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 heâ—e 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
And presently after these two things retained will keep such men pure and uncorrupted that is neither doing ill nor approving it And therefore seeing you impose upon all men of your Communion a necessity of doing or at least approving many things unlawfull certainly there lies upon us an unavoidable necessity of dividing unity either with you or with God and whether of these is rather to be done be ye judges 11 Irenaeus also saies not simply which only would doe you service there cannot possibly be any so important Reformation as to justify a separation from them who will not reforme But only they cannot make any corruption so great as is the pernitiousnesse of a Schisme Now They here is a relative and hath an antecedent expressed in Irenaeus which if you had been pleased to take notice of you would easily have seene that what Irenaeus saies falls heavy upon the Church of Rome but toucheth Protestants nothing at all For the men he speaks of are such as Propter modicas quaslibet causas for trifling or small causes divide the body of Christ such as speak of peace and make warre such as straine at gnatts swallow Camels And these faith he can make no reformation of any such importance as to countervaile the danger of a division Now seeing the causes of our separation from the Church of Rome are as we pretend and are ready to justify because we will not be partakers with her in Superstition Idolatry Impiety and most cruell Tyranny both upon the bodies and soules of men Who can say that the causes of our separation may be justly esteemed Modicae quaelibet causae On the other side seeing the Bishop of Rome who was contemporary to Irenaeus did as much as in him lay cut off from the Churches unity many great Churches for not conforming to him in an indifferent matter upon a difference Non de Catholico dogmâ—te sed de Ritu vel Ritus potiùs tempore not about any Catholique doctrine but only a Ceremony or rather about the time of observing it so Petavius values it which was just all one as if the Church of France should excommunicate those of their own Religion in England for not keeping Christmas upon the same day with them And seeing he was reprehended sharpely and bitterly for it by most of the Bishops of the world as Eusebius testifies and as Cardinall Perron though mincing the matter yet confesseth by this very Ierenaeus himselfe in particular admonished that for so small a cause propter tam modicam causam he should not have cut off so many Provinces from the body of the Church and lastly seeing the Ecclesiasticall story of those times mentions no other notable example of any such Schismaticall presumption but this of Victor certainly we have great inducement to imagine that Irenaeus in this place by you quoted had a speciall aime at the Bishop and Church of Rome Once this I am sure of that the place fits him and many of his successors as well as if it had been made purposely for them And this also that he which finds fault with them who separate upon small causes implies cleerely that he conceived there might be such causes as were great and sufficient And that then a Reformation was to be made notwithstanding any danger of division that might insue upon it 12 Lastly S. Denis of Alexandria saies indeed and very well that all things should be rather indured then we should consent to the division of the Church I would adde Rather then consent to the continuation of the division if it might be remedied But then I am to tell you that he saies not All things should rather be done but only All things should rather be indured or suffered wherein he speaks not of the evill of sinne but of Pain and Misery Not of tolerating either Error or Sinne in others though that may be lawfull much lesse of joyning with others for quietnesse sake which only were to your purpose in the profession of Errour and practise of sinne but of suffering any affliction nay even martyrdome in our own persons rather then consent to the division of the Church Omnia incommoda so your own Christophorson enforced by the circumstances of the place translates Dionysius his words All miseries should rather be endured then we should consent to the Churches division 13 Ad § 9. In the next Paragraph you affirme two things but prove neither unlesse a vehement Asseveration may passe for a weake proofe You tell us first that the Doctrine of the totall deficiency of the visible Church which is maintained by divers chiefe Protestants implies in it vast absurdity or rather sacrilegious Blasphemy But neither doe the Protestants alleaged by you maintain the deficiency of the Visible Church but only of the Churches visibility or of the Church as it is Visible which so acute a man as you now that you are minded of it I hope will easily distinguish Neither doe they hold that the visible Church hath failed totally and from its essence but only from its purity and that it fell into many corruptions but yet not to nothing And yet if they had held that there was not only no pure visible Church but none at all surely they had said more then they could justify but yet you doe not shew neither can I discover any such Vast absurdity or Sacrilegious Blasphemy in this Assertion You say secondly that the Reason which cast them upon this wicked Doctrine was a desperate voluntary necessity because they were resolved not to acknowledge the Roman to be the true Church and were convinced by all manner of evidence that for diverse ages before Luther there was no other But this is not to dispute but to divine and take upon you the property of God which is to know the hearts of men For why I pray might not the Reason hereof rather be because they were convinced by all manner of evidence as Scripture Reason Antiquity that all the visible Churches in the world but aboue all the Roman had degenerated from the purity of the Gospell of Christ and thereupon did conclude there was no visible Church meaning by no Church none free from corruption and conformable in all things to the doctrine of Christ. 14 Ad § 10. Neither is there any repugnance but in words only between these as you are pleased to stile them exterminating Spirits and those other whom out of Curtesy you intitle in your 10. § more moderate Protestants For these affirming the Perpetuall Visibility of the Church yet neither deny nor doubt of her being subject to manifold and grievous corruptions and those of such a nature as were they not mitigated by invincible or at least a very probable ignorance none subject to them could be saved And they on the other side denying the Churches Visibility yet plainly affirme that they conceive very good hope of the Salvation of many of their ignorant
