let us now make way for Theological reason to enter the lists armed Cap-a-pe in Mood and Figure For now at last you tell us You will argue in Forme against his Lordship and the Greek Church together And thus it proceeds If the Greeks errour be not only concerning but against the Holy Ghost then according to the Bishops own distinction they have lost all assistance of that blessed Spirit and are become no true Church But their errour is not only concerning but against the Holy Ghost Therefore c. The Major or first Proposition contains the Bishops own Doctrine the Minor or second Proposition wherein you learnedly tell us what the Major and Minor in Syllogisms are you thus prove All errours specially opposite to the particular and personal Procession of the Holy Ghost are according to all Divines not only errours concerning but errours against the Holy Ghost But the Greeks errour is opposite to the particular and personal Procession of the Holy Ghost as is already proved Ergo their errour is not only concerning but against the Holy Ghost whose assistance therefore they have lost not only according to the first but even latter branch of the Bishops distinction and consequently remain no true Church Now who is there that out of meer pitty can find in his heart not to yield this to you when you have been at such pains to prove it But things set out with the greatest formality have not alwayes the most solidity in them All the force of this Argument such as it is lye's in this that his Lordship had said That the errour of the Greeks was rather about the Doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost then against the Holy Ghost which he after explains by saying It was not such an errour as did destroy the equality or Consubstantiality of the Spirit with the other persons of the Trinity I pray now take his Lordships explication of himself and you must form your Argument after another way then you have done but you saw well enough that you could not make any shew of an Argument but meerly from words If I thought it worth considering it were easie to tell you that what is only against the Procession from the Son is not thereby against the Holy Ghost because it may be the Holy Ghost i. e. the third person in the Trinity though it proceed only from the Father And as well you might say that whatever Doctrine denies the Son to be begotten of the Spirit is not only concerning but against the Son and urge the consequences upon as good terms as you do about the Spirit But so trifling an Argument is too much honoured by any serious confutation And it seems you were something sensible of it your self when you say His Lordship seemed to have provided against the force of it as who would not by hinting a difference between errours fundamental and not fundamental which point I shall purposely examine in the following Chapter When you therefore come to hold forth what is now but hinted at I shall readily hearken to what you have to say Thus for any thing you have produced to the contrary it sufficiently appears that the Greek Church is very unjustly charged with Heresie by you and that those testimonies which his Lordship produced would as well hold for the Modern as Ancient Greeks to which I might add the judgement of others of your own side who speak as much concerning the Modern Greeks as Thomas à Jesu Azorius and others but I think not that way of arguing to have much force on either side and therefore pass it over And come to the debate of the Filioque with which you say his Lordship begins to quibble on occasion of the Popes inserting it into the Creed But I am quite of another mind I think he speaks very seriously and with a great deal of reason when he saith And Rome in this particular should be more moderate if it be but because this Article Filioque was added to the Creed by her self And 't is hard to add and Anathematize too For what you say to this of the Holy Ghost's having leave to assist the Church in adding expressions for the better explication of any Article of Faith and then the Pope hath leave and command too to Anathematize all such as shall not allow the use of such expressions I commend you that when you must beg something you would beg all that was to be had at once but before you perswade us to the digesting such crudities as these are prove but these following things 1. Where it is that there is any promise of the Ghost's assistance in adding any Articles to the Creed under pretence of better expressions for explication of them 2. Supposing such an assistance what ground is there to impose such additional expressions so that those who admit them not must be guilty of Heresie and consequently by your principles incurr eternal damnation 3. How those expressions can be accounted a better explication of an Article of Faith which contain something not implyed in nor necessarily deduced from any other Article of Faith 4. If this assistance be promised to the Church how any one part of that Church as great a part stifly opposing such additional expressions can claim that assistance to it self the other parts of the Catholick Church utterly denying it 5. If an assistance as to such things be promised the Church why may it not be more reasonably presumed to be in an Oecumenical Council as that at Ephesus forbidding such additions than in any part of the Church which after such a Decree shall directly contradict it 6. What right can the Church have to Anathematize any for the not using such expressions which that Church which determins the use of them doth acknowledge to be only expressions for better explication of an Article of Faith and consequently the denyal of them cannot amount to the denyal of an Article of Faith but only of the better explication of it 7. If all these things be granted how comes the Pope not only to have leave but command too to Anathematize all such as use not these expressions Where is that Command extant how comes it to be limited to him Is he expressed in it or doth it by necessary consequence follow from it What good would it do us to see but one of these proved which you very fairly beg in the lump together And till you have proved them all you may assure your self that we shall never believe that the Pope hath so much as leave much less command to Add and Anathematize too As to the Filioque you grant That many hundred years had passed from the time of the Apostles before Filioque was added to the Nicene Creed and more since the declarations and decrees were sufficiently published and in all these years salvation was had without mention of Filioque A fair Concession and nothing is wanting to destroy all that
which supposing it never so great is not shewed to the Councils but to your Church For the reason of that Reverence cannot be resolved into the Councils but into that Church for whose sake you reverence them And thus it evidently appears That the cunning of this device is wholly your own and notwithstanding these miserable shifts you do finally resolve all Authorities of the Fathers Councils and Scriptures into the Authority of the present Roman-Church which was the thing to be proved The first Absurdity consequent from hence which the Arch-Bishop chargeth your party with is That by this means they ascribe as great Authority if not greater to a part of the Catholick Church as to the whole which we believe in our Creed and which is the Societie of all Christians And this is full of Absurdity in nature in reason in all things that any part should be of equal worth power credit or authority with the whole Here you deny the Consequence which you say depends upon his Lordships wilfully mistaken Notion of the Catholick Church which he saith Is the Church we believe in our Creed and is the Society of all Christians which you call a most desperate extension of the Church because thereby forsooth it will appear that a part is not so great as the whole viz. that the Roman-Church in her full latitude is but a piece or parcel of the Catholick Church believed in our Creed Is this all the desperate Absurdity which follows from his Lordships Answer I pray shew it to have any thing tending to an Absurdity in it And though you confidently tell us That the Roman-Church taken as comprizing all Christians that are in her Communion is the sole and whole Catholick Church yet I will contentedly put the whole issue of the cause upon the proof of this one Proposition that the Roman-Church in its largest sense is the sole and whole Catholick Church or that the present Roman-Church is a sound member of the Catholick Church Your evidence from Ecclesiastical History is such as I fear not to follow you in but I beseech you have a care of treading too near the Apostles heels That any were accounted Catholicks meerly for their Communion with the Roman-Church or that any were condemned for Heresie or Schism purely for their dissent from it prove it when you please I shall be ready God willing to attend your Motions But it is alwaies your faculty when a thing needs proving most to tell us what you could have done This you say You would have proved at large if his Lordship had any more than supposed the contrary But your Readers will think that his Supposition being grounded on such a Maxim of Reason as that mentioned by him it had been your present business to have proved it but I commend your prudence in adjourning it and I suppose you will do it as the Court of Areopagus used to do hard causes in diem longissimum It is apparent the Bishop speaks not of a part of the Church by representation of the whole which is an objection no body but your self would here have fancied and therefore your Instance of a Parliament is nothing to the purpose unless you will suppose that Councils in the Church do represent in such a manner as Parliaments in England do and that their decision is obligatory in the same way as Acts of Parliament are if you believe this to be good Doctrine I will be content to take the Objecters place and make the Application The next Absurdity laid to your charge is as you summe it up That in your Doctrine concerning the Infallibility of your Church your proceeding is most unreasonable in regard you will not have recourse to Texts of Scripture exposition of Fathers propriety of Language Conference of Places Antecedents and Consequents c. but argue that the Doctrine of the present Church of Rome is true and Catholick because she professeth it to be such which saith he is to prove idem per idem To this you answer That as to all those helps you use them with much more candour than Protestants do And why so Because of their manifold wrestings of Scriptures and Fathers Let the handling the Controversies of this Book be the evidence between us in this case and any indifferent Reader be the Judge You tell us You use all these helps but to what purpose do you use them Do you by them prove the Infallibility of your Church If not the same Absurdity lyes at your door still of proving idem per idem No that you do not you say But how doth it appear Thanks to these mute persons the good Motives of Credibility which come in again at a dead lift but do no more service than before I pray cure the wounds they have received already before you rally them again or else I assure you what strength they have left they will employ it against your selves You suppose no doubt your Coleworts good you give them us so often over but I neither like proving nor eating idem per idem But yet we have two Auxiliaries more in the field call'd Instances The design of your first Instance is to shew That if your Church be guilty of proving idem per idem the Apostolical Church was so too For you tell us That a Sectary might in the Apostles times have argued against the Apostolical Church by the very same method his Lordship here uses against the present Catholick Church For if you ask the Christians then Why they believe the whole Doctrine of the Apostles to be the sole true Catholick Faith their Answer is Because it is agreeable to the Doctrine of Christ. If you ask them How they know it to be so they will produce the words sentences and works of Christ who taught it But if you ask a third time By what means they are assured that those Testimonies do indeed make for them or their cause or are really the Testimonies and Doctrine of Christ they will not then have recourse to those Testimonies or Doctrine but their Answer is They know it to be so because the present Apostolick Church doth witness it And so by consequence prove idem per idem Thus the Sectary I know not whether your faculty be better at framing Questions or Answers to them I am sure it is extraordinary at both Is it not enough to be in a Circle your selves but you must needs bring the Apostles into it too at least if you may have the management of their Doctrine you would do it The short Answer to all this is That the ground why the Christians did assent to the Apostles Doctrine as true was because God gave sufficient evidence that their Testimony was infallible in such things where such Infallibility was requisite For you had told us before That the Apostles did confirm their words with signs that followed by which signs all their hearers were bound to submit themselves unto
prove that any of the Fathers have denyed this place to extend to infallibility is a very unreasonable thing which you put the Bishop and his party upon because they only deliver what they conceive the meaning of places to be without reflections on any Heresies but such as were most prevalent in their own times And if your Church had in their time challenged Infallibility from such places you might have heard of their Negative which at present you put us unreasonably to prove Your answer to John 14.16 only is that it must be understood in some absolute sense and doth not his Lordship say so too viz. in regard of Consolation and Grace But if you say there can be no other absolute sense but an infallible assistance you would do well to prove it and not barely to suppose it and so likewise what follows as to John 16.13 which his Lordship justly restrains to the Apostles alone you tell us That you contend that in whatsoever sense all truth is to be understood in respect of each Apostle apart it is also to be understood in relation to their Successors assembled in a full Representative of the whole Church That you contend we grant but we say it is without sense or reason And therefore come to examine what you produce for it Your first reason Because the Representative of the Church in General Council and the Bishop of Rome as Pastor of the whole Church have equal power to oblige the Church to believe what they deliver as each Apostle had is utterly denied and must be more then barely supposed as it is here Your second which you call the Fundamental reason of this Exposition is in short That the preservation of the Church requires infallibility in future ages of the Church as well as in the Apostles times which is again utterly denied And the next time you write I pray prove your reasons well and think not your confident producing things you know are denied by us will serve for reasons against us Before you can sufficiently prove that any rite of the Church not mentioned in Scripture had the Holy Ghost for its Authour especially when contrary to a custome expressed in Scripture you must do more then produce a single testimony of St. Augustine for it who was apt to suppose the Holy Ghost might be pleased with such things which the Church though not therein infallible might consent in the practise of Which certainly is far from supposing the Church to have infallible assistance with it in delivering Doctrines of Faith because some things might be used in the Church which the Holy Ghost might be supposed not displeased with which is the utmost can be made of your citation out of St. Austin It seems you were aware of that disparity between the Apostles times and ours as to the pretence of Infallibility because the Apostles were first to deliver this Doctrine to the world and after to consign it by writing to future ages from whence it were easie to inferr there could not be that necessity of a Continual Infallible Assistance in the Church because the Doctrine infallibly delivered by them is preserved in the Church by the Infallible Records of it But to this your answer is considerable What wise man say you would go about to raise a stately building for many ages and satisfie himself with laying a Foundation to last but for a few years Our Saviour the wisest of Architects is not to be thought to have founded this incomparable building of the Church upon sand which must infallibly have happened had he not intended to afford his continual assistance also to the succeeding Pastors of the Church to lead them when assembled in a General Council into all those truths wherein he first setled the Apostles Whether you call this arguing for the Churches infallibility or libelling against our blessed Saviour if he hath not done what you would have him is hard to determine I am sure it is arguing ab absurdo with a witness for if he hath not done just as you fancy he should have done he must venture to be accounted an Ignoramus and Impostor before and here to do that which no wise man would have done viz. build a stately Fabrick the Church upon the Sands So it seems you account the Prophets and the Apostles for if the Apostle may be credited we are built on the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner-stone And this is it you must mean by being built on the sand for herein it is plain the Church is built on these viz. that Infallible doctrine which was delivered by them but here is not one word or the least intimation of an inherent infallibility in the Church which was to be its foundation so as to secure it from all errour And this you say must infallibly happen if there be not the same infallibility in General Councils which was in the Apostles for that I suppose must be the meaning of your last words if they be to the purpose But how groundless your pretence of the Infallibility of General Councils is will appear when we come to that subject but have you so little of common sense and reason with you as to suppose the Church presently notwithstanding the Divine Revelation of the Doctrine of Christianity in Scripture to be built on Sand if General Councils be not infallible Is there not sufficient ground to rely on the Doctrine of Christianity supposing there never had been any General Council in the world What was the Church built on before the Nicene Council only on Sand surely the Wind and Billows of persecutions would then have easily overturned it What if through civil combustions in the Empire there could never have been any Assembly's of the Bishops afterwards must the Church needs have fallen to the ground for want of General Councils But why I pray must the Infallibility of the Apostles be compared only to a foundation that can last but for few years Do you suppose that these Apostles never did commit their Doctrine infallibly to writing or that these writings of theirs did last but for a few years without one of these it is hard to find out your meaning by those expressions If you deny either of them I shall readily prove them but if you affirm both these as if you are heartily a Christian you must do with what face can you say that Christ in making the Apostles infallible did lay a Foundation but for a few years But thanks be to God although perverse and unreasonable men are alwaies quarrelling with the methods of Divine wisdom and goodness this Foundation of the Lord standeth sure still and as long as the Infallible Doctrine of the Gospel continues the Church will be built on a stedfast and unmoveable Rock which will prove a much surer Foundation than the seven Hills of Infallibility But this is your grand and fundamental
with the power of the City the potentior principalitas in Irenaeus which advanced its reputation to the height it was then at What matters of doctrine do you find brought to the Church of Rome to be Infallibly decided there in St. Cyprians time how little did St. Cyprian believe this when he so vehemently opposed the judgement of Stephen Bishop of Rome in the case of rebaptization Doth he write speak or carry himself in that Controversie like one that owned that Church of Rome to be head of all other Churches to which they must be subordinate in matter of doctrine Nay in the very next words St. Cyprian argues against appeals to Rome and is it possible then to think that in these words he should give such an absolute power and authority to it And therefore any one who would reconcile St. Cyprian to himself must by those words of Ecclesia principalis only understand the dignity and eminency and not the power much less the Infallibility of the Church of Rome And no more is implyed in the Second That it is said to be the fountain of Sacerdotal Vnity which some think may probably referr to the Priesthood of the Church of Africk which had its rise from the Church of Rome as appears by Tertullian and others in which sense he might very well say that the Vnity of the Priesthood did spring from thence or if it be taken in a more large and comprehensive sense it can import no more then that the Church of Rome was owned as the Principium Vnitatis which certainly is a very different thing from an infallible judgement in matters of Faith For what connexion is there between Vnity in Government and Infallibility in Faith Suppose the Church of Rome should be owned as the principal Member of the Catholick Church and therefore that the Vnity of the Church should begin there in regard of the dignity of it doth it thence follow that there must be an absolute subordination of all other Churches to it Nothing then can be inferr'd from either of those particulars that by perfidia errour in Faith must be understood taking those two expressions in the most favourable sense that can be put upon them But considering the present state of the Church of Rome at the time when Felicissimus and Fortunatus came thither I am apt to think another interpretation more probable than either of the foregoing For which we must remember that there was a Schism at Rome between Novatianus and Cornelius the former challenging to be Bishop there as well as the latter upon which a great breach was made among them Now these persons going out of Africa to Rome that they might manage their business with the more advantage address themselves to Cornelius and his party upon which St. Cyprian saith Navigare audent ad Petri Cathedram atque ad Ecclesiam principalem unde Vnitas sacerdotalis exorta est thereby expressing their confidence that they not only went to Rome but when they were there they did not presently side with the Schismatical party of the Novatians there but as though they had been true Catholicks they go to Cornelius who being the legal successour of St. Peter in opposition to Novatianus calls his See the chair of St. Peter and the principal Church and the spring of the Vnity of the Priesthood because the contrary party of Novatianus had been the cause of all the Schism and disunion which had been among them And in this sense which seems very agreeable to St. Cyprians words and design we may easily understand what this perfidia was viz. that falseness and perfidious dealing of these persons that although they were Schismaticks themselves yet they were so farr from seeming so at their coming to Rome that as though they had been very good Catholicks they seek to joyn in communion with Cornelius and the Catholick party with him By which we see what little probability there is from those expressions that perfidia must be taken for an errour in Faith But 3. You say To what purpose else doth he mention St. Pauls commendation of their Faith if this perfidia were not immediately opposite to it But then inform us what part of that Apostolical Faith was it which Felicissimus and Fortunatus sought to violate at Rome It is apparent their whole design was to be admitted into communion with the Church of Rome which in all probability is that access here spoken of if therefore this perfidia imported some errour in Faith it must be some errour broached by those particular persons as contrary to the old Roman Faith which was extold by the Apostle And although these persons might be guilty of errours yet the ground of their going to Rome was not upon any matter of Doctrine whereby they sought to corrupt the Church of Rome but in order to the justifying of their Schism by being admitted into the communion of that Church Notwithstanding then any thing you have produced to the contrary there is no necessity of understanding perfidia for an errour in matter of Faith And St. Cyprians mentioning the praise given to the Romans for their Faith by the Apostle was not to shew the opposition between that and the perfidia as an errour in Faith but that being the greatest Elogium of the Church of Rome extant in Scripture he thought it now most convenient to use it the better to engage Cornelius to oppose the proceedings of the Schismaticks there Although withall I suppose St. Cyprian might give him some taste of his old office of a Rhetorician in the allusion between fides and perfidia without ever intending that perfidia should be taken in any other sense then what was proper to the cause in hand You having effected so little in the solution of his Lordships first answer you have little cause to boast in your following words That hence his other explication also vanishes into smoak viz. when he asserts that Perfidia non potest may be taken hyperbolically for non facile potest because this interpretation suits not with those high Elogiums given by St. Cyprian to the Roman Church as being the principal Church the Church whence Vnity of Faith and Discipline is derived to all other Christian Churches If you indeed may have the liberty to interpret St. Cyprians words as you please by adding such things to them of which there is no intimation in what he saith you may make what you please unsuitable to them For although he calls it the principal Church from whence the Vnity of the Priesthood is sprung yet what is this to the Vnity of Faith and Discipline as derived from thence to all other Churches as you would perswade the unwary reader that these were St. Cyprians words which are only your groundless interpretation of them And therefore there is no such improbability in what his Lordship sayes That this may be only a Rhetorical excess of speech in which St. Cyprian may
