one and consequently not in propounding Canonicall Bookes of any other points fundamentall or not fundamentall which thing being most absurd and withall most impious we must take away the ground thereof and believe that she cannot erre in any point great or small and so this reply doth much more strengthen what we intend to prove Yet I adde that Protestants cannot make use of this reply with any good coherence to this their distinction and some other doctrines which they defend Por if D. Potter can tell what points in particular be fundamentall as in
the totall deniall of Christ will not exclude one from being a member of the true Church S. Hilary maketh it of equall necessity for Salvation that we believe our Saviour to be true God and true Man saying This manner of Confession we are to hold that we remember him to be the Sonne of God and the Sonne of Man because the one without the other can giue no hope of Salvatioâ And yet D. Potter saith of the aforesaid doctrine of Hooker and Morton The Reader may be pleased to approue or reject it as he shall finde cause And in another place he sheweth so much good liking of this doctrine that he explicateth and proveth the Churches perpetuall Visibility by it And in the second Edition of his book he is carefull to declare and illustrate it more at large then he had done before howsoever this sufficiently sheweth that they haue no certainty what points be fundamentall As for the Arians in particular the Author whom D. Potter cites for a moderate Catholique but âs indeed a plain Heretique or rather Atheist Lucian like jesting at all Religion placeth Arianisme among fundamentall Errours But contrarily an English Protestant Divine masked under the name of Irenaeus Philalethes in a little Book in Latine intituled Dissertatio de pace concordia Ecclesiae endeavoureth to proue that even the deniall of the blessed Trinity may stand with salvation Divers Protestants haue taught that the Roman Church erreth in fundamentall points But D. Potter and others teach the contrary which could not happen if they could agree what be fundamentall points You brand the Donatists with the note of an Errour in the matter and the nature of it properly hereticall because they taught that the Church remained only with them in the part of Donatââ And yet many Protestants are so farre from holding that Doctrine to be a fundamentall errour that themselves goe further and say that for divers ages before Luther there was no ârue Visible Church at all It is then too too apparent that you haue no agreement in specifying what be fundamentall points neither haue you any meanes to determine what they be for if you have any such meanes why doe you not agree You tell us the Creed containes all points fundamentallâ which although it were true yet you see it serves not to bring you to a particular knowledge agreement in such points And no wonder For besides what I haue said already in the begining of this Chapter and am to deliver more at large in the next after so much labour and spent paper to prove that the Creed containes all fundamentall points you conclude It remaines very probable that the Creed is the perfect Summary of those fundamentall truths whereof consists the Vââty of faith and of the Catholique Church Very probable Then according to all good Logick the contrary may remain very probable and so all remain as full of uncertainty as before The whole Rule say you the sole Iudge of your faith must be Scripture Scripture doth indeed deliver divine Truths but seldome doth qualify them or declare whether they be or be not absolutely necessary to salvation You fall heavy upon Charity Mistaken because he demands a particular Catalogue of fundamentall points which yet you are obliged in conscience to doe if you be able For without such a Catalogue no man can be assured whether or no he haue faith sufficient to Salvation And therefore take it not in ill part if we againe and againe demand such a Catalogue And that you may see we proceed fairely I will performe on our behalfe what we request of you and doe here deliver a Catalogue wherein are comprized all points by us taught to be necessary to Salvation in these words We are obliged under paine of damnation to believe whatsoever the Catholique visible Church of Christ proposeth as revealed by Almighty God If any be of another minde all Catholiques denounce him to be no Catholique But enough of this And I go forward with the Infallibility of the Church in all points 20 For euen out of your own doctrine that the Church cannot erre in points necessary to salvation any wise man will inferre that it behoves all who haue care of their soules not to forsake her in any one point 1. Because they are assured that although her doctrine proved not to be true in some point yet even according to D. Potter the errour cannot be fundamentall nor destructiue of faith and salvation neither can they be accused of any least imprudence in erring if it were possible with the universall Church Secondly since she is under paine of eternall damnation to be believed and obeyed in some things wherein confessedly she is endued with infallibilitie I cannot in wisedome suspect her credit in matters of lesse moment For who would trust another in matters of highest consequence and be affraid to rely on him in things of lesse moment Thirdly since as I said we are undoubtedly obliged not to forsake her in the chiefest or fundamentall points and that there is no Rule to know precisely what and how many those fundamentall points be I cannot without hazard of my soule leaue her in any one point least perhaps that point or points wherein I forsake her proue indeed to be fundamentall and necessary to salvation Fourthly that visible Church which cannot erre in points fundamentall doth without distinction propound all her Definitions concerning matters of faith to be believed under Anathema's or Curses esteeming all those who resist to be deservedly cast out of her Communion and holding it a point necessary to salvation that we believe she cannot erre wherein if she speak true then to deny any one point in particular which she defineth or to affirm in generall that she may erre puts a man into state of damnation Whereas to belieue her in such points as are not necessary to salvation cannot endanger salvation and likewise to remain in her Communion can bring no great harme because she cannot maintain any damnable errour or practise but to be divided from her she being Christs Catholique Church is most certainly damnable Fifthly the true Church being in lawfull and certain possession of Superiority and Power to command and require Obedience from all Christians in some things I cannot without grievous sinne withdraw my obedience in any one unlesse I evidently know that the thing commanded comes not within the compasse of those things to which her Power extendeth And who can better inform me how far God's Church can proceed then Gods Church her selfe Or to what Doctour can the Children and Schollers with greater reason and more security fly for direction then to the Mother and appointed Teacher of all Christians In following her I shall sooner be excused then incleaving to any particular Sâct or Person teaching or applying Scriptures against her doctrine or interpretation Sixtly the fearfull examples of innumerable persons who forsaking the
Church upon pretence of her errors haue failed even in fundamentall points and suffered shipwrack of their Salvation ought to deter all Christians from opposing her in any one doctrine or practises as to omit other both ancient and modern heresies we see that divers chiefe Protestants pretending to reform the corruptions of the Church are come to affirm that for many Ages she erred to death and wholy perished which D. Potter cannot deny to be a fundamentall Errour against that Article of our Creed I believe the Catholique Church as he aââirmeth it of the Donatists because they confined the universall Church within Africa or some other smal tract of soile Least therefore I may fall into some fundamentall errour it is most safe for me to belieue all the Decrees of that Church which cannot errâ fundamentally especially if we adde That according to the Doctrine of Catholique Divines one errour in faith whether it be for the matter it selfe great or small dâstroies faith as is shewed in Charity Mistaken and consequently to accuse the Church of any one Errour is to affirm that she lost all faith and erred damnably which very saying is damnable because it leaues Christ no visible Church on earth 21 To all these arguments I adde this demonstration D. Potter teacheth that there neither âas nor can be any iust cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more then from Christ himselfe But if the Church of Christ can erre in some points of faith men not only may but must forsake her in those unlesse D. Potter will haue them to believe one thing and professe another and if such errours and corruptions should fall out to be about the Churches Liturgy publique Service administration of Sacraments and the like they who perceive such errours must of necessity leaue her externall Communion And therefore if once we grant the Church may erre iâ followeth that men may and ought to forsake her which is against D. Potters own words or else they are inexcusable who left the Communion of the Roman Church under pretence of Errours which they grant not to be fundumentall And if D. Potter think good to answer this argument he must remember his own doctrine to be that even the Catholique Church may erre in points not fundamentall 22 Another argument for the universall Infallibility of the Church I take out of D. Potters own words If saith he we did not dissent in some opinions from the present Roman Church we could not agree with the Church truly Catholique These words cannot be true unlesse he presuppose that the Church truly Catholique cannot erre in points not fundamentall For if she may erre in such points the Roman Church which he affirmeth to erre only in points not fundamentall may agree with the Church truly Catholique if she likewise may erre in points not fundamentall Therefore either he must acknowledge a plain contradiction in his own words or else must grant that the Church truly Catholique cannot erre in points not fundamentall which is what we intended to proue 23 If Words cannot perswade you that in all Controversies you must rely upon the infallibility of the Church at least yeeld your assent to Deeds Hitherto I haue produced Arguments drawn as it were ex naturâ rei from the Wisdome and Goodnesse of God who cannot faile to haue left some infallible meanes to determine Controversies which as we haue proved can be no other except a Visible Church infallible in all her Definitions But because both Catholiques and Protestants receive holy Scripture we may thence also proue the infallibility of the Church in all matters which concern Faith and Religion Our Saviour speaketh clearly The gates of Hell shall not prevail against her And I will aske my Father and he will giue you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever the Spirit of truth And But when he the Spirit of truth commeth he shall teach you all truth The Apostle saith that the Church is the Pillar and ground of Truth And He gaue some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the Saints unto the work of the Ministery unto the edifying of the body of Christ untill we meet all into the unity of faith and knowleâge of the Sonne of God into a perfect man into the measure of the age of the âulnesse of Christ that now we be not Children wavering and carried about with every winde of doctrine in the wickednesse of men in craftinesse to the circumvention of Errour All which words seem cleerly enough to proue that the Church is universally infallible without which unity of faith could not be conserved against every winde of Doctrine And yet Doctor Potter limits these promises and priviledges to fundamentall points in which he grants the Church cannot erre I urge the words of Scripture which are universall and doe not mention any such restraint I alleadge that most reasonable and receaved Rule that Scripture is to be understood literally as it soundeth unlesse some manifest absurdity force us to the contrary But all will not serue to accord our different interpretations In the mean time divers of Doctor Potters Brethren step in and reject his limitation as over large and somewhat tasting of Papistry And therefore they restrain the mentioned Texts either to the Infallibility which the Apostles and other sacred Writers had in penning of Scripture or else to the invisible Church of the Elect and to them not absolutely but with a double restriction that they shall not fall damnably and finally and other men haue as much right as these to interpose their opinion and interpretation Behold we are three at debate about the selfe same words of Scripture We conferre divers places and Text We consult the Originalls We examine Translations We endeavour to pray heartily We professe to speak sincerely To seek nothing but truth and salvation of our own soules and that of our Neighbours and finally we use all those meanes which by Protestants themselues are prescribed for finding out the true meaning of Scripture Neverthelesse we neither doe or haue any possible meanes to agree as long as we are left to our selues and when we should chance to be agreed the doubt would still remain whether the thing it selfe be a fundamentall point or no And yet it were great impiety to imagine that God the Lover of soules hath left no certaine infallible meanes to decide both this and all other differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion Our remedy therefore in these contentions must be to consult and heare God's Visible Church with submissiue acknowledgment of her Power and Infallibility in whatsoever she proposeth as a revealed truth according to that divine advice of S. Augustine in these words If at length thou seem to be sufficiently tossed and hast a desire to put an end to
cannot know any thing Fundamentall or not Fundamentall For how can I come to know that there was such a man as Christ that he taught such Doctrine that he and his Apostles did such miracles in confirmation of it that the Scripture is Gods word unlesse I be taught it So then the Church is though not a certain Foundation and proof of my Faith yet a necessary introduction to it 39 But the Churches infallible direction extending only to Fundamentalls unlesse I know them before I goe to learn of her I may be rather deluded then instructed by her The reason and connexion of this consequence I fear neither I nor you doe well understand And besides I must tell you you are too bold in taking that which no man grants you that the Church is an infallible direction in Fundamentalls For if she were so then must we not only learn Fundamentalls of her but also learn of her what is fundamentall and take all for fundamentall which she delivers to be such In the performance whereof if I knew any one Church to be infallible I would quickly be of that Church But good Sir you must needs doe us this favour to be so acute as to distinguish between being infallible in fundamentalls and being an infallible guide in fundamentalls That she shall be alwaies a Church infallible in fundamentalls we easily grant for it comes to no more but this that there shall be alwaies a Church But that there shall be alwaies such a Church which is an infallible Guide in fundamentalls this we deny For this cannot be without setling a known infallibility in some one known society of Christians as the Greek or the Roman or some other Church by adhering to which Guide men might be guided to believe aright in all Fundamentalls A man that were destitute of all meanes of communicating his thoughts to others might yet in himselfe and to himselfe be infallible but he could not be a Guide to others A man or a Church that were invisible so that none could know how to repaire to it for direction could not be an infallible guide and yet he might be in himselfe infallible You see then there is a wide difference between these two and therefore I must beseech you not to confound them nor to take the one for the other 40 But they that know what points are Fundamentall otherwise then by the Churches authority learn not of the Church Yes they may learn of the Church that the Scripture is the word of God and from the Scripture that such points are fundamentall others are not so and consequently learn even of the Church even of your Church that all is not fundamentall nay all is not true which the Church teacheth to be so Neither doe I see what hinders but a man may learn of a Church how to confure the errors of that Church which taught him as well as of my Master in Physick or the Mathematicks I may learn those rules and principles by which I may confute my Masters erroneous conclusions 41 But you aske If the Church be not an infallible teacher why are we commanded to hear to seek to obey the Church I Answer For commands to seek the Church I have not yet met with any and I believe you if you were to shew them would be your selfe to seek But yet if you could produce some such we might seek the Church to many good purposes without supposing her a Guide infallible And then for hearing and obeying the Church I would fain know whether none may be heard and obeyed but those that are infallible Whether particular Churches Governors Pastors Parents be not to be heard and obeyed Or whether all these be Infallible I wonder you will thrust upon us so often these worne out-objections without taking notice of their Answers 42 Your Argument from S. Austine's first place is a fallacy Adicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter If the whole Church practise any of these things matters of order and decency for such only there he speaks of to dispute whether that ought to be done is insolent madnesse And from hence you inferre If the whole Church practise any thing to dispute whether it ought to be done is insolent madnesse As if there were no difference between any thing and any of these things Or as if I might not esteem it pride and folly to contradict and disturbe the Church for matter of order pertaining to the time and place and other circumstances of Gods worship and yet account it neither pride nor folly to goe about to reforme some errors which the Church hath suffered to come in and to vitiate the very substance of Gods worship It was a practise of the whole Church in S. Austines time and esteem'd an Apostolique Tradition even by Saint Austine himself That the Eucharist should be administred to infants Tell me Sir I beseech you Had it been insolent madnesse to dispute against this practise or had it not If it had how insolent and mad are yoâ that have not only disputed against it but utterly abolished it If it had not then as I say you must understand S. Austines words not simply of all things but as indeed he himselfe restrained them of these things of matter of Order Decency and Vniformity 43 In the next place you tell us out of him That that which has been alwaies kept is most rightly esteem'd to come from the Apostles Very right and what then Therefore the Church cannot erre in defining of Controversies Sir I beseech you when you write again doe us the favour to write nothing but syllogismes for I find it still an extream trouble to find out the concealed propositions which are to connect the parts of your enthymemes As now for example I professe unto you I am at my wits end and have done my best endeavour to find some glue or sodder or cement or chaine or thred or anything to tye this antecedent and this consequent together and at length am inforced to give it over and cannot doe it 44 But the Doctrines that Infants are to be baptized and those that are baptized by Heretiques are not to be re-baptized are neither of them to be proved by Scripture And yet according to S. Austine they are true Doctrines and we may be certain of them upon the Authority of the Church which we could not be unless the Church were Infallible therefore the Church is infallible I answer that there is no repugnance but we may be certain enough of the Vniversall Traditions of the ancient Church such as in S. Austin's account these were which here are spoken of and yet not be certain enough of the definitions of the present Church Vnlesse you can shew which I am sure you can never doe that the Infallibility of the present Church was alwaies a Tradition of the ancient Church Now your main businesse is to prove the present Church infallible not so much in consigning ancient
knowledge or belief of it though it were a profitable thing yet it was not necessary I hope you will not challenge such authority over us as to oblige us to impossibilities to doe that which you cannot doe your selves It is therefore requisite that you make this command possible to be obeyed before you require obedience unto it Are you able then to instruct us so well as to be fit to say unto us Now ye know what withholdeth Or doe you your selves know that ye may instruct us Can yee or dare you say this or this was this hindrance which S. Paul here meant and all men under pain of damnatioÌ are to believe it Or if you cannot as I am certain you cannot goe then vaunt your Church for the only Watchfull Faithfull Infallible keeper of the Apostles Traditions when here this very Tradition which here in particular was deposited with the Thessalonians and the Primitive Church you have utterly lost it so that there is no footstep or print of it remaining which with Divine faith we may rely upon Blessed therefore be the goodnesse of God who seeing that what was not written was in such danger to be lost took order that what was necessary should be written Saint Chrysostomes counsell therefore of accounting the Churches Traditions worthy of belief we are willing to obey And if you can of any thing make it appear that it is Tradition we will seek no farther But this we say withall that we are perswaded you cannot make this appear in any thing but only the Canon of Scripture and that there is nothing now extant and to be known by us which can put in so good plea to be the unwritten word of God as the unquestioned Books of Canonicall Scripture to be the written word of God 47 You conclude this Parag. with a sentence of S. Austin's who saies The Church doth not approve nor dissemble nor doe these things which are against Faith or good life and from hence you conclude that it never hath done so nor ever can doe so But though the argumâââ hold in Logick à non posse ad non esse yet I never heard that it would hold back again à no nesse ad non posse The Church cannot doe this therefore it does it not followes with good consequence but the Church does not this therefore it shall never doe it nor can never doe it this I believe will hardly follow In the Epistle next before to the same Ianuarius writing of the same matter he hath these words It remaines that the things you enquire of must be of that third kind of things which are different in divers places Let every one therefore doe that which he findes done in the Church to which he comes for none of them is against Faith or good manners And why doe you not inferre from hence that no particular Church can bring up any Custome that is against faith or good manners Certainly this consequence has as good reason for it as the former If a man say of the Church of England what S. Austine of the Church that she neither approves nor dissembles nor does any thing against faith or good manners would you collect presently that this man did either make or think the Church of England infallible Furthermore it is observable out of this and the former Epistle that this Church which did not as S. Austine according to you thought approve or dissemble or doe any thing against faith or good life did yet tolerate and dissemble vain superstitions and humane presumptions and suffer all places to be full of them and to be exacted as nay more severely then the commandements of God himselfe This S. Austine himselfe professeth in this very Epistle This saith he I doe infinitely grieve at that many most wholsome precepts of the divine Scripture are little regarded and in the mean time all is so full of so many presumptions that he is more grievously found fault with who during his octaves toucheth the earth with his naked foot then he that shall bury his soul in drunkennesse Of these he saies that they were neither contained in Scripture decreed by Councells nor corroborated by the Custome of the Vniversall Church And though not against faith yet unprofitable burdens of Christian liberty which made the condition of the Iewes more tolerable then that of Christians And therefore he professes of them Approbare non possum I cannot approve them And ubi facult as tribuitur resecanda existimo I think they are to be cut off wheresoever we have power Yet so deeply were they rooted and spread so farre through the indiscreet devotion of the people alwaies more prone to superstition then true piety and through the connivence of the Governors who should have strangled them at their birth that himselfe though he grieved at them and could not allow them yet for fear of offence he durst not speak against them multa hujusmodi propter nonnuâaruÌ vel sanctaruÌ vel turbulentarum personarum scandala devitanda liberius improbare noâ audeo Many of these things for fear of scandalizing many holy persons or provoking those that are turbulent I dare not freely dâsallow Nay the Catholique Church it selfe did see and dissemble and tolerate them for these are the things of which he presently saies after the Church of God and you will have him speak of the true Catholique Church placed between Chaffe Tares tolerates many things Which was directly against the command of the holy spirit given the Church by S. Paul To stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free and not to suffer her selfe to be brought in bondage to these servile burdens Our Saviour tels the Scribes and Pharises that in vain they worshipped God teaching for Doctrines mens Commandements For that laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things Certainly that which S. Austine complaines of as the generall fault of Christians of his time was paralell to this Multa saith he quae in divinis libris saluberrima praecepta sunt minus curantur This I suppose I may very well render in our Saviours words The commandements of God are laid aside and then tam multis presumptionibus sic plena sunt omnia all things or all places are so full of so many presumptions and those exacted with such severity nay with Tyranny that he was more severely censur'd who in the time of his Octaves touched the earth with his naked feet then hee which drâwned and buried his soul in drink Certainly if this be not to teach for Doctrines mens Commandements I know not what is And therefore these superstitious Christians might be said to worship God in vain as well as Scribes and Phraises And yet great variety of superstitions of this kind were then already spread over the Church being different in divers places This is plain from these words
such a one damnable But if I be guilty of none of these faults but be desirous to know the Truth and diligent in seeking it and advise not at all with flesh bloud about the choice of my opinions but only with God that Reason that he hath given me if I be thus qualifi'd and yet through humane infirmity fall into errour that errour cannot be damnable Again the party erring may be conceived either to dye with contrition for all his sins known and unknown or without it If he dye without it this errour in it selfe damnable will bee likewise so unto him If he dye with contrition as his errour can bee no impediment but he may his errour though in it selfe damnable to him according to your doctrine will not proue so And therefore some of those Authors whom you quote speaking of Errours whereunto men were betrayed or wherein they were kept by their Fault or Vice or Passion as for the most part men are Others speaking of them as errours simply and purely involuntary and the effects of humane infirmity some as they were retracted by Contrition to use your own phrase others as they were not no marvell though they haue past upon them some a heavier some a milder some an absolving some a condemning sentence The best of all these errours which here you mention having malice enough too frequently mixed with it to sink a man deep enough into hell and the greatest of them all being according to your Principles either no fault at all or very Veniall where there is no malice of the will conjoyn'd with it And if it be yet as the most malignant poyson will not poison him that receives with it a more powerfull Antidote so I am confident your own Doctrine will force you to confesse that whosoever dies with Faith in Christ and Contrition for all sinnes known and unknown in which heap all his sinfull errours must be compriz'd can no more be hurt by any the most malignant and pestilent errour then S. Paul by the viper which he shook of into the fire Now touching the necessity of Repentance from dead works and Faith in Christ Iesus the Sonne of God and Saviour of the World they all agree and therefore you cannot deny but they agree about all that is simply necessary Moreover though if they should goe about to choose out of Scripture all these Propositions Doctrines which integrate and make up the body of Christian Religion peradventure there would not be so exact agreement amongst them as some say there was between the 70. Interpreters in translating the Old Testament yet thus far without controversie they doe all agree that in the Bible all these things are contained and therefore that whosoever does truly and sincerely believe the Scripture must of necessity either in hypothesi or at least in thesi either formally or at least virtually either explicitely or at least implicitely either in Act or at least in preparation of minde belieue all things Fundamentall It being not Fundamentall nor required of Almighty God to belieue the true sense of Scripture in all places but only that we should endeavour to doe so be prepar'd in minde to doe so whensoever it shall be sufficiently propounded to us Suppose a man in some disease were prescribed a medicine consisting of twenty ingredients and he advising with Physitians should finde them differing in opinion about it some of them telling him that all the ingredients were absolutely necessary some that only some of them were necessary the rest only profitable and requisite ad melius esse lastly some that some only were necessary some profitable and the rest superfluous yet not hurtfull Yet all with one accord agreeing in this That the whole receipt had in it all things necessary for the recovery of his health and that if hee made use of it hee should infallibly finde it successefull what wise man would not think they agreed sufficiently for his direction to the recovery of his health lust so these Protestant Doctors with whose discords you make such Tragedies agreeing in Thesi thus far that the Scripture evidently containes all things necessary to Salvation both for matter of Faith and of practise and that whosoever believes it and endeavours to finde the true sense of it and to conform his life unto it shall certainly performe all things necessary to salvation and undoubtedly be saved agreeing I say thus farre what matters it for the direction of men to salvation though they differ in opinion touching what points are absolutely necessary and what not What Errours absolutely repugnant to Salvation and what not Especially considering that although they differ about the Question of the necessity of these Truths yet for the most part they agree in this that Truths they are and profitable at least though not simply necessary And though they differ in the Question whether the contrary Errours be destructive of salvation or no yet in this they consent that Errours they are hurtful to Religion though not destructive of Salvation Now that which God requires of us is this That we should belieue the Doctrines of the Gospell to bee Truths not all necessary Truths for all are not so and consequently the repugnant Errours to be falshoods yet not all such falshoods as unavoidably draw with them damnation upon all that hold them for all doe not so 53 Yea but you say it is very requisite we should agree upon a particular Catalogue of Fundamentall points for without such a Catalogue no man can be assured whether or no he hath faith sufficient to salvation This I utterly deny as a thing evidently false and I wonder you should content your selfe magisterially to say so without offering any proof of it I might much more justly think it enough barely to deny it without refutation but I will not Thus therefore I argue against it Without being able to make a Catalogue of Fundamentals I may be assured of the Truth of this Assertion if it be true That the Scripture containes all necessary points of faith and know that I belieue explicitely all that is exprest in Scripture and implicitely all that is contained in them Now he that belieues all this must of necessity believe all things necessary Therefore without being able to make a Catalogue of Fundamentals I may be assured that I belieue all things necessary and consequently that my faith is sufficient I said of the truth of this Assertion if it be true Because I will not here enter into the Question of the truth of it it being sufficient for my present purpose that it may be true and may be believed without any dependance upon a Catalogue of Fundamentalls And therefore if this be all your reason to demand a particular Catalogue of Fundamentalls we cannot but think your demand unreasonable Especially having your selfe expressed the cause of the difficulty of it and that is Because Scripture doth deliver Divine Truths
but seldom qualifies them or declares whether they be or be not absolutely necessary to salvation Yet not so seldome but that out of it I could giue you an abstract of the Essentiall part of Christianity if it were necessary but I haue shewed it not so by confuting your reason pretended for the necessity of it at this time I haue no leasure to doe you curtesies that are so troublesome to my selfe Yet thus much I will promise that when you deliver a particular Catalogue of your Church Proposals with one hand you shall receiue a particular Catalogue of what I conceiue Fundamentall with the other For as yet I see no such faire proceeding as you talke of nor any performance on your own part of that which so clamorously you require on ours For as for the Catalogue which heâe you haue given us in saying You are obliged under pain of damnation to belieue whatsoever the Catholique visible Church of Christ proposeth as revealed by Almighty God it is like a covey of one Patridg or a flock of one sheep or a Fleet compos'd of one ship or an Army of one man The Author of Charity mistaken demands a particular Catalogue of Fundamentall points And We say you again and again demand such a Catalogue And surely if this one Proposition which here you think to stop our mouthes with be a Catalogue yet at least such a Catalogue it is not and therefore as yet you haue not perform'd what you require For if to set down such a PropositioÌ wherein are compriz'd all points taught by us to be necessary to salvation will serue you insteed of a Catalogue you shall haue Catalogues enough As we are oblig'd to belieue all under pain of damnation which God commands us to belieue There 's one Catalogue We are oblig'd under pain of damnation to belieue all whereof we may be sufficiently assured that Christ taught it his Apostles his Apostles the Church There 's another We are oblig'd under pain of damnation to belieue Gods word all contained in it to be true There 's a third If these generalities will not satisfie you but you will be importuning us to tell you in particular what they are which Christ taught his Apostles and his Apostles the Church what points are contained in Gods word Then I beseech you doe us reason and giue us a particular and exact Inventory of all your Church Proposalls without leaving out or adding any such a one which all the Doctors of your Church will subscribe to if you receiue not then a Catalogue of Fundamentals I for my part will giue you leaue to proclaim us Banckrupts 54 Besides this deceitfull generality of your Catalogue as you call it another main fault we finde with it that it is extreamly ambiguous and therefore to draw you out of the clouds giue me leaue to propose some Questions to you concerning it I would know therefore whether by believing you mean explicitely or implicitely If you mean implicitely I would know whether your Churches infallibility be under pain of damnation to be believed explicitely or no Whether any other point or points besides this be under the same penalty to be believed explicitely or no And if any what they bee I would know what you esteem the Proposalls of the Catholike visible Church In particular whether the Decree of a Pope ex Cathedra that is with an intent to oblige all Christians by it be a sufficient and an obliging proposall Whether men without danger of damnation may examine such a Decree and if they think they have just cause refuse to obey it Whether the Decree of a Councell without the Popes confirmation be such an obliging proposall or no Whether it be so in case there be no Pope or in case it be doubtfull who is Pope Whether the Decree of a generall Councell confirm'd by the Pope be such a Proposall and whether he be an Heretique that thinks otherwise Whether the Decree of a particular Councell confirm'd by the Pope be such a proposall Whether the Generall uncondemn'd practise of the Church for some ages be such a sufficient Proposition Whether the consent of the most eminent Fathers of any age agreeing in the affirmation of any doctrine not contradicted by any of their Contemporaries be a sufficient Proposition Whether the Fathers testifying such or such a doctrine or practise to be Tradition or to bee the Doctrine or practise of the Church be a sufficient assurance that it is so Whether we be bound under pain of damnation to belieue every Text of the vulgar Bible now authoriz'd by the Roman Church to bee the true translation of the Originalls of the Prophets and Evangelists and Apostles without any the least alteration Whether they that lived wheÌ the Bible of Sixtus was set forth were bound under pain of damnation to believe the same of that And if not of that of what Bible they were bound to believe it Whether the Catholique visible Church be alwaies that Society of Christians which adheres to the Bishop of Rome Whether every Christian that hath ability and oportunity be not bound to endeavour to know explicitely the Proposalls of the Church Whether Implicite Faith in the Churches Veracity will not saue him that Actually and Explicitely disbelieves some doctrine of the Church not knowing it to be so and Actually belieues some damnable Heresie as that God has the shape of a man Whether an ignorant man be bound to believe any point to be decreed by the Church when his Priest or Ghostly Father assures him it is so Whether his Ghostly Father may not erre in telling him so and whether any man can be oblig'd under pain of damnation to belieue an Errour Whether he be bound to believe such a thing defined when a number of Priests perhaps ten or twenty tell him it is so And what assurance he can haue that they neither erre nor deceive him in this matter Why Implicite Faith in Christ or the Scriptures should not suffice for a mans salvation as well as implicit faith in the Church Whether when you say Whatsoever the Church proposeth you meane all that ever she propos'd or that only which she now proposeth and whether shee now proposeth all that ever she did propose Whether all the Books of Canonicall Scripture were sufficiently declared to the Church to be so and propos'd as such by the Apostles And if not from whom the Church had this declaration afterwards If so whether all men ever since the Apostles time were bound under paine of damnation to believe the Epistle of S. Iames and the Epistle to the Hebrews to be Canonicall at least not to disbelieve it believe the contrary Lastly why it is not sufficient for any mans salvation to use the best meanes he can to inform his conscience and to follow the direction of it To all these demands when you haue given faire and ingenuous answers you shall heare further from me 55 Ad
