separation made in the a foresaid Principles but it is so shameles and open an vntruth that hee dares not own it in express terms nor yet such is his shuffling will hee confess the contrary I know his party sometimes endeavours to evade by saying that our Church caused the breach by excommunicating them but ask whether they broke from and renounced that Government and so deserved excommunication ere they were thus excommunicated by it and their own conscience with the whole world will answer they did It is that former breach of theirs then and reiection of that Government which denominates them Schismaticks till they can render sufficient that is evident Grounds why they reiected it for otherwise nothing is more weak than to imagine that Governours should not declare themselves publikely and solemnly against the renouncers of their Authority or that a King should not procâ—ame for Rebells and incapable of any priuiledges from the commonwealth those persons who already had disacknowledg'd his Right and obstinately broken it's laws Either show us then that our Excommunication separated you from your former tenets to wit from holding those a foresaid Principles of Vnity in faith and Government or else graÌ„t that your selves actually separated from them both that is from our Church This my Lord is the separation which uniustify'd makes a criminall Schism Excommunication is onely the punishment due to the antecedent crime Order which consists in Government being essentiall to a Church if intended to continue it follows that since Christ intended his Church should continue hee constituted the order of the Church otherwise hee had not constituted a Church since a Church cannot bee without that which is essentiall to a Church Wherefore seing that which Christ instituted is of faith it follows that order of Government is of faith and so must bee recommended to us by the same Rule that other points of faith are Hence speaking of the two Principles one of Vnity in faith the other of Vnity in Government I affirmed that the truth of the latter is included in the former and hath it's Evidence from it Must not hee now bee very quarelsome who can wrangle with such an innocent and plain truth The iealous Bishop first alledges 't is done to gain the more opportunity to shuffle the latter usurpations of the Pope's into the ancient discipline of the Church Not a iot my Lord the standing to this Rule to wit the immediate delivery of fathers to sons attestation renders it impossible for an usurpation to enter Nor can you or any else instance that any usurpation either in secular or Ecclesiastical Government ever came in prerending that tenour or show that it ever could as long as men adhered to that method It must bee either upon wit explications of word in the laws or of ambiguous peeces of Antiquity not upon this immediate delivery from hand to hand in which wee place our Rule of faith that encroachments are built Had wee then a mind to obtrude usurpations upon you wee had recurr'd to testimony-proofs the Protestants onely method where with hath a large field to maintain a probability-skirmish of the absurdest positions imaginable not to this Rule of soe vast a multitude of eye-witnesses of visible things from age to age Which Rule is as impossible to bee crooked as it is for a world of fathers to conspire to tell a world of Children this ly that ten years ago they held and practised what themselves and all the world besides knew they did not His second exception is far more groundlesly quarrelsom 'T is against my making two Principles one in doctrine the other in discipline whereas euery Child sees that doctrine discipline or faith and Government make manifestly two distinet ranks or Orders the one relating immediately to information of the understanding or speculative holding the other to action But his reasons why they should bee but one are pretty because frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora It is in vain to make two rules where one will serve By which maxim rigorously misunderstood as 't is by him one may dispute against the making severall laws and severall Commandments with the like Logick and say all the treating them with distinction is vain because this one Commandment to do well or to do no ill includes all the rest Again hee imagins because the truth of one depends on the other therefore they ought not to bee treated distinctly as if it were vain or needles to deduce consequences or as if Mathematicians ought not to conclude any thing but hover still in the generall Principles of Euclid without making any progresse farther because the truth of the consequences depends on those Principles Are these men fit to write Controversies who cannot or will not write common sence After hee had been thus frivolously backward hee adds that hee readily admits both my first second Rule reduced into one in this subsequent form those doctrines and that discipline which wee inherited from our forefathers as the Legacy of Christ his Apostles ought solely to bee acknowledg'd for obligatory and nothing in them to bee changed that is substantial or essentiall See here Reader the right Protestant method which is to bring the Controversy from a determinate state to indetermination and confusion and from the particular thing to common words Wee point them out a determinate form of Government to wit that of one supreme Bishop in God's Church 't is known what it means 't is known that the acknowledgment of that Government is now and was at the time of the breach the bond of Vnity between those Churches which held that Government of which the Church of England was one 't is known they renounced this form of Government that is that which was and still is to the Church they formerly communicated with a bond of Vnity in discipline Again 't is known that wee hold the voice of the Church that is the consent of Catholick fathers immediately attesting that they received this doctrine from their forefathers infallible and that none cannot bee ignorant of what their fathers teach them bring them up in Which immediate receiving it from fathers wee call here inheritance These I say are determinate points manifesting themselves in their known particularities Now the Bishop instead of letting us know I or noe whether they broke that Principle of Vnity in discipline which 't is evident they did by renouncing the Pope's Authority or that Principle of Vnity in doctrine to wit Tradition delivery or handing down by immediate forefathers which 't is evident they did out of the very word Reformation which they own extoll Or instead of telling us what particular Rule of faith what particular form of Government they have introduc't into God's Church in room of the former He refers us to Platonick Ideas of both to bee found in Concavo Lunae wrapping them up in such generall terms as hee may bee