Church If your Church indeed were what she is not the Catholick Church we might be what we are not Hereticks but think it not enough to prove us Hereticks that you call us so unless you will likewise take it for granted that the Pope is Antichrist and your Church the Whore of Babylon because they are as often and as confidently call'd so And if your Church be truly so as she is shrewdly suspected to be Do you think she and all her followers would not as confidently call such as dissented from her Hereticks and the using those expressions of her virulent execrations against her as you do now supposing her not to be so What therefore would belong to your Church supposing her as bad as any Protestants imagine her to be cannot certainly help to perswade us that she is not so bad as she is When you say still That Protestants did really depart from the Roman Church and in so doing remained separate from the whole Church you very fairly beg the thing in dispute and think us uncivil for denying it You know not what that passage means That the Protestants did not voluntarily depart taking their whole body and cause together since there is no obscurity in the expression but a defect elsewhere I can only say That his Lordship was not bound to find you an Vnderstanding as oft as you want it But it were an easie matter to help you for it is plain that he speaks those words to distinguish the common cause of Protestants from the heats and irregularities of some particular persons whom he did not intend to justifie such as he saith Were either peevish or ignorantly zealous And if you distinguish the sense of your Church from the judgements of particular persons I hope it may be as lawful for us to distinguish the body and cause of Protestants from the inconsiderate actings of any particular men All that which follows about the name of Protestants which his Lordship saith Took its rise not from protesting simply against the Roman Church but against the Edict at Worms which was for the restoring all things to their former state without any reformation is so plain and evident that nothing but a mind to cavil and to give us the same things over and over could have made you stay longer upon it For what else means your talk of Innovation in matters of Religion which we say was caused by you and protesting against the Roman Church and consequently against all particular Visible Churches in the world and that which none but Hereticks and Schismaticks used to do Do you think these passages are so hard that we cannot know what they mean unless we have them so often over But they are not so hard to be understood as to be believed and that the rather because we see you had rather say them often than prove them once If the Popes professed Reformation necessary as to many abuses I hope they are not all Schismaticks who call for the redress of abuses in your Church But if all the Reformation we are to expect of them be that which you say was effectually ordained by the Council of Trent if there had not been an Edict at Worms there were the Decrees of that Council which would have made a Protestation necessary Although we think your Church needs Reformation in Manners and Discipline as much as any in the world yet those are not the abuses mainly insisted on by the Protestants as the grounds of their Separation and therefore his Lordship ought to be understood of a Reformation as to the errours and corruptions of the Roman Church and doubtless that Edict of Worms which was for the restoring all things to their former state did cut off all hopes of any such Reformation as was necessary for the Protestants to return to the Roman Communion And whatever you say till you have proved the contrary better than as yet it is done it will appear that they are the Protestants who stand for the ancient and undefiled Doctrine of the Catholick Church against the novel and corrupt Tenets of the Roman Church And such kind of Protestation no true Christian who measures his being Catholick by better grounds than communion with the Church of Rome will ever have cause to be ashamed of But A. C. saith his Lordship goes on and will needs have it that the Protestants were the cause of the Schism For saith he though the Church of Rome did thrust them from her by excommunication yet they had first divided themselves by obstinate holding and teaching Opinions contrary to the Roman Faith and practice of the Church which to do S. Bernard thinks is pride S. Austin madness At this his Lordship takes many and just exceptions 1. That holding and teaching was not the prime cause neither but the corruptions and superstitions of Rome which forced many men to hold and teach the contrary So the prime cause was theirs still Now to this your Answer is very considerable That the Bishop of Rome being S. Peter 's successor in the Government of the Church and Infallible at least with a General Council it is impossible that Protestants or other Sectaries should ever find such errours or corruptions difinitively taught by him or received by the Church as should either warrant them to preach against her Doctrine or lawfully to forsake her communion We say Your Church hath erred you say It is impossible she should we offer you evident proofs of her errours you say She is Infallible we say It is impossible that Church should be Infallible which we can make appear hath been deceived you tell us again It is impossible she should be deceived for let Hereticks say what they will she is Infallible And if this be not a satisfactory way of answering let the world judge But having already pulled down that Babel of Infallibility this Answer falls to the ground with it and to use your phrase The truth is all that you have in effect to say for your Church is that she is Infallible and the Catholick Church and by this means you think to cast the Schism upon us and these things are great enough indeed if you could but make any shew of proof for them but not being able to do that you do in effect as much as if a man in a high feaver should go about to demonstrate it was impossible for him to be sick which the more he takes pains to do the more evident his distemper is to all who hear him And it is shrewdly to be suspected if your errours had not been great and palpable you would have contented your selves with some thing short of Infallibility But as the case is with your Church I must confess it is your greatest wisdom to talk most of Infallibility for if you can but meet with any weak enough to swallow that all other things go down without dispute but if men are left at liberty to
Reformation vindicated The particular case of the Church of England discussed The proceedings in our Reformation defended The Church of England a true Church The National Synod 1562. a lawful Synod The Bishops no intruders in Queen Elizabeths time The justice and moderation of the Church of England in her Reformation The Popes Power here a forcible fraudulent usurpation HAving thus far examined your Doctrine of keeping Faith with Hereticks we now return to the main business concerning Schism And his Lordship saying That there is difference between departure out of the Church and causeless thrusting from you and therefore denying that it is in your power to thrust us out of the Church You answer by a Concession That we were thrust out from the Church of Rome but that it was not without cause Which that you might not seem to say gratis you pretend to assign the causes of our expulsion So that by your own confession the present division or separation lyes at the Church of Rome's door if it be not made evident that there were most just and sufficient reasons for her casting the Protestants out of her communion If therefore the Church of Rome did thrust the Protestants from her communion for doing nothing but what became them as members of the Catholick Church then that must be the Schismatical party and not the Protestants For supposing any Church though pretending to be never so Catholick doth restrain her communion within such narrow and unjust bounds that she declares such excommunicate who do not approve all such errours in doctrine and corruptions in practice which the Communion of such a Church may be liable to the cause of that division which follows falls upon that Church which exacts those conditions from the members of her Communion That i◠when the errours and corruptions are such as are dangerous to salvation For in this case that Church hath first divided her self from the Catholick Church for the Communion of that lying open and free to all upon the necessary conditions of Christian Communion whatever Church takes upon her to limit and inclose the bounds of the Catholick becomes thereby divided from the Communion of the Catholick Church and all such who disown such an unjust inclosure do not so much divide from the Communion of that Church so inclosing as return to the Communion of the Primitive and Vniversal Church The Catholick Church therefore lyes open and free like a Common-Field to all Inhabitants now if any particular number of these Inhabitants should agree together to enclose part of it without consent of the rest and not to admit any others to their right of Common without consenting to it which of these two parties those who deny to yield their consent or such who deny their rights if they will not are guilty of the violation of the publick and common rights of the place Now this is plainly the case between the Church of Rome and Ours the Communion of the Catholick Church lyes open to all such who own the Fundamentals of Christian Faith and are willing to joyn in the profession of them Now to these your Church adds many particular Doctrines which have no foundation in Scripture or the consent of the Primitive Church these and many superstitious practises are enjoyned by her as conditions of her Communion so that all those are debarred any right of Communion with her who will not approve of them by which it appears your Church is guilty of the first violation of the Vnion of the Catholick and whatever number of men are deprived of your Communion for not consenting to your usurpations do not divide themselves from you any further than you have first separated your selves from the Catholick Church And when your Church by this act is already separated from the Communion of the Catholick Church the disowning of those things wherein your Church is become Schismatical cannot certainly be any culpable separation For whatever is so must be from a Church so far as it is Catholick but in our case it is from a Church so far only as it is not Catholick i. e. so far as it hath divided her self from the Belief and Communion of the Vniversal Church But herein a great mistake is committed by you when you measure the Communion of the Catholick Church by the judgement of all or most of the particular Churches of such an Age which supposes that the Church of some one particular Age must of necessity be preserved from all errours and corruptions which there is no reason or necessity at all to assert and that is all the ground you have for saying That the separation of Protestants was not only from the Church of Rome but as Calvin confesseth à toto mundo from the whole Christian world and such a separation necessarily involves separation from the true Catholick Church Now to this we answer two things 1. That we have not separated from the whole Christian World in any thing wherein the whole Christian World is agreed but to disagree from the particular Churches of the Christian World in such things wherein those Churches differ among themselves is not to separate from the Christian World but to disagree in some things from such particular Churches As I hope you will not say That man is divided from all mankind who doth in some feature or other differ from any one particular man but although he doth so he doth not differ from any in those things which are common to all for that were to differ from all but when he only differs from one in the colour of his eyes from another in his complexion another in the air of his countenance and so in other things this man though he should differ from every particular man in the world in something or other yet is a man still as well as any because he agrees with them in that in which they all agree which is Humane nature and differs only in those things wherein they differ from each other And therefore from the disagreement of the Protestants from any one particular Church it by no means follows that they separated from the whole Christian World and therefore from the true Catholick Church 2. The Communion of the Catholick Church is not to be measured by the particular opinions and practices of all or any particular Churches but by such things which are the proper Foundations of the Catholick Church For there can be no separation from the true Catholick Church but in such things wherein it is Catholick now it is not Catholick in any thing but what properly relates to its Being and Constitution For whatever else there is however universal it may be is extrinsecal to the nature and notion of the Catholick Church and therefore supposing a separation from the Church in what is so extrinsecal and accidental it is no proper separation from the Catholick Church As for Instance supposing all men were agreed that some particular
That to reform what is amiss in Doctrine or Manners is as lawful for a particular Church as it is to publish and promulgate any thing that is Catholick in either And your Question Quô judice lies alike against both And yet I think saith he It may be proved that the Church of Rome and that as a particular Church did promulgate an orthodox truth which was not then Catholickly admitted in the Church namely the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son If she erred in this fact confess her errour if she erred not Why may not another particular Church do as she did From whence he inferrs That if a particular Church may publish any thing that is Catholick where the whole Church is silent it may reform any thing that is not Catholick where the whole Church is negligent or will not Now to this you answer 1. That this procession from the Son was a truth alwaies acknowledged in the Church but what concerns that and the time of this Article being inserted into the Creed have been so amply discussed already that I shall not cloy the reader with any repetition having fully considered whatever you here say concerning the Article it self or its addition to the Creed 2. You answer That the consequence will not hold that if a particular Church may in some case promulgate an orthodox truth not as yet Catholickly received by the Church then a particular Church may repeal or reverse any thing that the whole Church hath already Catholickly and definitively received Surely no. Yet this say you is his Lordships and the Protestants case You do well to mention an egregious fallacy presently after these words for surely this is so For doth his Lordship parallel the promulgating something Catholick and repealing something Catholick together Surely no. But the promulgating something true but not Catholickly received with the reforming something not Catholick Either therefore you had a mind to abuse his Lordships words or to deceive the reader by beging the thing in Question viz. that all those which we call for a Reformation of were things Catholickly and definitively received by the whole Church which you know we utterly deny But you go on and say That thence it follows not that a particular Church may reform any thing that is not Catholick where the whole Church is negligent or will not because this would suppose errour or something uncatholick to be taught or admitted by the whole Church To put this case a little more plainly by the former Instance Suppose then that the Worship of God under the symbols of the Calves at Dan and Bethel had been received generally as the visible worship of the Tribes of Judah and Benjamin as well as the rest Doth not this Answer of yours make it impossible that ever they should return to the true Worship of God For this were to call in question the truth of Gods Promise to his Church and to suppose something not Catholick to be received by the whole Church And so the greater the corruptions are the more impossible it is to cure them and in case they spread generally no attempts of Reformation can be lawful which is a more false and paradoxical Doctrine than either of those which you call so And the truth is such pretences as these are are fit only for a Church that hateth to be reformed for if something not good in it self should happen in any one age to overspread the visible Communion of all particular Churches this only makes a Reformation the more necessary so far is it from making it the more disputable For thereby those corruptions grow more dangerous and every particular Church is bound the more to regard its own security in a time of general Infection And if any other Churches neglect themselves What reason is it that the rest should For any or all other particular Churches neglecting their duty is no more an argument that no particular Church should reform it self than that if all other men in a Town neglect preserving themselves from the Plague then I am bound to neglect it too But you answer 3. That all this doth not justifie the Protestants proceedings because they promulged only new and unheard of Doctrines directly contrary to what the Catholick Church universally held and taught before them for Catholick Truths This is the great thing in Question but I see you love best the lazy trade of begging things which are impossible to be rationally proved But yet you would seem here to do something towards it in the subsequent words For about the year of our Lord 1517. when their pretended Reformations began was not the real presence of our Saviours body and blood in the Eucharist by a true substantial change of Bread and Wine generally held by the whole Church Was not the real Sacrifice of the Mass then generally believed Was not Veneration of Holy Images Invocation of Saints Purgatory Praying for the dead that they might be eased of their pains and receive the full remission of their sins generally used and practised by all Christians Was not Free will Merit of good works and Justification by Charity or inherent Grace and not by Faith only universally taught and believed in all Churches of Christendom Yea even among those who in some few other points dissented from the Pope and the Latin Church To what purpose then doth the Bishop urge that a particular Church may publish any thing that is Catholick This doth not justifie at all his Reformation he should prove that it may not only add but take away something that is Catholick from the Doctrine of the Church for this the pretended Reformers did as well in England as elsewhere His Lordship never pretends much less disputes that any particular Church hath a power to take away any thing that is truly Catholick but the ground why he supposeth such things as those mentioned by you might be taken away is because they are not Catholick the Question then is between us Whether they were Catholick Doctrines or not this you attempt to prove by this medium Because they were generally held by the whole Church at the time of the Reformation To which I answer 1. If this be a certain measure to judge by what was Catholick and what not then what doth not appear to have been Catholick in this sense it was in our Churches power to reject and so it was lawful to reform our selves as to all such things which were not at the time of the Reformation received by the whole Church And what think you now of the Popes Supremacy your Churches Infallibility the necessity of Coelibate in the Clergy Communion in one kind Prayer in an unknown tongue Indulgences c. Will you say That those were generally received by the Church at the time of the Reformation If you could have said so no doubt you would not have omitted such necessary points and some of which gave the