§ 20. At the first entrance into this Parag. from our own Doctrine That the Church cannot erre in Points necessary it is concluded if we are wise we must for sake it is nothing least we should for sake it in something necessary To which I answer First that the supposition as you understand it is falsely impos'd upon us and as we understand it will doe you no service For when we say that there shall be a Church alwaies some where or other unerring in Fundamentalls our meaning is but this that there shall be alwaies a Church to the very being whereof it is repugnant that it should erre in fundamentals for if it should doe so it would want the very essence of a Church and therefore cease to be a Church But we never annexed this privilege to any one Church of any one Denomination as the Greek or the Roman Church which if we had done and set up some setled certain Society of Christians distinguishable from all others by adhering to such a Bishop for our Guide in fundamentals then indeed and then only might you with some colour though with no certainty haue concluded that we could not in wisdome forsake this Church in any point for feare of forsaking it in a necessary point But now that we say not this of any one determinate Church which alone can perform the office of Guide or Director but indefinitely of the Church meaning no more but this That there shall be alwaies in some place or other some Church that erres not in Fundamentalls will you conclude from hence that we cannot in wisdome forsake this or that the Roman or the Greek Church for feare of erring in Fundamentalls 56 Yea but you may say for I will make the best I can of all your Arguments That this Church thus unerring in Fundamentalls when Luther arose was by our confession the Roman and therefore wee ought not in wisdome to haue departed from it in any thing I answer First that we confesse no such thing that the Church of Rome was then this Church but only a Part of it and that the most corrupted and most incorrigible Secondly that if by adhering to the church we could haue been thus far secured this Argument had some shew of reason But seeing wee are not warranted thus much by any privilege of that Church that She cannot erre fundamentally but only from Scripture which assures us that she doth erre very haynously collect our hope that the Truths she retaines the practise of them may proue an Antidote to her against the Errors which she maintaines in such Persons as in simplicity of heart follow this Absalom wee should then doe against the light of our conscience and so sinne damnably if we should not abandon the profession of her Errours though not Fundamentall Neither can we thus conclude we may safely hold with the church of Rome in all her points for she cannot erre damnably For this is false she may though perhaps she does not But rather thus These points of Christianity which have in theÌ the nature of Antidotes against the poyson of all sinnes and errours the Church of Rome though otherwise much corrupted still retaines therefore wee hope shee erres not fundamentally but still remaines a Part of the Church But this can be no warrant to us to think with her in all things seeing the very same Scripture which puts us in hope she erres not fundamentally assures us that in many things and those of great moment she erres very grievously And these Errours though to them that believe them wee hope they will not be pernicious yet the professing of them against conscience could not but bring to us certain damnation As for the feare of departing from some fundamentall truths withall while we depart from her errours Happily it might work upon us if adhering to her might secure us from it and if nothing else could But both these are false For first adhering to her in all things cannot secure us from erring in Fundamentals Because though de facto we hope shee does not erre yet we know no privileges she has but she may erre in them herselfe and therefore we had need haue better security hereof then her bare Authority Then secondly without dependance on her at all we may be secured that we doe not erre fundamentally I meane by believing al those things plainly set down in Scripture wherein all things necessary and most things profitable are plainly delivered Suppose I were travelling to London and knew two waies thither the one very safe and convenient the other very inconvenient and dangerous but yet a way to London and that I overtook a Passenger on the way who himselfe believed and would fain perswade me there was no other way but the worse and would perswade me to accompany him in it because I confessed his way though very inconvenient yet a way so that going that way we could not faile of our journies end by the consent of both parties but he believed my way to be none at all therefore I might justly feare least out of a desire of leaving the worst way I left the true and the only way If now I should not bee more secure upon my own knowledge then frighted by this fallacy would you not beg me for a fool Iust so might you think of us if we would bee frighted out of our own knowledge by this bugbeare For the only the main reason why we believe you not to erre in Fundamentalls is your holding the Doctrines of faith in Christ and Repentance which knowing we hold as well as you notwithstanding our departure from you we must needs know that we doe not erre in Fundamentalls as well as we know that you doe not erre in some Fundamentals therefore cannot possibly feare the contrary Yet let us be more liberall to you and grant that which can never be proved that God had said in plain tearmes The Church of Rome shall never destroy the Foundation but with all had said that it might and would lay much hay and stubble upon it That you should never hold any Errour destructive of salvation but yet many that were prejudiciall to Edification I demand might we haue dispensed with our selves in the believing and professing these Errours in regard of the smalnesse of them Or had it not been a damnable sinne to doe so though the Errours in themselves were not damnable Had we not had as plain direction to depart froÌ you in some things profitable as to adhere to you in things necessary In the beginning of your Book when it was for your purpose to haue it so the greatnesse or smalnesse of the matter was not considerable the Evidence of the Revelation was all in all But here wee must erre with you in small things for feare of loosing your direction in greater and for feare of departing too far from you not goe from you at all even where we
see plainly that you haue departed from the Truth 57 Beyond all this I say that this which you say in wisdome we are to doe is not only unlawfull but if we will proceed according to reason impossible I meane to adhere to you in all things having no other ground for it but because you are as we will now suppose Infallible in some things that is in Fundamentalls For whether by skill in Architecture a large structure may be supported by a narrow foundation I know not but sure I am in reason no conclusion can be larger then the Principles on which it is founded And therefore if I consider what I doe and be perswaded that your infallibility is but limited and particular and partiall my adherence upon this ground cannot possibly be Absolute and Vniversall and Totall I am confident that should I meet with such a man amongst you as I am well assur'd there be many that would grant your Church infallible only in fundamentalls which what they are he knowes not and therefore upon this only reason adheres to you in all things I say that I am confident that it may be demonstrated that such a man adheres to you with a fiduciall and certain assent in nothing To make this cleare because at the first hearing it may seem strange give me leave good Sir to suppose you the man and to propose to you a few questions and to give for you such answers to them as upon this ground you must of necessity give were you present with mee First supposing you hold your Church infallible in fundamentalls obnoxious to errour in other things and that you know not what points are fundamentall I demand C. Why doe you believe the doctrine of Transubstantiation K. because the Church hath taught it which is infallible C. What Infallible in all things or only in Fundamentalls K. in Fundamentals only C. Then in other points She may erre K. she may C. and doe you know what Points are Fundamentall what not K. No and therefore I believe her in all things least I should disbelieve her in fundamentalls C. How know you then whether this be a fundamentall Point or no K. I know not C. It may be then for ought you know an unfundamentall point K. yes it may be so C. And in these you said the Church may erre K. yes I did so C. Then possibly it may erre in this K. It may doe so C. Then what certainty have you that it does not erre in it K. None at all but upon this supposition that this is a fundamentall C. And this supposition you are uncertain of K. Yes I told you so before C. And therefore you can have no certainty of that which depends upon this uncertainty saving only a suppositive certainty if it be a fundamentall truth which is in plain English to say you are certain it is true if it be both true and neccessary Verily Sir if you have no better faith then this you are no Catholique K. Good words I pray I am so and God willing will be so C. You mean in outward profession and practise but in belief you are not no more then a Protestant is a Catholique For every Protestant yeelds such a kind of assent to all the proposalls of the Church for surely they believe them true if they be fundamentall truths And therefore you must either believe the Church Infallible in all her proposalls be they foundations or be they superstructions or else you must believe all Fundamentall which shee proposes or else you are no Catholique K. But I have been taught that seeing I believed the Church infallible in points necessary in wisdome I was to believe her in every thing C. That was a pretty plausible inducement to bring you hither but now you are here you must goe farther and believe her infallible in all things or else you were as good goe back again which will be a great disparagement to you and draw upon you both the bitter and implacable hatred of our Part and even with your own the imputation of rashnesse and levitie You see I hope by this time that though a man did believe your Church infallible in Fundamentalls yet he has no reason to doe you the curtesy of believing all her proposalls nay if he be ignorant what these Fundamentalls are he has no certain ground to believe her upon her Authority in any thing And whereas you say it can be no imprudence to erre with the Church I say it may be very great imprudence if the question be Whether we should erre with the present Church or hold true with God Almighty 58 But we are under pain of Damnation to believe and obey her in greater things and therefore cannot in wisdome suspect her credit in matters of lesse moment Ans. I have told you already that this is falsely to suppose that wee grant that in some certain points some certain Church is infallibly assisted and under pain of damnation to be obeyed whereas all that we say is this that in some place or other some Church there shall be which shall retain all necessary Truths Yet if your supposition were true I would not grant your conclusion but with this exception unlesse the matter were past suspicion and apparently certain that in these things I cannot believe God and believe the Church For then I hope you will grant that be the thing of never so little moment were if for instance but that S. Paul left his cloak at Troas yet I were not to gratify the Church so farre as for her sake to disbelieve what God himselfe has revealed 59 Whereas you say Since we are undoubtedly obliged to believe her in Fundamentalls and cannot know precisely what those fundamentalls be we cannot without hazard of our soules leave her in any point I ans First that this argument proceeds upon the same false ground with the former And then that I have told you formerly that you fear where no fear is And though we know not precisely just how much is Fundamentall yet we know that the Scripture containes all Fundamentalls and more too and therefore that in believing that we believe all Fundamentalls and more too And consequently in departing from you can be in no danger of departing from that which may prove a Fundamentall truth For we are well assured that certain Errors can never prove Fundamentall Truths 60 Whereas you adde That that visible Church which cannot erre in Fundamentall propounds all her definitions without distinction to be believed under Anathema's Ans. Again you begge the question supposing untruly that there is any that Visible Church I mean any Visible Church of one Denomination which cannot erre in points Fundamentall Secondly proposing definitions to be believed under Anathema's is no good argument that the Propounders conceive themselves infallible but only that they conceive the Doctrine they condemne is evidently damnable A plain proof hereof is this that particular Councells nay Particular
the Creed So that it is cleere that to make an errour damnable it is not necessary that the matter be of it selfe fundamentall 3 Moreover you cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed it selfe unlesse first you presuppose that the authority of the Church is universally infallible and consequently that it is damnable to oppose her declarations whether they concerne matters great or small contayned or not contained in the Creed This is cleere Because we must receiue the Creed it self upon the credit of the Church without which we could not know that there was any such thing as that which we call the Apostles Creed and yet the arguments whereby you endeavour to prove that the Creed containes all fundamentall points are grounded upon supposition that the Creed was made either by the Apostles themselves or by the Church of their times from them which thing we could not certainly know if the succeeding and still continued Church may erre in her Traditions neither can we be assured whether all fundamentall Articles which you say were out of the Scriptures summed and contracted into the Apostles Creed were faithfully summed and contracted and not one pretermitted altered or mistaken unlesse we undoubtedly know that the Apostles composed the Creed and that they intended to contract all fundamentall points of faith into it or at least that the Church of their times for it seemeth you doubt whether indeed it were composed by the Apostles themselves did understand the Apostles aright and that the Church of their times did intend that the Creed should containe all fundamentall points For if the Church may erre in points not fundamentall may she not also erre in the particulers which I have specified Can you shew it to be a fundamentall point of faith that the Apostles intended to comprize all points of faith necessary to Salvation in the Creed Your self say no more then that it is very probable which is farre from reaching to a fundamentall point of faith Your prohability is grounded upon the Iudgment of Antiquity and even of the Roman Doctours as you say in the same place But if the Catholique Church may erre what certainty can you expect from Antiquity or Doctours Scripture is your totall Rule of faith Cite therefore some Text of Scripture to prove that the Apostles or the Church of their times composed the Creed and composed it with a purpose that it should containe all fundamentall points of faith Which being impossible to be done you must for the Creed it self rely upon the infallibility of the Church 4. Moreover the Creed consisteth not so much in the words as in their sense and meaning All such as pretend to the name of Christians recite the Creed and yet many have erred fundamentally as well against the Articles of the Creed as other points of faith It is then very frivolous to say the Creed containes all fundamentall points without specifying both in what sense the Articles of the Creed be true and also in what true sense they be fundamentall For both these taskes you are to performe who teach that all truth is not fundamentall and you doe but delude the ignorant when you say that the Creed taken in a Catholique sense comprehendeth all points fundamentall because with you all Catholique sense is not fundamentall for so it were necessary to salvation that all Christians should know the whole Scripture wherein every least point hath a Catholique sense Or if by Catholique sense you understand that sense which is so universally to be knowne and believed by all that whosoever failes therein cannot be saved you trifle and say no more then this All points of the Creed in a sense necessary to salvation are necessary to salvation Or All points fundamentall are fundamentall After this manner it were an easie thing to make many trve Prognostications by saying it will certainly raine when it raineth You say the Creed was opened and explained in some parts in the Creeds of Nice c. but how shall we understand the other parts not explained in those Creeds 5. For what Article in the Creed is more fundamentall or may seem more cleere then that wherein we believe IESVS CHRIST to be the Mediatour Redeemer and Saviour of mankind and the founder and foundation of a Catholique Church expressed in the Creed And yet about this Article how many different doctrines are there not only of old Heretiques as Arius Nestorius Eutiches c. but also of Protestants partly against Catholiques and partly against one another For the said maine Article of Christ's being the only Saviour of the world c. according to different senses of disagreeing Sects doth involve these and many other such questions That Faith in IESVS CHRIST doth justifie alone That Sacraments have no efficency in Iustification That Baptisme doth not availe Infants for salvation unlesse they have an Act of faith That there is no Sacerdotall Absolution from sinnes That good works proceeding from Gods grace are not meritorious That there can be no Satisfaction for the temporall punishment due to sinne after the guilt or offence is pardoned No Purgatory No prayers for the dead No Sacrifice of the Masse No Invocation No Mediation or intercession of Saints No inherent Iustice No supreme Pastor yea no Bishop by divine Ordinance No Reall presence no Transubstantiation with diverse others And why Because forsooth these Doctrines derogate from the Titles of Mediator Redeemer Advocate Foundation c. Yea and are against the truth of our Saviours humane nature if we believe diverse Protestants writing against Transubstantiation Let then any judicious man consider whether Doctour Potter or others doe really satisfie when they send men to the Creed for a perfect Catalogue to distinguish points fundamentall from those which they say are not fundamentall If he will speak indeed to some purpose let him say This Article is understood in this sense and in this sense it is fundamentall That other is to be understood in such a meaning yet according to that meaning it is not so fundamentall but that men may disagree and denie it without damnation But it were no policie for any Protestant to deale so plainly 6. But to what end should we use many arguments Even your selfe are forced to limit your owne Doctrine and come to say that the Creed is a perfect Catalogue of fundamentall points taken as it was further opened and explained in some parts by occasion of emergent Heresies in the other Catholique Creeds of Nice Constantinople Ephesus Chalcedon and Athanasius But this explication or restriction overthroweth you assertion For as the Apostles Creed was not to us a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councell nor then till it was declared by another c. so now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation against such emergent errors and so it is not yet nor ever will be of it self alone a particular Catalogue sufficient
Which answer is directly against himselfe and manifestly proues that Baptisme is an Article of faith and yet is not contained in the Apostles Creed neither explicitely nor by any necessary consequence from other Articles expressed therein If to make it an Article of faith be sufficient that it is contained in the Nicene Councell he will finde that Protestants maintain many errours against faith as being repugnant to definitions of Generall Councels as in particular that the very Councell of Nice which saith M. Whitgift is of all wise and learned men reverenced esteemed and imbraced next unto the Scriptures themselues decreed that to those who were chosen to the Ministry unmarried it was not lawfull to take any wife afterward is affirmed by Protestants And your grand Reformer Luther lib. de Conciliis part prima saith that he understand not the Holy Ghost in that Councell For in one Canon it saith that those who haue gelded themselues are not fit to be made Priests in another it forbids them to haue wiues Hath saith he the Holy Ghost nothing to doe in Councells but to binde and load his Ministers with impossible dangerous and unnecessary lawes I forbeare to shew that this very Article I confesse one Baptisme for the Remission of sinnes will be understood by Protestants in a far different sense from Catholiques yea Protestants among themselues doe not agree how Baptisme forgiues sinnes nor what grace it conferres Only concerning the Vnity of Baptisme against rebaptization of such as were once baptized which I noted as a point not contained in the Apostles Creed I cannot omit an excellent place of S. Augustine where speaking of the Donatists he hath these words They are so bold as to rebaptize Catholiques wherein they shew themselues to be the greater Heretiques since it hath pleased the universall Catholique Church not to make Baptisme void even in the very Heretiques themselues In which few words this holy Father delivereth against the Donatists these points which doe also make against Protestants That to make an Heresie or an Heretique known for such it is sufficient to oppose the definition of Gods Church That a proposition may be Hereticall though it be not repugnant to any Texts of Scripture For S. Augustine teacheth that the doctrine of rebaptization is hereticall and yet acknowledgeth it cannot be convinced for such out of Scripture And that neither the Heresie of rebaptization of those who were baptized by Heretiques nor the contrary Catholique truth being expressed in the Apostles Creed it followeth that it doth not contain all points of faith necessary to salvation And so we must conclude that to belieue the Creed is not sufficient for Vnitie of faith and Spirit in the same Church unlesse there be also a totall agreement both in beliefe of other points of faith and in externall profession and Communion also whereof we are to speak in the next Chapter according to the saying of S. Augustine You are with us in Baptisme and in the Creed but in the Spirit of Vnity and bond of peace and lastly in the Catholique Church you are not with us THE ANSVVER TO THE FOVRTH CHAPTER Wherein is shewed that the Creed containes all necessary points of meere belief 1 AD § 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Concerning the Creeds containing the Fundamentalls of Christianity this is D. Potters assertion delivered in the 207. p. of his book The Creed of the Apostles as it is explained in the latter Creeds of the Catholique Church is esteemed a sufficient summary or Catalogue of Fundamentalls by the best learned Romanists and by Antiquity 2 By Fundamentalls he understands not the Fundamentall rules of good life and action though every one of these is to be believed to come from God therefore vertually includes an Article of Faith but the Fundamentall doctrines of Faith such as though they have influence upon our lives as every essentiall doctrine of Christianity hath yet we are commanded to believe them and not to doe them The assent of our understandings is required to them but no obedience from our wills 3 But these speculative Doctrines again he distinguishes out of Aquinas Occham and Canus and others into two kinds of the first are those which are the obiects of Faith in and for themselves which by their own nature and Gods prime intention are essentiall parts of that Gospell such as the teachers in the Church cannot without Mortall sinne omit to teach the learners such as are intrinsecall to the Covenant between God and man and not only plainly revealed by God and so certain truths but also commanded to be preacht to all men and to be believed distinctly by all and so necessary truths Of the second sort are Accidentall Circumstantiall Occasionall objects of faith millioÌs whereof there are in holy Scripture such as are to be believed not for themselves but because they are joyned with others that are necessary to be believed and delivered by the same Authority which delivered these Such as we are not bound to know to bee divine Revelations for without any fault we may be ignorant hereof nay believe the contrary such as we are not bound to examine whether or no they be divine Revelations such as Pastors are not bound to teach their Flock nor their Flock bound to know and remember no nor the Pastors themselves to know them or believe them or not to disbelieve them absolutely and alwaies but then only when they doe see and know them to be delivered in Scripture as divine Revelations 4 I say when they doe so and not only when they may doe For to lay an obligation upon us of believing or not disbelieving any Verity sufficient Revelation on Gods part is not sufficient For then seeing all the expresse Verities of Scripture are either to all men or at least to all learned men sufficiently revealed by God it should be a damnable sinne in any learned man actually to disbelieve any one particular Historicall verity contained in Scripture or to believe the contradiction of it though he knew it not to be there contained For though he did not yet he might have known it it being plainly revealed by God and this revelation being extant in such a Book wherein he might have found it recorded if with diligence he had perused it To make therefore any points necessary to be believed it is requisite that either we actually know them to be divine Revelations and these though they be not Articles of faith nor necessary to be believed in and for themselves yet indirectly and by accident and by consequence they are so The necessity of believing them being inforced upon us by a necessity of believing this Essentiall and Fundamentall article of Faith That all Divine Revelations are true which to disbelieve or not to believe is for any Christian not only impious but impossible Or else it is requisite that they be First actually revealed by God Secondly commanded under pain of damnation to
be particularly known I mean known to be divine Revelations and distinctly to be believed And of this latter sort of speculative divine Verities D. Potter affirmed that the Apostles Creed was a sufficient summary yet he affirmed it not as his own opinion but as the doctrine of the ancient Fathers and your own Doctors And besides he affirmed it not as absolutely certain but very probable 5 In brief all that he saies is this It is very probable that according to the judgement of the Roman Doctors and the Ancient Fathers the Apostles Creed is to be esteemed a sufficient summary of all those doctrines which being meerely Credenda and not Agenda all men are ordinarily under pain of Damnation bound particularly to believe 6 Now this assertion you say is neither pertinent to the question in hand nor in it selfe true Your Reasons to prove it impertinent put into forme and divested of impertinencies are these 1. Because the question was not what points were necessary to be explicitly believed but what points were necessary not to be disbelieved after sufficient proposall And therefore to give a Catalogue of points necessary to be explicitly believed is impertinent 7 Secondly because errours may be damnable though the contrary truths be not of themselves fundamentall as that Pontius Pilate was our Saviours Iudge is not in it selfe a Fundamentall truth âet to believe the contrary were a damnable errour And therefore to give a Catalogue of Truths in themselves fundamentall is no pertinent satisfaction to this demand what errors are damnable 8 Thirdly because if the Church be not Vniversally infallible wee cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed which we must receive upon the Credit of the Church and if the Church be Vniversally infallible it is damnable to oppose her declaration in any thing though not contained in the Creed 9 Fourthly Because not to believe the Articles of the Creed in the true sense is damnable therefore it is frivolous to say the Creed containes all Fundamentalls without specifying in what sense the Articles of it are Fundamentall 10 Fiftly because the Apostles Creed as D. Potter himselfe confesses was not a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councell nor then untill it was declared in the second c. by occasion of emergent Heresies Therefore now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation and so is not yet nor ever will be a compleat Catalogue of Fundamentalls 11 Now to the first of these objections I say Frist that your distinction between points necessary to be believed and necessary not to be disbelieved is more subtill then sound a distinction without a difference There being no point necessary to be believed which is not necessary not to be disbelieved Nor no point to any man at any time in any circumstances necessary not to be disbelieved but it is to the same man at the same time in the same circumstances necessary to be believed Yet that which I believe you would have said I acknowledge true that many points which are not necessary to be believed absolutely are yet necessary to be believed upon a supposition that they are known to be revealed by God that is become then necessary to be believed when they are known to be Divine Revelations But then I must needs say you doe very strangely in saying that the question was what points might lawfully be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that they are divine Revelations You affirme that none may and so does D. Potter and with him all Protestants and all Christians And how then is this the question Who ever said or thought that of Divine Revelations known to be so some might safely and lawfully be rejected and disbelieved under pretence that they are not Fundamentall Which of us ever taught that it was not damnable either to deny or so much as doubt of the Truth of any thing whereof we either know or believe that God hath revealed it What Protestant ever taught that it was not damnable either to give God the lye or to call his Veracity into question Yet you say The demand of Charity mistaken was it was most reasonable that a list of FundameÌtalls should be given the denyall whereof destroies Salvation whereas the deniall of other points may stand with Salvation although both kinds be equally proposed as revealed by God 12 Let the Reader peruse Charity Mistaken he shall find that this qualification although both kinds of points be equally proposed as revealed by God is your addition and no part of the demand And if it had it had been most unreasonable seeing he and you know well enough that though we doe not presently without examination fall down and worship all your Churches proposals as divine Revelations yet we make no such distinction of known divine Revelations as if some only of them were necessary to be believed and the rest might safely be rejected So that to demand a particular minute Catalogue of all points that may not be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition is indeed to demaund a Catalogue of all points that are or may be in as much as none may be disbelieved after sufficient Proposition that it is a divine Revelation At least it is to desire us First to transcribe into this catalogue every Text of the whole Bible Secondly to set down distinctly those innumerous millions of negative and positive consequences which may be evidently deduced from it For these we say God hath revealed And indeed you are not ashamed in plain tearmes to require this of us For having first told us that the demand was what points were necessary not to be disbelieved after sufficient proposition that they are Divine Truths you come to say Certainly the Creed containes not all these And this you prove by asking how many Truths are thero in holy Scripture not contained in the Creed which we are not bound to know and believe but are bound under pain of damnation not to reject as soon as we come to know that they are found in holy Scripture So that in requiring a particular Catalogue of all points not to be disbelieved after sufficient Proposall you require us to set you down all points contained in Scripture or evidently deducible from it And yet this you are pleas'd to call a reasonable nay a most reasonable Demand whereas having ingaged your selfe to give a Catalogue of your Fundamentalls you conceive your ingagement very well satisfyed by saying all is Fundamentall which the Church proposes without going about to give us an endlesse Inventory of her Proposalls And therefore from us in stead of a perfect particular of Divine Revelations of all sorts of which with a lesse hyperbole then S. Iohn useth we might say If they were to be written the world would not hold the books that must be written me thinkes you should accept of this generall All Divine Revelations are true and to be believed 13 The very truth is