promise of divine assistance which being not ordinarily irresistible but temper'd to the nature of the Receivers may be neglected and therefore withdrawn but by the Repugnance of any errour in this sense fundamentall to the essence and nature of a Church So that to speak properly not any set known company of men is secur'd that though they neglect the meanes of avoiding error yet certainly they shall not erre which were necessary for the constitution of an infallible guide of faith But rather they which know what is meant by a Church are secur'd or rather certain that a Church remaining a Church cannot fall into fundamentall error because when it does so it is no longer a Church As they are certain that men cannot become unreasonable creatures because when they doe so they are no longer men But for fundamentall errors of the former sort which yet I hope will warrant our departure from any Communion infected with them and requiring the Profession of them from such fundamentall errors we doe not teach so much as that the Church Catholique much lesse which only were for your purpose that your Church hath any protection or security but know for a certain that many errors of this nature had prevailed against you and that a vain presumption of an absolute divine assistance which yet is promised but upon conditions made both your present errors incurable and exposed you to the imminent danger of more greater This therefore is either to abuse what we say or to impose falsely upon us what we say not And to this you presently adde another manifest falsehood viz. that we say that no particular person or Church hath any promise of assistance in points fundamentall Whereas crosse to this in diameter there is no Protestant but holds and must hold that there is no particular Church no nor person but hath promise of divine assistance to lead them into all necessary truth if they seeke it as they should by the meanes which God hath appointed And should we say otherwise we should contrary plain Scripture which assures us plainly that every one that seeketh findeth and every one that asketh receiveth and that if we being evill can give good gifts to our children much more shall our heavenly Father give his spirit to them that aske it and that if any man want wisdome especially spirituall wisdome he is to aske of God who giveth to all men and upbraideth not 89 You obtrude upon us thirdly That when Luther began he being but one opposed himselfe to all as well Subjects as Superiors Ans. If he did so in the cause of God it was heroically done of him This had been without hyperbolizing Mundus contra Athanasium and Athanasius contra Mundum neither is it impossible that the whole world should so farre lye in wickednesse as S. Iohn speakes that it may be lawfull and noble for one man to oppose the world But yet were we put to our oathes we should surely not testify any such thing for you for how can we say properly and without streining that he opposed himselfe to All unlesse we could say also that All opposed themselves to him And how can we say so seeing the world can witnesse that so many thousands nay millions followed his standard as soone as it was advanced 90 But none that lived immediatly before him thought or spake as he did This is first nothing to the purpose The Church was then corrupted and sure it was no dishonour to him to beginne the Reformation In the Christian warfare every man ought to strive to be foremost Secondly it is more then you can justify For though no man before him lifted up his voice like a trumpet as Luther did yet who can assure us but that many before him both thought and spake in lower voice of petitions and remonstrances in many points as he did 91 Fourthly and lastly whereas you say that many chiefe learned Protestants are forced to confesse the Antiquity of your Doctrine and Practise I Answer of many Doctrines and Practises of yours this is not true not pretended to be true by those that have dealt in this Argument Search your storehouse M. Brerely who hath travailed as farre in this Northwest discovery as it was possible for humane industry and when you have done so I pray informe me what confessions of Protestants have you for the Antiquity of the Doctrine of the Communion in one kinde the lawfulnesse and expedience of the Latine service For the present use of Indulgences For the Popes power in Temporalties over Princes For the picturing of the Trinity For the lawfulnesse of the worship of Pictures For your Beades and Rosary and Ladies Psalter and in a word for your whole worship of the B. Virgin For your oblations by way of consumption therefore in the quality of Sacrifices to the Virgin Mary other Saints For your saying of Pater-nosters Creeds to the honour of Saints and of Ave-Maries to the honour of other Saints besides the Blessed Virgin For infallibility of the Bishop or Church of Rome For your prohibiting the Scripture to be read publikely in the Church in such languages as all may understand For your Doctrine of the Blessed Virgins immunity from actuall sinne and for your doctrine and worship of her immaculate conception For the necessity of Auricular Confession For the necessity of the Priests Intention to obtain benefit by any of your Sacraments And lastly not to trouble my selfe with finding out more for this very doctrine of Licentiousnesse That though a man live and dye without the practise of Christian vertues and with the habits of many damnable sinnes unmortified yet if he in the last moment of life have any sorrow for his sinnes and joyne confession with it certainly he shall be saved Secondly they that confesse some of your doctrines to have been the Doctrine of the Fathers may be mistaken being abused by may words and phrases of the Fathers which have the Roman sound when they are farre from the sense Some of them I am sure are so I will name Goulartius who in his Commentaries on S. Cyprian's 35. Ep. grants that the sentence Heresies haue sprung c. quoted by you § 36. of this Chapter was meant of Cornelius whereas it will be very plain to any attentive reader that S. Cyprian speaks there of himselfe Thirdly though some Protestants confesse some of your doctrine to be Ancient yet this is nothing so long as it is evident even by the confession of all sides that many errors I instance in that of the Millenaries and the communicating of Infants were more ancient Not any antiquity therefore unlesse it be absolute and primitive is a certain signe of true Doctrine For if the Church were obnoxious to corruption as we pretend it was who can possibly warrant us that part of this corruption might not get in and prevaile in the 5. or 4. or 3. or 2. age Especially seeing the A-Apostles