imposed those things which had been before only the errours of particular persons as the Catholick Doctrines of that Church and the necessary conditions of Communion with her 3. I may answer yet further That it is not enough to prove any Doctrine to be Catholick that it was generally received by Christian Churches in any one Age but it must be made appear to have been so received from the Apostles times So that if we should grant that these Doctrines were owned for Catholick not only by the Church of Rome but all other Christian Churches so far as it can be discerned by their Communion yet this doth not prove these Doctrines so owned to be truly Catholick unless you can first prove that all the Christian Churches of one Age can never believe a Doctrine to be Catholick which is not so You see therefore your task increases further upon you for it is not enough to say That A. D. 1517. such and such Doctrines were looked on as Catholick and therefore they were so but that for 1517. years successively from the Apostles to that time they were judged to be so and then we shall more easily believe you When you will therefore prove Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Mass Image-worship Invocation of Saints or any other of the good Doctrines mentioned by you in a constant tradition from the Apostles times to have been looked on as Catholick Doctrines you may then say That Protestants in denying these did take away something Catholick from the Doctrine of the Church but till that time these Answers may abundantly suffice We now come closer to the business of the Reformation but before we examine the particulars of it the general grounds on which it proceeded must somewhat further be cleared which his Lordship tells you are built upon the power of particular Churches reforming themselves in case the whole Church is negligent or will not to which you say That you grant in effect as great power as the Bishop himself does to particular Churches to National and Provincial Councils in reforming errours and abuses either of doctrine or practice only we require that they proceed with due respect to the chief Pastor of the Church and have recourse to him in all matters and decrees of Faith especially when they define or declare points not generally known and acknowledged to be Catholick Truths What you grant in effect at first you in effect deny again afterwards For the Question is about Reformation of such errours and abuses as may come from the Church of Rome and when you grant a power to reform only in case the Pope consent you grant no power to reform at all For the experience of the world hath sufficiently taught us How little his consent is to be expected in any thing of Reformation For his Lordship truly saith in Answer to Capellus who denies particular Churches any power of making Canons of Faith without consulting the Roman See That as Capellus can never prove that the Roman See must be consulted with before any Reformation be made So it is as certain that were it proved and practised we should have no Reformation For it would be long enough before the Church should be cured if that See alone should be her Physitian which in truth is her disease Now to this you say That even Capellus himself requires this as though Capellus were not the man whom his Lordship answers as to this very thing But besides you say The practise of the Church is evident for it in the examples of the Milevitan and Carthaginian Councils which as St. Austin witnesseth sent their decrees touching Grace Original sin in Infants and other matters against Pelagius to be confirmed by the Pope but what is all this to the business of Reformation that nothing of that nature is to be attempted without the Popes consent That these Councils did by Julius an African Bishop communicate their decrees to Pope Innocent Who denyes but what is it you would thence infer to your purpose for the utmost which can be drawn hence is that they desired the Pope to contribute his assistance in condemning Pelagius and Coelestius by adding the authority of the Apostolical See to their decrees that so by the consent of the Church that growing Heresie might the more easily be suppressed And who denyes but at that time the Roman Church had great reputation which is all that Authority implyes and by that means might be more serviceable in preventing the growth of Pelagianism if it did concur with the African Councils in condemning that Doctrine But because they communicated their decrees to Pope Innocent desiring his consent with them that therefore no reformation should be attempted in the Church without the consent of the Pope is a very far-fetched inference and unhappily drawn from those African Fathers who so stoutly opposed Zosimus Innocents Successour in the case of Appeals about the business of Apiarius Did they think you look on themselves as obliged to do nothing in the reforming the Church without the Popes authority who would by no means yield to those encroachments of power which Zosimus would have usurped over them Nay it appears that till the African Fathers had better informed him Zosimus did not a little favour Coelestius himself and in case he had gone on so to do do you think they would have thought themselves ever the less obliged to reform their Churches from the Pelagian Heresie which began to spread among them And in this time of the Controversie between Zosimus and them though they carried it with all fairness towards the Roman See yet they were still careful to preserve and defend their own priviledges and in case the Pope should then have challenged that power over them which he hath done since no doubt they would not have struck at calling such incroachments The disease of the Church without any unhandsomness or incivility and would have been far from looking on him as the only Physitian of it To that pretence That things should have been born with till the time of a General Council his Lordship answers First 't is true a General Council free and entire would have been the best remedy and most able for a Gangrene that had spread so far and eaten so deep into Christianity But what should we have suffered this Gangrene to endanger life and all rather then be cured in time by a Physitian of weaker knowledge and a less able hand Secondly we live to see since if we had stayed and expected a General Council what manner of one we should have had if any For that at Trent was neither General nor free And for the errours which Rome had contracted it confirmed them it cured them not And yet I much doubt whether ever that Council such as it was would have been call'd if some Provincial and National Synods under Supreme and Regal power had not first set upon this great work of Reformation which
consecrated and invested in them And so they were the places being supplied by worthy persons the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury being consecrated by a Canonical number of Edward-Bishops and the rest duly consecrated by other hands And for all this Must all these persons be intruders and intrude themselves by force and that into the places of other lawful Bishops When so many Sees were actually vacant and the rest by due form of Law into which other Bishops were elected and legally consecrated notwithstanding the putid Fable of the Nags-Head ordination which hath so often and so evidently been disproved that I am glad to find you have so much modesty as not to mention it These Bishops being thus legally invested in their places To whom did the care and Government of the English Church belong to these or to those who were justly deprived If to these Were not they then the due representatives of the English Church in a National Synod who with those of the lower House of Convocation make up a true National Council And if so it belonged to them as such to consider what appertained to the Faith and Government of the Church of England For they undertook not to prescribe to the whole world that they leave to the Bishop and Church of Rome not as legally belonging to them but arrogantly usurped by them but to draw up Articles of Religion which should be owned by all such who enjoyed any place of Trust in the Church of England So that in all this they were neither intruders neither did they act any thing beyond their place and authority But you would seem to quarrel with their Vocation Mission and Jurisdiction as though it were not lawful i. e. Canonical and Just all these are your own words and they are but words for not one syllable like a proof is suggested I tell you then not to spend time in a needless vindication of the Vocation of the Bishops and Pastors of the Church of England when you give us no reason to question it that by the same arguments that you can prove that you have any lawful Bishops and Pastors in your Church it will appear that we have too And that our Vocation and Mission is far more consonant to the Apostolical and Primitive Church than yours is But the main quarrel is still behind which is that Supposing they had been true Bishops and Pastors of the English Church and their Assembly a lawful National Council yet you say They were so far from doing the like that other Provincial Councils had done that they acted directly contrary to them which charge lyes in these things 1. Condemning points of Faith that had been generally believed and practised in the Church before them This you know we deny and you barely affirm it and I have shewed some reason of our denial already and shall do more when we come to particulars 2. In contradicting the Doctrine of the Roman Church A great Heresie indeed but never yet condemned in any General Council 3. In convening against the express Will of the Church of Rome We shall then think that a fault when you prove it belongs to that only to summon all Councils General National and Provincial 4. In denying the Popes Authority or attempting to deprive him of it if you speak of his usurped Authority you must prove it a fault to deprive him of it i. e. to withdraw our selves from obedience to it for that is all the deprivation can be here understood If you mean Just Authority shew wherein it lyes whence he had it by what means he came into it in the Church of England and if you can make it appear that he had a just claim it will be easie proving them guilty of a fault who disowned it But Whether it were a fault in them or no I am sure it is one in you to lay such things and so many to our charge and not offering to give evidence for one of them But I must consider the Infallibility of your Church lyes in dictating and not proving Thus then for any thing which you so much as seem to say to the contrary the proceedings of the Reformation were very regular and just being built on sufficient grounds managed in a legal manner and carried on with due moderation Which are the highest commendations can be given to a work of Reformation and do with the greatest right belong to the Church of England of any Church in the Christian world There remains nothing now which you object against our Reformation but some faults of the Reformers as to which his Lordship had already said If any such be found they are the crimes of the persons and not of the Reformation and they are long since gone to God to answer it to whom I leave them Which Answer so full of justice and modesty one would have thought should have been sufficient for any reasonable man but you are not satisfied with it For you will have those faults to come from the principles of the Reformation and that they did not belong to the persons of the Reformers but are entailed on their Successors But a short Answer will suffice for both these shew us What avowed principles of the Church of England tend to any real Sacriledge before you charge any thing of that nature as flowing from the Maxims of the Reformation And if you can prove the Successors of the Reformers to continue in any Sacrilegious Actions let those plead for them who will I shall not but leave them as his Lordship did to answer such things to God As to the Memorandum which his Lordship concludes this discourse with That he spake at that time of the General Church as it was for the most part forced under the Government of the Roman See not doubting but that as the Vniversal Catholick Church would have reformed her self had she been in all parts freed of the Roman Yoke so while she was for the most in these Western parts under that Yoke the Church of Rome was if not the only yet the chief hinderance of Reformation You answer with some stomach By what force I pray Is it possible or Can it enter into the judgement of any reasonable man that a single Bishop of no very large Diocese should be able by force to bring into subjection so many large Provinces of Christendom as confessedly did acknowledge the Popes Power when the pretended Reformation began But What reasonable man can imagine that a single Bishop indeed of no very large Diocese if kept within his bounds should in progress of time extend his power so far as the Pope did but by one of these two means force or fraud And since you seem to be so much displeased at the former I pray take the latter or rather the conjunction of both together For that there was force used appears by the manifold resistance which was made to the encroachments of the Popes power and
that he saith Ruffinus did rectissimè ex usu recepto very agreeably both to reason and custom compare the Alexandrian and Roman Bishop in this that he should have the power over the Diocese of Aegypt by the same right that the Bishop of Rome had over the Vrbicary Diocese or saith he ut Ruffinus-eligantissime loquitur In Ecclesiis Suburbicariis id est in iis Ecclesiis quae decem Provinciis Suburbicariis continebantur as Ruffinus most elegantly speaks sure then he thought him no such ignorant person as Perron and others from him have reproached him to be In the Suburbicary Churches that is in those Churches which are contained in the ten Suburbicary Provinces For as as he goes on the calling of Synods the ordination of Bishops the full administration of the Churches in those Provinces did belong to the Bishop of Rome as to the Bishop of Alexandria in the Aegyptian Diocese and to the Bishop of Antioch in the Oriental Which he likewise confirms by the ancient Latin Interpreter of the Nicene Canons who he saith was elder than Dionysius Exiguns in whose interpretation he makes the Suburbicaria loca to contain the four Regions about Rome which made the proper Metropolitan Province of the Roman Bishop comprehending sixty nine Bishopricks and that which he calls his Province to be the Vrbicary Diocese contained in those ten Provinces which his Lordship mentions But the Pope's being Vniversal Bishop having so little evidence elsewhere his Lordships adversary at last hath recourse to this That the Bishop of Rome is S. Peter 's successor and therefore to him we must have recourse To which his Lordship answers The Fathers I deny not ascribe very much to S. Peter but 't is to S. Peter in his own person And among them Epiphanius is as free and as frequent in extolling S. Peter as any of them And yet did he never intend to give an absolute principality to Rome in S. Peter 's right which he at large manifests by a place particularly insisted on in which he proves that the building of the Church on S. Peter in Epiphanius his sense is not as if he and his successors were to be Monarchs over it for ever but it is the edifying and establishing the Church in the true Faith of Christ by the Confession which S. Peter made And so saith he he expresses himself elsewhere most plainly that Christ's building his Church upon this Rock was upon the Confession of S. Peter and the solid Faith contained therein And that Epiphanius could not mean that S. Peter was any Rock or Foundation of the Church so as that he and his successors must be relyed on in all matters of Faith and govern the Church like Princes and Monarchs he proves not only by the Context but because he makes S. James to succeed our Lord in the principality of the Church And Epiphanius saith he was too full of learning and industry to speak contrary to himself in a point of this moment This is the summ of his Lordships discourse to which you answer That it is clear even by the Texts of Epiphanius that this promise by Christ to S. Peter is derived to his successors which you prove from hence because he saith That by the Gates of Hell Heresies and Hereticks are understood now this say you cannot be understood of S. Peter 's person alone for then Why not Heresies and Hereticks prevail against the Church after S. Peter 's death yea so far as utterly to extinguish the true Faith But Cannot God preserve the Church from being extinguished by Heresies though S. Peter hath no Infallible Successor Is not the promise That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church It doth not say That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against any that shall pretend to be his Successors at Rome For if Heresies be those Gates they have too often prevailed against him And Is this your way indeed to secure the Church by providing S. Peter such successors which may be Hereticks themselves But much more wisely did S. Gregory say If one pretends to be Vniversal Bishop then upon his falling the Church must fall too much more wisely the Council of Basil in their Synodal Epistle object this as the necessary consequent of the Doctrine of the Pope's Supremacy that errante Pontifice quod saepe contigit contingere potest tota erraret Ecclesia that in case the Pope erre which often hath happened and often may the whole Church must erre too And yet this is your way to secure the Church from errours and heresies If you designed to ruine it you could not do it in a more compendious way than to oblige the whole Church to believe the dictates of one who is so far from that Infallibility which S. Peter had that he follows him in nothing more than his Falls I wish he would in his Repentance too and that would be the best way to secure the Church from Errours and Heresies Which she can never be secured from as long as one pretends to be her Head who may not only erre himself but propound that to be believed infallibly which is notoriously false For that Popes as Popes may erre and propound false Doctrine to the Church not only Protestants but some of your own Communion have abundantly proved particularly Sim. Vigorius in his defence of Richerius in his Commentary on the forecited Synodal Epistle of the Council of Basil. And calls that opinion That the Pope may erre as a private Doctor but not as Pope ineptissimam opinionem a most foolish opinion For otherwise as he saith it would be most absurd to say That the Pope might be deposed for Heresie for he is not deposed as a private Doctor but as Pope And this he proves by the contradictious decrees of Adrian 3. to Adrian 1. and Leo 7. and so of Formosus Martinus Romanus to Johannes Stephanus and Sergius Nay he instanceth in that famous decree of Boniface 8. in pronouncing so definitively that it was de necessitate salutis subesse Romano Pontifici necessary to salvation to be subject to the Pope and that he decreed this as Pope appears by those words Declaramus dicimus definimus pronunciamus omnino esse de necessitate salutis than which words nothing can be more express and definitive and yet Pope Innocent 3. asserts that the King of France hath no superiour upon earth Is not the Church like then to be well secured from Heresies when her Infallible Heads may so apparently contradict each other and this acknowledged by men of your own Communion Nothing then can be more absurd or unreasonable than to say That the Church cannot be preserved from being extinguished by Heresie unless the Pope be S. Peter's successor as Head of the Church To his Lordships testimonies out of Epiphanius that S. James succceded our Lord in the principality of the Church you answer 1. That in the places
