first you content not your selves with a moral certainty of the things you believe nor with such a degree of assurance of them as is sufficient to produce obedience to the condition of the new Covenant which is all that we require God's Spirit if he please may work more a certainty of adherence beyond a certainty of evidence But neither God doth nor man may require of us as our duty to give a greater assent to the conclusion than the premisses deserve to build an Infallible Faith upon Motives that are only highly credible and not infallible as it were a great and heavy building upon a foundation that hath not strength proportionable But though God require not of us such unreasonable things You do and tell men They cannot be saved unless they believe your Proposals with an infallible Faith To which end they must believe also your Propounder your Church to be simply Infallible Now how is it possible for them to give a rational assent to the Churches infallibility unless they have some infallible means to know that she is infallible Neither can they infallibly know the infallibility of this means but by some other and so on for ever unless they can dig so deep as to come at length to the Rock that is to settle all upon something evident of it self which is not so much as pretended But the last resolution of all is into Motives which indeed upon examination will scarce appear probable but are not so much as avouched to be any more than very credible For example if I ask you Why you do believe Transubstantiation What can you answer but because it is a Revelation of the Prime Verity I demand again How can you assure your self or me of that being ready to embrace it if it may appear to be so And what can you say but that you know it to be so because the Church says so which is infallible If I ask What mean you by your Church You can tell me nothing but the company of Christians which adhere to the Pope I demand then further Why should I believe this company to be the infallible Propounder of Divine Revelation And then you tell me that there are many Motives to induce a man to this belief But are these Motives lastly infallible No say you but very credible Well let them pass for such because now we have not leisure to examine them Yet methinks seeing the Motives to believe the Churches infallibility are only very credible it should also be but as credible that your Church is Infallible and as credible and no more perhaps somewhat less that her proposals particularly Transubstantiation are Divine Revelations And me-thinks you should require only a Moral and modest assent to them and not a Divine as you call it and infallible Faith But then of these Motives to the Churches Infallibility I hope you will give us leave to consider and judge whether they be indeed Motives and sufficient or whether they be not Motives at all or not sufficient or whether these Motives or inducements to your Church be not impeached and opposed with Compulsives and enforcements from it or lastly Whether these Motives which You use be not indeed only Motives to Christianity and not to Popery give me leave for distinction-sake to call your Religion so If we may not judge of these things How can my judgment be moved with that which comes not within its cognizance If I may then at least I am to be a Judg of all these Controversies 1. Whether every one of these Motives be indeed a Motive to any Church 2. If to some whether to Your 3. If to Yours whether sufficient or insufficient 4. Whether other Societies have not as many and as great Motives to draw me to them 5. Whether I have not greater reason to believe you do err than that you cannot And now Sir I pray let me trouble You with a few more Questions Am I a sufficient Judge of these Controversies or no If of these why shall I stay here why not of others Why not of all Nay doth not the true examining of these few contain and lay upon me the examination of all What other Motives to your Church have you but your Notes of it Bellarmine gives some 14. or 15. And one of these fifteen contains in it the examination of all Controversies and not only so but of all uncontroverted Doctrines For how shall I or can I know the Church of Rome's conformity with the Ancient Church unless I know first what the Ancient Church did hold and then what the Church of Rome doth hold and lastly whether they be conformable or if in my judgment they seem not conformable I am then to think the Church of Rome not to be the Church for want of the Note which she pretends is proper and perpetual to it So that for ought I can see Judges we are and must be of all sides every one for himself and God for us all 155. Ad § 26. I answer This Assertion that Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith if it be taken properly is neither a Fundamental nor Unfundamental point of Faith nor no point of Faith at all but a plain falshood It is not a Judge of Controversies but a Rule to judge them by and that not an absolutely perfect Rule but as perfect as a written Rule can be which must always need something else which is either evidently true or evidently credible to give attestation to it and that in this case is Universal Tradition So that Universal Tradition is the Rule to judge all Controversies by But then because nothing besides Scripture comes to us with as full a stream of Tradition as Scripture Scripture alone and no unwritten Doctrin nor no Infallibility of any Church having attestation from Tradition truly Universal for this reason we conceive as the Apostles persons while they were living were the only Judges of Controversies so their Writings now they are dead are the only Rule for us to judge them by There being nothing unwritten which can go in upon half so fair cards for the Title of Apostolike Tradition as these things which by the confession of both Sides are not so I mean the Doctrine of the Millenaries and of the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants 156. Yet when we say The Scripture is the only Rule to judge all Controversies by me-thinks you should easily conceive that we would be understood of all those that are possible to be judged by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture For if I had a Controversie with an Atheist whether there were a God or no I would not say that the Scripture were a Rule to judge this by seeing that doubting whether there be a God or no he must needs doubt whether the Scripture be the Word of God or if he does not he grants the Question and is not the man we speak of
Teacher why are we commanded to hear to seek to obey the Church I answer For Commands to seek the Church I have not yet met with any and I believe you if you were to shew them would be your self to seek But yet if you could produce some such we might seek the Church to many good purposes without supposing her a Guide infallible And then for hearing and obeying the Church I would fain know Whether none may be heard and obeyed but those that are Infallible Whether particular Churches Governors Pastors Paretns be not to be heard and obeyed Or whether all these be infallible I wonder you will thrust upon us so often these worn-out Objections without taking notice of their Answers 42. Your Argument from S. Austines first place is a Fallacy A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter If the whole Church practise any of these things matters of order and decency for such only there he speaks of to dispute whether that ought to be done is insolent madness And from hence you inferr If the whole Church practise any thing to dispute whether it ought to be done is insolent madness As if there were no difference between any thing and any of these things Or as if I might not esteem it pride and folly to contradict and disturb the Church for matter of order pertaining to the time and place and other circumstances of Gods worship and yet account it neither pride nor folly to go about to reform some errors which the Church hath suffered to come in and to vitiate the very substance of Gods worship It was a practice of the whole Church in S. Austines time and esteemed an Apostolique Tradition even by Saint Austin himself That the Eucharist should be administred to Infants Tell me Sir I beseech you Had it been insolent madness to dispute against this practice or had it not If it had how insolent and mad are you that have not only disputed against it but utterly abolished it If it had not then as I say you must understand Saint Austines words not simply of all things but as indeed he himself restrained them of these things of matter of Order Decency and Uniformity 43. In the next place you tell us out of him That that which hath been alwaies kept is most rightly esteemed to come from the Apostles Very right and what then Therefore the Church cannot erre in defining of Controversies Sir I beseech you when you write again do us the favour to write nothing but Syllogisms for I find it still an extreame trouble to find out the concealed Propositions which are to connect the parts of your Enthymems As now for example I profess unto you I am at my wits end and have done my best endeavour to finde some glue or sodder or cement or chain or thred or any thing to tye this antecedent and this consequent together and at length am enforced to give it over and cannot do it 44. But the Doctrines That Infants are to be baptized and those that are baptized by Heretiques are not to reâ— baptized are neither of them to be proved by Scripture And yet according to S. Austine they are true Doctrines and we may be certain of them upon the Authority of the Church which we could not be unless the Church were Infallible therefore the Church is infallible I answer that there is no repugnance but we may be certain enough of the Universal Traditions of the ancient Church such as in S. Austins account these were which here are spoken of and yet not be certain enough of the definitions of the present Church Unless you can shew which I am sure you can never do that the Infallibility of the present Church was alwaies a Tradition of the Ancient Church Now your main business is to prove the present Church infallible not so much in consigning ancient Tradition as in defining emergent Controversies Again it follows not because the Churches Authority is warrant enough for us to believe some Doctrin touching which the Scripture is silent therefore it is Warrant enough to believe these to which the Scripture seems repugnant Now the Doctrines which S. Austin received upon the Churches Authority were of the first sort the Doctrines for which we deny your Churches Infallibility are of the second And therefore though the Churches Authority might be strong enough to bear the weight which S. Austin laid upon it yet haply it may not be strong enough to bear that which you lay upon it Though it may support some Doctrines without Scripture yet surely not against it And last of all to deal ingenuously with You and the World I am not such an Idolater of S. Austin as to think a thing proved sufficiently because he says it not that all his sentences are Oracles and particularly in this thing that whatsoever was practised or held by the Universal Church of his time must needs have come from the Apostles Though considering the neerness of his time to the Apostles I think it a good probable way and therefore am apt enough to follow it when I see no reason to the contrary Yet I profess I must have better satisfaction before I can induce my my self to hold it certain and infallible And this not because Popery would come in at this door as some have vainly feared but because by the Church Universal of some time and the Church Universal of other times I see plain contradictions held and practised Both which could not come from the Apostles for then the Apostles had been teachers of falshood And therefore the belief or practice of the present Universal Church can be no infallible proof that the Doctrine so believed or the Custom so practised came from the Apostles I instance in the Doctrine of the Millenaries and the Eucharists necessity for Infants both which Doctrines have been taught by the consent of the eminent Fathers of some Ages without any opposition from any of their Contemporaries and were delivered by them not as Doctors but as Witnesses not as their own opinions but as Apostolike Traditions And therefore measuring the Doctrin of the Church by all the Rules which Cardinal Perron gives us for that purpose both these Doctrins must be acknowledged to have been the Doctrins of the ancient Church of some Age or Ages And that the contrary Doctrines were Catholique at some other time I believe you will not think it needful for me to prove So that either I must say the Apostles were Fountains of contradictious Doctrines or that being the Universal Doctrin of the present Church is no sufficient proof that it came originally from the Apostles Besides who can warrant us that the Universal Traditions of the Church were all Apostolical seeing in that famous place for Traditions in Tertullian (a) De Corona Militis c. 3. 4. Where having recounted sundry unwritten Traditions then observed by Christians many whereof by the way notwithstanding the Councel of
Writer Michael de Montaigne was surely of a far different minde for he will hardly allow any Physitian competent but only for such diseases as himself had passed through And a far greater than Montaigne even he that said Tu conversus confirma fratres gives us sufficiently to understand that they which have themselves been in such a state as to need conversion are not thereby made incapable of but rather engaged and obliged unto and qualified for this charitable function 42. Neither am I guilty of that strange and preposterous zeal as you esteem it which you impute to me for having been so long careless in removing this scandal against Protestants and answering my own Motives and yet now shewing such fervor in writing against others For neither are they other Motives but the very same for the most part with those which abused me against which this Book which I now publish is in a maner wholly imployed And besides though you Jesuits take upon you to have such large and universal intelligence of all State-affairs and matters of importance yet I hope such a contemptible matter as an Answer of mine to a little piece of paper may very probably have been written and escaped your Observation The truth is I made an Answer to them three years since and better which perhaps might have been published but for two reasons One because the Motives were never publique until you made them so The other because I was loath to proclaim to all the world so much weakness as I shewed in suffering my self to be abused by such silly Sophisms All which proceed upon mistakes and false suppositions which unadvisedly I took for granted as when I have set down the Motives in order by subsequent Answers to them I shall quickly demonstrate and so make an end 43. The Motives then were these 1. Because perpetuall visible profession which could never be wanting to the Religion of Christ nor any part of it is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so far as concerns the points in contestation 2. Because Luther and his Followers separating from the Church of Rome separated also from all Churches pure or impure true or false then being in the World upon which ground I conclude that either Gods promises did fail of performance if there were then no Church in the world which held all things necessary and nothing repugnant to Salvation or else that Luther and his Sectaries separating from all Churches then in the World and so from the true if there were any true were damnable Schismaticks 3. Because if any credit may be given to as creditable Records as any are extant the Doctrine of Catholiques hath been frequently confirmed and the opposite Doctrine of Protestants confounded with supernatural and divine Miracles 4. Because many points of Protestant doctrine are the damned opinions of Heretiques condemned by the Primitive Church 5. Because the Prophecies of the old Testament touching the conversion of Kings and Nations to the true Religion of Christ have been accomplished in and by the Catholique Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it 6. Because the doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the Doctrine of Protestants contrary to the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the confession of Protestants themselves I mean those Fathers who lived within the compasse of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves do very frequently and very confidently appeal 7. Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to Preach Protestant Doctrine 8. Because Luther to preach against the Masse which contains the most material points now in Controversie was perswaded by reasons suggested to him by the Devil himself disputing with him So himself professeth in his Bock de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himself to follow the Devill 9. Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the beginning maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controvâ—rsie-Writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty 10. Because by denying all humane authority either of Pope or Councels or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible means of suppressing Heresie or restoring Unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow briefly and in order 44. To the first God hath neither decreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwayes visibly professed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed not foretold that there shall be always a visible company of men free from all error in it self damnable Neither is it always of necessity Schismatical to separate from the external communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church supposed to want nothing necessary require me to profess against my conscience that I believe some errour though never so small and innocent which I do not believe and will not allow me her Communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismatical and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records far more creditable than these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirmed and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with supernatural and divine Miracles which for number and glory outshine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sun doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this Book by the confession of all sides confirmed by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after-ages great signs and wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false doctrin and that I am not to believe any doctrin which seems to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angel from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true doctrine should in all ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false doctrine than much to regard them as certain Arguments of the Truth Besides setting aside the Bible and the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and dyed in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the members of that Church Lastly it seems to me no strange thing that God in his Justice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the Professors of
is impossible to know what Books be Scripture which yet to Protestants is the most necessary and chief Point of all other D. Covell expresly saith Doubtless q In his Defence of Mr. Hookers books art 4. p. 31. it is a tolera le opinion in the Church of Rome if they go no further as some of them do not he should have said as none of them do to affirm that the Scriptures are holy and divine in themselves but so esteemed by us for the authority of the Church He will likewise oppose himself to those his Brethren who grant that Controversies cannot be ended without some external living Authority as we noted before Besides how can it be in us a fundamental Error to say the Scripture alone is not Judge of Controversies seeing notwithstanding this our belief we use for interpreting of Scripture all the means which they prescribe as Prayer Conferring of places Consulting the Originals c. and to these add the Instruction and Authority of God's Church which even by his confession cannot err damnably and may afford us more help than can be expected from the industry learning or wit of any private person and finally D. Potter grants that the Church of Rome doth not maintain any fundamental error against Faith and consequently he cannot affirm that our doctrin in this present Controversie is damnable If he answer that their Tenet about the Scriptures being the only Judge of Controversies is not a Fundamental Point of Faith then as he teacheth that the universal Church may err in Points Fundamental so I hope he will not deny but particular Churches and private men are much more obnoxious to error in such Points and in particular in this that Scripture alone is Judge of Controversies And so the very Principle upon which their whole Faith is grounded remains to them uncertain and on the other side for the self-same season they are not certain but that the Church is Judge of Controversies which if she be then their case is lamentable who in general deny her this Authority and in particular Controversies oppose her definitions Besides among publique Conclusions defended in Oxford the year 1633. to the questions Whether the Church have Authority to determine Controversies in Faith And To interpret holy Scripture The answer to both is Affirmative 27. Since then the visible Church of Christ our Lord is that infallible Means whereby the revealed truths of Almighty God are conveyed to our understanding it followeth that to oppose her definitions is to resist God himself which blessed St. Augustine plainly affirmeth when speaking of the Controversie about Rebaptization of such as were baptized by Heretiques he saith This r De unit Eccles c. 2◠is neither openly nor evidently read neither by you nor by me yet if there were any wise man of whom our Saviour had given testimony and that he should be consulted in this question we should make no doubt to perform what he should say lest we might seem to gain-say not him so much as Christ by whose testimony he was recommended Now Christ beareth witness to his Church And a little after Whosoever refuseth to follow the practice of the Church doth resist our Saviour himself who by his testimony recommends the Church I conclude therefore with this argument Whosoever resisteth that means which infallibly proposeth to us God's Word or Revelation commits a sin which unrepented excludes Salvation But whosoever resisteth Christ's visible Church doth resist that means which infallibly proposeth God's Word or Revelation to us Therefore whosoever resisteth Christ's visible Church commits a sin which unrepented excludes Salvation Now what visible Church was extant when Luther began his pretended Reformation whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church and whether he and other Protestants do not oppose that visible Church which was spread over the World before and in Luther's time is easie to be determined and importeth every one most seriously to ponder as a thing whereon eternal salvation dependeth And because our Adversaries do here most insist upon the distinction of Points Fundamental and not-Fundamental and in particular teach that the Church may erre in Points not-Fundamental it will be necessary to examine the truth and weight of this evasion which shall be done in the next Chapter An ANSWER to the SECOND CHAPTER Concerning the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our Understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion AD § 1. He that would usurp an absolute Lordship and tyranny over any people need not put himself to the trouble and difficulty of abrogating and disanulling the Laws made to maintain the common liberty for he may frustrate their intent and compass his own design as well if he can get the power and authority to interpret them as he pleases and add to them what he pleases and to have his interpretations and additions stand for Laws if he can rule his people by his Laws and his Laws by his Lawyers So the Church of Rome to establish her tyranny over mens consciences needed not either to abolish or corrupt the holy Scriptures the Pillars and supporters of Christian liberty which in regard of the numerous multitude of Copies dispersed through all places translated into almost all Languages guarded with all sollicitous care and industry had been an impossible attempt But the more expedite way and therefore more likely to be successeful was to gain the opinion and esteem of the publique and authoriz'd Interpreter of them and the Authority of adding to them what Doctrin she pleased under the title of Traditions or Definitions For by this means she might both serve herself of all those clauses of Scripture which might be drawn to cast a favourable countenance upon her ambitious pretences which in case the Scripture had been abolished she could not have done and yet be secure enough of having either her power limited or her corruptions and abuses reformed by them this being once setled in the minds of men that unwritten doctrins if proposed by her were to be received with equal reverence to those that were writen and that the sense of Scripture was not that which seemed to mens reason and understanding to be so but that which the Church of Rome should declare to be so seemed it never so unreasonable and incongruous The matter being once thus ordered and the holy Scriptures being made in effect not your Directors and Judges no farther than you please but your servants and instruments alwayes prest and in readiness to advance your designes and disabled wholly with minds so qualified to prejudice or impeach them it is safe for you to put a crown on their head and a reed in their hands and to bow before them and cry Hail Ring of the Jews to pretend a great deal of esteem and respect and reverence to them as here you do But to little purpose is verbal reverence without entire submission and syncere
she delivers for that reason because she delivers it And if you meant only Protestants will have men to believe some Books to be Scripture which the Roman Church delivers for such may not we then ask as you do Do not Papists perfectly resemble these men which will have men believe the Church of England delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning the Church of Rome 101. And whereas you say S. Austin may seem to have spoken Prophetically against Protestants when he said Why should I not most diligently enquire what Christ commanded of them before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing I answer Until you can shew that Protestants believe that Christ commanded any good thing that is That they believe the Truth of Christian Religion upon the Authority of the Church of Rome this place must be wholly impertinent to your purpose which is to make Protestants believe your Church to be the infallible Expounder of Scriptures and Judg of Controversies Nay rather is it not directly against your purpose For why may not a Member of the Church of England who received his Baptism Education and Faith from the Ministery of this Church say just so to you as S. Austin here to the Manichees Why should I not most diligently enquire what Christ commanded of them the Church of England before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Can you F. or K. or whosoever you are better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by you to me This therefore that Christ Jesus did those Miracles and taught that Doctrine which is contained evidently in the undoubted Books of the New Testament I believed by Fame strengthened with Celebrity and Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an universal and a constant attestation to them But every one may see that you so few in comparison of all those upon whose consent we ground our belief of Scripture so turbulent that you damn all to the fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you profess it is lawful for you to use violence and power whensoever you can have it for the planting of your own Doctrine and the extirpation of the contrary Lastly so new in many of your Doctrines as in the lawfulness and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramental Cup the lawfulness and expedience of your Latine Service Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory the Pope's Infallibility his Authority over Kings c. So new I say in comparison of the undoubted Books of Scripture which evidently containeth or rather is our Religion and the sole and adequate object of our faith I say every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving Authority with wise and considerate men What madness is this Believe then the consent of Christians which are now and have been ever since Christ in the World that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said which contradict and damn all other parts of Christendom Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my self that I were not to believe in Christ than that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other than them by whom I believed him at least than that I should learn what his Religion was from you who have wronged so exceedingly his Miracles and his Doctrine by forging so evidently so many false Miracles for the Confirmation of your new Doctrine which might give us just occasion had we no other assurance of them but your Authority to suspect the true ones Who with forging so many false Stories and fals◠Authors have taken a fair way to make the faith of all Stories questionable if we had no other ground for our Belief of them but your Authority who have brought in Doctrines plainly and directly contrary to that which you confess to be the Word of Christ and which for the most part make either for the honour or profit of the Teachers of them which if there were no difference between the Christian and the Roman Church would be very apt to make suspicious men believe that Christian Religion was a humane invention taught by some cunning Impostors only to make themselves rich and powerful who make a profession of corrupting all sorts of Authors a ready course to make it justly questionable whether any remain uncorrupted For if you take this Authority upon you upon the six Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not usurp the same Authority upon the Authors of the six last Ages before them and so upwards until we come to Christ himself Whose questioned Doctrines none of them came from the Fountain of Apostolike Tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streams by little and little some in one age and some in another some more anciently some more lately and some yet are Embrio's yet hatching and in the shell as the Pope's infallibility the blessed Virgin 's immaculate Conception the Pope's power over the Temporalties of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be imposed upon Christians under the Title of Original and Apostolike Tradition and that with that necessity that they are told they were as good believe nothing at all as not believe these things to have come from the Apostles which they know to have been brought in but yesterday which whether it be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus with themselves I am told that I were as good believe nothing at all as believe some points which the Church teacheth me and not others and some things which she teacheth to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New and False therefore I will believe nothing at all Whether I say the foresaid grounds be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus and whether this Conclusion be not too often made in Italy and Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgement of those that have wisdom and experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so far from being a sufficient Foundation for our Belief in Christ that it is in sundry regards a dangerous temptation against it why should I not much rather conclude Seeing we receive not the knowledg of Christ and Scriptures from the Church of Rom◠neither from her must we take his Doctrine or the Intepretation of Scripture 102. Ad § 19. In this number this Argument is contained The Judg of Controversies ought to be intelligible to learned and unlearned The Scripture is not so and the Church is so Therefore the Church is the Judge and not
in the Church all truth yet he says not neither can we infer from what he says That the Church should always infallibly keep this depositum entire without the loss of any truth and sincere without the mixture of any falshood 149. Ad § 25. But you proceed and tell us That beside all this the Doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certains and infallible means not to err in interpreting or not If not Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible faith If they have and so cannot err in interpreting Scripture then they are able with infallibility to hear and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies beside Scripture alone And may not we with as much reason substitute Church and Papists instead of Scripture and Protestants and say unto you Besides all this the doctrin of Papists is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to err in the choice of the Church and interpreting her Decrees or they have not If not then the Church to them cannot be a sufficient but meerly a phantastical ground for infallible faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies For unless I be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible How can I be upon her Authority infallibly sure that any thing she says is Infallible If they have certain infallible means and so cannot err in the choice of their Church and in interpreting her Decrees then they are able with Infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith although they pretend to make the Church their Guide And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides the Church alone Nay every one makes himself a chuser of his own Religion and of his own sense of the Churches Decree which very thing in Protestants they so highly condemn and so in judging others condemn themselves 150. Neither in saying thus have I only cried quittance with you but that you may see how much you are in my debt I will shew unto you that for your Sophism against our way I have given you a Demonstration against yours First I say your Argument against us is a transparent fallacy The first Part of it lies thus Protestants have no means to interpret without Errour obscure and ambiguous places of Scripture therefore plain places of Scripture cannot be to them a sufficient ground of Faith But though we pretend not to certain means of not erring in interpreting all Scripture particularly such places as are obscure and ambiguous yet this me-thinks should be no impediment but that we may have certain means of not erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plain and clear that they need no Interpreters and in such we say our Faith is contained If you ask me How I can be sure that I know the true meaning of these places I ask you again Can you be sure that you understand what I or any man else says They that heard our Saviour and the Apostles preach could they have sufficient assurance that they understood at any time what they would have them do If not to what end did they hear them If they could Why may we not be as well assured that we understand sufficiently what we conceive plain in their writings 151. Again I pray tell us whether you do certainly know the sense of these Scriptures with which you pretend you are led to the knowledge of your Church If you do not How know you that there is any Church Infallible and that these are the notes of it and that this is the Church that hath these notes If you do then give us leave to have the same means and the same abilities to know other plain places which you have to know these For if all Scripture be obscure how come you to know the sense of these places If some places of it be plain Why should we stay here 152. And now to come to the other part of your Dilemma in saying If they have certain means and so cannot err methinks you forget your self very much and seem to make no difference between having certain means to do a thing and the actual doing of it As if you should conclude because all men have certain means of Salvation therefore all men certainly must be saved and cannot do otherwise as if Whosoever had a horse must presently get up and ride Whosoever had means to find out a way could not neglect those means and so mistake it God be thanked that we have sufficient means to be certain enough of the truth of our Faith But the priviledge of not being in possibility of erring that we challenge not because we have as little reason as you to do so and you have none at all If you ask seeing we may possibly err How can we be assured we do not I ask you again seeing your eye-sight may deceive you How can you be sure you see the Sun when you do see it Perhaps you may be in a dream and perhaps you and all the men in the World have been so when they thought they were awake and then only awake when they thought they dreamt But this I am sure of as sure as that God is good that he will require no impossibilities of us not an Infallible nor a certainly-unerring belief unless he hath given us certain means to avoid error and if we use those which we have will never require of us that we use that which we have not 153. Now from this mistaken ground That it is all one to have means of avoiding error and to be in no danger nor possibility of error You infer upon us an absurd Conclusion That we make our selves able to determine Controversies of Faith with Infallibility and Judges of Controversies For the latter part of this Inference we acknowledge and embrace it We do make our selves Judges of Controversies that is we do make use of our own understanding in the choice of our Religion But this if it be a crime is common to us with you as I have proved above and the difference is not that we are chusers and you not chusers but that we as we conceive chuse wisely but you being willfully blind chuse to follow those that are so too not remembring what our Saviour hath told you When the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch But then again I must tell you You have done ill to confound together Judges and Infallible Judges unless you will say either that we have no Judges in our Courts of Civil Judicature or that they are all Infallible 154. Thus have we cast off your Dilemma and broken both the horns of it But now my retortion lies heavy upon you and will not be turned off For
after this manner Concerning which matter we do not amiss if we produce a testimony out of Books although not Canonical yet set forth for the edification of the Church For Eleazar in the Book of Macchabees c. Which if it be not to reject it from being Canonical is without question at least to question it Moreover because you are so punctual as to talk of words and syllables I would know whether before Sixtus Quintus his time your Church had a defined Canon of Scripture or not If not then was your Church surely a most Vigilant Keeper of Scripture that for 1500. years had not defined what was Scripture and what was not If it had then I demand Was it that set forth by Sixtus or that set forth by Clement or a third different from both If it were that set forth by Sixtus then is it now condemned by Clement if that of Clement it was condemned I say but sure you will say contradicted and questioned by Sixtus If different from both then was it questioned and condemned by both and still lies under the condemnation But then lastly Suppose it had been true That both some Book not known to be Canonical had been received and that never any after receiving had been questioned How had this been a sign that the Church is infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost In what mood or figure would this Conclusion follow out of these Premisses Certainly your flying to such poor signs as these are is to me a great sign that you labour with penury of better Arguments and that thus to catch at shadows and bulrushes is a shrewd sign of a sinking cause 3. Ad. § 13. We are told here That the general promises of Infallibility to the Church must not be restrained only to points Fundamental Because then the Apostles words and writings may also be so restrained The Argument put in form and made compleat by supply of the concealed Proposition runs thus The Infallibility promised to the present Church of any Age is as absolute and unlimited as that promised to the Apostles in their Preaching and Writings But the Apostles Infallibility is not to be limited to Fundamentals Therefore neither is the Churche's Infallibility thus to be limited Or thus The Apostles Infallibility in their Preaching and Writing may be limited to Fundamentals as well as the Infallibility of the present Church But that is not to be done Therefore this also is not to be done Now to this Argument I answer that if by may be as well in the Major Proposition be understood may be as possibly it is true but impertinent If by it we understand may be as justly and rightly It is very pertinent but very false So that as D. Potter limits the infallibility of the Present Church unto Fundamentals so another may limit the Apostles unto them also He may do it de facto but de jure he cannot that may be done and done lawfully this also may be done but not lawfully That may be done and if it be done cannot be confuted This also may be done but if it be done may easily be confuted It is done to our hand in this very Paragraph by five words taken out of Scripture All Scripture is divinely inspired Shew but as much for the Church Shew where it is written That all the Decrees of the Church are divinely inspired and the Controversie will be at end Besides there is not the same reason for the Churche's absolute Infallibility as for the Apostles and Scripture's For if the Church fall into error it may be reformed by comparing it with the Rule of the Apostles Doctrine and Scripture But if the Apostles have erred in delivering the Doctrine of Christianity to whom shall we have recourse for the discovering and correcting their error Again there is not so much strength required in the Edifice as in the Foundation and if but wise men have the ordering of the building they will make it much a surer thing that the foundation shall not fail the building than that the building shall not fall from the foundation And though the building be to be of Brick or Stone and perhaps of Wood yet if it may be possibly they will have a Rock for their Foundation whose stability is a much more indubitable thing than the adherence of the structure to it Now the Apostles and Prophets and Canonical Writers are the Foundation of the Church according to that of S. Paul Built upon the Foundation of Apostles and Prophets therefore their stability in reason ought to be greater then the Churche's which is built upon them Again a dependant Infallibility especially if the dependance be voluntary cannot be so certain as that on which it depends But the Infallibility of the Church depends upon the Infallibility of the Apostles as the straitness of the thing regulated upon the straitness of the Rule and besides this dependance is voluntary for it is in the power of the Church to deviate from this Rule being nothing else but an aggregation of men of which every one hath free-will and is subject to passions and error Therefore the Churche's Infallibility is not so certain as that of the Apostles 31. Lastly Quid verba audiam cum facta videam If you be so Infallible as the Apostles were shew it as the Apostles did They went forth saith S. Mark and preached every where the Lord working with them and confirming their words with signs following It is impossible that God should lye and that the eternal Truth should set his hand and seal to the confirmation of a falshood or of such Doctrine as is partly true and partly false The Apostles Doctrine was thus confirmed therefore it was intirely true and in no part either false or uncertain I say in no part of that which they delivered constantly as a certain divine Truth and which had the Attestation of Divine Miracles For that the Apostles themselves even after the sending of the Holy Ghost were and through inadvertence or prejudice continued for a time in an errour repugnant to a revealed Truth it is as I have already noted unanswerably evident from the Story of the Acts of the Apostles For notwithstanding our Saviour's express Warrant and Injunction To go and preach to all Nations yet until S. Peter was better informed by a Vision from Heaven and by the conversion of Cornelius both he and the rest of the Church held it unlawful for them to go or preach the Gospel to any but the Jews 32. And for those things which they profess to deliver as the dictates of humane reason and prudence and not as divine Revelations why we should take them to be divine Revelations I see no reason nor how we can do so and not contradict the Apostles and God himself Therefore when S. Paul says in the 1. Epist to the Corinth 7.12 To the rest speak I not the Lord And again Concerning Virgins I have no commandment of the
danger to be lost took order that what was necessary should be written Saint Chrysostom's counsel therefore of accounting the Churches Traditions worthy of belief we are willing to obey And if you can of any thing make it appear that it is Tradition we will seek no farther But this we say withall that we are perswaded you cannot make this appear in any thing but only the Canon of Scripture and that there is nothing now extant and to be known by us which can put in so good plea to be the unwritten Word of God as the unquestioned Books of Canonical Scripture to be the written Word of God 47. You conclude this Paragraph with a sentence of S. Austins who says The Church doth not approve nor dissemble nor do these things which are against Faith or good life and from hence you conclude That it never hath done so nor ever can do so But though the argument hold in Logick à non posse ad non esse yet I never heard that it would hold back à non esse ad non posse The Church cannot do this therefore it does not follows with good consequence but The Church doth not this therefore it shall never do it nor can never do it this I believe will hardly follow In the Epistle next before to the same Januarius writing of the same matter he hath these words It remains that the thing you enquire of must be of that third kind of things which are different in divers places Let every one therefore do that which he finds done in the Church to which he comes for none of them is against Faith or good manners And why do you not infer from hence that no particular Church can bring up any Custom that is against Faith or good manners Certainly this Consequence hath as good reason for it as the former If a man say of the Church of England what S. Austin of the Church that she neither approves nor dissembles nor doth any thing against Faith or good manners would you collect presently that this man did either make or think the Church of England infallible Furthermore it is observable out of this and the former Epistle that this Church which did not as S. Austin according to you thought approve or dissemble or do any thing against faith or good life did yet tolerate and dissemble vain superstitions and humane presumptions and suffer all places to be full of them and to be exacted as nay more severely than the Commandments of God himself This Saint Austin himself professeth in this very Epistle This saith he I do infinitely grieve at that many most wholsom precepts of the divine Scripture are little regarded and in the mean time all is so full of so many presumptions that he is more grievously found fault with who during his octaves toucheth the earth with his naked fooot then he that shall bury his soul in drunkenness Of these he sayes That they were neither contained in Scripture decreed by Councels nor corroborated by the Custom of the Universal Church And though not against Faith yet unprofitable burdens of Christian liberty which made the condition of the Jews more tolerable then that of Christians And therefore he professeth of them Approbare non possum I cannot approve them And Ubi facultas tribuitur resecanda existimo I think they are to be cut off wheresoever we have power Yet so deeply were they rooted and spread so far through the indiscreet devotion of the people alwayes more prone to superstition than true piety and through the connivence of the Governors who should have strangled them at their birth that himself though he grieved at them and could not allow them yet for fear of offence he durst not speak against them Multa hujusmodi propter nonnullarum vel sanctarum vel turbulentarum personarum scandala devitanda liberius improbare non audeo Many of these things for fear of scandalizing many holy persons or provoking those that are turbulent I dare not freely disallow Nay the Catholique Church it self did see and dissemble and tolerate them for these are the things of which he presently says after The Church of God and you will have him speak of the true Catholique Church placed between Chaff and Tares tolerates many things Which was directly against the command of the holy Spirit given the Church by S. Paul To stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free and not to suffer her self to be brought in bondage to these servile burdens Our Saviour tels the Scribes and Pharisees That in vain they worshipped God teaching for Doctrines mens Commandments For that laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things Certainly that which S. Austin complains of as the general fault of Christians of his time was parallel to this Multa saith he quae in divinis libris saluberrimè praecepta sunt minus curantur This I suppose I may very well render in our Saviour's words The Commandments of God are laid aside And then Tam multis praesumptionibus sic pleana sunt omnia All things or all places are so full of so many presumptions and those exacted with such severity nay with Tyranny that he was more severly censured who in the time of his Octaves touched the earth with his naked feet than he which drowned and buried his soul in drink Certainly if this be not to teach for Doctrines mens Commandments I know not what is And therefore these superstitious Christians might be said to worship God in vain as well as the Scribes and Pharises And yet great variety of superstitions of this kind were then already spread over the Church being different in divers places This is plain from these words of S. Austin concerning them Diversorum locorum diversis moribus innumerabiliter varià ntur and apparent because the stream of them was grown so violent that he durst not oppose it Liberiùs improbare non audeo I dare not freely speak against them So that to say the Catholique Church tolerated all this and for fear of offence durst not abrogate or condemn it is to say if we judge rightly of it that the Church with silence and connivence generally tolerated Christians to worship God in vain Now how this tolerating of Universal superstition in the Church can consist with the assistance and direction of Gods omnipotent Spirit to guard it from superstition and with the accomplishment of that pretended Prophecy of the Church I have set Watchmen upon thy walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace day nor night Besides how these Superstitions being thus nourished cherished and strengthened by the practice of the most and urged with great violence upon others as the Commandments of God and but fearfully opposed or contradicted by any might in time take such deep root and spread their branches so far as to pass for Universal