is whether obligation to belief can be without Infallibility He quibbles upon each word as if he would do strange things against it and makes up by his explications this worthy proposition that a Church which it is p. 16. l. 1. not strongly probable that it will erre and p. 16. l. 8 properly speaking knows not whether it erre or no may p. 16. l. 16. yet oblige men to obedience and them that cannot search to believe not positively and indeed as the Reader must conceive but onely so far as not to disbelieve that is that her self knowing nothing properly or positively can by consequence oblige none to believe any thing properly and positively but to obey onely Is not this a fine upshot of such an elaborate answer And when he hath done this then he addes another proposition Parag 22. which confesses all that he stumbled at before and which onely was in question Let us put a parallel to his manner of discourse Suppose one should affirm that a whole Apple is bigger than a half and maintain it because Totum est majus parte A whole is greater then a part Dr. H's manner of answering would work upon it in this sort First the word whole may signify a whole Mole hill or a whole Mountain a whole web of cloath or a whole thred Next the word majus or greater may signify greater in longitude in latitudine or in profundity Lastly the word pars may signify part of a Mole hill part of a Mountain part of a web c. This done he would joyn these together which are not the things in question as he did in the former of his two proposition and tell us that speaking of a Mole-hill and a Mountain 't is certain that part of a Mountain may not be greater than a whole Mole-hill and so likewise part of the web of cloth to wit a whole thred may not be greater in longitude than the whole web Then coming to the question adde a parallel to his second proposition and conclude in these words But as for an Apple and it's part speaking of the quantity belonging to a body that is profundity or bulk 't is granted that the whole Apple is greater than the half one which might as well have been granted at first and have excused all this trifling Sect. 12. What the Power of binding to Beleef consists in and how rationally our Church how irrationally the Protestants pretend to such a Power together with a Godly and edifying Sermon of Mr. H's according to his Doctrine when he disputes against us IT were not amiss here to clear this important point the better to lay open in brief what is this Power in the Church to bind her Sons to beleef and in what it consists For I doubt not but Mr. H. wonders and many judicious Protestant Readers may perhaps remain sollicitous to imagine how and in what manner there can be any power to force cōmand the Soul to an interiour beleef or assent But I hope this short hint will make them see that this power is founded upon free rationall Grounds not a tyrannical bare command of any authority whatsoever It is confest then that as a body cannot be moved locally but after a corporeal quantitative manner as is it's nature so neither can a soul which is of it's nature rational be moved to assent but by resons and motives whether true or false and were it moved otherwise it were not moved as a thing of such a nature that is it would not be a rational soul Now since pure Reason consists in inferring a connexion of two things or notions because of their joynt connexion with a third in the premisses and this also an immediate one for a connexion which is not immediate is in reality none at all at least to the Vnderstanding since in that case it sees it not it follows that the Soul is never moved out of pure Reason to any assent but by such an immediate connexion seen that is by Evidence and consequently all assents which have not this originall spring from impurity of passion that is from vice Wherefore since it is impossible God who is Essential Sanctity should command a vice it follows that as on the one side either he has left no power to oblige to assent or if he have it must be founded in Evidence so on the other if there be any authority on earth which can evidence her Certainty of what she sayes that Authority hath power to oblige others in vertue of the said Evidence to assent to what she shall affirm that is to oblige them to beleef for this is no harder a treaty than to bind them to that to which their own nature had bound them before-hand that is to assent upon Evidence To apply this then to the point in hand The Church obliges her Children to rest and continue in her beleef by the same motive by which she could oblige them when they were out of her to assent to her doctrine so far as concerns it's having been taught by Christ and his Apostles This motive is the proposal of her own Authority or of millions and millions of Fathers in the Catholick Church all conspiring to witness that those points of doctrine things visible and most concerning were received from their Ancestours as from their and so ascending upwards as from Christ The vertue by which this Authority or incomparable multitude of witnesses claims to be a motive and to have power to convince the Vnderstanding and so oblige to assent to their word that is to beleeve is the Evidence of the treble-twisted Impossibility that this Authority either would conspire in any age to attest so notorious an untruth and so pernicious to their own and their Children's eternal bliss or that they could either erre or mistake in things so visible or even contrive a conspiracy to embrace any one errour considering the several Countreys in which they liv'd dispers't and consequently their several natures obligations inclinations interest and other manifoldly-varying circumstances or lastly if they would and could that is did attest and so introduce an errour that it should not be most visible and palpable in most undeniable and manifest circumstances to the whole world being a change of things openly-evident in manifest and universal practice before and in a matter of highest concernment These impossibilities of erring in delivering any point of Faith render that Congregation evidently infallible which sticks close to this Rule of delivering onely what she received as thus attested The Evidence of her Infallibility obliges a rational nature to assent upon such an Authority that is to beleeve and consequently her Power to oblige Beleef is as firm as this Truth that Evidence obliges the Vnderstanding to assent which is reduced into this first principle that Idem est idem sibi ipsi or that Reason is Reason since the act of Reason adhering to truth is nothing else but an
assent sprung from Evidence From this short discourse follows first that our Churches Binding her children to beleef is evidently natural just charitable rational and necessary since she obliges them upon no other Ground than that which in it's own force had pre-obliged their nature to assent to wit Evidence Secondly that no man can revolt from the Faith of such an Authority to any other but through the highest degree of vice and passion since they would be found in this case to assent to another not onely without Evidence but against it Thirdly that therefore the Governours of the Church who proceed according to this power may justly punish and excommunicate those who recede from her Beleef founded in her Authority thus evidenced since this recession must spring from vice or a disorder'd affection in the will and vice all the world allows may be punished Fourthly that no tyranny can possibly be imputed to our Church as long as she proceeds upon such Grounds since she onely governs men according to their nature or Reason Fifthly that they who adhere to any other fallible Congregation upon onely probable that is inevident Grounds against her Authority thus evidenced being therefore as hath been shown in the highest degree vicious and passionate if they prove obstinate in it ought upon necessity to be Excommunicated cast out of the Church and separated from the Congregation of the Faithfull Reason showing plainly if no good can be done for their obstinate Souls order is to be taken that they do no hurt to the Souls of others Sixthly that all who forsake this infallible attestation of the Church they were in called Oral Tradition as did the Protestants in all points wherein they differ from us deserve this Excommunication since they left a pre-acknowledged Evidence and began to dogmatize upon acknowledg'd