soever For still I hope the Head must be over the members and you say it will bring the Church to confusion if any shall except against their Superiours as parties You must therefore absolutely and roundly assert that it is impossible that the Superiours in the Church may be guilty of any errour or corruption or that if they be they must never be called to an account for it or else that it may be just in some cases to except against them as parties And if in some cases then the question comes to this whether the present be some of those cases or no and here if you make those Superiours Judges again what you granted before comes to nothing This will be more clear by a parallel case Suppose the setting up the Calves at Dan and Bethel had been done without such an open separation as that of Jeroboam was but that the people had sensibly declined from the worship of God at Hierusalem and had agreed to assemble at those places the High-Priest and the Priests and Levites having deserted Hierusalem and approving this alteration of Gods worship But although this might continue for many years yet some of the Inferiour Priests and others of the people reading the Book of the Law they find the worship of God much altered from what it ought to be which they publish and declare to others and bring many of the people to be of their mind but the High-Priest and his Clergy foreseeing how much it will be to their prejudice to bring things into their due order they resolutely oppose it I pray tell me now what were to be done in this case Must the people stand wholly to the judgement of those Superiour Priests who have declared themselves to be utterly averse from any Reformation And if a Council be called is it reasonable or just that he should sit as President in it because he pretends to be the Head over the members and that if Superiours be once accused as parties all order and peace is gone Is there any way left or no whereby the Church of Israel might be reformed Yes say you by a General Council but Must it be such a General Council wherein the High-Priest sits as President and all who sit with him sworn to do nothing against him Is this a Free and General Council likely to reform these things And is it not all the Justice in the world that such a Council should be truly Free and General and those freely heard who complain of these as great corruptions and that before the most equal and indifferent Judges or in case such cannot be assembled that by the Assistance of the civil power the Church may be reformed by its parts so that still these parts be willing to give an account of what they do before any Free and General Council where the main party accused sits not as President in it But what then may you say will you allow all Inferiours to proceed to a Reformation in case the Superiours do not presently consent No but men ought first to exhibit their complaints of abuses and the reasons against them to those who are actually the Superiours of the Church and that with all due reverence to Authority but if notwithstanding this they declare themselves willful and obstinate in defence of those things by the concurrence of the Supream power they may lawfully and justly proceed to a Reformation Well but you say all this comes not to your case for the Pope was not justly accusable of any crime for you deny not but that other Bishops in Council may proceed against the Pope himself if the case do necessarily require it as if he be a Heretick If you will then grant that in some cases as in that of Heresie the Pope may be excepted against as a Party you destroy all that ever you say besides For when the Pope is accused for Heresie in a Council Who must sit as President in that Council the Pope himself or not If the Pope must sit as President for the Head you say still must be over the members Do you think he will ever be condemned for Heresie if he hath the supream management of the Council If he may not sit as President then by the same reason he ought not to do it when he is accused of errour or Vsurpation but the other Bishops of the Church met together by the Assistance of Christian Princes in a Free and General Council ought to be Judges in that case as well as the former And this is no more then is agreeable to the Doctrine and practise of the Councils of Constance and Basil for if they had suffered the Popes to have been Presidents in them or have had that power over them which the Popes had in the Council of Trent Do you think they could have done so to the present Popes as they did But the Popes were grown wiser afterwards they had these examples fresh in their memory and therefore they were resolved never to be ridden by General Councils more And thence came that continual opposition to all proposals of the Emperour for a General Council till necessity put the Pope upon yielding to it thence came the resolution at Rome not to venture any more Councils in Germany for that place breathed too much freedome for the Popes interest though this were most vehemently desired by both the Emperour and German Princes and Bishops Thence when a Council must be call'd he summons it first at Mantua then at Vicenza and when none would come thither at last he yields it should be at Trent a most inconvenient place for the Germans to come to when they were there though all art possible was used to prevent the mention of any thing of Reformation yet sometimes some free words breaking out troubled the Legats who dispatch notice of it to Rome and receive instructions what to do yet all could not prevent their fears and jealousies lest something concerning the Popes Interest should be discussed upon which to make all sure they translate the Council to Bononia and leave the Emperour's bishops to blow their fingers at Trent And when upon the Emperour and King of France's Protestations the Pope saw a necessity of removing it back to Trent again though any fair pretence would have been taken to have dissolved the Council yet since that could not be the greatest care must be used to spin out the time in hopes of some occurrence happening which might give a plausible pretext for breaking it up But to be sure nothing must pass but what was privately dispatched to Rome and approved there first a good sure way to prevent any mischief and thence the Holy Ghost came in a Portmantue once or twice a week as the common by-word was then But when notwithstanding all this the grand points of the Residence and power of Bishops were so hotly debated by the Spanish Bishops What arts were used to divert them when that
as well as of the Laws of other Courts before private men can take liberty to refuse obedience Therefore he concludes That this seems most fit and necessary for the peace of Christendom unless in case the errour be manifest and intolerable or that the whole Church upon peaceable and just complaint of this errour neglect or refuse to call a Council to examine it and there come in National and Provincial Councils to reform for themselves These words contain the full account of his Lordships opinion which you charge with so many interclashings and inconveniences The first of which is That it tends only to oblige all the members of the Church to an Vnity in errour against Scripture and demonstration during their whole lives or rather to the worlds end since such an Utopian rectifying Council as the Bishop here fancies is morally impossible ever to be had and therefore you call it a strange not not say an impious doctrine advanced without authority of Gods Word or Antiquity nay contrary to all solid reason This being a charge of the highest nature and manag'd with such unmeasurable confidence we must somewhat further enquire into the grounds of his Lordships opinion to see whether it be guilty of these crimes or no. There are three things therefore must be cleared in order to his Lordships Vindication 1. The design of his Discourse 2. The suppositions he makes as to the proceedings of the Council 3. The obligation of its decrees supposing that it should err 1. The design of his discourse is to be considered which is to remedy a supposable inconvenience and to provide for the Churches peace For the first question in debate was Whether a General Council might err or no. In which his Lordship gives sufficient evidence from Scripture Antiquity and Reason that it might But then here comes an inconvenience to be removed for his Adversary objects What are we then nearer to Vnity after a Council hath determin'd supposing it may err To this his Lordship suits his Answer wherein we ought to consider that the inconvenience objected is on his Lordships suppositions one of the rara contingentia and such a one ought not to destroy a principle of Government in all other cases useful and necessary For there cannot possibly be any way thought of for peace and Government but there may be a supposition made of some notable inconvenience but that not being necessary nor immediately consequent upon it but something which may happen and far more probably may not it ought not to hinder the obtaining of that which is generally both useful and necessary To give you a parallel case to this It is granted on all hands that the civil authority of a Nation is Fallible and therefore we may suppose it actually to err and that so far as to bind men by Law to something in it self unlawful Will you say now that the intent of civil authority is to bind men necessarily to sin I hope you will not but by this you may easily see the fallacy of your arguing against his Lordship for it is an Inconvenience indeed supposable but not at all necessary if he had said indeed that General Councils must necessarily err your Argument had been strong against him but as it is it hath no more force against his assertion then the supposition before made hath against civil authority For that case may be easily put that such a Law may pass but doth this hinder men from their obligation to duty and submission to a just authority or Will you have men presently to renounce obedience and to repeal such a Law themselves and not rather in all wayes of duty and reverence to authority make known their just complaints and desire a redress by the hands of Supream authority And this is all which his Lordship aims at that in case a General Council should err which is not easily imaginable upon his suppositions it tends more to the Churches peace for private men not to oppose the Decrees of it but to endeavour that another General Council be called to repeal it and till then to preserve the Churches peace supposing the errour not manifest or intolerable In this case then there are two inconveniences put the one of them is That when a Council is supposed to err every particular man may be at liberty to oppose the Decrees of it and so put the Church into confusion the other is That though private men may know it to be an errour yet they should be patient till the Church by another Council may repeal it now these two inconveniences being laid together the question is Which is the greater His Lordship with a great deal of reason judges the former to be because in the latter case it is only a silencing of some less necessary truth for some time but in the other it is an exposing the Church to the fury of mens turbulent Spirits But that which shews the unreasonableness of your objection That this is the way to bind the Church to an union in errour is that this doth not necessarily follow from his Lordships opinion but is only a case supposable and no rare Inconvenience ought to prejudice a general good And the peace of the Church in such a case ought to be preferred before private mens satisfaction But this will further appear if we consider secondly the Suppositions his Lordship makes for by that we shall see how rarely incident this case is for I hope the supposing that a General Council may erre doth not suppose that it must necessarily erre and granting those things which are supposed by him it is a rare case that it should erre For these things are by him supposed 1. That it must be a Council lawfully called and ordered and so not such Councils as that of Trent was or any like it wherein the Pope gives only a General Summons and that it must be called a General Council on that account how few Bishops soever appear in it nay though the far greatest part of the Christian world be excluded from it but it must be such a Council as may be acknowledged to be General by the general Consent of the Christian world For that we would make our Judge in the case as it was in the four first General Councils Not that we would stand upon Bishops being actually present from every particular Church but that such a number be present from the greatest Churches as may make it not be suspected to be meerly a Faction packed together for the Interess of some potent Prelate but that they do so indifferently meet from all parts that there may be no just ground of suspicion that they design any thing but the common good of the Christian world And therefore we acknowledge the first four General Councils to be truly such in our present sense neither do we quarrel at them because so few Bishops were present who lived out of the Roman Empire for
assemblies was taken up and hath for its pattern the example of the Apostles Act. 15. yet surely there is little doubt to be made but the Apostles had both direction and precept too for doing it so often as just occasion required from Christ himself The whole force of which Answer lyes in those well placed words Surely there is little doubt to be made for as to any thing of reason you never offer at it Just such another of Bellarmins Sine dubio's comes after Though a General Council be the Church representative and do not meet or assemble together hic nunc but by order and deputation from man yet it follows not but the power and authority by which they act when they are met may be from God as doubtless it is Can any man have the face to question Whether the Authority of General Councils be of Divine Institution or no when you say Yes surely there is no doubt to be made of it doubtless it is We do not question as you would seem to imply afterwards Whether the people or the Pastours have right to send to General Councils but what ground you have to assert that General Councils are an immediate Divine Institution But I must needs say I never saw any thing affirmed oftener and offered to be proved less then that is here and yet as though you had done it invincibly you triumphantly proceed General Councils then are a principal and necessary part of that Ecclesiastical Hierarchy which Christ instituted for the Government of his Church and not an humane Expedient only taken up by the Church her self meerly upon prudential considerations as the Bishop will needs conceive It strangely puzzles me to find out any thing that Particle then relates to and after all my search can find nothing but surely without doubt and doubtless I pray Sir think not so meanly of us that we should take these for Arguments or Demonstrations Deal fairly with us and if we fall by the force of reason we yield our selves up to you But you are very much deceived if you think these things are taken for proofs with us we can easily discern the weakness of your cause through the most confident affirmations If you had brought any Law of Christ appointing that General Councils should be in the Church any Apostolical precept prescribing or giving directions concerning them you had done something but not so much as to offer at a proof and yet conclude it as confidently as if it were impossible to resist the force of your Demonstrations is an evidence that either you know your cause to be weak or suppose us to be so Much such another discourse is that which follows wherein you pretend to give a reason Why what is defined by one Council in point of Doctrine cannot be reversed by another Which is because the true Christian Faith is ex natura rei unchangeable that it admits not of yea and nay but only yea that it is alwayes the same that it must stand without alteration for ever nay that it is to be invariable and admit no change All these expressions we have in one Paragraph and for all that I see are the greatest strength of it But what is it you mean by all this Do you think we could not understand what you meant by the unchangeableness of Christian Faith without so many diversified expressions of it And what follows now from all this That one Council cannot repeal the Decrees of another How so was not the Faith of Christ as unchangeable in the time of the Arrian Councils as it is now and yet then one Council repealed the Decrees of others in point of Doctrine and yet by that nothing was derogated from the Institution or honour of Christ by such a reversing those Decrees Though the Faith i. e. The Doctrine of Christ be alwayes the same Doth it thence follow then men shall alwayes believe all this unalterable Doctrine If so how came Arrianism to overspread the Church How came six hundred Bishops at the Council of Ariminum to be deceived in a Doctrine of Faith by your own confession It is therefore a profound mistake to infer from the fallibility of General Councils the alteration of the Faith of Christ. The Faith of Christ is founded on a surer bottom then the Decrees of Councils though all men are lyars God is true and Christ the same yesterday to day and for ever But of this more afterwards You would seem to argue more pertinently in the following pages against his Lordships opinion for you say He sayes and unsayes the same and what he seems to attribute to General Councils in one proposition he takes away in another That which his Lordship sayes is That the definitions of a General Council are binding to all particulars and it self but yet so that they cannot bind the whole Church from calling again and in the after-calls upon just cause to order and if need be to abrogate former acts And after adds And because the whole Church can meet no other way the Council shall remain the Supream external living temporary Ecclesiastical Judge of all Controversies Only the whole Church and she alone hath power when Scripture or Demonstration is found and peaceably tendered to her to represent her self again in a new Council and in it to order what was amiss Now we must consider what we find contradictious and repugnant to themselves in these words Three things if I mistake not the main of this charge may be reduced to 1. That men should be bound to that which Scripture and Demonstration be against But this is very easily answered for his Lordship doth not say Men are bound to believe it but not so to oppose it as to break the peace of the Church by it 2. That another Council cannot be call'd without opposition to the other this his Lordship prevented by supposing that the just reasons against the decrees of the former Council ought to be peaceably tendred to the Church but no boisterous opposition to be made against it 3. To what purpose should another Council be call'd if the whole Church be satisfied that there is Scripture and Demonstration against the decrees of the former But 1. His Lordship supposes there may Scripture and Demonstration be where the whole Church is not satisfied and therefore there may be necessity of calling another Council 2. That the Council may free all those who may suppose themselves still bound not to oppose the former errour 3. That no erroneous Decree of a Council may remain unrepealed in the Church that so no erroneous person may challenge such a Decree of a Council as a ground for his opposition to the Doctrine of the Church And where now lyes any such appearance of contradiction in his Lordships words 3. The last thing his Lordship chargeth your way with unreasonableness in is That you do not only make the definition of a General Council
erred yet we have yielded so much to you as to disprove what you have in general brought for the one before we come to meddle with the other But that being dispatched we come to a more short and compendious way of overthrowing your Infallibility by shewing the palpable falsity of such principles which must be owned by you as Infallible truths because defined by General Councils confirmed by the Pope Whereof The first in the Endictment as you say is that of the Priests Intention defined by the Councils of Florence and Trent both of them confirmed by the Pope to be essentially necessary to the validity of a Sacrament Concerning this there are two things to be enquired into 1. Whether this doth not render all pretence of Infallibility with you a vain and useless thing 2. Whether it be not in it self an errour We must begin with the first of these for that was the occasion of his Lordships entering upon it for he was shewing That your claim of Infallibility is of no use at all for the settling of Truth and Peace in the Church because no man can either know or believe this Infallibility It cannot be believed with Divine Faith having no foundation either in the written Word of God or Tradition of the Catholick Church and no humane Faith can be sufficient in order to it But neither can it be believed or known upon that decree of the Councils of Florence and Trent that the intention of the Priest is necessary to the validity of a Sacrament And lest you should think I represent his Lordships words too much with advantage I will take his Argument in the words you have summed it up in which are these Before the Church or any particular man can make use of the Popes Infallibility that is be settled and confirmed in the Truth by means thereof he must either know or upon sure grounds believe that he is Infallible But sayes the Bishop this can only be believed of him as he is S. Peters Successour and Bishop of Rome of which it is impossible in the relatours opinion for the Church or any particular man to have such certainty as is sufficient to ground an Infallible belief Why because the knowledge and belief of this depends upon his being truly in Orders truly a Bishop truly a Priest truly Baptized none of all which according to our principles can be certainly known and believed because forsooth the intention of him that administred these Sacraments to the Pope or made him Bishop Priest c. can never be certainly known and yet by the Doctrine of the Councils of Florence and Trent it is of absolute necessity to the validity of every one of these Sacraments so as without it the Pope were neither Bishop nor Priest Thus I grant you have faithfully sum'd up his Lordships Argument we must now see with what courage and success you encounter it Your first Answer is That though it be level'd against the Popes Infallibility yet it hath the same force against the Infallibility of the whole Church in points fundamental for we cannot be Infallibly sure there is such a number of Baptized persons to make a Church By this we see how likely you are to assoil this difficulty who bring it more strongly upon your self without the least inconvenience to your adversary For I grant it necessarily follows against the pretence of any Infallibility whether in Church Councils or Pope as being a certain ground for Faith for all these must suppose such a certainty of the due administration of Sacraments which your Doctrine of Intention doth utterly destroy For these two things are your principles of Faith that there can be no certainty of Faith without present Infallibility of the Church and that in order to the believing this testimony Infallible there must be such a certainty as is ground sufficient for an Infallible belief Now How is it possible there can be such when there can be no certainty of the Being of a Church Council or Pope from your own principles For when the only way of knowing this is a thing not possible to be evidenced to any one in any way of Infallible certainty viz. the intention of the Priest you must unavoidably destroy all your pretence of Infallibility For To what purpose do you tell me that Pope or Councils are Infallible unless I may be Infallibly sure that such decrees were passed by Pope and Council I cannot be assured of that unless I be first assured that they were Baptized persons and Bishops of the Church and for this you dare not offer at Infallible certainty and therefore all the rest is useless and vain So that while by this Doctrine of the intention of the Priest for the validity of the Sacraments you thought to advance higher the reputation of the Priesthood and to take away the assurance of Protestants as to the benefits which come by the use of the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper you could not have asserted any thing more really pernicious to your selves than this Doctrine is So strange an incogitancy was it in those Councils to define it and as great in those who defend it and yet at the same time maintain the necessity of a present Infallibility in the Church and General Councils For can any thing be more rational then to desire the highest assurance as to that whose decrees I am to believe Infallible And yet at the last you confess we can have but a moral certainty of it and that of the lowest degree the utmost ground of it being either the testimony of the Priest himself or that we have no ground to suspect the contrary Now what unreasonable men are you who so much to the dishonour of Christian Religion cry out upon the rational evidence of the truth of it as an uncertain principle and that Protestants though they assert the highest degree of actual certainty cannot have any Divine Faith because they want the Churches Infallible testimony and yet when we enquire into this Infallible Testimony you are fain to resolve it into one of the most uncertain and conjectural things imaginable For what can I have less ground to build my Faith upon than that the Priest had at least a virtual intention to do as the Church doth Whom must I believe in this case and whereon must that Faith be grounded On the Priests Testimony But how can I be assured but that he who may wander in his intention may do so in his expression too Or must I do it because I have no reason to suspect the contrary how can you assure me of that that I have no reason to suspect the contrary no otherwise then by telling me that the Priest is a man of that honesty and integrity that he cannot be supposed to do such a thing without intention So that though I were in Italy or Spain where some have told us it is no hard matter to meet with Jews