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 theÌ„selves 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 â—aith 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 Constantinâ—ple 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
Ordination or Succession in the Protestants Church because the Fathers alleaged in the last reason assigne Succession as one mark of the true Church I must not omit to say that according to the grounds of Protestants themselves they can neither pretend personall Succession of Bishops nor Succession of doctrine For whereas Succession of Bishops signifies a never-interrupted line of Persons endued with an indelible Quality which Divines call a Character which cannot be taken away by deposition degradation or other meanes whatsoever and endued also with Iurisdiction and Authority to teach to preach to govern the Church by lawes precepts censures c. Protestants cannot pretend Succession in either of these For besides that there was never Protestant Bishop before Luther and that there can be no continuance of Succession where there was no beginning to succeed they commonly acknowledge no Character and consequently must affirme that when their pretended Bishops or Priests are deprived of Iurisdiction or degraded they remain meer lay Persons as before their Ordination fulfilling what Tertullian objects as a mark of Heresie To â—ay a Priest to morrow a Lay-man For if here be no immoveable Character their power of Order must consist only in Iurisdiction and authoritie or in a kinde of morall deputation to some function which therefore may be taken away by the same power by which it was given Neither can they pretend Succession in Authority or Iurisdiction For all the Authority or Iurisdiction which they had was conferred by the Church of Rome that is by the Pope Because the whole Church collectively doth not meet to ordain Bishops or Priests or to giue them Authority But according to their own doctrine they believe that the Pope neither hath or ought to haue any Iurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiassicall or Spirituall within this Realme which they sweare even when they are ordained Bishops Priests and Deacons How then can the Pope giue Iurisdiction where they sweare he neither hath nor OVGHT to haue any Or if yet he had how could they without Schisme withdraw themselves from his obedience Besides the Roman Church never gaue them Authority to oppose Her by whom it was given But grant their first Bishops had such Authority from the Church of Rome after the decease of those men who gaue Authority to their pretended Successours The Primate of England But from whom had he such Authority And after his decease who shall confer Authority upon his Successours The temporall Magistrate King Henry neither a Catholique nor a Protestant King Edward a Child Queen Elizabeth a Woman An Infant of one houres Age is true King in case of his Predecessours decease But shall your Church lye fallow till that Infant-King and green Head of the Church come to yeares of discretion Doe your Bishops your Hierarchy your Succession your Sacraments your being or not being Heretiques for want of Succession depend on this new-found supremacy-Supremacy-doctrine brought in by such a man meerly upon base occasions and for shameful ends impugned by Calvin and his followers derided by the Christian world and even by chiefe Protestants as D. Andrewes Wotton c. not held for any necessary point of faith And from whoÌ„ I pray you had Bishops their Authority when there were no Christian Kings Must the Greeke Patriarchs receiue spirituall Iurisdiction from the Greek Turk Did the Pope by the Baptisme of Princes loose the spirituall Power he formerly had of conferring spirituall Iurisdiction upon Bishops Hath the temporall Magistrate authority to preach to assoile from sinnes to inflict excommunications and other Censures Why hath he not Power to excommunicate as well as to dispense in Irregularity as our late Soveraign Lord King Iames either dispensed with the late Archbishop of Canterbury or else gaue commission to some Bishops to doe it and since they were subject to their Primate and not he to them it is cleer that they had no Power to dispense with him but that power must proceed from the Prince as Superiour to them all and head of the Protestants Church in England If he haue no such authority how can he giue to others what himselfe hath not Your Ordination or Consecration of Bishops and Priests imprinting no Character can only consist in giving a Power Authority Iurisdiction or as I said before some kind of Deputation to exercise Episcopall or Priestly functions If then the temporall Magistrate conferres this Power c. he can nay he cannot chuse but Ordain and consecrate Bishops Priests as often as he confers Authority or Iurisdiction and your Bishops as soone as they are designed confirmed by the King must ip so facto be Ordained and Consecrated by him without intervention of Bishops or Matter and Form of Ordination Which absurdities you will bee more unwilling to grant then well able to avoid if you will be true to your own doctrines The Pope from whom originally you must beg your Succession of Bishops never received nor will nor can acknowledge to receiue any Spiriâ—uall Iurisdiction from any Temporall Prince and therefore if Iurisdiction must be derived from Princes he hath none at all and yet either you must acknowledge that hee hath true spirituall Iurisdiction or that yourselves can receiue none from him 21 Moreover this new Reformation or Reformed Church of Protestants will by them be pretended to be Catholique or Vniversall and not confined to England alone as the Sect of the Donatists was to Africa and therefore it must comprehend all the Reformed Churches in Germany Holland Scotland France c. In which number they of Germany Holland and France are not governed by Bishops nor regard any personall succession unlesse of such fat-benefiâ—ed Bishops as Nicolaus Amsfordius who was consecrated by Luther though Luther himselfe was never Bishop as witnesseth Dresserus And though Scotland hath of late admitted some Bishops I much doubt whether they hold them to be necessary or of divine Institution and so their enforced admitting of them doth not so much furnish that kingdome with personall Succession of Bishops as it doth convince them to want Succession of Doctrine since in this their neglect of Bishops they disagree both from the milder Protestants of England and the true Catholique Church And by this want of a continued personall Succession of Bishops they retaine the note of Schisme and Heresy So that the Church of Protestants must either not be Vniversall as being confined to England Or if you will needs comprehend all those Churches which want succession you must confesse that your Church doth not only communicate with Schismaticall and Hereticall Churches but is also compounded of such Churches and your selves cannot avoid the note of Schismatiques or Heretiques if it were but for participating with such hereticall Churches For it is impossible to retain Communion with the true Catholique Church and yet agree with them who are divided from her by Schisme or Heresy because that were to affirme that for the