probabilities onely that is left proceeding to assent in that manner which was acknowledgedly rational connatural and virtuous and beginning to proceed in such a manner as is necessarily irrational unnatural and vicious Seventhly it follows that a Congregation which is fallible cannot without the greatest impudence in the world pretend to oblige rational Souls to assent upon her Authority since if she sees she may be in the wrong hic nunc in such a point she can have no Evidence that she is not actually deceived in it and so wanting Evidence to make good her Authority she wants whatsoever can oblige a rational Soul to assent upon her Authority Eighthly it follows hence that not onely the Independents Presbyterians c. may justly refuse to hear the Protestant Church which acknowledges her self fallible but that they sin if they should hear her since in that case they would be found to assent to an Authority without evidence of the veracity of that Authority Ninthly it follows that the Protestant Church acknowledging her self fallible and the like may be said of all fallible Congregations cannot even oblige the Independents Presbyterians c to behave themselves quietly within their Church and submit to their Government For in case that fallible Congregation oblige her Children to a subscription or declaration of their assent to her doctrine it were a vice either to assent without Evidence of authority which is wanting to a fallible Church or subscribe without a real inward assent as the Doctor himself confesses they may then resist such a command of that Church and express themselves contrary and disobedient Nay more if that Congregation be fallible it may possibly be in a damnable errour and some one or more may happen to see evidently that it is in such an errour and many of ordinary capacity rationally doubt what the others see now in that case why may not the former make account it is their obligatiō to oppose that Church and let men see their soul-endangering errour may maintain a party against her and defy her as one who would bring Souls to Hell by her doctrine As also why may not the latter rather than hazard the accepting a damnable errour adhere to this company of Revolters at least stand neutral between the Church and them Again since it hath been shown they may renounce the Faith of a fallible Church why may they not renounce her Government since her Faith must needs be as sacred as her Government which depends on Faith and is subordinate to it Government being chiefly to maintain Faith and such actions as proceed from Faith Neither is it lawfull yet to revolt against temporal Magistrates upon the score of their fallibility in case they oblige their Subjects onely to act or obey according to the civil State because that is a Government grounded onely upon natural reason instituted for natural ends and plainly evident it must be obey'd unavoydable inconveniences following upon disobedience which force us to confess there 's no safety for our lives or estates without this Obedience Tenthly it follows that Dr. H's denying any company of men on earth to be Infallible and by consequence to have power to bind to beleef is most exquisitely pernicious destroying at once all beleef and leaving no obligation in the world nay making it a sin to beleeve any Article of the Christian Faith For since neither Scripture nor the doctrine of the Primitive Church acknowledged by Dr. H. to have been built upon an Infallible Tradition can be evidenced to us but by some Authority faithfully conveying it down ever since that time if this Authority cannot be evidenced to be infallible no man is bound in reason to assent or believe either Scripture to be God's word or the Doctrine to be Christ's upon her Authority since there wants Evidence of that Authority's veracity which can onely oblige to assent nay more he must needs sin in precipitating his assent without Evidence to ground it on Eleventhly Dr. H. Answ p. 36. in another place grants that this universal attestation in which we found the Churche's Infallibility and all these deductions makes one as certain of a thing as if he had seen it with his own eyes and again confesses himself Infallibly certain of what he hath seen with his own eyes which is as much as we either say or desire Wherefore the good Doctor doth a◠once both confirm us and contradict himself Lastly it follows that it is the height of frivolousness for D. H. even to pretend excuse from obligation to beleeve our Church and assent to the doctrine of his own without most undeniable and rigorous Evidence both for the errableness of ours and the inerrableness of the Protestants Church By these brief deductions from that one evident Ground of the infallibility of Vniversal Attestation the prudent Reader will plainly see how consequently the Catholick Church proceeds to the grounds of Nature and Reason how inconsequently to both the Protestant Churches must necessarily goe when they would oblige either to Government or Faith Since Certainty and Evidence once renounced there remains nothing to move the Vnderstanding to
then hee runs on wildly and boldly challenging mee that I cannot show out of Scripture that S. Peter was at Rome that our own Authours say S. Peter might have dy'd at Antioch and the succession into his power have remain'd thâ—re c. Answers soe frivolous soe totally impertinet to the point in hand that I wonder how any man can have the patience to read such a trifler or the folly as to think him worth heeding To omitt that hee pick't these words which hee impugns here out of a paragraph following a leaf after which totally concern'd a dangerous and fundamentall point as shall presently bee seen and so it importing him to neglect it hee cull'd out and mistakingly glanc't at these few loose words which hee thought by a device of his own he could best deal with for a colour of his necessary negligence What hee adds of the Council of Chalcedon hath been answer'd an hundred times over and by mee Schism Disarm p. 109. 110. c. nor deserves any reiteration till hee urge it farther especially being soe rawly put down Onely because hee builds upon their giving equall priviledges to Constantinople without manifesting what those priviledges were wee shall take leave to think that as Rome still remain'd first in order as his late words granted and Protestants confess notwithstanding those equall priviledges so for any thing hee knows it might still remain Superiour in Iurisdiction and till hee evince that priviledges in that place mean't Iurisdiction to which the word will bee very loath hee is far from bringing it to our question or to any purpose His next task is a very substantiall and important one striking at the Rule and Root of all our faith yet by voluntary mistaking no less than every syllable of it hee quickly makes clear work with it Hee was told that wee hold our first Principle by this manifest Evidence that still the latter age could not bee ignorant of what the former believed and as long as it adhered to that method nothing could bee alter'd in it Which the wily Bp. answers by telling us that the Tradition of some particular persons or some particular Churches in particular points or opinions of an inferiour nature which are neither soe necessary to hee known nor firmly believed nor so publikely and uniuersally professed nor derived downwards from the Apostolicall age by such uninâ—or upted succession doth produce no such cerâ—aâ—nty either of Evidence or adherence Where First hee knows wee mean Tradition of all the Churches in Communion with the see of Rome that is of all who have not renounced this Rule of immediate