am sure you are hard put to it to return any satisfactory Answer to it For you distinguish of the Popes joynt-consent and of his actual Confirmation in case say you the Pope either in person or by his Legats concurr with the Council then the definition is unquestionably Infallible but in case he doth not then the actual Confirmation is necessary but in case the Council erre the Pope ought not and it is impossible he should confirm it but if he doth not erre you grant it is true before the Pope confirms it but his Confirmation makes us infallibly certain that it is true This is the full force of your Answer which by no means takes off the difficulty as will appear 1. That by reason of the Pope's rare appearance in General Councils never in any that are unquestioned by the Greek and Latin Churches that of his joynt-consent cannot serve you neither doth the presence of his Legats suffice for it is determined by Bellarmin and proved by many reasons that though the Pope's Legats consent yet if they have not the express sentence of the Pope the Council may erre notwithstanding So that still the Popes actual Confirmation is supposed necessary and that after the definitions of the Council are passed And this is the case which his Lordship speaks to and for your answer to that I say 2. That in plain terms you assert the Popes personal Infallibility which you disowned the defence of before for you say In case the Council erre not only the Pope ought not to confirm it but that it is impossible he should Which What is it other than to assert that the Pope shall never erre though the Council may Neither is it sufficient to say That he shall never erre in confirming the Decrees of a Council for in this case the Council is supposed actually to erre already so that nothing of Infallibility can be at all supposed in the Council and if the Pope be not considered in his personal capacity he might erre as well as the Council From whence it follows since you suppose that a Council may erre but not the Pope that you really judge the Council not to be Infallible but the Pope only 3. When you say That if the Council erred not the Popes Confirmation doth not make the definition true but makes us infallibly certain that it is true I enquire further Whereon this Infallible Certainty depends on a promise made to the Council or to the Pope not to the Council for that you grant may erre but it is impossible the Pope should confirm it therefore still it is some promise of the Popes Infallibility which makes men Infallibly certain of the truth of what the Council decrees 4. To what purpose then are all those promises and proofs of Scripture which you produced concerning the Councils Infallibility if notwithstanding them a General Council may err Only the Pope shall never confirm it and although it do not err yet we cannot be Infallibly certain of it but by the Popes confirmation And let any reasonable man judge whether a promise of the Popes Infallibility though there be none at all concerning Councils be not sufficient for all this So that upon these principles you take away the least degree of necessity of any Infallibility in Councils and resolve all into the Popes Infallibility For to what purpose are they Infallible if we cannot be certain that any thing which they decree is true but by the Popes confirmation But that the Popes confirmation cannot make the Decrees of those you account General Councils Infallible nor us Infallibly Certain of the truth of them his Lordship proves by another evidence in matter of fact viz. That the Pope hath erred by teaching in and by the Council of Lateran confirmed by Innocent 3. that Christ is present in the Sacrament by way of Transubstantiation Which his Lordship saith was never heard of in the Primitive Church nor till the Council of Lateran nor can it be proved out of Scripture and taken properly cannot stand with the grounds of Christian Religion This you call a strange kind of proceeding to assert a point of so great importance without solving or so much as taking notice of the pregnant proofs your Authours bring both out of Scripture and Fathers to the contrary of what he mainly affirms How pregnant those proofs are we must examine afterwards but his Lordship might justly leave it to those who assert so strange a Doctrine to produce their evidence for it Especially since it is confessed by so many among your selves That it could not be sufficiently proved either from Scripture or Fathers to bind men to the belief of it till the Church had defined it in the Council of Lateran Since the more moderate and learned men among your selves Bishop Tonstall for one have looked on that definition as a rash and inconsiderate action Since the English Jesuits confessed that the Fathers did not meddle with the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Since Suarez confesseth that the names used by the Fathers are more accommodated to an accidental change Since Father Barns acknowledgeth that Transubstantiation is not the Faith of the Church and that Scripture and Fathers may be sufficiently expounded of a Supernatural presence of the body of Christ without any change in the substance of the Elements For which he produces a large Catalogue of Fathers and others Since therefore we have such confessions of your own side What need his Lordship in a Controversie so throughly sifted as this hath been bring all the Testimonies of both sides which had been so often and so punctually examin'd by others At least you say he should have cleared how Transubstantiation may be taken improperly whereas of all the words which the Church useth there is none methinks less apt to a Metaphorical and figurative sense then this of Transubstantiation By which I see you are a man who would really seem to believe Transubstantiation and are afraid of nothing but that it should not be impossible enough for you to believe it For his Lordship was only afraid that though the word it self were gross enough yet some of the more refined and subtle wits might transubstantiate the word it self and leave only the accidents of it behind by taking it in a spiritual sense as Bellarmin confesses those words of St. Bernard In Sacramento exhiberi nobis veram carnis substantiam sed spiritualitèr non carnalitèr have a true sense but adds that the word spiritualitèr must not be too often used and the Council of Trent would seem to provide an evasion by Sacramentaliter and his Lordship not well knowing what they would have by such expressions therefore he saith properly taken it cannot stand with the grounds of Christian Religion And for all those expressions Bellarmin as well as the Council take it in as gross a manner as you can desire and I think the Physitian who wanted impossibilities
their ship upon a rock because some have escaped upon a plank notwithstanding So that considering on what terms we grant this possibility of salvation this Concession of ours can be no Argument at all to judge yours to be the safer way and if upon the same terms you deny it to us it shews how much more unsafe your way is where there is so much of Interess and so little Charity But you attempt to prove against all Protestants whatsoever that yours is the safer way to salvation Your first Argument in short is Because we grant that you may be saved upon our own principles but you deny that we may be saved upon yours And what is there more in this Argument but a multitude of words to little purpose then there is in that which his Lordship examines For the main force of it lyes in this That is the safest way which both parties are agreed in and therefore although you would have your Major proposition put out of all doubt yet that wants more proof then I doubt you are able to give it For although we grant Men may be saved who have true Faith Repentance and a holy Conversation without any such Sacrament of Pennance which you make necessary for conveying the grace of Justification yet What security can thence come to a man in the choice of his Religion since we withall say That where there is a continuance in the corruptions and errours of your Church it is hard to conceive there should be that Faith and Repentance which we make necessary to Salvation You go therefore on a very false supposition when you take it for granted that we acknowledge that all those whom you admit to your Sacrament of Pennance have all things upon our own principles which are necessary to Salvation And so your Minor is as false as your Major uncertain viz. That many are saved in the Roman Church according to the principles which are granted on both sides But you would seem to prove That all admitted by you at death to the Sacrament of Pennance as you call it have all things necessary to Salvation upon Protestant principles because you say That Faith Hope true Repentance and a purpose of Amendment are necessary to the due receiving the Sacrament of Pennance and these are all which Protestants make necessary to Salvation But supposing that Is it necessary that all those things must be in them which make the necessary requisites to this Sacrament of yours Do none receive this unworthily as many do a far greater Sacrament than this granting it to be any at all It seems Salvation is very easie to be had in your Church then for this Sacrament is supposed by you to be given to men upon their death-beds when you say It cannot be supposed that men will omit any thing necessary for the attaining Salvation and by vertue of this Sacrament they receive the grace of Justification whereby of sinners they are made the Sons of God and heires of eternal life But I assure you we who believe Men must be saved only by the terms of the Gospel make no such easie matter of it as you do we profess the necessity of a through-renovation of heart and life to be indispensable in order to happiness for without holiness no man shall see the Lord and although we take not upon us to judge the final estate of men whose hearts we know not yet the Gospel gives us very little ground to think that such who defer the work of their Salvation to their death-beds shall ever attain to it The main design of Christian Religion being The turning mens souls from sin to God in order to the serving him in this world that they may be happy in another For if Salvation depended on no more then you require the greatest part of the Gospel might have been spared whose great end is to perswade men to holiness of heart and life It is not a meer purpose of amendment when men can sin no longer that we make only necessary to Salvation But so hearty a repentance of sin past as to carry with it an effectual reformation without this men may flatter themselves into their own ruine by your Sacraments of Pennance and such contrivances of men but there can be no grounded hopes of any freedom from eternal misery And their Faith too must be as weak as their Repentance shallow who dare venture their souls into another world upon no better security than that By receiving the Sacrament of Pennance they are made the Sons of God and heirs of eternal life But you betray men into stupid ignorance and carelesness as to their eternal Salvation and then deal most unfaithfully with them by telling them that a death-bed Repentance will suffice them and the Sacrament of Pennance will presently make them heirs of eternal life So that although your Doctrine be very unreasonable and your Superstitions very gross yet this unfaithfulness to the souls of men makes all true lovers of Christian Religion and of the Salvation of mens souls more averse from your Doctrine and Practises then any thing else whatsoever For what can really be more pernicious to the world then to flatter them into the hopes of Salvation without the performance of those things which if the Gospel be true are absolutely necessary in order to it How quietly do you permit the most stupid ignorance in such who are the zealous practisers of your fopperies and superstitions What excellent arts have you to allure debauches upon their death-beds to you by promising them that in another world which our principles will not allow us to do How many wayes have you to get the pardon of sin or at least to delude people with the hopes of it without any serious turning from sin to God What do your Doctrines of the sufficiency of bare contrition and the Sacraments working grace ex opere operato of Indulgences Satisfactions regulating the intention and the like tend to but to supersede the necessity of a holy life And at last you exchange the inward hatred and mortification of sin for some external severities upon mens bodies which is only beating the servant for the Masters fault So that it is hard to imagine any Doctrine or way of Religion which owns Christianity which doth with more apparent danger to the souls of men undermine the foundations of Faith and Obedience than yours doth And as I have at large shewed the former How destructive your principles are to the grounds of Faith so it hath been fully and lately manifested by a learned Bishop of our Church What Doctrines and practises are allowed in your Church which in themselves or their immediate consequences are direct impieties and give warranty to a wicked life Which being so of your own side we must see what reasons you give for your most uncharitable Censure That there are very few or none among Protestants that escape damnation And
fundamental in themselves or only by reduction and consequence Whether you hold all fundamental points literally or no yet if we prove you guilty of any gross dangerous and damnable errours as his Lordship asserts you are that will be abundantly sufficient to our purpose that Yours cannot possibly be any safe way to Salvation And although we should grant your Church right in the exposition of the three Creeds yet if you assert any other errours of a dangerous nature your right exposition of them cannot secure the souls of men from the danger they run themselves upon by embracing the other So much for the Argument drawn from the possibility of Salvation in the Roman Church CHAP. V. The Safety of the Protestant Faith The sufficiency of the Protestant Faith to Salvation manifested by disproving the Cavils against it C's tedious Repetitions passed over The Argument from Possession at large consider'd No Prescription allowable where the Law hath antecedently determined the right Of the Infallibility of Oral Tradition That contrary to the received Doctrine of the Roman Church and in it self unreasonable The Grounds of it examined The ridiculousness of the Plea of bare Possession discovered General Answers returned to the remaining Chapters consisting wholly of things already discussed The place of S. Cyprian to Cornelius particularly vindicated The proof of Succession of Doctrine lyes on the Romanists by their own Principles ALthough this Subject hath been sufficiently cleared in the Controversie concerning the resolution of Faith yet the nature of our task requires that we so far resume the debate of it as any thing undiscussed already offers it self to consideration For I cannot think it a civil way of treating the Reader to cloy him with Tautologies or Repetitions nor can I think it a way to satisfie him rather by some incidental passages than by a full and free debate In all those things then which we have had occasion to handle already I shall remit the Reader to the precedent discourses but whatever hath the face of being new and pertinent I shall readily examine the force of it The occasion of this fresh Debate was a new Question of the Lady Whether she might be saved in the Protestant Faith In answering whereof you say The parties conferring are put into new heats Vpon my soul said the Bishop you may Vpon my soul said Mr. Fisher there 's but one saving Faith and that 's the Roman Since the confidence seems equal on both sides we must examine Which is built on the stronger reason And his Lordship's comes first to be examined which he offers very freely to examination For saith he to believe the Scripture and the Creeds to believe these in the sense of the Ancient Primitive Church to receive the four great General Councils so much magnified by Antiquity to believe all points of Doctrine generally received as fundamental in the Church of Christ is a Faith in which to live and dye cannot but give Salvation And therefore saith he I went upon sure ground in the adventure of my soul upon that Faith Besides in all the points controverted between us I would fain see any one point maintain'd by the Church of England that can be proved to depart from the foundation You have many dangerous errours about the very foundation in that which you call the Roman Faith but there I leave you to look to your own soul and theirs whom you seduce Thus far his Lordship Two things you seem to answer to this 1. That such a Faith may not be sufficient 2. That ours is not such a Faith 1. That such a Faith may not be sufficient because you suppose it necessary to believe the Infallibility of the present Church and General Councils But that we are now excused from a fresh enquiry into but you would seem to inferr it from his own principles of submission to General Councils But by what peculiar Arts you can thence draw that some thing else is necessary to be believed in order to Salvation besides what hath been owned as Fundamentals in all ages I am yet to learn And sure you were much to seek for Arguments when you could not distinguish between the necessity of external submission and internal assent But the second is the main thing you quarrel with viz. That the English-Protestant Faith is really and indeed such a Faith and this you undertake at large to disprove You ask first Whether we believe all Scripture or only a part of it we answer All without exception that is Scripture i. e. hath any evidence that ever it was of Divine Revelation In this you say we profess more then we can make good seeing we refuse many books owned for Canonical by the Primitive Church and imbrace some which were not But in both you assert that which we are sure you are never able to defend since we are content to put it upon as fair a tryal as you can desire viz. That the Church of England doth fully agree with the Primitive Church as to the Canon of Scripture Which hath been already made good by the successful diligence of a learned Bishop of our Church to whom I refer you either for satisfaction or confusion But you are the men whose bare words and bold affirmations must weigh more then the greatest evidence of reason or Antiquity You love to pronounce where you are loath to prove and think to bear men down with confidence where you are afraid to enter the lists But our Faith stands not on so sandy a Foundation to be blown down with your biggest words which have that property of wind in them to be leight and loud When you will attempt to prove that the Books call'd Apocrypha have had an equal testimony of Divine Authority with those we receive into the Canon of Scripture you may meet with a further Answer upon that Subject Just as much you say to disprove our believing Scripture and the Creeds in the Primitive Church For you say The Fathers oppose us we deny it you say The Councils condemn us we say and prove the contrary You offer again at some broken evidences of the Popes Supremacy from Councils and Fathers but those have been discussed already and the sense of the Church at large manifested to be contrary to it But I fear your matters lye very ill concocted upon your stomack you bring them us so often up but I am not bound to dance in a circle because you do so And therefore I proceed but when I hope to do so you pull me back again to the Infallibility of Councils and the Church the question of Fundamentals and the Greek Church and scarce a page between but in comes again the Popes Supremacy as fresh as if it had been never handled before But I assure you after this rate I wonder you ever came to an end for you might have writ all your life time after that manner For the
and endeavour to make it out that this is the most proper interpretation both of Scripture and Fathers when they seem most clearly to speak of the Procession of the Spirit from the Son The same likewise the Patriarch Cyril insists upon who acknowledgeth these several words to be attributed to the Spirit in reference to the Son 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and several others in the writings of the Fathers all which he acknowledgeth to be true but he denyes that any of them do import a Hypostatical Procession of the Spirit from the Son but that they all refer to the temporal mission and manifestation of the Spirit through Christ under the Gospel Whether this answer will reach to all the places produced out of the Fathers is not here my business to enquire only that which is pertinent to my purpose may be sufficiently inferred from hence that the Fathers certainly were not definitive in this Controversie when their expressest sentences seem capable of quite a different meaning to wise and learned men who one would think if the belief of this Procession had been a tradition of their Church or fully expressed in the Writings of the Fathers of the Greek Church could not be so ignorant or wilful as either not to see this to have been their meaning or supposing they had seen it to persist in so obstinate a belief of the contrary I can therefore with advantage return your words back again to you It is to be considered that for many hundred years the whole Greek Church never believed this to be an article of Faith nay the Fathers were so far from it that both single and in General Councils they did plainly express the contrary how then bears it any shew of probability what some few of yesterday forced to it by an impossibility of otherwise defending the Power and Infallibility of the Roman Church affirm that the matter of this Controversie is so great and considerable that it is sufficient to produce an Heresie on either side Is not this to make Fathers and General Councils and consequently all Christendom for many hundred years quite blind and themselves only clear and sharp-sighted Which swelling presumption what spirit it argues and whence it proceeds all those who have learnt from reason if not from S. Augustine That Pride is the Mother of making Heresies in unnecessary articles of Faith will easily collect Do not you see now how unadvisedly those words came from you which with so small variation in the manner of expression and much greater truth in the matter of it is restored upon your self But I go on still if possible to make you sensible how much you have wronged the Greek Church in this charge of a fundamental errour in her for denying this Procession of the Spirit from the Son Which shall be from hence that although there were some who did as plainly deny this as ever the Modern Greeks did or do yet they were far from being condemned for Heresie in so doing For which we must consider that although the Fathers as we have already seen did speak ambiguously in this matter yet the first who appears openly and stoutly to have denyed it was Theodoret which being the rise of the Controversie must be more carefully enquired into It appears then that a General Council being summoned by the Emperour Theodosius to meet at Ephesus concerning the opinions of Nectorius which were vehemently opposed by Cyril of Alexandria and several Aegyptian and Asian Bishops who being there convened proceed to the deposition of Nestorius and Anathematizing his doctrine before Johannes Antiochenus and several other Bishops who favoured Nestorius were come to Ephesus When these therefore came and found what had been done by the other Bishops they being seconded by Candidianus there and the Court-party at Constantinople assemble apart by themselves and proceed on the other side to a deposition and excommunication of Cyril and Memnon who were the leaders of all the rest and these make an Anti-Synod to the other which consisted of persons of several interests and perswasions some Pelagians some Nestorians and others more as Friends to Nestorius than his opinions as being his Ancient Familiars and acquaintance did joyn with them to prevent his deposition among which the chief were Johannes Antiochenus and Theodoret. But before the Council Cyril had published his Anathema's against the opinions of Nestorius to these therefore not only the Oriental Bishops gave an answer but John the Patriarch of Antioch particularly appoints Theodoret to refute them The ninth Anathema of Cyril was against Nestorius and all others who said That Christ used the Holy Ghost as a distinct power from himself for the working of miracles and that did not acknowledge him to be the proper Spirit of Christ. Theodoret grants the first part wherein he shews he was no Nestorian but quarrels with the latter part for saith he If by that he means that the Spirit is of the same nature with the Son and that it proceeds from the Father we acknowledge it together with him but if by that he understands as though the Spirit had his subsistence from or by the Son we reject it as blasphemous and impious Was ever any thing in this kind spoken with greater heat and confidence than this was here by Theodoret And if this had been looked on as Heretical at that time can we possibly imagine that so zealous an opposer of all Heresies and especially of the Nestorians as S. Cyril of Alexandria was should so coolly and patiently pass this by as he doth For all the answer he gives is only that which was before cited out of him that he acknowledgeth The Spirit doth proceed from the Father but yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not of another nature from the Son but did not Theodoret expresly assert that as well as Cyril Is it then possible that any one who hath his wits about him should imagine that if that doctrine of Theodoret had been accounted Heretical it being expressed in so vehement a manner as it is it should have no other answer from Cyril but only approving that which Theodoret confesseth viz. the Consubstantiality of the Spirit with the Son All the answer which Petavius and others give is so weak and trifling that one may easily see how much they were put to it to find out any Sometimes it was because Cyril was intent upon his business and therefore passed it by as though he were so weak a man as to let his adversary broach Heresie and say nothing to it because it was not pertinent to the present cause But if it were not it is an argument the second Answer is false viz. that Theodoret was herein a Nestorian for if he were so it could not be besides the business but was a main part of it Moreover if this were a piece of Nestorianism it is very strange the Fathers of that Council when they purposely