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 Câ—rist 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
his sword to his Prefect with this commission that if he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so why not against her errors in doctrine if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospell of Christ and consequently against her doctrine if it should contradict any part of the Gospell of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawfull in the Church of Rome for any Lay man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from error and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation then that of a Christian to doe a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of Charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without an unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out of a false unto a true way of eternall happinesse Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soule from death and shall hide a multitude of sinnes Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as well as the Cardinalls doe the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonicall exception Whether the Doctrine that the King is supream head of the Church of England as the Kings of Iudah the first Christian Emperors were of the Iewish and Christian Church be any new found doctrine Whether it may not be true that Bishops being made Bishops have their authority immediatly from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the Kings authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has authority immediatly from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the authority of the Cardinalls Whether you doe well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more authority in ordering the affaires of the Church then the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdome and yet not be capable of doing it himselfe as well as a Bishop may give authority to a Physitian to practise Physick in his Diocesse which the Bishop cannot doe himselfe Whether if Ner◠the Emperour would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to preach the Gospell of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have question'd his Authority to doe so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited K. IAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his injunction upon them to doe any thing that is lawfull Whether a casuall irregularity may not be lawfully dispenc'd with Whether the Popes irregularities if he should chance to incurre any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a character and ours doth not Whether the power of consecrating and ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of architecture and had it immediatly by infusion from God himselfe yet if they were the Kings subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a fortresse for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himselfe yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his subjects that has this power to ordaine any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it doe not follow that whensoever the King commands an house to be built a message to be delivered or a murtherer to be executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Architect messenger or executioner As well as that they are ipsofacto ordain'd and consecrated who by the Kings authority are commended to the Bishops to be ordained and consecrated Especially seeing the King will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to doe what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should doe so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himselfe nor any body else would esteeme the person Bishop upon the Kings designation Whether many Popes though they were not consecrated Bishops by any temporall Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopall function in this or that place And whether the Emperors had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants doe indeed pretend that their Reformation is universall Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you doe not forget your selfe and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of divine institution be Schismaticall and Hereticall for thinking so Whether your forme of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essentiall to the constitution of a true Church Whether the formes of the Church of England differ essentially from your formes Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other mans Lastly whether any one kind of these externall formes and orders and government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may not be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives
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
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
saying I answer that this is an inconsiderate speech and unworthy so great a Father But let us conclude with S. Augustine that the Church cannot approue any errour against faith or good manners The Church saith he being Placed between much chaffe and cockle doth tollerate many things but yet she doth not approue nor dissemble nor doe those things which are against faith or good life 17 And as I haue proved that Protestants according to their grounds cannot yeeld infallibls assent to the Church in any one point so by the same reason I prove that they cannot rely upon Scripture it selfe in any one point of faith Not in points of lesser moment or not fundamentall because in such points the Catholique Church according to D. Potter and much more any Protestant may erre and thinke it is contained in Scripture when it is not Not in points fundamentall because they must first know what points be fundamentall before they can bee assured that they cannot erre in understanding the Scripture and consequently independantly of Scripture