disease my self or my Reader with a punctuall examination of it may seeme superfluous First that which you would have and which your Arguments wholy drive at is this That the Creed doth not containe all maine and principall poynts of faith of all sorts whether they be speculacive or practicall whether they containe matter of simple beleife or whether they containe matter of practise and obedience This D. Potter grants page 215. 235. And you grant that he grants it § 8. Where your words are as even by D. Potters owne confession it the Creed doth not comprehend Agenda or things belonging to practice as Sacraments Commandements the Acts of hope and duties Charity And if you will inferre from hence that therefore C. M. hath no reason to rest in the Apostles Creed as a perfect Catalogue of Fundamentalls and a full satisfaction to his demande I haue without any offence of D. Potter granted as much if that would content you But seeing you goe on and because his assertion is not as neither is it pretended to be a totall satisfaction to the demand casheere it as impertinent and nothing towards it here I have been bold to stop your proceeding as unjust and unreasonable For as if you should request a Friend to lend you or demand of a debtor to pay you a hundred pounds and he could or should let you have but fifty this were not fully to satisfy your demand yet sure it were not to doe nothing towards it Or as this rejoynder of mine though it be not an answer to all your Bookes but only to the First considerable Part of it and so much of the Second as is materiall and falls into the first yet I hope you will not deal so unkindly with me as for this reason to condemne it of impertinence So D. Potter being demanded a Catalogue of Fundamentals of Faith and finding them of two kinds and those of one kind summ'd up to his hand in the Apostles Creed and this Creed consign'd unto him for such a summary by very great Authority if upon these considerations he hath intreated his Demander to accept of thus much in part of paiment of the Apostles Creed as a sufficient summary of these Articles of faith which are meerely Credenda me thinkes he hath little reason to complain that he hath not been fairely and squarely dealt with Especially seeing for full satisfaction by D. Potter and all Protestants he is referr'd to Scripture which we affirme containes evidently all necessary points of Faith and rules of obedience and seeing D. Potter in the very place hath subjoyned though not a Catalogue of Fundamentalls which because to some more is Fundamentall to others lesse to others nothing at all had been impossible yet such a comprehension of them as may serve every one that will make a conscionable use of it in stead of a Catalogue For thus he saies It seemes to be fundamentall to the faith and for the Salvation of every member of the Church that he acknowledge and believe all such points of faith whereof he may be sufficiently convinced that they belong to the Doctrine of Iesus Christ. This generall rule if I should call a Catalogue of Fundamentalls I should have a President for it with you above exception I mean your Self for ch 3. § 19. just such another proposition you have called by this name Yet because it were a strange figure of speech I forbear it only I will be bold to say that this Assertion is as good a Catalogue of Fundamentalls as any you will bring of your Church proposalls though you takes as much time to doe it as he that undertook to make an Asseâspeak 20 I come now to shew that you also have requited D. Potter with a mutuall courteous acknowledgement of his assertion That the Creed is a sufficient summary of all the necessary Articles of Faith which are meerely Credenda 21 First then § 8. you haue these words That it cannot be denied that the Creed is most full and compleat to that purpose for which the holy Apostles inspired by God meant that it should serve and in that manner as they did intend it which was not to comprehend all particular points of faith but such generall heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the faith of Christ to Iewes and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learnt and remembred These words I say being fairely examined without putting them on the rack will amount to a full acknowledgement of D. Potters Assertion But before I put them to the question I must crave thus much right of you to grant me this most reasonable postulate that the doctrine of repentance from dead workes which S. Paul saith was one of the two only things which he preacht and the doctrine of Charity without which the same S. Paul assures us that the knowledge of all mysteries and all faith is nothing were doctrines more necessary and requisite and therefore more fit to be preacht to Iewes and Gentiles then these under what judge our Saviour suffered that he was buried and what time he rose again which you have taught us cap. 3. § 2. for their matter and nature in themselves not to be Fundamentall 22 And upon this grant I will aske no leave to conclude that whereas you say the Apostles Creed was intended for a comprehension of such heads of faith as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the faith of Christ c. You are now for fear of too much debasing those high doctrines of Repentance and Charity to restrain your assertion as D. Potter does his and though you speak indefinitely to say you meant it only of those heads of faith which are meerely Credenda And then the meaning of it if it have any must be this That the Creed is full for the Apostles intent which was to comprehend all such generall heads of faith which being points of simple belief were most fit and requisite to be preached to Iewes Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred Neither I nor you I believe can make any other sense of your words then this And upon this ground thus I subsume But all the points of belief which were necessary under pain of damnation for the Apostles to preach and for those to whom the Gospell was preached particularly to know and believe were most fit and requisite nay more then so necessary to be preached to all both Iewes and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learnt and remembred Therefore the Apostles intent by your confession was in this Creed to comprehend all such points And you say the Creed is most full and compleat for the purpose which they intended The Major of this Syllogisme is your own The Minor I should think needs no proof yet because all men may not be of my mind I will prove it by its parts and the
first part thus There is the same necessity for the doing of these things which are commanded to be done by the same Authority under the same penalty But the same Authority viz. Divine under the same penalty to wit of damnation commanded the Apostles to preachall these Doctrines which we speak of and those to whom they were preached particularly to know and believe them For we speak of those only which were so commanded to be preached and believed Therefore all these points were alike necessary to be preaced to all both Iewes and Gentiles Now that all these doctrines we speak of may be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred He that remembers that we spake only of such Doctrines as are necessary to be taught and learned will require hereof no farther demonstration For not to put you in minde of what the Poet saies Non sunt longa quibus nibilest quod demere possis who sees not that seeing the greatest part of men are of very mean capacities that it is necessary that that âay be learnt easily which is to be learn't of all What then can hinder me from concluding thus All the Articles of simple belief which are fit and requisite to be preached and may easily be remembred are by your confession comprized in the Creed But all the necessary Articles of faith are requisite to be preached and easy to be remembred Therefore they are all comprized in the Creed Secondly from grounds granted by you I argue thus Points of belief in themselves fundamentall are more requisite to be preached then those which are not so this is evident But the Apostles have put into their Creed some points that are not in themselves Fundamentall so you confesse ubisupra Therefore if they have put in all most requisite to be preached they have put in all that in themselves are fundamentall Thirdly and Lastly from your own words § 26. thus I conclude my purpose The Apostles intention was particularly to deliver in the Creed such Articles as were fittest for those times concerning the Deity Trinity and Messias Thus you now I subsume But all points simply necessary by vertue of Gods command to be preached and believed in particular were as fit for those times as these here mentioned Therefore their intention was to deliver in it particularly all the necessary points of belief 23 And certainly he that considers the matter advisedly either must say that the Apostles were not the Authors of it or that this was their designe in composing it or that they had none at all For whereas you say their intent was to comprehend in it such generall heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the faith and elsewhere Particularly to deliver such Articles as were fittest for those times Every wise man may easily see that your desire here was to escape away in a cloud of inde finiteremes For otherwise in stead of such generall heads and such Articles why did not you say plainly all such or some such This had been plain dealing but I fear crosse to your designe which yet you have failed of For that which you have spoken though you are loath to speak out either signifies nothing at all or that which I and D. Potter affirme viz. That the Apostles Creed containes all those points of belief which were by Gods command of necessity to be preached to all and believed by all Neither when I say so would I be so mistaken as if I said that all points in the Creed are thus necessary For Punies in Logick know that universall affirmatives are not simply converted And therefore it may be true that all such necessary points are in the Creed though it be not true that all points in the Creed are thus necessary which I willingly grant of the points by you mentioned But this rather confirmes then any way invalidates my assertion For how could it stand with the Apostles wisedââe to put in any points circumstantiall and not necessary and at the same time to leave out any that were essentiall and necessary for that end which you say they proposed to themselves in making the Creed that is The preaching of the faith to Iewes and Gentiles 24 Neither may you hope to avoid the pressure of these acknowledgements by pretending as you doe § 10. that you doe indeed acknowledge the Creed to contain all the necessary articles of faith but yet so that they are not either there expressed in it or de ducible from it by evident consequence but only by way of implication or Reduction For first not to tell you that no proposition is implied in any other which is not deducible from it nor secondly that the article of the Catholique Church wherein you will have all implyed implies nothing to any purpose of yours unlesse out of meer favour wee will grant the sense of it to be that the Church is infallible and that yours is the Church to passe by all this and require no answer to it this one thing I may not omit that the Apostles intent was by your own confession particularly to deliver in the Creed such articles of belief as were fittest for those times and all necessary articles I have proved were such now to deliver particularly and to deliver only implicitly to be delivered particularly in the Creed and only to be reducible to it I suppose are repugnances hardly reconcileable And therefore though we desire you not to grant that the Creed containes all points of Faith of all sorts any other way then by implication or reduction no nor so neither yet you have granted and must grant of the Fundamentall points of simple belief those which the Apostles were commanded in particular to teach all men and all men in particular to know and believe that these are delivered in the Creed after a more particular and punctuall manner then implication or reduction comes to 25 Ad § 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. It is vain for you to hope that the testimonies of the Ancient Modern Doctors alleadged to this purpose by D. Potter in great abundance will be turn'd off with this generall deceitfull Answer That the Allegation of them was needlesse to prove that the Creed containes all points of faith under pretence that you grant it in manner aforesaid For what if you grant it in manner aforesaid yet if you grant it not as indeed you doe but inconstantly in the sense which their testimonies require then for all this their testimonies may be alleadged to very good purpose Now let any man read them with any tolerable indifference and he shall find they say plainly that all points of faith necessary to be particularly believed are explicitly contained in the Creed and that your glosse of implication and reduction had it been confronted with their sentences would have been much out of countenance as having no ground nor colour of ground in them For example If Azorius had thought
thus of it how could he have called it A brief comprehension of the faith and a summe of all things to be believed and as it were a signe or cognizance whereby Christians are to be differenced and distinguished from the impious and misbelievers who professe either no faith or not the right If Huntly had been of this mind how could he have said of it with any congruity That the rule of faith is expressely contained in it and all the prime foundations of faith And that the Apostles were not so forgetfull as to omit any prime principall foundation of faith in that Creed which they delivered to be believed by all Christians The words of Filiucius are pregnant to the same purpose There cannot bee a fitter Rule from whence Christians may learn what they are explicitly to belieue then that which is contained in the Creed Which words cannot be justified if all points necessary to be believed explicitely be not comprised in it To this end saith Putean was the Creed compos'd by the Apostles that Christians might haue a forme whereby they might professe themselues Catholiques But certainly the Apostles did this in vain If a man might professe this and yet for matter of faith be not a Catholique 26 The words of Cardinal Richelieu exact this sense and refuse your glosse as much as any of the former The Apostles Creed is the Summary and Abridgment of that faith which is necessary for a Christian These holy persons being by the Commandement of Iesus Christ to disperse themselves over the world and in all parts by preaching the Gospell to plant the faith esteemed it very necessary to reduce into a short summe all that which Christians ought to know to the end that being dispersed into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing in a short for me that it might be the easier remembred For this effect they called this Abridgment a Symbole which signifies a mark or signe which might serue to distinguish true Christians which imbraced it from Infidels which rejected it Now I would fain know how the composition of the Creed could serue for this end and secure the Preachers of it that they should preach the same thing if there were other necessary Articles not compriz'd in it Or how could it be a signe to distinguish true Christians from others if a man might belieue it all and for want of believing something else not be a true Christian 27 The words of the Author of the consideration of foure heads propounded King Iames require the same sense and utterly renounce your qualification The Symbole is a briefe yet entire Methodicall summe of Christian Doctrine including all points of faith either to bee preached by the Apostles or to be believed by their Disciples Delivered both for a direction unto them what they were to preach and others to belieue as also to discern and put a difference betwixt all faithfull Christians and misbelieving Infidels 28 Lastly Gregory of Valence affirmes our Assertion even in termes The Articles of faith contained in the Creed are as it were the first principles of the Christian faith in which is contained the summe of Evangelicall doctrine which all men are bound explicitely to belieue 29 To these Testimonies of your own Doctors I should haue added the concurrent suffrages of the ancient Fathers but the full and free acknowledgment of the same Valentia in the place aboue quoted will make this labour unnecessary So iudge saith hee the holy Fathers affirming that his Symbole of faith was composed by the Apostles that all might haue a short summe of those things which are to be belieued and are dispersedly contain'd in Scripture 30 Neither is there any discord between this Assertion of your Doctors and their holding themselues oblig'd to belieue all the points which the Councell of Trent defines For Protestants Papists may both hold that all points of beliefe necessary to be known belieued are summ'd up in the Creed and yet both the one the other think themselues bound to belieue whatsoever other points they either know or belieue to be revealed by God For the Articles which are necessary to be known that they are revealed by God may bee very few and yet those which are necessary to be believed when they are revealed and known to be so may be very many 31 But Summaries and Abstracts are not intended to specifie all the particulars of the science or subiect to which they belong Yes if they bee intended for perfect Summaries they must not omit any necessary doctrine of that Science whereof they are Summaries though the Illustration and Reasons of it they may omit If this were not so a man might set down forty or fifty of the Principall definitions and divisions and rules of Logick and call it a Summary or Abstract of Logick But sure this were no more a Summary then that were the picture of a man in little that wanted any of the parts of a man or that a totall summe wherein all the particulars were not cast up Now the Apostles Creed you here intimate that it was intended for a Summary otherwise why talk you here of Summaries and tell us that they need not contain all the particulars of their science And of what I pray may it be a Summary but of the Fundamentals of Christian faith Now you haue already told us That it is most full and compleat to that purpose for which it was intended Lay all this together and I belieue the product will be That the Apostles Creed is a perfect Summary of the Fundamentalls of the Christian faith and what the duty of a perfect Summary is I haue already told you 32 Whereas therefore to disproue this Assertion in divers particles of this Chapter but especially the fourteenth you muster up whole armies of doctrines which you pretend are necessary and not contain'd in the Creed I answer very briefly thus That the doctrines you mention are either concerning matters of practise and not simple beliefe or else they are such doctrines wherein God has not so plainly revealed himselfe but that honest and good men true Lovers of God and of Truth those that desire aboue all things to know his will and doe it may erre and yet commit no sinne at all or only a sinne of infirmity and not destructiue of salvation or lastly they are such Doctrines which God hath plainly revealed and so are necessary to be belieued when they are known to be divine but not necessary to be known believed not necessary to be known for divine that they may be believed Now all these sorts of doctrines are impertinent to the present Question For D. Potter never affirmed either that the necessary duties of a Christian or that all Truths piously credible but not necessary to be believed or that all Truths necessary to bee believed upon the supposall of divine Revelation were specified in the
Creed For this he affirmes only of such speculatiue divine veriries which God hath commanded particularly to be preached to all and believed by all Now let the doctrines objected by you be well considered and let all those that are reducible to the three former heads be discarded and then of all these Instances against D. Potters Assertion there will not remain so much as one 33 First the Questions touching the conditions to bee performed by us to obtaine remission of sinnes the Sacraments the Commandements and the possibility of keeping them the necessity of imploring the Assistance of Gods Grace and Spirit for the keeping of them how farre obedience is due to the Church Prayer for the Dead The cessation of the old Law are all about Agenda and so cut off upon the first consideration 34 Secondly the Question touching Fundamentalls is profitable but not fundamentall He that belieues all Fundamentals cannot bee damned for any errour in faith though he belieue more or lesse to bee fundamental then is so That also of the procession of the holy Ghost from the Father and the Sonne of Purgatory of the Churches Visibility of the Books of the new Testament which were doubted of by a considerable part of the Primitiue Church untill I see better reason for the contrary then the bare authority of men I shall esteem of the same condition 35 Thirdly These Doctrines that Adam and the Angels sinned that there are Angels good and bad that those bookes of Scripture which were never doubted of by any considerable part of the Church are the word of God that S. Peter had no such primacy as you pretend that the Scripture is a perfect rule of faith consequently that no necessary doctrine is unwritten that there is no one Society or succession of Christians absolutely infallible These to my understanding are truths plainly revealed by God and necessary to be believed by them who know they are so But not so necessary that every man woman is bound under pain of damnation particularly to know theÌ to be divine Revelations and explicitely to believe them And for this reason these with innumerable other points are to be referred to the third sort of doctrines aboue mentioned which were never pretended to haue place in the Creed There remaines one only point of all that Army you mustred together reducible to none of these heads that is that God is and is a Remunerator which you say is questioned by the deniall of merit But if there were such a necessary indissoluble coherence between this point and the doctrine of merit mee thinks with as much reason and more charity you might conclude That we hold merit because we hold this point Then that we deny this point because we deny merit Besides when Protestants deny the doctrine of Merits you know right well for so they haue declared themselues a thousand times that they mean nothing else but with David that their well doing extendeth not is not truly beneficiall to God with our Saviour when they haue done all which they are commanded they haue done their duty only and no curtesie And lastly with S. Paul that all which they can suffer for God and yet suffering is more then doing is not worthy to bee compared to the glory that shall be revealed So that you must either misunderstand their meaning in denying Merit or you must discharge their doctrine of this odious consequence or you must charge it upon David and Paul and Christ himselfe Nay you must either grant their deniall of true Merit just reasonable or you must say that our good actions are really profitable to God that they are not debts already due to him but voluntary and undeserved Favours and that they are equall unto and well worthy of eternall glory which is prepar'd for them As for the inconvenience which you so much feare That the deniall of Merit makes God a Giver only not a Rewarder I tell you good Sir you feare where no feare is and that it is both most true on the one side that you in holding good Works meritorious of eternall glory make God a rewarder only not a giver contrary to plain Scripture affirming that The gift of God is eternall life And that it is most false on the other side that the doctrine of Protestants makes God a giver only and not a rewarder In as much as their doctrine is That God giues not Heaven but to those which doe something for it and so his gift is also a Reward but withall that whatsoever they doe is due unto God before hand and worth nothing to God and worth nothing in respect of Heaven and so mans work is no Merit and Gods reward is still a Gift 36 Put the case the Pope for a reward of your service done him in writing this Book had given you the honour and meanes of a Cardinall would you not not only in humility but in sincerity haue professed that you had not merited such a Reward And yet the Pope is neither your Creatour nor Redeemer nor Preserver nor perhaps your very great Benefactour sure I am not so great as God Almighty and therefore hath no such right and title to your service as God hath in respect of precedent obligations Besides the work you haue done him hath been really advantagious to him and lastly not altogether unproportionable to the fore-mentioned Reward And therefore if by the same work you will pretend that either you haue or hope to haue deserved immortall happinesse I beseech you consider well whether this be not to set a higher value upon a Cardinal's cap then a Crowne of immortall glory and with that Cardinall to prefer a part in Paris before a part in Paradise 37 In the next Paragraph you beat the ayre again and fight manfully with your own shadow The point you should haue spoken to was this That there are some points of simple beliefe necessary to bee explicitely believed which yet are not contained in the Creed Insteed hereof you trouble your selfe in vain to demonstrate That many important points of faith are not contained in it which yet D. Potter had freely granted and you your selfe take particular notice of his granting of it All this paines therefore you have imployed to no purpose saving that to some negligent Reader you may seem to have spoken to the very point because that which you speak to at the first hearing sounds somewhat neere it But such a one I must intreat to remember there be many more points of faith then there be Articles of Simple belief necessary to be explicitly believed And that though all of the former sort are not contained in the Creed yet all of the latter sort may be As for your distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vaine and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so
not deny I presume that S. Peter preached all therefore you must not deny that S. Marke wrote all 42 Our next inquiry let it be touching S. Iohns intent in writing his Gospell whether it were to deliver so much truth as being believed and obeyed would certainly bring men to eternall life or only part of it and to leave part unwritten A great man there is but much lesse then the Apostle who saith that writing last he purposed to supply the defects of the other Evangelists that had wrote before him which if it were true would sufficiently justify what I have undertaken that at least all the four Evangelists have in them all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. Neither will I deny but S. Iohns secondary intent might be to supply the defects of the former three Gospels in some things very profitable But he that pretends that any necessary doctrine is in S. Iohn which is in none of the other Evangelists hath not so well considered them as he should doe before he pronounce sentence of so weighty a matter And for his prime intent in writing his Gospell what that was certainly no Father in the world understood it better then himselfe Therefore let us hear him speak Many other signes saith he also did Iesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book But these are written that you may believe that Iesus is Christ the sonne of God and that believing you may have life in his name By these are written may be understood either these things are written or these signes are written Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. Iohn wrote in his Gospell or lesse then all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively faith would certainly bring them to eternall life 43 This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justify my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the foure Evangelists has in his book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ. But for S. Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospell in my judgement it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospell where he declares what he intends to write in these words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed Adde to this place the entraÌce to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Iesus began both to doe and teach untill the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke does not undertake the very same thing which he saies many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospell of Christ and every necessary doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and ministers of the word from the begining delivered not the whole Gospell of Christ 5. Whether he does not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospell of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospell of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Iesus began to doe and teach must not at least imply all the Principall and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the Principall and most necessary things which Iesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospell be not lesse principall and lesse necessary then all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposalls I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not choose but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonicall Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these PropositioÌs which without Controversy are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresy thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44 Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule seeing the Doctrine of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the deniall of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himselfe in supposing a man may belieue all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45 To the first I answere what I conceive he would whose words I here justify that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Vniversality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those severall Professions of Christiany that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words he excludes from the universality here spoken of the denyers of the Doctrine of the Trinity as being but a handfull of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these professions which maintain it And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your objection or else negligently to oversee them Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophisticall Pamphlet against B. Vshers Sermon
know any rationall discourse but out of grounds agreed upon by both parts Therfore it is not impossible but absolutely certain that the same man at the same time may believe contradictions Fiftly It is evident neither can you without extream madnesse and uncharitablenesse deny that we belieue the Bible those Books I mean which we believe Canonicall Otherwise why dispute you with us out of them as out of a common Principle Either therefore you must retract your opinion and acknowledge that the same man at the same time may believe coÌtradictions or else you will run into a greater inconvenience and be forc'd to confesse that no part of our Doctrine contradicts the Bible Sixtly I desire you to vindicate from contradiction these following Assertions That there should be Length and nothing long Breadth nothing broad Thicknesse and nothing thick Whitenesse nothing white Roundnesse and nothing round Weight and nothing heavy Sweetnesse and nothing sweet Moisture and nothing moist Fluidnesse and nothing flowing many Actions and no Agent Many Passions and no Patient That is that there should be a Long broad thick white round heavy sweet moist flowing active passive nothing That Bread should be turned into the substance of Christ and yet not any thing of the Bread become any thing of Christ neither the matter not the form not the Accidents of Bread be made either the matter or the Forme or the Accidents of Christ. That Bread should be turned into nothing and at the same time with the same action turn'd into Christ and yet Christ should not be nothing That the same thing at the same time should haue its just dimensions and just distance of its parts one from another and at the same time not haue it but all its parts together in one the selfe same point That the body of Christ which is much greater should be contained wholly and in its full dimensions without any alteration in that which is lesser and that not once only but as many times over as there are severall points in the Bread and Wine That the same thing at the same time should bee wholly aboue it selfe and wholly below it selfe within it selfe and without it selfe on the right hand and on the left hand and round about it selfe That the same thing at the same time should moue to and from it selfe and lye still Or that it should be carried from one place to another through the middle space and yet not move That it should be brought from heaven to earth and yet not come out of Heaven nor be at all in any of the middle space between Heaven and Earth That to be one should be to be undivided from it selfe and yet that one and the same thing should be divided from it selfe That a thing may be yet be no where That a Finite thing may be in all places at once That a Body may be in a place and haue there its dimensions colour all other qualities and yet that it is not in the power of God to make it visible and tangible there nor capable of doing or suffering any thing That there should be no certainty in our senses and yet that we should know something certainly yet know nothing but by our seÌses That that which is and was long agoe should now begin to be That that is now to be made of nothing which is not nothing but something That the same thing should be before and after it selfe That it should bee truly and really in a place and yet without Locality Nay that hee which is OmnipoteÌt should not be able to give it Locality in this place where it is as some of you hold or if he can as others say he can that it should be possible that the same man for example You or I may at the sametime be awake at London and not awake but asleep at Rome There run or walk here not run or walk but stand still sit or lye along There study or write here doe neither but dine or sup There speak here be silent That he may in one place freez for cold in another burn with heat That he may be drunk in one place and sober in another Valiant in one place and a Coward in another A theef in one place honest in another That he may be a Papist and goe to Masse in Rome A Protestant and goe to Church in England That he may dye in Rome and liue in England or ' dying in both places may goe to Hell from Rome and to Heaven from England That the Body and Soule of Christ should cease to be where it was yet not goe to another place nor be destroyed All these and many other of the like nature are the unavoidable most of them the acknowledged consequences of your doctrine of Transubstantiation as is explained one where or other by your School-men Now I beseech you Sir to try your skill if you can compose their repugnance and make peace between them Certainly none but you shall be Catholique Moderator But if you cannot doe it and that after an intelligible manner then you must give me leave to believe that either you doe not believe Transubstantiation or else that it is no contradiction that men should subjugate their understandings to the belief of contradictions 47 Lastly I pray tell me whether you have not so much Charity in store for the Bishop of Armach and D. Potter as to think that they themselves believe this saying which the one preacht and printed the other reprinted and as you say applauded If you think they doe then certainly you have done unadvisedly either in charging it with a foul contradiction or in saying it is impossible that any man should at once believe contradictions Indeed that men should not assent to contradictions and that it is unreasonable to doe so I willingly grant But to say it is impossible to be done is against every mans experience and almost as unreasonable as to doe the thing which is said to be impossible For though perhaps it may be very difficult for a man in his âight wits to believe a contradiction expressed in termes especially if he believe it to be a contradiction yet for men being cowed and awed by superstition to perswade themselves upon slight and triviall grounds that these or these though they seem contradictions yet indeed are not so and so to believe them or if the plain repugnance of them be veil'd and disguis'd a little with some empty unintelligible non-sense distinction or if it be not exprest but implyed not direct but by consequence so that the parties to whose faith the propositions are offerd are either innocently or perhaps affectedly ignorant of the contrariety of them for men in such cases easily to swallow and digest contradictions he that denies it possible must be a meer stranger in the world 48 Ad § 18. This Paragraph consists of two immodest untruths obtruded upon us without