and therefore may cause an undoubted Certainty of Assent As it is in all matters of fact for Will you say that it is as probable that there is not such a place as Rome as that there is because the only Argument you have to be convinced of it is but in it self a probability which is the fame and report of people It is a piece therefore of great weakness of judgement to say That there can be no certain Assent where there is a meer possibility of being deceived For there is no kind of Assent in the humane understanding as to the existence of any thing but there is a possibility of deception in it Will you say because it is possible all mens senses may deceive them therefore there can be no certainty of any object of sense And as well may you say it as destroy any certainty of Assent in Religion where you suppose a possibility of being deceived But if I be not much deceived though I suppose you will account it a grand Paradox an Assent may be as firm and certain upon moral grounds as upon a demonstration that is when the matter is capable of no more than moral grounds For the reason why we suspend Assent is the unproportionateness of the evidence to the matter to be proved So when the matter is capable of more evidence than is produced and I know it to be so my understanding cannot firmly assent on such evidence but when the matter is capable of no more than moral evidence and I know it I may as firmly assent to the Truth of such a thing as to the Truth of a clearer thing upon clearer evidence Thus I may as firmly assent that there are such places as the East and West-Indies upon the constant report of men as that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles I say not the evidence is the same but that the Assent may be as firm You cannot then destroy the certainty of Assent which is required to Christian Religion by telling men that the Arguments they rely on are but moral Arguments And by this you may see there may be a degree far beyond probability in the Assent where the Arguments in themselves considered may be called probable or rather that Moral certainty may be a most firm rational and undoubted certainty Your following discourse between the Bishop and Heathen run upon the former mistake as though his intention were to prove first the Bible to be God's Infallible Word before he would prove Christian Religion to be true which I have already shewed you is a mistake which appears sufficiently by his own words of proving the Christian Religion to stand upon surer grounds than any other Religion not only than that one which the Heathen believed but any other in the world and therefore your Objection is answered that for all this a third Religion may be truer than both Your remaining discourse proves nothing at all but on the former Supposition and therefore supposing his intention be to prove Christianity to be True and Divine his Argument from the power of it over the Devil follows plainly enough And when he mentions the evidence of it out of Scripture he doth not suppose the belief of it as an infallible Word of God but only as of any other history and therefore is far from such a petitio principii as you imagine That which the Bishop saith may reasonably be supposed as a Principle in Divinity as there are postulata in other Sciences is not the Infallibility of the Doctrine or Revelation but the Credibility of both in order to further Conviction concerning their Infallibility for unless the Credibility of it be first assumed as a Principle men will not use the means in order to conviction of its Infallibility And in this sense he doth not contradict himself nor unsay what he had said before and that this was his sense appears by the last words of that discourse That a meer natural man may be thus far convinced that the Text of God is a very credible Text. Thus we see how much notwithstanding your protestation to the contrary You have wronged the Bishop both by falsly imposing on him and dissembling the force of his Argument And how unjust that imputation is That if his Doctrine had been held in the Primitive Church it would have laid the world under an impossibility of being converted to Christianity whereas I have shewed how consonant his way is as I explained it both to reason and the proceedings of the Primitive Christians in the conversion of learned Heathens But since you will needs set the Bishop to convert a learned Heathen I will see what an excellent faculty you have according to your Principles of satisfying an Atheist or a Sceptick in Religion whom for your sake I will suppose more desirous of satisfaction than commonly such persons are Let us see then how he accosts you Scept Sir I understand by a great Book of yours that you have only taken the right course to convince such persons as my self who are a little doubtful concerning the received Principles of Religion in the world for the wisest I have conversed with of those who own those things do offer only to prove them by Reason and Arguments which I understand you decry as a way to make all men such as I am but that you have an excellent recipe for men under my distemper for you promise them no less then Infallible certainty in all things you require them to believe which is a thing I have been so long seeking for and have yet so unhappily mist of that I cannot but rejoyce in meeting with such a healing Priest who offers nothing short of Infallibility in all matters of Religion T. C. Sir I question not but before you and I part I shall cure those distorted joynts of your mind and instead of being a Sceptick make you a sound Catholick For indeed it is true what you say That those who would convince you by reason do but offer to make you more a Sceptick than you are at least you can have no Divine Faith at all upon such principles but if you will follow my counsel I doubt not but to make you Infallibly certain in the things we require you to believe Scept I see then there is hope of a cure for me but I pray tell me what that is I must be Infallibly certain of and by what means I shall attain it I would therefore in the first place be Infallibly certain of the being of God and the immortality of souls for these I take to be the principles of all Religion T. C. You take a wrong method you should first enquire after the means of this Infallible certainty for when once you have got that it will make you Infallibly certain of what ever you desire but as long as you use still so much reason as to demand Infallible certainty in principles
those wise and holy men knew better the interest of Christianity than to offer to defend it by Principles in themselves false and much more liable to question than that was which they were to prove by them and therefore made choice of arguments in themselves strong and evident and built on Principles common to themselves and those whom they disputed against i. e. they urged them with the greatest strength of Reason and the clearest evidence of Divine Revelation and never questioned but that a Faith built on those grounds if effectual for a holy Life was a true and Divine Faith It seems then your cause cannot be maintained without the most sharp and virulent reflections on those Primitive Christians who among all those arguments whereby they so successfully prevailed over the Gentile world never did so much as vouchsafe to mention the least pretence to Infallibility for which they are now accused of using only the blunter weapons of humane and fallible motives and not those Primary and Divine Motives of Infallibility But this is not the first time we have seen what desperate shifts a bad cause puts men upon It may be yet your strength may lye in your last condition viz. That these arguments used by them were not internal For 1. You say That of Miracles is external the Scriptures themselves work none neither were ever any Miracles wrought to confirm that all the Books now in the Canon and no more are the Word of God I answer 1. I have already told you of a double resolution of Faith the one as to the Divinity of the Doctrine the other as to the Veracity of the Books which contain it when therefore Miracles are insisted on it is not in order to the latter of these which we have sufficient assurance of without them as I have already largely proved both as to the Truth and Integrity of the Canon of Scripture but Miracles we say are the arguments to prove the Divinity of the Doctrine by because they attest the Divine Revelation of the persons who deliver this Doctrine to the world 2. As to us who receive the report of those Miracles as conveyed to us by the Scripture those may be said to be internal arguments to the Scripture which are there recorded in order to our believing the Doctrine therein contained to be Divine The Motives of Faith being delivered to us now joyntly with the Doctrine although on different grounds we believe the Veracity of the Books of Scripture and the Infallibility of the Doctrine contained in it We believe that the Miracles were truly done because they are delivered to us by an unquestionable Tradition in such Authentick Writings as the Scriptures are but we believe the Doctrine contained in the Books to be Divine because attested by such Miracles and we believe the Books of Scripture to be divinely inspired because such persons cannot be supposed to falsifie to the world who wrought such great Miracles 2. You say The conversion of so many People and Nations by the Doctrine contained in Scripture is also external to the Scripture But still you suppose that these arguments are brought to prove these Books to be divinely inspired which is denied we say only That the admirable propagation of the Doctrine of the Gospel is a great argument that it was from God And therefore when afterwards you say That supposing all those arguments mentioned by the Bishop out of S. Augustine to be internal to the Scripture yet they cannot infallibly and divinely prove that Scripture is the Word of God If by Scripture you mean the Writings we pretend not to it if by Scripture you mean the Doctrine of it we assert it and think it no argument at all against that which you add That perswade they may but convince they cannot no doubt if they perswade they do much more than convince But I suppose your meaning is they do it not effectually if so that is not the fault of the arguments but of the person who by his obstinacy will not hearken to the clearest evidence of Reason All that this can prove is a necessity of Divine Grace to go along with external evidence which you dare not assert for fear of running into that private Spirit which you objected to his Lordship on the same account But it is very pretty which follows You say Supposing that all those arguments mentioned of Miracles nothing carnal in the Doctrine performance of it and conversion of the world by it were all of them internal to Scripture yet they could not prove infallibly the Scripture to be the Word of God and to prove this you tell us concerning the third and fourth How can it ever be proved that either the performance of this Doctrine or the conversion of Nations is internal to Scripture But Did you not suppose them before to be internal to Scripture and though they were so yet could not prove the Scriture c and to prove that you say they cannot be proved internal to Scripture Which is just as if I should say If you were Pope you would not be Infallible and all the evidence I should give for it should be only to prove that you were not Pope You conclude this Chapter with a Wonder I mean not any thing of Reason which would really be so But say you who can sufficiently wonder that his Lordship for these four Motives should so easily make the Scripture give Divine Testimony to it self upon which our Faith must rest and yet deny the same priviledge to the Church Seeing it cannot be denied but that every one of these Motives are much more immediately and clearly applied to the Church than to the Scripture What more immediately and clearly and so clearly that it cannot be denied Prove but any one of them as to that Church whose Infallibility is in question viz. the present Roman-Church and I will yield you the rest Produce but any one undoubted Miracle to confirm the Infallibility of your Church or the Pastors of it shew your Doctrine wherein it differs from ours not to be carnal manifest the performance of the Christian Doctrine only in the members of your Church prove that it is your Church as such which hath preached this Doctrine and converted whole Nations to the belief of it in any other way than the Spaniards did the poor Indians and we may begin to hearken with somewhat more patience to your arrogant and unreasonable pretence of Infallibility Can any one then who hath any grain of reason left him think that from these arguments while his Lordship disputes most eagerly against the present Churches Infallibility he argues mainly for it as you very wisely conclude that Chapter If this be arguing for your Churches Infallibility much good may such arguments do you And so I come to the last part of my task as to this Controversie which is to examine your next Chapter which puts us in hopes of seeing an End of
made good but since you are so cautious as not to think your self obliged to do it I commend your discretion in it and proceed I cannot see that his Lordship is guilty of a false quotation of Bellarmin for that saying Et Papas quosdam graves errores seminâsse in Ecclesiâ Christi luce clarius est for he doth not seem at all to Cite Bellarmin for it but having Cited the place just before where he endeavours to vindicate the Popes from all errours he adds this expression as directly contrary to his design that though he had endeavoured so much to clear them from errours yet that they had sown some grievous errours in the Church was as clear as the day and as it immediately follows is proved by Jac. Almain c. And therefore it was only your own oscitancy which made you set it in the Contents of your Chapter that Cardinal Bellarmin was most falsly quoted by him But that falseness which with so much confidence you charge his Lordship with rebounds with greater force on your self when you say That Almain speaks not of errours in Faith at all but only of errours or rather abuses in point of manners whereas he not only asserts but largely proves That the Pope may err not only personally but judicially and in the same Chapter brings that remarkable Instance of the evident contradiction between the definitions of Pope Nicolaus 3. and John 22. And Platina tells us that John 22. declared them to be Hereticks who held according to the former definition And Is this only concerning some abuses abuses in point of manners and not concerning errours in Faith that Almain speaks You might as well say so of Lyra who said That many Popes have Apostatized from the Faith of Cusanus who saith That both in a direct and collateral line several Popes have fallen into Heresie of Alphonsus à Castro who saith That the best friends of the Popes believe they may err in Faith of Carranza who sayes No one questions but the Pope may be an Heretick of Canus who sayes It is not to be denyed but that the chief Bishop may be an Heretick and that there are examples of it You might as well I say affirm that all these spake only of abuses in Manners and not errours in Faith as you do of Almain Neither will your other subterfuge serve your turn That they taught errours in Doctrine as private men for Alphonsus à Castro expresly affirms in the case of Pope Coelestine about the dissolution of Marriage in case of Heresie That it cannot be said that he erred through negligence and as a private person and not as Pope For saith he this definition is extant in the decretals and he had seen it himself Although the contrary to this were afterwards defined not only by Pope Innocent 3. but by the Council of Trent And hence it appears whatever you pretend to the contrary That there may be tares sown in the Church of Rome not only by private persons but by the publick hands of the Popes too if they themselves may be believed who else do most Infallibly contradict each other But whether these errours came in at first through negligence or publick definitions is not so material to our purpose for which it is sufficient to prove that the Church of Rome may be tainted and corrupted which may be done one way as well as the other As Corn-fields may be over-run with tares though no one went purposely to sow them there And so much is acknowledged by Cassander when he speaks of the superstitious practises used in your Church That those who should have redressed those abuses were if not the Authours yet the incouragers of them for their own advantage by which means errours and corruptions may soon grow to a great height in a Church though they were never sown by publick definitions And when you disparage Cassanders Testimony by telling us how little his credit is among Catholicks you thereby let us see how much your Church is over-run with corruptions when none among you can speak against them but they presently forfeit their reputation The case of the Schism at Rome between Cornelius and Novatianus and the imployment of Caldonius and Fortunatus from St. Cyprian thither doth belong to the former Chapter where it hath been fully discoursed of already and must not be repeated here Only thence we see that Rome is as capable of a Schism within her own bowels as any other Church is which is abundantly attested by the multitudes of Schisms which happened afterwards between the Bishops of that See But this being insisted on by his Lordship in the former Controversie of the Catholick Church doth not refer to this Chapter wherein the causes of our separation should be enquired into Which at last you come to and passing by the verbal dispute between A.C. and his Lordship about what was spoken at the Conference you tell us It more concerns you to see what could or can be said in this point You draw up therefore a large and formal charge of Schism against us in your following words Our assertion say you is but good Sir it is not what you assert but what you prove It were an easie matter for us to draw up a far larger Bill against your Church and tell you our assertion is that you are the greatest Schismaticks in the world Would you look on it as sufficiently proved because we asserted it I pray think the same of us for we are not apt to think our selves guilty of Schism at all the more because you tell us what your assertion is if this be your way of dealing with us your first assertion had need be That you are Infallible but still that had need be more then asserted for unless it be Infallibly proved we should not believe it But however we must see what your assertion is that we may at least understand from you the state of the present Controversie Your assertion therefore is that Protestants made this rent or Schism by their obstinate and pertinacious maintaining erroneous Doctrines contrary to the Faith of the Roman or Catholick Church by their rejecting the Authority of their lawful Ecclesiastical Superiours both immediate and mediate by aggregating themselves into a separate body or company of pretended Christians independent of any Pastours at all that were in lawful and quiet possession of jurisdiction over them by making themselves Pastours and Teachers of others and administring Sacraments without Authority given them by any that were lawfully impowerâ—d to give it by instituting new rites and ceremonies of their own in matter of Religion contrary to those anciently received throughout all Christendome by violently excluding and dispossessing other Prelates and Pastours of and from their respective See's Cures and Benefices and intruding themselves into their places in every Nation where they could get footing the said Prelates and Pastours for the