they must foreknow all fundamentall points of faith and therefore they doe not indeed rely upon Scripture either for fundamentall or not fundamentall points 18 Besides I mainly urge D. Potter and other Protestants that they tell us of certain points which they call fundamentall and we cannot wrest from them a list in particular of such points without which no man can tell whether or no he erre in points fundamentall and be capable of salvation And which is most lamentable insteed of giving us such a Catalogue they fall to wrangle among themselves about the making of it 19 Calvin holds the Popes Primacy Invocation of Saints Free will and such like to bee fundamentall errours overthrowing the Gospell Others are not of his minde as Melancthou who saith in the opinion of himselfe and other his Brethren That the Monarchy of the Bishop of Rome is of use or profit to this end that Consent of Doctrine may be retained An agreement therefore may easily be established in this Article of the Popes Primacy if other Articles could be agreed upon If the Popes Primacy be a meanes that consent of Doctrine may be retained first submit to it and other articles will be easily agreed upon Luther also saith of the Popes Primacy it may be borne withall And why then O Luther did you not beare with it And how can you and your followers be excused from damnable Schisme who chose rather to devide Gods Church then to beare with that which you confesse may be borne withall But let us goe forward That the doctrine of freewill Prayer for the dead worshipping of Images Woâ—ship and Invocation of Saints Reall presence Transubstantiation Receaving under one kinde Satisfaction and Ment of works and the Masse be not fundamentall Errours is taught respective by divers Protestants carefully alleaged in the Protestants Apologie c. as namely by Perkins Cartwright Frith Fulle Spark Goade Luther Reynolds Whitaker Tindall Franci Iohnson with others Contrary to these is the Confession of the Christian faith so called by Protestants which I mentioned heretofore wherein we are damned unto unquenchable fire for the doctrine of Masse Prayer to Saints and for the dead Freewill Presence at Idol-service Mans merit with such like Iustification by faith alone is by some Protestants affirmed to be the soule of the Church The only principall origen of Salvation of all other points of doctrine the chiefest and weightiest Which yet as we haue seen is contrary to other Protestants who teach that meâ— of good works is not a fundamentall Errour yea divers Protestants defend merit of good works as may bee seen in Breereley One would think that the Kings Supremacy for which some blessed men lost their lives was once among Protestants held for a Capitall point but now D. Andrewes late of Winchester in his book against Bellarmime tells us that it is sufficient to reckon it among true Doctrines And Woâ—ton denies that Protestants hold the Kings Supremacy to be an essentiall point of faith O freedome of the new Gospell Hold with Catholiques the Pope or with Protestants the King or with Puritanes neither Pope nor King to be Head of the Church all is one you may be saved Some as Castalio and the whole Sect of the Academicall Protestants hold that doctrines about the Supper Baptisme the state and office of Christ how he is one with his Father the Trinity Predestination and divers other such questions are not necessary to Salvation And that you may observe how ungrounded and partiall their Assertions be Perkins teacheth that the Reall presence of our Saviours Body in the Sacrament as it is believed by Catholiques is a fundamentall errour and yet affirmeth the Consubstantiation of Lutherans not to be such notwithstanding that divers chiefe Lutherans to their Consubstantiation joyne the prodigious Heresie of Vbiquitation D. Vsher in his Sermon of the Vnity of the Catholique faith grants Salvation to the Aethiopians who yet with Christian Baptisme joyne Circumcision D. Potter cites the doctrine of some whom he termeth men of great learning and judgement that all who professe to loue and honour IES VS CHRIST are in the visible Christian Church and by Catholiques to be reputed Brethren One of these men of great learning and judgement is Thomas Morton by D. Potter cited in his Margent whose love and honour to Iesus-Christ you may perceive by his saying that the Churches of Arians who denied our Saviour Christ to be God are to be accounted the Church of God bâ—cause they doe hold the foundation of the Gospell which is Faith in Iesus-Christ the Sonne of God and Saviour of the world And which is more it seemeth by these charitable men that for being a member of the Church it is not necessary to believe one only God For D. Potter among the arguments to proue Hookers and Mortons opinion brings this The people of the ten Tribes after their defection notwithstanding their grosse corruptions Idolatry remained still a true Church We may also as it seemeth by these mens reasoning deny the Resurrection and yet be members of the true Chruch For a learned man saith D. Potter in behalfe of Hookers and Mortons opinion was anciently made a Bishop of the Catholique Church though he did professedly doubt of the last Resurreâ—tion of our bodies Deere Saviour What times doe we behold If one may be a member of the true Church and yet deny the Trinity of the Persons the Godhead of our Saviour the necessity of Baptisme if we may use Circumcision and with the worship of God joyne Idolatry wherein doe we differ from Turks and Iews or rather are we not worse then eyther of them If they who deny our Saviours divinity might be accounted the Church of God how will they deny that favour to those ancient Heretiques who denied our Saviours true humanity and so