Tradition for all who differ from her never pretended this immediâ—te delivery for those points in which they differ from her but receded from that Rule as the Apology for Tradition hath manifested indeed plain reason may inform us It being impossible and self condemning where there was an Vnity before for the beginners of a Novelty to pretend their immediate fathers had taught them that which the whole world sees they did not Now the Bp. talkes of Traditions of some particular persons or some particular Churches desirous to make his Readers believe wee rely on such a Tradition and so defective as hee expresses that is hee makes account our pretended Tradition must not bee styl'd universall unles it take in those persons and those Churche also who have formerly renounced and receded from this Rule of Tradition Which is as much as if hee had said a thing cannot bee absolutely white unles it bee black too Secondly wee speake of believing that is of points of faith but the Bp. talkes of opinions and those not concerning ones neither but as hee styles them opinions of an inferiour nature And then having by this sleight changed faith into opinion hee runs giddily forwards telling us fine things concerning questionable and controverted points of Opinions in the Schools and how hard a thing it is to know which opinion is most current c. Is not this sincerely done and strongly to the purpose Thirdly hee cants in these words So necessary to bee known I ask are they necessary or no If they bee not necessary why does hee seem to grant they are by saying onely that they are not so necessary But if they bee necessary then why does hee call them opinions onely and that too of an inferiour nature Can that bee necessary to bee held or known which hath no necessary Grounds to make it either held or known Opinions have neither Fourthly hee speaks of points not so publikeâ—y professed whereas every point of faith is publike and notorious being writ in the hearts of the faithfull by the teaching of their Parents and Pastouts sign'd by all their expressions and seal'd by their actions Nor is there any point of faith for example in which the Protestant differs from us which is not thus visible and manifesting our Church now and was then when they first broke from that doctrine of their immediate â—ncestours Fifthly hee speaks of points not universally professed that is if any heretick receding from immediate Tradition of his fathers shall start a novelty propagate it to posterity the Tradition and profession of this point in the Church must not bee said to bee universall because that heretick professes and delivers otherwise and so Socinians by the Bps argument may assist their cause and say it was not universally professed that Christ was God because the Arians anciently profest otherwise The like service it would do an Arian or any other Heretick to alledge as the Bp. does that the Christian world must bee vnited otherwise the Tradition is not certain for as long as that Heretick has a mind to call himself and his friends Christians which hee will ever do so long hee may cheaply cavill against the Authority of the whole Church But empty words shall not serve the Bps turn Let him either show us some more certain Rules to know who are Christians who not that is some certainer Rule of faith than is the immediate practicall delivery of a world of fathers to a world of sons oâ— else let him know that all those who have receded from this immediate delivery as did acknowledgd'ly the Protestants at the time of their Reformation as also the Greeks Arians c. in those points of faith in which they differ from us are not truly but improperly call'd Christians neither can they claim any share in Tradition or expect to bee accounted fellow-deliverers of faith who have both formerly renounced that Rule and broach't now doctrines against it which like giddy whirlpools run crossely to that constantly-and directly flowing stream Lastly hee requires to the Evidence and certainty of Tradition that it bee derived downwards from the Apostles by such an uninterrupted succession Wee are speaking of the Rule of faith itself that is of Tradition or the deriving points of faith from the Apostles immediately from age to age or if hee pleases from
imaginarily ghesses which you must conceive will bee in Antichrist's time who according to their principles will bee the Head of the Church And lastly that they have a gracious Prince for a politicall Head Whos 's inward right if it bee lost by long prescription as the whole world grants it many it follows that they can in that case pretend to no Head at all in case the successour hap to bee no Protestant But I wonder the Bishop is so discourteous to his own tenet that whereas they ever held the King to bee Head of the Church or cheif in Ecclesiasticall matters hee should now deny it and put him to bee onely a politicall Head as contradistinguish't from Ecclesiasticall that is give him no more then France Spain c. Vse to do to their Kings where the Pope's Headship is acknowledg'd Again wee ask not how they are one amongsts themselves in England under one pretended visible Head or Government but how they are one with the rest of the Christian world though having that pretended Head Is there any orderly common ty of Government obliging this Head to correspend with the other Head If not where is the Vnity or common Headship of the whole Church or how is England visibly united to it vnder this notion If there bee why should the Bp envy us the happy sight of this rarity which onely which would satisfy the point clear his credit vindicate his Church His cavill that sometimes wee have two or three Heads sometimes never an Head is false groundles since there can bee but one true or rightly-chosen Pope however there may bee more pretended ones and till hee who is chosen bee known euidenced to bee such the Headship or cheif Government is in the cheif Clergy of the chief see whom wee call Cardinalls unles a generall Council actually sit As secure a method for the peace Vnity of a Commonwealth govern'd by an elective power as mans wit can invent though as in all humane affairs the contingency of the subject admits sometimes of miscarriages sidings animosities Hee promises us to shew the Vnity of Protestant Churches amongst themselves that the Harmony of Confessions will demonstrata to the world that their Controversies are not so many nor of so great moment as imagining I answer that truly I am so far from imagining any thing concerning their differences that I know not even what the word Contreversy means till they give us some certain Rule to settle Controversies to tell us which Controversies are of faith which of opinion onely But does the Harmony of Confessions show us not in the common expressions of the word but in the particularity of the thing that they have one common certain Rule of faith infallibly securing then that such points no other were taught by Christ and his Apostles or any particular sort of Government obliging them to an Vnity under the notion of Governed as a common ty Nothingless that is it does less than nothing and leaves my other objection good that otherwise they have no more Vnity then a body composed of Turks Iews Hereticks and Christians Nor does the Bp. disprove it otherwise than by reckoning up again the former motives to Vnity in affections out of S. Paul Six of which are invisible and some of them equally pretendable nay actually pretended by Turks Hereticks c. As deniable to them by him nor can they be in reason refused them till hee gives us some certain Rule of faith obligingly satisfactorily convincing that such