of Charity mistaken demands a particular Catalogue of Fundamental points And We say you again and again demand such a Catalogue And surely If this one Proposition which here you think to stop our mouths with be a Catalogue yet at least such a Catalogue it is not and therefore as yet you have not performed what you require For if to set down such a Proposition wherein are comprized all points taught by us to be necessary to salvation will serve you instead of a Catalogue you shall have Catalogues enough As we are obliged to believe all under pain of damnation which God commands us to believe There 's one Catalogue We are obliged under Pain of damnation to believe all whereof we may be sufficiently assured that Christ taught it his Apostles his Apostles the Church There 's another We are obliged under pain of damnation to believe Gods Word and all contained in it to be true There 's a third If these generalities will not satisfie you but you will be importuning us to tell you in particular what those Doctrins are which Christ taught his Apostles and his Apostles the Church what points are contained in Gods Word Then I beseech you do us reason and give us a particular and exact Inventory of all your Church-proposals without leaving out or adding any such a one which all the Doctors of your Church will subscribe to and if you receive not then a Catalogue of Fundamentals I for my part will give you leave to proclaim us Bankrupts 54. Besides this deceitful generality of your Catalogue as you call it another main fault we find with it that it is extreamly ambiguous and therefore to draw you out of the Clouds give me leave to propose some Questions to you concerning it I would know therefore whether by Believing you mean explicitely or implicitely If you mean implicitely I would know Whether your Churches Infallibility be under pain of damnation to be believed explicitely or no Whether any other point or points besides this be under the same penalty to be believed explicitely or no and if any what they be I would know what you esteem the Proposals of the Catholike visible Church In particular whether the Decree of the Pope ex Cathedra that is with an intent to oblige all Christians by it be a sufficient and an obliging Proposal Whether men without danger of Damnation may examin such a Decree and if they think they have just cause refuse to obey it Whether the Decree of a Councel without the Pope's Confirmation be such an obliging Proposal or no Whether it be so in case there be no Pope or in case it be doubtful who is Pope Whether the Decree of a general Councel confirmed by the Pope be such a Proposal and whether he be an Heretique that thinks otherwise Whether the Decree of a particular Councel confirmed by the Pope be such a Proposal Whether the General uncondemned practice of the Church for some Ages be such a sufficient Proposition Whether the consent of the most eminent Fathers of any Age agreeing in the affirmation of any Doctrin not contradicted by any of their Contemporaries be a sufficient Proposition Whether the Fathers testifying such or such a Doctrin or practice to be Tradition or to be the Doctrin or practice of the Church be a sufficient assurance that it is so Whether we be bound under pain of damnation to believe every Text of the vulgar Bible now authorized by the Roman Church to be the true Translation of the Originals of the Prophets and Evangelists and Apostles without any the least alteration Whether they that lived when the Bible of Sixtus was set forth were bound under pain of damnation to believe the same of that And if not of that of what Bible they were bound to believe it Whether the Catholike visible Church be alwaies that Society of Christians which adheres to the Bishop of Rome Whether every Christian that hath ability and opportunity be not bound to endevour to know explicitely the Proposals of the Church Whether Implicite Faith in the Churches Veracity will not save him that actually and explicitely disbelieves some Doctrin of the Church not knowing it to be so and actually believes some damnable Heresie as that God hath the shape of a man Whether an ignorant man be bound to believe any point to be decreed by the Church when his Priest or ghostly Father assures him it is so Whether his ghostly Father may not erre in telling him so and whether any man can be obliged under pain of damnation to believe an Errour Whether he be bound to believe such a thing defined when a number of Priests perhaps ten or twenty tell him it is so And what assurance he can have that they neither erre nor deceive him in this matter Why Implicite Faith in Christ or the Scriptures should not suffice for a mans Salvation as well as implicite faith in the Church Whether when you say Whatsoever the Church proposeth you mean all that ever she proposed or that only which she now proposeth and whether she now proposeth all that ever she did propose Whether all the Books of Canonical Scripture were sufficiently declared to the Church to be so and proposed as such by the Apostles And if not from whom the Church had this Declaration afterward If so whether all men ever since the Apostles time were bound under pain of damnation to believe the Epistle of S. James and the Epistle to the Hebrews to be Canonical at least not to disbelieve it and believe the contrary Lastly why it is not sufficient for any mans Salvation to use the best means he can to inform his conscience and to follow the direction of it To all these demands when you have given fair and ingenuous Answers you shall hear farther from me 55. Ad § 20. At the first entrance into this Paragraph From our own Doctrin That the Church cannot erre in Points necessary it is concluded if we are wise we must forsake it in nothing lest we should forsake it in something necessary To which I answer First that the supposition as you understand it is falsly imposed upon us and as we understand it will do you no service For when we say that there shall be a Church alwaies some where or other unerring in Fundamentals our meaning is but this that there shall be alwaies a Church to the very being whereof it is repugnant that it should erre in Fundamentals for if it should do so it would want the very Essence of a Church and therefore cease to be a Church But we never annexed this priviledge to any one Church of any one Denomination as the Greek or the Roman Church which if we had done and set up some setled certain Society of Christians distinguishable from all others by adhering to such a Bishop for our Guide in Fundamentals then indeed and then only might you with some colour though with no certainty have
believed Now all these sorts of Doctrins are impertinent to the present Question For D. Potter never affirmed either that the necessary duties of a Christian or that all Truths piously credible but not necessary to be believed or that all Truths necessary to be believed upon the supposal of divine Revelation were specified in the Creed For this he affirms only of such speculative divine Verities which God hath commanded particularly to be preached to all and believed by all Now let the Doctrins objected by you be well considered and let all those that are reducible to the three former heads be discarded and then of all these Instances against D. Potter's Assertion there will not remain so much as one 33. First the Questions touching the conditions to be performed by us to obtain remission of sins the Sacraments the Commandements and the possibility of keeping them the necessity of imploring the Assistance of Gods Grace and Spirit for the keeping of them how far obedience is due to the Church Prayer for the Dead the cessation of the old Law are all about Agenda and so cut off upon the first consideration 34. Secondly the Question touching Fundamentals is profitable but not fundamental He that believes all Fundamentals cannot be damned for any error in Faith though he believe more or less to be Fundamental than is so That also of the procession of the Holy-Ghost from the Father and the Son of Purgatory of the Churches Visibility of the Books of the New-Testament which were doubted of by a considerable part of the Primitive Church until I see better reason for the contrary than the bare authority of men I shall esteem of the same condition 35. Thirdly These Doctrins That Adam and the Angels sinned that there are Angels good and bad that those Books of Scripture which were never doubted of by any considerable part of the Church are the Word of God that S. Peter had no such Primacy as you pretend that the Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith and consequently that no necessary Doctrine is unwritten that there is no one Society or Succession of Christians absolutely infallible These to my understanding are Truths plainly revealed by God and necessary to be believed by them who know they are so but not so necessary that every man and woman is bound under pain of damnation particularly to know them to be divine Revelations and explicitely to believe them And for this reason these with innumerable other Points are to be referred to the third sort of Doctrins above-mentioned which were never pretended to have place in the Creed There remains one only Point of all that Army you mustered together reducible to none of these heads and that is that God is and is a Remunerator which you say is questioned by the denyal of Merit But if there were such a necessary indissoluble coherence between this Point and the Doctrine of merit me-thinks with as much reason and more charity you might conclude That we hold Merit because we hold this Point than that we deny this Point because we deny Merit Besides when Protestants deny the Doctrine of Merits you know right-well for so they have declared themselves a thousand times that they mean nothing else but with David that their well-doing extendeth not is not truly beneficial to God with our Saviour when they have done all which they are commanded they have done their duty only and no curtesie And lastly with S. Paul that all which they can suffer for God and yet suffering is more then doing is not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed So that you must either misunderstand their meaning in denying Merit or you must discharge their Doctrin of this odious consequence or you must charge it upon David and Paul and Christ himself Nay you must either grant their denial of true Merit just and reasonable or you must say that our good actions are really profitable to God that they are not debts already due to him but voluntary and undeserved Favours and that they are equal unto and well worthy of eternal glory which is prepared for them As for the inconvenience which you so much fear That the denial of Merit makes God a Giver only and not a Rewarder I tell you good Sir you fear where no fear is And that it is both most true on the one side that you in holding good Works meritorious of eternal glory make God a Rewarder only and not a Giver contrary to plain Scripture affirming that The gift of God is eternal life And that it is most false on the other side that the Doctrin of Protestants makes God a Giver only and not a Rewarder In as much as their Doctrin is That God gives not Heaven but to those which do something for it and so his Gift is also a Reward but withal that whatsoever they do is due unto God before-hand and worth nothing to God worth nothing in respect of Heaven and so mans work is no Merit and Gods Reward is still a Gift 36. Put the case the Pope for a reward of your service done him in writing this Book had given you the honor and means of a Cardinal would you not not only in humility but in sincerity have professed that you had not merited such a Reward And yet the Pope is neither your Creator nor Redeemer nor Preserver nor perhaps your very great Benefactor sure I am not so great as God Almighty and therefore hath no such right and title to your service as God hath in respect of precedent Obligations Besides the work you have done him hath been really advantagious to him and lastly not altogether unproportionable to the fore-mentioned Reward And therefore if by the same work you will pretend that either you have or hope to have deserved immortal happiness I beseech you consider well whether this be not to set a higher value upon a Cardinals cap than a Crown of immortal glory and with that Cardinal to prefer a part in Paris before a part in Paradise 37. In the next Paragraph you beat the air again and fight manfully with your own shadow The Point you should have spoken to was this That there are some Points of simple belief necessary to be explicitely believed which yet are not contained in the Creed Instead hereof you trouble your self in vain to demonstrate That many important Points of Faith are not contained in it which yet D. Potter had freely granted and you your self take particular notice of his granting of it All this pains therefore you have imployed to no purpose saving that to some negligent Reader you may seem to have spoken to the very Point because that which you speak to at the first hearing sounds somewhat near it But such a one I must intreat to remember there be many more Points of Faith than there be Articles of Simple belief necessary to be explicitely believed And that though all of
the former sort are not contained in the Creed yet all of the latter sort may be As for your Distinction between Heresies that have been and Heresies that are and Heresies that may be I have already proved it vain and that whatsoever may be an Heresie that is so and whatsoever is so that alwayes hath been so ever since the publication of the Gospel of Christ The Doctrine of your Church may like a Snow-ball increase with rowling and again if you please melt away and decrease But as Christ Jesus so his Gospel is yesterday and today and the same for ever 38. Our Saviour sending his Apostles to preach gave them no other Commission than this Go teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father the Son and the Holy-Ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you These were the bounds of their Commission If your Church have any larger or if she have a Commission at large to teach what she pleaseth and call it the Gospel of Christ let her produce her Letters-patents from heaven for it But if this be all you have then must you give me leave to esteem it both great sacriledge in you to forbid any thing be it never so small or ceremonious which Christ hath commanded as the receiving of the Communion in both kinds and as high a degree of presumption to enjoyn men to believe that there are or can be any other Fundamental Articles of the Gospel of Christ then what Christ himself commanded his Apostles to teach all men or any damnable Heresies but such as are plainly repugnant to these prime Verities 39. Ad § 16 17. The saying of the most learned Prelate and excellent man the Arch-Bishop of Armach is only related by D. Potter p. 155. and not applauded though the truth is both the Man deserves as much applause as any man and his saying as much as any saying it being as great and as good a Truth and as necessary for these miserable times as possibly can be uttered For this is most certain and I believe you will easily grant it that to reduce Christians to Unity of Communion there are but two ways that may be conceived probable The one by taking away diversity of Opinions touching matters of Religion The other by shewing that the diversity of Opinions which is among the several Sects of Christians ought to be no hinderance to their Unity in Communion 40. Now the former of these is not to be hoped for without a miracle unless that could be done which is impossible to be performed though it be often pretended that is unless it could be made evident to all men that God hath appointed some visible Judge of Controversies to whose judgement all men are to submit themselves What then remains but that the other way must be taken Christians must be taught to set a higher value upon these high Points of Faith and Obedience wherein they agree than upon these matters of less moment wherein they differ and understand that agreement in those ought to be more effectual to joyn them in one Communion than their difference in other things of less moment to divide them When I say in one Communion I mean in a common Profession of those Articles of Faith wherein all consent A joynt-worship of God after such a way as all esteem lawful and a mutual performance of all those works of Charity which Christians owe one to another And to such a Communion what better inducement could be thought of than to demonstrate that what was universally believed of al Christians if it were joyned with a love of truth and with holy obedience was sufficient to bring men to heaven For why should men be more rigid then God Why should any error exclude any man from the Churches Communion which will not deprive him of eternal Salvation Now that Christians do generally agree in all those Points of Doctrin which are necessary to Salvation it is apparent because they agree with one accord in believing all those Books of the Old New Testament which in the Church were never doubted of to be the undoubted Word of God And it is so certain that in all these Books all necessary Doctrins are evidently contained that of all the four Evangelists this is very probable but of S. Luke most apparent that in every one of their Books they have comprehended the whole substance of the Gospel of Christ For what reason can be imagined that any of them should leave out any thing which he knew to be necessary and yet as apparently all of them have done put in many things which they knew to be only profitable and not necessary What wise and honest man that were now to write the Gospel of Christ would do so great a work of God after such a negligent fashion Suppose Xaverius had been to write the Gospel of Christ for the Indians think you he would have left out any Fundamental Doctrin of it If not I must beseech you to conceive as well of S. Matthew and S. Mark and S. Luke and S. John as you do of Xaverius Besides if every one of them have not in them all necessary Doctrins how have they complyed with their own design which was as the Titles of their Books shew to write the Gospel of Christ and not a part of it Or how have they not deceived us in giving them such Titles By the whole Gospel of Christ I understand not the whole History of Christ but all that makes up the Covenant between God and man Now if this be wholly contained in the Gospel of S. Mark and S. John I believe every considering man will be inclinable to believe that then without doubt it is contained with the advantage of many other profitable things in the larger Gospels of S. Matthew and S. Luke And that S. Mark 's Gospel wants no necessary Article of this Covenant I presume you will not deny if you believe Irenaeus when he says Matthew to the Hebrews in their tongue published the Scripture of the Gospel When Peter and Paul did preach the Gospel and found the Church or a Church at Rome or of Rome and after their departure Mark the scholar of Peter delivered to us in writing those things which had been preached by Peter and Luke and the follower of Paul compiled in a Book the Gospel which was preached by him And afterwards John residing in Asia in the City of Ephesus did himself also set forth a Gospel 41. In which words of Irenaeus it is remarkable that they are spoken by him against some Heretiques that pretended as you know who do now adays that some necessary Doctrins of the Gospel were unwritten and that out of the Scriptures truth he must mean sufficient truth cannot be found by those which know not Tradition Against whom to say that part of the Gospel which was preached by Peter was written by S. Mark and some other
most certain and infallible wherein it surpasseth humane Opinion it must relie upon some motive and ground which may be able to give it certainly and yet not release it from Obscurity For if this motive ground or formal Object of Faith were any thing evidently presented to our understanding and if also we did evidently know that it had a necessary connection with the Articles which we believe our assent to such Articles could not be obscure but evident which as we said is against the nature of our faith If likewise the motive and ground of our faith were obscurely propounded to us but were not in it self infallible it would leave our assent in obscurity but could not endue it with certainty We must therefore for the ground of our faith find out a motive obscure to us but most certain in it self that the act of faith may remain both obscure and certain Such a motive as this can be no other but the divine authority of Almighty God revealing or speaking those truths which our faith believes For it is manifest that God's infallible testimony may transfâ—â—â— Certainty to our faith and yet not draw it out of obscurity because no humane discourse or demonstration can evince that God revealeth any supernatural truth since God hath been no less perfect than he is although hâ—â—â—â— never revealed any of those objects which we now believe 4 Nevertheless because Almighty God out of his infinite wisdom and sweetness doth conour with his Creatures in such sort as may befit the temper and exigence of their natures and because Man is a Creature endued with reason God doth not exact of his Will or Understanding any other then as the Apostle faith rationabile (f) Rom. 12.1 obsequium an Obedience sweetned with good reason which could not so appear if our Understanding were summoned to believe with certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain And therefore Almighty God obliging us under pain of eternal camnation to believe with greatest certainty divers verities not known by the light of natural reason cannot fail to furnish our Understanding with such inducements motives and arguments as may sufficiently perswade any mind which is not partial or passionate that the objects which we believe proceed from an Authority so Wise that it cannot be deceived so Good that it cannot deceive according to the words of David Thy Testimonies are made (g) Psal 92. credible exceedingly These inducements are by Divines called argumenta credibilitatis arguments of credibility which though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in one wisdom and prudence the objects of faith deserve credit and ought to be accepted as things revealed by God For without such reasons and inducements our judgment of faith could not be conceived prudent holy Scripture telling us that be who soon (h) Eccles 19. â— believes is light of heart By these arguments and inducements our Understanding is both satisfied with evidence of credibility and the objects of faith retain their obsenrity because it is a different thing to be evidently credible and evidently true as those who were present at the Miracles wrought by our blessed Saviour and his Apostles did not evidently see their doctrin to be true for then it had not been Faith but Science and all had been necessitated to believe which we see fell out otherwise but they were evidently convinced that the things confirmed by such Miracles were most credible and worthy to be imbraced as truth revealed by God 5 These evident arguments of Credibility are in great abundance found in the Visible Church of Christ perpetually existing on earth For that there hath been a company of men professing such and such doctrines we have from our next Predecessors and these from theirs upward till we come to the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour which gradation is known by evidence of sense by reading books or hearing what one man delivers to another And it is evident that there was neither cause nor possibility that men so distant in place so different in temper so repugnant in private ends did or could agree to tell one and the self same thing if it had been but a fiction invented by themselves as ancient Tertullian well saith How is it likely that so many (i) Praescript c. 28. and so great Churches should err in one saith Among many events there is not one issue the error of the Churches must needs have varied But that which among many is sound to be One is not mistaken but delivered Dare then any body say that they erred who delivered it With this never-interrupted existence of the Church are joyned the many and great miracles wrought by mâ—n of that Congregation or Church the sanctity of the persons the renowned victories over so many persecutions both of all sorts of men and of the infernal spirits and lastly the perpetual existence of so holy a Church being brought up to the Apostles themselves she comes to partake of the same assurance of truth which They by so many powerful ways did communicate to their Doctrin to the Church of their times together with the divine Certainty which they received from our blessed Saviour himself revealing to Mankind what he heard from his Father and so we conclude with Tertullian We receive it from the Churches the Churches (k) Praese c. 21. 37. from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from his Father And if we once interrupt this line of succession most certainly made known by means of holy Tradition we cannot conjoyn the present Church and doctrin with the Church and doctrin of the Apostles buâ— must invent some new means and arguments sufficient of themselves to find out and prove a true Church and faith independently of the preaching and writing of the Apostles neither of which can be known but by Tradition as is truly observed by Tertullian saying I will prescribe that (l) Praesc c. 22. there is no means to prove what the Apostles preached but by the same Church which they sounded 6 Thus then we are to proceed By evidence of manifest and incorrupt Tradition I know that there hath always been a never interrupted Succession of men from the Apostles time believing professing and practising such and such doctrines By evident arguments of credibility as Miracles Sanctity Unity c. and by all those ways whereby the Apostles and our Blessed Saviour himself confirmed their doctrin we are assured that what the said never-interrupted Church proposeth doth deserve to be accepted and acknowledged as a divine truth By evidence of Sense we see that the same Church proposeth such and such doctrins as divine truths that is as revealed and testified by Almighty God By this divine Testimony we are infallibly assured of what we believe and so the last period ground motive and formal object of our Faith is the infallible testimony of that supreme Verity which
if you will needs comprehend all those Churches which want succession you must confess that your Church doth not only communicate with Schismatical and Heretical Churches but is also compounded of such Churches and your selves cannot avoid the note of Schismatiques or Heretiques if it were but for participating with such heretical Churches For it is impossible to retain Communion with the true Catholique Church and yet agree with them who are divided from her by Schism or Heresie because that were to affirm that for the self same time they could be within and without the Catholique Church as proportionably I discoursed in the next precedent Chapter concerning the communicating of moderate Protestants with those who maintain that Heresie of the Latency and Invisibility of Gods Church where I brought a place of S. Cyprian to this purpose which the Reader may be pleased to review in the fifth Chapter and 17 Number 22 But besides this defect in the personal Succession of Protestant Bishops there is another of great moment which is that they want the right Form of ordaining Bishops and Priests because the manner which they use is so much different from that of the Roman Church at least according to the common opinion of Divines that it cannot be sufficient for the Essence of Ordination as I could demonstrate if this were the proper place of such a Treatâ—fe and will not faâ—l to do if D. Potter give me occasion In the mean time the Reader may be pleased to read the Author (z) See Adam Tannerum tom 4. disp 7. quaest 2. dub 3. 4. cited here in the margent and the compare the form of our Ordination with that of Protestants and to remember that if the form which they use either in consecrating Bishops or in ordaining Priests be at least doubtful they can neither have undoubted Priests nor Bishops For Priests cannot be ordained but by true Bishops nor can any be a true Bishop unless he first be Priest I say their Ordination is at least doubtful because that sufficeth for my present purpose For Bishops and Priests whose Ordination is notoriously known to be but doubtful are not to be esteemed Bishops or Priests and no man without Sacriledge can receive Sacraments from them all which they administer unlawfully And if we except Baptism with manifest danger of invalidity and with obligation to be at least conditionally repeated so Protestants must remain doubtful of Remission of sins of their Ecclesiastical Hierarchy and may not pretend to be a true Church which cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests nor without due administration of Sacraments which according to Protestants is an essential note of the true Church And it is a world to observe the proceeding of English Protestants in this point of their Ordinations For first An 3. Edw. 6. cap. 2. when he was a Child about 12. years of age It was enacted that such (a) Dyer fol. 234. term Mich. 6 7. Eliz. form of making and consecrating of Bishops and Priests as by six Prelates and six other to be appointed by the King should be divised mark this word devised and set forth under the great Seal should be used and none other But after this Act was repealed 1. Mar. Sess 2. in so much as that when afterward An. 6. 7. Reg. Eliz. Bishop Bonner being endicted upon a certificate made by D. Horn a Protestant Bishop of Winchester for his refusal of the Oath of Supremacy and he excepting against the indictment because D. Horn was no Bishop all the Judges resolved that his exception was good if indeed D. Horn was not Bishop and they were all at a stand till An S. Eliz. cap. 1. the Act of Edw 6. was renewed and confirmed with a particular proviso that no man should be impeached or molested by means of any certificate by any Bishop or Archbishop made before this last Act. Whereby it is clear that they made some doubt of their own ordination and that there is nothing but uncertainty in the whole business of their Ordination which forsooth must depend upon Six Prelates the great Seal Acts of Parliament being contrary one to another and the like 23 But though they want Personal Succession yet at least they have succession of Doctrin as they say and pretend to prove because they believe as the Apostles believed This is to beg the Question and to take what they may be sure will never be granted For if they want Personal Succession and slight Ecclesiastical Tradition how will they perswade any man that they agree with the doctrin of the Apostles We have heard Tertullian saying I will prescribe (b) Sup. c. 5. against all Heretiques that there is no means to prove what the Apustles preached but by the same Churches which they founded And S. Irenaeus tells us that We may (c) L. 3. c. 5. behold the Tradition of the Apostles in every Church if men be desirous to hear the truth and we can number them who were made Bishops by the Apostles in Churches and their Successors even to us And the same Father in another place saith We ought to obey (d) L. 4. c. 43. those Priests who are in the Church who have Succession from the Apostles and who together with Succession in their Bishopricks have received the certain gift of truth S. Augustine saith I am kept in the Church (e) Contâ— epist Fundam c. 4. by the succession of Priests from the very Sea of Peter the Apostle to whom our Saviour after his Resurrection committed his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishop Origen to this purpose giveth us a good and wholsome Rule happy if himself had followed the same in these excellent words Since there be many who think (f) Praef. ad lib. Periarchon they believe the things which are of Christ and some are of different opinion from those who went before them let the preaching of the Church be kept which is delivered by the Apostles by order of Succession and remains in the Church to this very day that only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagrees from the Tradition of the Church In vain then do these men brag of the doctrin of the Apostles unless first they can demonstrate that they enjoyed a continued succession of Bishops from the Apostles and can shew us a Church which according to S. Austin is deduced by undoubted SUCCESSION from the Sea (g) Cont. Faust cap. 2. of the Apostles even to the present Bishops 24 But yet nevertheless suppose it were granted that they agreed with the doctrin of the Apostles this were not sufficient to prove a Succession in Doctrine For Succession besides agreement or similitude doth also require a never-interrupted conveying of such doctrine from the time of the Apostles till the dayes of those persons who challenge such a Succession And so S Augustine saith we are to believe that Gospel which from the time
without which there can be no hope of Salvation 30 And that he who erreth against any one revealed truth as certainly some Protestants must de because contradictory Propositions cannot both be true doth lose all Divine saith is a very true doctrin delivered by Catholique Divines with so general a consent that the contrary is wont to be censured as temerarious The Angelical Doctor S. Thomas proposeth this Question Whether (o) 23 q. â— aâ—â— 3. in corp he who denieth one Article of saith may retain saith in other Articles and resolveth that he cannot which he proveth Argumento sed contra because As deadly sin is opposite to charity so to deny one Article of saith is opposite to saith But charity doth not remain with any one deadly sin Therefore faith doth not remain after the denial of any one Article of faith Whereof he gives this farther reason Because saith he the nature of every habit doth depend upon the formal Motive and Object thereof which Motive being taken away the nature of the habit cannot remain But the formal object of saith is the supreme Truth as it is manifesied in Scriptures and in the doctrin of the Church which proceed from the same supreme Verity Whosoever therefore doth not relie upon the doctrin of the Church which proceeds from the supreme Verity manifested in Scripture as upon an infallible Rule he hath not the habit of faith but believes those things which belong to faith by some other means than by faith as if one should remember some conclusion and not know the reason of that demonstration it is clear that he hath not certain Knowledge but only Opinion Now it is manifest that he who relies on the doctrin of the Church as upon an infallible Rule will yield his assent to all that the Church teacheth For if among those things which she teacheth he hold what he will and doth not hold what he will not he doth not relie upon the doctrin of the Church as upon an infallible Rule but only upon his own will And so it is clear that an Heretique who with pertinacity denieth one Article of saith is not ready to follow the doctrin of the Church in all things And therefore it is manifest that whosoever is an Heretique in any one Article of faith concerning other Articles hath not faith but a kind of Opinion or his own Will Thus far S. Thomas And afterward A man doth believe (q) Ad. 2. all the Articles of faith for one and the self same reason to wit for the Prime Verity proposed to us in the Scripture understood aright according to the Doctrin of the Church and therefore whosoever falls from this reason or motive is totally deprived of saith From this true doctrin we are to infeâ—r that to retain or want the substance oâ— faith doth not consist in the matter or multitude of the Articles but in the opposition against God's divine testimony which is involved in every least error against faith And since some Protestants must needs eâ—r and that they have no certain rule to know why rather one than another it manifestly follows that none of them have any Certainty for the substance of their faith in any one point Moreover D. Potter being forced to confess that the Roman Church wants not the substance of faith it follows that she doth not err in any one point against faith because as we have seen out of S. Thomas every such error destroys the substance of faith Now if the Roman Church did not err in any one point of faith it is manifest that Protestants err in all those points wherein they are contrary to her And this may suffice to prove that the faith of Protestants wants Infallibility They want the second Condition of Faith Obscurity 31 And now for the second Condition of faith I say If Protestants have Certainly they want Obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing or noâ— necessitating our understanding to an assent For the whole edifice of the faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonical Scripture And the sense and meaning of these Canonical Scriptures is clear and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation Now thâ—se Principles being once supposed it clearly followeth that what Protestants believe as necessary to salvation is evidently known by them to be true by this argument It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in the word of God is true But it is certain and evident that these Books in particular are the word of God Therefore it is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true Which Conclusion I take for a Major in a second Argument and say thus It is certain and evident that whatsoever is contained in these Books is true But it is certain and evident that such particular Articles for example The Trinity Incarnation Original sin c. are contained in these Books Thereâ—ore it is certain and evident that these particular Objects are true Neither will it avail you to say that the said Principles are not evident by natural discourse but only to the eye of reason cleared by grace as you speak For supernatural evidence no less yea rather more draws and excludes obscurity than natural evidence doth neither can the party so enlightned be said voluntarily to caprivate his understanding to that light but rather his understanding is by a necessity made captive and forced not to disbelieve what is presented by so clear a light And therefore your imaginary faith is not the true faith defined by the Apostle but an invention of your own Their faith wants Prudence 32 That the faith of Protestants wanteth the third Condition which was Prudence is deduced from all that hitherto hâ—th been said What wisdom was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other visible Church of Christ upon earth A Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation endued with Succession of Bishops with Visibility and Universality of Time and Place A Church which if it be not the true Church her enemies cannot pretend to have any Church Ordination Scriptures Succession c. and are forced for their own sake to maintain her perpetual Existence and Being To leave I say such a Church and frame a Community without either Unity or means to procure it a Church which at Luther's first re-revolt had no larger extent than where his body was a Church without Universality of Place or Time A Church which can pretend no Visibility or Being except only in that former Church which it opposeth a Church void of Succession of Persons or Doctrin What wisdom was it to follow such men as Luther in an opposition against the Visible Church of Christ begun upon meer passion What wisdom is it to receive from Us a Church Ordination Scriptures
had said By shewing the Tradition of the Roman Church we confound all Heretiques For to this Church all Churches must agree what had this been but to give for a reason that which was more questionable than the thing in question as being neither evident in it self and plainly denyed by his adversaries not at all proved nor offered to be proved here or elsewhere by Irenaeus To speak thus therefore had been weak and ridiculous But on the other side if we conceive him to say thus You Heretiques decline a trial of your Doctrin by Scripture as being corrupted and imperfect and not fit to determin Controversies without recourse to Tradition and instead hereof you fly for a refuge to a secret Tradition which you pretend that you received from your Ancestors and they from the Apostles certainly your calumnies against Scripture are most unjust and unreasonable but yet more-ever assure your selves that if you will be tryed by Tradition even by that also you will be overthrown For our Tradition is far more famous more constant and in all respects more credible than that which you pretend to It were easie for me to muster up against you the uninterrupted successions of all the Churches founded by the Apostles all conspiring in their Testimonies against you But because it were too long to number up the Successions of all Churches I will content my self with the Tradition of the most ancient and most glorious Church of Rome which alone is sufficient for the confutation and confusion of your Doctrin as being in credit and authority as farr beyond the Tradition you build upon as the light of the Sun is beyond the light of a Gloworm For to this Church by reason it is placed in the Imperial City whither all mens affairs do necessarily draw them or by reason of the powerful principality it hath over all the adjacent Churches there is and always hath been a necessity of a perpetual recourse of all the faithful round about who if there had been any alteration in the Church of Rome could not in all probability but have observed it But they to the contrary have always observed in this Church the very Tradition which came from the Apostles and no other I say if we conceive his meaning thus his words will be intelligible and rational which if instead of resort we put in agree will be quite lost Herein therefore we have been beholding to your honesty which makes me think you did not wittingly falsifie but only twice in this sentence mistake Undique for Ubique and translate it every where and of what place soever in stead of round about For that it was necessary for all the faithful of what place soever to resort to Rome is not true That The Apostolique Tradition hath alwayes been conserved there from those who are every where is not Sense Now instead of conservata read observata as in all probability it should be and translate undique truly round about and then the sense will be both plain and good for then it must be rendred thus For to this Church by reason of a more powerful principality there is a necessity that all the Churches that is all the faithful round about should resort in which the Apostolique Tradition hath been alwayes observed by those who were round about If any man say I have been too bold a Critick in substituting observata instead of conservata I desire him to know that the conjecture is not mine and therefore as I expect no praise for it so I hope I shall be farr from censure But I would intreat him to consider whether it be not likely that the same Greek word signifying observo and conservo the Translater of Irenaeus who could hardly speak Latin might not easily mistake and translate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 conservata est instead of observata est Or whether it be not likely that those men which anciently wrote Books and understood them not might not easily commit such an errour Or whether the sense of the place can be salved any other way if it can in God's name let it if not I hope he is not to be condemned who with such a little alteration hath made that sense which he found non-sense 30. But whether you will have it Observata or Conservata the new sumpsimus or the old mumpsimus possibly it may be something to Irenaeus but to us or our cause it is no way material For if the rest be rightly translated neither will Conservata afford you any argument against us nor Observata help us to any evasion For though at the first hearing of the glorious attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome The confounding Heretiques with her Tradition and saying It is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet he that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rational in Irenaeus having to do with Heretiques who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholiques declined a tryal by Scripture as not containing the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rational in Irenaeus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit than their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contain'd in it and yet that it may be irrational in you to urge us who do not decline Scripture but appeal to it as a perfect rule of faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many wayes repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition farr more general than it self which gives Testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrins plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a farr greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was United with all other Apostolique Churches than now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be Error but Tradition and therefore Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that fourteen hundred years may have made a great deal of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though neer the fountain they may retain their native and unmixt sincerity yet in long progress cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corruptand impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus playes the Historian only and not the Prophet and sayes only that the Apostolique Tradition had been alwayes there as in other Apostolique Churches
conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be alwayes so he sayes not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Anti-christ that the Roman Church in particular was fore-warned that she also Rom. 11. Nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they lookt not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no Reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appears manifestly out of this Book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the doctrin of the Chiliasts was in his judgement Apostolique Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appears to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgements in the point are any way recorded are for it and Justin Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not In Dial. cum Tryphon he reckons amongst Heretiques Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Irenaeus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Heretical and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto Errour by holding contradictions Fifthly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noon that though Irenaeus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the doctrin which he there delivers and defends against the Heretiques of his â—ime viz. That there is one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witness of Tradition in general Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaim'd the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Irenaeus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrin and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of this Excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Heretiques though separated and cut off from the Roman Church Cardinal Perron to avoid the stroak of this convincing argument raiseth a cloud of eloquent words Lib. 3. cap. 2. Of his Reply to King Iames. c. 2. sect 32. which because you borrow them of him in your Second part I will here insert and with short censures dispel and let his Idolaters see that Truth is not afraid of Giants His words are these The first instance then that Calvin alleageth against the Popes censures is taken from Eusebius a an Arrian author and from Ruffinus b enemie to the Roman Church his translator who writ c that S. IRENAEUS reprehended Pope Victor for having excommunicated the Churches of Asia for the question of the day of Pasche which they observed according to a particular tradition that S. JOHN had introduced d for a time in their Provinces Calv. ubi supra because of the neighbourhood of the Jews and to bury the Synagogue with honour and not according to the universal Tradition of the Apostles Irenaeus saith Calvin reprehended Pope Victor bitterly because for a light cause he had moved a great and perillous contention in the Church There is this in the Text that Calvin produceth he reprehended him that he had not done well to cut off from the body of unity so many and so great Churches But against whom maketh this Ruffin in vers hist Eccl Eus l. 5 c. 24. but e against those that object it for who sees not that S. IRENAEUS doth not there reprehend the Pope for the f want of power but for the ill use of his power and doth not reproach to the Pope that he could not excommunicate the Asians but admonisheth him that for g so small a cause he should not have cut off so many Provinces from the body of the Church Euseb hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 24. Irenaeus saith Eusebius did fitly exhort Pope Victor that he should not cut off all the Churches of God which â—eld this ancient tradition And Ruffinus translating and envenoming Eusebius saith Ruffin ib. c. 24. Iren l. 3. c. 3.1 Book Ch. 25. He questioned Victor that he had not done well in cutting off from the Body of Unity so many and so great Churches of God And in truth how could S. IRENAEUS have reprehended the Pope for want of power he that cites To the Roman Church because of a more powerful principality that is to say as above appeareth h because of a principality more powerful than the temporal or as we have expounded otherwhere because of a more powerful Original i It is necessary that every Church should agree And k therefore also S. IRENAEUS alleageth not to Pope Victor the example of him and of the other Bishops of the Gauls assembled in a Council holden expresly for this effect who had not excommunicated the Asians Euseb hist Eccl. l. 5. c. 22. nor the example of Narcissus Bishop of Jerusalem and of the Bishops of Palestina assembled in another Council holden expresly for the same effect who had not excommunicated them nor the example of Palmas and of the other Bishops of Pontus assembled in the same manner and for the same cause in the Region of Pontus who had not excommunicated them but only alleadges to him the example of the Popes his predecessors Iren. apud Euseb hist Eccl. 5. c. 26. The Prelates saith he who have presided before Soter in the Church where thou presidest Anisius Pius Hyginus Telesphorus and Sixtus have not observed this custom c. and nevertheless none of those that observed it have been excommunicated And yet O admirable providence of God the l success of the after-ages shewed that even in the use of his power the Popes proceeding was just For after the death of Victor the Councils of Nicea of Constantinople and of Ephesus Conc. Antioch c. 1. Conc. Const c. 7. Conc. Eph. p. 2. act 6. excommunicated again those that held the same custom with the Provinces that the Pope had excommunicated and placed them in the Catalogue of Heretiques under the titles of heretiques Quarto-decumans But to this instance Calvins Sect do annex two