because it is written The Priests lips shall preserve knowledg The Scribes and Pharises sit in Moses chaire c. To any Preacher of the Gospell to any Pastor or Doctor for to every one of them Christ hath promised he will be with them alwaies even to the end of the world of every one of them it is said He that heareth you heareth me c. To any Bishop or Prelate for it is written Obey your Prelates and againe he hath given Pastors and Doctors c. least we should be carried about with every wind of doctrine To any particular Church of Christians seeing it is a particular Church which is called The house of God a Pillar ground of Truth and seeing of any Particular Church it is written He that heareth not the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen or a Publicâ—d We might referre it to any man that prayes for Gods spirit for it is written Every one that asketh receiveth and again If any man want wisdome let him aske of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not Lastly we might referre it to the Iewes for without all doubt of them it is written my spirit that is in thee c. All these meanes of agreement whereof not any one but hath as much probability from Scripture as that which you obtrude upon us offer themselves upon a suddain to me happily many more might be thought on if we had time but these are enough to shew that would we make use of voluntary and devised meanes to determine differences we had them in great abundance And if you say these would faile us and contradict themselves so as we pretend have yours There have been Popes against Popes Councells against Councells Councells confirmed by Popes against Councells confirmed by Popes Lastly the Church of some Ages against the Church of other Ages 9 Lastly whereas you find fault That Protestants upbraided with their discords answer that they differ only in points not Fundamentall I desire you tell me whether they doe so or doe not so If they doe so I hope you will not find fault with the Answer If you say they doe not so but in points Fundamentall also then they are not members of the same Church one with another no more then with you And therefore why should you object to any of them their differences from each other any more then to your selves their more and greater differences from you 10 But they are convinc'd sometimes even by their own confessions that the Ancient Fathers taught divers points of Popery and then they reply those Fathers may neverthelesse be saved because those errors were not Fundamentall And may not you also be convinc'd by the confessions of your own men that the Fathers taught divers points held by Protestants against the Church of Rome and divers against Protestants and the Church of Rome Doe not your Purging Indexes clip the tongues and seal up the lips of a great many for such confessions And is not the above cited confession of your Doway Divines plain and full to the same purpose And doe not you also as freely as we charge the Fathers with errors yet say they were saved Now what else doe we understand by an unfundamentall error but such a one with which a man may possibly be saved So that still you proceed in condemning others for your own faults and urging arguments against us which returne more strongly upon your selves 11 But your will is we should remember that Christ must alwaies have a visible Church Ans. Your pleasure shall be obeyed on condition you will not forget that there is a difference between perpetuall Visibility and perpetuall Purity As for the answere which you make for us true it is we believe the Catholique Church cannot perish yet that she may and did erre in points not Fundamentall and that Protestants were oblig'd to forsake these errors of the Church as they did though not the Church for her errors for that they did not but continued still members of the Church For it is not all one though you perpetually confound them to forsake the errors of the Church and to forsake the Church or to forsake the Church in her Errors and simply to forsake the Church No more then it is for me to renounce my Brothers or my Friends Vices or Errors and to renounce my Brother or my Friend The Former then was done by Protestants the latter was not done Nay not only not from the Catholique but not so much as from the Roman did they seperate per omnia but only in those practises which they conceived superstitious or impious If you would at this time propose a forme of Liturgy which both Sides hold lawfull and then they would not joyne with you in this Liturgy you might have some colour then to say they renounce your communion absolutely But as things are now ordered they cannot joyne with you in prayers but they must partake with you in unlawfull practises and for this reason they not absolutely but thus farre separate from your communion And this I say they were obliged to doe under pain of damnation Not as if it were damnable to hold an error not damnable but because it is damnable outwardly to professe maintaine it and to joyn with others in the practise of it when inwardly they did not hold it Now had they continued in your communion that they must have done vid. have professed to believe and externally practis'd your Errors whereof they were convinced that they were Errors which though the matters of the Errors had been not necessary but only profitable whether it had not been damnable dissimulation and hypocrisy I leave it to you to judge You your selfe tell us within two pages after this that you are obliged never to speak any one least lye against your knowledge § 2. now what is this but to live in a perpetuall lye 12 As for that which in the next place you seeme so to wonder at That both Catholiques and Protestants according to the opinion of Protestants may bee saved in their severall professions because forsooth we both agree in all Fundamentall points I Anwere this proposition so crudely set down as you have here set it down I know no Protestant will justify For you seeme to make them teach that it is an indifferent thing for the attainment of salvation whether a man believe the Truth or the Falshood and that they care not in whether of these Religions a man live or dye so he dye in either of them whereas all that they say is this That those amongst you which want meanes to find the Truth and so dye in error or use the best meanes they can with industry and without partiality to find the truth and yet dye in error these men thus qualified notwithstanding these errors may be saved Secondly for those that have meanes to find the
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