sects in particular are to be admitted such to bee absolutely rejected which hee will never do without entangling himself worse than formerly And as for Baptism the seveâ—th motive 't is out of doubt amongst all the world that Hereticks may have true Baptism though the Bp. here forgets himself says the contrary At least the Turks Ianisaries who are children of Christians so Baptised cannot bee refused according to his Grounds to bee his Brother-Protestants this being the onely visible ty the Protestants have with the three parts of the world the Bp. so brags of Lastly I alledged that their pretended faith consisted in vnknown fundamentalls which is a meere Shist untill they exhibit a list of such points prove them satisfactorily that they onely they are essentiall to Christian Communion Hee replies they need not do it Why mee thinks the point seems very needfull yes but the Apostles have done it hee sayes to their hands in the creed And how proves hee that the Apostles intended this creed as a list of all fundamentalls onely for hee put neither before nor yet here any other proof in that the Primitive Church saith hee hath ordained that no more should bee exacted of any of Turks or Iews in point of faith when they were converted from Paganism or Iewism to Christianity And how proves hee the Primitive Church exacted no more out of his own manifold falsification of the Council of Ephesus already manifested Sect. 1. And this is the whole Ground of his certainty that those points are onely fundamentall or that they have any list of fundamentalls and consequently that there is any Grounds of Vnity in materiall points amongst the Protestant Churches or that they are of the Church since the Church hath in her self Grounds of Vnity I omit that the learned Bp. makes account Turks are Pagans or to bee converted from Paganism whereas 't is known they acknowledge a God and affirms that the Primitive Church in the Council of Ephesus for to this hee relates as appears p. 5. held in the year 430. order'd any thing concerning Turks which sect sprang not till the year 630. that is 200. years after Both good sport did not the Bp. cloy us with such scenes of mirth Again when hee saies the Apostles creed is a list of all fundamentalls either hee means the letter of the creed and then hee grants Socinians Arians to bee Christians both which admit the letter of the creed interpreted their own way and excludes the Puritans from all hopes of Salvation for denying a fundamentall towit Christs descent into Hell Or else hee means the sence of the creed and then hee excludes the Roman Catholikes whom yet in other circumstances hee acknowledges to bee of the Church for they hold some Articles found there in another sence than do the Protestants Let him then prove evidently that no points of faith were held formerly as necessary save those Articles in the Apostles creed next tell us whether hee means the letter onely or the sence of the creed then show us satisfactorily which is the onely true sence of it and lastly apply that piece of doctrine to particulars and so show us which sects are of the Church which excluded wee shall remain very much edifyd Sect. 9. How the Bp. of Derry falsifies his Adversary's words brings a Testimony against himself attended by a direct contradiction which hee
whereof England was one It claimed Vniuersal Tradition for it's tenour an Authority held of great efficacy by our very Adversaries the rejecting it if groundless was known to be an hainous Schism and to unknit the whole frame of the Churche's present Government which by consequence must render it in an high degree damnable to those who should go about to violate it Now then let us consider whether a Reason in it's own nature probable for except rigorous Evidence no reason can be more and no way in it's self obliging the Vnderstanding to assent be a sufficient and secure motive to reject an Authority of so long continuance held sacred and of Christ's Institution of such importance to the peace of the Church in rejecting which if one happen to mistake he is liable to the horrid vice of Schism and it 's condign punishment eternal damnation It must then be most peâ—fect demonstrative Evidence such as forces the understanding to assent which can in common prudence engage a man to hazard his salvation by renouncing that Authority Let Dr. H. then remember that they must be such kind of Evidences which can serve his turn not any ordinary common sleight testimony-proofs which for the most part arrive not to the pitch of a poor probability in them selves but compar'd to the tenour of our Government Vniversal Tradition vanish into aire or which is less into nothing To make this yet clearer let us suppose as it happens in our case that they who began to reform in this point first and to deny the lawfulness of this Authority were bred up formerly in a contrary belief ortherwise they must have received it from their Fathers which would quite spoil the supposition of being the first Reformers Neither is it likely that multitudes began to think or speak against it all in one instant but either one or some few chief who propagated it by suggesting it to the rest Now then let us consider what motives are sufficient to oblige these men to this new-begun disbelief and disobedience so as to absolve them even in common prudence from a most self-conceited pride and desperate precipitancy In prejudice of them is objected that heretofore they held that forme of Government as of Faith and acknowledged to receive it upon the same sole certain Rule of Faith which assured them that Christ was God the whole Church they left had confessedly for some ages held the same so that it was now found in quiet Possession If they were learned they could not but in some measure penetrare the force of Vniversal Tradition which stood against them in this point since orall Tradition of which we speak was pleaded by Catholicks for this point but never so much as pretented by the separaters against it because Reformation in a point of Faith and Tradition of it destroy one the other In a word should all these most ponderous Considerations be waved and onely the Authority of the Church they left consider'd t' is impossible they should reform unless they should conclude millions of Doctours which had been in the Church many of them reverenced even yet by the Protestants for their admirable learning to be ignorant in comparison of themselves or else all insincere and to have wronged their Conscience in holding and teaching against their knowledge Now let any ingenuous person consider whether such a strange self-extolling judgment and condemning others ought in reason be made by a few men against the aforesaid most important motives without a most undeniable and open Evidence able to demonstrate palpably and convincingly that this pretended Government was unjust and usurp't And if the first Reformers could have no just and lawfull that is evident Ground to begin their disobedience to that Government neither can their Proselytes and Successours the Protestanrs have any pretence for continuing it since in matters belonging to Eternity whose nature is unchangeable by the occurrence of humane circumstances none can lawfully adhere to that which could never lawfully be begun Neither are there any proofs against that Authority producible now which were not producible then The seventh ground is that No Evidence can possibly be given by the Protestants obliging the understanding to beleeve that this Authority was usurp't This is proved by the case of the first Reformers now explicated whose words could not in any reason be imagin'd