within two years these strangely confounded The mistake made evident S. Cyril not President in the third General Council as the Popes Legat. No sufficient evidence of the Popes Presidency in following Councils The justness of the Exception against the place manifested and against the freedom of the Council from the Oath taken by the Bishops to the Pope The form of that Oath in the time of the Council of Trent Protestants not condemned by General Councils The Greeks and others unjustly excluded as Schismaticks The exception from the small number of Bishops cleared and vindicated A General Council in Antiquity not so called from the Popes General Summons In what sense a General Council represents the whole Church The vast difference between the proceedings in the Council of Nice and that at Trent The exception from the number of Italian Bishops justified How far the Greek Church and the Patriarch Hieremias may be said to condemn Protestants with an account of the proceedings between them HAving thus far considered the several grounds on which you lay the charge of Schism upon us and shewed at large the weakness and insufficiency of them we should now have proceeded to the last part of our task but that the great Palladium of the present Roman Church viz. the Council of Trent must be examined to see whether it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or no whether it came from Heaven or was only the contrivance of some cunning Artificers And the famous Bishop of Bitonto in the Sermon made at the opening the Council of Trent hath given us some ground to conjecture its original by his comparing it so ominously to the Trojan-horse Although therefore that the pretences may be high and great that it was made Divina Palladis arte the Spirit of God being said to be present in it and concurring with it yet they who search further will find as much of Artifice in contriving and deceit in the managing the one as the other And although the Cardinal Palavicino uses all his art to bring this Similitude off without reflecting on the honour of the Council yet that Bishop who in that Sermon pleaded so much That the Spirit of God would open the mouths of the Council as he did once those of Balaam and Caiaphas was himself in this expression an illustrious Instance of the truth of what he said For he spake as true in this as if he had been High-Priest himself that year But as if you really believed your self the truth of that Bishops Doctrine That whatever spirit was within them yet being met in Council the Spirit of God would infallibly inspire them you set your self to a serious vindication of the proceedings of that Council and not only so but triumph in it as that which will bring the cause to a speedy Issue And therefore we must particularly enquire into all the pretences you bring to justifie the lawfulness and freedom of that Council but to keep to the Bishops Metaphor Accipe nunc Danaûm Insidias crimine ab uno Disce omnes And when we have thorowly searched this great Engine of your Church we shall have little reason to believe that ever it fell from Heaven His Lordship then having spoken of the usefulness of free General Councils for making some Laws which concern the whole Church His Adversary thinks presently to give him a Choak-pear by telling him That the Council of Trent was a General Council and that had already judged the Protestants to hold errours This you call Laying the Axe to the Root of the Tree that Tree you mean out of which the Popes Infallible Chair was cut for the management of this dispute about the Council of Trent will redound very little to the honour of your Church or Cause But you do well to add That his Lordship was not taken unprovided for he truly answered That the Council of Trent was neither a Legal nor a General Council Both these we undertake to make good in opposition to what you bring by way of answer to his Lordships Exceptions to them That which we begin with is That it was not a Legal Council which his Lordship proves First Because that Council maintained publickly that it is lawful for them to conclude any Controversie and make it to be de Fide and so in your judgement fundamental though it have not a written word for its warrant nay so much as a probable testimony from Scripture The force of his Lordships argument I suppose lyes in this that the Decrees of that Council cannot be such as should bind us to an assent to them because according to their own principles those Decrees may have no foundation in Scripture And that the only legal proceeding in General Councils is to decree according to the Scriptures Now to this you answer That the meaning of the Council or Catholick Authours is not that the Council may make whatever they please matter of Faith but only that which is expressed or involved in the Word of God written or unwritten and this you confess is defined by the Council of Trent in these terms that in matters of Faith we are to rely not only upon Scripture but also on Tradition which Doctrine you say is true and that you have already proved it And I may as well say It is false for I have already answered all your pretended proofs But it is one thing Whether the Doctrine be true or no and another Whether the Council did proceed legally in defining things upon this principle For upon your grounds you are bound to believe it true because the Council hath defined it to be so But if you will undertake to justifie the proceedings of the Council as legal you must make it appear that this was the Rule which General Councils have alwaies acted by in defining any thing to be matter of Faith But if this appear to be false and that you cannot instance in any true General Council which did look on this as a sufficient ground to proceed upon then though the thing may since that Decree be believed as true yet that Council did not proceed legally in defining upon such grounds Name us therefore What Council did ever offer to determine a matter of Faith meerly upon Tradition In the four first General Councils it is well known What authority was given to the Scripture in their definitions and I hope you will not say That any thing they defined had no other ground but Tradition But suppose you could prove this it is not enough for your purpose unless you can make it appear that those Fathers in making such Decrees did acknowledge they had no ground in Scripture for them For if you should prove that really there was no foundation but Tradition yet all that you can inferr thence is That those Fathers were deceived in judging they had other grounds when they had not But still if they made Scripture their Rule and
yet the best your cause would bear And the greater you say the number of Bishopricks is in Italy the more friends I hope the Pope must make by disposing them and Could they do the Pope better service than to help him in this grand business at Trent wherein they sought to outvy each other by promoting the Popes Interest But not only the Protestants complained of this but the Emperour and other Princes and all impartial men in Germany France nay and in some part of Italy too But here his Lordship encounters an Objection of Bellarmine viz. that in the Council of Nice there were as few Bishops of the West present as were of the East at Trent and manifestly shews the great disparity between the the two Councils 1. Because it is not a meer disparity in number which he insists on but with it the Popes carriage to be sure of a major part but neither the Greek Church in general nor any Patriarch of the East had any private interest to look to in the Council at Nice 2. It was not so much a disparity between the Eastern and Western Bishops but that there were so many more Italians and Bishops obnoxious to the Popes Power than of all Germany France Spain and of all other parts of the West besides 3. Even in the comparison of those two Councils as to Eastern and Western Bishops there is this remarkable difference that Pope Sylvester with 275. Bishops confirmed the Council at Nice but the Council at Trent was never confirmed by any Council of Eastern Bishops To the two first of these you Answer with your best property silence Only you would fain perswade some silly people if there be any so weak in the world that enquire into such things That the Pope had no private interest at Trent but what was common to him with other Bishops You should have done well to have commended the excellency of an implicite Faith before you had uttered a thing so contrary to the sense of the whole Christian World To the third you confess It is some disparity but nothing to the purpose because if the Pope himself had ratified them the Council would have had as much Authority as by that accessory Assembly The more to blame was the Pope a great deal for putting so many Bishops to so needless a trouble But you say further This Council was not held just at the same time But Binius tells you it was held assoon as might be after the notice of what was done at Nice shew us the like of the Eastern Bishops at any time and we will not quarrel with you because it was not at the same time Though these Answers may pass for want of better they come not near your last which is a prodigious one the sense of it being That the Doctrine of Faith defined by the Council of Trent was more universally received in the Church then that of the Council of Nice For that of Trent you say was universally received by the whole Catholick Church and hath been more constantly held ever since whereas many Provinces either in whole or in part deserted the Faith defined at Nice and embraced the Arrian Heresie It seems then the twelve good Articles of Trent have been more generally received by the Catholick Church then the eternal existence of the Son of God and consequently that you are more bound to believe the Doctrine of Purgatory or Transubstantiation then that the Son is of the same substance with the Father For your grounds of Faith being resolved into the Churches Infallibility you cannot believe that which hath been so much questioned in the Church so firmly as that which hath been universally believed and constantly held But the universal reception of the Doctrine of the Council of Trent by the whole Catholick Church is so intolerable a falshood that you would scarce have vented it unless it were your design to write for the Whetstone To C's objection That neither French nor Spanish nor Schismatical Greeks did agree with the Protestants in those points which were defined by the Council his Lordship Answers That there can be no certainty who did agree and who not or who might have agreed before the Council ended because they were not admitted to a fair and free dispute And it may be too some Decrees would have been more favourable to them had not the care of the Popes Interest made them sowrer Here you complain of his Lordships falling again to his Surmizes of the Bishops being over-awed by the Popes Authority in the Council which you call an empty and injurious suspicion an unworthy accusation and arguing the want of Christian charity But usually when you storm the most you are the most guilty For if you call this an empty suspicion c. you charge many more with it besides his Lordship and those the greatest of your own Communion what meant else the frequent Protestations of the French and Spanish Ambassadours in which they often declared that as things were managed the Council was not Free What meant those words of the Emperour Ferdinand in his Letters to the Legats and the Pope That the Liberty of the Council was impeached chiefly by three causes one because every thing was first consulted of at Rome another because the Legats had assumed to themselves only the liberty of proposing which ought to be common to all the third because of the practises which some Prelats interested in the Greatness of the Court of Rome did make The French Ambassadour Monsieur de Lansac writ to the King his Master That the Pope was so much Master of this Council that his Pensioners whatsoever the Emperours or we do remonstrate to them will do but what they list Several of the like nature might easily be produced so that it is not his Lordship only is guilty of this want of charity as you call it but all impartial persons who were most acquainted with the Affairs of that Council Whose judgement is certainly much more to be taken then such who have sworn to defend it But you have an excellent Argument to prove the Council Free because the Bishops of the Council continued in the Faith and Doctrine of it as long as they lived And had they not good reason so to do when they were sworn before hand to defend the Pope and having secured him from danger of reformation by the Council and subscribed the Decrees of it they were as much bound to defend their own acts And although it is well enough known what practises were used to bring off the French and Spanish Bishops yet when they were brought off what a shame would it have been for them to have revolted from their own Subscriptions But what is this to that General freedom which was desired by the Roman Catholick Princes for Reformation of the Court of Rome and by Protestants both of the Court and Church Was the Council any thing
Can any thing be more ridiculous than for you to deny that the Scriptures are to be believed for themselves and to assert that the Pope and Council are to be believed for themselves If the Pope and Council then should declare their Decrees Infallible On what account are we bound to believe them to be so You have found it then an excellent way for ending all other Controversies that are so far to seek for ending this which you cannot possibly do without renouncing some of your principles or an apparent contradiction But besides this 2. Your very manner of asserting the Infallibility of General Councils destroyes all certainty of Faith concerning it For you say That Councils are not Infallible unless they be confirmed by the Pope which to the apprehension of any reasonable man is that they are not in and of themselves Infallible but by vertue of the Popes confirmation And therefore to say that Councils are Infallible and then make that Infallibility depend upon the Popes Confirmation is meerly delusory for you may as well say that the Pope and Provincial Councils are Infallible For Doth the Decree receive any Infallibility from the Council or not If it doth then the Decree is Infallible whether the Pope confirm it or no If it doth not then the Infallibility is wholly in the Pope And he may as well make a Provincial Council Infallible as a General But suppose it be some promise which helps the Pope in a General Council which doth not in a lesser though there be no reason for that for he is Head of the Church in one as well as in the other yet you cannot have any certainty of Faith that the Council is Infallible For you say The Popes Confirmation is necessary to make it Infallible but that the Pope may infallibly confirm the Council is no matter of Faith and therefore the Infallibility of the Council can be none For if the Councils Infallibility depend on the Popes Confirmation you can have no greater certainty of the Councils Infallibility then you have that the Pope will infallibly confirm it But you can have no certainty of Faith that the Pope will infallibly confirm the Council therefore neither can you have any of the Councils Infallibility The assumption depends upon this that you acknowledge you can have no certainty of Faith that the Pope is Infallible but when he decrees in a General Council i. e. that the Decrees by Pope and Council are Infallible But you can have no certainty that the Pope in the Act of confirming them is Infallible for if so you might assert it de fide that the Pope without a Council is Infallible For his Act of Confirmation is distinct from that Infallibility which lyes in the Decrees which have passed both Pope and Council So that if the Infallibility of Councils lyes wholly in the Popes Confirmation and you can have no certainty of Faith of the Popes Infallibility you can have no certainty of Faith of the Infallibility of General Councils But suppose we should grant that you might in general be certain of the Infallibility of General Councils when we come to instance in any one of them you can have no certainty of Faith as to the Infallibility of the Decrees of it For you can have no such certainty that this was a lawful General Council that it passed such Decrees that it proceeded lawfully in passing them and that this is the certain meaning of them and yet all these are necessary in order to the believing those Decrees to be Infallible with such a Faith as you call Divine 1. You can have no certainty of Faith that this was a lawful General Council for that depends upon such things which you cannot say are de fide as that the Bishops in the Council are lawful Bishops that the Pope who confirms them is a lawful Pope for by your own explication afterwards of your Doctrine concerning the intention of the Priest you say it can be but a moral certainty and that you contend elsewhere can be no ground for a Divine Faith Besides you can have no more certainty that is a lawful Council whose Decrees you assent to than you have that those Bishops who are excluded are Hereticks or Schismaticks but Can you be certain of that with Divine Faith and Whereon is that Faith built 2. You can have no such kind of certainty of what Decrees were passed by them and whether those Decrees were at all confirmed by the Pope or no For Bellarmin confesseth No other certainty can be had of that than that whereby we believe there were such persons as Cicero or Julius Caesar and condemns Vega for saying The certainty of it depends upon the definitions of the Council it self Now this at the best being but a humane or moral certainty you must contradict your self if you say That a Divine Faith may be built upon it 3. What certainty can you have that may be a ground for Faith that the Council hath proceeded lawfully for in case he doth not your own Authours say It may not be Infallible For so Bellarmin answers in the case of the Council of Chalcedon Concilium legitimum posse errare in his quae non legitimè agit that a lawful Council may erre in case it doth not proceed lawfully Now Who can assure one that there have been no practices at all used to bring off some men to give their Votes with them It is hard to conceive such a body of men wherein some few do not sway and govern all the rest and in that case Can any one say that it was the Spirit of God which governed the Council Especially if one Preside in the Council who hath authority and power above all the rest and that others in the Council have any dependence on him Who can then expect that freedom which is requisite to a General Council The Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia are condemned because though there were a very great number of Bishops yet some out-witted all the rest and by their subtilty brought them to subscribe that confession of Faith which Pope Liberius afterwards confirmed by his own subscription And if so great a Council as this must be reprobated on that account Why not all others where there are suspicions of the same arts and subtilties Nay How can a man be sure there have not been such arts used in Councils for it is not to be expected that such things should be much known to the world they being privately managed with the greatest secrecy that may be And yet it is in this case necessary to know that the Council proceeded with all simplicity and plainness for otherwise their determinations may not be Infallible In order to which nothing is more requisite than that there be no one which hath any great Authority over them For if the second Council of Ephesus lawfully summoned and the Popes Legats being present be therefore rejected because Dioscorus
as immediate a revelation as the first discovery of it As is clear in the Council of the Apostles for I hope you will not deny but the non-obligation of the ceremonial Law was in some manner revealed to them before and yet I hope you will not say but the Apostles had an immediate revelation as to what they decreed in that Council It is very plain therefore that when you say General Councils neither have erred nor can err in their definitions they usurp as great a priviledge thereby as ever the Apostles had and in order to it must have as immediate an inspiration For never was there any such Infallibility either in the Prophets or Apostles as did suppose an absolute impossibility of errour but it was wholly hypothetical in case of Divine assistance which hindred them from any capacity of erring so long as that continued with them and no longer For inspiration was no permanent habit but a transient act in them and that being removed they were lyable to errours as well as others from whence it follows that where revelations were most immediate they did no more then what you assume to your Church viz. preserve them from actual errour in declaring Gods will So that nothing can be more evident then that you challenge as great an Infallibility and as immediate assistance of Gods Spirit in Councils as ever the Prophets and Apostles had And therefore that Divine was in the right of whom Canus speaks who asserted That since General Councils were Infallible their definitions ought to be equalled with the Scriptures themselves And although Canus and others dislike this it is rather because of the odium which would follow it than for any just reason they give why it should not follow For they not only suppose as great a Certainty or Infallibility in the Decrees of both but an equal obligation to internal assent in those to whom they are declared Which doth further prove that the revelation must be immediate for if by vertue of those definitions we are obliged to assent to the Doctrines contained in them as Infallibly true there must be an immediate Divine Authority which must command our Assent For nothing short of that can oblige us to believe any thing as of Divine revelation now Councils require that we must believe their definitions to be Divine truths though men were not obliged to believe them to be so before those definitions For that is your express Doctrine That though the matters decreed in Councils were in some manner revealed before yet not so as to oblige all men with an explicite assent to believe them but after the definitions of Councils they are bound to do it So that though there be not an object newly revealed yet there ariseth a new obligation to internal assent which obligation cannot come but from immediate Divine Authority If you say The obligation comes not simply by vertue of the Councils definitions but by a command extant in Scripture whereby all are bound to give this assent to the decrees of Councils I then say we must be excused from it till you have discharged this new obligation upon your self by producing some express testimony of Scripture to that purpose which is I think sufficient to keep our minds at liberty from this internal assent to the definitions of General Councils by vertue of any Infallibility in them And thus having more at large considered the nature of this Infallibility which you challenge to General Councils and having shewed that it implyes as immediate a revelation as the Apostles had the second thing is sufficiently demonstrated That this Infallibility cannot suppose discursiveness with fallibility in the use of the means because these two are repugnant to each other The next thing to be considered is Stapletons argument why Councils must be Prophetical in the conclusion because that which is determined by the Church is matter of Faith and not of knowledge and the assent required else would not be an assent of Faith but an habit of knowledge To which his Lordship Answers That he sees no inconvenience in it if it be granted for one and the same conclusion may be Faith to the believer that cannot prove and knowledge to the learned that can Which he further explains thus Some supernatural principles which reason cannot demonstrate simply must be supposed in order to Faith but these principles being owned reason being thereby inlightned that may serve to convert or convince Philosophers and the great men of reason in the very point of Faith where it is at the highest This he brings down to the business of Councils as to which he saith that the first immediate fundamental points of Faith as they cannot be proved simply by reason so neither need they be determined by any Council nor ever were they attempted they are so plain set down in Scripture If about the sense and true meaning of these or necessary deduction out of the prime Articles of Faith General Councils determine any thing as they have done at Nice and the rest there is no inconvenience that one and the same Canon of the Council should be believed as it reflects upon the Articles and grounds indemonstrable and yet known to the learned by the means and proof by which that deduction is vouched and made good And again the conclusion of a Council suppose that in Nice about the consubstantiality of Christ with the Father in it self considered is indemonstrable by reason there saith he I believe and assent in Faith but the same conclusion if you give me the ground of Scripture and the Creed for somewhat must be supposed in all whether Faith or knowledge is demonstrable by natural reason against any Arrian in the world So that he concludes The weaker sort of Christians may assent by Faith where the more learned may build it on reason the principles of Faith being supposed This is the substance of his Lordships Discourse In Answer to which you tell us That the Bishop seems to broach a new Doctrine that the assent of Faith may be an habit of knowledge But surely say you Divine Faith is according to the Apostle Heb. 11. an Argument of things which do not appear viz. by the same means by which we give this assent of Faith otherwise our Faith would not be free and meritorious An Answer I must needs say hugely suitable to your principles who are most concerned of all men to set reason at a distance from Faith and so you do sufficiently in this Discourse of it For it is no easie matter to understand what you mean but that is not to be wondered at since you make obscurity so necessary to Faith Divine Faith is you say an Argument of things which do not appear viz. by the same means by which we give this assent of Faith Do you mean that the objects of Faith do not appear or that the reason of believing doth not If only the former