in the very next Chapter before that which you alledge Against these men being thus necessitated to do so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joint Tradition of all the Apostolique Churches with one mouth and one voice teaching the same doctrin Or if for brevity sake they produced the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alledged by me This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So near that one of them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. John the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an age remov'd from him and the last of them all little more then an age from them Yet after all this they urg'd it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater then any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should err in one faith it should be should have erred into one faith And this was the condition of this argument as the Fathers urg'd it Now if you having to deal with us who question no Book of Scripture which was not anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholiques nay who refuse not to be tried by your own Canon and your own Translation who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Judges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much dross and corruption and for the mysterie of iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholique to it self alone and Heretical to all the rest nay not only with her ancient and original Traditions but also with her post-nate introduc'd Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent trial by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumny of the old Heretiques that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urg'd the old Heretiques certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41 But now suppose I should be liberal to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetual mark of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain sign of an Heretical company Truly if you say so either you want Logick which is a certain sign of an ill disputer or are not pleas'd to use it which is a worse For speech is a certain sign of a living man yet want of speech is no sure argument that he is dead for he may be dumb and yet living still and we may have other evident tokens that he is so as eating drinking breathing moving So though the constant and universal delivery of any doctrin by the Apostolique Churches ever since the Apostles be a very great argument of the truth of it yet there is no certainty but that truth even Divine truth may through mens wickedness be contracted from its universality and interrupted in its perpetuity and so lose this argument and yet not want others to justifie and support it self For it may be one of those principles which God hath written in all mens hearts or a conclusion evidently arising from them It may be either contain'd in Scripture in express terms or deducible from it by apparâ—â—â— consequence If therefore you intend to prove want of a perpetual Succession of Professors a certain note of Heresie you must not content your self to shew that having it is one sign of truth but you must shew it to be the only sign of it and inseparable from it But this if you be well advis'd you will never undertake First because it is an impossible attempt and then because if you do it you will marr all for by proving this an inseparable sign of Catholique doctrin you will prove your own which apparently wants it in many points not to be Catholique For whereas you say this Succession requires two things agreement with the Apostles doctrin and an uninterrupted conveyance of it down to them that challenge it It will be prov'd against you that you fail in both points and that some things wherein you agree with the Apostles have not been held alwayes as your condemning the Doctrine of the Chiliasts and holding the Eucharist not necessary for Infants and that in many other things you agree not with them nor with the Church for many ages after For example In mutilation of the Communion in having your Service in such a language as the Assistants generally understand not your offering to Saints your picturing of God your worshipping of Pictures 42 Ad § 24. As for Universality of place the want whereof you object to Protestants as a mark of Heresie You have not set down clearly and univocally what you mean by it Whether universality of fact or of right and if of fact Whether absolute or comparative and if comparative Whether of the Church in comparison of any other Religion or only of heretical Christians or if in comparison of these whether in comparison of all other Sects conjoyn'd or in comparison only of any One of them Nor have you proved it by any good argument in any sense to be a certain mark of heresie For those places of S. Austin do not deserve the name And truly in my judgment you have done advisedly in proving it no better For as for Universality of right or a right to Universality all Religions claim it but only the true has it and which has it cannot be determin'd unless it be first determin'd which is the true An absolute Universality and diffusion through all the world if you should pretend to all the world would laugh at you If you should contend for latitude with any one Religion Mahumetism would carry the victory from you If you should oppose yourselves against all other Christians besides you it is certain you would be cast in this suit also If lastly being hard driven you
must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope than the law of Christ Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Soveraigne in lawful things though an Heretique though a Tyrant and though I do not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angel from heaven should teach any thing against the Gospel of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathema to him 66. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to flesh and blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the world prevail'd and enlarg'd it self in a very short time all the world over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintains her authority over mens conscience by counterfeiting false miracles forging false stories by obtruding on the world supposititions writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by Warres by Persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of carnal means whether violent or fraudulent 67. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first preachers and Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the world that they should not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this world but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the world could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successour of the Apostles and Guide of faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition and by it seeks to entitle himself directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the world And besides it is evident to any man that has but halfe an eye that most of those Doctrins which you add to the Scripture do make one way or other for the honour or temporal profit of the Teachers of them 68. Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in spirit and truth Whereas your Church and Doctrin is even loaded with an infinitie of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury Superstitions and Ceremonies and full of that righteousness for which Christ shall judge the world 69. Following the Scriptures I shall believe that which Universal never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admitable supernatural works of God confirm'd to be the word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame horse cur'd in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seem to give attestation to some parts of your doctrin yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that God's providence permitting it and the wickedness of the world deserving it strange signes and wonders should be wrought to confirm false doctrin that they which love not the truth may be given over to strong delusions Neither does it seem to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the world 70. If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my self Salvation without effectual dereliction and mortification of all vices and the effectual practice of all Christian Vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continve all my life long in a course of sin and without the practice of any vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be lett into heaven at a postern gate even by an Act of Attrition at the hour of death if it be joyn'd with confession or by an act of Contrition without confession 71. Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meekness fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the world love of God and the love of mankind In a word of all vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The summe whereof is in manner compriz'd in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5.6 and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodness of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather than any other came from God the Fountain of all goodness And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universal Sanctions Not every one that sayeth Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the flood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not lawes for all Christians but Counsels of perfection and matters of Supererogation that a man shall do well if he do observe them but he shall not sin if he observe them not That they are for them who aim at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sonnes of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content barely to go to heaven and to be a door-keeper in the house of God especially if he will be content to taste of Purgatory in the way he may obtain it at an easier purchase Therefore the Religion of your Church is not so holy nor so good as the Doctrin of Christ delivered in Scripture and therefore not so likely to come from the Fountain of holiness and goodness 72. Lastly if I follow your Church for my Guide I shall do all one as if I should follow a Company of blind men in a judgement of colours or in the choice of a way For every unconsidering man is blind in that which he does not consider Now what is your Church but a company of unconsidering men who comfort themselves because they are a great company together but all of them either out of idleness refuse the trouble of a fevere tryall of their Religion as if heaven were not worth it or out of superstition fear the event of such a tryall that they may be scrupled and staggered and disquieted by it and therefore for the most part do it not at all Or if they do it they do it negligently and hypocritically and perfunctorily rather for the satisfaction of others than themselves but certainly without indifference without liberty of judgement without a resolution to doubt of it if upon
would make choice of him for this service And besides I had good assurance that in the framing of this building though you were the only Architect yet you wanted not the assistance of many diligent hands to bring you in choise materials towards it nor of many careful and watchful eyes to correct the errors of your Work if any should chance to escape you Great reason therefore had I to expect great matters from you and that your Book should have in it the Spirit and Elixir of all that can be said in defence of your Church and Doctrine and to assure my self that if my resolution not to believe it were not built upon the rock of evident grounds and reasons but only upon some sandy and deceitful appearances now the wind and storm and floods were coming which would undoubtedly overthrow it 2. Neither truly were you more willing to effect such an alteration in me then I was to have it effected For my desire is to go the right way to eternal happiness But whether this way lie on the right hand or the left or straight forwards whether it be by following a living Guide or by seeking my direction in a Book or by hearkning to the secret whisper of some private Spirit to me it is indifferent And he that is otherwise affected and hath not a travellers indifference which Epictetus requires in all that would find the truth but much desires in respect of his ease or pleasure or profit or advancement or satisfaction of friends or any humane consideration that one way should be true rather than another it is odds but he will take his desire that it should be so for an assurance that it is so But I for my part unless I deceive my self was and still am so affected as I have made profession not willing I confess to take any thing upon trust and to believe it without asking my self why no nor able to command my self were I never so willing to follow like a sheep every Shepherd that should take upon him to guide me or every flock that should chance to go before me but most apt and most willing to be led by reason to any way or from it and alwaies submitting all other reasons to this one God hath said so therefore it is true Nor yet was I so unreasonable as to expect Mathematical demonstrations from you in matters plainly incapable of them such as are to be believed and if we speak properly cannot be known such therefore I expected not For as he is an unreasonable Master who requires a stronger assent to his conclusions then his arguments deserve so I conceive him a froward and undisciplin'd Scholar who desires stronger arguments for a conclusion than the Matter will bear But had you represented to my understanding such reasons of your Doctrine as being weighed in an eaven ballance held by an eaven hand with those on the other side would have turned the scale and have made your Religion more credible than the contrary certainly I should have despised the shame of one more alteration and with both mine arms and all my heart most readily have embraced it Such was my expectation from you and such my preparation which I brought with me to the reading of your Book 3. Would you know now what the event was what effect was wrought in me by the perusal and consideration of it To deal truly and ingenuously with you I fell somewhat in my good opinion both of your sufficiency and sincerity but was exceedingly confirmed in my ill opinion of the Cause maintained by you I found every where snares that might entrap and colours that might deceive the simple but nothing that might perswade and very little that might move an understanding man and one that can discern between Discourse and Sophistry In short I was verily perswaded that I plainly saw and could make it appear to all dis-passionate and unprejudicate Judges that a vein of sophistry and calumny did run clean thorow it from the beginning to the end And letting some Friends understand so much I suffered my self to be perswaded by them that it would not be either unproper for me nor unacceptable to God nor peradventure altogether unserviceable to his Church nor justly offensive to you if you indeed were a lover of Truth and not a maintainer of a Faction if setting aside the Second Part which was in a manner wholly employed in particular disputes repetitions and references and in wranglings with D. Potter about the sense of some supernumerary quotations and whereon the main question no way depends I would make a fair and ingenuous answer to the First wherein the substance of the present Controversie is confessedly contained and which if it were clearly answered no man would desire any other answer to the Second This therefore I undertook with a full resolution to be an adversary to your Errors but a Friend and Servant to your Person and so much the more a friend to your person by how much the severer and more rigid adversary I was to your errors 4. In this Work my conscience bears me witness that I have according to your advice proceeded always with this consideration that I am to give a most strict account of every line and word that passeth under my pen and therefore have been precisely careful for the matter of my Book to defend truth only and only by Truth And then scrupulously fearful of scandalizing you or any man with the manner of handling it From this Rule sure I am I have not willingly swerved in either part of it and that I might not do it ignorantly I have not only my self examined mine own Work perhaps with more severity than I have done yours as conceiving it a base and unchristian thing to go about to satisfie others with what I my self am not fully satisfied but have also made it pass the fiery tryal of the exact censures of many understanding Judges alwayes heartily wishing that you your Self had been of the Quorum But they who did undergo this burthen as they wanted not sufficiency to discover any heterodox Doctrine so I am sure they have been very careful to let nothing slip dissonant from truth or from the authorized Doctrine of the Church of England and therefore whatsoever causeless or groundless jealousie any man may entertain concerning my Person yet my Book I presume in reason and common equity should be free from them wherein I hope that little or nothing hath escaped so many eyes which being weighed in the balance of the Sanctuary will be found too light And in this hope I am much confirmed by your strange carriage of your self in this whole business For though by some crooked and sinister arts you have got my Answer into your hands now a year since and upwards as I have been assured by some that profess to know it and those of your own party though you could not want every day fair opportunities of
as good be of none at all Nor to trouble you Fourthly with this that a great part of your Doctrine especially in the points contested makes apparently for the temporal ends of the Teachers of it which yet I fear is a great scandal to many Beaux Esprits among you Only I should desire you to consider attentively when you conclude so often from the Differences of Protestants that they have no certainty of any part of their Religion no not of those points wherein they agree Whether you do not that which so Magisterially you direct me not to do that is proceed a destructive way and object arguments against your Adversaries which tend to the overthrow of all Religion And whether as you argue thus Protestants differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing So an Atheist or a Sceptique may not conclude as well Christians and the Professors of all Religions differ in many things therefore they have no certainty in any thing Again I should desire you to tell me ingenuously Whether it be not too probable that your portentous Doctrine of Transubstantiation joyned with your fore-mentioned perswasion of No Papists no Christians hath brought a great many others as well as himself to Averroes his resolution Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis Whether your requiring men upon only probable and prudential Motives to yield a most certain assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you do too often that they were as good not believe at all as believe with any lower degree of faith be not a likely way to make considering men scorn your Religion and consequently all if they know no other as requiring things contradictory and impossible to be performed Lastly Whether your pretence that there is no good ground to believe Scripture but your Churches infallibility joyned with your pretending no ground for this but some texts of Scripture be not a fair way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9. Your calumnies against Protestants in generall are set down in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it be followed closely and with coherence to it self must of necessity induce Socinianism This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one error which may well be tearmed the Capital and mother-Heresie from which all other must follow at ease I mean their heresie in affirming That the perpetual visible Church of Christ descended by a never interrupted succession from our Saviour to this day is not infallible in all that it proposeth to be believed as revealed truths For if the infallibility of such a publique Authority be once impeached what remains but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse And talk not here of Holy Scripture For if the true Church may erre in defining what Scriptures be Canonicall or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private spirit a foolery now exploded out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianism or else upon natural wit and judgement for examining and determining What Scriptures contain true or false doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected And indeed take away the authority of God's Church no man can be assured that any one Book or parcel of Scripture was written by divine inspiration or that all the contents are infallibly true which are the direct errors of Socinians If it were but for this reason alone no man who regards the eternal salvation of his soul would live or dye in Protestancy from which so vast absurdities as these of the Socinians must inevitably follow And it ought to be an unspeakable comfort to all us Catholiques while we consider that none can deny the infallible authority of our Church but joyntly he must be left to his own wit and wayes and must abandon all infused faith and true Religion if he do but understand himself aright In all which discourse the only true word you speak is This I say confidently As for proving evidently that I believe you reserved for some other opportunity for the present I am sure you have been very sparing of it 10. You say indeed confidently enough that The deny all of the Churches infallibility is the Mother-Heresie from which all other must follow at ease Which is so far from being a necessary truth as you make it that it is indeed a manifest falshood Neither is it possible for the wit of man by any good or so much as probable consequence from the denyal of the Churches Infallibility to deduce any one of the ancient Heresies or any one error of the Socinians which are the Heresies here entreated of For who would not laugh at him that should argue thus Neither the Church of Rome nor any other Church is infallible Ergo The doctrine of Arrius Pelagius Eutyches Nestorius Photinus Manichaeus was true Doctrine On the other side it may be truly said and justified by very good and effectual reason that he that affirms with you the Pope's infallibility puts himself into his hands and power to be led by him at his ease and pleasure into all Heresie and even to Hell it self and cannot with reason say so long as he is constant to his grounds Domine cur ita facis but must believe white to be black and black to be white vertue to be vice and vice to be vertue nay which is a horrible but a most certain truth Christ to be Antichrist and Antichrist to be Christ if it be possible for the Pope to say so Which I say and will maintain howsoever you daub and disguise it is indeed to make men Apostate from Christ to his pretended Vicar but real Enemy For that name and no better if we may speak truth without offence I presume He deserves who under pretence of interpreting the Law of Christ which Authority without any word of express warrant he hath taken upon himself doth in many parts evacuate and dissolve it So dethroning Christ from his dominion over mens consciences and instead of Christ setting up Himself Inasmuch as he that requires that his interpretations of any Law should be obeyed as true and genuine seem they to mens understandings never so dissonant and discordant from it as the Bishop of Rome does requires indeed that his interpretations should be the Lawes and he that is firmly prepared in minde to believe and receive all such interpretations without judging of them and though to his private judgement they seem unreasonable is indeed congruously disposed to hold Adultery a venial sin and Fornication no sin whensoever the Pope and his Adherents shall so declare And whatsoever he may plead yet either wittingly or ignorantly he makes the Law and the Law-maker both stales and obeyes only the Interpreter As if I should pretend that I should
submit to the Lawes of the King of England but should indeed resolve to obey them in that sense which the King of France should put upon them whatsoever it were I presume every understanding man would say that I did indeed obey the King of France and not the King of England If I should pretend to believe the Bible but that I would understand it according to the sense which the chief Mufty should put upon it Who would not say that I were a Christian in pretense only but indeed a Mahumetan 11. Nor will it be to purpose for you to pretend that the Precepts of Christ are so plain that it cannot be feared that any Pope should ever go about to dissolve them and pretend to be a Christian For not to say that you now pretend the contrary to wit that the law of Christ is obscure even in things necessary to be believed and done and by saying so have made a fair way for any fowl interpretation of any part of it certainly that which the Church of Rome hath already done in this kind is an evident argument that if she once had this power unquestioned and made expedite and ready for use by being contracted to the Pope she may do what she pleaseth with it Who that had lived in the Primitive Church would not have thought it as utterly improbable that ever they should have brought in the worship of Images and picturing of God as now it is that they should legitimate Fornication Why may we not think they may in time take away the whole Communion from the Laity as well as they have taken away half of it Why may we not think that any Text and any Sense may not be accorded as well as the whole 14. Ch. of the Ep. of S. Paul to the Corinth is reconciled to the Latine-Service How is it possible any thing should be plainer forbidden than the worship of Angels in the Ep. to the Colossians than the teaching for Doctrines mens commands in the Gospel of S. Mark And therefore seeing we see these things done which hardly any man would have believed that had not seen them Why should we not fear that this unlimited power may not be used hereafter with as little moderation Seeing devices have been invented how men may worship Images without Idolatry and kill innocent men under pretence of Heresie without murder Who knows that some tricks may not be hereafter devised by which Lying with other mens wives shall be no Adultery taking away other mens goods no theft I conclude therefore That if Solomon himself were here and were to determine the difference Which is more likely to be mother of all Heresie The denial of the Churches or the affirming of the Popes Infallibility that he would certainly say This is the mother give her the childe 12. You say again confidently That if this Infallibility be once impeached every man is given over to his own wit and discourse which if you mean discourse not guiding it self by Scripture but only by principles of nature or perhaps by prejudices and popular errors and drawing consequences not by Rule but Chance is by no means true if you mean by Discourse right Reason grounded on Divine Revelation and common Notions written by God in the hearts of all men and deducing according to the never failing rules of Logick consequent deductions from them If this be it which you mean by discourse it is very meet and reasonable and necessary that men as in all their actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to happiness should be left unto it and he that follows this in all his opinions and actions and does not only seem to do so follows alwayes God whereas he that followeth a Company of men may oft-times follow a company of beasts And in saying this I say no more than S. John to all Christians in these words Dearly beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God or no and the rule he gives them to make this tryal by is to consider Whether they confess Jesus to be Christ that is the Guid of their Faith and Lord of their Action not whether they acknowledge the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more than S. Paul in exhorting all Christians To try all things and hold fast that which is good then S. Peter in commanding all Christians To be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them then our Saviour himself in forewarning all his Followers that if they blindly followed blinde guides both leaders and followers should fall into the ditch and again in saying even to the people Yea and why of your selves judge yee not what is right And though by passion or precipitation or prejudice by want of reason or not using what they have men may be and are oftentimes led in error and mischief yet that they cannot be misguided by Discourse truly so called such as I have described you your self have given them security For what is Discourse but drawing conclusions out of premises by good consequence Now the Principles which we have setled to wit the Scriptures are on all sides agreed to be infallibly true And you have told us in the fourth Chap. of this Pamphlet That from truth no man can by good consequence infer falshood Therefore by Discourse no man can possibly be led to Error but if he err in his Conclusions he must of necessity either err in his Principles which here cannot have place or commit some error in his Discourse that is indeed not Discourse but seem to do so 13. You say Thirdly with sufficient confidence That if the true Church may erre in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the private Spirit or else natural wit and judgment and by them examine what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proof of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly err in her judgment touching this matter yet have we other directions in it besides the private spirit and the examination of the contents which latter way may conclude the negative very strongly to wit that such or such a Book cannot come from God because it contains irreconcileable Contradictions but the Affirmative it cannot conclude because the contents of a Book may be all true and yet the Book not written by Divine inspiration other direction therefore I say we have besides either of these three and that is The testimony of the Primitive Christians 14. You say Fourthly with convenient boldness That this infallible Authority of your Church being denyed no man can be assured that any parcell of Scripture was written by Divine inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proof is pretended and besides void of modesty and full of impiety The
first because the experience of innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assured that the Scripture is divinely inspired and yet deny the infallible authority of your Church or any other The second because if I have not ground to be assured of the Divine authority of Scripture unless I first believe your Church infallible than I can have no ground at all to believe it because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe your Church infallible unless I first believe the Scripture Divine 15. Fiftly and lastly You say with confidence in abundance that none can deny the infallible authority of your Church but he must abandon all infused faith and true religion if he do but understand himself Which is to say agreeable to what you had said before and what out of the abundance of your heart you speak very often That all Christians besides you are open Fools or concealed Atheists All this you say with notable confidence as the maner of Sophisters is to place their confidence of prevailing in their confident maner of speaking but then for the evidence you promised to maintain this confidence that is quite vanished and become invisible 16. Had I a minde to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you do Protestants that they lead men to Socinianism I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence than you have done For I would not tell you You deny the infallibility of the Church of England ergo you lead to Socinianism which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the infallibility of the Roman-Church ergo they induce Socinianism Nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes infallibility you submit your self to that Capital and Mother-Heresie by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe vertue vice and vice vertue to believe Antichristianity Christianism and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianism to Turcism nay to be Devill himself if he have a minde to it But I would shew you that divers wayes the Doctors of your Church do the principal and proper work of the Socinians for them undermining the Doctrine of the Trinity by denying it to be supported by those pillars of the Faith which alone are fit and able to support it I mean Scripture and the Consent of the ancient Doctors 17. For Scripture your men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very earnestly by Cardinal Hosius De Author Sac. Scrip. l. 3. p. 53. By Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. Tom. 1. Controv. 1. De verbo Dei C. 19. by Gretserus and Tannerus in Colloquio Ratisbon And also by Vega Possevin Wick us and Others 18. And then for the Consent of the Ancients That that also delivers it not by whom are we taught but by Papists only Who is it that makes known to all the world that Eusebius that great searcher and devourer of the Christian Libraries was an Arrian Is it not your great Achilles Cardinal Perron in his 3. Book 2. Chap. of his Reply to K. James Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any error in this matter in or neer his time denied the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost Is it not the same great Cardinal in his Book of the Eucharist against M. du Plessis l. 2. c. 7 Who is it that pretends that Irenaeus hath said those things which he that should now hold would be esteemed an Arrian Is it not the same Perron in his Reply to K. James in the fifth Chapter of his fourth Observation And doth he not in the same place peach Tertullian also and in a manner give him away to the Arrians And pronounce generally of the Fathers before the Councel of Nice That the Arrians would gladly be tried by them And are not your fellow-Jesuits also even the prime men of your Order prevaricators in this point as well as others Doth not your Friend M. Fisher or M. Floyd in his book of the Nine Questions proposed to him by K. James speak dangerously to the same purpose in his discourse of the resolution of Faith towards the end Giving us to understand That the new Reformed Arrians bring very many testimonies of the Ancient Fathers to prove that in this Point they did contradict themselves and were contrary one to another which places whosoever shall read will clearly see that to common people they are unanswerable yea that common people are not capable of the answers that learned men yield unto such obscure passages And hath not your great Antiquary Petavius in his Notes upon Epiphanius in Haer. 69. been very liberal to the Adversaries of the Doctrine of the Trinity and in a manner given them for Patrons and Advocates first Justin Martyr and then almost all the Fathers before the Councel of Nice whose speeches he says touching this point cum Orthodoxae fidei regula minimè consentiunt Hereunto I might add that the Dominicans and Jesuits between them in another matter of great importance viz. God's Presciâ—â—ce of future contingents give the Socinians the premises out of which their conclusion doth unavoidably follow For the Dominicans maintain on the one Side that God can foresee nothing but what he decrees The Jesuits on the other Side that he doth not decree all things And from hence the Socinians conclude as it is obvious for them to do that he doth not foresee all things Lastly I might adjoyn this that you agree with one consent and settle for a rule unquestionable that no part of Religion can be repugnant to reason whereunto you in particulr subscribe unawares in saying From truth no man can by good consequence inferr Falshood which is to say in effect that Reason can never lead any man to Error And after you have done so you proclaim to all the world as you in this Pamphlet do very frequently that if men follow their Reason and discourse they will if they understand themselves be lead to Socinianism And thus you see with what probable matter I might furnish out and justifie my accusation if I should charge you with leading men to Socinianism Yet I do not conceive that I have ground enough for this odious imputation And much less should you have charged Protestants with it whom you confess to abhorre and detest it and who fight against it not with the broken reeds and out of the paper-fortresses of an imaginary Infallibility which were only to make sport for their Adversaries but with the sword of the Spirit the Word of God Of which we may say most truly what David said of Goliah's Sword offered by Abimelech Non est sicut iste There is none comparable to it 19. Thus Protestants in general I hope are sufficiently vindicated from your calumny I proceed now to do the same service for the Divines of England
whom you question first in point of learning and sufficiency and then in point of conscience and honesty as prevaricating in the Religion which they profess and inclining to Popery Their Learning you say consists only in some superficial talent of preaching languages and elocution and not in any deep knowledge of Philosophy especially of Metaphysicks and much less of that most solid profitable subtile and O rem ridiculam Cato jocosam succinct method of School-Divinity Wherein you have discovered in your self the true Genius and spirit of detraction For taking advantage from that wherein Envy it self cannot deny but they are very eminent and which requires great sufficiency of substantial learning you disparage them as insufficient in all things else As if forsooth because they dispute not eternally Utrum Chimaera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas intentiones Whether a Million of Angels may not sit upon a Needle 's point Because they fill not their brains with notions that signifie nothing to the utter extermination of all reason and common sense and spend not an Age in weaving and unweaving subtile Cobwebs fitter to catch flyes than Souls therefore they have no deep knowledge in the Acroamatical part of Learning But I have too much honoured the poorness of this detraction to take notice of it 20. The other Part of your accusation strikes deeper and is more considerable And that tels us that Protestantism waxeth weary of it self that the Professors of it they especially of greatest worth learning and authority love Temper and Moderation and are at this time more unresolved where to fasten than at the infancy of their Church That Their Churches begin to look with a new face Their walls to speak a new language Their Doctrine to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the then Visible Church of Christ For example The Pope not Antichrist Prayer for the dead Limbus Patrum Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to Interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our works are not sins Merit of good works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledge Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sense wherein they may seem Catholique That to alledge the necessity of wife and children in these dayes is but a weak plea for a married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That men in talk and writing use willingly the once fearful names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they do with sincerity it is easie to tell what doom will pass against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go to Jerusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the fore-heads of these men that they are even going nay making haste to Rome Which scurrilous Libel void of all truth discretion and honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. For did you indeed conceive or had any probable hope that such men as you describe men of worth of learning and authority too were friends and favourers of your Religion and inclinable to your Party Can any imagine that you would proclaim it and bid the world take heed of them Sic notus Ulysses Do we know the Jesuits no better than so What are they turned prevaricators against their own Faction Are they likely men to betray and expose their own Agents and Instruments and to awaken the eyes of Jealousie and to raise the clamor of the people against them Certainly your Zeal to the See of Rome testified by your fourth Vow of special obedience to the Pope proper to your Order and your cunning carriage of all affairs for the greater advantage and advancement of that See are clear demonstrations that if you had thought thus you would never have said so The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as neer to you that they may draw you to them as the truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from God upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all men And this I verily believe is the true reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other Adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the silliness and poorness of those Suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out devotion towards God out of a desire that he should be worshipped as in Spirit and truth in the first place so also in the beauty of holiness what if out of fear that too much simplicity and nakedness in the publique Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward state and glory of it being well-disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto God's Soveraign Majesty and Power what if out of a perswasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this scandall out of their way and out of an holy jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the magnificence and pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say What if out of these considerations the Governours of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where God's Honour dwels and
fabrick of my Discourse that is not naturally deducible out of this one Principle That all things necessary to salvation are evidently contained in Scripture Or what one Conclusion almost of importance is there in your Book which is not by this one clearly confutable 31. Grant this and it will presently follow in opposition to your first Conclusion and the Argument of your first Chap. that amongst men of different opinions touching the obscure and controverted Questions of Religion such as may with probability be disputed on both Sides and such are the disputes of Protestants Good men and â—â—â—ers of truth of all Sides may be saved because all necessary things being supposed evident concerning them with men so qualified there will be no difference There being no more certain sign that a Point is not evident than that honest and understanding and indifferent men and such as give themselves liberty of judgement after a mature consideration of the matter differ about it 32. Grant this and it will appear Secondly that the meanes whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which are to determine all Controversies in Faith necessary to be determined may be for any thing you have said to the contrary not a Church but the Scripture which contradicts the Doctrine of your Second Chapter 33. Grant this and the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental will appear very good and pertinent For those truths will be Fundamental which are evidently delivered in Scripture and commanded to be preached to all men Those not Fundamental which are obscure And nothing will hinder but that the Catholique Church may err in the latter kind of the said Points because Truths not necessary to the Salvation cannot be necessary to the Beeing of a Church and because it is not absolutely necessary that God should assist his Church any farther than to bring her to Salvation neither will there be any necessity at all of any infallible Guide either to consign unwritten Traditions or to declare the obscurities of the Faith Not for the former end because this Principle being granted true nothing unwritten can be necessary to be consigned Nor for the latter because nothing that is obscure can be necessary to be understood or not mistaken And so the discourse of your whole Third Chap. will presently vanish 34. Fourthly for the Creed's containing the Fundamentals of simple belief though I see not how it may be deduced from this Principle yet the granting of this plainly renders the whole dispute touching the Creed unnecessary For if all necessary things of all sorts whether of simple belief or practice be confessed to be clearly contained in Scripture What imports it whether those of one sort be contained in the Creed 35. Fifthly let this be granted and the immediate Corollary in opposition to your fifth Chap. will be and must be That not Protestants for rejecting but the Church of Rome for imposing upon the Faith of Christians Doctrines unwritten and unnecessary and for disturbing the Churche's peace and dividing Unity for such matters is in a high degree presumptuous and Schismatical 36. Grant this sixthly and it will follow unavoidably that Protestants cannot possibly be Hereticks seeing they believe all things evidently contained in Scripture which are supposed to be all that is necessary to be believed and so your Sixth Chapter is clearly confuted 37. Grant this lastly and it will be undoubtedly consequent in contradiction of your Seventh Chapter that no man can shew more charity to himself than by continuing a Protestant seeing Protestants are supposed to believe and therefore may accordingly practise at least by their Religion are not hindered from practising and performing all things necessary to Salvation 38. So that the position of this one Principle is the direct overthrow of your whole Book and thâ—refore I needed not nor indeed have I made use of any other Now this Principle which is not only the corner-stone or chief Pillar but even the basis and adequate foundation of my Answer and which while it stands firm and unmoveable cannot but be the supporter of my Book and the certain ruine of Yours is so far from being according to your pretence detested by all Protestants that all Protestants whatsoever as you may see in their harmony of Confessions unanimously profess and maintain it And you your self Chap. 6. § 30. plainly confess as much in saying The whole Edifice of the Faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonical Scripture And the sense and meaning of them is plain and evident at least in all Points necessary to Salvation 39. And thus your Venom against me is in a manner spent saving only that there remain two little Impertinencies whereby you would disable me from being a fit Advocate for the cause of Protestants The first because I refuse to subscribe the Articles of the Church of England The second because I have set down in writing Motives which sometime induced me to forsake Protestantism and hitherto have not answered them 40. By the former of which Objections it should seem that either you conceive the 39. Articles the common Doctrine of all Protestants and if they be Why have you so often upbraided them with their many and great differences Or else that it is the peculiar defence of the Church of England and not the common cause of all Protestants which is here undertaken by me which are certainly very gross Mistakes And yet why he who makes scruple of subscribing the truth of one or two Propositions may not yet be fit enough to maintain that those who do subscribe them are in a savable condition I do not understand Now though I hold not the Doctrine of all Protestants absolutely true which with reason cannot be required of me while they hold Contradictions yet I hold it free from all impiety and from all error destructive of Salvation or in it self damnable And this I think in reason may sufficiently qualifie me for a maintainer of this assertion that Protestancy destroys not Salvation For the Church of England I am perswaded that the constant Doctrine of it is so pure and Orthodox that whosoever believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly he shall be saved and that there is no Error in it which may necessitate or warrant any man to disturb the peace or renounce the Communion of it This in my opinion is all intended by Subscription and thus much if you conceive me not ready to subscribe your Charity I assure you is much Mistaken 41. Your other objection against me is yet more impertinent and frivolous than the former Unless perhaps it be a just exception against a Physitian that himself was sometimes in and recovered himself from that disease which he undertakes to cure or against a Guide in a way that at first before he had experience himself mistook it and afterwards found his error and amended it That noble