evident against such an universall Verdict of the whole Church they left and particularly of all the learned men in it incomparably and confessedly more numerous and as knowing as any have been since Yet we shall further evince it thus They pretend not to any evidence from natural Principles concluding demonstratively that the former Government was usurp't nor yet from oral Tradition since their immediate Forefathers deliver'd them other doctrine else the Reformation could never have begun against our common Supposition Their Grounds then must be testimonial proofs from Scriptures Fathers or Councils But since these are most manifestly liable to be interpreted divers ways as appears de facto no sufficient assurance can be pretended hence without evidencing either more skill to fetch out their certain sense or more sincerity to acknowledge what they knew than was found in the Church they left a task I am perswaded few will undertake I am confident none can perform since all the world knows that the vast number of eminent and learned Doctors we have had in the process of so many ages and extent of so many Countries were persons not meanly vers't in Scriptures Fathers Councills yet held all these most consonantâ—to the Catholick doctrine though the polemical vein of the Schools which left nothing not throughly ventilated gave them ample occasion to look into them Adde to this that our late Doctors and Controvertists have not feared nor neglected to answer all those testimonies and produce a far greater number out of all the said Authorities nor have they behaved themselves so in those conflicts that the indifferent part of the world have held them non-sensical which surely they would had they deemed the other a perfect and rigorous Evidence From hence followes that though they may blunder and make a show with testimonies yet in reality they can never produce sufficient that is evident reasons thence for rejecting a Government qualify'd with so many circumstances to confirm and establish it Though I must confess if they could demonstrate by evident and unavoidable connexion of termes from some undeniable authority that this Government was unjust their Vnderstandings would in that case be obliged to assent to that inference But this is not to be hoped as long as divers words have divers significations as divers Sentences by reference to divers others put on different faces or by relation to several circumstances in history give us occasion to raise several conjectures Again if Evidence were easily producible from such kind of wordish testimonies yet they would still be as far to seek for an Authority
he very putting the Errour on the Churche's side takes away all obligation to believe her and by consequence justifyes all erroneous consciences Thus is the Wind-mill finish't at Dr. H's proper cost and charges although he sayes he contributed not the least stone or timber so truly liberal noble he is that after such profuseness he will not own nor acknowledge his bounty to his very Adversaries Next to these faults which Dr. H. hath committed in pleading for a weak conscience follows his sin of omission I mean his neglect to answer my seventeenth eighteenth pages which obliged him to speak out and say either I or no to two points which are horrible Bull-beggers to him wheresoever he meets them The first is whether all assent of the Vnderstanding which comes not from perfect and demonstrative Evidence springs not from passion and vice The second whether he and his Friends have such Evidence that our Church erred in delivering as of Faith that the Pope as Successour of S. Peter was Head of the Church These two points I made account were the two main hinges on which that door turns which must shut them out of or keep them in the Church and therefore expected not that he should produce his Evidence here but that he should have given some answer either affirmative or negative to them But Grounds are very perillous edged tooles to meddle with and cut the throat of errour at one slash which costs much hacking and hewing when a Controversy is managed by debating particularities Again the nature of Grounds is to entrench so near upon the first principles and their termes are for the most part so unquestionably evident that they leave no elbow-room for a shuffler to bestir his mock-reason in which in particulars not so capable of scientifical proofs especially in testimony-skirmishe seldom or never want And therefore Dr. H. who is of that Generation of Controvertists and very prudent in it dit wisely omit to meddle with these points though in that place he had ample occasion to treat of them But to proceed Mr. Knot had affirm'd that we may forsake the Churche's Communion in case she be fallible and subject to errour Dr. H. inferred hence of Schism p. 20. that it was lawfull if this were true to forsake Communion of all but Angels and Saints and God in heaven his reason was because onely they were infallible and impeccable To maintain the infallible certainty of Faith against this man who would bring all to probability I gave some instances to let him understand that Infallibility in men on earth was not so impossible a matter as he fancies Glancing also at his addition of Impeccable since the controversy there being about our tenet which is Infallibility the mingling it with Impeccability was a tacite calumny intimating to the weaker Readers that this was also out tenet or part of it To these Dr H. pretends an answer but so full of contradictions both to himself and common sense that it would be tedious to enumerate them It were not amiss first to put down our plain tenet which as far as it concerns this present controversy is this That since it is unworthy the Wisdom and Goodness of Almighty God who sent his Son to save mankind not to first lay and then leave efficacious means for that end which means considering the nature of mankind to which they were to be apply'd are no other than efficacious motives efficacioully proposed to make him forsake temporary and fleeting Goods and embrace Intellectual Eternal ones his onely Felicity with which the affections to the former are inconsistent again since these motives cannot be efficaciously proposed to the Vniversality of mankind unless Faith the doctrine of them be certain hence to ascertain Faith Christ gave testimony to his doctrine by doing such prodigious miracles as no man did before and when he left us unless he had left also some means to propose certainly those motives to future mankind his coming had been in a manner voyd for asmuch as concern'd posterity and the rational and convincing certainty of his doctrine and by consequence the efficacy of it had been terminated in those few which himself by his preaching and miracles converted Hence it was necessary the Apostles should also ascertain his and their doctrine by the extraordinary testification of miracles The multitudes of believers encreasing the ordinary and common working of miracles began to cease and controversies beginning to rise between those who pretended to the Law of Christ the consent of Christians in all Nations was now sufficient to convince that that was Christ's doctrine and true which the Apostles Successours told them they had received from the Apostles themselves For it was not possible so many dispers't in several Nations should conspire to a palpablely in a visible practicall and known thing cōcerning their eternal Interest They had nothing else now to doe but to attest what they had received Christ being unanimously acknowledg'd a perfect Law giver there needed no new revelations to patch and mend his noway-defective