towards a full satisfaction of it That the Creed containes all the fundamentalls of simple Belief you take no notice of the former and pervert the latter and make him say The Creed containes all fundamentalls of faith Whereas you know and within sixe or seven lines after this confesse that he never pretended it to contain all simply but all of one sort all necessary points of simple belief Which assertion because he modestly delivers as very probable being willing to conclude rather lesse then more then his reasons require hereupon you take occasion to aske Shall I hazard my soul on probabilities or even wagers As if whatsoever is but probable though in the highest degree of probability were as likely to be false as true Or because it is but Morally not Mathematically certain that there was such a Woman as Q. Elizabeth such a man as H. the 8. that is in the highest degree probable therefore it were an even wager there were none such By this reason seeing the truth of your whole Religion depends finally upon Prudentiall motives which you doe but pretend to be very credible it will be an even wager that your Religion is false And by the same reason or rather infinitely greater seeing it is impossible for any man according to the grounds of your Religion to know himselfe much lesse another to be a true Pope or a true Priest nay to have a Morall certainty of it because these things are obnoxious to innumerable secret and undiscernable nullities it will be an even wager nay if we proportion things indifferently a hundred to one that every Consecration and Absolution of yours is void that whensoever you adore the Host you and your Assistants commit Idolatry That there is a nullity in any Decree that a Pope shall make or any Decree of a Councell which he shall confirme Particularly it will be at least an even wager that all the Decrees of the Councell of Trent are void because it is at most but very probable that the Pope which confirmed them was true Pope If you mistake these inferences then confesse you have injur'd D. Potter in this also that you have confounded and made all one Probabilities and even wagers Whereas every ordinary Gamester can informe you that though it be a thousand to one that such a thing will happen yet it is not sure but very probable 58 To make the measure of your injustice yet fuller you demand If the Creed containes only points of simple belief how shall you know what points of belief are necessary which direct our practise D. Potter would have answered you in our Saviours words search the Scriptures But you have a great minde it seemes to be a despairing and therefore having propos'd your Question will not suffer him to give you Answer but shut your eares and tell him still he chalkes out new paths for desperation 59 In the rest of your interlude I cannot but commend one thing in you that you keep a decorum and observe very well the Rule given you by the great Master of your Art Servetur adimum Qualis ab incepto processerat sibi constet One vein of scurrility and dishonesty runs clean through it from the begining to the end Your next demand then is Are all the Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter Fundamentall and the Answer I cannot say so Which Answer though it be true D. Potter no where gives it neither hath he occasion but you make it for him to bring in another question and that is How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not Fundamentall D. Potter would have answered It is a vain question believe all and you shall be sure to believe all that is Fundamentall 60 But what saies now his prevaricating Proxy What does he make him say This which followes Read my answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken There you shall finde that Fundamentall doctrines are such Catholique verities as principally and essentially pertain to the faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those Grand and Capitall Doctrines which make up our Faith that is the common faith which is alike pretious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer which the Apostle elsewhere calls the first Principles of the Oracles of God and the forme of sound words 61 But in earnest Good Sir doth the Doctor in these places by you quoted make to this question this same sottish answer Or doe you think that against an Heretique nothing is unlawfull Certainly if he doth answer thus I will make bold to say he is a very foole But if he does not as indeed he does not then But I forbeare you and beseech the Reader to consult the places of D. Potters book and there he shall find that in the former halfe of these as you call them varied words and phrases he declared only what he meant by the word Fundamentall which was needfull to prevent mistakes and cavilling about the meaning of the word which is metaphoricall and therefore ambiguous and that the latter halfe of them are severall places of Scripture imployed by D. Potter to shew that his distinction of Fundamentall and not Fundamentall hath expresse ground in it Nay of these two places very pertinent unto two very good purposes you have exceeding fairely patcht together a most ridiculous answer to a question that D. Potter never dream't of But the words you will say are in D. Potters Book though in divers places and to other purposes Very true And so the words of Ausonius his obscene Fescennine are taken out of Virgil yet Virgil surely was not the Author of this Poem Besides in D. Potters book there are these words Dread Soveraigne amongst the many excellent vertues which have made your Majesties person so deare unto God c. And why now may you not say as well that in these he made Answer to your former question what points of the Creed were and what were not Fundamentalls 62 But unlesse this question may be answered his doctrine you say serves only either to make men despaire or else to have recourse to these whom we call Papists It seemes a little thing will make you despaire if you be so sullen as to doe so because men will not trouble themselves to satisfy your curious questions And I pray be not offended with me for so esteeming it because as before I told you if you will believe all the points of the Creed you cannot choose but believe all the points of it that are fundamentall though you be ignorant which are so and which are not so Now I believe your desire to know which are Fundamentalls proceeds only from a desire to be assur'd that you doe believe them which seeing you may be assured of without knowing which they
be what can it be but curiosity to desire to know it Neither may you think to mend your selfe herein one whit by having recourse to them whom we call Papists for they are as farre to seek as wee in this point which of the Articles of the Creed are for their nature and matter fundamentall and which are not Particularly you will scarce meet with any amongst their Doctors so adventurous as to tell you for a certain whether or no the conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost his being born of a Virgin his Buriall his descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints be points of their own nature and matter fundamentall Such I mean as without the distinct and explicite knowledge of them no man can be saved 63 But you will say at least they give this certain rule that all points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of faith in such sense as to deny any such cannot stand with Salvation So also Protestants give you this more certain rule That whosoever believes heartily those books of Scripture which all the Christian Churches in the world acknowledge to be Canonicall and submits himselfe indeed to this as to the rule of his belief must of necessity believe all things fundamentall and if he live according to his faith cannot fail of Salvation But besides what certainty have you that that rule of Papists is so certain By the visible Church it is plain they mean only their own and why their own only should be the Visible Church I doe not understand and as little why all points defined by this Church should belong to the foundation of faith These things you had need see well and substantially proved before you rely upon them otherwise you expose your selfe to danger of imbracing damnable errors instead of Fundamentall truth's But you will say D. Potter himselfe acknowledges that we doe not erre in Fundamentalls If he did so yet me thinkes you have no reason to rest upon his acknowledgement with any security whom you condemne of errour in many other matters Perhaps excesse of Charity to your persons may make him censure your errors more favourably then he should doe But the truth is and so I have often told you though the Doctor hope that your errors are not so unpardonably destructive but that some men who ignorantly hold them may be saved yet in themselves he professes and proclaimes them damnable and such as he feares will be certainly destructive to such as you are that is to all those who have eyes to see and will not see them 64 Ad § 20. 21. 22. 23. In the Remainder of this Chapter you promise to answer D. Potters Arguments against that which you said before But presently forgetting your selfe in stead of answering his Arguments you fall a confuting his Answers to your own The arguments objected by you which here you vindicate were two 1. The Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed therefore the Creed containes not all things necessary to be believed 2. Baptisme is not contained in the Creed therefore not all things necessary To both which Arguments my Answer shortly is this that they prove something but it is that which no man here denies For D. Potter as you have also confessed never said not undertook to shew that the Apostles intended to comprize in the Creed all points absolutely which we are bound to believe or after sufficient proposall not to disbelieve which yet here and every where you are obtruding upon him But only that they purposed to comprize in it all such doctrines purely speculative all such matters of simple belief as are in ordinary course necessary to be distinctly and explicitly believed by all men Neither of these objections doe any way infringe or impeach the truth of this Assertion Not the first because according to your own doctrine all men are not bound to know explicitely what books of Scripture are Canonicall Nor the second because Baptisme is not a matter of Faith but practise not so much to be believed as to be given and received And against these Answers whether you have brought any considerable new matter let the indifferent Reader judge As for the other things which D. Potter rather glanceth at then builâs upon in answering these objections as the Creed's being collected out of Scripture and supposing the Authority of it which Gregory of Valentia in the place above cited seemes to me to confesse to have been the Iudgement of the Ancient Fathers and the Nicene Creed's intimating the authority of Canonicall Scripture and making mention of Baptisme These things were said ex abundanti and therefore I conceive it superfluous to examine your exceptions against them Prove that D. Potter did affirme that the Creed containes all things necessary to be believed of all sorts and then these objections will be pertinent and deserve an answer Or produce some point of simple belief necessary to be explicitly believed which is not contained either in termes or by consequence in the Creed and then I will either answer your Reasons or confesse I cannot But all this while you doe but trifle and are so farre from hitting the marke that you rove quite beside the But. 65 Ad § 23. 24. 25. Potterâemands âemands How it can be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed then the Apostles had and the Church of their times You Answer That he trifles not distinguishing between the Apostles belief and that abridgement of some Articles of faith which we call the Apostles Creed I reply that it is you which trifle affectedly confounding what D. Potter hath plainly distinguished the Apostles belief of the whole Religion of Christ as it comprehends both what we are to doe and what we are to believe with their belief of that part of it which containes not duties of obedience but only the necessary Articles of siâple âaith Now though the Apostles Beleife be in the former sense a larger thing then that which we call the Apostles Creed yet in the latter sense of the word the Creed I say is a full comprehension of their belief which you your selfe have formerly confessed though somewhat fearfully and inconstantly and here again unwillingnesse to speak the truth makes you speak that which is hardly sense and call it an abridgement of some Articles of Faith For I demand these some Articles which you speak of which are they Those that are out of the Creed or those that are in it Those that are in it it comprehends at large and therefore it is not an abridgement of them Those that are out of it it comprehends not at all and therefore it is not an abridgement of them If you would call it now an abridgement of the Faith this would be sense and signify thus much That all the necessary Articles of the Christian faith are compriz'd in it For this is the proper duty of abridgements to leave out nothing
necessary and to take in nothing unnecessary 66 Moreover in answer to this demand you tell us that the Doctor beggs the Question supposing that the Apostles believed no more then is contained in their Creed I Answer He supposes no such matter but only that they knew no more necessary Articles of simple belief then what are contained in their Creed So that here you abuse D. Potter and your Reader by taking sophistically without limitation that which is delivered with limitation 67 But this demand of D. Potters was equivalent to a Negation and intended for one How can it be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed then the Apostles had All one with this It cannot be necessary c. And this negation of his he inforces with many arguments which he proposes by way of interrogation thus May the Church of after Ages make the narrow way to heaven narrower then our Saviour left it Shall it bee a fault to straiten and encumber the Kings high way with publique nuisances and is it lawfull by adding new Articles to the faith to retrench any thing from the Latitude of the King of Heavens high way to eternall happinesse The yoake of Christ which he said was easy may it be justly made heavier by the Governors of the Church in after Ages The Apostles professe they revealed to the Church the whole Counsell of God keeping back nothing needfull for our Salvation What tyranny then to impose any new unnecessary matters on the faith of Christians especially as the late Popes have done under the high commanding forme Qui non crediderit damnabitur If this may be done why then did our Savlour reprehend the Pharises so sharpely for binding heavy burdens and laying them on mens shoulders And why did he teach them that in vain they worshipped God teaching for doctrines mens Traditions And why did the Apostles call it tempting of God to lay those things upon the necks of Christians that were not necessary 68 All which interrogations seeme to me to containe so many plain and convincing Arguments of the premised Assertion to all which one excepted according to the advise of the best Masters of Rhetorique in such Cases you have answered very discreetly by saying O. But when you write againe I pray take notice of them and if you can devise no faire and satisfying answer to them then be so ingenuous as to grant the Conclusion That no more can be necessary for Christians to beleeve now then was in the Apostles time A conclusion of great importance for the decision of many Controversies the disburdening of the faith of Christ from many incumbrances 69 As for that one which you thought you could fasten upon grounded on the 20. Act. 27. let me tell you plainly that by your Answering this you have shewed plainly that it was wisely done of you to decline the rest You tell D. Potter That needfull for salvation is his glosse which perhaps you intended for a peice of an Answer But good Sir consult the place and you shall find that there S. Paul himself saies that he kept back ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã not any thing that was profitable and I hope you will make no difficulty to grant that whatsoever is needfull for salvation is very profitable 70 But then you say This is no proofe unlesse he beg the Question and suppose that whatsoever the Apostles revealed to the Church is contained in the Creed I Answer it is not D. Potter that beggs the Question but you that mistake it which is not here in this particular place Whether all points of simple Beleife necessary for the salvation of the Primitive Christians were contained in the Apostles Symbole for that and the proofes of it follow after in the next § p. 223. of D. Potters Booke but whether any thing can be necessary for Christians to beleeve now which was not so from the beginning D. Potter maintaines the negative and to make good his opinion thus he argues S. Paul declared to the Ephesians the whole Counsell of God touching their Salvation Therefore that which S. Paul did not declare can be no part of the Counsell of God and therefore not necessary And againe S. Paul kept back nothing from the Ephesians that was profitable Therefore he taught them all things necessary to salvation Consider this I pray a little better and then I hope you will acknowledge that here was no Petitio principij in D. Potter but rather Ignoratio Elenchi in you 71 Neither is it materiall that these words were particularly directed by S. Paul to the Pastours of the Church For to say nothing that the point here issuable is not Whom he taught whether Priests or Laymen But how much he taught and whether all things necessary it appeares plainly out of the Text and I wonder you should read it so negligently as not to observe it that though he speaks now to the Pastors yet he speaks of what he taught not only them but also the Laity as well as them I have kept back nothing saies S. Paul that was profitable but have shewed and have taught you publikely and from house to house Testifying I pray observe both to the Iewes and also to the Greeks Repentance towards God Faith towards our Lord Iesus Christ. And a little after I know that yee all among whom I have gone Preaching the Kingdome of God shall see my face no more Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am innocent from the blood of all men for I have kept nothing back but have shewed you all the Counsell of God And againe Remember that by the space of three yeares I ceased not to warne every one night and day with teares Certainly though he did all these things to the Pastours among the rest nay above the rest yet without controversie they whom he taught publikely and from house to house The Iewes and Greeks to whom he testified 1. preach'd Faith and Repentance Those all amongst whom he went preaching the kingdome of Cod Those Every one whom for three yeares together he warned were not Bishops and Pastors only 72 Neither is this to say that the Apostles taught Christians nothing but their Creed nothing of the Sacraments Comandements c. for that is not here the point to be proved but only that they taught them all things necessary so that nothing can be necessary which they did not teach them But how much of this they put into their Creed whether all the necessary points of simple beleife as we pretend or only as you say I know not what is another Question and which comes now to be farther examined D. Potter in confirmation of it besides the authorities which you formerly shifted of with so egregious tergiversation urges fiue severall Arguments 73 The sense of the first is this If all the necessary points of simple beliefe be not compriz'd in the Creed it can no way deserue the name of
the Apostles Creed as not being their Creed in any sense but onely a part of it To this you answer § 2 5. Vpon the same affected ambignity c. Answ. It is very true that their whole faith was of a larger extent but that was not the Question But whether all the points of simple beliefe which they taught as necessary to be explicitely believed be not contained in it And if thus much at least of Christian Religion bee not comprized in it I again desire you to inform me how it could be call'd the Apostles Creed 74 Foure other Reasons D. Potter urges to the same purpose grounded upon the practise of the Ancient Church The last whereof you answer in the second part of your Book But to the rest drawne from the ancient Churches appointing her Infants to be instructed for matters of simple beliefe only in the Creed From her admitting Catechumens unto Baptisme and of Strangers to her Communion upon their only profession of the Creed you haue not for ought I can perceaue thought fit to make any kind of answer 75 The difficulties of the 27. and last § of this Chapter haue been satisfied So that there remaines unexamined onely the 26. Section wherein you exceed your selfe in sophistry Especially in that trick of Cavillers which is to answer objections by other objections an excellent way to make controversies endlesse D. Potter desires to be resolved Why amongst many things of equall necessity to be believed the Apostles should distinctly set down some in the Creed and bee altogether silent of others In stead of resolving him in this difficulty you put another to him and that is Why are some points not Fundamentall expressed in it rather then other of the same quality Which demand is so far from satisfying the former doubt that it makes it more intricate For upon this ground it may be demanded How was it possible that the Apostles should leave out any Articles simply necessary and put in others not necessary especially if their intention were as you say it was to deliver in it such Articles as were fittest for those times Vnlesse which were wondrous strange unnecessary Articles were fitter for those times then necessary But now to your Question the Answer is obvious These unnecessary things might be put in because they were circumstances of the necessary Pontius Pilate of Christs Passion The third day of the ResurrectioÌ neither doth the adding of theÌ make the Creed ever a whit the lesse portable the lesse fit to be understood and remembred And for the contrary reasons other unnecessary things might bee left out Besides who sees not that the addition of some unnecessary circumstances is a thing that can hardly be avoided without affectation And therefore not so great a fault nor deserving such a censure as the omission of any thing essentiall to the work undertaken and necessary to the end proposed in it 76 You demand again as it is no hard matter to multiply demands why our Saviours descent to Hell and Buriall was expressed and not his circumcision his manifestation to the three Kings and working of Miracles I answer His Resurrection Ascension and sitting at the right hand of God are very great Miracles and they are expressed Besides S. Iohn assures us That the Miracles which Christ did were done and written not for themselves that they might be believed but for a farther end that we might believe that Iesus was the Christ and believing haue eternall life He therefore that belieues this may be saved though he haue no explicite and distinct faith of any Miracle that our Saviour did His Circumcision Manifestation to the Wise men for I know not upon what grounds you call them Kings are neither things simply necessary to be known nor haue any neer relation to those that are so As for his Descent into Hell it may for ought you know be put in as a thing necessary of it selfe to be known If you ask why more then his Circumcision I refer you to the Apostles for an answer who put that in and left this out of their Creed and yet sure were not so forgetfull after the receiving of the holy Ghost as to leaue out any prime principall foundation of the faith which are the very words of your own Gordonius Huntlaeus Cont. 2. c. 10. num 10. Likewise his Buriall was put in perhaps as necessary of it selfe to be known But though it were not yet hath it manifestly so neer relation to these that are necessary his Passion Resurrection being the Consequent of the one and the Antecedent of the other that it is no marvell if for their sakes it was put in For though I verily belieue that there is no necessary point of this nature but what is in the Creed yet I doe not affirme because I cannot prove it that there is nothing in the Creed but what is necessary You demand thirdly Why did they not expresse Scriptures Sacraments and all Fundamentall points of faith tending to practise as well as those which rest in Beliefe I answer Because their purpose was to comprize in it only those necessary points which rest in beliefe which appeares because of practicall points there is not in it so much as one 77 D. Potter subjoynes to what is said aboue That as well nay better they might have given no Article but that of the Church and sent us to the Church for all the rest For in setting down others besides that and not all they make us beleeve we have all when we have not all This consequence you deny and neither give reason against it nor satisfie his reason for it which yet in my judgment is good and concluding The Proposition to be proved is this That if your Doctrine were trve this short Creed I beleeve the Roman Church to be infallible would have been better that is more effectuall to keep the beleevers of it from Heresie and in the true faith then this Creed which now we have A proposition so evident that I cannot see how either you or any of your Religion or indeed any sensible man can from his heart deny it Yet because you make shew of doing so or else which I rather hope doe not rightly apprehend the force of the Reason I will endeavour briefly to adde some light and strength to it by comparing the effects of these severall supposed Creeds 78 The former Creed therefore would certainly produce these effects in the beleevers of it An impossibility of being in any formall Heresie A necessity of being prepared in mind to come out of all Errourin faith or materiall Heresie which certainly you will not denie or if you doe you pull downe the only pillar of your Church and Religion and denie that which is in effect the only thing you labour to prove through your whole Book 79 The latter Creed which now we have is so un-effectuall for these good purposes that you your self tell
us of innumerable grosse damnable Heresies that have been are and may be whose contrary Truths are neither explicitly nor by consequence comprehended in this Creed So that no man by the beleife of this Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefes that it is more likely to ensnare theÌ into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary points of faith which is apt as experience shewes to mis-guide men into this pernitious errour That believing the Creed they believe all necessary points of faith whereas indeed they doe not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better then that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed propos'd by me I believe the Roman Church to be infallible if your doctrine be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrine be true would without controversie be better then the latter 80 But say you by this kind of arguing one might inferre quite contrary If the Apostles Creed contain all points necessary to Salvation what need have wee of any Church to teach us And consequently what need of the Article of the Church To which I answer that having compared your inference and D. Potter together I cannot discover any shadow of resemblance between them nor any shew of Reason why the perfection of the Apostles Creed should exclude a necessity of some body to deliver it Much lesse why the whole Creed's containing all things necessary should make the beliefe of a part of it unnecessary As well for ought I understand you might avouch this inference to be as good as D. Potters The Apostles Creed contains all things necessary therefore there is no need to believe in God Neither does it follow so well as D. Potters argument followes That if the Apostles Creed containes all things necessary that all other Creeds and Catechismes wherein are added divers other Particulars are superfluous For these other Particulars may be the duties of obedience they may be profitable points of Doctrine they may be good expositions of the Apostles Creed and so not superfluous and yet for all this the Creed may still contain all points of belief that are simply necessary These therefore are poor consequences but no more like D. Potters then an apple is like an oister 81 But this consequence after you have sufficiently slighted and disgraced it at length you promise us newes and pretend to grant it But what is that which you mean to grant That the Apostles did put no Article in their Creed but only that of the Church Or that if they had done so they had done better then now they have done This is D. Potters inference out of your Doctrine and truly if you should grant this this were newes indeed Yes say you I will grant it but only thus farre that Christ hath referred us only to his Church Yea but this is clean another thing and no newes at all that you should grant that which you would fain have granted to you So that your dealing with us is just as if a man should profer me a curtesy and pretend that he would oblige himselfe by a note under his hand to give me twenty pound and in stead of it write that I owe him forty and desire me to subscribe to it and be thankfull Of such favours as these it is very safe to be liberall 82 You tell us afterward but how it comes in I know not that it were a childish argument The Creed containes not all things necessary Ergo It is not Profitable Or the Church alone is sufficient to teach us by some convenient meanes Ergo She must teach us without meanes These indeed are childish arguments but for ought I see you alone are the father of them for in D. Potters book I can neither meet with them nor any like them He indeed tels you that if by an impossible supposition your Doctrine were true another and a farre shorter Creed would have been more expedient even this alone I believe the Roman Church to be infallible But why you should conclude he makes this Creed unprofitable because he saies another that might be conceived upon this false supposition would be more profitable or that he laies a necessity upon the Church of teaching without meanes or of not teaching this very Creed which now is taught these things are so subtill that I cannot apprehend them To my understanding by those words And sent us to the Church for all the rest he does rather manifestly imply that the rest might be very well not only profitable but necessary and that the Church was to teach this by Creeds or Catechismes or Councells or any other meanes which she should make choice of for being Infallible she could not choose amisse 83 Whereas therefore you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholique Church she must haue taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other meanes This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which followes that the Apostles if your doctrine be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we haue if insteed thereof they had commanded in plain termes that for mens perpetuall direction in the faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to haue taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion For then the Church not having learnt it of them could not haue taught it us This therefore I doe not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they haue written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrine which they did preach and done all otherthings as they have done besides the composing their Symboleâ I say if your doctrine were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficiall to the Church of Christ if they had never compos'd their Symbole which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary points of simple beliefe and no distinctiue mark as a Symbole should be between those that are good Christians and those that are not so But insteed thereof had delivered this one Proposition which would haue been certainly effectuall for all the aforesaid good intents and purposes The Roman Church shall be forever infallible in all things which she proposes as matters of faith 84 Whereas you say If we will belieue we haue all in the Creed wheÌ we haue not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell
salvation and yet I cannot hope to be saved in that Church or who can conjoyn in one brain not crack't these assertions After due examination I judge the Roman errors not to be in themselues fundamentall or damnable and yet I judge that according to true reason it is damnable to hold them I say according to true reason For if you grant your conscience to be erroneous in judging that you cannot be saved in the Roman Church by reason of her errours there is no other remedy but that you must rectifie your erring conscience by your other judgement that her errours are not fundamentall nor damnable And this is no more Charity then you daily afford to such other Protestants as you term Brethren whom you cannot deny to be in some errors unlesse you will hold That of contradictory propositions both may be true and yet you doe not judge it damnable to liue in their Communion because you hold their errors not to be fundamentall You ought to know that according to the Doctrine of all Divines there is great difference between a speculatiue perswasion and a practicall dictamen of conscience and therefore although they had in speculation conceived the visible Church to erre in some doctrines of themselves not damnable yet with that speculatiue judgement they might and ought to haue entertained this practicall dictamen that for points not substantiall to faith they neither were bound nor lawfully could break the bond of Charity by breaking unity in Gods Church You say that hay and stubble and such unprofitable stuffe as are corruptions in points not fundamentall laid on the roofe destroyes not the house whilst the main pillars are standing on the foundation And you would think him a mad man who to be rid of such stuffe would set his house on fire that so he might walk in the light as you teach that Luther was obliged to forsake the house of God for an unnecessary light not without a combustion formidable to the whole ChristiaÌ world rather then beare with some errours which did not destroy the foundation of faith And as foâ others who entred in at the breach first made by Luther they might and ought to haue guided their consciences by that most reasonable rule of Vincentius Lyrinensis delivered in these words Indeed it is a matter of great moment and both most profitable to be learned and necessary to be remembred and which we ought again and again to illustrate and inculcate with weighty heapes of examples that almost all Catholiques may know that they ought to receiue the Doctors with the Church and not forsake the faith of the Church with the Doctors And much lesse should they forsake the faith of the Church to follow Luther Calvin and such other Novelists Moreover though your first Reformers had conceived their own opinions to be true yet they might and ought to haue doubted whether they were certain because your selfe affirm that infallibility was not promised to any particular Persons or Churches And since in cases of uncertainties we are not to leave our Superiour nor cast off his obedience or publiquely oppose his decrees your Reformers might easily haue found a safe way to satisfie their zealous conscience without a publique breach especially if with this their uncertainty we call to mind the peaceable possession and prescription which by the confession of your own Brethren the Church and Pope of Rome did for many ages enjoy I wish you would examine the works of your Brethren by the words your selfe sets down to free S. Cyprian from Schisme every syllable of which words convinceth Luther and his Copartners to be guilty of that crime and sheweth in what manner they might with great ease and quietnesse haue rectified their consciences about the pretended errours of the Church S. Cyprian say you was a peaceable and modest man dissented from others in his iudgement but without any breach of Charity condemned no man much lesse any Church for the contrary opinion He believed his own opinion to be true but believed not that it was necessary and therefore did not proceed rashly and peremptorily to censure others but left them to their liberty Did your Reformers imitate this manner of proceeding Did they censure no man much lesse any Church S. Cyprian believed his own Opinion to be true but believed not that it was necessary and THEREFORE did not proceed rashly and peremptorily to censure others You belieue the points wherein Luther differs from us not to be fundamentall or necessary and why doe you not thence infer the like THEREFORE he should not haue proceeded to censure others In a word since their disagreement from us concerned only points which were not fundamentall they should haue believed that they might haue been deceived as well as the whole visible Church which you say may erre in such points and therefore their doctrines being not certainly true and certainly not necessary they could not giue sufficient cause to depart from the Communion of the Church 42 In other places you write so much as may serve us to proue that Luther and his followers ought to haue deposed and rectified their consciences As for example when you say When the Church hath declared her selfe in any matter of opinion or of Rites her declaration obliges all her children to peace and externall obedience Nor is it fit or lawfull for any private man to oppose his judgement to the publique as Luther and his fellows did He may offer his opinion to be considered of so he doe it with evidence or great probability of Scripture or reason and very modestly still containing himself within the dutifull respect which he oweth but if he will factiously advance his own conceits his own conceits yet grounded upon evidence of Scripture despise the Church so far as to cut of her CoÌmunion he may be justly branded condemned for a Schismatique yea an Heretique also in some degree in foro exteriori though his opinion were true much more if it be false Could any man even for a Fee haue spoken more home to condemn your Predecessors of Schisme or Heresy Could they haue stronger Motives to oppose the doctrine of the Church and leave her Communion then evidence of Scripture And yet according to your own words they should haue answered rectified their conscience by your doctrine that though their opinion were true and grounded upon evidence of Scripture or reason yet it was not lawfull for any private man to oppose his iudgement to the publique which obligeth all Christians to peace externall obedience and if they cast off the Communion of the Church for maintaining their own Conceits they may be branded for Schismatiques and Heretiques in some degree in foro exteriori that is all other Christians ought so to esteem of them and why then are we accounted uncharitable for judging so of you and they also are obliged to behaue themselves