hath so kindly offered to lead you by the hand to the observation of them in these words To consider of your Coinopista or communitèr Credenda Articles as you call them universally believed of all these severall Professions of Cristianity which have any large spread in the World These Articles for example may be the Vnity of the Godhead the Trinity of persons the immortality of the Soule c. Where you see that your friend whom you so much magnify hath plainly confessed that notwithstanding the Bishops words the denyall of the doctrine of the Trinity may exclude Salvation and therefore in approving and applauding his Answer to the Bishops Sermon you have unawares allowed this Answer of mine to your own greatest objection 46 Now for the foule contradiction which you say the Doctor might easily haue espied in the Bishops saying he desires your pardon for his oversight for Paulus Veridicus his sake who though he set him selfe to finde faults with the Bishops Sermon yet it seemes this hee could not finde or else questionlesse wee should haue heard of it from him And therefore if D. Potter being the Bishops friend haue not been more sharp-sighted then his enemies this he hopes to indifferent judges will seem no unpardonable offence Yet this I say not as if there were any contradiction at all much lesse any foul contradiction in the Bishops words but as Antipherons picture which he thought he saw in the ayre before him was not in the ayre but in his disturb'd phansie◠so all the contradiction which here you descant upon is not indeed in the Bishops saying but in your imagination For wherein I pray lies this foule contradiction In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words doe suppose this neither if they doe does he contradict himselfe I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speake and write so as here he does when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and presse illustrate what they haue said before And I wonder why with your Eagles eyes you did not espy another foule contradiction in his words as well as this and say that he supposes a man may walk according to the rule of holy obedience and yet vitiate his holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation Certainly a lewd conversation is altogether as contradictious to holy obedience as a damnable heresie to necessary truth What then was the reason that you espied not this foule contradiction in his words as well as that Was it because according to the spirit and Genius of your Church your zeal is greater to that which you conceive true doctrine then holy obedience and think simple errour a more capitall crime then sins committed against knowledge and conscience Or was it because your Reason told you that herein he meant onely to repeat and not to limit what he said before And why then had you not so much candour to conceave that he might haue the same meaning in the former part of the disiunction and intend no more but this Whosoever walks according to this rule of believing all necessary Truths and holy obedience neither poisoning his faith of those Truths which he holds with the mixture of any damnable Heresie nor vitiating it with a wicked life Peace shall be upon him In which words what man of any ingenuity will not presently perceive that the words within the parenthesis are only a repetition of and no exception from those that are without S. Athanasius in his Creed tells us The Catholique Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Vnity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now doe you not tell him that he contradicts himselfe and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandements of God committing no sinne either against the loue of God or the loue of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will liue in constant health had need be exact in his diet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus hee that will come to London must goe on straight forward in such a way and neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily belieue you would not finde any contradiction in his words but confesse them as coherent and consonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you would easily perceive it to be of the very same kinde capable of the very same construction And therefore one of the grounds of your accusation is uncertain Neither can you assure us that the Bishop supposes any such matter as you pretend Neither if he did suppose this as perhaps he did were this to contradict himselfe For though there can be no damnable Heresie unlesse it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no contradiction but the same man may at once belieue this Heresie and this Truth because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should believe contradictions For first whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must believe But there haue been some who have believed and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristotle disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may belieue Contradictions Secondly they which believe there is no certainty in Reason must belieue that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is false But there be now divers in the world who believe there is no certainty in reason and whether you be of their minde or no I desire to be inform'd Therefore there be divers in the world who believe contradictions may be true Thirdly They which doe captivate their understandings to the beliefe of those things which to their understanding seem irreconcileable contradictions may as well belieue reall contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but from their seeming to be so But you doe captivate your understandings to the beliefe of those things which seem to your understandings irreconcileable contradictions Therefore it is as possible and easie for you to believe those that indeed are so Fourthly some men may be confuted in their errours and perswaded out of them but no mans errour can be confuted who together with his errour doth not believe and grant some true principle that contradicts his Errour for nothing can bee proved to him who grants nothing neither can there be as all men
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 thē 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 Symbole◠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 whē we haue not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell
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 Iâ—remiae 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 Arcudiâ—s 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