doctrine The Company of Believers multiplying daily and spreading this attestation encreased still and grew incomparable stronger and the impossibility of either voluntarily lying or involuntarily mistaking became every day greater and greater In this universal delivery from hand to hand called Tradition or to avoid equivocation Oral Tradition we place the impossibility of the Churche's conspiring to erre in attesting things most palpable and most important which we call her Infallibility Vpon this we receive God's written word hence we hold our Faith infallibly-certain that is so true as it cannot but be true as far as concerns that Christ his Apostles taught such doctrine hence lastly to come nearer home we hold for certain and of Faith that S. Peter is Chief of the Apostles and the Pope his Successour and that the renouncers of his Authority are Hereticks and Schismaticks since this sole-certain Rule of all Faith Oral Tradition now shown to be infallible recommended it to us as delivered from immediate Fore-fathers as from theirs and so upwards time out of mind which Rule the first Reformers in this point most manifestly renounced when they renounced that Authority For they could not have been the first Reformers had they found it delivered by Oral Tradition By this is shown first in what we place the Infallibility of the Church not in the bare words of a few particular men but in the manifest and ample attestation of such a multitude as cannot possibly conspire to tell a lie to wit in attesting onely that Christ's doctrine which is of a most concerning nature and of a most visible quality was taught to a world of Children by a world of Fore-fathers This clear and short explication of our tenet premised let us see how weakly Dr. H. hath proceeded in this dangerous point His first weakness is that he thinks Mr. Knot 's saying very strange that we might
according to their Grounds can be sayd to pray for us at all in particular on Good friday or for our conversion as he forget-full of his own tenet affirms Their prayer is this Mercifull god who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou hast made nor wouldest the death of a Sinner but rather that he should be converted and live have mercy upon all Iews Turks Infidells and Hereticks c. Fetch them home to thy flock that they may be saved c. I ask now under which of these heads does he place Papists when he pretends their cōversion is here pray'd for in particular Vnder that of Hereticks How can this stand with his Principles who acknowledges ours a true Church that is not hereticall and lately told us as a point of his Churches Moderation that she forbears to censure others Again they grant us to be of Christ's flock already in a capacy to be saved whereas those they pray for here are supposed reducible to Christ's flock that is not yet of it and by being thus reduced capable of Salvation that is incapable of it before they be thus reduced none of these therefore are competent to us nor are we prayed for there as Hereticks if his own Grounds his own pretended Moderation are to be held to by himself Much less will he say we are pray'd for there under the notion of Iews Turcks or Infidels for this were to censure us worse nor was ever pretended by Protestants It follows then that our conversion in particular is not there pray'd for at all but that there is such a pittifull dissonancy between the pretended Church of England's doctrine her practice that her greatest Bp's Doctors cannot make sence of one related to the other Nay more since hee culls out this Good friday prayer for the speciall externall work of their charity towards us and that this cannot concern us at all without a self contradiction it follows that their other externall works argue no charity at all towards us And this is the great inward charity the Bp. brags of as a proof of their due Moderation He adds that we excommunicate them once a year that is the day before Good-friday I reply that to expect a Church should not excommunicate those whom she holds to be Schismaticks and Hereticks is at once to be ignorant of the Churches constant practice and the common Principles of Government It being equally evident that the Church in all ages tooke this course with obstinate Adversaries of faith as it is that Society in the world can subsist without putting a distinction and separating avowed enemies and Rebels from true subjets friends If then they hold us Hereticks and unles they hold us such they do not pray for us in particular as is pretended they ought in all reason to excommunicate as indeed sometimes they did some particular Catholikes in their Churches though not all our Church in generall their new started congregation was conscious to herself that she had no such Authority which made her also instead of those words in our Good-friday prayer ad sanctam Matrem Ecclesiam Catholicam atque Apostolicam revocare digneris recall them to our holy Mother the Catholike Apostolike Church vary the grave and too authoritative phrase too loud alas for her as taken in contra distinction to us into that dwindling puling puritanicall expressions of one flock the rem nant of the true Israelites one fold under one Shepheard c. equally pretendable if taken alone by Quakers as by them since they include no visible Marks in their notion which can satisfy us of any distinction between the one the other The third proof of their Moderation is that they added nothing but took away onely from the former doctrines of the Church which he expresses by saying they pluck up the weeds but retain all the plants of saving truths I answer'd that to take away goodnes is the greatest evill c. He replies that he spake of taking away errors No my L d this was not the intent of your discourse there both because you pretended there to prove something whereas I conceive to rely on onely the cheap saying that all is erroneous you tooke away proves nothing but is a meere self supposition as also because it is not a proof of Moderation to take away errors but a rigorously requisite act of Iustice Your intent then was to show the Moderation in your method of proceeding which you pretended all the way long to have been that you added no new thing but onely took away something of the old This I glanc't at as a fond and idle pretence since till you prove evidently and demonstrably from your new Rule of faith that the former of immediate Tradition which asserted those points denied by you did there in erre the presumption stands against you that it was Christ's doctrine which you maimed by thus detracting from it or if you suppose gratis that 't was not Christ's doctrine but errors falshoods then it is not proper to call it Moderation but rather an act of necessary charity to root it out I know it is an easy matter to call all weeds which your nice stomachs cannot digest but if that point of immediate Tradition renounced by you which onely could ascertain us that there was any such thing as Christ or God's word be a weed I wonder what can deserve to be called a flower What he vapours of holding what the primitive fathers iudged necessary and now Catholike Church does is an emptie brag vanishes into smoak by it self since as shall shortly bee shown their Grounds can never determin what is the Catholike or universall Church In order to the same proof of his Moderation I likewise answered that he who positively denies ever adds the contrary to what he takes away and that he who makes it an Article that there is no Purgatory no mass no prayer to Saints has as many Articles as he who holds the contrary He replies that he knows the contrary instancing that they neither hold it an Article of faith that there is a Purgatory nor that there is none I ask what kinde of things are their thirty nine Articles Are they of faith or opinions onely I conceive his Lp. will not say they are meere opinions but contra-distinctive of the Protestant faith from ours at least the good simple Ministers were made beleeve so when they swore to maintain them and unles they had certainty as strongly grounded as divine beleef for those points or Articles how could they in reason reject the cōtrary tenets which they held by divine beleef Now the 22. Article defines the negative to Purgatory three other points of our doctrine yet this ill-tutour'd Child tells his old crasy mother the Church of England that she lies that he knows the contrary Now his reason is better then his position 't is this because a negative cannot be