malice If these mens conceits were true the Church might come to be wholly divided by wicked Schismes and yet after some space of time none could be accused of Schisme nor be obliged to returne to the visible Church of Christ and so there should remaine no One true visible Church Let therefore these men who pretend to honour reverence and believe the Doctrine and practise of the visible Church and to condemne their forefathers who forsooke her and say they would not have done so if they had lived in the daies of their Fathers and yet follow their example in remaining divided from her Communion consider how truly these words of our Saviour fall upon them Woe be to you because you build the Prophets sepulchers and garnish the monuments of just men and say If we had been in our Fathers daies we had not been their fellowes in the blood of the Prophets Therefore you are a testimony to your own selves that you are the sonnes of them that killed the Prophets and fill up the measure of your Fathers 46 And thus having demonstrated that Luther his Associates and all that continue in the Schisme by them begun are guilty of Schisme by departing from the visible true Church of Christ it remaineth that we examine what in particular was that Visible true Church from which they departed that so they may know to what Church in particular they ought to returne and then we shall have performed what was proposed to be handled in the fift Point 47 That the Roman Church I speak not for the present of the particular Diocesse of Rome but of all visible Churches dispersed throughout the whole world agreeing in Faith with the Chaire of Peter whether that Sea were supposed to be in the City of Rome or in any other place That I say the Church of Rome in this sense was the visible Catholique Church out of which Luther departed is proved by your own confession who assigne for notes of the Church the true Preaching of Gods word and due administration of Sacraments both which for the substance you cannot deny to the Roman Church since you confesse that she wanted nothing fundamentall or necessary to salvation and for that very cause you think to cleare your selfe from Schisme whose property as you say is to cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation the Church from which it separates Now that Luther and his fellowes were born and baptized in the Roman Church and that she was the Church out of which they departed is notoriously known and therefore you cannot cut her off from the Body of Christ and hope of Salvation unlesse you will acknowledge your selfe to deserve the just imputation of Schisme Neither can you deny her to be truly Catholique by reason of pretended corruptions not fundamentall For your selfe avouch and endeavour to prove that the true Catholique Church may erre in such points Moreover I hope you will not so much as goe about to prove that when Luther rose there was any other true visible Church disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrines and you cannot deny but that England in those daies agreed with Rome and other Nations with England And therefore either Christ had no visible Church upon Earth or else you must grant that it was the Church of Rome A truth so manifest that those Protestants who affirme the Roman Church to have lost the nature and being of a true Church doe by inevitable consequence grant that for divers ages Christ had no visible Church on earth from which error because D. Potter disclaimeth he must of necessity maintaine that the Roman Church is free from fundamentall and damnable error and that she is not cut off from the Body of Christ and the Hope of Salvation And if saith he any Zelots amongst us haue proceeded to heavier censures their zeale may be excused but their Charity and wisdome cannot be justified 48 And to touch particulars which perhaps some may object No man is ignorant that the Grecians even the Schismaticall Grecians doe in most points agree with Roman Catholiques and disagree from the Protestant Reformation They teach Transubstantiation which point D. Potter also confesseth Invocation of Saints and Angels veneration of Reliques and Images Auricular Confession enjoyned Satisfaction Confirmation with Chrisme Extream unction All the seaven Sacraments Prayer Sacrifice Almes for the dead Monachisme That Priests may not marry after their Ordination In which points that the Grecians agree with the Roman Church appeareth by a Treatise published by the Protestant Divines of Wittemberg intituled Acta Theologorum Wittembergensium Iâremiae Patriarchae Constantinop de Augustana confessione c. Wittembergae anno 1584. by the Protestant Crispinus and by Sir Edwin Sands in the Relation of the State of Religion of the West And I wonder with what colour of truth to say no worse D. Potter could affirme that the Doctrines debated between the Protestants and Rome are only the partiall and particular fancies of the Roman Church unlesse happily the opinion of Transubstantiation may be excepted wherein the latter Grecians seem to agree with the Romanists Beside the Protestant Authors already cited Petrus Arcudiâs a Grecian and a learned Catholique Writer hath published a large Volume the Argument and Title whereof is Of the agreement of the Roman and Greek Church in the seven Sacraments As for the Heresy of the Grecians that the Holy Ghost proceeds not from the Some I suppose that Protestants dissvow them in that error as we doe 49 D. Potter will not I think so much wrong his reputation as to tell us that the Waldenses Wiccliffe Husse or the like were Protestants because in some things they disagreed from Catholiques For he well knowes that the example of such men is subject to these manifest exceptions They were not of all Ages not in all Countries But confined to certain places and were interrupted in Time against the notion and nature of the word Catholique They had no Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy nor Succession of Bishops Priests and Pastors They differed among themselues and from Protestants also They agreed in divers things with us against Protestants They held doctrines manifestly absurd and damnable heresies 50 The Waldenses began not before the year 1218 so farre were they from Vniversality of all Ages For their doctrine first they denied all Iudgements which extended to the drawing of bloud and the Sabbath for which cause they were called In-sabbatists Secondly they taught that Lay men and women might consecrate the Sacrament and preach no doubt but by this meanes to make their Master Waldo a meere lay man capable of such functions Thirdly that Clergy men ought to have no possessions or proprieties Fourthly that there should be no division of Parishes nor Churches for a walled Church they reputed as a barne Fiftly that men ought not to take an oath in any case Sixtly
and honest Fore-fathers Thus declaring plainly though in words they denyed the Visibility of the true Church yet their meaning was not to deny the perpetuity but the perpetuall purity and incorruption of the Visible Church 15 Ad § 11. Let us proceed therefore to your 11. Sect. where though D. Potter and other Protestants granting the Churches perpetuall Visibility make it needlesse for you to prove it yet you will needs be doing that which is needlesse But you doe it so coldly and negligently that it is very happy for you that D. Potter did grant it 16 For what if the Prophets spake more obscurely of Christ then of the Church What if they had foreseen that greater contentions would arise about the Church then Christ Which yet he that is not a meere stranger in the story of the Church must needs know to be untrue and therefore not to be fore-seene by the Prophets What if we have manifestly received the Church from the Scriptures Does it follow from any or all these things that the Church of Christ must be alwaies Visible 17 Besides what Protestant ever granted that which you presume upon so confidently that every man for all the affaires of his soule must have recourse to some congregation If some one Christian lived alone among Pagans in some country remote from Christendome shall we conceive it impossible for this man to be saved because he cannot have recourse to any congregation for the affaires of his soule Will it not be sufficient for such a ones Salvation to know the doctrine of Christ and live according to it Such fancies as these you doe very wisely to take for granted because you know well t is hard to prove them 18 Let it be as unlawfull as you please to deny and dissemble matters of faith Let them that doe so not be a Church but a damned Crew of Sycophants What is this to the Visibility of the Church May not the Church be Invisible and yet these that are of it professe their faith No say you Their profession will make them visible Very true visible in the places where and in the times when they live and to those persons unto whom they have necessary occasion to make their profession But not visible to all or any great or considerable part of the world while they live much lesse conspicuous to all Ages after them Now it is a Church thus illustriously and conspicuously visible that you require by whose splendour all men may be directed drawn to repaire to her for the affaires of their soules Neither is it the Visibility of the Church absolutely but this degree of it which the most rigid Protestants deny which is plaine enough out of the places of Napper cited by you in your 9. Part. of this chapt Where his words are God hath withdrawne his visible Church from open Assemblies to the hearts of particular godly men And this Church which had not open Assemblies he calls The latent and Invisible Church Now I hope Papists in England will be very apt to grant men may be so farre Latent and Invisible as not to professe their faith in open Assemblies nor to proclaime it to all the world yet not deny nor dissemble it nor deserve to be esteemed a damned crew of dissembling Sycophants 19 But preaching of the word and administration of the Sacraments cannot but make a Church visible and these are inseparable notes of the Church I answer they are so far inseparable that wheresoever they are there a Church is But not so but that in some cases there may bee a Church where these notes are not Againe these notes will make the Church visible But to whom certainly not to all men nor to most meÌ But to them only to whom the word is preached and the Sacraments are administred They make the Church visible to whom themselves are visible but not to others As where your Sacraments are administred and your doctrine preached it is visible that there is a Popish Church But this may perhaps be visible to them only who are present at these performances and to others as secret as if they had never beene performed 20 But S. Austine saith it is an impudent abominable detestable speech and so forth to say the Church hath perished I answer 1. All that S. Austine sayes is not true 2. Though this were true it were nothing to your purpose unlesse you will conceive it all one not to be not to be conspicuously visible 3. This very speech that the Church perished might be false and impudent in the Donatists and yet not so in the Protestants For there is no incongruity that what hath lived 500. yeares may perish in 1600. But S. Austin denyed not only the Actuall perishing but the possibility of it and not only of it's falling to nothing but of it's falling into corruption I answer though no such thing appeares out of those places yet I believe heare of disputation against the Donatists and a desire to over-confute them transported him so farre as to urge against them more then was necessary and perhaps more then was true But were he now revived did but confront the doctrine of after-ages with that his owne experience would enforce him to change his opinion As concerning the last speech of S. Austine I cannot but wonder very much why he should thinke it absurd for any man to say There are sheepe which he knowes not but God knowes and no lesse at you for obtruding this sentence upon us as pertinent proofe of the Churches visibility 21 Neither doe I see how the Truth of any present Church depends the Perpetuall Visibility nay nor upon the perpetuity of that which is past or future For what sense is there that it should not be in the power of God Almighty to restore to a flourishing estate a Church which oppression hath made Invisible to repaire that which is ruined to reforme that which was corrupted or to reviue that which was dead Nay what Reason is there but that by ordinary meanes this may be done so long as the Scriptures by Divine Providence are preserved in their integrity and Authority As a Common-wealth though never so farre collapsed and overrunne with disorders is yet in possibility of being reduc'd unto its Originall state so long as the Ancient Lawes and Fundamentall Constitutions are extant and remain inviolate from whence men may be directed how to make such a Reformation But S. Austine urges this uery Argument against the Donatists and therefore it is good I answer that I doubt much of the Consequence and my Reason is because you your selves acknowledge that even generall Councels and therefore much more particular Doctors though infallible in their determinations are yet in their Reasons and Arguments where upon they ground them subject to like Passions and Errours with other men 22 Lastly whereas you say That all Divines define Schisme a Division from the true Church and from
For it is to require that they which believe some part of your Doctrine false should withall believe it all true Seeing therefore for any man to believe your Church in error and professe the contrary is damnable Hypocrisie to believe it and not believe it a manifest repugnancy and thirdly to professe it and to continue in your Communion as matters now stand a plain impossibility what remaines but that whosoever is supposed to have just reason to disbelieve any doctrine of your Church must of necessity forsake her Communion Vnlesse you would remit so farre from your present rigour as to allow them your Churches communion who publiquely professe that they doe not believe every article of her established Doctrine Indeed if you would doe so you might with some coherence suppose your Church in error and yet finde fault with men for abandoning her communion because they might continue in it and suppose her in error But to suppose your Church in error and to excommunicate all those that believe your own supposition and then to complain that they continue not in your communion is the most ridiculous incongruity that can be imagined And therefore though your corruptions in doctrine in themselves which yet is false did not yet your obliging us to professe your doctrine uncorrupted against knowledge and conscience may induce an obligation to depart from your communion As if there were any society of Christians that held there were no Antipodes notwithstanding this error I might communicate with them But if I could not doe so without professing my selfe of their beleefe in this matter then I suppose I should be excus'd from Schisme if I should forsake their communion rather then professe my selfe to believe that which I doe not believe Neither is there any contradiction or shadow of contradiction that it may be necessary for my Salvation to depart from this Churches communion And that this Church though erring in this matter wants nothing necessary to Salvation And yet this is that manifest contradiction which D. Potter you say will never be able to salve viz. That there might be necessary cause to depart from the Church of Rome in some Doctrines and practices though she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation 60 And your Reason wherewith you prove that there is in these words such a plain contradiction is very notable For say you if she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation how could it be necessary to Salvation to forsake her Truly Sir if this be a good manner of proving it is a very ready way to prove any thing for what is there that may not be proved if it be proofe enough to aske how it can be otherwise Me thinkes if you would convince D. Potter's words of manifest contradiction you should shew that he affirmes and denies the same of the same From which fault me thinkes he should be very innocent who saies only that that may be damnable to one which is not so to another and that may be necessary for one which is not necessary for another And this is all that D. Potter saies here viz. That the profession of a falsehood to him that believes it may be not damnable and yet damnable to him that believes the contrary Or that not to professe a falsehood in him that knowes it to be so is necessary to Salvation and yet not so in him that by error conceives it to be a truth The words by you cited and charged with unsalvable contradiction are in the 75. pag. But in the progresse of the same particular discourse in the next page but one he gives such evident reason of them which can hardly be done to prove implicancy true that whereas you say he will never be able to salve them from contradiction I believe any indifferent reader having considered the place will be very apt to think that you whatsoever you pretend were very able to have done this curtesy for him if your will had been answerable to your ability I will set down the words and leave the Reader to condemne or absolve them To forsake the errors of that Church and not to joyne with her in those practices which we account erroneous wee are enforced by necessity For though in the issue they are not damnable to them which belieue as they professe yet for us to professe avow by oath as the Church of Rome enioynes what we belieue not were without question damnable And they with their errours by the grace of God might goe to Heaven when we for our hypocrisie and dissimulation he might haue added and Perjury should certainly be condemned to Hell 61 Ad § 20. But a Church not erring in Fundamentalls though erring in other matters doth what our Saviour exacts at her hands doth as much as lies in her power to doe Therefore the Communion of such a Church is not upon pretence of Errour to be forsaken The consequence is manifest The Antecedent is proved because God by D. Potters confession hath promised his assistance no further nor is it in her power to doe more then God doth assist her to doe Ans. The promise of Divine Assistance is two fold Absolute or Conditionall That there shall be by Divine providence preseru'd in the world to the worlds end such a company of Christians who hold all things precisely and indispensably necessary to salvation and nothing inevitably destructive of it This and no more the Doctor affirmes that God hath promised absolutely Yet he neither doubts nor denies but that a farther assistance is conditionally promised us even such an assistance as shall lead us if we be not wanting to it and our selves into all not only necessary but very profitable truth and guard us from all not only destructive but also hurtfull Errours This I say he neither denies nor questions And should he haue done so hee might haue been confuted by evident and expresse Text of Scripture When therefore you say That a Church not erring in Fundamentalls doth as much as by Gods assistance lies in her power to doe This is manifestly untrue For Gods assistance is alwaies ready to promote her farther It is ready I say but on condition the Church does implore it on condition that when it is offered in the divine directions of Scripture and reason the Church be not negligent to follow it If therefore there be any Church which retaining the foundation builds hay and stubble upon it which believing what is precisely necessary erres shamefully and dangerously in other things very profitable This by no meanes argues defect of divine assistance in God but neglect of this assistance in the Church Neither is there any reason why such a Church should please her selfe too much for retaining Fundamentall truths while shee remaines so regardlesse of others For though the simple defect of some truths profitable onely and not simply necessary may consist with salvation Yet who is there that can giue her sufficient assurance that the neglect
Book Besides any private man who truly believes the Scripture and seriously endeavours to know the will of God and to doe it is as secure as the visible Church more secure then your Church from the danger of erring in fundamentalls for it is impossible that any man so qualified should fall into any error which to him will prove damnable For God requires no more of any man to his Salvation but his true endeavour to be saved Lastly abiding in your Churches Communion is so farre from securing me or any man from damnable error that if I should abide in it I am certain I could not be saved For abide in it I cannot without professing to believe your entire doctrine true professe this I cannot but I must lye perpetually and exulcerate my conscience And though your errors were not in themselves damnable yet to resist the known Truth and to continue in the profession of known errors and false hoods is certainly a capitall sinne and of great affinity with the sinne which shall never be forgiven 95 But neither is the Church of Protestants perfectly free from errors and corruptions so the Doctor confesses p. 69. which he can only excuse by saying they are not fundamentall as likewise those in the Roman Church are confessed not to be fundamentall And what man of Iudgement will be a Protestant since that Church is confessedly a corrupted one Ans. And yet you your selfe make large discourses in this very Chapter to perswade Protestants to continue in the Church of Rome though supposed to have some corruptions And why I pray may not a man of judgement continue in the Communion of a Church confessedly corrupted as well as in a Church supposed to be corrupted Especially when this Church supposed to be corrupted requires the beliefe and profession of her supposed corruptions as the condition of her Communion which this Church confessedly corrupted doth not What man of judgement will think it any disparagement to his judgement to preferre the better though not simply the best before that which is starke naught To preferre indifferent good health before a diseased and corrupted state of Body To preferre a field not perfectly weeded before a field that is quite over-runne with weeds and thornes And therefore though Protestants have some Errors yet seeing they are neither so great as yours nor impos'd with such tyranny nor maintained with such obstinacy he that conceives it any disparagement to his judgement to change your Communion for theirs though confessed to have some corruptions it may well be presum'd that he hath but little judgement For as for your pretence that yours are confessed not to be fundamentall it is an affected mistake as already I have often told you 66 Ad § 22. But D. Potter saies it is comfort enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all capitall dangers but she may not hope to triumph over all sinne and error till she be in heaven Now if it be comfort enough to be secur'd from all capitall dangers which can arise only from error in fundamentall points Why were not our first Reformers content with enough but would needs dismember the Church out of apernitious greedinesse of more then enough Ans. I have already shewed sufficiently how capitall danger may arise from errors though not fundamentall I adde now that what may be enough for men in ignorance may be to knowing men not enough according to that of the Gospell to whom much is given of him much shall be required That the same error may be not capitall to those who want meanes of finding the truth and capitall to others who have meanes and neglect to use them That to continue in the profession of error discovered to be so may be damnable though the error be not so These I presume are reasons enough and enough why the first Reformers might think and justly that not enough for themselves which yet to some of their Predecessors they hope might be enough This very Argument was objected to S. Cyprian upon another occasion and also by the British Quartodecimans to the maintainers of the Doctrine of your Church and by both this very answer was returned and therefore I cannot but hope that for their sakes you will approve it 67 But if as the Doctor saies no Church may hope to triumph over all error tiâ she be in heaven then we must either grant that errors not fundamentall cannot yeeld sufficient cause to forsake the Church or you must affirme that all Communities may and ought to be forsaken Answ. The Doctor does not say that no Church may hope to be free from all error either pernitious or any way noxious But that no Church may hope to be secure from all error simply for this were indeed truly totriumph over all But then we say not that the communion of any Church is to be forsaken for errors unfundamentall unlesse it exact withall either a dissimulation of the being noxious or a Profession of them against the dictate of conscience if they be meere errors This if the Church does as certainly yours doth then her communion is to be forsaken rather then the sinne of hypocrisy to be committed Whereas to forsake the Churches of Protestants for such errors there is no necessity because they erre to themselves doe not under pain of Excommunication exact the profession of their errors 68 But the Church may not be left by reason of sinne therefore neither by reason of errors not fundamentall in as much as both sinne and error are impossible to be avoided till she be in heaven Ans. The reason of the consequence does not appear to mee But I answer to the Antecedent Neither for sinne nor errors ought a Church to be forsaken if she does not impose and injoyne them but if she doe as the Roman does then we must forsake men rather then God leave the Churches communion rather then commit sinne or professe known errors to be divine truths For the Prophet EZechiel hath assured us that to say the Lord hath said so when the Lord hath not said so is a great sinne and a high presumption be the matter never so small 69 Ad § 23. But neither the Quality nor the number of your Churches errors could warrant our forsaking of it Not the Quality because we suppose them not Fundamentall Not the number because the foundation is strong enough to support them Ans. Here againe you vainely suppose that we conceive your errors in themselves not damnable Though we hope they are not absolutely unpardonable but to say they are pardonable is indeed to suppose them damnable Secondly though the errors of your Church did not warrant our departure yet your Tyrannous imposition of them would be our sufficient justification For this laies necessity on us either to forsake your company or to professe what we know to be false 70 Our Blessed Saviour hath declared his will that we
forgive a private offender seventy seven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of Trespasses and thou how dare we alleage his command that we must not pardon his Church for errors acknowledged to be not fundamentall Ans. He that commands us to pardon our Brother sinning against us so often will not allow us for his sake to sinne with him so much as once He will have us doe any thing but sinne rather then offend any man But his will is also that we offend all the World rather then sinne in the least matter And therefore though his will were and it were in our power which yet is false to pardon the errors of an erring Church yet certainly it is not his will that we should erre with the Church or if we doe not that we should against conscience professe the errors of it 71 Ad § 24. But Schismatiques from the Church of England or any other Church with this very Answer that they forsake not the Church but the errors of it may cast off from themselves the imputation of Schisme Ans. True they may make the same Answer and the same defence as we doe as a murtherer can cry not guilty as well as an innocent person but not so truly nor so justly The question is not what may be pretended but what can bee proved by Schismatiques They may object errors to other Churches as well as we doe to yours but that they prove their accusation so strongly as we can that appeares not To the Priests and elders of the Iewes imposing that sacred silence mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles S. Peter and S. Iohn answered they must obey God rather then men The three Children to the King of Babylon gave in effect the same answer Give me now any factious Hypocrite who makes religion the pretence and cloke of his Rebellion and who sees not that such a one may answer for himselfe in those very formall words which the holy Apostles and Martyrs made use of And yet I presume no Christian will deny but this answer was good in the mouth of the Apostles and Martyrs though it were obnoxious to be abused by Traitors and Rebels Certainly therefore it is no good consequence to say Schismatiques may make use of this Answer therefore all that doe make use of it are Schismatiques But moreover it is to be observed that the chiefe part of our defence that you deny your communion to all that deny or doubt of any part of your doctrine cannot with any colour be imployed against Protestants who grant their Communion to all who hold with them not all things but things necessary that is such as are in Scripture plainly delivered 72 But the forsaking the Roman Church opens a way to innumerable Sects and Schismes and therefore it must not be forsaken Ans. We must not doe evill to avoid evill neither are all courses presently lawfull by which inconveniences may be avoided If all men would submit themselves to the chiefe Mufty of the Turkes it is apparent there would be no divisions yet unity is not to be purchased at so deare a rate It were a thing much to be desired that there were no divisions yet difference of opinions touching points controverted is rather to be chosen then unanimous concord in damned errors As it is better for men to goe to heaven by diverse waies or rather by divers paths of the same way then in the same path to goe on peaceably to hell Amica Pax magis amica Veritas 73 But there can be no iust cause to forsake the Church so the Doctor grants who notwithstanding teacheth that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall therefore neither is the Roman Church to be forsaken for such errors Ans. There can be no just cause to forsake the Church absolutely and simply in all things that is to cease being a member of the Church This I grant if it will doe you any service But that there can be no just cause to forsake the Church in some things or to speak more properly to forsake some opinions and practices which some true Church retaines and defends this I deny and you mistake the Doctor if you think he affirmes it 74 Ad § 26. 27. What prodigious doctrines say you are these Those Protestants who belieue that your Church erred in points necessary to salvation and for that cause left her cannot be excused from damnable Schisme But others c. Prodigious doctrines indeed But who I pray are they that teach them Where does D. Potter accuse those Protestants of damnable Schisme who left your Church because they hold it erroneous in necessary points What Protestant is there that holds not that you taught things contrary to the plaine precepts of Christ both Ceremoniall in mutilating the Communion and Morall in points of superstition Idolatry and most bloody tyranny which is without question to erre in necessary matters Neither does D. Potter accuse any man of Schisme for holding so if he should he should call himselfe a Schismatique Only he saies such if there be any such as affirm that ignorant soules among you who had no means to know the truth cannot possibly be saved that their wisdome and charity cannot be justified Now you your selfe haue plainly affirmed That ignorant Protestants dying with contrition may bee saved and yet would be unwilling to be thought to say that Protestants erre in no points necessary to salvation For that may be in it selfe and in ordinary course where there are meanes of knowledge necessary which to a man invincibly ignorant will proue not necessary Again where doth D. Potter suppose as you make him that there were other Protestants who believed that your Church had no errours Or where does hee say they did well to forsake her upon this ridiculous reason because they judged that she retained all means necessary to salvation Doe you think us so stupid as that wee cannot distinguish between that which D. Potter sayes and that which you make him say He vindicates Protestants from Schisme two waies The one is because they had just and great and necessary cause to separate which Schismatiques never haue because they that haue it are no Schismatiques For schisme is alwaies a causelesse separation The other is because they did not joyn with their separation an uncharitable damning of all those from whom they did divide themselves as the manner of Schismatiques is Now that which he intends for a circumstance of our separation you make him make the cause of it and the motiue to it And whereas he saies though we separate from you in some things yet we acknowledge your Church a member of the body of Christ and therefore are not Schismatiques You make him say most absurdly we did well to forsake you because we iudged you a member of the body of Christ. Iust as if a brother should leaue his Brothers company in some ill courses and should say
reason is alike for all erres in many things are of necessity to forsake that Church in the Profession and practice of those errors 105 But to consider your exception to this speech of the Doctors somewhat more particularly I say your whole discourse against it is compounded of falsehoods and impertinencies The first falsehood is that he in these words avoucheth that no learned Catholiques can be saved Vnlesse you will suppose that all learned Catholiques are convinc'd in conscience that your Church erres in many things It may well be fear'd that many are so convinc'd and yet professe what they believe not Many more have been and have stifled their consciences by thinking it an act of humility to doe so Many more would have beene had they with liberty and indifference of judgement examined the grounds of the Religion which they professe But to think that all the Learned of your side are actually convinc'd of errors in your Church and yet will not forsake the profession of them this is so great an uncharitablenesse that I verily believe D. Potter abhorres it Your next falsehood is That the Doctor affirmes that you Catholiques want no meanes to Salvation and that he judges the Roman errors not to be in themselves fundamentall or damnable Which calumny I have very often confuted and in this very place it is confuted by D. Potter and confessed by your selfe For in the beginning of this Answer you tell us that the Doctor avouches of all Catholiques whom ignorance cannot excuse that they cannot be saved Certainly then he must needs esteeme them to want something necessary to Salvation And then in the Doctors saying it is remarkable that he confesses your errors to some men not damnable which cleerely imports that according to his judgement they were damnable in themselves though by accident to them who lived and died in invincible ignorance and with repentance they might prove not damnable A third is that these Assertions the Roman Errors are in themselves not damnable and yet it is damnable for me who know them to be errors to hold and confesse them are absolutely inconsistent which is false for be the matter what it will yet for a man to tell a lye especially in matter of Religion cannot but be damnable How much more then to goe on in a course of lying by professing to believe these things divine Truths which he verily believes to be falsehoods and fables A fourth is that if we erred in thinking that your Church holds errors this error or erroneous conscience might be rectifyed and deposed by judging those errors not damnable For what repugnance is there between these two suppositions that you doe hold some errors and that they are not damnable And if there be no repugnance between them how can the beleefe of the latter remove or destroy or if it be erroneous rectify the belief of the former Nay seeing there is a manifest consent between them how can it be avoided but the belief of the latter will maintaine and preserve the belief of the former For who can conjoyne in one braine not crackt pardon me if I speake to you in your own words these Assertions In the Roman Church there are errors not damnable and in the Roman Church there are no errors at all Or what sober understanding would ever think this a good collection I esteeme the errors of the Roman Church not damnable therefore I doe amisse to think that she erres at all If therefore you would have us alter our judgements that your Church is erroneous your only way is to shew your doctrine consonant at least not evidently repugnant to Scripture and Reason For as for this device this short cut of perswading our selves that you hold no errours because we believe your errors are not damnable assure your selfe it will never hold 106 A fift falsehood is That we daily doe this favour for Protestants you must mean if you speak consequently to judge they have no errors because we judge they have none damnable Which the world knowes to be most untrue And for our continuing in their communion notwithstanding their errors the justification hereof is not so much that their errors are not damnable as that they require not the beliefe and profession of these errors among the conditions of their communion Which puts a main difference between them and you because we may continue in their communion without professing to believe their opinions but in yours we cannot A sixt is that according to the Doctrine of all Divines there is any difference between a speculative perswasion of conscience of the unlawfulnesse of any thing and a practicall Dictamen that the same thing is unlawfull For these are but diverse words signifying the same thing neither is such a perswasion wholly speculative but tending to practice nor such a dictameÌ wholly practicall but grounded upon speculation A Seventh is That Protestants did only conceive in speculation that the Church of Rome erred in some doctrines and had not also a practicall dictamen that it was damnable for them to continue in the profession of these errors An eighth is that it is not lawfull to separate from any Churches communion for errors not appertaining to the substance of Faith which is not universally true but with this exception unlesse that Church requires the belief and profession of them The ninth is that D. Potter teacheth that Luther was bound to forsake the house of God for an unnecessary light Confuted manifestly by D. Potter in this very place for by the house of God you mean the Roman Church and of her the Doctor saies that a necessity did lye upon him even under pain of damnation to forsake the Church of Rome in her errors This sure is not to say that he was obliged to forsake her for an unnecessary light The tenth is covertly vented in your intimation that Luther and his followers were the proper cause of the Christian worlds combustion Whereas indeed the true cause of this lamentable effect was your violent persecution of them for serving God according to their conscience which if it be done to you you condemne of horrible impiety and therefore may not hope to be excused if you doe it to others 107 The eleaventh is that our first reformers ought to have doubted whether their opinions were certain Which is to say that they ought to have doubted of the certainty of Scripture which in formall and expresse termes containes many of these opinions And the reason of this assertion is very vaine for though they had not an absolute infallibility promised unto them yet may they be of some things infallibly certaine As Euclide sure was not infallible yet was he certain enough that twice two were foure and that every whole was greater then a part of that whole And so though Calvin MelancthoÌ were not infallible in all things yet they might and did know well enough that your Latine Service was condemned by S.