Yes and a very charitable man he would be in it too if without any signification by circumstances he could save the soul of a dying Infant But I should think his meer intention were sufficient and well as the chief Priest would supply the rest as the Schools determine in a like case For they put a very hard Question to themselves If the intention of a Priest be necessary to the validity of a Sacrament then What becomes of the soul of an Infant which dyes being baptized without the Priest's intention To which they answer It may very piously be believed that in that case summus Sacerdos supplebit the High Priest will supply that defect and what they say of intention is much more true of Baptism it self for in case it be not done out of contempt I say that summus Sacerdos supplebit it is not the meer want of Baptism will damn the soul of the Infant as you suppose when you make it so necessary to use such shifts as you speak of to save the soul of a dying Infant But Do you think seriously that is the way to do it for a Priest under a Physical pretence to sprinkle water on the Childs face often and once among the rest to say softly or by way of discourse Ego te baptizo c. with intention to conferr the Sacrament But you ask however Whether the Child be not really baptized by this although none took notice of what the Priest did I answer though we should grant it yet it proves not that the Priests inward intention was it which made it a Sacrament but the observation of the institution of Christ in the external actions and so far as that is observed in this odd kind of baptizing so far it is Baptism and no more There are two things therefore to be observed in Sacramental actions 1. The differencing of them from other common or ordinary actions and this we say is done by the circumstances attending them 2. The validity of them as Sacraments and this depends wholly and only on the observation of Christs Institution For as it is Institution which makes a Sacrament so it is the observation of it which makes this a Sacramental action and not another But in neither case is the Priests intention necessary to the essence of a Sacrament for it may have its full force in all respects it was appointed for whatever the Priests inward intention be So that neither of your Instances as to the Sacraments of Baptism or the Eucharist do at all imply the necessity of the Priests intention in order to the essence of a Sacrament in either of them As for the inconvenience which you say the Bishop pretends would follow out of this Doctrine viz. that no man can rest secure that he hath been really made partaker of any Sacrament no not of Baptism it self You answer 1. That as to the far greater part of Christians the inconvenience follows as much out of the Bishops principles as yours that they cannot be absolutely certain that they are baptized because the Priest may vitiate something pertaining to the essentials of Baptism 2. You answer That moral Assurance is sufficient in such cases i. e. such as is liable to no just cause of doubting and suspecting the contrary We accept of this latter Answer in reference to your retortion of the inconvenience upon us as to which we say That where is no sufficient cause of doubting a man ought to rest satisfied But I shall now shew you that this moral Assurance cannot be sufficient in your case and that for these Reasons 1. Because you build a main principle of Faith upon it and you say That moral Assurance cannot be a sufficient foundation for Faith for then all your discourse of the resolution of Faith comes to nothing which runs upon this principle That nothing short of Infallibility can be a sufficient foundation for Faith Now that you build a principle of Faith upon it is evident as I have proved already even all that Infallibility you pretend to in Church Pope and Council for all depends upon this that you certainly know that such persons in your Church have had the Sacrament of Baptism truly administred which cannot be without knowing the Priests intention 2. Because you acknowledged before that there must be such a certainty as is sufficient to ground an Infallible belief for this you placed in his Lordships Objection and this you pretended to satisfie by saying That the Pope and Council implicitly define themselves to be Infallible and therefore you fall much beneath your self now when you say Moral Assurance is sufficient 3. Because we have far greater ground for moral Assurance than you for we make no more requisite to the essence of a Sacrament than what all men are competent judges of and our Church allows no such Baptisms wherein none but the Priest is present therefore if he vitiates any thing essential to Baptism it may easily be discovered but in your case you have no positive Assurance at all of the Priests intention the utmost you can pretend to is your having no ground to suspect it which in many cases there may be So that you cannot have properly a moral Certainty which hath some evidence to build it self upon but in your case there can be no evidence at all of the Priests intention and therefore the knowledge of it is uncertain and conjectural So that there is a vast difference between that moral Assurance which we may have from the external action and that which you can possibly have from the Priests intention 4. The danger is far greater in not having this Assurance upon your principles than upon ours and yet we have far greater Assurance than you can possibly pretend to Your danger is manifestly greater as appears by this evident demonstration of it viz. that in case the Priests intention be wanting you must by your own confession be guilty of gross Idolatry and yet you cannot certainly know what the Priests intention was This is plain in the case of the Eucharist whose adoration you profess to be lawful because you suppose Christ to be present there Now this depends upon a thing impossible for you certainly to know and that is the Priests intention in the Consecration For if the Priest wanted that inward intention which you make necessary to the essence of a Sacrament then for all his pronouncing the words of Consecration Hoc est corpus meum Christs body may not be there and in case it be not there you are by your own confession guilty of Idolatry for you do not then worship Christ but meerly the Bread Therefore supposing adoration of the Eucharist upon your principle of Transubstantiation were not Idolatry yet since that depends upon a thing impossible to be known Who can with a good conscience do that which he cannot be certain but in the doing it he may commit the greatest Idolatry Wherefore
by Martian and Valentinian And this is so clear that Bellarmine in his Recognitions confesseth his mistake about the Constantinopolitan Council being called by the Letters of Pope Damasus and acknowledges that to be true which I at large proved before That the Synodical Epistle was not sent by the General Council but by another the year after If then the calling of Councils belongs not of right to the Pope it is not his summoning which can make a General Council without mission and deputation from those Churches whom they are to represent And any other sense of a General Council is contrary to the sense of Antiquity and is forced and unreasonable in it self For it must be either absolutely general or by representation none ever imagined yet an absolutely General Council and therefore it must be so called as it doth represent if so then there is a necessity of such a deputation But here a Question might arise Whether those Deputies of Churches have power by their own votes to oblige the Churches they are sent from by conveying in a General Council or else only as they carry with them the sense of those Churches whom they represent and this latter seems more agreeable to the nature of a truly General Council whose acts must oblige the whole Church For that can only be said to be the act of the whole Church which is done by the Bishops delivering the sense of all particular Churches and it is not easie to understand How the Vniversal Church can be obliged any other way unless it be proved that General Councils are instituted by some positive Law of Christ so that what is done by the Bishops in them must oblige the Catholick Church and then we must find out not only the Institution it self but the way and manner how General Councils should be called of which the Scripture is wholly silent And therefore there is no reason that there should be any other General Council imagined but by such a representation and in order to this the consent of all those Churches must be known by the particular Bishops before they can concurr with others so as to make a General Council The most suitable way then to a General Council is that the Summons of them being published by the consent of Christian Princes every Prince may call together a National Synod in which the matters to be debated in the Council are to be discussed and the sense of that Synod fully declared which those Bishops who are appointed by it to go to the General Council are to carry with them and there to declare the sense of their particular Church and what all these Bishops so assembled do all agree in as the sense of the whole Church may be called the decree of a General Council Or in case some great impediment happen that such Bishops cannot assemble from all Churches but a very considerable number appearing and declaring themselves which upon the first notice of it is universally received by all particular Churches that may ex post-facto be called a General Council as it was with the first four Oecumenical Councils And yet that in them there was such a deputation as this is appears by that expression in the Synodical Epistle of the Bishops of Constantinople before mentioned for in that they give this account Why they could not do what the Western Bishops desired because they brought not with them the consent of the Bishops who remained at home to that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And concerning this only Council viz. at Constantinople have we brought the consent of those Bishops which remain in the Provinces So that they looked on the consent of the other Bishops to be necessary as well as their own But now if we examine your Council of Trent by this Rule How far is it from any appearance of a General Council What Bishops were there sent from the most of Christian Churches Those that did appear What equality and proportion was there among them For Voices in General Councils ought not to go by the number of Bishops but by the number of Churches so that if six were sent from the Church of England or France delivering the sense of that Church they come from they have equal Votes with the greatest number of Italian Bishops But here lay the great imposture of that Council first that the Councils being general depended upon the Popes general Summons though never so few Bishops appeared next that the Decrees of the Council were to be carried by most Voices and the Bishops to give their bare placet these things being thus laid when there was any fear that businesses would not go right it was but the Legats using some art in delaying it and sending intelligence to Rome and forty Bishops are made together and posted to Trent to help out the number of voices and thus it was in the case of the Institution and Residence of Bishops And this is that you call a General Council 2. To your other That what was wanting in number at first was made up at last when all former Decrees were confirmed by a full number of Bishops it is soon replied That this is as all the rest of the proceedings of that Council was but a meer Artifice For it appears by the History of that Council that in the last Session under Pius 4. a Proposition was made that all the Decrees under Paul and Julius should be approved which was opposed because they said it would be a derogation to the Authority of the Council of those times if it should seem that the things then done had need of a new confirmation of the Fathers and would shew that this and that was not all one because none can confirm his own things But upon the French Bishops earnest insisting upon it it was determined simply to read them and no more And Do you call this a confirming and ratifying them de novo So that for all appears by this last Session the Authority of those Decrees must as far as concerns the Council depend upon the number of the Bishops then present which was but very small certainly for a General Council there being not so many in most of the Sessions as were in the Donatists Council in Africa so far were they from the number of the ancient General Councils But here comes your grand Objection in the way That nothing is pretended by us against the Council of Trent which might not have been in effect as justly objected by the Arrians against the Council of Nice But Is not there easily discernable a vast disparity between these two which way soever we conceive them The one called by the Emperour who in person sate in the Council to prevent all disorders and clancular actions the other by the Pope who presided in it by his Legats and ordered all things by his directions In that of Nice the Arrian Bishops were as freely admitted to debate as
any of the other but it was far from being so at the Council of Trent In the Nicene Council though Alexander was no further a party as to the Doctrine than the other Bishops no more was Leo at the Council of Chalcedon or Cyril at Ephesus though those are the three you instance in before yet he sate not as President of the Council but the Emperour had the chief Inspection for the right management of it and for the Conciliar actions Hosius was President Would the Pope have been contented with such a Council in his case wherein the Emperour should have sate in chief and some other person besides the Pope to have presided If not never go about to parallel these two Councils with each other Again in the Council of Nice all the Bishops came free without any praeengagement to maintain the party of Alexander but the Bishops at Trent were all sworn to defend the Papal Interest At Nice the Bishops themselves debated the matters in Controversie at Trent the Divines dispute the Bishops in their formalities give their Placet At Nice every one was freely heard none died for grief of checks being given them for their too free speaking as there did at Trent And these I hope shew there was much greater reason for the Protestants to except against the Council of Trent than for the Arrians against the Council of Nice And yet besides all these grounds of disparity those two remain good still which his Lordship instanceth in viz. That the Council of Nice proceeded wholly by the Scripture and that the sentence of it hath been universally received by the Church both before and after it neither of which can be said of the Council of Trent But to these two you offer something by way of Answer To the first That both these Councils had the Scripture for their Rule but not their only Rule for you say Theodoret expresly sayes that in condemning the Arrian Heresie the Council of Nice grounded it self upon Tradition But Theodoret sayes no such thing only out of an Epistle of Athanasius he sayes When the Arrians objected that they used words not contained in Scripture they gave them this Answer that so did they too but the words which they used were such as their Fathers had used before them and Do you call this the grounding the condemnation of them upon Tradition Yet to do you right I must suppose that either you took this upon trust without searching Theodoret or if you did you looked no further than Christophorsons Translation which in things concerning the Papal Controversies doth notoriously trip to say no worse of it as it were easie to manifest from several examples but we need no more than this present For whereas the words in Greek run thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which Sirmondus faithfully renders Nam cùm ipsi ex verbis non-scriptis impietatem suam adstruxerint nusquam enim scriptum reperias Ex non extantibus aut Erat quando non erat accusant quod per voces non-scriptas piè tamen excogitatas condemnati sint i. e. Though the Arrians made use of unwritten words themselves yet they accused their adversaries for condemning them by unwritten words meaning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But Christophorson translates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 afferunt and there ends the sentence and then makes a new sentence Quapropter ex non-scriptis vocibus piè tamen excogitatis condemnati sunt By this wee see What necessity there is of searching your Citations in Antiquity which you deliver with so much confidence as though none had ever looked into the Fathers but your selves But I find you so often tripping in your quotations that where Bellarmine hath been used by the Latin Interpreter you very securely follow him in it as in another place mentioned in this Chapter where Christophorson renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mandato literarum which Bellarmine confidently cites as importing Damasus his power to summon the Council of Constantinople than which nothing can be further from the meaning of those words Thus you see how vain your attempt is of proving that the Council of Nice grounded her definition on Tradition as the Council of Trent did which is directly contrary to the advice of Constantine and the Proceedings of the Council as his Lordship truly told you To the second concerning the consent of the Church you answer That the like consent of the Church both is and was when Protestans first began But Will this reach to a Parity if it were granted for his Lordship speaks of the Consent of the Church in all ages from the Primitive and Apostolical times I pray prove your Mass Invocation of Saints Worship of Images Purgatory c. by such a Consent as this and then you may say There is no such disparity between them As to what you further add of the Council of Nice condemning the Quartodecimani for Hereticks I know not where you will find it I am sure Constantine is far from saying so in his Epistle perswading to union as to that matter Cannot the Council of Nice appoint time to celebrate Easter or determine that those who come from Hereticks shall not be rebaptized but they must presently condemn all who do otherwise for Hereticks But you must be pardoned you are proving a Parity between the Council of Nice and Trent and you know you could not do that sufficiently unless they condemned all dissenters in any punctilio for Hereticks His Lordship further proves That Trent could be no indifferent Council to the Church the Pope having made himself a strong party in it because there were more Italian Bishops there than of all Christendom besides yea more than double For where the number of Prelates is expressed that had suffrage and vote in that Council the Italians are set down to be a hundred eighty seven and all the rest make but eighty three so that there were more Italian Bishops by a hundred and four than of all the rest of Christendom sure saith he the Pope did not mean to be over-reached in this Council And whatsoever became of his Infallibility otherwise he might this way be sure to be Infallible in whatsoever he would have determined And this without all doubt is all the Infallibility he hath To this you answer That the Popes making a party is disproved by the very argument he brings to assert it viz. the multitude of Italian Prelates for Who knows not that the Italians are more divided in point of Interest and Dependence than in any other Nation of Christendom by reason of the many Soveraign Principalities and States into which Italy is divided But What is this to the purpose unless you could prove that the Italian Prelates were so divided in point of Interest and dependence Since therefore they have all their dependence on the Pope and not on those Principalities in which they live this evasion though very sleight is