the Roman Doctrin have to abuse the World To the fourth All those were not a See this acknowledged by Bellar. de Script Eccles in Philastrio By Petavius Animad in Epiph. de inscrip operis By S. Austin Lib. de Haer. Haer. 80. Heretiques which by Philastrius Epiphanius or S. Austin were put in the Catalogue of Heretiques To the fifth Kings and Nations have been and may be converted by men of contrary Religions To the sixth The Doctrin of Papists is confessed by Papists contrary to the Fathers in many points To the seventh The Pastors of a Church cannot but have authority from it to Preach against the abuses of it whether in Doctrin or Practice if there be any in it Neither can any Christian want an ordinary commission from God to do a necessary work of Charity after a peaceable manner when there is no body else that can or will do it In extraordinary cases extraordinary courses are not to be disallowed If some Christian Lay-man should come into a Countrey of Infidels and had ability to perswade them to Christianity Who would say he might not use it for want of Commission To the eighth Luther's conference with the Devil might be for ought I know nothing but a melancholy Dream If it were reall the Devil might perswade Luther from the Masse hoping by doing so to keep him constant to it Or that others would make his disswasion from it an Argument for it as we see Papists do and be afraid of following Luther as confessing himself to have been perswaded by the Devill To the ninth Iliacos intra muros peccatur extra Papists are more guilty of this fault than Protestants Even this very Author in this very Pamphlet hath not so many leaves as falsifications and calumnies To the tenth Let all men believe the Scripture and that only and endeavour to believe it in the true sense and require no more of others and they shall find this not only a better but the only means to suppress Heresie and restore Unity For he that believes the Scripture sincerely and endeavours to believe it in the true sense cannot possibly be an Heretique And if no more than this were required of any man to make him capable of the Churches Communion then all men so qualified though they were different in opinion yet notwithstanding any such difference must be of necessity one in Communion The AUTHOR of CHARITY MAINTAINED His Preface to the READER GIve me leave good Reader to inform thee by way of Preface of three Points The first concerns D. Potters Answer to Charity Mistaken The second relates to this Reply of mine And the third contains some Premonitions or Prescriptions in case D. Potter or any in his behalf think fit to Rejoyn 2. For the first point concerning D. Potters Answer I say in general reserving particulars to their proper places that in his whole Book he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the point in question which was Whether both Catholiques and Protestants can be saved in their several professions And therefore Charity Mistaken judiciously pressing those particulars wherein the difficulty doth precisely consist proves in general that there is but one true Church that all Christians are obliged to hearken to her that she must be ever visible and infallible that to separate ones self from her communion is Schism and to dissent from her Doctrin is Heresie though it be in points never so few or never so small in their own nature and therefore that the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental is wholly vain as it is applyed by Protestants These I say and some other general grounds Charity Mistaken handles and out of them doth clearly evince that any least difference in faith cannot stand with salvation on both sides and therefore since it is apparent that Catholiques and Protestants disagree in very many points of faith they both cannot hope to be saved without repentance and consequently as we hold that Protestancy unrepented destroyes Salvation so must they also believe that we cannot be saved if they judge their own Religion to be true and ours to be false And whosoever disguizeth this truth is an enemy to souls which he deceives with ungrounded false hopes of Salvation in different Faiths and Religions And this Charity Mistaken performed exactly according to that which appears to have been his design which was not to descend to particular disputes and D. Potter affectedly does namely Whether or no the Roman-Church be the only true Church of Christ and much lesse Whether general Councels be infallible whether the Pope may erre in his Decrees common to the whole Church whether he be above a General Council whether all points of Faith be contained in Scripture whether Faith be resolved into the authority of the Church as into his last formal Object and Motive and least of all did he discourse of Images Communion under both kinds publique service in an unknown Tongue Seven Sacraments Sacrifice of the Masse Indulgences and Index Expurgatorius All which and divers other articles D. Potter as I said draws by violence into his Book and he might have brought in Pope Joan or Antichrist or the Jews who are permitted to live in Rome which are common Themes for men that want better matter as D. Potter was fain to fetch in the aforesaid Controversies that so he might dazle the eyes and distract the minde of the Reader and hinder him from perceiving that in his whole answer he uttereth nothing to the purpose and point in question which if he had followed closely I dare well say he might have dispatched his whole Book in two or three sheets of paper But the truth is he was loath to affirm plainly that generally both Catholiques and Protestants may be saved and yet seeing it to be most evident that Protestants cannot pretend to have any true Church before Luther except the Roman and such as agreed with her and consequently that they cannot hope for Salvation if they deny it to us he thought best to avoid this difficulty by confusion of language and to fill up his Book with Points which make nothing to the purpose Wherein he is lesse excusable because he must grant that those very particulars to which he digresseth are not Fundamental errors though it should be granted that they be Errors which indeed are Catholique Verities For since they bâ— not Fundamental not destructive of Salvation what imports it Whether we hold them or no for as much as concerns our possibility to be saved 3. In one thing only he will perhaps seem to have touched the point in question to wit in his distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental because some may think that a difference in points which are not Fundamental breaks not the Unity of Faith and hinders not the hope of Salvation in persons so disagreeing And yet in this very distinction he never speaks to the purpose indeed but
visible Church and some hold no such necessity Some of them hold it necessary to be able to prove it distinct from ours and others that their business is dispatched when they have proved ours to have been alwayes visible for then they will conceive that theirs hath been so And the like may be truly said of very many other particulars Besides it is D. Potter's fashion wherein as he is very far from being the first so I pray God he prove the last of that humour to touch in a word many trivial old Objections which if they be not all answered it will and must serve the turn to make the ignorant sort of men believe and brag as if some main unanswerable matter had been subtilly and purposely omitted and every body knows that some Objection may be very plausibly made in few words the clear and solid answer whereof will require more leaves of paper than one And in particular D. Potter doth couch his corruption of Authors within the compass of so few lines and with so great confusedness and fraud that it requires much time pains and paper to open them so distinctly as that they may appear to every man's eye It was also necessary to shew what D. Potter omits in Charity Mistaken and the importance of what is omitted and sometimes to set down the very words themselves that are omitted all words themselves that are omitted all which could not but add to the quantity of my Reply And as for the quality thereof I desire thee good Reader to believe that whereas nothing is more necessary than Books for answering of Books yet I was so ill furnished in this kind that I was forced to omit the examination of divers Authors cited by D. Potter meetly upon necessity though I did very well perceive by most apparent circumstances that I must probably have been sure enough so finde them plainly misalledged and much wronged and for the few which are examined there hath not wanted some difficulties to do it For the times are not for all men alike and D. Potter hath much advantage therein But Truth is truth and will ever be able to justifie it self in the midst of all difficulties which may occurr And as for me when I alledge Protestant Writers as well Domestical as Forrain I willingly and thankfully acknowledge my self obliged for divers of them to the Author of the Book entituled The Protestant's Apology for the Romane Church who calls himself John Breerly whose care exactness and fidelity is so extraordinary great as that he doth not only cite the Books but the Editions also with the place and time of their Printing yea and often the very page and line where the words are to be had And if you happen not to finde what he cites yet suspend your judgement till you have read the corrections placed at the end of his Book though it be also true that after all diligence and faithfulness on his behalf it was not in his power to amend all the faults of the Print in which Prints we have difficulty enough for many evident reasons which must needs occurr to any prudent man 8. And forasmuch as concerns the manner of my Reply I have procured to do it without all bitterness or gall of invective words both for as much as may import either Protestants in general or D. Potter's person in particular unless for example he will call it bitterness for me to term a gross impertinency a sleight or a corruption by those very names without which I do not know how to express the things and yet therein I can truly affirm that I have studied how to deliver them in the most moderate way to the end I might give as little offence as possibly I could without betraying the Cause And if any unfit phrase may peradventure have escaped my pen as I hope none hath it was beside and against my intention though I must needs profess that D. Potter gives so many and so just occasions of being round with him as that perhaps some will judge me to have been rather remiss than moderate But since in the very title of my Reply I profess to maintain Charity I conceive that the excess will be more excusable amongst all kinds of men if it fall to be in mildness than if it had appeared in too much zeal And if D. Potter have a mind to charge me with ignorance or any thing of that nature I can and will ease him of that labour by acknowledging in my self as many and more personal defects than he can heap upon me Truth only and sincerity I so much value and profess as that he shall never be able to prove the contrary in any one least passage or particle against me Rules to be observed if D. Potter intend a Rejoynder 9. In the third and last place I have thought fit to express my self thus If D. Potter or any other resolve to answer my Reply I desire that he will observe some things which may tend to his own reputation the saving of my unnecessary pains and especially to the greater advantage of truth I wish then that he would be careful to consider wherein the point of every difficulty consists and not impertinently to shoot at Rovers and affectedly mistake one thing for another As for example to what purpose for as much as conecrns the question between D. Potter and Charity Mistaken doth he so often and seriously labour to prove that Faith is not resolved into the Authority of the Church as into the formal Object and Motive thereof Or that all Points of Faith are contained in Scripture Or that the Church cannot make new Articles of Faith Or that the Church of Rome as it signifies that particular Church or Diocess is not all one with the Universal Church Or that the Pope as a private Doctor may err With many other such points as will easily appear in their proper places It will also be necessary for him not to put certain Doctrines upon us from which he knows we disclaim as much as himself 10. I must in like manner intreat him not to recite my reasons and discourses by halfs but to set them down faithfully and entirely for as much as in very deed concerns the whole substance of the thing in question because the want sometime of one word may chance to make void or lessen the force of the whole Argument And I am the more solicitous about giving this particular caveat because I find how ill he hath complied with the promise which he made in his Preface to the Reader not to omit without answer any one thing of moment in all the discourse of Charity Mistaken Neither will this course be a cause that his Rejoynder grow too large but it will be occasion of brevity to him and free me also from the pains of setting down all the words which he omits and himself of demonstrating that what he omitted was not material Nay I
will assure him that if he keep himself to the point of every diffficulty and not weary the Reader and overcharge his margent with unnecessary quotations of Authors in Greek and Latine and sometime also in Italian and French together with Proverbs Sentences of Poets and such Grammatical stuff nor affect to cite a multitude of our Catholique School-Divines to no purpose at all his Book will not exceed a competent size nor will any man in reason be offended with that length which is regulated by necessity Again before he come to set down his answer or propose his Arguments let him consider very well what may be replyed and whether his own objections may not be retorted against himself as the Reader will perceive to have hapned often to his disadvantage in my Reply against him But especially I expect and Truth it self exacts at his hand that he speak clearly and distinctly and not seek to walk in darkness so to delude and deceive his Reader now saying and then denying and alwayes speaking with such ambiguity as that his greatest care may seem to consist in a certain Art to find a shift as his occasions might chance either now or hereafter to require and as he might fall out to be urged by diversity of several Arguments And to the end it may appear that I deal plainly as I would have him also do I desire that he declare himself concerning these points 11. First whether our Saviour Christ have not alwayes had and be not ever to have a visible true Church on earth and whether the contrary Doctrine be not a damnable heresie 12. Secondly what visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Church and agreeing with the pretended Church of Protestants 13. Thirdly Since he will be forced to grant That there can be assigned no visible true Church of Christ distinct from the Church of Rome and such Churches as agreed with her when Luther first appeared whether it doth not follow that she hath not erred Fundamentally because every such error destroyes the nature and beeing of the Church and so our Saviour Christ should have had no visible Church on earth 14. Fourthly if the Roman Church did not fall into any Fundamental error let him tell us how it can be damnable to live in her Communion or to maintain errors which are known and confessed not to be Fundamental or damnable 15. Fiftly if her Errors were not damnable nor did exclude salvation how can they be excused from Schism who forsook her Communion upon pretence of errors which were not damnable 16. Sixthly if D. Potter have a minde to say That her Errors are Damnable or Fundamental let him do us so much charity as to tell us in particular what those Fundamental errors be But he must still remember and my self must be excused for repeating it that if he say The Roman Church erred Fundamentally he will not be able to shew that Christ our Lord had any visible Church on earth when Luther appeared and let him tell us How Protestants had or can have any Church which was universal and extended herself to all ages if once he grant that the Roman Church ceased to be the true Church of Christ and consequently how they can hope for Salvation if they deny it to us 17. Seventhly whether any one Error maintained against any one Truth though never so small in it self yet sufficiently propounded as testified or revealed by Almighty God do not destroy the Nature and Unity of Faith or at least is not a grievous offence excluding Salvation 18. Eighthly if this be so how can Lutherans Calvinists Swinglians and all the rest of disagreeing Protestants hope for Salvation since it is manifest that some of them must needs err against some such truth as is testified by Almighty God either Fundamental or at least not Fundamental 19. Ninthly we constantly urge and require to have a particular Catalogue of such Points as he cals Fundamental A Catalogue I say in particular and not only some general definition or description wherein Protestants may perhaps agree though we see that they differ when they come to assign what Points in particular be Fundamental and yet upon such a particular Catalogue much depends as for example in particular Whether or no a man do not err in some Point Fundamental or necessary to Salvation and whether or no Lutherans Calvinists and the rest do disagree in Fundamentals which if they do the same heaven cannot receive them all 20. Tenthly and lastly I desire that in answering to these Points he would let us know distinctly what is the Doctrine of the Protestant English Church concerning them and what he utters only as his own private opinion 21. These are the Questions which for the present I find it fit and necessary for me to ask of D. Potter or any other who will defend his cause or impugne ours And it will be in vain to speak vainly and to tell me that a Fool may ask more questions in an hour than a Wise man can answer in a year with such idle Proverbs as that For I ask but such questions as for which he gives occasion in his Book and where he declares not himself but after so ambiguous and confused a manner as that Truth it self can scarce tell how to convince him so but that with ignorant and ill judging men he will seem to have somewhat left to say for himself though Papists as he cals them and Puritans should presse him contrary wayes at the same time and these questions concern things also of high importance as whereupon the knowledge of God's Church and true Religion and consequently Salvation of the soul depends And now because he shall not taxe me with being like those men in the Gospel whom our blessed Lord and Saviour charged with laying heavy burdens upon other mens shoulders who yet would not touch them with their finger I oblige my self to answer upon any demand of his both to all these Questions if he find that I have not done it already and to any other concerning matter of Faith that he shall ask And I will tell him very plainly what is Catholique Doctrin and what is not that is what is defined or what is not defined and rests but in discussion among Divines 22. And it will be here expected that he perform these things as a man who professeth learning should do not flying from questions which concern things as they are considered in their own nature to accidental or rare circumstances of ignorance incapacity want of means to be instructed erroneous conscience and the like which being very various and different cannot be well comprehended under any general Rule But in delivering general Doctrins we must consider things as they be ex natura rei or per se loquendo as Divines speak that is according to their natures if all circumstances concurr proportionable thereunto As for example some may for a time have invincible
ignorance even of some Fundamental Article of Faith through want of capacity instruction or the like and so not offend either in such ignorance or error and yet we must absolutely say that error in any one Fundamental point is damnable because so it is if we consider things in themselves abstracting from accidental circumstances in particular persons as contrarily if some man judge some act of virtue or some indifferent action to be a sin in him it is a sin indeed by reason of his erroneous conscience and yet we ought not to say absolutely that virtuous or indifferent actions are sins and in all sciences we must distinguish the general Rules from their particular Exceptions And therefore when for example he answers to our Demand Whether he hold that Catholiques may be saved or Whether their pretended errors be Fundamental and Damnable he is not to change the state of the question and have recourse to Ignorance and the like but to answer concerning the errors being considered what they are apt to be in themselves and as they are neither increased nor diminished by accidental circumstances 23. And the like I say of all the other Points to which I once again desire an answer without any of these or the like ambiguous terms in some sort in some sense in some degree which may be explicated afterward as strictly or largely as may best serve his turn but let him tell us roundly and particularly in what sort in what sense in what degree he understands those and the like obscure mincing phrases If he proceed solidly after this manner and not by way of meer words more like a Preacher to a vulgar Auditor than like a learned man with a pen in his hand thy patience shall be the less abused and truth will also receive more right And since we have already laid the grounds of the question much may be said hereafter in few words if as I said he keep close to the real point of every difficulty without wandring into impertinent disputes or multiplying vulgar and thred-bare objections and arguments or labouring to prove what no man denies or making a vain ostentation by citing a number of Schoolmen which every Puny brought up in Schools is able to do and if he cite his Authors with such sincerity as no time need be spent in opening his corruptions and finally if he set himself awork with this consideration that we are to give a most strict account to a most just and impartial Judge of every period line and word that passeth under our pen. For if at the latter day we shall be arraigned for every idle word which is spoken so much more will that be done for every idle word which is written as the deliberation wherewith it passeth makes a man guilty of more malice and as the importance of the matter which is treated of in Books concerning true Faith and Religion without which no Soul can be saved makes a man's Errors more material than they would be if the question were but of toys The Answer to the PREFACE AD 1. 2. § If beginnings be ominous as they say they are D. Potter hath cause to look for great store of uningenuous dealing from you the very first words you speak of him viz. That he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the Point in question being a most unjust and immodest imputation 2. For first The Point in question was not that which you pretend Whether both Papists and Protestants can be saved in their several Professions But Whether you may without uncharitableness affirm that Protestancy unrepented destroys Salvation And that this is the very question is most apparent and unquestionable both from the title of Charity Mistaken and from the Arguments of the three first Chapters of it and from the title of your own Reply And therefore if D. Potter had joyned issue with his Adversary only thus far and not medling at all with Papists but leaving them to stand or fall to their own Master had proved Protestants living and dying so capable of Salvation I cannot see how it could justly be charged upon him that he had not once truly and really fallen upon the Point in Question Neither may it be said that your Question here and mine are in effect the same seeing it is very possible that the true Answer to the one might have been Affirmative and to the other Negative For there is no incongruity but it may be true That You and We cannot both be saved And yet as true That without uncharitableness you cannot pronounce us damned For all ungrounded and unwarrantable sentencing men to Damnation is either in a proriety of speech uncharitable or else which for my purpose is all one it is that which Protestants mean when they say Papists for damning them are uncharitable And therefore though the Author of C. M. had proved as strongly as he hath done weakly that one Heaven could not receive Protestants and Papists both yet certainly it was very hastily and unwarrantably and therefore uncharitably concluded that Protestants were the part that was to be excluded As though Jews and Christians cannot both be saved yet a Jew cannot justly and therefore not charitably pronounce a Christian damned 3. But then secondly to shew your dealing with him very injurious I say he doth speak to this very Question very largely and very effectually as by confronting his Work and Charity M. together will presently appear Charity M. proves you say in general That there is but one Church D. Potter tels him His labour is lost in proving the unity of the Catholique Church whereof there is no doubt or controversie and herein I hope you will grant he answers right and to the purpose C. M. proves you say secondly That all Christians are obliged to hearken to the Church D. Potter answers It is true yet not absolutely in all things but only when she commands those things which God doth not countermand And this also I hope is to his purpose though not to yours C.M. proves you say thirdly That the Church must be ever visible and infallible For her Visibility D. Potter denies it not and as for her Infallibility he grants it in Fundamentals but not in Superstructures C.M. proves you say fourthly That to separate one's self from the Churche's Communion is Schism D. Potter grants it with this exception unless there be necessary cause to do so unless the conditions of her Communion be apparently unlawful C.M. proves you say lastly That to dissent from her Doctrine is Heresie though it be in points never so few and never so small and therefore that the distinction of points fundamental and unfundamental as it is applyed by Protestants is wholly vain This D. P. denies shews the Reasons brought for it weak and unconcluding proves the contrary by Reasons unanswerable and therefore that The distinction of points into fundamental and not-fundamental as it is applyed by
Protestants is very good Upon these grounds you say C.M. clearly evinces That any least difference in faith cannot stand with salvation and therefore seeing Catholiques and Protestants disagree in very many points of faith they both cannot hope to be saved without Repentance you must mean without an explicite and particular repentance and dereliction of their errors for so C.M. hath declared himself p. 14. where he hath these words We may safely say that a man who lives in Protestancy and who is so far from Repenting it as that he will not so much as acknowledge it to be a sin though he be sufficiently enformed thereof c. From whence it is evident that in his judgement there can be no repentance of an errour without acknowledging it to be a sin And to this D. Potter justly opposes That both Siaes by the confession of both Sides agree in more points than are simply and indispensably necessary to Salvation and differ only in such as are not precisely necessary That it is very possible a man may die in error and yet die with Repentance as for all his sins of ignorance so in that number for the errors in which he dies with a repentance though not explicite and particular which is not simply required yet implicit and general which is sufficient so that he cannot but hope considering the goodness of God that the truth is retained on both Sides especially those of the necessity of Repentance from dead Works and Faith in Jesus Christ if they be put in practice may be an Antidote against the errors held on either Side to such he means and says as being diligent in seeking truth and desirous to find it yet miss of it through humane frailty and die in errour If you will but attentively consider and compare the undertaking of C. M. and D. Potter's performance in all these points I hope you will be so ingenuous as to acknowledge that you have injured him much in imputing tergiversation to him and pretending that through his whole Book he hath not once truly and really fallen upon the Point in Question Neither may you or C. M. conclude him from hence as covertly you do An enemy to souls by deceiving them with ungrounded false hopes of Salvation seeing the hope of salvation cannot be ungrounded which requires and supposes belief and practice of all things absolutely necessary unto salvation and repentance of those sins and errours which we fall into by humane frailty Nor a friend to indifferency in Religions seeing he gives them only hope of pardon of Errours who are desirous and according to the proportion of their opportunities and abilities industrious to find the truth or at least truly repentant that they have not been so Which Doctrine is very fit to excite men to a constant and imâ—artial search of truth and very far from teaching them that it is indifferent what Religion they are of and without all controversie very honourable to the Goodness of God with which how it can consist not to be satisfied with his servant's true endeavours to know his will and do it without full and exact performance I leave it to you and all good men to judge 4. As little justice me-thinks you shew in quarrelling with him for descending to the particular disputes here mentioned by you For to say nothing that many of these Questions are immediately and directly pertinent to the business in hand as the 1 2 3 5 6. and all of them fall in of themselves into the stream of his Discourse and are not drawn in by him and besides are touched for the most part rather than handled to say nothing of all this you know right well if he conclude you erroneous in any one of all these be it but in the Communion in one kind or the Language of your service the infallibility of your Church is evidently overthrown And this being done I hope there will be no such necessity of hearkening to her in all things It will be very possible to separate from her communion in some things without Schism and from her Doctrine so far as it is erroneous without Heresie Then all that she proposes will not be eo ipso fundamental because she proposes it and so presently all Charity Mistaken will vanish into smoak and clouds and nothing 5. You say he was loth to affirm plainly that generally both Catholiques and Protestants may be saved which yet is manifest he doth affirm plainly of Protestants throughout his Book and of erring Papists that have sincerely sought the truth and failed of it and die with a general repentance p. 77 78. And yet you deceive your self if you conceive he had any other necessity to do so but only that he thought it true For we may and do pretend that before Luther there were many true Churches besides the Roman which agreed not with her in particular The Greek Church So that what you say is evidently true is indeed evidently false Besides if he had had any necessity to make use of you in this matter he needed not for this end to say that now in your Church Salvation may be had but only that before Lurhers time it might be Then when your means of knowing the Truth were not so great and when your ignorance might be more invincible and therefore more excusable So that you may see if you please it is not for ends but for the love of truth that we are thus charitable to you 6. Neither is it material that these particulars he speaks against are not fundamental errours for though they be not destructive of salvation yet the convincing of them may be and is destructive enough of his Adversarie's assertion and if you be the man I take you for you will not deny they are so For certainly no Consequence can be more palpable than this The Church of Rome doth err in this or that therefore it is not infallible And this perhaps you perceived your self and therefore demanded not Since they be not fundamental what imports it whether we hold them or no simply But for as much as concerns our possibility to be saved As if we were not bound by the love of God and the love of Truth to be zealous in the defence of all Truths that are any way profitable though not simply necessary to salvation Or as if any good man could satisfie his conscience without being so affected and resolved Our Saviour himself having assured us * Mat. 5.19 That he that shall break one of his least Commandments some whereof you pretend are concerning venial sins and consequently the keeping of them not necessary to salvation and shall so teach men shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven 7. But then it imports very much though not for the possibility that you may be saved yet for the probability that you will be so because the holding of these errors though it did not merit might yet occasion damnation
As the doctrine of Indulgences may take away the fear of Purgatory and the doctrine of Purgatory the fear of Hell as you well know it does too frequently So that though a godly man might be saved with these errours yet by means of them many are made vicious and so damned By them I say though not for them No godly Layman who is verily perswaded that there is neither impiety nor superstition in the use of your Latine-service shall be damned I hope for being present at it yet the want of that devotion which the frequent hearing the Offices understood might happily beget in them the want of that instruction and edification which it might afford them may very probably hinder the salvation of many which otherwise might have been saved Besides though the matter of an Errour may be only something profitable not necessary yet the neglect of it may be a damnable sin As not to regard venial sins is in the Doctrine of your Schools mortal Lastly as venial sins you say dispose men to mortal so the erring from some profitable though lesser truth may dispose a man to errour in greater matters As for example The belief of the Pope's infallibility is I hope not unpardonably damnable to every one that holds it yet if it be a falshood as most certainly it is it puts a man into a very congruous disposition to believe Antichrist if he should chance to get into that See 8. Ad § 3. In his Distinction of point fundamental and not fundamental he may seem you say to have touched the point but does not so indeed Because though he says There are some points so fundamental as that all are obliged to believe them explicitely yet he tels you not whether a man may disbelieve any other points of faith which are sufficiently presented to his understanding as Truths revealed by Almighty God Touching which matter of Sufficient Proposal I beseech you to come out of the clouds and tell us roundly and plainly what you mean by Points of faith sufficiently propounded to a man's understanding as Truths revealed by God Perhaps you mean such as the person to whom they are proposed understands sufficiently to be Truths revealed by God But how then can he possibly choose but believe them Or how is it not an apparent contradiction that a man should disbelieve what himself understands to be a Truth o◠any Christian what he understands or but believes to be testified by God Doctor Potter might well think it superfluous to tell you This is damnable because indeed it is impossible And yet one may very well think by your saying as you do hereafter That the impiety of heresie consists in calling God's truth in question that this should be your meaning Or do you esteem all those things sufficiently presented to his understanding as Divine truths which by you or any other man or any Company of men whatsoever are declared to him to be so I hope you will not say so for this were to oblige a man to believe all the Churches and all the men in the world whensoever they pretend to propose Divine Revelations D. Potter I assure you from him would never have told you this neither Or do you mean by sufficiently propounded as Divine Truths all that your Church propounds for such That you may not neither For the Question between us is this Whether your Churches Proposition be a sufficient Proposition And therefore to suppose this is to suppose the Question which you know in Reasoning is always a fault Or lastly do you mean for I know not else what possibly you can mean by sufficiently presented to his understanding as revealed by God that which all things considered is so proposed to him that he might and should and would believe it to be true and revealed by God were it not for some voluntary and avoidable fault of his own that interposeth it self between his understanding and the truth presented to it This is the best construction that I can make of your words and if you speak of truths thus proposed and rejected let it be as damnable as you please to deny or disbelieve them But then I cannot but be amaz'd to hear you say That D. Potter never tells you whether there be any other Points of faith besides those which we are bound to believe explicitely which a man may deny or disbelieve though they be sufficiently presented to his understanding as truths revealed or testified by Almighty God seeing the light it self is not more clear than D. Potter's Declaration of himself for the Negative in this Question p. 245 246 247 249 250. of his Book Where he treats at large of this very Argument beginning his discourse thus It seems fundamental to the faith and for the salvation of every member of the Church that he acknowledge and believe all such points of faith as whereof he may be convinced that they belong to the Doctrine of Jesus Christ To this conviction he requires three things Clear Revelation Sufficient Proposition and Capacity and Understanding in the Hearer For want of clear Revelation he frees the Church before Christ and the Disciples of Christ from any damnable errour though they believed not those things which he that should now deny were no Christian To Sufficient Proposition he requires two things 1. That the points be perspicuously laid open in themselves 2. So forcibly as may serve to remove reasonable doubts to the contrary and to satisfie a teachable mind concerning it against the principles in which he hath been bred to the Contrary This Proposition he says is not limited to the Pope or Church but extended to all means whatsoever by which a man may be convinced in conscience that the matter proposed is divine Revelation which he professes to be done sufficiently not only when his conscience doth expresly bear witness to the truth but when it would do so if it were not choaked and blinded by some unruly and unmortified lust in the will The difference being not great between him that is wilfully blind and him that knowingly gainsayeth the Truth The third thing he requires is Capacity and Ability to apprehend the Proposal and the Reasons of it the want whereof excuseth fools and madmen c. But where there is no such impediment and the will of God is sufficiently propounded there saith he he that opposeth is convinced of errour and he who is thus convinced is an Heretique and heresie is a work of the Flesh which excludeth from salvation he means without Repentance And hence it followeth that it is fundamentall to a Christian's faith and necessary for his salvation that he believe all revealed truths of God whereof he may be convinced that they are from God This is the conclusion of Doctor Potter's discourse many passages whereof you take notice of in your subsequent disputations and make your advantage of them And therefore I cannot but say again that it amazeth me to
hear you say that he declines this Question and never tells you whether or no there be any other points of faith which being sufficiently propounded as divine Revelations may be denied and dis-believed He tells you plainly there are none such and therefore you cannot say that he tells you not whether there be any such Again it is almost as strange to me why you should say this was the only thing in question Whether a man may deny or disbelieve any point of faith sufficiently presented to his understanding as a truth revealed by God For to say that any thing is a thing in question me-thinks at the first hearing of the words imports that it is by some affirmed and denied by others Now you affirm I grant but What Protestant ever denied that it was a sin to give God the lye Which is the first and most obvious sense of these words Or which of them ever doubted that to disbelieve is then a fault when the matter is so proposed to a man that he might and should and were it not for his own fault would believe it Certainly he that questions either of these justly deserves to have his wits called in question Produce any one Protestant that ever did so and I will give you leave to say It is the only thing in question But then I must tell you that your ensuing Argument viz. To deny a truth witnessed by God is damnable But of two that disagree one must of necessity deny some such truth Therefore one only can be saved is built upon a ground clean different from this postulate For though it be always a fault to deny what either I do know or should know to be testified by God yet that which by a cleanly conveyance you put in the place hereof To deny a truth witnessed by God simply without the circumstance of being known or sufficiently proposed is so far from being certainly damnable that it may be many times done without any the least fault at all As if God should testifie something to a man in the Indies I that had no assurance of this testification should not be oblig'd to believe it For in such cases the Rule of the Law hath place Idem est non esse non apparere not to be at all and not to appear to me is to me all one If I had not come and spoken unto you saith our Saviour you had had no sin 10. As little necessity is there for that which follows That of two disagreeing in a matter of faith one must deny some such truth Whether by such you understand Testified at all by God or testified and sufficiently propounded For it is very possible the matter in controversie may be such a thing wherein God hath not at all declared himself or not so fully and clearly as to oblige all men to hold one way and yet be so overvalued by the parties in variance as to be esteemed a matter of faith and one of those things of which our Savior says He that believeth not shall be damn'd Who sees not that it is possible two Churches may excommunicate and damn each other for keeping Christmass ten dayes sooner or later as well as Victor excommunicated the Churches of Asia for differing from him about Easter day And yet I believe you will confess that God had not then declared himself about Easter nor hath now about Christmass Anciently some good Catholique Bishops excommunicated and damned others for holding there were Antipodes and in this question I would fain know on which side was the sufficient proposal The contra-Remonstrants differ from the Remonstrants about the point of Predetermination as a matter of faith I would know in this thing also which way God hath declared himself whether for Predetermination or against it Stephen Bishop of Rome held it as a matter of faith and Apostolique Tradition That Heretiques gave true Baptism Others there were and they as good Catholiques as he that held that this was neither matter of Faith nor matter of Truth Justin Martyr and Irenaeus held the doctrine of the Millenaries as a matter of faith and though Justin Martyr deny it yet you I hope will affirm that some good Christians held the contrary S. Augustine I am sure held the communicating of Infants as much Apostolique tradition as the Baptizing of them whether the Bishop and the Church of Rome of his time held so too or held otherwise I desire you to determine But sure I am the Church of Rome at this present holds the contrary The same S. Austin held it no matter of faith that the Bishops of Rome were Judges of Appeals from all parts of the Church Catholique no not in Major Causes and Major Persons whether the Bishop or Church of Rome did then hold the contrary do you resolve me but now I am resolv'd they do so In all these differences the point in question is esteemed and proposed by one side at least as a matter of faith and by the other rejected as not so and either this is to disagree in matters of faith or you will have no means to shew that we do disagree Now then to shew you how weak and sandy the foundation is on which the whole fabrick both of your Book and Church depends answer me briefly to this Dilemma Either in these oppositions one of the opposite Parts erred damnably and denied God's truth sufficiently propounded or they did not If they did then they which do deny God's truth sufficiently propounded may go to heaven and then you are rash and uncharitable in excluding us though we were guilty of this fault If not then there is no such necessity that of two disagreeing about a matter of faith one should deny God's truth sufficiently propounded And so the Major and Minor of your Argument are proved false Yet though they were as true as Gospel and as evident as Mathematical Principles the Conclusion so impertinent is it to the Premises might still be false For that which naturally issues from these Propositions is not Therefore one only can be saved But Therefore one of them does something that is damnable But with what Logick or what Charity you can inferr either as the immediate production of the former premises or as a Corollary from this Conclusion Therefore one only can be saved I do not understand unless you will pretend that this consequence is good Such a one doth something damnable therefore he shall certainly be damned Which whether it be not to overthrow the Article of our Faith which promises remission of sins upon repentance and consequently to ruine the Gospel of Christ I leave it to the Pope and the Cardinals to determine For if against this it be alleaged that no man can repent of the sin wherein he dies This muce I have already stopped by shewing that if it be a sin of Ignorance this is no way incongruous 11. Ad § 4. You proceed in sleighting and disgracing your
Adversary Pretending his objections are mean and vulgar and such as have been answered a thousand times But if your cause were good these Arts would be needless For though some of his Objections have been often shifted by men * I mean the Divines of Doway whose profession we have in your Belgick Expurgatorius p. 12. in censura Bertrami in these words Seeing in other ancient Catholiques we tolerate extenuate and excuse very many errors and dâ—vising some shift often deny them and put upon them a convenient sense when they are objected to us in disputations and conflâ—cts with our Adversaries we see no reason why Bertram may not deserve the same equity that make a profession of devising shifts and evasions to save themselves and their Religion from the pressure of truth by men that are resolved they will say somthing though they can say nothing to purpose yet I doubt not to make it appear that neither by others have they been truly and really satisfied and that the best Answer you give them is to call them Mean and vulgar objections 12. Ad § 5. But this pains might have been spared For the substance of his Discourse is in a Sermon of D. Ushers and confuted four years ago by Paulus Veridicus It seems then the substance of your Reply is in Paulus Veridicus and so your pains also might well have deen spared But had there been no necessity to help and peece out your confuting his Arguments with disgracing his Person which yet you cannot do you would have considered that to them who compare D. Potters Book and the Arch-Bishops Sermon this aspersion will presently appear a poor Detraction not to be answered but scorned To say nothing that in D. Potter being to answer a Book by express Command from Royal Authority to leave any thing material unsaid because it had been said before especially being spoken at large and without any relation to the Discourse which he was to Answer had been a ridiculous vanity and foul prevarication 13. Ad § 6. In your sixth Parag. I let all pass saving only this That a perswasion that men of different Religions you must mean or else you speak not to the point Christians of divers Opinions and Communions may be saved is a most pernitious Heresie and even a ground of Atheism What strange extractions Chymistry can make I know not but sure I am he that by reason would inferr this Conclusion That there is no God from this ground That God will save men in different Religions must have a higher strain in Logick than you or I have hitherto made shew of In my apprehension the other part of the Contradiction That there is a God should much rather follow from it And whether Contradictions will flow from the same fountain let the Learned judge Perhaps you will say You intended not to deliver here a positive and measured truth and which you expected to be called to account for but only a high and tragical expression of your just detestation of the wicked Doctrin against which you write If you mean so I shall let it pass only I am to advertize the lesse-wary Reader that passionate Expressions and vehement Asseverations are no Arguments unless it be of the weakness of the cause that is defended by them or the man that defends it And to remember you of what Boethius sayes of some such things as these Nubila mens est Haec ubi regnant For my part I am not now in passion neither will I speak one word which I think I cannot justifie to the full and I say and will maintain that to say That Christians of different Opinions and Communions such I mean who hold all those things that are simply necessary to Salvation may not obtain pardon for the Errors wherein they die ignorantly by a general Repentance is so far from being a ground of Atheism that to say the contrary is to crosse in Diameter a main Article of our Creed and to overthrow the Gospel of Christ 14. Ad § 7 8. To the two next Parag. I have but two words to say The one is that I know no Protestants that hold it necessary to be able to prove a Perpetual Visible Church distinct from Yours Some perhaps undertake to do so as a matter of curtesie but I believe you will be much to seek for any one that holds it necessary For though you say that Christ hath promised there shall de a perpetual Visible Church yet you your selves do not pretend that he hath promised there shall be Histories and Records alwayes extant of the professors of it in all ages nor that he hath any where enjoyned us to read those Histories that we may be able to shew them 15. The other is That Breerelie's great exactnesse which you magnifie so and amplifie is no very certain demonstration of his fidelity A Romance may be told with as much variety of circumstances as a true Story 16. Ad 9 10. § Your desires that I would in this rejoynder Avoid impertinencies Not impose doctrins upon you which you disclaim Set down the substance of your Reasons faithfully and entirely Not weary the Reader with unnecessary Quotations Object nothing to you which I can answer my self or which may be returned upon my self And lastly which you repeat again in the end of your Preface speak as clearly and distinctly and univocally as possibly I can are all very reasonable and shall be by me most punctually and fully satisfied Only I have reason to complain that you give us rules only and not good example in keeping them For in some of these things I shall have frequent occasion to shew that Medice cura teipsum may very justly be said unto you especially for objecting what might very easily have been answered by you and may be very justly returned upon you 17. To your ensuing demands though some of them be very captious and ensnaring yet I will give you as clear and plain ingenuous Answers as possibly I can 18. Ad 11. § To the first then about the Perpetuity of the visible Church my Answer is That I believe our Saviour ever since his Ascention hath had in some place or other a Visible true Church on earth I mean a Company of men that professed at least so much truth as was absolutely necessary for their Salvation And I believe that there will be somewhere or other such a Church to the Worlds end But the contrary Doctrin I do at no hand believe to be a damnable Heresie 19. Ad § 12. To the second What Visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman I answer that before Luther there were many Visible Churches in many things disagreeing from the Roman But not that the whole Catholique Church disagreed from her because she her self was a Part of the Whole though much corrupted And to undertake to name a Catholike Church disagreeing from her is to make her no Part of