yee offend against God by troubling his Church without iust and necessary cause Be it that there are some reasons inducing you to think hardly of our Lawes Are those Reasons demonstrative are they necessary or but meer probabilities only An argument necessary and demonstratiue is such as being proposed to any man and understood the minde cannot choose but inwardly assent Any one such reason dischargeth I grant the conscience and setteth it at ful liberty For the publique approbation given by the body of this whole Church unto those things which are established doth make it but probable that they are good And therefore unto a necessary proofe that they are not good it must giue place This plain declaration of his judgement in this matter this expresse limitation of his former resolution hee makes in the very same Section which affords your former quotation and therefore what Apology can bee made for you and your store-house M. Brerely for dissembling of it I cannot possibly imagine 111 D. Potter p. 131. saies That the errors of the Donatists and Novatians were not in themselves Heresies nor could be made so by the Churches determination But that the Churches intention was only to silence disputes and to settle peace and unity in her government which because they factiously opposed they were justly esteemed Schismatiques From hence you conclude that the same condemnation must passe against the first Reformers seeing they also opposed the commands of the Church imposed on them for silencing all disputes and setling Peace and Vnity in government But this collection is deceitfull and the reason is Because though the first Reformers as well as the Donatists and Novatians opposed herein the Commands of the Visible Church that is of a great part of it yet the Reformers had reason nay necessity to doe so the Church being then corrupted with damnable errors which was not true of the Church when it was opposed by the Novatians and Donatists And therefore though they and the Reformers did the same action yet doing it upon different grounds it might in these merit applause and in them condemnation 112 Ad § 43. The next § hath in it some objections against Luthers person but none against his cause which alone I have undertaken to justify therefore I passe it over Yet this I promise that when you or any of your side shall publish a good defence of all that your Popes have said done especially of them whom Bellarmin beleeves in such a long train to have gone to the Divell then you shall receive an ample Apology for all the actions and words of Luther In the mean time I hope all reasonable and equitable judges will esteeme it not unpardonable in the great and Heroicall spirit of Luther if being opposed and perpetually baited with a world of Furies hee were transported sometimes and made somewhat furious As for you I desire you to be quiet and to demand no more whether God be wont to send such Furies to preach the Gospell Vnlesse you desire to heare of your killing of Kings Massacring of Peoples Blowing up of Parliaments and have a minde to be ask't whether it bee probable that that should bee Gods cause which needs to bee maintained by such Divellish meanes 112 Ad § 44. 45. In the two next Particles which are all of this Chapter that remain unspoken to you spend a great deale of reading wit reason against some men who pretending to honour believe the Doctrine practice of the visible Church you mean your own and condemning their Forefathers who forsook her say they would not have done so yet remain divided from her Communion Which men in my judgement cannot be defended For if they believe the Doctrine of your Church then must they believe this doctrine that they are to returne to your Communion And therefore if they doe not so it cannot be avoided but they must be ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã and so I leave them only I am to remember you that these men cannot pretend to be Protestants because they pretend to believe your doctrine which is opposite in Diameter unto the doctrine of Protestants and therefore in a worke which you professe to have written meerly against Protestants all this might have been spared CHAP. VI. That Luther and the rest of Protestants have added Heresie unto Schisme BECAVSE Vice is best knowne by the contrary Vertue we cannot well determine what Heresie is nor who be Heretiques but by the opposite vertue of Faith whose Nature being once understood as farre as belongs to our present purpose we shall passe on with ease to the definition of Heresie and so be able to discerne who be Heretiques And this I intend to doe not by entring into such particular Questions as are controverted between Catholiques and Protestants but only by applying some generall grounds either already proved or else yeelded to on all sides 2 Almighty God having ordained Man to a supernaturall End of Beatitude by supernaturall meanes it was requisite that his Vnderstanding should be enabled to apprehend that End and meanes by a supernaturall knowledge And because if such a knowledge were no more then probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbeare our Will and encounter with human probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and blood It was further necessary that this supernaturall knowledge should be most certaine and infallible and that Faith should beleeue nothing more certainly then that it self is a most certain Beliefe and so be able to beat downe all gây probabilities of humane Opinion And because the aforesaid Means and end of Beatificall Vision do farre exceed the reach of naturall wit the certainty of faith could not alwaies be joyned with such evidence of reason as is wont to be found in the Principles or Conclusions of humane naturall Sciences that so all flesh might not glory in the arme of flesh but that he who glories should glory in our Lord Moreover it was expedient that our belief or assent to divine truths should not only be unknowne or inevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it self and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernaturall evidence that so we might have occasion to actuate and testifie the obedience which we owe to our God noâ only by submitting our Will to this Will and Commands but by subjecting also our Vnderstanding to this Wisdome and Words captivating as the Apostle speaks the same Vnderstanding to the Obedience of Faith Which occasion had been wanting if Almighty God had made âââere to us the truths which now are certainly but not evidently presented to our minds For where Truth doth manifestly open it self not obedience but necessity commands our assent For this reason Divines teach that the Objects of Faith being not evident to humane reason it is in mans power not only to abstaine from believing by suspending our Iudgments or exercising no act one
himselfe confirmed their doctrine we are assured that what the said never-interrupted Church proposeth doth deserve to be accepted and acknowledged as a divine truth By evidence of Sense we see that the same Church proposeth such and such doctrines as divine truths that is as revealed and testified by Almighty God By this divine Testimony we are infallibly assured of what we believe and so the last period ground motive and formall obiect of our Faith is the infâllible testimony of that supreme Verity which neither can deceive nor be deceived 7 By this orderly deduction our Faith commeth to be endued with these qualities which we said were âequisite thereto namely Certainty Obscurity and Prudence Certainty proceeds from the infallible Testimony of God propounded and conveyed to our understanding by such a meane as iâ infallible in it selfe and to us is evidently knowne that it proposeth this point or that and which can manifestly declare in what sense it proposeth them which meanes we have proved to be only the visible Church of Christ. Obscurity from the manner in which God speakes to Mankind which ordinarily is such that it doth not manifestly shew the person who speakes nor the truth of the thing spoken Prudence is not wanting because our faith is accompanyed with so many arguments of Credibility that every well disposed Vnderstanding may and ought to judge that the doctrines so confirmed deserve to be believed as proceeding from divine Authority 8. And thus from what hath been said we may easily gather the particular nature or definition of Faith For it is a voluntary or free infallible obscure assent to some truth because it is testifed by God and is sufficiently propounded to us for such which proposall is ordinarily made by the Visible Church of Christ. I say Sufficiently proposed by the Church not that I purpose to dispute whether the proposall of the Church enter into the âormall Obiect or motiââ of Faith or whether an error be any heresie formally and precisely because it is against the proposition of the Church as if such proposall were the formall Object of Faith which D. Potter to no purpose aâ all labours so very hard to disprove But I only affirme that when the Church propounds any Truth as revealed by God we are assured that it is such indeed and so it instantly growes to be a fit Object for Christian faith which enclines and enables us to beleeve whatsoever is dâely presented as a thing revealed by Almighty God And in the same manner we are sure that whosoever opposeth any doctrine proposed by the Church doth thereby contradict a truth which is testified by God As when any lawfull Superiour notifies his will by the meanes and as it were proposall of some faithfull messenger the subject of such a Superiour in performing or neglecting what is delivered by the Messenger is said to obey or disobey his owne lawfull Superiour And therefore because the testimony of God is notified by the Church we may and we doe most truely say that not to beleeve what the Church proposeth is to deny God's holy word or testimony signified to us by the Church according to that saying of S. Irenaeâs We need not goe to any other to seek the truth which we may easily receive from the Church 9. From this definition of faith we may also know what Heresie is by taking the contrary termes as Heresie is contrary to Faith and saying Heresie is a voluntary error against that which God hath revealed and the Church hath proposed for such Neither doth it import whether the error concerne points in themselves great or small fundamentall or not fundamentall For more being required to an act of Vertue then of Vice if any truth though neuer so small may be believed by Faith as soone as we know it to be testified by divine revelation much more will it be a formall Heresie to deny any least point sufficiently propounded as a thing witnessed by God 10. This divine Faith is divided into Actuall and Habituall Actuall faith or faith actuated is when we are in act of consideration and belife of some mystery of Faith for example that our Saviour Christ is true God and Man c. Habituall faith is that from which we are denominated Faithfull or Believers as by Actuall faith they are stiled Believing This Habit of faith is a Quality enabling us most firmly to believe Objects above humane discourse and it remaineth permanently in our Soule even when we are sleeping or not thinking of any Mystery of Faith This is the first among the three Theologicall Vertues For Charity unites us to God as he is infinitely Good in himselfe Hope tyes us to him as he is unspeakably Good to us Faith joynes us to him as he is the Supreame immoveable Verity Charity relies on his Goodnesse Hope on his Power Faith on his divine Wisdome From hence it followeth that Faith being one of the Vertues which Divines terme Infused that is which cannot be acquired by human wit or industry but are in their Nature and Essence supernaturall it hath this property that it is not destroyed by little and little contrarily to the Habits called acquisiti that is gotten by human endeâvour which as they are successiuely produced so also are they lost successiuely or by little and little but it must either be conserved entire or wholly destroyed And since it cannot stand entire with any one act which is directly contrary it must be totally overthrowne and as it were demolished and razed by every such act Wherefore as Charity or the Love of God is expelled from our soule by any one act of Hatred or any other mortall sinne against his divine Majesty and as Hope is destroyed by any one act of voluntary Desperation so Faith must perish by any one act of Heresy because every such act is directly and formally opposite therevnto I know that some sinnes which as Divines speak are exgenere suo in their kind grievous and mortall may be much lessened and fall to be veniall ob levitatem materiae because they may happen to be exercised in a matter of small consideration as for example to steale a penny is veniall although Theft in his kind be a deadly sinne But it is likewise true that this Rule is not generall for all sorts of sinnes there being some so inexcusably wicked of their owne nature that no smalnesse of matter not paucity in number can defend them from being deadly sinnes For to give an instance what Blasphemy against God or voluntary false Oath is not a deadly sinne Certainly none at all although the salvation of the whole world should depend upon swearing such a falshood The liâe hapneth in our present case of Heresie the iniquity whereof redounding to the injury of God's supreme wisdome and Goodnesse is alwayes great and enormous They were no precious stones which David picket out of the water to encounter Goliââ yet if a man
is from the Church of Rome as it is the Sea of Peter And therefore D. Potter need not to be so hot with us because we say and write that the Church of Rome in that sense as she is the Mother Church of all others and with which all the rest agree is truly called the Catholique Church S. Hierome writing to Pope Damasus saith I am in the Communion of the Chaire of Peter I know that the Church is built upon that Rock Whosoever shall eat the Lambe out of this house he is prophane If any shall not be in the Arke of Noe he shall perish in the time of the deluge Whosoever doth not gather with thee doth scatter that is he that is not of Christ is of Antichrist And elsewhere Which doth he call his faith That of the Roman Church Or that which is contained in the Bookes of Origen If he answer the Roman then we are Catholiques who have translated nothing of the error of Origen And yet farther Know thou that the Roman faith commended by the voice of the Apostle doth not receive these delusions though an Angell should denounce otherwise then it hath once been preached S Ambrose recounting how his Brother Satyrus inquiring for a Church wherein to give thankes for his delivery from shipwrack saith he called unto him the Bishop neither did he esteeme any favour to be true except that of the true faith and he asked of him whether he agreed with the Catholique Bishops that is with the Roman Church And having understood that he was a Schismatique that is separated from the Roman Church he abstained from communicating with him Where we see the priviledge of the Roman Church confirmed both by word and deed by doctrine and practice And the same Saint saith of the Roman Church From thence the Rights of Venerable Communion doe flow to all S. Cyprian saith They are bold to saile to the Chaire of Peter and to the principall Church from whence Priestly Vnity hath sprung Neither doe they consider that they are Romans whose faith was commended by the preaching of the Apostle to whom falshood cannot have accesse Where we see this holy Father joynes together the principall Church and the Chaire of Peter and affirmeth that falsehood not only hath not had but cannot have accesse to that Sea And elsewhere Thou wrotest that I should send a Coppy of the same letters to Cornelius our Collegue that laying aside all solicitude he might now be assured that thou didst Communicate with him that is with the Catholique Church What think you M. Doctor of these words Is it so strange a thing to take for one and the same thing to communicate with the Church and Pope of Rome and to communicate with the Catholique Church S. Ireneus saith Because it were long to number the successions of all Churches we declaring the Tradition and faith preached to men and comming to us by Tradition of the most great most ancient and most known Church founded by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul which Tradition it hath from the Apostles comming to us by succession of Bishops we confound all those who any way either by evill complacence of theÌselves or vain glory or by blindnes or ill Opinion doe gather otherwise thâ they ought For to this Church for a more powerfull Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithfull people of what place soever in which Roman Ch. the Tradition which is from the Apostles hath alwayes been conserved from those who are every where S. Augustine saith It grieves us to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeeded to whom She is the Rock which the proud Gates of Hell doe not overcome And in another place speaking of Caecilianus he saith He might contemne the conspiring multitude of his Enemies because he knew himselfe to be vnited by Communicatory letters both to the Roman Church in which the Principality of the Sea Apostolique did alwayes florish and to other Countries from whence the Gospell came first into Africa Ancient Tertullian saith If thou be neere Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is neere at hand to us a happy Church into which the Apostles haue powred all Doctrine together with their blood S. Basill in a letter to the Bishop of Rome âaith In very deed that which was given by our Lord to thy Piety is worthy of that most excellent voice which proclaimed thee Blessed to wit that thou maist discern betwixt that which is counterfeit and that which is lawfull and pure and without any diminution mayest preach the Faith of our Ancestors Maximinianus Bishop of Constantinâple about twelue hundred yeares agoe said All the bounds of the earth who haue sincerely acknowledged our Lord and Catholiques through the whole world professing the true Faith look upon the power of the Bishop of Rome as upon the sunne c. For the Creator of the world amongst all men of the world elected him he speaks of S. Peter to whom he granted the Chaire of Doctour to be principally possessed by a perpetuall right of Priviledge that whosoever is desirous to know any Divine and profound thing may hauâ recourse to the Oracle and Doctrine of this instruction Iohn Patriarck of Constantinople more then eleven hundred yeares agoe in an Epistle to Pope Hormisda writeth thus Because the beginning of salvation is to conserue the rule of right Faith and in no wise to swarue from the tradition of our fore-Fathers because the words of our Lord cannot faile saying Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church the proofes of deeds haue made good those words because in the Sea Apostolicall the Catholique Religion is alwaies conserved inviolable And again We promise hereafter not to recite in the sacred Mysteries the names of them who are excluded from the Communion of the Catholique Church that is to say who consent not fully with the Sea Apostolique Many other Authorities of the ancient Fathers might be produced to this purpose but these may serue to shew that both the Latin and Greek Fathers held for a Note of being a Catholique or an Heretique to haue been united or divided from the Sea of Rome And I haue purposely alleaged only such Authorities of Fathers as speak of the privileges of the Sea of Rome as of things permanent and depending on our Saviours promise to S Peter from which a generall rule and ground ought to be taken for all Ages because Heaven and Earth shall passe but the word of our Lord shall remain for ever So that I here conclude that seeing it is manifest that Luther and his followers divided themselues from the Sea of Rome they beare the inseparable Mark of Heresie 20 And though my meaning be not to treat the point of
by knowledge an apprehension or beliefe But if you take the word properly and exactly it is both false for faith is not knowledge no more then three is foure but eminently contained in it so that he that knowes believes and something more but he that believes many times doe not know nay if he doth barely and meerely believe he doth never know and besides it is retracted by your selfe presently where you require That the object of faith must be both naturally and supernaturally unknown And againe in the next page where you say Faith differs from science in regard of the objects obscurity For that science and knowledge properly taken are Synonimous termes and that a knowledge of a thing absolutely unknown is a plain implicancy I think are things so plain that you will not require any proofe of them 3 But then whereas you adde that if such a knowledge were no more then probable it could not be able sufficiently to over beare our will and encounter with humane probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and bloud and therefore conclude that it was farther necessary that this supernaturall knowledge should be most certain and infallible To this I answere that I doe heartily acknowledge and believe the Articles of our faith be in themselves Truths as certain and infallible as the very common Principles of Geometry and Metaphysicks But that there is required of us a knowledge of them and an adherence to them as certain as that of sense or science that such a certainty is required of us under pain of damnation so that no man can hope to be in the state of Salvation but he that findes in himselfe such a degree of faith such a strength of adherence This I have already demonstrated to be a great errour and of dangerous and pernitious consequence And because I am more and more confirm'd in my perswasion that the truth which I there delivered is of great and singular use I will here confirme it with more reasons And to satisfy you that this is no singularity of my own my Margent presents you with a Protestant Divine of great authority and no way singular in his opinions who hath long since preached and justified the same doctrine 4 I say that every Text of Scripture which makes mention of any that were weake or of any that were strong in faith of any that were of litle or any that were of great faith of any that abounded or any that were rich in faith of encreasing growing rooting grounding establishing confirming in faith Every such Text is a demonstrative refutation of this vain fancy proving that faith even true and saving faith is not a thing consisting in such an indivisible point of perfection as you make it but capable of augmentation and diminution Every Praier you make to God to encrease your faith or if you conceive such a prayer derogatory from the perfection of your faith The Apostles praying to Christ to encrease their faith is a convincing argument of the same conclusion Moreover if this doctrine of yours were true then seeing not any the least doubting can consist with a most infallible certainty it will follow that every least doubting in any matter of faith though resisted and involuntary is a damnable sinne absolutely destructive so long as it lasts of all true and saving faith which you are so farre from granting that you make it no sinne at all but only an occasion of merit and if you should esteeme it a sinne then must you acknowledge contrary to your owne Principles that there are Actuall sinnes meerely involuntary The same is furthermore invincibly confirmed by every deliberate sinne that any Christian commits by any progresse in Charity that he makes For seeing as S. Iohn assures us our faith is the victory which overcomes the world certainly if the faith of all true Believers were perfect and if true faith be capable of no imperfection if all faith be a knowledge most certain and infallible all faith must be perfect for the most imperfect that is according to your doctrine if it be true must be most certain and sure the most perfect that is cannot be more then most certain then certainly their victory over the World and therefore over the flesh and therefore over sinne must of necessity be perfect and so it should be impossible for any true believer to commit any deliberate sinne and therefore he that commits any sinne must not think himselfe a true believer Besides seeing faith worketh by Charity and Charity is the effect of faith certainly if the cause were perfect the effect would be perfect and consequently as you make no degrees in faith so there would be none in charity and so no man could possibly make any progresse in it but all true believers should be equally in Charity as in faith you make them equall from thence it would follow unavoidably that whosoever findes in himselfe any true faith must presently perswade himselfe that he is perfect in Charity and whosoever on the other side discovers in his charity any imperfection must not believe that he hath any true faith These you see are strange and portentous consequences and yet the deduction of them from your doctrine is cleere and apparent which shewes this doctrine of yours which you would fain have true that there might be some necessity of your Churches infallibility to be indeed plainly repugnant not only to Truth but even to all Religion and Piety fit for nothing but to make men negligent of making any progresse in faith or Charity And therefore I must entreat and adjure you either to discover unto me which I take God to witnesse I cannot perceive some fallacy in my reasons against it or never hereafter to open your mouth in defence of it 5 As for that one single reason which you produce to confirm it it will appeare upon examination to be resolved finally into a groundlesse Assertion of your own contrary to all Truth and experience and that is That no degree of faith lesse then a most certaine and infallible knowledge can bee able sufficiently to overbeare our will and encovnter with humane probabilities being backt with the strength of Flesh and Blood For who sees not that many millions in the world forgoe many times their present ease and pleasure undergoe great and toylsome labours encounter great difficulties adventure vpon great dangers and all this not upon any certain expectation but upon a probable hope of some future gain and commodity and that not infinite and eternall but finite and temporall Who sees not that many men abstain from many things they exceedingly desire not upon any certain assurance but a probable feare of danger that may come after What man ever was there so madly in loue with a present penny but that hee would willingly spend it upon any litle hope that by doing so hee might gain an hundred thousand pound And I would fain know
they must of necessity affirme heretically with the Donatists that the true unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O Blasphemy anharlot By which words it seemes you are resolute perpetually to confound True and Vnspotted and to put no difference between a corrupted Church and none at all But what is this but to make no difference betwen a diseased and a dead man Nay what is it but to contradict your selves who cannot deny but that sinnes are as great staines and spots and deformities in the sight of God as errors and confesse your Church to be a congregation of men whereof every particular not one excepted and consequently the generality which is nothing but a collection of them is polluted and defiled with sinne You proceed 19 But say you The same heresy followes out of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall because we have shewed that every error against any revealed truth is Heresy and Damnable whether the matter be great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish then when she is permitted to maintaine damnable Heresy Besides we will hereafter prove that by every act of Heresy all divine faith is lost to maintaine a true Church without any faith is to fansy a living man without life Ans. what you have said before hath been answered before and what you shall say hereafter shall be confuted hereafter But if it be such a certain ground that every error against any one revealed truth is a damnable Heresy Then I hope I shall have your leave to subsume That the Dominicans in your account must hold a damnable heresy who hold an error against the immaculate Conception which you must needs esteeme a revealed truth or otherwise why are you so urgent and importunate to have it defined seeing your rule is nothing may be defined unlesse it be first revealed But without your leave I will make bold to conclude that if either that or the contrary assertion be a revealed truth you or they choose you whether must without contradiction hold a damnable Heresy if this ground be true that every contradiction of a revealed Truth is such And now I dare say for fear of inconvenience you will beginne to temper the crudenesse of your former assertion and tell us that neither of you are Heretiques because the Truth against which you erre though revealed is not sufficiently propounded And so say I neither is your Doctrine which Protestants contradict sufficiently propounded For though it be plain enough that your Church proposeth it yet still methinkes it is as plain that your Churche's proposition is not sufficient and I desire you would not say but prove the contrary Lastly to your Question How can the Church more truly be said to perish then when she is permitted to maintaine a damnable Heresy I Answer she may be more truly said to perish when she is not only permitted to doe so but defacto doth maintaine a damnable Heresy Again she may be more truly said to perish when she falls into an Heresy which is not only damnable in it selfe and ex natura rei as you speak but such an Heresy the belief of whose contrary Truth is necessary not only necessitate praecepti but medii and therefore the heresy so absolutely and indispensably destructive of salvation that no ignorance can excuse it nor any generall repentance without a dereliction of it can begge a pardon for it Such an heresy if the Church should fall into it might be more truly said to perish then if it fell only into some heresy of its own nature damnable For in that state all the members of it without exception all without mercy must needs perish for ever In this although those that might see the truth would not cannot upon any good ground hope for Salvation yet without question it might send many soules to heaven who would gladly have embrac'd the truth but that they wanted means to discover it Thirdly and lastly shee may yet more truly bee said to perish when shee Apostates from Christ absolutely or rejects even those Truths out of which her Heresies may bee reformed as if shee should directly deny Iesus to be the Christ or the Scripture to be the Word of God Towards which state of Perdition it may well be feared that the Church of Rome doth somewhat incline by her superinducing upon the rest of her errors the Doctrine of her own infallibility whereby her errors are made incurable and by her pretending that the Scripture is to be interpreted according to her doctrine and not her doctrine to be judg'd of by Scripture whereby she makes the Scripture uneffectuall for her Reformation 20 Ad § 18. I was very glad when I heard you say The Holy Scripture and ancient Fathers doe assigne Separation from the visible Church as a mark of Heresie for I was in good hope that no Christian would so bely the Scripture as to say so of it unlesse hee could have produced some one Text at least wherein this was plainly affirmed or from whence it might be undoubtedly and undeniably collected For assure your selfe good Sir it is a very haynous crime to say thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so I expected therefore some Scripture should haue been alleaged wherein it should haue beene said whosoever separates from the Roman Church is an Heretique or the Roman Church is infallible or the Guide of faith or at least There shall be alwaies some visible Church infallible in matters of faith Some such direction as this I hoped for And I pray consider whether I had not reason The Evangelists and Apostles who wrote the New Testament we all suppose were good men and very desirous to direct us the surest and plainest way to heaven wee suppose them likewise very sufficiently instructed by the Spirit of God in all the necessary points of the Christian faith and therefore certainly not ignorant of this Vnum Necessarium this most necessary point of all others without which as you pretend and teach all faith is no Faith that is that the Church of Rome was designed by God the Guide of Faith Wee suppose theÌ lastly wise men especially being assisted by the spirit of wisdome and such as knew that a doubtfull questionable Guide was for mens direction as good as none at all And after all these suppositions which I presume no good Christian will call into question is it possible that any Christian heart can believe that not One amongst them all should ad rei memoriam write this necessary doctrine plainly so much as once Certainly in all reason they had provided much better for the good of Christians if they had wrote this though they had writ nothing else Me thinks the Evangelists undertaking to write the Gospell of Christ could not possibly haue omitted any One of them this most necessary point of