such Authorities as these and think you selves at liberty from them and that you should account them Fathers when they are for you and Children when they are against you Yet I would not you should interpret this as if I had not great assurance that it is not possible for you ever to gain this cause at the tribunall of the Fathers nay not of the Fathers whose sentences are here alleaged Let us consider them in order and I doubt not to make it appear that farre the greater part of them nay all of them that are any way considerable fall short of your purpose 23 S. Hierome you say writing to Pope Damasus saith I am in the Communion of the Chaire of Peter c. But then I pray consider he saith it to Pope Damasus and this will much weaken the Authority with them who know how great over-truths men usually write to one another in letters Consider againe that he saies only that he was then in Communion with the Chaire of Peter Nott hat he alwayes would or of necessity must be so for his resolution to the contrary is too evident out of that which he saith elswhere which shall be produced hereafter He saies that the Church at that present was built upon that Rock but not that only Nor that alwayes Nay his judgment as shall appeare is expresse to the contrary And so likewise the rest of his expressions if we meane to reconcile Hierome with Hierome must bee conceived as intended by him of that Bishop and Sea of Rome at that present time and in the present State and in respect of that doctrine which he there intreats of For otherwise had he conceiu'd it necessary for him and all men to conform their judgments in matters of faith to the judgment of the Bishop Church of Rome how came it to passe that he chose rather to believe the Epistle to the Hebrewes Canonicall upō the Authority of the Easterne Church then to reject it from the Canon upon the Authority of the Roman How comes it to passe that he dissented from the Authority of that Church touching the Canon of the Old Testament For if you say that the Church then consented with S. Hierome I feare you will loose your Fort by maintaining your Out-works and by avoyding this runne into a greater danger of being forc'd to confesse the present Roman Church opposite herein to the Ancient How was it possible that he should ever beleeue that Liberius Bishop of Rome either was or could haue been wrought over by the sollicitation of Fortunatianus Bishop of Aquileia and brought after two years banishment to subscribe Heresie Which Act of Liberius though some fondly question being so vain as to expect we should rather believe them that lived but yesterday thirteen hundred years almost after the thing is said to be done and speaking for themselves in their own Cause rather then the dis-interessed time-fellowes or immediate Successors of Liberius himselfe yet I hope they will not proceed to such a degree of immodesty as once to question whether S. Hierome thought so And if this cannot be denyed I demand then if he had lived in Liberius his time could he or would he have written so to Liberius as he does to Damasus would he have said to him I am in the Communion of the Chair of Peter I know that the Church is built upon this Rock Whosoever gathereth not with thee scattereth Would he then have said the Roman faith and the Catholique were the same or that the Roman faith received no delusions no not from an Angell I suppose he could not have said so with any coherence to his own beleif and therefore conceive it undeniable that what he said then to Damasus he said it though perhaps he streyned too high only of Damasus and never conceiv'd that his words would have been extended to all his Predecessors and all his Successors 24 The same Answer I make to the first place of S. Ambrose viz. that no more can be certainly concluded from it but that the Catholique Bishops and the Roman Church were then at unity so that whosoever agreed with the latter could not then but agree with the former But that this Rule was perpetuall and that no man could ever agree with the Catholique Bishops but he must agree with the Roman Church this he saies not nor gives you any ground to conclude from him Athanasius when he was excommunicated by Liberius agreed very ill with the Roman Church and yet you will not gainsay but he agreed well enough with the Catholique Bishops The second I am uncertain what the sense of it is and what truth is in it but most certain that it makes nothing to your present purpose For it neither affirmes nor imports that separation from the Roman Church is a certain marke of Heresy For the Rights of Communion whatsoever it signifies might be said to flow from it if that Church were by Ecclesiasticall Law the head of all other Churches But unlesse it were made so by divine Authority and that absolutely Separation from it could not be a marke of Heresy 25 For S. Cyprian all the world knowes that he resolutely opposed a Decree of the Roman Bishop and all that adhered to him in the point of Re. baptizing which that Church at that time delivered as a necessary Tradition So necessary that by the Bishop of Rome Firmilianus and other Bishops of Cappadocia Cilicia and Galatia and generally all who persisted in the contrary opinion were therefore deprived of the Churches Communion which excōmunication could not but involve S. Cyprian who defended the same opinion as resolutely as Firmilianus though Cardinall Perron magisterially and without all colour of proofe affirme the contrary and Cyprian in particular so farre cast off as for it to be pronounc'd by Stephen a false Christ. Again so necessary that the Bishops which were sent by Cyprian from Africk to Rome were not admitted to the Communion of ordinary conference But all men who were subject to the Bishop of Romes Authority were cōmanded by him not only to deny them the Churches peace Communion but even lodging and entertainment manifestly declaring that they reckoned them among those whom S. Iohn forbids to receive to house or to say God speed to them All these terrors notwithstanding S. Cyprian holdes still his former opinion though out of respect to the Churches peace he judged no man nor cut off any man from the right of Communion for thinking otherwise then he held yet he conceived Stephen his adherents to hold a pernitious error And S. Austin though disputing with the Donatists he useth some Tergiversatiō in the point yet confesseth elsewhere that it is not found that Cyprian did ever change his opinion And so farre was he from conceiving any necessity of doing so in submitting to the judgement of the Bishop and Church of Rome that he plainly professeth that
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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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
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 Cōmunion with the seven Churches of Asia to which S. Iohn writes whereof he pronounces confidently though I know not upon what ground 〈◊〉 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 misinterpretatiō 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 givē 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 Pyrrhoniā 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 Successiō 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
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 〈◊〉 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 Poliâ—rates 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 〈◊〉 of them and though one account that a necessary truth which 〈◊〉 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 â—35 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