the Protestant English Church in these Points and what my private opinion Which shall be satisfied when the Church of England hath expressed her self in them or when you have told us what is the Doctrine of your Church in the Question of Predetermination or the Immaculate Conception 29. Ad 21 22. § These answers I hope in the judgement of indifferent men are satisfactory to your Questions though not to you For I have either answered them or given you a reason why I have not Neither for ought I can see have I flitted from things considered in their own nature to accidental or rare Circumstances but told you my opinion plainly what I thought of your Errors in themselves and what as they were qualified or malignified with good or bad circumstances Though I must tell you truly that I see no reason the Question being of the damnableness of Error why you should esteem ignorance incapacity want of means to be instructed accidental and rare Circumstances As if knowledge capacity having means of Instruction concerning the truth of your Religion or ours were not as rare and unusual in the adverse part of either as Ignorance Incapacity and want of means of instruction Especially how erroneous Conscience can be a rare thing in those that err or how unerring Conscience is not much more rare I am not able to apprehend So that to consider men of different Religions the subject of this Controversie in their own nature and without circumstances must be to consider them neither as ignorant nor as knowing neither as having nor as wanting means of Instruction neither as with Capacity nor without it neither with erroneous nor yet with unerring conscience And then what judgement can you pronounce of them all the goodness and badness of an Action depending on the Circumstances Ought not a Judge being to give sentence of an Action to consider all the Circumstances of it or is it possible he should judge rightly that doth not so Neither is it to purpose That Circumstances being various cannot be well comprehended under any general rule For though under any general rule they cannot yet under many general rules they may be comprehended The Question here is you say Whether men of different Religions may be saved Now the subject of this Question is an ambiguous term and may be determined and invested with diverse and contrary Circumstances and accordingly contrary judgements are to be given of it And who then can be offended with D. Potter for distinguishing before he defines the want whereof is the chief thing that makes defining dangerous Who can find fault with him for saying If through want of means of instruction incapacity invincible or probable ignorance a man die in error he may be saved But if he be negligent in seeking Truth unwilling to find it either doth see it and will not or might see it and will not that his case is dangerous and without repentance desperate This is all that D. Potter says neither rashly damning all that are of a different opinion from him nor securing any that are in matter of Religion sinfully that is willingly erroneous The Author of this Reply I will abide by it says the very same thing neither can I see what adversary he hath in the main Question but his own shadow and yet I know not out of what frowardness finds fault with D. Potter for affirming that which himself affirms And to cloud the matter whereas the Question is Whether men by ignorance dying in error may be saved he would have them considered neither as erring nor ignorant And when the question is whether The Errors of Papists be damnable to which we answer That to them that do or might know them to be errors they are damnable to them that do not they are not He tels us that this is to change the state of the Question whereas indeed it is to state the Question and free it from ambiguity before you answer it and to have recourse to Accidental Circumstances as if Ignorance were accidental to error or as if a man could be considered as in error and not be considered as in ignorance of the Truth from which he errs Certainly Error against a Truth must needs presuppose a nescience of it unless you will say that a man may at once resolve for a Truth and resolve against it assent to it and dissent from it know it to be true and believe it not to be true Whether Knowledg and Opinion touching the same thing may stand together is made a Question in the Schools But he that would question Whether knowing a thing and doubting of it much more whether knowing it to be true and believing it to be false may stand together deserves without question no other Answer but laughter Now if Error and Knowledge cannot consist then Error and Ignorance must be inseparable He then that professeth your errors may well be considered either as knowing or as Ignorant But him that does err indeed you can no more conceive without ignorance than Long without Quantity Vertuous without Quality a Man and not a living Creature to have gone ten miles and not to have gone five to speak sense and not to speak For as the latter in all these is implyed in the former so is Ignorance of a Truth supposed in Error against it Yet such a man though not conceivable without ignorance simply may be very well considered either as with or without voluntary and sinful Ignorance And he that will give a wise answer to this Question Whether a Papist dying a Papist may be saved according to God's ordinary proceeding must distinguish him according to these several considerations and say He may be saved If his Ignorance were either invincible or at least unaffected and probable if otherwise without repentance he cannot To the rest of this Preface I have nothing to say saving what hath been said but this That it is no just exception to an argument to call it vulgar and thred-bare Truth can neither be too common nor super-annuated nor Reason ever worn out Let your Answers be solid and pertinent and we will never finde fault with them for being old or common The FIRST PART CHAP. I. The State of the Question with a summary of the Reasons for which amongst men of different Religions one Side only can be saved NEver is malice more indiscreet than when it chargeth others with imputation of that to which it self becomes more liable even by that very act of accusing others For though guiltiness be the effect of some error yet usually it begets a kind of Moderation so far forth as not to let men cast such aspersions upon others as must apparently reflect upon themselves Thus cannot the Poet endure that Gracchus Quis tulerit Gracchum c. who was a factious and unquiet man should be inveighing against Sedition And the Roman Orator rebukes Philosophers who to wax glorious superscribed their Names
upon those very Books which they entituled Of the contempt of Glory What then shall we say of D. Potter who in the Title and Text of his whole Book doth so tragically charge Want of Charity on all such Romanists as dare affirm that Protestancy destroyeth Salvation while he himself is in act of pronouncing the like heavy doom against Roman Catholiques For not satisfied with much uncivil language in affirming the Roman Church many (a) Pag. 11. ways to have plaid the Harlot and in that regard deserved a bill of divorce from Christ and detestation of Christians in styling her that proud (b) Ibid. and curst Dame of Rome which takes upon her to revel in the House of God in talking of an Idol (c) Pag. 4. Edit 1. to be worshipped at Rome he comes at length to thunder out this fearful sentence against her For that (d) Pag. 20. Mass of Errors saith he in judgement and practice which is proper to her and wherein she differs from us we judge a reconciliation impossible and to us who are convicted in conscience of her corruptions damnable And in another place he saith For us who (e) Pag. 81. are convincted in conscience that she erres in many things a necessity lies upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those Errors By the acerbity of which Censure he doth not only make himself guilty of that which he judgeth to be a hainous offence in others but freeth us also from all colour of crime by this his unadvised recrimination For if Roman Catholiques be likewise convicted in conscience of the Errors of Protestants they may and must in conformity to the Doctor 's own rule judge a reconciliation with them to be also damnable And thus all the Want of Charity so deeply charged on us dissolves it self into this poor wonder Roman Catholiques believe in their conscience that the Religion which they profess is true and the contrary false 2. Nevertheless we earnestly desire and take care that our doctrine may not be defamed by misinterpretation Far be it from us by way of insultation to apply it against Protestants otherwise than as they are comprehended under the generality of those who are divided from the only one true Church of Christ our Lord within the Communion whereof he hath confined salvation Neither do we understand why our most dear Countrymen should be offended if the Universality be particularized under the name of Protestants first given (f) Sleidan l. 6. fol. 84. to certain Lutherans who protesting that they would stand out against the Imperial decrees in defence of the Confession exhibited at Ausburge were termed Protestants in regard of such their protesting which Confessio Augustana disclaiming from and being disclaimed by Calvinists and Zwinglians our naming or exemplifying a general doctrine under the particular name of Protestantism ought not in any particular manner to be odious in England 3. Moreover our meaning is not as mis-informed persons may conceive that we give Protestants over to reprobation that we offer no prayers in hope of their salvation that we hold their case desperate God forbid We hope we pray for their Conversion and sometimes we find happy effects of our charitable desires Neither is our Censure immediatly directed to particular persons The Tribunal of particular Judgement is God's alone When any man esteemed a Protestant leaveth to live in this world we do not instantly with precipitation avouch that he is lodged in Hell For we are not always acquainted with what sufficiency of means he was furnished for instruction we do not penetrate his capacity to understand his Catechist we have no revelation what light might have cleared his errors or Contrition retracted his sins in the last moment before his death In such particular cases we wish more apparent signs of salvation but do not give any dogmatical sentence of perdition How grievous sins Disobedience Schism and Heresie are is well known But to discern how far the natural malignity of those great offences might be checked by Ignorance or by some such lessening circumstance is the office rather of Prudence than of Faith 4. Thus we allow Protestants as much Charity as D. Potter spares us for whom in the words above mentioned and elsewhere he (g) See P. 39. makes Ignorance the best hope of salvation Much less comfort can we expect from the fierce doctrine of those chief Protestantss who teach that for many Ages before Luther Christ had no visible Church upon earth Not these men alone or such as they but even the 39. Articles to which the English Protestant Clergy subscribes censure our belief so deeply that Ignorance can scarce or rather not at all excuse us from damnation Our Doctrine of Transubstantiation is affirmed to be repugnant to the plain words of (h) Art 28. Scripture our Masses to be blasphemous (i) Art 31. Fabies with much more to be seen in the Articles themselves In a certain Confession of the Christian Faith at the end of their books of Psalms collected into Meâ—ter and printed Cum privlegio Regis Regali they call us Idolaters and limmes of Antichrist and having set down a Catalogue of our doctrins they conclude that for them we shall after the General Resurrection be damned to unquestionable fire 5. But yet lest any man should flatter himself with our charitable Mitigations and thereby wax careless in search of the true Church we desire him to read the Conclusion of the Second Part where this matter is more explained 6. And because we cannot determine what Judgement may be esteemed rash or prudent except by weighing the reasons upon which it was grounded we will here under one aspect present a Summary of those Principles from which we infer that Protestancy in it self unrepented destroyes Salvation intending afterward to prove the truth of every one of the grounds till by a concatenation of sequels we fall upon the Conclusion for which we are charged with Want of Charity 7. Now this is our gradation of reasons Almighty God having ordained Mankind to a supernatural End of eternal felicity hath in his holy Providence setled competent and convenient Means whereby that end may be attained The universal grand Origen of all such means is the Incarnation and Death of our Blessed Saviour whereby he merited internal grace for us and founded an external visible Church provided and stored with all those helps which might be necessary to Salvation From hence it followeth that in this Church among other advantages there must be some effectual means to beget and conserve Faith to maintain Unity to discover and condemn Heresies to appease and reduce Schisms and to determine all Controversies in Religion For without such means the Church should not be furnished with helps sufficient to salvation nor God afford sufficient means to attain that End to which himself ordained Mankind This means to decide Controversies in Faith and Religion whether it
were at liberty to deny all other Points of Scripture In a word According to Protestants Oppose not Scripture there is no Error against Faith Oppose it in any least Point the Error if Scripture be sufficiently proposed which proposition is also required before a man can be obliged to believe even Fundamental Points must be damnable What is this but to say with us Of Persons contrary in whatsoever Point of belief one party only can be saved And D. Potter must not take it ill if Catholiques believe they may be saved in that Religion for which they suffer And if by occasion of this doctrine men will still be charging us with Want of Charity and be resolved to take scandal where none is given we must comfort our selves with that grave and true saying of S. Gregory If scandal (k) S. Greg. Hom. 7. in Ezek. be taken from declaring a truth it is better to permit scandal than forsake the truth But the solid grounds of our Assertion and the sincerity of our intention in uttering what we think yields us confidence that all will hold for most reasonable the saying of Pope Gelasius to Anastasius the Emperor Far be it from the Roman Emperour that he should hold it for a wrong to have truth declared to him Let us therefore begin with that Point which is the first that can be controverted betwixt Protestants and us for as much as concerns the present Question is contained in the Argument of the next ensuing Chap. The ANSWER to the FIRST CHAPTER Shewing that the Adversary grants the Former Question and proposeth a New one And that there is no reason why among men of different opinions and Communions one Side only can be saved AD 1. § Your first onset is very violent D. Potter is charged with malice and indiscretion for being uncharitable to you while he is accusing you of uncharitableness Verily a great fault and folly if the accusation be just if unjust a great Calumny Let us see then how you make good your charge The effect of your discourse if I mistake not is this D. Potter chargeth the Roman Church with many and great Errors judgeth reconciliation between her Doctrine and ours impossible and that for them who are convicted in Conscience of her Errors not to forsake her in them or to be reconciled unto her is damnable Therefore if Romane Catholiques be convicted in Conscience of the Errors of Protestants they may and must judge a reconciliation with them damnable and consequently to judge so is no more uncharitable in them than it is in the Doctor to judge as he doth All this I grant nor would any Protestant accuse you of want of Charity if you went no further if you judged the Religion of Protestants damnable to them only who profess it being convicted in conscience that it is erroneous For if a man judge some act of vertue to be a sin in him it is a sin indeed So you have taught us p. 19. So if you be convinced or rather to speak properly perswaded in conscience that our Religion is erroneous the profession of it though it self most true to you would be damnable This therefore I subscribe very willingly and withall that if you said no more D. Potter and my self should be not to Papists only but even to Protestants as uncharitable as you are For I shall always profess and glory in this uncharitableness of judging hypocrisie a damnable sin Let Hypocrites then and Dissemblers on both sides pass It is not towards them but good Christians not to Protestant Professors but Believers that we require your Charity What think you of those that believe so verily the truth of our Religion that they are resolved to die in it and if occasion were to die for it What Charity have you for them What think ye of those that in the daies of our Fathers laid down their lives for it Are you content that they shall be saved or do you hope they may be so Will you grant that notwithstanding their Errors there is good hope they might die with repentance and if they did so certainly they are saved If you will do so this Controversie is ended No man will hereafter charge you with want of Charity This is as much as either we give you or expect of you while you remain in your Religion But then you must leave abusing silly people with telling them as your fashion is that Protestants confess Papists may be saved but Papists confess not so much of Protestants therefore yours is the safer way and in Wisdom and Charity to our own souls we are bound to follow it For granting this you grant as much hope of salvation to Protestants as Protestants do to you If you will not but will still affirm as Charity Mistaken doth that Protestants not dissemblers but believers without a particular repentance of their Religion cannot be saved This I say is a want of Charity into the society whereof D. Potter cannot be drawn but with palpable and transparent Sophistry For I pray Sir what dependance is there between these Propositions We that hold Protestant Religion false should be damned if we should profess it Therefore they also shall be damned that hold it true Just as if you should conclude Because he that doubts is damned if he eat Therefore he that doth not doubt is damned also if he eat And therefore though your Religion to us and ours to you if professed against Conscience would be damnable yet may it well be uncharitable to define it shall be so to them that profess either this or that according to Conscience This recrimination therefore upon D. Potter wherewith you begin is a plain Fallacy And I fear your proceedings will be answerable to these beginnings 2. Ad § 2. In this Paragraph Protestants are thus far comforted that they are not sent to Hell without Company which the Poet tels us is the miserable comfort of miserable Men. Then we in England are requested not to be offended with the name of Protestants Which is a favour I shall easily grant if by it be understood those that Protest not against Imperial Edicts but against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome 3. Ad § 3 4 5 6. That you give us not over to reprobation That you pray and hope for our salvation if it be a Charity it 's such an one as is common to Turks and Jews and Pagans with us But that which follows is extraordinary neither do I know any man that requires more of you than there you pretend to For there you tell us That when any man esteemed a Protestant dies you do not instantly avouch that he is lodged in Hell Where the word esteemed is ambiguous For it may signifie esteemed truly or esteemed falsly He may be esteemed a Protestant that is so And he may be esteemed a Protestant that is not so And therefore I should have had just occasion to have laid
hope of your Salvation but upon these grounds that unaffected ignorance may excuse you or true repentance obtain pardon for you neither do the heavy censures which Protestants you say pass upon your errors any way hinder but they may hope as well of you upon Repentance as I do For the fierce Doctrine which God knows who teacheth that Christ for many Ages before Luther had no visible Church upon earth will be mild enough if you conceive them to mean as perhaps they do by no visible Church none pure and free from corruptions which in your judgement is all one with no Church But the truth is the corruption of the Church and the destruction of it is not all one For if a particular Man or Church may as you confess they may hold some particular Errors and yet be a Member of the Church Universal why may not the Church hold some Universal Error and yet be still the Church especially seeing you say it is nothing but opposing the Doctrine of the Church that makes an Error damnable and it is impossible that the Church should oppose the Church I mean that the present Church should oppose it self And then for the English Protestants though they censure your Errors deeply yet by your favour with their deepest censures it may well consist that invincible ignorance may excuse you from damnation for them For you your self confess That Ignorance may excuse Errors even in Fundamental Articles of Faith so that a man so erring shall not offend at all in such his ignorance or error they are your own words Pref. § 22. And again with their heaviest censures it may well consist that your Errors though in themselves damnable yet may prove not-damning to you if you die with true repentance for all your sins known and unknown 5. Thus much Charity therefore if you stand to what you have said is interchangeably granted by each Side to the other that Neither Religion is so fatally destructive but that by Ignorance or Repentance Salvation may be had on both Sides though with a difference that keeps Papists still on the more uncharitable side For whereas we conceive a lower degree of Repentance that which they call Attrition if it be true and effectual and convert the heart of the penitent will serve in them They pretend even this Author which is most charitable towards us that without Contrition there is no hope for us But though Protestants may not obtain this purchase at so easie a rate as Papists yet even Papists being Judges they may obtain it and though there is no entrance for them but at the only door of Contrition yet they may enter Heaven is not inaccessible to them Their errors are no such impenetrable Isthmus's between them and Salvation but that Contrition may make away through them All their Schism and Heresie is no such fatal poison but that if a man joyn with it the Antidote of a general Repentance he may die in it and live for ever Thus much then being acknowledged I appeal to any indifferent Reader whether C. M. be not by his Hyperaspist forsaken in the plain field and the Point in question granted to D. Potter viz. That Protestancy even without a particular Repentance is not destructive of Salvation So that all the Controversie remaining now is not simply Whether Protestancy unrepented destroys Salvation as it was at first proposed but Whether Protestancy in it self that is abstracted from Ignorance and Contrition destroys Salvation So that as a foolish fellow who gave a Knight the Lye desiring withall leave of him to set his Knighthood aside was answered by him that he would not suffer any thing to be set aside that belonged unto him So might we justly take it amiss that conceiving as you do Ignorance and Repentance such necessary things for us you are not more willing to consider us with them than without them For my part such is my Charity to you that considering what great necessity You have as much as any Christian Society in the World that these Sanctuaries of Ignorance and Repentance should always stand open I can very hardly perswade my self so much as in my most secret consideration to devest you of these so needful qualifications But whensoever your errors superstitions and impieties come into my mind and besides the general bonds of Humanity and Christianity my own particular Obligations to many of you such and so great that you cannot perish without a part of my Self my only comfort is amidst these Agonies that the Doctrine and Practice too of Repentance is yet remaining in your Church And that though you put on a face of confidence of your innocence in point of Doctrine yet you will be glad to stand in the eye of Mercy as well as your fellows and not be so stout as to refuse either God's pardon or the King 's 6. But for the present Protestancy is called to the bar and though not sentenced by you to death without Mercy yet arraigned of so much natural malignity if not corrected by ignorance or contrition as to be in it self destructive of Salvation Which Controversie I am content to dispute with you tying my self to follow the Rules prescribed by you in your Preface Only I am to remember you that the adding of this limitation in it self hath made this a new Question and that this is not the Conclusion for which you were charged with want of Charity But that whereas according to the grounds of your own Religion Protestants may die in their supposed errors either with excusable ignorance or with Contrition and if they do so may be saved you still are peremptory in pronouncing them damned Which Position supposing your Doctrine true and ours false as it is far from Charity whose essential Character it is to judge and hope the best so I believe that I shall clearly evince this new but more moderate Assertion of yours to be far from verity and that it is Popery and not Protestancy which in it self destroys Salvation 7. Ad § 7. 8. In your gradation I shall rise so far with you as to grant That Christ founded a visible Church stored with all helps necessary to Salvation particularly with sufficient means to beget and conserve Faith to maintain Unity and compose Schisms to discover and condemn Heresies and to determine all Controversies in Religion which were necessary to be determined For all these purposes he gave at the beginning as we may see in the Epistle to the Ephesians Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors who by word of mouth taught their Contemporaries and by writings wrot indeed by some but approved by all of them taught their Christian posterity to the world's end how all these ends and that which is the End of all these ends Salvation is to be atchieved And these means the Providence of God hath still preserved and so preserved that they are sufficient for all these intents I say sufficient
whosoever persist in Division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church are guilty of Schism and Heresie That in regard of the Precept of Charity towards one's self Protestants are in state of sin while they remain divided from the Roman Church To all these Assertions I will content my self for the present to oppose this one That not one of them all is true Only I may not omit to tell you that if the first of them were as true as the Pope himself desires it should be yet the Corollary which you deduce from it would be utterly inconsequent That Whosoever denies any Point proposed by the Church is injurious to God's Divine Majesty as if He could deceive or be deceived For though your Church were indeed as Infallible a Propounder of Divine Truths as it pretends to be yet if it appeared not to me to be so I might very well believe God most true and your Church most false As though the Gospel of S. Matthew be the Word of God yet if I neither knew it to be so nor believed it I might believe in God and yet think that Gospel a Fable Hereafter therefore I must entreat you to remember that our being guilty of this impiety depends not only upon your being but upon our knowing that you are so Neither must you argue thus The Church of Rome is the Infallible Propounder of Divine Verities therefore he that opposeth Her calls God's Truth in Question But thus rather The Church of Rome is so and Protestants know it to be so therefore in opposing her they impute to God that either he deceives them or is deceived himself For as I may deny something which you upon your knowledge have affirmed and yet never disparage your honesty if I never knew that you affirmed it So I may be undoubtedly certain of God's Omniscience and Veracity and yet doubt of something which he hath revealed provided I do not know nor believe that he hath revealed it So that though your Church be the appointed witness of God's Revelations yet until you know that we know she is so you cannot without foul calumny impute to us That we charge God blasphemously with deceiving or being deceived You will say perhaps That this is directly consequent from our Doctrine That the Church may err which is directed by God in all her Proposals True if we knew it to be directed by him otherwise not much less if we believe and know the contrary But then if it were consequent from our Opinion have you so little Charity as to say that men are justly chargeable with all the consequences of their Opinions Such Consequences I mean as they do not own but disclaim and if there were a necessity of doing either would much rather forsake their Opinion than imbrace those Consequences What opinion is there that draws after it such a train of portentous blasphemies as that of the Dominicans by the judgement of the best Writers of your own Order And will you say now that the Dominicans are justly chargeable with all those Blasphemies If not seeing our case take it at the worst is but the same why should not your judgment of us be the same I appeal to all those Protestants that have gone over to your Side whether when they were most averse from it they did ever deny or doubt of God's Omniscience or Veracity whether they did ever believe or were taught that God did deceive them or was deceived himself Nay I provoke to you your self and desire you to deal truly and to tell Us whether you do in your heart believe that we do indeed not believe the eternal Veracity of the eternal Verity And if you judge so strangely of us having no better ground for it than you have or can have we shall not need any farther proof of your uncharitableness towards us this being the extremity of true uncharitableness If not then I hope having no other ground but this which sure is none at all to pronounce us damnable Heretiques you will cease to do so and hereafter as if your ground be true you may do with more Truth and Charity collect thus They only err damnably who oppose what they know God hath testified But Protestants sure do not oppose what they know God hath testified at least we cannot with Charity say they do Therefore they either do not err damnably or with Charity we cannot say they do so 13. Ad. § 17. Protestants you say according to their own grounds must hold that of persons contrary in whatsoever Point of Belief one part only can be saved therefore it is strangely done of them to charge Papists with want of Charity for holding the same The Consequence I acknowledge but wonder much what it should be that lays upon Protestants any necessity to do so You tell us it is their holding Scripture the sole Rule of Faith For this you say obligeth them to pronounce them damned that oppose any least Point delivered in Scripture This I grant If they oppose it after sufficient declaration so that either they know it to be contained in Scripture or have no just probable Reason and which may move an honest man to doubt Whether or no it be there contained For to oppose in the first case in a man that believes the Scripture to be the Word of God is to give God the lye To oppose in the second is to be obstinate against Reason and therefore a sin though not so great as the former But then this is nothing to the purpose of the necessity of damning all those that are of contrary belief and that for these Reasons First because the contrary belief may be touching a Point not at all mentioned in Scripture and such Points though indeed they be not matters of Faith yet by men in variance are often over-valued and esteemed to be so So that though it were damnable to oppose any Point contained in Scripture yet Persons of a contrary belief as Victor and Polycrates S. Cyprian and Stephen might both be saved because their contrary belief was not touching any Point contained in Scripture Secondly because the contrary belief may be about the sense of some place of Scripture which is ambiguous and with probability capable of divers senses and in such cases it is no marvel and sure no sin if several men go several ways Thirdly because the contrary belief may be concerning Points wherein Scripture may with so great probability be alledged on both sides which is a sure note of a Point not-necessary that men of honest and upright hearts true lovers of God and of Truth such as desire above all things to know God's will and to do it may without any fault at all some go one way and some another and some and those as good men as either of the former suspend their judgments and expect some Elias to solve doubts and reconcile repugnancies Now in all such Questions one side or other which
S. Augustine spake when they will have men to believe the Roman-Church delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning Luther and the rest Against whom when they first opposed themselves to the Roman Church S. Augustine may seem to have spoken no less Prophetically than Doctrinally when he said Why should I not most z Lib. de util ere Cap. 14. diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them before all others by whose authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Canst thou better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by thee to me This therefore I believed by fame strengthened with celebrity consent Antiquity But every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving authority What madness is this Believe them Catholiques that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said Why I beseech thee Surely if they Catholiques were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my self that I were not to believe Christ than that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other than them by whom I believed him If therefore we receive the knowledge of Christ and Scriptures from the Church from her also must we take his Doctrine and the interpretation thereof 19. But besides all this the Scriptures cannot be Judge of Controversies who ought to be such as that to him not only the learned or Veterans but also the unlearned and Novices may have recourse for these being capable of Salvation and endued with Faith of the same nature with that of the learned there must be some universal Judge which the ignorant may understand and to whom the greatest Clerks must submit Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such 20. Now the inconveniences which follow by referring all Controversies to Scripture alone are very clear For by this Principle all is finally in very deed and truth reduced to the internal private Spirit because there is really no middle way betwixt a publique external and a private internal voice and whosoever refuseth the one must of necessity adhere to the other 21. This Tenet also of Protestants by taking the office of Judicature from the Church comes to conferr it upon every particular man who being driven from submission to the Church cannot be blamed if he trust himself as farr as any other his conscience dictating that wittingly he means not to cozen himself as others maliciously may do Which inference is so manifest that it hath extorted from divers Protestants the open confession of so vast an absurdity Hear Luther The Governors of a Churches o To. 2. Wittemb fol. 375. and Pastors of Christs Sheep have indeed power to teach but the Sheep ought to give judgement whether they propound the voice of Christ or of Aliens Lubertus saith As we have b In lib de principiis Christian dogm li 6. c. 13. demonstrated that all publique Judges may be deceived in interpreting so we affirm that they may err in judging All faithful men are private Judges and they also have power to judge of Doctrins and interpretations Whitaker even of the unlearned saith They c De sacra Scriptura pag. 529. ought to have recourse unto the more learned but in the mean time we must be careful not to attribute to them over-much but so that still we retain our own freedom Bilson also affirmeth that The people d In his true Difference part 2. must be discerners and Judges of that which is taught The same pernicious Doctrine is delivered by Brentius Zanchius Cartwright and others exactly cited by e Tract 2. cap. 1 Sect. 1. Breerely and nothing is more common in every Protestants mouth than that he admits of Fathers Councles Church c. as far as they agree with Scripture which upon the matter is himself Thus Heresie ever falls upon extreams It pretends to have Scripture alone for Judge of Controversies and in the mean time sets up as many Judges as there are men and women in the Christian world What good Statesmen would they be who should ideate or fancy such a Common-wealth as these men have framed to themselves a Church They verifie what S. Augustine objecteth against certain Heretiques You see f Lib. 32. cont Faust that you go about to overthrow all authority of Scripture and that every mans mind may be to himself a Rule what he is to allow or disallow in every Scripture 22. Moreover what confusion to the Church what danger to the Common-wealth this denial of the Authority of the Church may bring I leave to the consideration of any judicious indifferent man I will only set down some words of D. Potter who speaking of the Proposition of revealed Truths sufficient to prove him that gain-saith them to be an Heretique saith thus This Proposition g Pag. â—4 of revealed truths is not by the infallible determination of Pope or Church Pope and Church being excluded let us hear what more secure rule he will prescribe but by whatsoever means a man may be convinced in conscience of divine Revelation If a Preacher do clear any Point of Faith to his Hearers if a private Christian do make it appear to his Neighbour that any Conclusion or Point of Faith is delivered by divine revelation of Gods Word if a man himself without any Teacher by reading the Scriptures or hearing them read be convinced of the truth of any such Conclusion this is a sufficient Proposition to prove him that gain sayeth any such proof to be an Heretique and obstinate opposer of the Faith Behold what goodly safe Propounders of Faith arise in place of Gods universal visible Church which must yield to a single Preacher a Neighbour a man himself if he can read or at least have ears to hear Scripture read Verily I do not see but that every well-governed civil Common-wealth ought to concur towards the exterminating of this Doctrin whereby the Interpretation of Scripture is taken from the Church and conferred upon every man who whatsoever is pretended to the contrary may be a passionate seditious creature 23. Moreover there was no Scripture or written Word for about two thousand years from Adam to Moses whom all acknowledge to have been the first Author of Canonical Scripture And again for about two thousand years more from Moses to Christ our Lord holy Scripture was only among the people of Israel and yet there were Gentiles endued in those dayes with divine Faith as appeareth in Job and his friends Wherefore during so many Ages the Church alone was the Decider of Controversies and Instructor of the faithful Neither did the Word written by Moses deprive the Church of her former Infallibility or other qualities requisite for a Judge yea D. Potter acknowledgeth that besides the Law there was a living Judge in
the Jewish Church endued with an absolutely infallible direction in case of moment as all Points belonging to divine Faith are Now the Church of Christ our Lord was before the Scriptures of the New Testament which were not written instantly nor all at one time but successively upon several occasions and some after the decease of most of the Apostles and after they were written they were not presently known to all Churches and of some there was doubt in the Church for some Ages after our Saviour Shall we then say that according as the Church by little and little received holy Scripture she was by the like degrees devested of her possessed Infallibility and power to decide Controversies in Religion That sometime Churches had one Judge of Controversies and others another That with moneths or years as new Canonical Scripture grew to be published the Church altered her whole Rule of Faith or Judge of Controversies After the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures Heresies would be sure to rise requiring in God's Church for their discovery and condemnation Infallibility either to write new Canonical Scripture as was done in the Apostles time by occasion of emergent Heresies or Infallibility to interpret Scriptures already written or without Scripture by divine unwritten Traditions and assistance of the holy Ghost to determine all Controversies as Tertullian saith The soul is h De test aniâ— cap. 5. before the letter and speech before Books and sense before style Certainly such addition of Scripture with derogation or substraction from the former power and infallibility of the Church would have brought to the world division in matters of faith and the Church had rather lost than gained by holy Scripture which ought to be farr from our tongues and thoughts it being manifest that for decision of Controversies Infallibility setled in a living Judge is incomparably more useful and fit than if it were conceived as inherent in some inanimate writing Is there such repugnance betwixt Infallibility of the Church and Existence of Scripture that the production of the one must be the destruction of the other Must the Church wax dry by giving to her Children the milk of sacred Writ No No. Her Infallibility was and is derived from an inexhausted Fountain If Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entring thereof Infallibility went out of the Church D. Potter may remember what himself teacheth That the Church is still endued with Infallibility in Points Fundamental and consequently that Infallibility in the Church doth well agree with the truth the sanctity yea with the sufficiency of Scripture for all matters necessary to Salvation I would therefore gladly know out of what Text he imagineth that the Church by the coming of Scripture was deprived of Infallibility in some Points and not in others He affirmeth that the Jewish Synagogue retained infallibility in herself notwithstanding the writing of the Old Testament and will he so unworthily and unjustly deprive the Church of Christ of Infallibility by reason of the New Testament Especially if we consider that in the Old Testament Laws Ceremonies Rites Punishments Judgements Sacraments Sacrifices c. were more particularly and minutely delivered to the Jews than in the New Testament is done our Saviour leaving the determination or declaration of particulars to his Spouse the Church which therefore stands in need of Infallibility more than the Jewish Synagogue D. Potter i Pag. 24. against this argument drawn from the power and infallibility of the Synagogue objects That we might as well inserr that Christians must have one Soveraign Prince over all because the Jews had one chief Judge But the disparity is very clear The Synagogue was a type and figure of the Church of Christ not so their civil Government of Christian Common-wealths or Kingdoms The Church succeeded to the Synagogue but not Christian Princes to Jewish Magistrates And the Church is compared to a house or k Heb. 13. family to an l Cant. 2. Army to a m 1 Cor. 10. Ephes 4. body to a n Mat. 12. kingdom c. all which require one Master one General one head one Magistrate one spiritual King as our blessed Saviour with fict Unum ovile o Joan. c. 10. joyned Unus Pastor One Sheepsold One Pastour But all distinct Kingdoms or Common-wealths are not one Army Family c. And finally it is necessary to Salvation that all have recourse to one Church but for temporal weale there is no need that all submit or depend upon one temporal Prince Kingdom or Common-wealth and therefore our Saviour hath left to his whole Church as being One one Law one Scripture the same Sacraments c. Whereas Kingdoms have their several Laws different governments diversity of Powers Magistracy c. And so this objection returneth upon D. Potter For as in the One Community of the Jews there was one Power and Judge to end debates and resolve difficulties so in the Church of Christ which is One there must be some one Authority to decide all Controversies in Religion 24. This Discourse is excellently proved by ancient S. Irenaeus p Lib. 5. c. 4. in these words What if the Apostles had not lest Scriptures ought we not to have followed the order of Tradition which they delivered to those to whom they committed the Churches to which order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of God without letters or lake and diligent keeping ancient Tradition It is easie to receive the truth from God's Church seeing the Apostles have most fully deposited in her as in a rich store-house all things belonging to truth For what if there should arise any contention of some small question ought we not to have recourse to the most ancient Churches and from them to receive what is certain and clear concerning the present question 25. Besides all this the doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to err in interpreting Scripture or they have not If not then the Scripâ—ure to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible Faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies If they have certain infallible means and so cannot err in their interpretations of Scriptures then they are able with infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrin they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides Scripture alone 26. Lastly I ask D. Potter Whether â—his Assertion Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith be a fundamental Point of Faith or no He must be well advised before he say that it is a Fundamental Point For he will have against him as many Protestants as teach that by Scripture alone it
nothing that is material and considerable pass without some stricture or animadversion 30. You pretend that M. Hooker acknowledgeth that That whereon we must rest our assurance that the Scripture is God's Word is the Church and for this acknowledgement you referre us to l. 3. § 8. Let the Reader consult the place and he shall find that he and M. Hooker have been much abused both by you here and by M. Breerly and others before you and that M. Hooker hath not one syllable to your pretended purpose but very much directly to the contrary There he tells us indeed That ordinaly the first Introduction and probable Motive to the belief of the verity is the Authority of the Church but that it is the last Foundation whereon our belief hereof is rationally grounded that in the same place he plainly denies His words are Scripture teacheth us that saving Truth which God hath discovered unto the world by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it self is Divine and Sacred The Question then being by what means we are taught this * Some answer so but he doth not some answer that to learn it we have no other way than Tradition As namely that so we believe because we from our Predecessors and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied and by experience we all know that (a) The first outward Motive not the last assurance whereon we rest the first outward Motive leading men to esteem of the Scripture is the Authority of God's Church For when we know (b) The whole Church that he speaks of seems to be that particular Church wherein a man is bred and brought up and the Authority of this he makes an Argument which presseth a man's modesty more than his reason And in saying It seems impudent to be of a contrary mind without cause he implies There may be a just cause to be of a contrary mind and that then it were no impudence to be so the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labour upon reading or hearing the mysteries thereof (c) Therefore the Authority of the Church is not the pause whereon we rest we had need of more assurance and the intâ—insâ—cal Arguments afford â—t the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our received opinion concerning it so that the former inducement prevailing (d) Somewhat bâ—t not much until it be backed and inforced by farther reason it self therefore is not the farthest reason and the last resolution somewhat with us before doth now much more prevail when the very thing hath ministred farther reason If Infidels or Atheists chance at any time to call it in question this giveth us occasion to sift what reason there is whereby the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture and our own perswasion which Scripture it self hath setled may be proved a truth infallible (e) Observe I pray Our perswasion and the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture may be proved true Therefore neither or them was in his account the farthest proof In which case the ancient Fathers being often constrained to shew what warrant they had so much to relie upon the Scriptures endeavoured still to maintain the Authority of the Books of God by Arguments such as the unbelievers themselves must needs think reasonable if they judge thereof as they should Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard even by such kind of proofs so to manifest and clear that Point that no man living shall be able to deny it without denying some apparent Principle such as all men acknowledg to be true (f) Natural reason thâ—n built on principles common to all men is the last resolution unto which the Churches Authority is but the first inducement By this time I hope the Reader sees sufficient proof of what I said in my Reply to your Preface that M. Breerelie's great ostentation of exactness is no very certain Argument of his fidelity 31. But seeing the belief of Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be proved by Scripture How can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contained in Scripture 32. I have answered this already And here again I say That all but cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the material objects of our Faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the means of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the Doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their salvation not to know whether there were any Scripture or no. Those barbarous Nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aims at is the belief of the Gospel the Covenant between God and Man the Scripture he hath provided as a means for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last Object of our Faith but as the Instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6 Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the final and ultimate Objects of it and not the Means and instrumental Objects and then there will be no repugnance between what they say and that which Hooker and D. Covel and D. Whitaker and Luther here say 33. But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of Holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. James Kemnitius and other Lutherans the second of Peter the second and third of John The Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of James of Jude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonical 34. So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the Authority of the very same Books and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgement of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonical or had they not If they had not it seems there is no great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical or no as you require If they had Why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs
Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradition which involves an â—â—ndence of Fact and from hand to hand from age to age bringing us up to the times and persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their doctrine to be true Thus you Now prove the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Prove your whole doctrine or the infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition and we will yield to you in all things Take the alleaged places of S. Athanasius and S. Austin in this sense which is your own and they will not press us any thing at all We will say with Athanasius That only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholique Church understand of all Ages since the perfection of the Canon have so determined 54. We will subscribe to S. Austin and say That we also would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholique Church did move us meaning by the Church the Church of all Ages and that succession of Christians which takes in Christ himself and his Apostels Neither would Zwinglius have needed to cry out upon this saying had he conceived as you now do that by the Catholique Church the Church of all Ages since Christ was to be understood As for the Councel of Carthage it may speak not of such Books only as were certainly Canonical and for the regulating of Faith but also of those which were only profitable and lawful to be read in the Church Which in England is a very slender Argument that the book is Canonical where every body knows that Apocryphal books are read as well as Canonical But howsoever if you understand by Fathers not only their immediate Fathers and Predecessors in the Gospel but the succession of them from the Apostles they are right in the Thesis that whatsoever is received from these Fathers as Canonical is to be so esteemed Though in the application of it to this or that particular book they may haply erre and think that book received as Canoniel which was only received as profitable to be read and think that Book received alwaies and by all which was rejected by some and doubted of by many 55. But we cannot be certain in what language the Scriptures remain uncorrupted Not so certain I grant as of that which we can demonstrate But certain enough morally certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear So certain we may be and God requires no more We may be as certain as S. Austin was who in his second book of Baptism against the Donatists c. 3. plainly implies the Scripture might possibly be corrupted He means sure in matters of little moment such as concern not the Covenant between God and Man But thus he saith The same S. Austin in his 48. Epist cleerly intimates (a) Neque enim sic poturt integrit as atque notitia literarum quamlibet illust is Episcopi castodiri quemadmodum Scritura Canonica tet linguarum literis ordine successione celebrationis Ecclesiasticae custoditur contra quam non desuerunt tamâ—n qui sub nominibus Aposiolorum multa consiagerent Frustra quidem quia illa sic commendata sic celebrata sic nota est Verum quid possit adversus literas non Canonica authoritate sundatas etiam hinc demonstrabit impiae conatus audaciae quòd adversus cos quae tanta notitiae mole firmatae sunt sese erigere non praetermisit Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent cont Donat. Rogat That in his judgement the only preservative of the Scriptures integrity was the translating it into so many Languages and the general and perpetual use and reading of it in the Church for want whereof the works of particular Doctors were more exposed to danger in this kind but the Canonical Scripture being by this means guarded with universal care and diligence was not obnoxious to such attempts And this assurance of the Scriptures incorruption is common to us with him we therefore are as certain hereof as S. Austin was and that I hope was certain enough Yet if this does not satisfie you I say farther We are as certain hereof as your own Pope Sixtus Quintus was He in his Preface to his Bible tells us (b) In hac germani textus peâ—vestigatione satis perspicue inter omnes constat nullum argumenum esse certius ac sirmius quà m antiquorum probatorum codicum Latinorum fidem c. sie Sâ—xtus in Praef. That in the pervestigation of the true and genuine Text it was perspicuously manifest to all men that there was no Argument more firm and certain to be relied upon than the Faith of Ancient Books Now this ground we have to build upon as well as he had and therefore our certainty is as great and stands upon as certain ground as his did 56. This is not all I have to say in this matter For I will add moreover that we are as certain in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted as any man in your Church was until Clement the eighth set forth your own approved Edition of your Vulgar Translation For you do not nor cannot without extream impudence deny that until then there was great variety of Copes currant in divers parts of your Church and those very frequent in various lections all which Copies might possibly be false in some things but more than one sort of them could not possibly be true in all things Neither were it less impudence to pretend that any man in your Church could until Clement's time have any certainty what that one true Copie and Reading was if there were one perfectly true Some indeed that had got Sixtus his Bible might after the Edition of that very likely think themselves cock-sure of a perfect true uncorrupted Translation without being beholding to Clement but how foully they were abused and deceived that thought so the Edition of Clemens differing from that of Sixtus in a great multitude of places doth sufficiently demonstrate 57. This certainty therefore in what language the Scripture remains uncorrupted is it necessary to have it or is it not If it be not I hope we may do well enough without it If it be necessary What became of your Church for 1500 years together All which time you must confess she had no such certainty no one man being able truly and upon good ground to say This or that Copy of the Bible is pure and perfect and uncorrupted in all things And now at this present though some of you are grown to a higher degree of Presumption in this Point yet are you as far as ever from any true real and rational assurance of the absolute purity of your Authentique Translation which I suppose my self to have proved unanswerably in divers places 58. In the sixteenth Division It is objected to
his malice had caused And besides it were to say that Infants dying without Baptism might be saved God supplying the want of Baptism which to them is unavoidable But beyond all this it were to put into my mouth a full and satisfying Answer to your Argument which I am now returning so that in answering my Objection you should answer your own For then I should tell you that it were altogether as abhorrent from the goodness of God and as repugnant to it to suffer an ignorant Lay-man's soul to perish meerly for being misled by an undiscernable false Translation which yet was commended to him by the Church which being of necessity to credit some in this matter he had reason to relie upon either above all other or as much as any other as it is to damn a penitent sinner for a secret defect in that desired Absolution which his Ghostly Father perhaps was an Atheist and could not give him or was a villain and would not This answer therefore which alone would serve to comfort your penitent in his perplexities and to assure him that he cannot fail of Salvation if he will not for fear of inconvenience you must forbear And seeing you must I hope you will come down from the Pulpit and preach no more against others for making mens Salvation depend upon fallible and uncertain grounds lest by judging others you make your selves and your own Church inexcusable who are strongly guilty of this fault above all the men and Churches of the World whereof I have already given you two very pregnant demonstrations drawn from your presumptuous tying God and Salvation to your Sacraments And the efficacy of them to your Priest's Qualifications and Intentions 69. Your making the Salvation of Infants depend on Baptism a Casual thing and in the power of man to conferre or not conferre would yield me a Third of the same nature And your suspending the same on the Baptizer's Intention a Fourth And lastly your making the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist depend upon the casualties of the Consecrator's true Priesthood and Intention and yet commanding men to believe it for certain that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine for ought they can possibly know may be nothing else but a piece of Bread so exposing them to the danger of Idolatry and consequently of damnation doth offer me a Fifth demonstration of the same Conclusion if I thought fit to insist upon them But I have no mind to draw any more out of this Fountain neither do I think it charity to cloy the Reader with uniformity when the Subject affords variety 70. Sixthly therefore I return it thus The faith of Papists relies alone upon their Churche's infallibility That there is any Church infallible and that Theirs is it they pretend not to believe but only upon prudential Motives Dependance upon prudential Motives they confess to be obnoxious to a possibility of erring What then remaineth but Truth Faith Salvation and All must in them relie upon a fallible and uncertain ground 71. Seventhly The Faith of Papists relies upon the Church alone The Doctrine of the Church is delivered to most of them by their Parish-Priest or Ghostly Father or at least by a company of Priests who for the most part sure are men and not Angels in whom nothing is more certain than a most certain possibility to err What then remaineth but that Truth Faith Salvation and All must in them relie upon a fallible and uncertain ground 72. Eighthly thus It is apparent and undeniable that many Thousands there are who believe your Religion upon no better grounds than a man may have for the belief almost of any Religion As some believe it because their Forefathers did so and they were good People Some because they were Christened and brought up in it Some because many Learned and Religious men are of it Some because it is the Religion of their Countrey where all other Religions are persecuted and proscribed Some because Protestants cannot shew a perpetual succession of Professors of all their Doctrines Some because the service of your Church is more stately and pompous and magnificent Some because they find comfort in it Some because your Religion is farther spread and hath more Professors of it than the Religion of Protestants Some because your Priests compass Sea and Land to gain Proselytes to it Lastly an infinite number by chance and they know not why but only because they are sure they are in the right This which I say is a most certain experimented truth and if you will deal ingenuously you will not deny it And without question he that builds his faith upon our English Translation goes upon a more prudent ground than any of these can with reason be pretended to be What then can you alledge but that with you father than with us Truth and Faith and Salvation and All relie upon fallible and uncertain grounds 73. Ninthly Your Rhemish and Doway Translations are delivered to your Proselytes such I mean that are dispenced with for the reading of them for the direction of their Faith and Lives And the same may be said of your Translations of the Bible into other National languages in respect of those that are licenced to read them This I presume you will confess And moreover that these Translations came not by inspiration but were the productions of humane Industry and that not Angels but men were the Authors of them Men I say meer men subject to the same passions and to the same possibility of erring with our Translators And then how does it not unavoidably follow that in them which depend upon these Translations for their direction Faith and Truth and Salvation and All relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 74. Tenthly and lastly to lay the ax to the root of the tree the Helena which you so fight for your vulgar Translation though some of you believe or pretend to believe it to be in every part and particle of it the pure and uncorupted Word of God yet others among you and those as good and zealous Catholiques as you are not so confident hereof 75. First for all those who have made Translations of the whole Bible or any part of it different many times in sense from the Vulgar as Lyranus Cajetan Pagnine Arias Erasmus Valla Steuchus and others it is apparent and even palpable that they never dreamt of any absolute perfection and authentical infallibility of the Vulgar Translation For if they had Why did they in many places reject it and differ from it 76. Vega was present at the Councel of Trent when that Decree was made which made the Vulgar Edition then not extant any where in the world authentical and not to be rejected upon any pretence whatsoever At the forming this Decree Vega I say was present understood the mind of the Councel as well as any man and professes that he was instructed in it
must be the Rule to judge of the goodness of ours this is but a vain flourish For to say of our Translations That is the best which comes nearest the Vulgar and yet it is but one man that says so is not to say it is therefore the best because it does so For this may be true by accident and yet the truth of our Translation no way depend upon the truth of yours For had that been their direction they would not only have made a Translation that should come near to yours but such a one which should exactly agree with it and be a Translation of your Translation 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if God's will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submitting unto some Judicial sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand This is very true Neither should you need to perswade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the world a judicial definitive obliging sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to perswade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge of all Controversies for the whole world therefore God hath appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such Judge of Controversies therefore though it seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best know to Himself not to allow us this convenience 86. D. Field's words which follow I confess are somewhat more pressing and if he had been infallible and the words had not slipt unadvisedly from him they were the best Argument in your Book But yet it is evident out of his Book and so acknowledged by some of your own That he never thought of any one company of Christians invested with such authority from God that all men were bound to receive their Decrees without examination though they seem contrary to Scripture and Reason which the Church of Rome requires And therefore if he have in his Preface strained too high in commendation of the Subject he writes of as Writers very often do in their Prefaces and Dedicatory Epistles what is that to us Besides by all the Societies of the World it is not impossible nor very improbable he might mean all that are or have been in the world and so include even the Primitive Church and her Communion we shall embrace her Direction we shall follow her Judgement we shall rest in if we believe the Scripture endeavour to find the true sense of it and live according to it 87. Ad § 18. That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churche's Interpretation of Scripture is alwayes true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. if you speak of that Church which before you spake of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us we were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us That our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from hand to hand and age to age bringing us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrin to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to believe it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from age to age and from hand to hand any interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture and we believe it therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us This or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all ages is one thing and the Authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholique Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the Authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture How can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical which
formerly you rejected from the Canon I instance in the Book of Macchabees and the Epistle to the Hebrews The first of these you held not to be Canonical in S. Gregorie's time or else he was no member of your Church for it is apparent (a) See Grâ—g Maâ—â— 19 〈◊〉 13. He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hierom's time as it is evident out of (b) 〈…〉 there 〈…〉 And again 〈◊〉 c. 8. in 〈…〉 many places of his Works 91. If you say which is all you can say that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholique Church I answer there was none such in his time None that was called so Secondly What he spake of the Roman Church must be true of all other Churches if your Doctrine of the necessity of the Conformity of all other Churches to that Church were then Catholique Doctrine Now then chuse whether you will Either that the particular Roman Church was not then believed to be the Mistress of all other Churches notwithstanding Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est omnes qui sunt undique fiâ—leles which Cardinal Perron and his Translatress so often translates false Or if you say she was you will run into a greater inconvenience and be forced to say that all the Churches of that time rejected from the Canon the Epistle to the Hebrews together with the Roman Church And consequently that the Catholique Church may err in rejecting from the Canon Scriptures truly Canonical 92. Secondly How can we receive the Scripture upon the Authority of the Roman Church which hath delivered at several times Scriptures in many places different and repugnant for Authentical and Canonical Which is most evident out of the place of Malachy which is so quoted for the Sacrifice of the Mass that either all the ancient Fathers had false Bibles or yours is false Most evident likewise from the comparing of the story of Jacob in Genesis with that which is cited out of it in the Epistle to the Hebrews according to the vulgar Edition But above all to any one who shall compare the Bibles of Sixtus and Clement so evident that the wit of man cannot disguise it 93. And thus you see what reason we have to believe your Antecedent That your Church it is which must declare what Books be true Scripture Now for the consequence that certainly is as liable to exception as the Antecedent For if it were true that God had promised to assist you for the delivering of true Scripture would this oblige Him or would it follow from hence that He had obliged himself to teach you not only sufficiently but effectually and irresistibly the true sense of Scripture God is not defective in things necessary neither will he leave himself without witness nor the World without means of knowing his will and doing it And therefore it was necessary that by his Providence he should preserve the Scripture from any undiscernable corruption in those things which he would have known otherwise it is apparent it had not been his will that these things should be known the only means of continuing the knowledge of them being perished But now neither is God lavish in superfluities and therefore having given us means sufficient for our direction and power sufficient to make use of these means he will not constrain or necessitate us to make use of these means For that were to cross the end of our Creation which was to be glorified by our free obedience whereas Necessity and Freedom cannot stand together That were to reverse the Law which he hath prescribed to himself in his dealing with Man and that is to set life and death before him and to leave him in the hands of his own Counsel God gave the Wisemen a Star to lead them to Christ but he did not necessitate them to follow the guidance of this Star that was left to their liberty God gave the Children of Israel a Fire to lead them by night and a Pillar of Cloud by day but he constrained no man to follow them that was left to their liberty So he gives the Church the Scripture which in those things which are to be believed or done are plain and easie to be followed like the Wisemen's Star Now that which he desires of us on our part is the Obedience of Faith and love of the Truth and desire to find the true sense of it and industry in searching it and humility in following and Constancy in professing it all which if he should work in us by an absolute irresistible necessity he could no more require of us as our duty than he can of the Sun to shine of the Sea to ebb and flow and of all other Creatures to do those things which by meer necessity they must do and cannot chuse Besides What an impudence is it to pretend that your Church is infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of the Scripture whereas there are thousands of places of Scripture which you do not pretend certainly to understand and about the Interpretation whereof your own Doctors differ among themselves If your Church be infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of Scripture why do not your Doctors follow her infallible direction And if they do How comes such difference among them in their Interpretations 94. Again Why does your Church thus put her Candle under a Bushel and keep her Talent of interpreting Scripture infallibly thus long wrapt up in napkins Why sets she not forth Infallible Commentaries or Expositions upon all the Bible Is it because this would not be profitable for Christians that Scripture should be interpreted It is blasphemous to say so The Scripture it self tells us All Scripture is profitable And the Scripture is not so much the Words as the Sense And if it be not profitable Why does she imploy particular Doctors to interpret Scriptures fallibly unless we must think that fallible interpretations of Scripture are profitable and infallible interpretations would not be so 95. If you say The Holy Ghost which assists the Church in interpreting will move the Church to interpret when he shall think fit and that the Church will do it when the Holy Ghost shall move her to do it I demand Whether the Holy Ghost's moving of the Church to such works as these be resistible by the Church or irresistible If resistible then the Holy Ghost may move and the Church may not be moved As certainly the Holy Ghost doth always move to an action when he shews us plainly that it would be for the good of men and honour of God As he that hath any sense will acknowledge that an infallible exposition of Scripture could not but be and there is no conceivable reason Why such a work should be put off a day but only because you are conscious to your selves you cannot do it and therefore make excuses But if the moving of
notes which whether they be the notes of the Church he cannot possibly know But let us suppose this Isthmus digged through and that he is assured These are the notes of the true Church How can he possibly be a competent Judge Which society of Christians hath title to these notes and which hath not Seeing this trial of necessity requires a great sufficiency of knowledg of the monuments of Christian Antiquity which no unlearned man can have because he that hath it cannot be unlearned As for example how shall he possibly be able to know whether the Church of Rome hath had a perpetual Succession of Visible Professors which held alwayes the same Doctrin which they now hold without holding any thing to the contrary unless he hath first examined what was the Doctrin of the Church in the first age what in the second and so forth And whether this be not a more difficult work than to stay at the first Age and to examine the Church by the conformity of her Doctrine with the Doctrin of the first Age every man of ordinary understanding may judge 108. Let us imagine him advanc'd a step farther and to know which is the Church how shall he know what that Church hath decreed seeing the Church hath not been so careful in keeping of her decrees but that many are lost and many corrupted Besides when even the Learned among you are not agreed concerning divers things whether they be De fide or not how shall the unlearned do Then for the sense of the Decrees how can he be more capable of the understanding of them than of plain Texts of Scripture which you will not suffer him to understand Especially seeing the Decrees of divers Popes and Councels are conceived so obscurely that the Learned cannot agree about the sense of them And then they are written all in such languages which the ignorant understand not and therefore must of necessity rely herein upon the uncertain and fallible authority of some particular men who inform them that there is such a Decree And if the Decrees were translated into Vulgar Languages why the Translators should not be as infallible as you say the Translators of Scripture are who can possibly imagine 109. Lastly how shall an unlearned man or indeed any man be assured of the certainty of that Decree the certainty whereof depends upon suppositions which are impossible to be known whether they be true or no For it is not the Decree of a Councel unless it be confirmed by a true Pope Now the Pope cannot be a true Pope if he came in by Simony which whether he did or no who can answer me He cannot be a true Pope unless he were baptized and baptized he was not unless the Minister had due Intention So likewise he cannot be a true Pope unlesse he were rightly ordained Priest and that again depends upon the Ordainer's secret Intention and also upon his having the Episcopal Character All which things as I have formerly proved depend upon so many uncertain suppositions that no humane judgement can possibly be resolved in them I conclude therefore that not the learnedst man amongst you all no not the Pope himself can according to the grounds you go upon have any certainty that any Decree of any Councel is good and valid and consequently not any assurance that it is indeed the Decree of a Councel 110. Ad § 20. If by a private spirit you mean a particular perswasion that a Doctrin is true which some men pretend but cannot prove to come from the Spirit of God I say to refer Controversies to Scripture is not to refer them to this kind of private Spirit For is there not a manifest difference between saying The Spirit of God tels me that this is the meaning of such a Text which no man can possibly know to be true it being a secret thing and between saying These and these reasons I have to shew that this or that is true Doctrin or that this or that is the meaning of such a Scripture Reason being a Publique and certain thing and exposed to all mens tryal and examination But now if by private spirit you understand every mans particular Reason then your first and second inconvenience will presently be reduced to one and shortly to none at all 111. Ad § 20. And does not also giving the office of Judicature to the Church come to confert it upon every particular man For before any man believes the Church infallible must he not have reason to induce him to believe it to be so And must he not judge of those reasons whether they be indeed good and firm or captious and sophistical Or would you have all men believe all your Doctrin upon the Churches Infallibility and the Churches Infallibility they know not why 112. Secondly supposing they are to be guided by the Church they must use their own particular reason to find out which is the Church And to that purpose you your selves give a great many notes which you pretend first to be Certain notes of the Church and then to be Peculiar to your Church and agreeable to none else but you do not so much as pretend that either of those pretences is evident of it self and therefore you go about to prove them both by reasons and those reasons I hope every particular man is to judge of whether they do indeed conclude and convince that which they are alledged for that is that these marks are indeed certain notes of the Church and then that your Church hath them and no other 113. One of these notes indeed the only note of a true and uncorrupted Church is Conformity with Antiquity I mean the most ancient Church of all that is the Primitive and Apostolique Now how is it possible any man should examine your Church by this note but he must by his own particular judgement find out what was the Doctrin of the Primitive Church and what is the Doctrin of the present Church and be able to answer all these Arguments which are brought to prove repugnance between them otherwise he shall but pretend to make use of this note for the finding the true Church but indeed make no use of it but receive the Church at a venture as the most of you do not one in a hundered being able to give any tolerable reason for it So that in stead of reducing them to particular reasons you reduce them to none at all but to chance and passion and prejudice and such other wayes which if they lead one to the truth they lead hundreds nay thousands to falshood But it is a pretty thing to consider how these men can blow hot and cold out of the same mouth to serve several purposes Is there hope of gaining a Proselyte Then they will tell you God hath given every man Reason to follow and if the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the Ditch That it is no good reason for
reason If you do why do you condemn it in others If you do not I pray you tell me what direction you follow or whether you follow none at all If none at all this is like drawing Lots or throwing the Dice for the choice of a Religion If any other I beseech you tell me what it is Perhaps you will say the Churches Authority and that will be to dance finely in a round thus To believe the Churches infallible Authority because the Scriptures avouch it and to believe that Scriptures say and mean so because they are so expounded by the Church Is not this for a Father to beget his Son and the Son to beget his Father For a foundation to support the house and the house to support the foundation Would not Campian have cryed out at it Ecce quos gyros quos Maeandros And to what end was this going about when you might as well at first have concluded the Church infallible because she sayes so as thus to put in Scripture for a meer stale and to say the Church is infallible because the Scripture sayes so and the Scripture means so because the Church sayes so which is infallible Is it not most evident therefore to every intelligent man that you are enforced of necessity to do that your self which so tragically you declaim against in others The Church you say is infallible I am very doubtful of it How shall I know it The Scripture you say affirms it as in the 59. of Esay My spirit that is in thee c. Well I confess I find there these words but I am still doubtful whether they be spoken of the Church of Christ and if they be whether they mean as you pretend You say the Church saies so which is infallible Yea but that is the Question and therefore not to be begg'd but proved Neither is it so evident as to need no proof otherwise why brought you this Text to prove it Nor is it of such a strange quality above all other Propositions as to be able to prove it self What then remains but that you say Reasons drawn out of the Circumstances of the Text will evince that this is the sense of it Perhaps they will But reasons cannot convince me unless I judge of them by my Reason and for every man or woman to rely on that in the choice of their Religion and in the interpreting of Scripture you say is a horrible absurdity and therefore must neither make use of your own in this matter nor desire me to make use of it 119. But Universal Tradition you say and so do I too is of it self credible and that hath in all ages taught the Churche's Infallibility with full consent If it have I am ready to believe it But that it hath I hope you would not have me take upon your word for that were to build my self upon the Church and the Church upon You. Let then the Tradition appear for a secret Tradition is somewhat like a silent Thunder You will perhaps produce for the confirmation of it some sayings of some Fathers who in every Age taught this Doctrin as Gualterius in his Chronologie undertakes to do but with so ill success that I heard an able Man of your Religion profess that in the first three Centuries there was not one Authority pertinent but how will you warrant that none of them teach the contrary Again how shall I be assured that the places have indeed this sense in them Seeing there is not one Father for 500. years after Christ that does say in plain termes The Church of Rome is infallible What shall we believe your Church that this is their meaning But this will be again to go into the Circle which made us giddy before To prove the Church Infallible because Tradition saies so Tradition to say so because the Fathers say so The Fathers to say so because the Church saies so which is infallible Yea but reason will shew this to be the meaning of them Yes if we may use our Reason and rely upon it Otherwise as light shews nothing to the blind or to him that uses not his eyes so reason cannot prove any thing to him that either hath not or useth not his reason to Judge of them 120. Thus you have excluded your self from all proof of your Churches Infallibility from Scripture or Tradition And if you flie lastly to Reason it self for succour may not it justly say to you as Iephte said to his Bretheren Ye have cast me out and banished me and do you now come to me for succour But if there be no certainty in Reason how shall I be assured of the certainty of those which you alledge for this purpose Either I may judge of them or not If not why do you propose them If I may why do you say I may not and make it such a monstrous absurdity That men in the choice of their Religion should make use of their Reason which yet without all question none but unreasonable men can deny to have been the chiefest end why Reason was given them 121. Ad § 22. An Heretique he is saith D. Potter who opposeth any truth which to be a divine revelation he is convinced in conscience by any means whatsoever Be it by a Preacher or Lay-man be it by reading Scripture or hearing them read And from hence you infer that he makes all these safe Propounders of Faith A most strange and illogical deduction For may not a private man by evident reason convince another man that such or such a Doctrin is divine Revelation and yet though he be a true Propounder in this point yet propound another thing falsely and without proof and consequently not be a safe Propounder in every point Your Preachers in their Sermons do they not propose to men divine Revelations and do they not sometimes convince men in conscience by evident proof from Scripture that the things they speak are divine Revelations And whosoever being thus convinced should oppose this divine Revelation should he not be an Heretique according to your own grounds for calling Gods own Truth into question And would you think your self well dealt with if I should collect from hence that you make every Preacher a safe that is an infallible Propounder of Faith Be the means of Proposal what it will sufficient or insufficient worthy of credit or not worthy though it were if it it were possible the barking of a Dog or the chirping of a Bird or were it the discourse of the Devil himself yet if I be I will not say convinced but perswaded though falsly that it is a divine Revelation and shall deny to believe it I shall be a formal though not a material Heretique For he that believes though falsly any thing to be a divine Revelation and yet will not believe it to be true must of necessity believe God to be false which according to your own Doctrin is the formality of an Heretique
122. And how it can be any way advantagious to Civil government that men without warrant from God should usurp a Tyranny over other mens consciences and prescribe unto them without reason and sometime against reason what they shall believe you must shew us plainer if you desire we should believe For to say Verily I do not see but that it must be so is no good demonstration For whereas you say That a man may be a passionate and seditious creature from whence you would have us inferr that he may make use of his interpretation to satisfie his passion and raise sedition There were some colour in this consequence if we as you do make private men infallible Interpreters for others for then indeed they might lead Disciples after them and use them as instruments for their vile purposes But when we say they can only interpret for themselves what harme they can do by their passionate or seditious Interpretations but only endanger both their temporal and eternal happiness I cannot imagine For though we deny the Pope or Church of Rome to be an infallible Judge yet we do not deny but that there are Judges which may proceed with certainty enough against all seditious Persons such as draw men to disobedience either against Church or State as well as against Rebels and Traitors and Theeves and Murderers 123. Ad § 23. The next § in the beginning argues thus For many ages there was no Scripture in the world and for many more there was none in many places of the world yet men wanted not then and there some certain direction what to believe Therefore there was then an infallible Judge Just as if I should say York is not my way from Oxford to London therefore Bristol is Or a Dog is not a horse therefore he is a man As if God had no other waies of revealing himself to men but only by Scripture and an infallible Church * See Chrysost Hom. 1 in Mat. Isidor Pelus l. 3. ep 106. and also Basil in Ps 28. and then you shall confess that by o her means besides these God did communicate himself unto men and made them receive and understand his laws See also to the same purpose Heb. 1.1 S. Chrysostom and Isidorus Pelusiota conceived He might use other means And Saint Paul telleth us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be known by his works And that they had the Law written in their hearts Either of these waies might make some faithful men without either necessity of Scripture or Church 124. But D. Potter sayes you say In the Jewish Church there was a living Judge indowed with an absolute infallible direction in cases of moment as all points belonging to divine Faith are And where was that infallible direction in the Jewish Church when they should have received Christ for their Messias and refused him Or perhaps this was not a case of moment D. Potter indeed might say very well not that the high Priest was infallible for certainly he was not but that his determination was to be of necessity obeyed though for the justice of it there was no necessity that it should be believed Besides it is one thing to say that the living Judge in the Jewish Church had an infallible direction another that he was necessitated to follow this direction This is the priviledge which you challenge But it is that not this which the Doctor attributes to the Jews As a man may truely say the Wisemen had an in fallible direction to Christ without saying or thinking that they were constrained to follow it and could not do otherwise 125. But either the Church retains still her Infallibility or it was devested of it upon the receiving of Holy Scripture which is absurd An Argument me thinks like this Either you have horns or you have lost them but you never lost them therefore you have them still If you say you never had horns so say I for ought appears by your reasons the Church never had Infallibility 126. But some Scriptures were received in some places and not in others therefore if Scriptures were the Judge of Controversies some Churches had one Judge and some another And what great inconvenience is there in that that one part of England should have one Judge and another another especially seeing the Books of Scripture which were received by those that received fewest had as much of the Doctrin of Christianity in them as they all had which were received by any all the necessary parts of the Gospel being contained in every one of the four Gospels as I have proved So that they which had all the Books of the New Testament had nothing superfluous For it was not superfluous but profitable that the same thing should be said divers times and be testified by divers witnesses And they that had but one of the four Gospels wanted nothing necessary and therefore it is vainly inferred by you that with months and years as new Canonicall Scriptures grew to be published the Church altered her rule of Faith and judge of Controversies 127. Heresies you say would arise after the Apostles time and after the writâ—ng of Scriptures These cannot be discovered condemned and avoided unlesse the Church be infallible Therefore there must be a Church infallible But I pray tell me Why cannot Heresies be sufficiently discovered condemned and avoided by them which believe Scripture to be the rule of Faith If Scripture be sufficient to inform us what is the Faith it must of necessity be also sufficient to teach us what is Heresie seeing Heresie is nothing but a manifest deviation from and an opposition to the Faith That which is streight will plainly teach us what is crooked and one contrary cannot but manifest the other If any one should deny that there is a God that this God is omnipotent omniscient good just true mercifull a rewarder of them that seek him a punisher of them that obstinately offend him That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the World that it is He by obedience to whom men must look to be saved If any man should deny either his Birth or Passion or Resurrection or Ascension or Sitting at the right hand of God his having all power given him in Heaven and Earth That it is he whom God hath appointed to be Judg of the quick the dead That all men shall rise again at the last day That they which believe and repent shall be saved That they which do not believe or repent shall be damned If a man should hold that either the keeping of the Mosaical Law is necessary to Salvation or that good works are not necessary to Salvation In a word if any man should obstinatly contradict the truth of any thing plainly delivered in Scripture who does not see that every one which believes the Scripture hath a sufficient means to discover and condemn and avoid that Heresie without any need of an infallible guide
doubt of it among Christians than there is of the Nativity Passion Resurrection or Ascension of Christ You were best now rubb your forehead hard and conclude upon us that because this would have been so useful to have been done therefore it is done Or if you be as I know you are too ingenuous to say so then must you acknowledge that the ground of your Argument which is the very ground of all these absurdities is most absurd and that it is our duty to be humbly thankful for those sufficient nay abundant means of Salvation which God hath of his own goodness granted us and not conclude he hath done that which he hath not done because forsooth in our vain judgments it seems convenient he should have done so 137. But you demand What repugnance there is betwixt infallibility in the Church and existence of Scripture that the production of the one must be the destruction of the other Out of which words I can frame no other Argument for you than this There is no Repugnance between the Scripture's existence and the Churche's infallibility therefore the Church is infallible Which consequence will then be good when you can shew that nothing can be untrue but that only which is impossible that whatsoever may be done that also is done Which if it were true would conclude both you and me to be infallible as well as either your Church or Pope in as much as there is no more repugnance between the Scripture's existence and our infallibility than there is between theirs 138. But if Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entring thereof infallibility went out of the Church This Argument put in form runs thus No Scripture affirms that by the entring thereof infallibility went out of the Church Therefore there is an infallible Church and therefore the Scripture alone is not Judge that is the Rule to judge by But as no Scripture affirms that by the entring of it Infallibility went out of the Church so neither do we neither have we any need to do so But we say that it continued in the Church even together with the Scriptures so long as Christ and his Apostles were living and then departed God in his providence having provided a plain and infallible Rule to supply the defect of living and infallible Guides Certainly if your cause were good so great a Wit as yours is would devise better Arguments to maintain it We can shew no Scripture affirming Infallibility to have gone out of the Church therefore it is Infallible Somewhat like his discourse that said It could not be proved out of Scripture that the King of Sweden was dead therefore he is still living Me-thinks in all reason you that challenge priviledges and exemption from the condition of Men which is to be subject to errour You that by vertue of this priviledge usurp authority over mens consciences should produce your Letters Patents from the King of Heaven and shew some express warrant for this Authority you take upon you otherwise you know the rule is Ubi contrarium non manifestè probatur praesumitur pro libertate 139. But D. Potter may remember what himself teacheth That the Church is still endued with Infallibility in points Fundamental and consequently that Infallibility in the Church doth well agree with the Truth the Sanctity yea with the sufficiency of Scripture for all matters necessary to salvation Still your discourse is so far from hitting the White that it roves quite besides the Butt You conclude that the infallibility of the Church may well agree with the Truth the Sanctity the Sufficiency of Scripture But what is this but to abuse your Reader with the proof of that which no man denies The Question is not Whether an infallible Church might agree with Scripture but whether there be an Infallible Church Jam dic Posthume de tribus Capellis Besides you must know there is a wide difference between being infallible in Fundamentals and being an infallible Guide even in Fundamentals D. Potter says that the Church is the former that is There shall be some men in the world while the world lasts which err not in Fundamentals for otherwise there should be no Church For to say the Church while it is the Church may err in Fundamentals implies contradiction and is all one as to say The Church while it is the Church may not be the Church So that to say that the Church is infallible in Fundamentals signifies no more but this There shall be a Church in the world for ever But we utterly deny the Church to be the latter for to say so were to oblige our selves to find some certain Society of men of whom we might be certain that they neither do nor can err in Fundamentals nor in declaring what is Fundamental what is not Fundamental and consequently to make any Church an infallible Guide in Fundamentals would be to make it infallible in all things which she proposes and requires to be believed This therefore we deny both to your and all other Churches of any one denomination as the Greek the Roman the Abyssine that is indeed we deny it simply to any Church For no Church can possibly be fit to be a Guide but only a Church of some certain denomination For otherwise no man can possibly know which is the true Church but by a pre-examination of the Doctrine controverted and that were not to be guided by the Church to the true doctrin but by the true doctrin to the Church Hereafter therefore when you hear Protestants say The Church is Infallible in Fundamentals you must not conceive them as if they meant as you do that some Society of Christians which may be known by adhering to some one Head for example the Pope or the Bishop of Constantinople is infallible in these things but only thus That true Religion shall never be so far driven out of the world but that it shall have always some where or other some that believe and profess it in all things necessary to salvation 140. But You would therefore gladly know out of what Text he imagines that the Church by the coming of Scripture was deprived of infallibility in some points and not in others And I also would gladly know Why you do thus frame to your self vain imaginations and then father them upon others We yield unto you That there shall be a Church which never erreth in some points because as we conceive God hath promised so much but not there shall be such a Church which doth or can err in no points because we find not that God hath promised such a Church and therefore we may not promise such a one to our selves But for the Churches being deprived by the Scripture of Infallibility in some points and not in others that is a wild notion of your own which we have nothing to do with 141. But he affirmeth