faith had they known it necessary S. Luke especially who plainly professeth that his intent was to write all things necessary Me thinks S. Paul writing to the Romans could not but have congratulated this their Priviledge to them Me thinks instead of saying Your faith is spoken of all the world over which you haue no reason to be very proud of for he saies the very same thing to the Thessalonians he could not haue fayl'd to haue told them once at least in plaine termes that their faith was the Rule for all the World for ever But then sure he would haue forborn to put them in feare of an impossibility as hee doth in his eleventh Chap. that they also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles if they did not look to their standing might fall away to infidelity as the Iews had done Me thinks in all his other Epistles at least in some at least in one of them he could not have fayled to haue given the world this direction had he known it to be a true one that all men were to be guided by the Church of Rome and none to separate from it under pain of damnation Me thinks writing so often of Heretiques and Antichrist hee should haue given the world this as you pretend onely sure preservative from them How was it possible that S. Peter writing two Catholique Epistles mentioning his own departure writing to preserve Christians in the faith should in neither of them commend them to the guidance of his pretended Successours the Bishops of Route How was it possible that S. Iames and S. Iude in their Catholique Epistles should not giue this Catholique direction Me thinks S. Iohn instead of saying he that believeth that Iesus is the Christ is born of God The force of which direction your glosses doe quite enervate and make unavailable to discern who are the sonnes of God should haue said Hee that adheres to the doctrine of the Roman Church and lives according to it he is a good Christian and by this Mark yee shall know him What man not quite out of his witts if he consider as he should the pretended necessity of this doctrine that without the beliefe hereof no man ordinarily can be saved can possibly force himselfe to conceive that all these good and holy men so desirous of mens salvation and so well assured of it as it is pretended should be so deeply and affectedly silent in it and not One say it plainly so much as once but leaue it to be collected from uncertain Principles by many more uncertain consequences Certainly he that can judge so uncharitably of them it is no marvell if he censure other inferiour servants of Christs Atheists and Hypocrites and what he pleases Plain places therefore I did and had reason to look for when I heard you say the holy Scripture assignes Separation from the visible Church as a Mark of Heresie But instead hereof what haue you brought us but meer impertinencies S. Iohn saith of some who pretended to be Christians and were not so and therefore when it was for their advantage forsook their Profession They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us Of some who before the decree of the Councell to the contrary were perswaded and accordingly taught that the convert Gentiles were to keep the Law of Moses it is said in the Acts Some who went out from us And again S. Paul in the same book forewarnes the Ephesians that out of them should arise men speaking perverse things And from these places which it seems are the plainest you have you collect that separation from the Visible Church is assigned by Scripture as a Mark of Heresie Which is certainly a strang and unheard of strain of Logick Vnlesse you will say that every Text wherein it is said that some body goes out from some body affords an Argument for this purpose For the first place there is no certainty that it speaks of Heretiques but no Christians of Antichrists of such as denied Iesus to be the Christ See the place and you shall confesse as much The second place it is certain you must not say it speaks of Heretiques for it speaks only of some who beleeved and taught an Errour while it was yet a question and not evident and therefore according to your doctrine no formall Heresy The third saies indeed that of the Professours of Christianity some shall arise that shall teach Heresy But not one of them all that saies or intimates that whosoever separates from the Visible Church in what state soever is certainly an Heretique Heretiques I confesse doe alwayes doe so But they that doe so are not alwayes Heretiques for perhaps the state of the Church may make it necessary for them to doe so as Rebels alwayes disobey the command of their King yet they which disobey a Kings command which perhaps may be unjust are not presently Rebels 21 Your Allegations out of Vincentius Prosper and Cyprian are lyable to these exceptions 1. That they are the sayings of men not assisted by the Spirit of God and whose Authoritie your selves will not submit to in all things 2. That the first and last are meerly impertinent neither of them affirming or intimating that separation from the present Visible Church is a mark of Heresy and the former speaking plainly of separation from Vniversality Consent and Antiquity which if you will presume without proof that we did and you did not you beg the Question For you know we pretend that we separated only from that present Church which had separated from the doctrine of the Ancient and because she had done so and so farre forth as she had done so and no farther And lastly the latter part of Prospers words cannot be generally true according to your own grounds For you say a man may be divided from the Church upon meer Schisme without any mixture of Heresy And a man may be justly excommunicated for many other sufficient causes besides Heresy Lastly a man may be divided by an unjust excommunication and be both before and after a very good Catholique and therefore you cannot maintain it Vniversally true That he who is divided from the Church is an Heretique and Antichrist 22 In the 19. § we have the Authority of eight Fathers urg'd to prove that the separation from the Church of Rome as it is the Sea of S. Peter I conceive you mean as it is the Particular Church is the mark of Heresy Which kind of argument I might well refuse to answer unlesse you would first promise me that whensoever I should produce as plain sentences of as great a number of Fathers as ancient for any doctrine whatsoever that you will subscribe to it though it fall out to be coÌtrary to the doctrine of the Roman Church For I conceive nothing in the world more unequall or unreasonable then that you should presse us with
the Popes proceedings just but rather the contrary For though they setled an uniformity in this matter yet they setled it as a matter formerly indifferent not as a matter of faith or necessity as it is evident out of Athanasius consequently they rather declare Victors proceeding unjust who excommunicated so many Churches for differing from him in an indifferent matter m It seemes then Polycrates might be a Saint and a Martyr and yet think the commands of the Roman Church enjoyned upon pain of damnation contrary to the commandements of God Besides S. Peter himselfe the head of the Church the Vicar of Christ as you pretend made this very answer to the High Priest yet I hope you will not say he was his inferior and obliged to obey him Lastly who sees not that when the Pope commandes us any thing unjust as to communicate Lay men in one kinde to use the Latine service we may very fitly say to him it is better to obey God then men and yet never think of any authority he hath over us n Between requesting and summoning methinkes there should be some difference and Polycrates saies no more but that hee was requested by the Church of Rome to call them and did so Here then as very often the Cardinall is faine to help the dice with a false translation and his pretence being false every one must see that that which he pretends to be insinuated by it is cleerely inconsequent o Polycrates was deceived if he believed it to be against Gods commandement and the Pope deceived as much in thinking it to be Gods commandement for it was neither the one nor the other but an indifferent matter wherein God had not interposed his Authority Neither did the Councell of Nice embrace the censure of Victor by acknowledging his Excommunication to be just and well grounded for which the Cardinall neither doth pretend nor can produce any proofe any way comparable to the fore-alleaged words of Athanasius testifying the contrary though peradventure having setled the observation and reduced it to an uniformity they might excommunicate those who afterward should trouble the Churches peace for an indifferent matter And thus much for Irenaeus 31 I come now to S. Austine and to the first place out of him where he seemes to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour meant when he said upon this Rock c. I answer first we have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austine himselfe was not but retracts it as uncertain leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly what he saies of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he saies it else where of all the Successions in all other Apostolique Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church as an argument of their Error So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolique Churches nay more from these then from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetuall Succession of them but in other Apostolique Churches they wanted both These scatter'd men saith he of the Donatists Epist. 165. read in the holy bookes the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and mad then to the Lectors reading these Epistles to say Peace with you and to separate from the peace of these Churches to which these Epistles were written So Optatus having done you as it might seeme great service in upbraiding the Donatists as Schismatiques because they had not Communion with the Church of Rome overthrowes and undoes it all againe and as it were with a spunge wipes out all that he had said for you by adding after that they were Schismatiques because They had not the fellowship of CoÌmunion with the seven Churches of Asia to which S. Iohn writes whereof he pronounces confidently though I know not upon what ground ãâã septem Ecclesias quicquid for is est alienum est Now I pray tell me doe you esteeme the Authority of these Fathers a sufficient assurance that separation from these other Apostolique Churches was a certain marke of Heresy or not If so then your Church hath been for many Ages hereticall If not how is their authority a greater argument for the Roman then for the other Churches If you say they conceived separation from these Churches a note of Schisme only when they were united to the Roman so also they might conceive of the Roman only when it was united to them If you say they urg'd this only as a probable and not as a certain Argument so also they might doe that In a word whatsoever answer you can devise to shew that these Fathers made not separation from these other Churches a mark of Heresy apply that to your own Argument and it will be satisfied 32 The other place is evidently impertinent to the present question nor is there in it any thing but this That Caecilian might contemne the multitude of his adversaries because those that were united with him were more and of more account then those that were against him Had he preferr'd the Roman Church alone before Caecilians enemies this had been litle but something but when other Countries from which the Gospell came first into Africa are joyned in this Patent with the Church of Rome how she can build any singular priviledge upon it I am yet to learne Neither doe I see what can be concluded from it but that in the Roman Church was the Principality of an Apostolique Sea which no man doubts or that the Roman Church was not the Mother Church because the Gospell came first into Africa not from her but from other Churches 33 Thus you see his wordes make very litle or indeed nothing for you But now his Action which according to Cardinall Perrons rule is much more to be regarded then his words as not being so obnoxious to misinterpretatioÌ I mean his famous opposition of three Bishops of Rome in succession touching the great question of Appeales wherein he and the rest of the African Bishops proceeded so farre in the first or second Milevitan Councell as to decree any African Excommunicate that should appeale to any man out of Africk and therein continued resolute unto death I say this famous Action of his makes cleerely and evidently and infinitely against you For had Boniface and the rest of the African Bishops a great part whereof were Saints and Martyrs believed as an Article of faith that Vnion and Conformity with the doctrine of the Roman Church in all things which she held necessary was a certain note of a good Catholique and by Gods command necessary to Salvation how was it possible they should have opposed it in this Vnlesse you will say they were all so foolish as to believe at once
direct contradictions viz. that conformity to the Roman Church was necessary in all points and not necessary in this or else so horribly impious as believing this doctrine of the Roman Church true and her power to receive Appeales derived from divine Authority notwithstanding to oppose and condemne it and to Anathematize all those Africans of what condition soever that should appeale unto it I say of what condition soever For it is evident that they concluded in their determination Bishops as well as the inferior Clergy and Laity And Cardinall Perrons pretence of the contrary is a shamelesse falshood repugnant to the plaine words of the Remonstrance of the African Bishops to Celestine Bishop of Rome 34 Your allegation of Tertullian is a manifest conviction of your want of syncerity For you produce with great ostentation what he saies of the Church of Rome but you and your fellowes alwaies conceale and dissemble that immediatly before these words he attributes as much for point of direction to any other Apostolique Church and that as he sends them to Rome who lived neare Italy so those neare Achaia hee sends to Corinth those about Macedonia to Philippi and Thessalonica those of Asia to Ephesus His words are Goe to now thou that wilt better imploy thy curiosity in the businesse of thy salvation run over the Apostolicall Churches wherein the Chaires of the Apostles are yet sate upon in their places wherein their Authentique Epistles are recited sounding out the voyce and representing the face of of every one Is Achaia neere thee there thou hast Corinth If thou art not farre from Macedonia thou hast Philippi thou hast Thessalonica If thou canst goe into Asia there thou hast Ephesus If thou be adjacent to Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is neere at hand to us in Africk A happy Church into which the Apostles powred forth all their Doctrine together with their blood c. Now I pray Sir tell me if you can for blushing why this place might not have been urg'd by a Corinthian or Philippian or Thessalonian or an Ephesian to shew that in the judgment of Tertullian separation from any of their Churches is a certain mark of Heresie as iustly and rationally as you alleadge it to vindicate this priviledge to the Roman Church only Certainly if you will stand to Tertullians judgment you must either grant the authority of the Roman Church though at that time a good Topicall Argument and perhaps a better then any the Heretiques had especially in conjunction with other Apostolique Churches yet I say you must grant it perforce but a fallible Guide as well as that of Ephesus and Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth or you must maintain the Authority of every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in generall yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equall and therefore makes them choose you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shewes he erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he erred in doing so 35 From the saying of S. Basil certainly nothing can be gathered but only that the Bishop of Rome may discerne betweene that which is counterfeit and that which is lawfull and pure and without any diminution may preach the faith of our Ancestours Which certainly he might doe if ambition and covetousnesse did not hinder him or else I should never condemne him for doing otherwise But is there no difference betweene may and must Beleeve hee may doe so and he cannot but doe so Or doth it follow because he may doe so therefore he alwayes shall or will doe so In my opinion rather the contrary should follow For he that saith you may doe thus implies according to the ordinary sense of words that if he will he may doe otherwise You certainly may if you please leave abusing the world with such Sophistry as this but whether you will or no of that I have no assurance 36 Your next Witnesse I would willingly have examined but it seemes you are unwilling he should be found otherwise you would have giveÌ us your direction where we might have him Of that Maximianus who succeeded Nestorius I can find no such thing in the Councels Neither can I beleeve that any Patriarch of Constantinople twelve hundred yeares agoe was so base a parasite of the Sea of Rome 37 Your last Witnesse Iohn of Constantinople I confesse speaks home and advanceth the Roman sea even to heaven But I feare it is that his owne may goe up with it which hee there professes to bee all one sea with the sea of Rome and therefore his Testimony as speaking in his own case is not much to be regarded But besides I have litle reason to be confident that this Epistle is not a forgery for certainly Binius hath obtruded upon us many a hundred such This though written by a Graecian is not extant in Greek but in Latine only Lastly it comes out of a suspicious place an old book of the Vatican Library which Library the world knowes to have been the Mint of very many impostures 38 Ad § 20. 21. 22. 23. The summe of your discourse in the 4. next Sections if it be pertinent to the Question in agitation must be this Want of succession of Bishops and Pastours holding alwayes the same doctrine and of the formes of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie But Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Heretiques To which I Answer That nothing but want of truth and holding errour can make or prove any man or Church hereticall For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or PyrrhoniaÌ or Epicurean who holds the doctrine of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assigne any that held it before him for many Ages together why should I not be made a true and orthodox Christian by beleeving all the doctrine of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetuall SuccessioÌ that beleev'd it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastour or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conforme my will and actions to the Commandements of God why may I not embrace his doctrine with my understanding although my predecessour doe not so You have aboue in this Chapter defin'd Faith a free Infallible obscure supernaturall assent to divine Truths because they are revealed by God sufficiently propounded This definition is very phantasticall but for the present I
whatsoever it be All these Questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogisme and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Maior That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresy which for the present remaines both unprov'd and unprobable 40 Ad § 23. The Fathers you say assigne Succession as one mark of the true Church I confesse they did urge Tradition as an argument of the truth of their doctrine and of the falsehood of the contrary and thus farre they agree with you But now see the difference They urg'd it not against all Heretiques that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their doctrine and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leafe before the words by you cited Nay they urg'd it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not bee found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did meane wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said wee speak wisdome amongst the perfect So Irenaeus in the very next Chapter before that which you alleage Against these men being thus necessitated to doe so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joint Tradition of all the Apostolique Churches with one mouth and one voice teaching the same doctrine Or if for brevity sake they produce the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alleaged by mee This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So neare that one of them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. Iohn the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an age remov'd from him and the last of them all litle more then an age from them Yet after all this they urg'd it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater then any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should erre in one faith it should be should have erred into on faith And this was the condition of this argument as the Fathers urg'd it Now if you having to deale with us who question no Booke of Scripture which was not anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholiques nay who refuse not to be tryed by your owne Canons your own Translations who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Iudges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much drosse and corruption and for the mystery of iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholique to it selfe alone and Hereticall to all the rest nay not only with her ancient and originall Traditions but also with her post-nate and introduc'd Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent tryall by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumnie of the old Heretiques that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urg'd the old Heretiques certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41 But now suppose I should be liberall to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetuall maâk of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain signe of an Hereticall company Truly if you say so either you want Logick which is a certain signe of an ill disputer or are not pleas'd to use it which is a worse For speech is a certain signe of a living man yet want of speech is no sure argument that he is dead for he may be dumb and yet living still and we may have other evident tokens that hee is so as eating drinking breathing moving So though the constant and universall delivery of any doctrine by the Apostolique Churches ever since the Apostles be a very great argument of the truth of it yet there is no certainty but that truth even Divine truth may through mens wickednesse be contracted from its universality and interrupted in its perpetuity and so loose this argument and yet not want others to iustifie and support it self For it may be one of those principles which God hath written in all mens hearts or a conclusion evidently arising from them It may be either contain'd in Scripture in expresse terms or deducible from it by apparent consequence If therefore you intend to prove want of a perpetuall Succession of Professors a certain note of Heresie you must not content your self to shew that having it is one signe of truth but you must shew it to be the only signe of it and inseparable from it But this if you be well advis'd you will never undertake First because it is an impossible attempt and then because if you doe it you will marre all for by proving this an inseparable signe of Catholique doctrine you will prove your own which apparently wants it in many points not to be Catholique For whereas you say this Succession requires two things agreement with the Apostles doctrine and an uninterrupted conveyance of it down to them that challenge it It will be prov'd against you that you fail in both points and that some things wherein you agree with the Apostles have not been held alwaies as your condemning the doctrine of the Chiliasts and holding the Eucharist not necessary for Infants and that in many other things you agree not with them nor with the Church for many
to Pappus who has collected out of Bellar their contradictions and set them down in his own words to the number of 237. to Flacius de Sect is controversiis Religionis Papisticae you making the very same use of M. Breerely against Protestants yet jeere and scorne D. Potter as if he offer'd you for a proofe the bare authority of Pappus and Flacius and tell him which is all the answer you vouchsafe him It is pretty that he brings Pappus and Flacius flat Heretiques to prove your many contradictions As if he had proved this with the bare authority the bare judgement of these men which sure he does not but with the formall words of Bellarmine faithfully collected by Pappus And why then might not we say to you Is it not pretty that you bring Breerly as flat an Heretique as Pappus or Flacius to prove the contradictions of Protestants Yet had he been so vain as to presse you with the meere authority of Protestant Divines in any point me thinkes for your own sake you should have pardon'd him who here and in many other places urge us with the judgement of your Divines as with weighty arguments Yet if the authority of your Divines were even Canonicall certainly nothing could be concluded from it in this matter there being not one of them who delivers for true doctrine this position of yours thus nakedly set down That any error against any one revealed truth destroies all divine faith For they all require not your selfe excepted that this truth must not only be revealed but revealed publiquely and all things considered sufficiently propounded to the erring Party to be one of those which God under pain of damnation commands all men to believe And therefore the contradiction of Protestants though this vaine doctrine of your Divines were supposed true is but a weak argument That any of them have no divine Faith seeing you neither have not ever can prove without begging the Question of your Churches infallibility that the truthes about which they differ are of this quality and condition But though out of curtesy wee may suppose this doctrine true yet we have no reason to grant it nor to think it any thing but a vain and groundlesse fancy and that this very weak and inartificiall argument from the authority of your Divines is the strongest pillar which it hath to support it Two reasons you alleage for it out of Thomas Aquinas the first whereof vainly supposeth against reason and experience that by the commission of any deadly sinne the habit of Charity is quite extirpated And for the second though you cry it up for an Achilles and think like the Gorgons head it will turne us all into stone and in confidence of it insult upon D. Potter as if he durst not come near it yet in very truth having considered it well I finde it a serious grave prolixe and profound nothing I could answer it in a word by telling you that it beggs without all proofe or colour of proofe the main question between us that the infallibility of your Church is either the formall motive or rule or a necessary condition of faith which you know we flatly deny and therefore all that is built upon it has nothing but wind for a foundation But to this answer I will adde a large confutation of this vain fancy out of one of the most rationall and profound Doctors of your own Church I mean Estius who upon the third of the Sent. the 23. dist the 13. § writes thus It is disputed saith he whether in him who believes some of the Articles of our faith and disbelieves others or perhaps someone there be faith properly so called in respect of that which he does believe In which question we must before all carefully distinguish between those who retaining a generall readinesse to believe whatsoever the Church believes yet erre by ignorance in some doctrine of faith because it is not as yet sufficiently declared to them that the Church does so believe and those who after sufficient manifestation of the Churches doctrine doe yet choose to dissent from it either by doubting of it or affirming the contrary For of the former the answer is easy but of these that is of Heretiques retaining some part of wholsome doctrine the question is more difficult and on both sides by the Doctors probably disputed For that there is in them true faith of the Articles wherein they doe not erre first experience seemes to convince For many at this day denying for example sake Purgatory or Invocation of Saints neverthelesse firmely hold as by divine revelation that God is Three and One that the Sonne of God was incarnate and suffered and other like things âAs anciently the Novatians excepting their peculiar error of denying reconciliation to those that fell in persecution held other things in common with Catholiques So that they assisted them very much against the Arrians as Socrates relates in his Eccl. Hist. Moreover the same thing is proved by the example of the Apostles who in the time of Christs passion being scandaliz'd lost their faith in him as also Christ after his resurrection upbraids them with their incredulity and calls Thomas incredulous for denying the Resurrection Ioh. 20. Whereupon S. Austine also in his preface upon the 96. Ps. saith That after the Resurrection of Christ the faith of those that fell was restored again And yet we must not say that the Apostles then lost the faith of the Trinity of the Creation of the world of Eternall life and such like other Articles Besides the Iewes before Christs comming held the faith of one God the Creator of Heaven and Earth who although they lost the true faith of the Messias by not receiving Christ yet we cannot say that they lost the faith of one God but still retained this Article as firmely as they did before Adde hereunto that neither Iewes nor Heretiques seeme to lye in saying they believe either the books of the Prophets or the four Gospels It being apparent enough that they acknowledge in them Divine Authority though they hold not the true sense of them to which purpose is that in the Acts. c. 20. Believest thou the Prophets I know that thou believest Lastly it is manifest that many gifts of God are found even in bad men and such as are out of the Church therefore nothing hinders but that Iewes and Heretiques though they erre in many things yet in other things may be so divinely illuminated as to believe aright So S. Austin seemes to teach in his book De Vnico Baptismo contra Peâilianum c. 3. in these words When a Iew comes to us to be made a Christian we destroy not in him Gods good things but his own ill That he believes one God is to be worshipped that he hopes for eternall life that he doubts not of the Resurrection we approve and commend him we acknowledge that as he did believe these things so he
true faith defined by the Apostle but an invention of your own 51 And having thus cryed quittance with you I must intreat you to devise for truly I cannot some answer to this argument which will not serve in proportion to your own For I hope you will not pretend that I have done you injurie in setling your faith upon principles which you disclaim And if you alleage this disparity That you are more certain of your principles then we of ours and yet you doe not pretend that your principles are so evident as we doe that ours are what is this to say but that you are more confident then we but confesse you have lesse reason for it For the evidence of the thing assented to be it more or lesse is the reason and cause of the assent in the understanding But then besides I am to tell you that you are here as every where extremely if not affectedly mistaken in the Doctrine of Protestants who though they acknowledge that the things which they beleeve are in themselves as certain as any demonstrable or sensible verities yet pretend not that their certainty of adherence is most perfect and absolute but such as may be perfected and increas'd as long as they walke by faith and not by sight And consonant hereunto is their doctrine touching the evidence of the objects whereunto they adhere For you abuse the world them if you pretend that they hold the first of your two principles That these particular Books are the word of God for so I think you mean either to be in it self evidently certain or of it self and being devested of the motives of credibility evidently credible For they are not so fond as to be ignorant nor so vain as to pretend that all men doe assent to it which they would if it were evidently certain nor so ridiculous as to imagine that if an Indian that never heard of Christ or Scripture should by chance find a Bible in his own Language and were able to read it that upon the reading it hee would certainly without a miracle beleeve it to bee the word of God which he could not chuse if it were evidently credible What then doe they affirm of it Certainly no more then this that whatsoever man that is not of a perverse mind shall weigh with serious and mature deliberation those great moments of reason which may incline him to beleeve the Divine authority of Scripture and compare them with the light objections that in prudence can be made against it he shall not chuse but find sufficient nay abundant inducements to yeeld unto it firme faith and syncere obedience Let that learned man Hugo Grotius speake for all the Rest in his Booke of the truth of Christian Religion which Book whosoever attentively peruses shall find that a man may have great reason to be a Christian without dependance upon your Church for any part of it and that your Religion is no foundation but rather a scandall and an objection against Christianity He then in the last Chapter of his second book hath these excellent words If any be not satisfied with these arguments above-said but desires more forcible reasons for confirmation of the excellency of Christian Religion let such know that as there are variety of things which be true so are there divers waies of proving or manifesting the truth Thus is there one way in Mathematicks another in Physicks a third in Ethicks and lastly another kind when a matter of fact is in question wherein verily we must rest content with such testimonies as are free from all suspition of untruth otherwise down goes all the frame and use of history and a great part of the art of Physick together with all dutifulnesse that ought to be between parents and children for matters of practice can no way else be known but by such testimonies Now it is the pleasure of Almighty God that those things which he would have us to beleeve so that the very beleef thereof may be imputed to us for obedience should not so evidently appear as those things which are apprehended by sense and plaine demonstration but only be so farre forth revealed as may beget faith and a perswasion thereof in the hearts and minds of such as are not obstinate That so the Gospell may be as a touchstone for triall of mens judgments whether they be sound or unsound For seeing these arguments whereof we have spoken have induced so many honest godly and wise men to approve of this Religion it is thereby plain enough that the fault of other mens infidelity is not for want of sufficient testimony but because they would not have that to be had and embraced for truth which is contrary to their wilfull desires it being a hard matter for them to relinquish their honours and set at naught other commodities which thing they know they ought to doe if they admit of Christs doctrine and obey what he hath commanded And this is the rather to be noted of them for that many other historicall narrations are approved by them to be true which notwithstanding are only manifest by authority and not by any such strong proofs and perswasions or tokens as doe declare the history of Christ to be true which are evident partly by the confession of those Iewes that are yet alive and partly in those companies and congregations of Christians which are any where to be found whereof doubtlesse there was some cause Lastly seeing the long duration or continuance of Christian Religion and the large extent thereof can be ascribed to no humane power therefore the same must be attributed to miracles or if any deny that it came to passe through a miraculous manner this very getting so great strength and power without a miracle may be thought to surpasse any miracle 52 And now you see I hope that Protestants neither doe nor need to pretend to any such evidence in the doctrine they beleeve as cannot well consist both with the essence and the obedience of faith Let us come now to the last nullity which you impute to the faith of Protestants and that it is want of Prudence Touching which point as I have already demonstrated that wisdome is not essentiall to faith but that a man may truly beleeve truth though upon insufficient motives So I doubt not but I shall make good that if prudence were necessary to faith we have better title to it then you and that if a wiser then Solomon were here he should have better reason to beleeve the Religion of Protestants then Papists the Bible rather then the Councell of Trent But let us hear what you can say 53 Ad § 31. You demand then first of all What wisdome was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other Visible Church of Christ upon earth I answer Against God and truth there lyes no presoription and therefore certainly it might be great