in that Council and yet bee a lawfull one too Rub up your memory my L d. you pretend to bee a piece of a Lawyer and I beleeve you will finde an English law that Sixty members is a sufficient number to make a lawfull Parliament and before that law was made common consent custome which is either equivalent or perhaps above law gave the same for granted Fourthly he excepts against the super proportion'd multitude of members out of one Province which hee sayes never lawfull Parliament had I ask if other Provinces would neither send a fit number nor they had a minde to come by what law by what reason should it render illegitimate either Parliament or Council Now 't is certain and not deny'd by any but that Bishop's had as free liberty to come out of other Provinces as out of Italy had they pleased Again the principall busines being to testify the Tradition of former ages a small number of Bishops serving for that and the collaterall or secundary busines being to examin the difficulties those Hereticks which were the occasion of the Council produced that they might be confuted fully out of their own mouthes which is a thing to bee performed by committees in which learned men that were not Bishops might sit it little inferred the want of Bishops Wherefore if there were any error in the supernumerarines of Bishops out of some one Province it was for some other end than for the condemnation of Heresies so is nothing to our purpose unles perhaps my L d will pretend that had those Catholike B p' s out of other Provinces been there they would have voted against their fellow Catholikes in behalf of Luther or Calvin which were a wise Answer indeed Fifthly hee excepts that the Council of Trent is not received in France in point of Discipline What then why by his parallell to a Parliament hee concludes hence t was no lawfull Council Which is to abuse the eyes of the whole world who all see that France who denies the admission of those points of Discipline acknowledges it not withstanding a generall lawfull Council and receives it in all determinations belonging to faith which are so essential to it as it were disacknowledg'd were they deny'd though not in matters of fact which are accidentall to it's Authority nay allow'd by the Church it self however made exprest generally to binde particular countries onely in due circumstances according to their conveniencies Lastly hee alledges that they were not allow'd to speak freely in the Council of Trent Which is a flat calumny and though most important to his cause could hee prove it yet after his bold custome 't is onely asserted by his own bare saying by Sleidan a notoriously lying Author of their own side and by a passage or two in the History of the Council of Trent whereof the first is onely a ieering expression any thing will serve the B p. the other concerning the Pope's creating new Bp's nothing at all to his purpose since both these new the other old B p' s were all of one Religion Catholikes so not likely to dissent in voâ—ing Doctrines which kind of votes are essentiall to a Council pertinent to our discourse which is about Doctrines not about Discipline After this hee puts down three solutions as hee calls them to our plea of the Patriarchall Authority First that Britain was no part of the Roman Patriarchate And this hee calls his first solution Secondly that though it had been yet the Popes have both quitted forfeited their Patriarchall power and though they had not yet it is lawfully transferred And this is his second solution The third is that the difference between them and us is not concerning any Patriarchall Authority And this is his third solution which is a very really good one shows that the other need no reply our charge against them being for renouncing the supreme Ecclesiasticall Authority of divine Institution not a Patriarchate onely of humane Institution If further answer bee demanded first the Greek Schismaticks our enemies confess that England was a part of the Pope's Patriarchate if it bee truly called a Western Church see Barlaam Monachus de Papae Principatu c. 11 and Part. 1. Sect. 15. of the adjoyning Treatise Next it is falsely pretended that the Pope's have either quitted or forfeited their Patriarchall Authority and may with equall reason bee concluded that a Bishop quits Episcopall Authority if hee is also a Patriarch or that a person must leave of to be Master of his own family because hee is made King and his Authority universally extended to all England Which last instance may also serve against the pretended inconsistency of the Papall and Patriarchall power if it need any more answer than what hath formerly been given Sect. 4. I omit his calumnies against the Papall Authority charactering it falsly as a meere unbridled tyranny And his thrice repeated non-sence when hee joyns in one notion Patriarchall Authority a Patriarchy being a Government by one an Aristocracy by many Nor is his other calumniating expression much better when hee calls the Papall Authority a Soveraign Monarchicall Royalty since it was never pretended by Catholikes that the Pope is the King of the Church The notion of Priest and Sacrifice being relative the failing of the one destroyes the other since then the Protestants have no Sacrifice they are convinced to have no Priests This point in particular hee never touch't but talk't a little in obscure terms of matter form of ordination as if it were not an easy thing to say what words they pleased and do what actions they pleased To this the Bishop onely replies that hee over did and set down the point of Sacrifice over distinctly Next hee tells us their Registers are publike offices whether any man may repair at pleasure whereas our question is not of the Registers in generall but of that one particular pretended Register of the right ordination of Protestant Bishops kept conceal'd from the free perusall of Catholikes though the circumstances to wit their alledging the unlawfulnes of the Protestant Bishops ordination requir'd it should bee shown His next paragraph concerning their uncharitablenes needs not bee repeated unles it could be mended My expedient to procure peace Vnity which was to receive the root of Christianity a practicall infallibility in the Church hee seems willing to admit of Onely hee adds that the greater difficulty will bee what this Catholike Church is and indeed to his party 't is an insuperableone though to us most facil as I have shown formerly Sect. 7. Hee call'd the Bishops of Italy the Pope's parasiticall pentioners I reply'd it seem'd his Lordship Kept a good table and had great revenews independent on any Hee answers hee was not in passion and that hee Spoke onely against meer Episcopelles which is to show that his passion is nothing abated yet by adding such unsavory