of Irenaeus alledged here by you is utterly and plainly impertinent Or whether by this discourse you mean as I think you do not your Discourse but your Conclusion which you discourse on that is that Your Church is the Infallible Judge in Controversies For neither hath Irenaeus one syllable to this purpose neither can it be deduced out of what he says with any colour of consequence For first in saying What if the Apostles had not left Scripture ought we not to have followed the order of Tradition And in saying That to this order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of GOD without Letters or Ink and diligently keeping ancient Tradition Doth he not plainly shew that the Tradition he speaks of is nothing else but the very same that is written nothing but to believe in Christ To which whether Scripture alone to them that believe it be not a sufficient guide I leave it to you to judge And are not his words just as if a man should say If God had not given us the light of the Sun we must have made use of Candles and Torches If we had no eyes we must have felt out our way If we had no legs we must have used crutches And doth not this in effect import that while we have the Sun we need no Candles While we have our eyes we need not feel out our way While we enjoy our legs we need not crutches And by like reason Irenaeus in saying If we had no Scripture we must have followed Tradition and they that have none do well to do so Doth he not plainly import that to them that have Scripture and believe it Tradition is unnecessary Which could not be if the Scripture did not contain evidently the whole Tradition Which whether Irenaeus believed or no these words of his may inform you Non enim per alios c. we have received the disposition of our Salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospel came unto us Which Gospel truly the Apostles first preached and afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to us to be the Pillar and Foundation of our Faith Upon which place Bellarmine's two Observations and his acknowledgment ensuing upon them are very considerable and as I conceive as home to my purpose as I would wish them His first Notandum is That in the Christian Doctrin some things are simply necessary for the Salvation of all men as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostle's Creed and besides the knowledge of the ten Commandments and some of the Sacraments Other things are not so necessary but that a man may be saved without the explicit knowledge and belief and profession of them His second Note is That those things which were simply necessary the Apostles were wont to preach to all men But of other things not all to all but some things to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelates and Priests These things premised he acknowledgeth That all those things were written by the Apostles which are necessary for all and which they were wont openly to preach to all But that other things were not all written And therefore when Irenaeus says that the Apostles wrote what they preached in the World it is true saith he and not against Traditions because they preached not to the People all things but only those things which were necessary or profitable for them 145. So that at the most you can infer from hence but only a suppositive necessity of having an infallible Guide and that grounded upon a false supposition in case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity hereof and to them who have and believe the Scripture which is your Assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary 146. Neither because as He says it was then easie to receive the Truth from God's Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the Ancient and Apostolique Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentals of Faith Will it therefore follow that now 1600 years after when the ancient Churches are divided almost into as many Religions as they are Churches every one being the Church to it self and Heretical to all other that it is as easie but extreamly difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrin and then to find the truth by the Church 147. As for the last clause of the sentence it will not any whit advantage but rather prejudice your Assertion Neither wil I seek to avoid the pressure of it by saying that he speaks of small Questions and therefore not of Questions touching things necessary to Salvation which can hardly be called small Questions But I will favour you so far as to suppose that saying this of small Questions it is probable he would have said it much more of the Great but I will answer that which is most certain and evident and which I am confident you your self were you as impudent as I believe you modest would not deny That the Ancient Apostolique Churches are not now as they were in Irenaeus his time then they were all at Unity about matters of Faith which Unity was a good assurance that what they so agreed in came from some one common Fountain and that no other than of Apostolique Preaching And this is the very ground of Tertullian's so often mistaken Prescription against Heretiques Variâsse debuerat Errer Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unum est non est erratum sed traditum If the Churches had erred they could not but have varied but that which is one among so many came not by Error but Tradition But now the case is altered and the mischief is that these ancient Churches are divided among themselves and if we have recourse to them one of them will say This is the way to heaven another that So that now in place of receiving from them certain and clear truths we must expect nothing but certain and clear contradictions 148. Neither will the Apostle's depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and sincere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithful men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the careful keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus says The Apostles fully deposited
So likewise if I had a Controversie about the Truth of Christ with a Jew it would be vainly done of me should I press him with the Authority of the New Testament which he believes not until out of some principles common to us both I had perswaded him that it is the Word of God The New Testament therefore while he remains a Jew would not be a fit Rule to decide this Controversie in as much as that which is doubted of it self is not fit to determine other doubts So likewise if there were any that believed Christian Religion and yet believed not the Bible to be the Word of God though they believed the matter of it to be true which is no impossible supposition for I may believe a Book S. Austin's to contain nothing but the Truth of God and yet not to have been inspired by God himself against such men therefore there were no disputing out of the Bible because nothing in question can be a proof to it self When therefore we say Scripture is a sufficient means to determine all Controversies we say not this either to Atheists Jews Turks or such Christians if there be any such as believe not Scripture to be the Word of God But among such men only as are already agreed upon this that the Scripture is the Word of God we say All Controversies that arise about Faith are either not at all decidable and consequently not necessary to be believed one way or other or they may be determined by Scripture In a word That all things necessary to be believed are evidently contained in Scripture and what is not there evidently contained cannot be necessary to be believed And our reason hereof is convincing because nothing can challenge our belief but what hath descended to us from Christ by Original and Universal Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can challenge our belief Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should have put it I say That this Position Scripture alone is the Rule whereby they which believe it to be God's Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundamental point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I have done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the Word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We have said already that Necessary Controversies may be and are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain means for the ending of them And to your Third I say that Your pretence of using these means is but hypocritical for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these means happily may suggest into you if it any way cross your pre-conceived perswasion of your Churche's Infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of them nor suffer your selves to be led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this Consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth err therefore it is not infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is infallible therefore it doth not err and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to do so never so plainly 157. You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own Youconferr places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrin not that you may judge of them and forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originals but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrin or Translation 158. You add not only the Authority but the Infallibility not of God's Church but of the Roman a very corrupt and degenerous part of it whereof D. Potter never confessed that it cannot err damnably And which being a company made up of particular men can afford you no help but the industry learning and wit of private men and that these helps may not help you out of your errour tell you that you must make use of none of all these to discover any error in the Church but only to maintain her impossibility of erring And lastly D. Potter assures himself that your Doctrine and Practices are damnable enough in themselves Only he hopes and spes est rei inceriae nomen he hopes I say that the Truths which you retain especially the necessity of repentance and faith in Christ will be as an Antidote to you against the errors which you maintain and that your superstruction may burn yet they amongst you qui sequuntur Absalonem in simplicitate cordis may be saved yet so as by fire Yet his thinking so is no reason for you or me to think so unless you suppose him infallible and if you do Why do you write against him 159. Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrine not Fundamental Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholely and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the Word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performs the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospel and not that it is contained in these or these Books So that the Books of Scripture are not so much the Objects of our faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrin as requisite to the wel-being of it Irenaeus tells us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrine of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the Word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved Therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the Word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the Books of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous Nations but still by the bare belief and practice of Christianity
will not stand to S. Austin's judgment and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to do so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for Arguments against them we oppose S. Austin out of this heat delivering the Doctrine of Christianity calmly and moderately where he says In iis quae apretè posita sunt in sacris Scripturis omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi 3. We say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholike Church of far greater extent and therefore of far greater credit and authority than the Roman Church 4. He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5. He says not that Christ hath recommended the Church to us for an infallible definer of all emergent Controversies but for a credible witness of ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practices of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practice of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to Impudence it self undeniable that upon this ground of believing all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants and that in S. Austin's time and that by S. Austin himself and therefore without controversie this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as truth 164. To the Argument wherewith you conclude I answer That though the Visible Church shall always without fail propose so much of God's Revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church yet it may sometimes add to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtful nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without sin to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ But you press us farther and demand What visible Church was extant when Luther began whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church As if it must of necessity either be Protestant or Roman or Roman of necessity if it were not Protestant Yet this is the most usual fallacy of all your Disputers by some specious Arguments to perswade weak men that the Church of Protestants cannot be the true Church and thence to inferr that without doubt it must be the Roman But why may not the Roman be content to be a part of it and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greek Church as well as the Roman there being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to her as well as to your own unless it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor 165. Neither is it so easie to be determined as you pretend That Luther and other Protestants opposed the whole visible Church in matters of Faith neither is it so evident that the Visible Church may not fall into such a state wherein she may be justly opposed And lastly for calling the distinction of points into Fundamental and not Fundamental an Evasion I believe you will find it easier to call it so than to prove it so But that shall be the issue of the Controversie in the next Chapter CHAP. III. That the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental is neither pertinent nor true in our present Controversie And that the Catholique Visible Church cannot err in either kind of the said Points THis distinction is abused by Protestants to many purposes of theirs and therefore if it be either untrue or impertinent as they understand and apply it the whole edifice built thereon must be ruinous and false For if you object their bitter and continued discords in matters of Faith without any means of agreement they instantly tell you as Charity Mistaken plainly shews that they differ only in Points not Fundamental If you convince them even by their own Confessions that the Ancient Fathers taught divers Points held by the Roman Church against Protestants they reply that those Fathers may nevertheless be saved because those errors were not Fundamental If you will them to remember that Christ must alwayes have a Visible Church on earth with administration of Sacraments and succession of Pastors and that when Luther appeared there was no Church distinct from the Roman whose Communion and Doctrine Luther then forsook and for that cause must be guilty of Schism and Heresie they have an Answer such as it is that the Catholique Church cannot perish yet may err in Points not Fundamental and therefore Luther and other Protestants were obliged to forsake her for such errors under pain of Damnation as if sorsooth it were Damnable to hold an error not Fundamental nor Damnable If you wonder how they can teach that both Catholiques and Protestants may be saved in their several Professions they salve this contradiction by saying that we both agree in all Fundamental Points of Faith which is enough for salvation And yet which is prodigiously strange they could never be induced to give a Catalogue what Points in particular be Fundamental but only by some general description or by referring us to the Apostles Creed without determining what Points therein be Fundamental or not Fundamental for the matter and in what sense they be or be not such And yet concerning the meaning of divers Points contained or reduced to the Creed they differ both from us and among themselves And indeed it being impossible for them to exhibit any such Catalogue the said distinction of Points although it were pertinent and true cannot serve them to any purpose but still they must remain uncertain whether or not they disagree from one another from the ancient Fathers and from the Catholique Church in Points Fundamental which is to say they have no certainty whether they enjoy the substance of Christian Faith without which they cannot hope to be saved But of this more hereafter 2. And to the end that what shall be said concerning this distinction may be better understood we are to observe that there be two precepts which concern the vertue of Faith or our obligation to believe divine Truths The one is by Divines called Affirmative whereby we are obliged to have a positive explicit belief of some chief Articles of Christian Faith The other is temed Negative which strictly binds us not to disbelieve that is not to believe the contrary of any one Point sufficiently represented to our understandings as revealed or spoken by Almighty God The said Affirmative Precept according to the nature of such commands injoyns some Act to
propounded by the Church out of Scripture is in some sense Fundamental in regard of the divine authority of God and his Word by which it is recommended that is such as may not be denied or contradicted without Infidelity such as every Christian is bound with humility and reverence to believe whensoever the knowledge thereof is offered to him And further Where (e) Pag. 250. the revealed Will or Word of God is sufficiently propounded there he that opposeth is convinced of Error and he who is thus convinced is an Heretick and Heresie is a work of the flesh which excludeth from heaven Gal. 5.20 21. And hence it followeth that it is FUNDAMENTAL to a Christian's FAITH and necessary for his Salvation that he believe all revealed Truths of God whereof he may be convinced that they are from God Can any thing be spoken more clearly or directly for us that it is a Fundamental Error to deny any one Point though never so small if once it be sufficiently propounded as a divine Truth and that there is in this sense no distinction betwixt Points Fundamental and not Fundamental And if any should chance to imagine that it is against the foundation of Faith not to believe Points Fundamental although they be not sufficiently propounded D. Potter doth not admit of this (f) Pag. 246. difference betwixt Points Fundamental and not-Fundamental For he teacheth that sufficient proposition of revealed Truth is required before a man can be convinced and for want of sufficient conviction he excuseth the Disciples from Heresie although they believed not our Saviour's Resurrection (g) Pag 246. which is a very Fundamental Point of Faith Thus then I argue out of D. Potter's own confession No error is damnable unless the contrary Truth be suffficiently propounded as revealed by God Every Error is damnable if the contrary Truth be sufficiently propounded as revealed by God Therefore all Errors are alike for the general effect of damnation if the difference arise not from the manner of being propounded And what now is become of their distinction 5. I will therefore conclude with this Argument According to all Philosophy and Divinity the Unity and distinction of every thing followeth the Nature and Essence thereof and therefore if the Nature and Being of Faith be not taken from the matter which a man believes but from the motive for which he believes which is God's Word or Revelation we must likewise affum that the Unity and Diversity of Faith must be measured by God's Revelation which is alike for all objects and not by the smalness or greatness of the matter which we believe Now that the nature of Faith is not taken from the greatness or smalness of the things believed is manifest because otherwise one who believes only Fundamâ—ntal Points and another who together with them doth also believe Points not Fundamental should have Faith of different natures yea there should be as many differences of Faith as there are different Points which men believe according to different capacities or instructions c. all which consequences are absurd and therefore we must say that Unity in Faith doth not depend upon Points Fundamental or not Fundamental but upon Gods Revelation equally or unequally proposed and Protestants pretending an Unity only by reason of their agreement in Fundamental Points do indeed induce as great a multiplicity of Faith as there is multitude of different objects which are believed by them and since they disagree in things Equally revealed by Almighty God it is evident that they forsake the very Formal motive of Faith which is God's revelation and consequently lose all Faith and Unity therein 6. The first part of the Title of this Chapter That the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental in the sense of Protestants is both impertinent and untrue being demonstrated let us now come to the second That the Church is insallible in all her definitions whether they concern Points Funmental or not Fundamental And this I prove by these reasons 7. It hath been shewed in the precedent Chapter that the Church is Judge of Controversies which she could not be if she could err in any one Point as D. Potter would not deny if he were once perswaded that she is Judge Because if she could err in some Points we could not relie upon her Authority and Judgement in any one thing 8. This same is proved by the reason we alledged before that seeing the Church was infallible in all her definitions ore Scripture was written unless we will take away all certainty of Faith for that time we cannot with any shew of reason affirm that she hath been deprived thereof by the adjoyned comfort and help of Sacred Writ 9. Moreover to say that the Catholique Church may propose any false Doctrin maketh her liable to damnable sin and error and yet D. Potter teacheth that the Church cannot err damnably For if in that kind of Oath which Divines call Assertorium wherein God is called to witness every falshood is a deadly sin in any private person whatsoever although the thing be of it self neither material nor prejudicial to any because the quantity or greatness of that sin is not measured so much by the thing which is affirmed as by the manner and authority whereby it is avouched and by the injury that is offered to Almighty God in applying his testimony to a salshood in which respect it is the unanimous consent of all Divines that in such kâ—nd of Oaths no levitas materiae that is smalness of matter can excuse from a moral sacriledge against the moral vertue of Religion which respects worship due to God If I say every least falshood be deadly sin in the foresaid kind of Oath much more pernicious a sin must it be in the publique person of the Catholique Church to propound untrue Articles of Faith thereby fastning God's prime Verity to a falshood and inducing and obliging the world to do the same Besides according to the Doctrin of all Divines it is not only injurious to God's Eternal Verity to disbelieve things by him revealed but also to propose as revealed Truths things not revealed as in Commonwealths it is a hainous offence to coyn either by counterfeiting the metal or the stamp or to apply the King's Seal to a writing counterfeit although the contents were supposed to be true And whereas to shew the detestable sin of such pernitious fictions the Church doth most exemplarly punish all broachers-of feigned revelations visions miracles prophecies c. as in particular appeareth in the Councel of (h) Sub. Leon. 10. Sess 11. Lateran excommunicating such persons if the Church her self could propose false revelations she her self should have been the first and chiefest deserver to have been censured and as it were excommunicated by her self For as the holy Ghost saith in (i) Cap. 13. v. 5. Job Doth God need your lye that for him you may speak deceits And that of the
Apocalyps is most truly verified in fictions revelations If any (k) Cap. ult v. 18. shall add to these things God will add unto him the plagues which are written in this Book and D. Potter saith to add (l) Pag. 122. to it speaking of the Creed is high presumption almost as great as to detract from it And therefore to say the Church may add false revelations is to accuse her of high presumption and of pernitious error excluding Salvation 10. Perhaps some will here reply that although the Church may err yet it is nor imputed to her for sin by reason she doth not err upon malice or wittingly but by ignorance or mistake 11. But it is easily demonstrated that this excuse cannot serve For if the Church be assisted only for Points Fundamental she cannot but know that she may err in Points not Fundamental at least she cannot be certain that she cannot err and therefore cannot be excused from headlong and pernitious temerity in proposing Points not Fundamental to be believed by Christians as matters of Faith wherein she can have no certainty yea which always imply a falshood For although the thing might chance to be true and perhaps also revealed yet for the matter she for her part doth always expose her self to danger of falshood and error and in fact doth always err in the manner in which she doth propound any matter not Fundamental because she proposeth it as a Point of Faith certainly true which yet is always uncertain if she in such things may be deceived 12. Besides if the Church may err in Points not Fundamental she may err in proposing some Scripture for Canonical which is not such or else err in nor keeping and conserving from corruptions such Scriptures as are already believed to be Canonical For I will suppose that in such Apocryphal Scripture as she delivers there is no Fundamental Error against Faith or that there is no falshood at all but only want of Divine testification in which case D. Potter must either grant that it is a Fundamental Error to apply Divine revelation to any Point not revealed or else must yield that the Church may err in her Proposition or Custody of the Canon of Scripture and so we cannot be sure whether she hath not been deceived already in Books recommended by her and accepted by Christians And thus we shall have no certainty of Scripture if the Church want certainty in all her definitions And it is worthy to be observed that some Books of Scripture which were not alwayes known to be Canonical have been afterward received for such but never any on Book or syllable defined by the Church to be Canonical was afterward questioned or rejected for Apocryphal A sign that God's Church is infallibly assisted by the holy Ghost never to propose as Divine truth any thing not revealed by God and that Omission to define Points not sufficiently discussed is laudable but Commission in propounding things not revealed inexcusable into which precipitation our Saviour Christ never hath nor never will permit his Church to fall 13. Nay to limit the general promises of our Saviour Christ made to his Church to Points only Fundamental namely that the gates (m) Mat. 16.18 of hell shall not prevail against her and that the holy Ghost (n) Joan. 16.13 shall lead her into all Truth c. is to destroy all Faith For we may be that Doctrin and manner of interpreting the Scripture limit the Infallibility of the Apostles words and preaching only to Points Fundamental and whatsoever general Texts of Scripture shall be alledged for their infallibility they may be D. Potter's example be explicated and restrained to Points Fundamental By the same reason it may be farther affirmed that the Apostles and other Writers of Canonical Scripture were indued with infallibility only in setting down Points Fundamental For if it be urged that all Scripture is divinely inspired that it is the Word of God c. D. Potter hath afforded you a ready answer to say that Scripture is inspired c. only in those parts or parcels wherein it delivereth Fundamental Points In this manner D. Fotherby saith The Apostle (o) In his Sermons Serm. 2. pag. 50. twice in one Chapter professed that this he speaketh and not the Lord He is very well content that where he lacks the warrant of the express Word of God that part of his writings should be esteemed as the word of man D. Potter also speaks very dangerously towards this purpose Sect. 5. where he endeavoureth to prove that the infallibility of the Church is limited to Points Fundamental because as Nature so God is neither defective in (p) Pag. 150. necessaries nor lavish in superfluities Which reason doth likewise prove that the infallibility of Scripture and of the Apostles must be restrained to Points necessary to Salvation that so God be not accused as defective in (p) Pag. 150. necessaries or lavish insuperfluities In the same place he hath a discourse much tending to this purpose where speaking of these words The Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and shall abide with (q) Joan. c. 16.13 c. 14.16 you for ever he saith Though that promise was (r) Pag. 151 152. directly and primarily made to the Apostles who had the Spirit 's guidance in a more high and absolute manner than any since them yet it was made to them for the behoof of the Church and is verified in the Church Universal But all truth is not simply all but all of some kind To be lead into all truths is to know and believe them And who is so simple as to be ignorant that there are many millions of Truths in Nature History Divinity whereof the Church is simply ignorant How many Truths lie unrevealed in the infinite Treasury of God's wisdom wherewith the Church is not acquainted c So then the Truth it self enforceth us to understand by all Truths not simply all not all which God can possibly reveal but all pertaining to the substance of Faith all Truth absolutely necessary to Salvation Mark what he saith That promise The Spirit shall lead you into all Truth was made directly to the Apostles and is verified in the Universal Church but by all Truth is not understood simply all but all appertaining to the substance of Faith and absolutely necessary to Salvation Doth it not hence follow that the promise made to the Apostles of being lead into all Truth is to be understood only of all Truth absolutely necessary to Salvation and consequently their preaching and writing were not infallible in Points not Fundamental or if the Apostles were infallible in all things which they proposed as divine Truth the like must be affirmed of the Church because D. Potter teacheth the said promise to be verified in the Church And as he limits the aforesaid words to Points Fundamental so may he restrain what other Text soever that can be
brought for the universal infallibility of the Apostles or Scriptures So he may and so he must lest otherwise he receive this answer of his own from himself How many Truths lie unrevealed in the infinite Treasury of God's wisdom wherewith the Church is not acquainted And therefore to verifie such general sayings they must be understood of Truths absolutely necessary to Salvation Are not these fearful consequences And yet D. Potter will never be able to avoid them till he come to acknowledge the infallibility of the Church in all Points by her proposed as divine Truths and thus it is universally true that she is lead into all Truth in regard that our Saviour never permits her to define or teach any falshood 14. All that with any colour may be replyed to this Argument is That if once we call any one Book or parcel of Scripture in question although for the matter it contain no Fundamental error yet it is of great importance and Fundamental by reason of the consequence because if once we doubt of one Book received for Canonical the whole Canon is made doubtful and uncertain and therefore the infallibility of Scripture must be universal and not confined within compass of Points Fundamental 15. I answer For the thing it self it is very true that if I doubt of any one parcel of Scripture received for such I may doubt of all and thence by the same parity I infer that if we did doubt of the Churches infallibility in some Points we could nor believe her in any one and consequently not in propounding Canonical Books or any other Points Fundamental or not Fundamental which thing being most absurd and withal most impious we must take away the ground thereof and believe that she cannot err in any Point great or small and so this reply doth much more strengthen what we intend to prove Yet I add that Protestants cannot make use of this reply with any good coherence to this their distinction and some other Doctrines which they defend For if D. Potter can tell what Points in particular be Fundamental as in his 7. Sect. he pretendeth then he might be sure that whensoever he meets with such Points in Scripture in them it is infallibly true although it may err in others and not only true but clear because Protestants teach that in matters necessary to Salvation the Scripture is so clear that all such necessary Truths are either manifestly contained therein or may be clearly deduced from it Which Doctrines being put together to wit That Scriptures cannot err in Points Fundamental that they clearly contain all such Points and that they can tell what Points in particular be such I mean Fundamental it is manifest that it is sufficient for Salvation that Scripture be infallible only in Points Fundamental For supposing these Doctrines of theirs to be true they may be sure to find in Scripture all Points necessary to Salvation although it were fallible in other Points of less moment Neither will they be able to avoid this impiety against holy Scripture till they renounce their other Doctrines and in particular till they believe that Christ's promises to his Church are not limited to Points Fundamental 16 Besides from the fallibility of Christ's Catholique Church in some Points it followeth that no true Protestant learned or unlearned doth or can with assurance believe the universal Church in any one Point of Doctrine Not in Points of lesser moment which they call not-Fundamental because they believe that in such Points she may err Not in Fundamental because they must know what Points be Fundamental before they go to learn of her lest otherwise they be rather deluded than instructed in regard that her certain and infallible direction extends only to Points Fundamental Now if before they address themselves to the Church they must know what Points are Fundamental they learn not of her but will be as sit to teach as to be taught by her How then are all Christians so often so seriously upon so dreadful menaces by Fathers Scriptures and our blessed Saviour himself counselled and commanded to seek to hear to obey the Church S. Austin was of a very disterent mind from Protestants If saith he the (s) Epist 118. Church through the whole world practise any of these things to dispute whether that ought to be so done is a most insolent madness And in another place he saith That which (t) Lib. 4. de Bapt. cap. 24. the whole Church holds and is not ordained by Councels but hath always been kept is most rightly believed to be delivered by Apostolical Authority The sâ—me holy Father teacheth that the custom of baptizing children cannot be proved by Scripture alone and yet that it is to be believed as derived from the Apostles The custom of our Mother the (u) Lib. 10. de Geaâ—si ad liter cap. 23. Church saith he in baptizing Infants is in no wise to be contemned nor to be accounted superfluous nor is it at all to be believed unless it were an Apostolical Tradition And elsewhere Christ (w) Serm. 14. de verbis Apost cap. 18. is of profit to Children baptized Is he therefore of profit to persons not believing But God forbid that I should say Infants do not believe I have already said he believes in another who sinned in another It is said he believes and it is of force and he is reckoned among the faithful that are baptized This the authority of our Mother the Church hath against this strength against this invincible wall whosoever rusheth shall be crushed in pieces To this argument the Protestants in the Conference at Ratisbon gave this round Answer Nos ab Augustino (x) See protocol Monach. edit 2. p 367. hac in parte liberè dissentimus In this we plainly disagree from Augustin Now if this Doctrine of baptizing Infants be not Fundamental in D. Potter's sense then according to S. Augustine the infallibility of the Church extends to Points not Fundamental But if on the other side it be a Fundamental Point then according to the same holy Doctor we must relie on the authority of the Church for some Fundamental Point not contained in Scripture but delivered by Tradition The like argument I frame out of the same Father about the not re-baptizing of those who were baptized by Heretiques whereof he excellently to our present purpose speaketh in this manner We follow (y) Lib. 1. cont Crescon cap. 32. 34. indeed in this matter even the most certain authority of Canonical Scriptures But how consider his words Although verily there be brought no example for this Point out of the Canonical Scriptures yet even in this Point the truth of the same Scriptures is held by us while we do that which the authority of Scriptures doth recommend that so because the holy Scripture cannot deceive us whosoever is afraid to be deceived by the obscurity of this question must have recourse to the same
Church concerning it which without any ambiguity the holy Scripture doth demonstrate to us Among many other Points in the aforesaid words we are to observe that according to this holy Father when we prove some Points not particularly contained in Scripture by the authority of the Church even in that case we ought not to be said to believe such Points without Scripture because Scripture it self recommends the Church and therefore relying on her we relie on Scripture without danger of being deceived by the obscurity of any question defined by the Church And elsewhere he saith Seeing this is (z) De Unit. Eccles c. 19. written in no Scripture we must believe the testimony of the Church which Christ declareth to speak the truth But it seems D. Potter is of opinion that this Doctrin about not-rebaptizing such as were baptized by Heretiques is no necessary Point of Faith nor the contrary an Heresie wherein he contradicteth S. Augustine from whom we have now heard that what the Church teacheth is truly said to be taught by Scripture and consequently to deny this particular Point delivered by the Church is to oppose Scripture it self Yet it he will needs hold that this Point is not Fundamental we must conclude out of S. Augustine as we did concerning the baptizing of Children that the infallibility of the Church reacheth to Points not-Fundamental The same Father in another place concerning this very question of the validity of Baptism conferred by Heretiques saith The (a) De Bapt. cont Donat. l. 5. c. 23. Apostles indeed have prescribed nothing of this but this Custom ought to be believed to be originally taken from their Tradition as there are many things that the universal Church observeth which are therefore with good reason believed to have been commanded by the Apostles although they be not written No less clear is S. Chrysostom for the infallibility of the Traditions of the Church For treating these words 2 Thes 2. Stand and hold the Traditions which you have learned whether by speech or by Epistle he saith Hence it is (b) Hom. 4. manifest that they delivered not all things by letter but many things also without writing and these also are worthy of belief Let us therefore account the Tradition of the Church so be worthy of belief It is a Tradition Seek no more Which words are so plainly against Protestants that Whitaker is as plain with S. Chrysostom saying I answer (c) De Sacra Script p. 678. that this is an inconsiderate speech and unworthy so great a Father But let us conclude with S. Augustine that the Church cannot approve any Error against Faith or good manners The Church saith he being (d) Ep. 119. placed between much chaff and cockle doth tolerate many things but yet she doth not approve nor dissemble nor do those things which are against Faith or good life 17. And as I have proved that Protestants according to their grounds cannot yield infallible assent to the Church in any one Point so by the same reason I prove that they cannot relie upon Scripture it self in any one Point of Faith Not in Points of lesser moment or not Fundamental because in such Points the Catholique Church according to D. Potter and much more any Protestant may err and think it is contained in Scripture when it is not Not in Points Fundamental because they must first know what Points be Fundamental before they can be assured that they cannot err in understanding the Scripture and consequently independently of Scripture they must foreknow all Fundamental Points of Faith and therefore they do not indeed relie upon Scripture either for Fundamental or not Fundamental Points 18. Besides I mainly urge D. Potter and other Protestants that they tell us of certain Points which they call Fundamental and we cannot wrest from them a list in particular of such Points without which no man can tell whether or no he err in Points Fundamental and be capable of Salvation And which is most lamentable instead of giving us such a Catalogue they fall to wrangle among themselves about the making of it 19. Calvin holds the (e) Instit l. 4. cap. 2. Pope's Primacy Invocation of Saints Freewill and such like to be Fundamental Errors overthrowing the Gospel Others are not of his mind as Melancthon who saith in (f) Cent. Ep. Theol. Ep. 74. the opinion of himself and other his Brethren That the Monarchy of the Bishop of Rome is of use or profit to this end that consent of Doctrin may be retained An agreement therefore may easily be established in this Article of the Pope's Primacy if ether Articles could be agreed upon If the Pope's Primacy be a means that consent of Doctrin may be retained first submit to it and other articles will be easily agreed upon Luther also saith of the Pope's Primacy it may be born (g) In Assertionib art 36. withall And why then O Luther did you not bear with it And how can you and your followers be excused from damnable Schism who chose rather to divide God's Church then to bear with that which you confess may be born withall But let us go forward That the Doctrin of Freewill Prayer for the dead worshipping of Images Worship and Invocation of Saints Real presence Transubstantiation Receiving under one kind Satisfaction and Merit of works and the Mass be not fundamental Errors is taught respectivè by divers Protestants carefully alledged in the Protestants (h) Tract 1. c. 2. Sect. 14. after F. Apology c. as namely by Perkins Cartwright Frith Fulke Sparke Goad Luther Reynolds Whitaker Tindal Francis Johnson with others Contrary to these is the Confession of the Christian Faith so called by Protestants which I mentioned (i) Cap. 1. v. 4. heretofore wherein we are damned unto unquenchable fire for the Doctrin of Mass Prayer to Saints and for the dead Freewill Presence at Idol-service Mans merit with such like Justification by Faith alone is by some Protestants affirmed to be the soul of the (k) Chalk in the Tower disputation the 4. dayes conference Church The only Principal origin of (l) Fox Act. Mon. p. 402. Salvation of all other Points of (m) The Confession of Bohemia in the Harmony of Confessions p. 253. Doctrin the chiefest and weightiest Which yet as we have seen is contrary to other Protestants who teach that merit of good works is not a Fundamental Error yea divers Protestants defend merit of good works as may be seen in (n) Tract 3. Sect. 7. under m. n. 15. Breereley One would think that the King's Supremacy for which some blessed men lost their lives was once amongst Protestants held for a Capital Point but now D. Andrews late of Winchester in his Book against Bellarmine tells us that it is sufficient to reckon it among true Doctrins And Wotton denies that Protestants (o) In his answer to a Popish pamphlet p 68. hold the King's
Supremacy to be an essential Point of Faith O freedom of the new Gospel Hold with Catholiques the Pope or with Protestants the King or with Puritans neither Pope nor King to be Head of the Church all is one you may be saved Some as Castalio (p) Vid Gul. Reginald Calv. Turcis l. 2. c. 6. and the whole Sect of the Academical Protestants hold that Doctrins about the Supper Baptism the state and office of Christ how he is one with his Father the Trinity Predestination and divers other such questions are not necessary to Salvation And that you may observe how ungrounded and partial their Assertions be Perkins teacheth that the Real presence of our Saviour's Body in the Sacrament as it is believed by Catholiques is a Fundamental Error and yet affirmeth the Consubstantiation of Lutherans not to be such notwithstanding that divers chief Lutherans to their Consubstantiation joyn the prodigious Heresie of Ubiquitation D. Usher in his Sermon of the Unity of the Catholique Faith grants Salvation to the Aethiopians who yet with Christian Baptism joyn Circumcision D. Potter (q) Pag. 113 114. Morton in his Treatise of the Kingdom of Israel p. 94. cites the Doctrin of some whom he termeth men of great learning and judgment that all who profess to love and honour JESUS CHRIST are in the visible Christian Church and by Catholiques to be reputed Brethren One of these men of great learning and judgment is Thomas Morton by D. Potter cited in his Margent whose love and honour to Jesus Christ you may perceive by this saying that the Churches of Arians who denied our Saviour Christ to be God are to be accounted the Church of God because they do hold the foundation of the Gospel which is Faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the world And which is more it seemeth by these charitable men that for being a member of the Church it is not necessary to believe one only God For D. Potter (r) Pag. 121. among the arguments to prove Hookers and Morton's opinion brings this The people of the ten Tribes after their defection notwithstanding their gross corruption and Idolatry remained still a true Church We may also as it seemeth by these mens reasoning deny the Resurrection and yet be members of the true Church For a learned man saith D. Potter (s) Pag. 122. in behalf of Hooker's and Morton's opinion was anciently made a Bishop of the Catholique Church though he did professedly doubt of the last Resurrection of our bodies Dear Saviour What times do we behold If one may be a member of the true Church and yet deny the Trinity of the Persons the Godhead of our Saviour the necessity of Baptism if we may use Circumcision and with the worship of God joyn Idolatry wherein do we differ from Turks and Jews or rather are we not worse than either of them If they who deny our Saviour's Divinity might be accounted the Church of God How will they deny that savour to those ancient Heretiques who denied our Saviour's true humanity and so the total denial of Christ will not exclude one from being a member of the true Church S. Hilary (t) Comment in Mat. cap. 16. maketh it of equal necessity for Salvation that we believe our Saviour to be true God and true Man saying This manner of Confession we aâ—e to hold that we remember him to be the Son of God and the Son of Man because the one without the other can give no hope of Salvation And yet D. Potter saith of the aforesaid doctrin of Hooker and Morton The (u) Pag. 123. Reader may be pleased to approve or reject it as he shall find cause And in another place (w) Pag. 253. he sheweth so much good liking of this Doctrin that he explicateth and proveth the Churches perpetual Visibility by it And in the second Edition of his Book he is careful to declare and illustrate it more at large than he had done before howsoever this sufficiently sheweth that they have no certainty what Points be Fundamental As for the Arians in particular the Author whom D. Potter cites for a moderate Catholique but is indeed a plain Heretique or rather Atheist Lucian-like jesting at all Religion (x) A moderate examination c. cap. 1. panlò post initium placeth Arianism among Fundamental Errors Buâ— contrarily an English Protestant Divine masked under the name of Irenaeus Philalethes in a little Book in Latine intituled Dissertatio de pace concordia Ecclesiae endeavoureth to prove that even the denial of the Blessed Trinity may stand with Salvation Divers Protestants have taught that the Roman Church erreth in Fundamental Points But D. Potter and others teach the contrary which could not happen if they could agree what be Fundamental Points You brand the Donatists with the note of an Error in the matter (y) Pag. 126. and the nature of it properly heretical because they taught that the Church remained only with them in the part of Donatus And yet many Protestants are so far from holding that Doctrin to be a Fundamental Error that themselves go further and say that for divers ages before Luther there was no true Visible Church at all It is then too too apparent that you have no agreement in specifying what be Fundamental Points neither have you any means to determine what they be for if you have any such means Why do you not agree You tell us The Creed contains all Points Fundamental which although it were true yet you see it serves not to bring you to a particular knowledge and agreement in such Points And no wonder For besides what I have said already in the beginning of this Chapter and am to deliver more at large in the next after so much labour and paper spent to pâ—ove that the Creed contains all Fundamental Points you conclude It remains (a) Pag. 241. very probable that the Creed is the perfect Summary of those Fundamental truths whereof consists the Unity of Faith and of the Catholique Church Very probable Then according to all good Logick the contrary may remain very probable and so all remain as full of uncertainty as before The whole Rule say you and the sole Judge of your Faith must be Scripture Scripture doth indeed deliver divine Truths but seldom doth qualifie them or declare whether they be or be nor absolutely necessary to Salvation You fall (b) Pag. 215. heavy upon Charity Mistaken because he demands a particular Catalogue of Fundamental Points which yet you are obliged in conscience to do if you be able For without such a Catalogue no man can be assured whether or no be have Faith sufficient to Salvation And therefore take it not in all part if we again and again demand such a Catalogue And that you may see we proceed fairly I will perform on our behalf what we request of you and do here deliver a Catalogue wherein