wisdome to forsake ancient errours for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be follow'd then innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdome either for the whole Visible Church nay for all the men in the world having wandred from the way of Truth to return unto it or for a part of it nay for one man to doe so although all the world besides were madly resolute to doe the contrary It might be great wisdome to forsake the errors though of the only Visible Church much more the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Uisible Church does somewhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the ditch he liv'd in to be all the world 54 You demand again What wisdome was it to forsake a Church acknowledg'd to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdome to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation but accused and convicted of many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledg'd to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetuall Succession of Bishops holding alwaies the same doctrine and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetuall possession of all the world whereas the world knows that a litle before Luthers arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependance of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more then those crouching Anticks which seeme in great buildings to labour under the weight they beare doe indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and false Church may give authority to preach the truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a false Church may preserve the Scripture true as now the Old Testament is preserved by the Iewes either not being arriv'd to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawfull Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need wee aske your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrine it is a thing we need not and you have as litle as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependance that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may passe for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you doe sometimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant soules may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seemes you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your scale nothing but smoak and winde vaine shadowes and phantasticall pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Scale but those negative commendations which you are pleas'd to afford them nothing but no unity nor meanes to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose then Luthers body no Vniversality of time or place no visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of persons or doctrine no leader but Luther in a quarrell begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they receiv'd from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three graines of partiality your Scale might seem to turne But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsely made against them the rest vainely that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this triall and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alleaged for Protestants which is here dissembled Then I hope our cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55 I say then that want of Vniversality of time place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrine before Luther Luthers being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordination Scriptures personall and yet not doctrinall Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrine and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your house upon the sand And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I doe not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Heretiques I tell you that though all Heretiques are choosers yet all choosers are not Heretiques otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Heretiques As for our wanting Vnity and Meanes of proving it Luthers opposing your Church upon meere passion our following private men rather then the Catholique Church the first and last are meere untruths for we want not Vnity nor Meanes to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our meanes to obtaine it Neither doe we follow any private men but only the Scripture the word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luthers opposing your Church upon meere passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposion not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemne us unlesse you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56 It remaines now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may bee alleaged for the justification of
found or rather that Company is to be imbraced before all other in which all sides agree that salvation may be found We therefore must inferre that it is safest for you to seeke salvation among us You had good reason to conceal S. Augustins answer to the Donatists 10 You frame another argument in our behalf and make us speake thus If Protestants believe the Religion of Catholiques to be a safe way to Heaven why doe they not follow it which wise argument of your own you answer at large and confirm your answer by this instance The Iesuits and Dominicans hold different Opinions touching Predetermination and the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Yet so that the Iesuits hold the Dominicans way safe that is his error not damnable and the Dominicans hold the same of the Iesuits Yet neither of them with good Consequence can presse the other to believe his opinion because by his own Confession it is no damnable error 11 But what Catholique maketh such a wise demaund as you put into our mouths If our Religion be a safe way to heaven that is not damnable why doe you not follow it As if every thing that is good must be of necessity imbraced by every body But what think you of the Argument framed thus Our Religion is safe even by your Confession therefore you ought to grant that all may imbrace it And yet further thus Among different Religions and contrary waies to heaven one only can be safe But ours by your own Confession is safe whereas we hold that in yours there is no hope of salvation Therefore you may and ought to imbrace ours This is our Argument And if the Dominicans and Iesuits did say one to another as we say to you then one of them might with good consequence press the other to believe his opinion You have still the hard for tune to be beaten with your own weapon 12 It remaineth then that both in regard of Faith and Charity Protestants are obliged to unite themselves with the Church of Rome And I may adde also in regard of the Theologicall Vââtue of Hope without which none can hope to be saved and which you want either by exââsse of Confidence or defect by Despair not unlike to your Faith which I shewed to be either âââcient in Certainty or excessive in EvideÌce as likewise according to the rigid Calvinists it is either so strong that once had it can never be lost or so more then weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotten For the trve Theologicall Hope of Christians is a Hope which keeps a mean between Presumption and Desperation which moves us to work our salvation with feare and trembling which conducts us to make sure our salvation by good works as holy Scripture adviseth But contrarily Protestants doe either exclude Hope by Despaire with the Doctrine that our Saviour died not for all and that such want grace sufficient to salvation or else by vaine Presumption grounded upon a fantasticall persuasion that they are Predestinate which Faith must exclude all feare and trembling Neither can they make their Calling certain by good works who doe certainly beleeve that before any good works they are justified and justified even by Faith alone and that by Faith whereby they certainly believe that they are justified Which points some Protestants doe expresly affirme to be the soule of the Church the principall Origen of salvation Of all other points of Doctrine the chiefest and weightiest as already I have noted Chap. 3. n. 19. And if some Protestants doe now relent from the rigour of the aforesaid doctrine we must affirme that at least some of them want the Theologicall Vertue of Hope yea that none of them can have trve Hope while they hope to be saved in the Communion of those who defend such doctrines as doe directly overthrow all true Christian Hope And for as much as concernes Faith we must also infer that they want Vnity therein and consequently have none at all by their disagreement about the soule of the Church the principall Origen of salvation of all other points of Doctrine the chiefest and weightiest And if you want trve Faith you must by consequence want Hope or if you hold that this point is not to be so indivisible on either side but that it hath latitude sufficient to imbrace all parties without prejudice to their salvation notwithstanding that your Brethren hold it to be the soule of the Church c. I must repeat what I have said heretofore that even by this Example it is cleer you cannot agree what points be fundamentall And so to whatsoever answer you fly I presse you in the same manner and say that haue no Certainty whether you agree in fundamentall points or Vnity and substance of Faith which cannot stand with difference in fundamentalls And so upon the whole matter I leave it to be considered whether Want of Charity can be iustly charged on us because we affirme that they cannot without repentance be saved who want of all other the most necessary meanes to salvation which are the three Theologicall Vertues FAITH HOPE and CHARITY 13 And now I end this first part having as I conceive complyed with my first designe in that measure which Time Commodity scarcity of Books and my own small Abilities could afford which was to shew that Amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved For since there must be some infallible Meanes to decide all Controversies concerning Religion and to propound truth revealed by Almighty God and this Meanes can be no other but the Visible Church of Christ which at the time of Luthers appearance was only the Church of Rome and such as agreed with her We must conclude that whosoever opposeth himself to her definitions or forsaketh her Communion doth resist God himself whose Spouse she is and whose divine truth she propounds and therefore becoms guilty of Schisme and Heresie which since Luther his Associates and Protestants have done and still continue to doe it is not Want of Charity but abundance of evident cause that forceth us to declare this necessary Truth PROTESTANCIE VNREPENTED DESTROIES SALVATION THE ANSVVER TO THE SEAVENTH CHAPTER That Protestants are not bound by the Charity which they owe to themselves to re-unite themselves to the Roman Church THE first foure Paragraphs of this Chapter are wholly spent in an un-necessary introduction unto a truth which I presume never was nor will be by any man in his right wits either denied or question'd and that is That every man in wisdome and charity to himselfe is to take the safest way to his eternall Salvation 2 The fift and sixt are nothing in a manner but references to discourses already answered by me and confuted in their proper places 3 The seaventh eight ninth tenth and eleventh have no other foundation but this false pretence That we confesse the Roman Church free from damnable error 4 In the
of Salvation to none among you but to those whose ignorance was the cause of their error and no sinne cause of their ignorance and presently after when another project comes in your head you make his words softer then oile towards you you pretend he does and must confesse That your Doctrine containes no damnable error that your Church is certainly a true Church that your way to heaven is a safe way and all these acknowledgements you set down simple and absolute without any restriction or limitation whereas in the Doctor they are all so qualified that no knowing Papist can promise himselfe any security or comfort from them We confesse saith he the Church of Rome to be in some sense a true Church and her errors to some men not damnable we believe her Religion safe that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some such as believe what they professe But we believe it not safe but very dangerous if not certainly damnable to such as professe it when they believe or if their hearts were upright and not perversly obstinate might believe the contrary Observe I pray these restraining termes which formerly you have dissembled A true Church in some sense not damnable to some men a safe way that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some And then seeing you have pretended these confessions to be absolute which are thus plainly limited how can you avoid the imputation of an egregious Sophister You quarrell with the Doctor in the end of your Preface for using in his Book such ambiguous tearmes as these in some sort in some sense in some degree and desire him if he make any reply either to forbear them or to tell you roundly in what sort in what sense in what degree he understands these and the like mincing phrases But the truth is he hath not left them so ambiguous and undetermin'd as you pretend but told you plainly in what sense your Church may passe for a true Church viz. In regard we may hope that she retaines those truths which are simply absolutely and indispensably necessary to Salvation which may suffice to bring those good soules to heaven who wanted meanes of discovering their errors this is the charitable construction in which you may passe for a Church And to what men your Religion may be safe and your errors not damnable viz. to such whom Ignorance may excuse and therefore he hath more cause to complain of you for quoting his words without those qualifications then you to finde fault with him for using of them 30 That your Discourse in the 12. § presseth you as forcibly as Protestants I have shewed above I adde here 1. Whereas you say that faith according to rigid Calvinists is either so strong that once had it can never be lost or so more then weak and so much nothing that it can never begotten That these are words without sense Never any Calvinist affirmed that faith was so weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotten but it seemes you wanted matter to make up your Antithesis and therefore were resolved to speak empty words rather then loose your figure Crimina rasis Librat in antithetis doct as posuisse Figuras Laudatur 2. That there is no Calvinist that will deny the Truth of this proposition Christ died for all nor to subscribe to that sense of it which your Dominicans put upon it neither can you with coherence to the received Doctrine of your own Society deny that they as well as the Calvinists take away the distinction of sufficient and effectuall grace and indeed hold none to be sufficient but only that which is effectuall 3. Whereas you say They cannot make their calling certain by good workes who doe certainly believe that before any good works they are justified and justified by faith alone and by that faith whereby they certainly believe they are justified I ans There is no Protestant but believes that Faith Repentance and universall Obedience are necessary to the obtaining of Gods favour and eternall happinesse This being granted the rest is but a speculative Controversy a Question about words which would quickly vanish but that men affect not to understand one another As if a company of Physitians were in consultation and should all agree that three medicines and no more were necessary for the recovery of the Patients health this were sufficient for his direction towards the recovery of his health though concerning the proper and specificall effects of these three medicines there should be amongst them as many differences as men So likewise being generally at accord that these three things Faith Hope Charity are necessary to salvation so that whosoever wants any of them cannot obtain it and he which hath them all cannot faile of it it is not very evident that they are sufficiently agreed for mens directions to eternall Salvation And seeing Charity is a full comprehension of all good workes they requiring Charity as a necessary qualification in him that will be saved what sense is there in saying they cannot make their calling certain by good workes They know what salvation is as well as you and have as much reason to desire it They believe it as heartily as you that there is no good worke but shall have its proper reward and that there is no possibility of obtaining the eternall reward without good workes and why then may not this Doctrine be a sufficient incitement and provocation unto good workes 31 You say that they certainly believe that before any good works they are iustified But this is a calumny There is no Protestant but requires to Iustification Remission of sinnes and to Remission of sinnes they all require Repentance and Repentance I presume may not be denied the name of a good worke being indeed if it be rightly understood and according to the sense of the word in Scripture an effectuall conversion from all sinne to all holinesse But though it be taken for meer sorrow for sinnes past and a bare purpose of amendment yet even this is a good worke and therefore Protestants requiring this to Remission of sinnes and Remission of sinnes to justification cannot with candor be pretended to believe that they are justified before any good worke 32 You say They believe themselves iustified by faith alone and that by that faith whereby they believe themselves iustified Some peradventure doe so but withall they believe that that faith which is alone and unaccompanied with sincere and universall obedience is to be esteem'd not faith but presumption and is at no hand sufficient to justification that though Charity be not imputed unto justification yet is it required as a necessary disposition in the person to be justified and that though in regard of the imperfection of it no man can be justified by it yet that on the other side no man can be justified without it So that upon the whole matter a man may truly and safely say that the
Authority of defining some of you setling it in the Pope himselfe though alone without a Councell Others in a Councell though divided from the Pope Others only in the conjunction of Councell and Pope Others not in this neither but in the acceptation of the present Church Vniversall Lastly others not attributing it to this neither but only to the perpetuall Succession of the Church of all ages of which divided Company it is very evident and undeniable that every former may be and are obliged to hold many things defin'd and therefore necessary which the latter according to their own grounds have no obligation to doe nay cannot doe so upon any firme and sure and infallible foundation THE CONCLVSION ANd thus by Gods assistance and the advantage of a good cause I am at length through a passage rather tireing then difficult arriv'd at the end of my undertaken voyage and have as I suppose made appear to all dis-interessed and unprejudicate readers what in the begining I undertook that a vein of Sophistry and Calumny runs clean through this first part of your book wherein though I never thought of the directions you have been pleas'd to give mee in your Pamphlet entitled a Direction to N. N. yet upon consideration of my answer I finde that I have proceeded as if I had had it alwaies before my eyes and steer'd my course by it as by a card and compasse For first I have not proceeded by a meere destructive way as you call it nor objected such difficulties against your Religion as upon examination tend to the overthrow of all Religion but have shewed that the truth of Christianity is cleerely independent upon the truth of Popery and that on the other side the arguments you urge and the courses you take for the maintenance of your Religion doe manifestly tend if they be closely and consequently followed to the destruction of all religion and lead men by the hand to Atheisme and impiety whereof I have given you ocular demonstrations in divers places of my book but especially in my answer to your direction to N. N. Neither can I discover any repugnance between any one part of my answer and any other though I have used many more judicious and more searching eyes then mine owne to make if it were possible such a discovery and therefore am in good hope that though the musicke I have made be but dull and flat and even downright plain-song yet your curious and criticall eares shall discover no discord in it but on the other side I have charg'd you frequently and very justly with manifest contradiction and retractation of your own assertions and not seldome of the main grounds you build upon and the principall conclusions which you endeavour to maintain which I conceive my selfe to have made apparent even to the âye c. 2. § 5. c. 3. § 88. c. 4. § .14 24. c. 5. § 93. c. 6. § 6. 7. 12. 17. c. 7. § 29. and in many other parts of my answer And though I did never pretend to defend D. Potter absolutely and in all things but only so farre as he defends truth neither did D. Potter desire me nor any law of God or man oblige me to defend him any farther yet I doe not finde that I have cause to differ from him in any matter of moment particularly not concerning the infallibility of Gods Church which I grant with him to be infallible in fundamentalls because if it should erre in fundamentalls it were not the Church Nor concerning the supernaturality of Faith which I know believe as well as you to be the gift of God and that flesh blood reveal'd it not unto us but our Father which is in Heaven But now if it were demanded what defence you can make for deserting Ch. Mistaken in the main question disputed between him and D. Potter Whether Protestancy without a particular repentance and dereliction of it destroy Salvation whereof I have convinc'd you I believe your answer would be much like that which Vlysses makes in the Meâamorphosis for his running away from his friend Nestor that is none at all For Opposing the Articles of the Church of England the Approbation I presume cleeres my book from this imputation And whereas you give me a Caution that my grounds destroy not the belief of diverse Doctrines which all good Christians believe yea and of all verities that cannot be prov'd by naturall reason I professe syncerely that I doe not know nor believe that any ground laid by me in my whole Book is any way inconsistent with any one such Doctrine or with any verity revealed in the word of God though neuer so improbable or incomprehensible to Naturall Reason and if I thought there were I would deale with it as those primitive converts dealt with their curious Books in the Acts of the Apostles For the Ep. of S. Iames and those other Books which were anciently controverted and are now received by the Church of England as Canonicall I am so farre from relying upon any Principles which must to my apprehension bring with them the deniall of the authority of them that I my selfe believe them all to be Canonicall For the overthrowing the Infallibility of all Scripture my Book is so innocent of it that the Infallibility of Scripture is the chiefest of all my grounds And lastly for Arguments tending to prove an impossibility of all Divine Supernaturall Infallible Faith and Religion I assure my self that if you were ten times more a spider then you are you could suck no poyson from them My heart I am sure is innocent of any such intention and the searcher of all hearts knowes that I had no other end in writing this Book but to confirm to the uttermost of my ability the truth of the Divine and Infallible Religion of our dearest Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus which I am ready to seale and confirm not with my arguments only but my bloud Now these are directions which you have been pleas'd to give me whether out of a fear that I might otherwise deviate from them or out of a desire to make others think so But howsoever I have not to my understanding swarved from them in any thing which puts me in good hope that my Answer to this first Part of your Book will give even to you your self indifferent good satisfaction I have also provided though this were more then I undertook a just and punctuall examination and refutation of your second Part But if you will give your consent am resolv'd to suppresse it and that for divers sufficient and reasonable considerations First because the discussion of the Controversies entreated of in the first Part if we shall think fit to proceed in it as I for my part shall so long as I have truth to reply will I conceive be sufficient employment for us though wee cast off the burden of those many lesser dispuâes which remain behind in the Second And perhaps
wee may doe God and his Church more service by exactly discussing and fully clearing the truth in these few then by handling many after a sleight and perfunctory manner Secondly because the additioÌ of the Second Part whether for your purpose or mine is clearly unnecessary there being no understanding man Papist or Proâestant but will confesse that for as much as concernes the main Question now in agitation about the saveablenesse of Protestants if the first Part of your Book be answered there needes no reply to the Second as on the other side I shall willingly grant if I have not answered the First I cannot answer a great part of the Second Thirdly because the addition of the Second not only is unnecessary but in effect by your self confess'd to bee so For in your preamble to your Second Part you tell us That the substance of the present Controversie is handled in the first and therein also you pretend to have answered the chief grounds of D. Potters book So that in replying to your Second Part I shall doe litle else but pursue shadowes Fourthly because your Second Part setting aside Repetitions and References is in a manner made up of disputes about particular matters which you are very importunate to have forborn as suspecting at least pretending to suspect that they were brought in purposely by D. Potter to dazle the Reader 's eyes and distract his mind that hee might not see the clearnesse of the reasons brought in defence of the Generall Doctrine delivered in Charity Mistaken All which you are likely enough if there bee occasion to say again to mee and therefore I am resolv'd for once even to humour you so farre as to keepe my discourse within those very lists and limits which your self have prescrib'd and to deal with you upon no other arguments but only those wherein you conceive your chief advantage and principall strength and as it were your Sampson's lock to lye wherein if I gain the cause clearly from you as I verily hope by Gods help I shall doe it cannot but redound much to the honour of the truth maintain'd by me which by so weak a Champion can overcome such an Achilles for error even in his strongest holds For these reasons although I have made ready an answer to your Second Part and therein have made it sufficiently evident That for shifting evasions from D. Potters arguments for impertinent cavills and frivolous exceptions and injurious calumnies against him for misalleaging of Authors For proceeding upon false and ungrounded princiciples for making inconsequent and sophisticall deductions and in a word for all the vertues of an ill answer your Second Part is no way second to the First Yet notwithstanding all this anvantage I am resolv'd if you will give me leave either wholly to suppresse it or at least to deferre the publication of it untill I see what exceptions upon a twelve-months examinatioÌ for so long I am well assur'd you have had it in your hands you can take at this which is now published that so if my grounds bee discovered false I may give over building on them or if it shall be thought fit build on more securely when it shall appeare that nothing materiall and of moment is or can bee objected against them This I say upon a supposition that your self will allow these reasons for satisfying and sufficient and not repent of the motion which your self has made of reducing the Controversy between us to this short Issue But in case your mind be altered upon the least intimation you shall give mee that you doe not desire to have it out your desire shall prevail with me above all other reasons and you shall not fail to receive it with all convenient speed Only that my Answer may be compleat and that I may have all my work together and not be troubled my self nor enforc'd to trouble you with after-reckonings I would first entreat you to make good your Promise of not omitting to answer all the particles of D. Potters book which may any way import and now at least to take notice of some as it seemes to me not unconsiderable passages of it which between your first and second Part as it were betweene two stooles have beene suffer'd hitherto to fall to the ground and not beene vouchsaf'd any answer at all For after this neglectfull fashion you have passed by in silence First his discourse wherein he proves briefly but very effectually that Protestants may be sav'd and that the RomaÌ Church especially the Iesuits are very uncharitable S. 1. p. 6. 7. 8. 9. Secondly the authorities whereby he justifies That the ancient Fathers by the Roman understood alwaies a particular and never the Catholique Church to which purpose he alleageth the words of Ignatius Ambrose Innocentius Celestine Nicolaus S. 1. p. 10 Whereunto you say nothing neither doe you infringe his observation with any one instance to the contrary Thirdly the greatest and most substantiall part of his answers to the Arguments of Charity Mistaken built upon Deut. 17. Numb 16. Mat. 28. 20. Mat. 18. 17. and in particular many pregnant and convincing Texts of Scripture quoted in the margent of his book p. 25. to prove that the Iudges of the Synagogue whose Infallibility yet you make an Argument of yours and therefore must be more credible then yours are vainly pretended to have been infallible but as they were oblig'd to judg according to the Law so were obnoxious to deviations from it S. 2. p. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. Fourthly his discourse wherein hee shewes the difference betweene the Prayers for the Dead used by the Ancients and those now in use in the Roman Church Fiftly the Authority of three Ancient and above twenty moderne Doctors of your own Church alleag'd by him to shew that in their opinion even Pagans and therefore much more erring Christians if their lives were morally honest by Gods extraordinary mercy and Christs merit may be saved S. 2. p. 45. Sixtly a great part of his discourse whereby he declares that actuall and externall communion with the Church is not of absolute necessity to Salvation nay that those might be saved whom the Church utterly refus'd to admit to her Communion S. 2. p. 46. 47. 48. 49. Seaventhly his discourse concerning the Churches latitude which hath in it a cleare determination of the maine Controversy against you For therein he proves plainly that all appertain to the Church who believe that Iesus is the Christ the sonne of God and Saviour of the world with submission to his Doctrine in mind and will which hee irrefragably demonstrates by many evident Texts of Scripture containing the substance of his Assertion even in termes S. 4. p. 114. 115. 116. 117. Eightly that wherein he shewes by many pertinent examples that grosse error and true Faith may bee lodged together in the same mind And that men are not chargeable with the damnable consequences of their erroneous opinions S. 4.