are comprised all Points by us taught to be necessary to Salvation in these words We are obliged under pain of damnation to believe whatsoever the Catholique Visible Church of Christ proposeth as revealed by Almighty God If any be of another mind all Catholiques denounce him to be no Catholique But enough of this And I go forward with the Infallibility of the Church in all Points 20. For even out of your own Doctrin that the Church cannot err in Points necessary to Salvation any wise man will infer that it behoves all who have care of their souls not to forsake her in any one Point 1. Because they are assured that although her Doctrine proved not to be true in some Point yet even according to D. Potter the Error cannot be Fundamental nor destructive of Faith and Salvation neither can they be accused of any the least imprudence in erring if it were possible with the universal Church Secondly since she is under pain of eternal damnation to be believed and obeyed in some things wherein confessedly she is indued with infallibility I cannot in wisdom suspect her credit in matters of less moment For who would trust another in matters of highest consequence and be afraid to relie on him in things of less moment Thirdly since as I said we are undoubtedly obliged not to forsake her in the chiefest or Fundamental Points and that there is no Rule to know precisely what and how many those Fundamental Points be I cannot without hazard of my soul leave her in any one Point lest perhaps that Point or Points wherein I forsake her prove indeed to be Fundamental and necessary to Salvation Fourthly that Visible Church which cannot err in Points Fundamental doth without distinction propound all her Definitions concerning matters of Faith to be believed under Anathema's or Curses esteeming all those who resist to be deservedly cast out of her Communion and holding it a Point necessary to Salvation that we believe she cannot err wherein if she speak true then to deny any one point in particular which she defineth or to affirm in general that she may err puts a man into a state of damnation Whereas to believe her in such Points as are not necessary to Salvation cannot endanger Salvation and likewise to remain in her Communion can bring no great harm because she cannot maintain any damnable error or practice but to be divided from her the being Christ's Catholique Church is most certainly damnable Fifthly the true Church being in lawful and certain possession of Superiority and Power to command and require Obedience from all Christians in some things I cannot without grievous sin withdraw my obedience in any one unless I evidently know that the thing commanded comes not within the compass of those things to which her Power extendeth And who can better inform me how far God's Church can proceed than God's Church her self Or to what Doctor can the Children and Scholars with greater reason and more security flye for direction than to the Mother and appointed Teacher of all Christians In following her I shall sooner be excused than in cleaving to any particular Sect or Person teaching or applying Scriptures against her Doctrin or Interpretation Sixthly the fearful examples of innumerable persons who forsaking the Church upon pretence of her Errors have failed even in Fundamental Points and suffered shipwrack of their Salvation ought to deter all Christians from opposing her in any one Doctrin or practice as to omit other both ancient and modern heresies we see that divers chief Protestants pretending to reform the corruptions of the Church are come to affirm that for many ages she erred to death and wholly perished which D. Potter cannot deny to be a Fundamental Error against that Article of our Creed I believe the Catholique Church as he affirmeth it of the Donatists because they confined the Universal Church within Africa or some other small tract of soil Lest therefore I may fall into some Fundamental Error it is most safe for me to believe all the Decrees of that Church which cannot err fundamentally especially it we add That according to the Doctrin of Catholique Divines one error in Faith whether it be for the matter it self great or small destroys Faith as is shewed in Charity Mistaken and consequently to accuse the Church of any one Error is to affirm that she lost all Faith and erred damnably which very saying is damnable because it leaves Christ no visible Church on earth 21. To all these Arguments I add this Demonstration D. Potter teacheth that there neither was (c) Pag. 75. nor can be any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself But if the Church of Christ can err in some Points of Faith men not only may but must forsake her in those unless D. Potter will have them to believe one thing and profess another and if such errors and corruptions should fall out to be about the Churches Liturgy publique Service administration of Sacraments the like they who perceive such errors must of necessity leave her external Communion And therefore if once we grant the Church may err it followeth that men may and ought to forsake her which is against D. Potter's own words or else they are inexcusable who left the Communion of the Roman Church under pretence of errors which they grant not to be Fundamental And if D. Potter think good to answer this argument he must remember his own Doctrin to be that even the Catholique Church may err in Points not Fundamental 22. Another argument for the universal Infallibility of the Church I take out of D. Potter's own words If saith he we (d) Pag. 97. did not dissent in some opinions from the present Roman Church we could not agree with the Church truly Catholique These words cannot be true unless he presuppose that the Church truly Catholique cannot err in Points not Fundamental For if she may err in such Points the Roman Church which he affirmeth to err only in Points not Fundamental may agree with the Church truly Catholique if she likewise may err in Points not Fundamental Therefore either he must acknowledge a plain contradiction in his own words or else must grant that the Church truly Catholique cannot err in Points not Fundamental which is what we intended to prove 23. If Words cannot perswade you that in all Controversies you must relie upon the infallibility of the Church at least yield your assent to Deeds Hitherto I have produced Arguments drawn as it were ex natura rei from the Wisdom and Goodness of God who cannot fail to have left some infallible means to determine Controversies which as we have proved can be no other except a Visible Church infallible in all her Definitions But because both Catholiques and Protestants receive holy Scripture we may thence also prove the infallibility of the Church in all matters which concern Faith and Religion Our
Saviour speaketh clearly The Gates of Hell (e) Mat. 16. shall not prevail against her And I will ask my (f) Joan. 14. Father and he will give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever The Spirit of Truth And But when he the Spirit of (g) Joan. 16. Truth cometh he shall teach you all Truth The Apostle saith that the Church is the Pillar and ground of (h) 1 Tim. c. 3. Truth And He gave some Apostles and some Prophets and othersome Evangelists and othersome Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the Saints unto the work of the Ministry unto the edifying of the Body of Christ until we meet all into the unity of Faith and knowledge of the Son of God into a perfect man into the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ that now we be not children wavering and carried about with every wind of Doctrin in the wickedness of men in craftiness to the circumvention (i) Ephes 4. of Error All which words seem clearly enough to prove that the Church is universally infallible without which unity of Faith could not be conserved against every wind of Doctrin And yet D Potter (k) Pag. 151 153. limits these promises and priviledges to Fundamental Points in which he grants the Church cannot err I urge the words of Scripture which are universal and do not mention any such restraint I alledge that most reasonable and Received Rule that Scripture is to be understood literally as it soundeth unless some manifest absurdity force us to the contrary But all will not serve to accord our different interpretation In the mean time divers of D. Potter's Brethren step in and reject his limitation as over-large and somewhat tasting of Papistry And therefore they restrain the mentioned Texts either to the Infallibility which the Apostles and other sacred Writers had in penning of Scripture or else to the invisible Church of the Elect and to them not absolutely but with a double restriction that they shall not fall damnably and finally and other men have as much right as these to interpose their opinion and interpretation Behold we are three at debate about the selfesame words of Scripture We confer divers places and Texts We consult the Originals We examine Translations We endeavour to pray heartily We profess to speak sincerely To seek nothing but Truth and Salvation of our own souls and that of our Neighbours and finally we use all those means which by Protestants themselves are prescribed for finding out the true meaning of Scripture Nevertheless we neither do or have any possible means to agree as long as we are left to our selves and when we should chance to be agreed the doubt would still remain whether the thing it self be a Fundamental Point or no And yet it were great impiety to imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no certain infallible means to decide both this and all other differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion Our remedy therefore in these contentions must be to consult and hear Gods Visible Church with submissive acknowledgment of her Power and Infallibility in whatsoever the proposeth as a revealed Truth according to that divine advice of St. Augustine in these words If at length (l) De util cred cap. 8. thou seem to be sufficiently tossed and hast a desire to put an end to thy pains follow the way of the Catholique Discipline which from Christ himself by the Apostles hath come down even to us and from us shall descend to all posterity And though I conceive that the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental hath now been sufficiently confuted yet that no shadow of difficulty may remain I will particularly refel a common saying of Protestants that it is sufficient for Salvation to believe the Apostles Creed which they hold to be a Summary of all Fundamental Points of Faith The ANSWER to the THIRD CHAPTER Wherein it is maintained That the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this present Controversie good and pertinent And that the Catholique Church may err in the latter kind of the said Points 1 THis Distinction is imployed by Protestants to many purposes and therefore if it be pertinent and good as they understand and apply it the whole edifice built thereon must be either firme and stable or if it be not it cannot be for any default in this Distinction 2. If you object to them discords in matter of Faith without any means of agreement They will answer you that they want not good and solid means of agreement in matters necessary to Salvation viz. Their beliefe of all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture which who so believes must of necessity believe all things necessary to Salvation and their mutual suffering one another to abound in their several sense in matters not plainly and undoubtedly there delivered And for their agreement in all Controversies of Religion either they have means to agree about them or not If you say they have why did you before deny it If they have not means why do you find fault with them for not agreeing 3. You will say that their fault is that by remaining Protestants they exclude themselves from the means of agreement which you have and which by submission to your Church they might have also But if you have means of agreement the more shame for you that you stil disagree For who I pray is more inexcusably guilty for the omission of any duty they that either have no means to do it or else know of none they have which puts them in the same case if as they had none or they which professe to have an easie and expedite means to do it and yet still leave it undone If you had been blind saith our Saviour to the Pharisees you had had no sin but now you say you see therefore your sin remaineth 4. If you say you do agree in matters of Faith I say this is ridiculous for you define matters of Faith to be those wherein you agree So that to say you agree in matters of Faith is to say you agree in those things wherein you do agree And do not Protestants do so likewise Do not they agree in those things wherein they do agree 5. But you are all agreed that only those things wherein you do agree are matters of Faith And Protestants if they were wise would do so too Sure I am they have reason enough to do so seeing all of them agree with explicite Faith in all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture that is in all which God hath plainly revealed and with an implicite Faith in that sense of the whole Scripture which God intended whatsoever was Secondly That which you pretend is false for else why do some of you hold it against faith to take or allow the Oath of
Lord but I deliver my judgment If we will pretend that the Lord did certainly speak what S. Paul spake and that his judgment was God's commandment shall we not plainly contradict S. Paul and that Spirit by which he wrote which moved him to write as in other places divine Revelations which he certainly knew to be such so in this place his own judgment touching some things which God had not particularly revealed unto him And if D. Potter did speak to this purpose that the Apostles were Infallible only in these things which they spake of certain knowledg I cannot see what danger there were in saying so Yet the Truth is you wrong D. Potter It is not he but D. Stapleton in him that speaks the words you cavil at D. Stapleton saith he p. 140. is full and punctual to this purpose then sets down the effect of his discourse l. 8. Princ. Doct. 4. c. 15. and in that the words you cavil at and then p. 150. he shuts up this Paragraph with these words Thus D. Stapleton So that if either the Doctrine or the Reason be not good D. Stapleton not D. Potter is to answer for it 33. Neither do D. Potter's ensuing words limit the Apostle's infallibility to truths absolutely necessary to salvation if you read them with any candor for it is evident he grants the Church infallible in Truths absolutely necessary and as evident that he ascribes to the Apostles the Spirit 's guidance and consequently infallibility in a more high and absolute manner than any since them From whence thus I argue He that grants the Church infallible in Fundamentals and ascribes to the Apostles the infallible guidance of the Spirit in a more high and absolute manner than to any since them limits not the Apostles infallibility to Fundamentals But D. Potter grants to the Church such a limited infallibility and ascribes to the Apostles the Spirit 's infallible guidance in a more high and absolute manner Therefore he limits not the Apostles infallibility to Fundamentals I once knew a man out of courtesie help a lame dog over a stile and he for requital bit him by the fingers Just so you serve D. Potter He out of courtesie grants you that those words The Spirit shall lead you into all Truth and shall abide with you ever though in their high and most absolute sense they agree only to the Apostles yet in a conditional limited moderate secundary sense they may be understood of the Church But says that if they be understood of the Church All must not be simply all No nor so large an All as the Apostles all but all necessary to salvation And you to requite his courtesie in granting you thus much cavil at him as if he had prescribed these bounds to the Apostles also as well as the present Church Whereas he hath explained himself to the contrary both in the clause fore-mentioned The Apostles who had the Spirit 's guidance in a more high and absolute manner than any since them and in these words ensuing whereof the Church is simply ignorant and again wherewith the Church is not acquainted But most clearly in those which being most incompatible to the Apostles you with an c I cannot but fear craftily have concealed How many obscure Texts of Scripture which she understands not How many School-Questions which she hath not happily cannot determine And for matters of fact it is apparent that the Church may err and then concludes That we must understand by All truths not simply All But if you conceive the words as spoken of the Church All Truth absolutely necessary to salvation And yet beyond all this the negative part of his answer agrees very well to the Apostles themselves for that All which they were lead into was not simply All otherwise S. Paul erred in saying we know in part but such an All as was requisite to make them the Churches Foundations Now such they could not be without freedom from errour in all those things which they delivered constantly as certain revealed Truths For if we once suppose they may have erred in some things of this nature it will be utterly undiscernable what they have erred in and what they have not Whereas though we suppose the Church hath erred in some things yet we have means to know what she hath erred in and what she hath not I mean by comparing the Doctrine of the present Church with the Doctrin of the Primitive Church delivered in Scripture But then last of all suppose the Doctor had said which I know he never intended that this promise in this place made to the Apostles was to be understood only of Truths absolutely necessary to salvation Is it consequent that he makes their Preaching and Writing not infallible in Points not Fundamental Do you not blush for shame at this Sophistry The Doctor says no more was promised in this place Therefore he says no more was promised Are there not other places besides this And may not that be promised in other places which is not promised in this 34. But if the Apostles were Infallible in all things proposed by them as Divine Truths the like must be affirmed of the Church because D. Potter teacheth the said promise to be verified in the Church True he doth so but not in so absolute a manner Now what is opposed to Absolute but Limited or restrained To the Apostles then it was made and to them only yet the words are true of the Church And this very promise might have been made to it though here it is not They agree to the Apostles in a higher to the Church in a lower sense to the Apostles in a more absolute to the Church in a more limited sense To the Apostles absolutely for the Churches direction to the Church Conditionally by adherence to that direction and so far as she doth adhere to it In a word the Apostles were lead into all Truths by the Spirit efficaciter The Church is led also into all Truth by the Apostles writings sufficienter So that the Apostles and the Church may be fitly compared to the Star and the Wisemen The Star was directed by the finger of God and could not but go right to the place where Christ was But the Wisemen were led by the Star to Christ led by it I say not efficaciter or irresistibiliter but sufficienter so that if they would they might follow it if they would not they might chuse So was it between the Apostles writing Scriptures and the Church They in their writing were infallibly assisted to propose nothing as a divine Truth but what was so The Church is also led into all Truth but it is by the intervening of the Apostles writings But it is as the Wisemen were led by the Star or as a Traveller is directed by a Mercurial Statue or as a Pilot by his Card and Compass led sufficiently but not irresistibly led as that she may follow not so
that she must For seeing the Church is a Society of men whereof every one according to the Doctrin of the Romish Church hath freewill in believing it follows that the whole Aggregate hath freewill in believing And if any man say that at least it is morally impossible that of so many whereof all may believe aright not any should do so I answer It is true if they did all give themselves any liberty of judgment But if all as the case is here captivate their understandings to one of them all are as likely to err as that one And he more likely to err than any other because he may err and thinks he cannot and because he conceives the Spirit absolutely promised to that succession of Bishops of which many have been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because he seeth him not neither knoweth him Besides let us suppose that neither in this nor in any other place God had promised any more unto them but to lead them into all Truth necessary for their own and other mens salvatition Doth it therefore follow that they were de facto led no farther God indeed is obliged by his Veracity to do all that he hath promised but is there any thing that binds him to do no more May not he be better than his word but you will quarrel at him May not his Bounty exceed his Promise And may not we have certainty enough that oft-times it doth so God at first did not promise to Solomon in his vision at Gibeon any more than what he askt which was wisdom to govern his people and that he gave him But yet I hope you will not deny that we have certainty enough that he gave him something which neither God had promised nor he had asked If you do you contradict God himself For Behold saith God because thou hast asked this thing I have done according to thy word Lo I have given thee a Wise and an Understanding heart so that there was none like thee before thee neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked both riches and honour so that there shall not be any among the Kings like unto thee in all thy days God for ought appears never obliged himself by promise to shew S. Paul those Unspeakable mysteries which in the third Heaven he shewed unto him and yet I hope we have certainty enough that he did so God promises to those that seek his Kingdom and the righteousness thereof that all things necessary shall be added unto them and in rigour by his promise he is obliged to do no more and if he give them necessaries he hath discharged his obligation Shall we therefore be so injurious to his bounty towards us as to say it is determined by the narrow bounds of meer Necessity So though God had obliged himself by promise to give his Apostles infallibility only in things necessary to salvation nevertheless it is utterly inconsequent that he gave them no more than by the rigour of his promise he was engaged to do or that we can have no assurance of any farther assistance that he gave them especially when he himself both by his word and by his works hath assured us that he did assist them farther You see by this time that your chain of fearful consequences as you call them is turned to a rope of sand and may easily be avoided without any flying to your imaginary infallibility of the Church in all her proposals 35. Ad § 14. 15 Doubting of a Book received for Canonical may signifie either doubting whether it be Canonical or supposing it to be Canonical whether it be True If the former sense were yours I must then again distinguish of the term Received For it may signifie either received by some particular Church or by the present Church Universal or the Church of all Ages If you meant the word in either of the former senses that which you say is not true A man may justly and reasonably doubt of some Texts or some Book received by some particular Church or by the Universal Church of this present time whether it be Canonical or no and yet have just reason to believe and no reason to doubt but that other Books are Canonical As Eusebius perhaps had reason to doubt of the Epistle of S. James the Church Rome in Hieromes time of the Epistle to the Hebrews And yet they did not doubt of all the Books of the Canon nor had reason to do so If by Received you mean Received by the Church of all Ages I grant he that doubts of any one such Book hath as much reason to doubt of all But yet here again I tell you that it is possible a man may doubt of one such Book and yet not of all because it is possible men may do not according to reason If you meant your words in the latter sense then I confess he that believes such a Book to be Canonical i. e. the word of God and yet to make an impossible Supposition believes it 〈◊〉 not to be true if he will do according to reason must doubt of all the rest and believe none For there being no greater reason to believe any thing true than because God hath said it nor no other reason to believe the Scripture to be true but only because it is Gods word he that doubts of the Truth of any thing said by God hath as much reason to believe nothing that he sayes and therefore if he will do according to reason neither must nor can believe any thing he sayes And upon this ground you conclude rightly that the infallibility of true Scripture must be Universal and not confined to Points Fundamental 36. And this Reason why we should not refuse to believe any part of Scripture upon pretence that the matter of it is not Fundamental you confess to be convincing But the same reason you say is as convincing for the Universal infallibility of the Church For say you unless She be infallible in all things we cannot believe her in any one But by this reason your Proselytes knowing you are not infallible in all things must not nor cannot believe you in any thing Nay you your self must not believe your self in any thing because you know that you are not infallible in all things Indeed if you had said We could not rationally believe her for her own sake and upon her own word and authority in any thing I should willingly grant the consequence For an authority subject to errour can be no firm or stable foundation of my belief in any thing and if it were in any thing then this authority being one and the same in all proposals I should have the same reason to believe all that I have to believe one and therefore must either do unreasonably in believing any
one thing upon the sole warrant of this authority or unreasonably in not believing all things equally warranted by it Let this therefore be granted and what will come of it Why then you say we cannot believe her in propounding Canonical Books If you mean still as you must do unless you play the Sophister not upon her own Authority I grant it For we believe Canonical Books not upon the Authority of the present Church but upon Universal Tradition If you mean Not at all and that with reason we cannot believe these Books to be Canonical which the Church proposes I deny it There is no more consequence in the Argument than in this The devil is not infallible therefore if he sayes there is one God I cannot believe him No Geometrician is Infallible in all things therefore not in these things which he demonstrates M. Knot is not infallible in all things therefore he may not believe that he wrote a Book entituled Charity Maintained 37. But though the Reply be good Protestants cannot make use of it with any good coherence to this distinction and some other Doctrins of theirs because they pretend to be able to tell what points are Fundamental and what not and therefore though they should believe Scripture erroneous in others yet they might be sure it erred not in these To this I answer That if without dependance on Scripture they did know what were Fundamental and what not they might possibly believe the Scripture true in Fundamentals and erroneous in other things But seeing they ground their belief that such and such things only are Fundamentals only upon Scripture and goe about to prove their assertion true only by Scripture then must they suppose the Scripture true absolutely and in all things or else the Scripture could not be a sufficient warrant to them to believe this thing that these only Points are Fundamental For who would not laugh at them if they should argue thus The Scripture is true in something the Scripture sayes that these Points only are Fundamental therefore this is true that these only are so For every Fresh-man in Logick knows that from meer particulars nothing can be certainly concluded But on the other side this reason is firme and demonstrative The Scripture is true in all things But the Scripture sayes that these only Points are the Fundamentals of Christian Religion therefore it is true that these only are so So that the knowledge of Fundamentals being it self drawn from Scripture is so far from warranting us to believe the Scripture is or may be in part True and in part False that it self can have no foundation but the Universal truth of Scripture For to be a Fundamental Truth presupposes to be a Truth now I cannot know any Doctrin to be a Divine and supernatural Truth or a true part of Christianity but only because the Scripture sayes so which is all true Therefore much more can I not know it to be a Fundamental Truth 38. Ad. § 16. To this Paragraph I answer Though the Church being not infallible I cannot believe her in every thing she sayes yet I can and must believe her in every thing she proves either by Scripture Reason or Universal Tradition be it Fundamental or be it not Fundamental This you say we cannot in Points not Fundamental because in such we believe she may erre But this I know we can because though she may erre in some things yet she does not erre in what she proves though it be not Fundamental Again you say We cannot do it in Fundamentals because we must know what Points be Fundamental before we go to learn of her Not so But seeing Faith comes by Hearing and by hearing those who give testimony to it which none doth but the Church and the Parts of it I must learn of the Church or of some part of it or I cannot know any thing Fundamental or not Fundamental For how can I come to know that there was such a man as Christ that he taught such Doctrin that he and his Apostles did such Miracles in Confirmation of it that the Scripture of GOD's Word unless I be taught it So then the Church is though not a certain Foundation and proof of my Faith yet a necessary Introduction to it 39. But the Churches infallible Direction extending only to Fundamentals unless I know them before I go to learn of her I may be rather deluded than instructed by her The reason and connexion of this consequence I fear neither I nor you do well understand And besides I must tell you you are too bold in taking that which no man grants you That the Church is an Infallible Director in Fundamentals For if she were so then must we not only learn Fundamentals of her but also learn of her what is Fundamental and take all for Fundamental which she delivers to be such In the performance whereof if I knew any one Church to be Infallible I would quickly be of that Church But good Sir you must needs do us this favour to be so acute as to distinguish between being infallible in Fundamentals and being an infallible Guide in Fundamentals That there shall be alwaies a Church infallible in Fundamentals we easily grant for it comes to no more but this that there shall be alwais a Church But that there shall be alwaies such a Church which is an infallible Guide in Fundamentals this we deny For this cannot be without setling a known Infallibility in some one known Society of Christians as the Greek or the Roman or some other Church by adhering to which Guide men might be guided to believe aright in all Fundamentals A man that were destitute of all means of communicating his thoughts to others might yet in himself and to himself be infallible but he could not be a Guide to others A Man or a Church that were invisible so that none could know how to repair to it for direction could not be an infallible Guide and yet he might be in himself infallible You see then there is a wide difference between these two and therefore I must beseech you not to confound them nor to take the one for the other 40. But they that know what Points are Fundamental otherwise than by the Churches Authority learn not of the Church Yes they may learn of the Church that the Scripture is the Word of God and from the Scripture that such Points are Fundamental others are not so and consequently learn even of the Church even of your Church that all is not Fundamental nay all is not true which the Church teacheth to be so Neither do I see what hinders but a man may learn of a Church how to confute the errors of that Church which taught him as well as of my Master in Physick or the Mathematicks I may learn those rules and principles by which I may confute my Master's erroneous Conclusions 41. But you ask If the Church be not an Infallible
demonstrated that such a man adheres to you with a fiducial and certain assent in nothing To make this clear because at the first hearing it may seem strange give me leave good Sir to suppose you the man and to propose to you a few questions and to give for you such answers to them as upon this ground you must of necessity give were you present with me First supposing you hold your Church infallible in Fundamentals obnoxious to errour in other things and that you know not what Points are Fundamental I demand C. Why do you believe the Doctrin of Transubstantiation K. Because the Church hath taught it which is infallible C. What Infallible in all things or only in Fundamentals K. In Fundamentals only C. Then in other pointsshe may erre K. She may C. And do you know what Points are Fundamental what not K. No and therefore I believe her in all things lest I should disbelieve her in Fundamentals C. How know you then whether this be a Fundamental Point or no K. I know not C. It may be then for ought you know an unfundamental Point K. Yes it may be so C. And in these you said the Church may err K. Yes I did so C. Then possibly it may erre in this K. It may do so C. Then what certainty have you that it does not erre in it K. None at all but upon this supposition that this is a Fundamental C. And this supposition you are uncertain of K. Yes I told you so before C. And therefore you can have no certainty of that which depends upon this uncertainty saving only a suppositive certainty if it be a Fundamental truth which is in plain English to say you are certain it is true if it be both true and necessary Verily Sir if you have no better Faith than this you are no Catholique K. Good words I pray I am so and God willing will be so C. You mean in outward profession and practise but in belief you are not no more than a Protestant is a Catholique For every Protestant yeelds such a kinde of assent to all the proposals of the Church for surely they believe them true if they be Fundamental truths And therefore you must either believe the Church Infallible in all her proposals be they foundations or be they superstructions or you must believe all Fundamental which she proposes or else you are no Catholique K. But I have been taught that seeing I believed the Church infallible in points necessary in wisdom I was to believe her in every thing C. That was a pretty plausible inducement to bring you hither but now you are here you must go farther and believe her infallible in all things or else you were as good go back again which will be a great disparagement to you and draw upon you both the bitter and implacable hatred of our Part and even with your own the imputation of rashness and levity You see I hope by this time that though a man did believe your Church infallible in Fundamentals yet he hath no reason to do you the curtesie of believing all her Proposals nay if he be ignorant what these Fundamentals are he hath no certain ground to believe her upon her Authority in any thing And whereas you say it can be no imprudence to erre with the Church I say it may be very great imprudence if the question be Whether we should erre with the present Church or hold true with God Almighty 58. But we are under pain of damnation to believe and obey hâ—â— in greater things and therefore cannot in wisdom suspect her credit in mâ—â—â—â—rs of less moment Answ I have told you already that this is falsly to suppose that we grant that in some certain points some certain Church is infallibly assisted and under pain of damnation to be obeyed whereas all that we say is this that in some place or other some Church there shall be which shall retain all necessary Truths Yet if your supposition were true I would not grant your Conclusion but with this Exception unless the matter were past suspition and apparently certain that in these things I cannot believe God â—nd believe the Church For then I hope you will grant that be the thing of never so little moment were it for instance but that S. Paul left his cloak at Troas yet I were not to gratifie the Church so far as for her sake to disbelieve what God himself hath revealed 59 Whereas you say Since we are undoubtedly obliged to believe her in Fundamentals and cannot know precisely what those Fundamentals be we cannot without hazard of our souls leave her in any Point I answer First that this argument proceeds upon the same false ground with the former And then that I have told you formerly that you feare where no fear is And though we know not precisely just how much is Fundamental yet we know that the Scripture containes all Fundamentals and more too and therefore that in believing that we believe all Fundamentals and more too And consequently in departing from you can be in no danger of departing from that which may prove a Fundamental Truth For we are wel assured that certain Errors can never prove Fundamental Truths 60. Whereas you adde That that visible Church which cannot err in Fundamentals propounds all her definitions without distinction to be believed under Anathema's Answ Again you beg the question supposing untruly that there is any that visible Church I mean any Visible Church of one Denomination which cannot erre in Points Fundamental Secondly proposing definitions to be believed under Anathema's is no good Argument that the Propounders conceive themselves infallible but only that they conceive the Doctrin they condemn is evidently damnable A pâ—ain proof hereof is this that particular Councils nay particular Men have been very liberal of their Anathema's which yet were never conceived infallible either by others or themselves If any man should now deny Christ to be the Saviour of the world or deny the Resurrection I should make no great scruple of Anathematizing his doctrin and yet am very far from dreaming of infallibility 61. And for the Visible Churches holding it a Point necessary to Salvation that we believe she cannot erre I know no such tenet unless by the Church you mean the Roman Church which you have as much reason to do as that petty King in Africk hath to think himself King of all the world And therefore your telling us If she speak true what danger is it not to believe her and if false that it is not dangerous to believe her is somewhat like your Pope's setting your Lawyers to dispute whether Constantine's Donation were valid or no whereas the matter of fact was the far greater question whether there were any such Donation or rather when without question there was none such That you may not seem to delude us in like maner make it appear that the visible Church doth hold so
as you pretend and then whether it be true or false we will consider afterwards But for the present with this invisible Tenet of the visible Church we will trouble our selves no farther 62. The effect of the next Argument is this I cannot without grievous sin disobey the Church unless I know she commands those things which are not in her power to command and how far this power extends none can better inform me then the Church Therefore I am to obey so far as the Church requires my obedience I answer First that neither hath the Catholique Church but only a corrupt part of it declared her self nor required our obedience in the Points contested among us This therefore is falsly and vainly supposed here by you being one of the greatest Questions amongst us Then secondly that God can better inform us what are the limits of the Churches power than the Church her self that is than the Roman Clergy who being men subject to the same passions with other men why they should be thought the best Iudges in their owne cause I do not well understand But yet we oppose against them no humane decisive Judges not any Sect or Person but only God and his Word And therefore it is in vain to say That in following her you shall be sooner excused than in following any Sect or Man applying Scriptures against her Doctrin In as much as we never went about to arrogate to our selves that Infallibility or absolute Authority which we take away from you But if you would have spoken to the purpose you should have said that in following her you should sooner have been excused then in cleaving to the Scripture and to God himself 63 Whereas you say The fearful examples of innumerable persons who forsaking the Church upon pretence of her errours have failed even in Fundamental Points ought to deterr all Christians from opposing her in any one Doctrin or practise This is just as if you should say Divers men have fallen into Scylla with going too far from Charybdis be sure therefore ye keep close to Charybdis Divers leaving Prodigality have fallen into covertousness therefore be you constant to Prodigality Many have fallen from worshipping God perversly and foolishly not to worship him at all from worshipping many gods to worship none this therefore ought to deterr men from leaving Superstition or Idolatry for fear of falling into Atheism and Impiety This is your counsel and Sophistry but God sayes clean contrary Take heed you swerve not either to the right hand or to the left you must not do evill that good may come thereon therefore neither that you may avoid a greater evill you must not be obstinate in a certain error for fear of an uncertain What if some forsaking the Church of Rome have forsaken Fundamental truths Was this because they forsooke the Church of Rome No sure this is non causa pro causa for else all that have forsaken that Church should have done so which we say they have not But because they went too far from her the golden mean the narrow way is hard to be found and hard to be kept hard but not impossible hard but yet you must not please your self out of it though you erre on the right hand though you offend on the milder part for this is the only way that leads to life and few there be that find it It is true if we said there were no danger in being of the Roman Church and there were danger in leaving it it were madness to perswade any man to leave it But we protest and proclaim the contrary and that we have very little hope of their Salvation who either out of negligence in seeking the truth or unwillingness to find it live and die in the errors and impieties of that Church and therefore cannot but conceive those fears to be most foolish and ridiculous which perswade men to be constant in one way to hell lest haply if they leave it they should fall into another 64. But Not only others but even Protestants themselves whese example ought most to move us pretending to reform the Church are come to affirm that she perished for many ages which D. Potter cannot deny to be a Fundamental errour against the Article of the Creed I believe the Catholique Church seeing be affirms Donatists erred Fundamentally in confining it to Africa To this I answer First that the error of the Donatists was not that they held it possible that some or many or most parts of Christendome might fall away from Christianity and that the Church may lose much of her amplitude and be contracted to a narrow compass in comparison of her former extent which is proved not only possible but certain by irrefragable experience For who knows not that Gentilism and Mahumetism mans wickedness deserving it and Gods providence permitting it have prevailed to the utter extirpation of Christianity upon far the greater part of the world And S. Austin when he was out of the heat of Disputation confesses the Militant Church to be like the Moon sometimes increasing and sometimes decreasing This therefore was no errour in the Donatists that they held it possible that the Church from a large extent might be contracted to a lesser nor that they held it possible to be reduced to Africa For why not to Africk then as well as within these few Ages you pretend it was to Europe But their error was that they held de facto this was done when they had no just ground or reason to do so and so upon a vain pretence which they could not justifie separated themselves from the communion of all other parts of the Church and that they required it as a necessary condition to make a man a member of the Church that he should be of their communion and divide himself from all other Communions from which they were divided which was a condition both unnecessary and unlawful to be required and therefore the exacting of it was directly opposite to the Churches Catholicism in the very same nature with their Errors who required Circumcision and the keeping of the Law of Moses as necessary to salvation For whosoever requires harder or heavyer conditions of men than God requires of them he it is that is properly an Enemy of the Churches Universality by hindering either Men or Countries from adjoyning themselves to it which were it not for these unnecessary and therefore unlawful conditions in probability would have made them members of it And seeing the present Church of Rome perswades men they were as good for any hope of salvation they have not be Christians as not be Romane Catholiques believe nothing at all as not believe all which she imposes upon them be absolutely out of the Churches Communion as be out of her Communion or be in any other Whether she be not guilty of the same crime with the Donatists and those Zelots of the Mosaical Law I leave it to the judgement
of those that understand reason This is sufficient to shew the vanity of this Argument But I adde moreover that you neither have named those Protestants who held the Church to have perished for many Ages who perhaps held not the destruction but the corruption of the Church not that the true Church but that the pure Church perished or rather that the Church perished not from its life and existence but from its purity and integrity or perhaps from its splendor and visibility Neither have you proved by any one reason but only affirmed it to be a Fundamental Error to hold that the Church militant may possibly be driven out of the world and abolished for a time from the face of the earth 65. But to accuse the Church of any Error in Faith is to say she lost all Faith For this is the Doctrin of Catholique Divines that one Errour in Faith destroyes Faith To which I answer that to accuse the Church of some Error in Faith is not to say she lost all Faith For this is not the Doctrin of all Catholique Divines But that he which is an Heretique in one Article may have true Faith of other Articles And the contrary is only said and not shewed in Charity Mistaken 66. Ad § 21. D. Potter saies We may not depart from the Church absolutely and in all things and from hence you conclude Therefore we may not depart from it in any thing And this Argument you call a Demonstration But a Fallacy à dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid was not used heretofore to be called a Demonstration D. Potter says not that you may not depart from any opinion or any practice of the Church for you tell us in this very place that he sayes even the Catholique may err and every man may lawfully depart from Error He only says You may not cease to be of the Church nor depart from those things which make it so to be and from hence you infer a necessity of forsaking it in nothing Just as if you should argue thus You may not leave your friend or brother therefore you may not leave the Vice of your friend or the Errour of your brother What he sayes of the Catholique Church p. 75. the same he extends presently after to every true though never so corrupted part of it And why do you not conclude from hence that no particular Church according to his judgment can fall into any Error and call this a Demonstration too For as he sayes p. 75. That there can be no just cause to depart from the whole Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself So p. 76. he tels you That whosoever forsakes any one true member of this body forsakes the whole So that what he sayes of the one he sayes of the other and tels you that neither Universal nor particular Church so long as they continue so may be forsaken he means Absolutely no more than Christ himself may be forsaken absolutely For the Church is the body of Christ and whosoever forsakes either the body or his coherence to any one part of it must forsake his subordination and relation to the Head Therefore whosoever forsakes the Church or any Christian must forsake Christ himself 67. But then he tels you plainly in the same place That it may be lawful and necessary to depart from a Particular Church in some Doctrins and Practices And this he would have said even of the Catholike Church if there had been occasion but there was none For there he was to declare and justifie our departure not from the Catholike Church but the Roman which we maintain to be a particular Church But in other places you confess his Doctrin to be that even the Catholique Church may erre in points not Fundamental which you do not pretend that he ever imputed to Christ himself And therefore you cannot with any candor interpret his words as if he had said We may not forsake the Church in any thing no more than Christ himself but only thus We may not cease to be of the Church nor forsake it absolutely and totally no more than Christ himself And thus we see sometimes A mountain may travel and the production may be a mouse 68. Ad § 22. But D. Potter either contradicts himself or else must grant the Church infallible Because he saies if we did not differ from the Roman we could not agree with the Catholique which saying supposes the Catholique Church cannot erre Answer This Argument to give it the right name is an obscure and intricate Nothing And to make it appear so let us suppose in contradiction to your supposition either that the Catholique Church may erre but doth not but that the Roman actually doth or that the Catholique Church doth erre in some few things but that the Roman erres in many more And is it not apparent in both these cases which yet both suppose the Churches Fallibility a man may truly say Unless I dissent in some opinions from the Roman Church I cannot agree with the Catholique Either therefore you must retract you imputation laid upon D. Potter or do that which you condemn in him and be driven to say that the same man may hold some errors with the Church of Rome and at the same time with the Catholique Church not to hold but condemn them For otherwise in neither of these cases is it possible for the same man at the same time to agree both with the Roman and the Catholique 69. In all these Texts of Scripture which are here alleaged in this last Section of this Chapter or in any one of them or in any other Doth God say clearly and plainly The Bishop of Rome and that Society of Christians which adheres to him shall be ever the infallible guide of Faith You will confess I presume he doth not and will pretend it was not necessary Yet if the King should tell us the Lord Keeper should judge such and such causes but should either not tell us at all or tell us but doubtfully who should be Lord-Keeper should we be any thing the nearer for him to an end of contentions Nay rather would not the dissentions about the Person who it is increase contentions rather than end them Just so it would have been if God had appointed a Church to be Judge of Controversies and had not told us which was that Church Seeing therefore God doth nothing in vain and seeing it had been in vain to appoint a Judge of Controversies and not to tell us plainly who it is and seeing lastly he hath not told us plainly no not at all who it is Is it not evident he hath appointed none Obj. But you will say perhaps if it be granted once that some Church of one denomination is the infallible Guide of Faith it will be no difficult thing to prove that yours is the Church seeing no other Church pretends to be so Answ Yes the Primitive and
done nothing your bridge is too short to bring you to the bank where you would be unless you can shew that by Truth here is certainly meant not only all necessary to salvation but all that is profitable absolutely and simply All. For that the true Church always shall be the maintainer and teacher of all necessary Truth you know we grant and must grant for it is of the essence of the Church to be so and any company of men were no more a Church without it than any thing can be a man and not be reasonable But as a man may be still a man though he want a hand or an eye which yet are profitable parts so the Church may be still a Church though it be defective in some profitable truth And as a man may be a man that hath some biles and botches on his body so the Church may be the Church though it have many corruptions both in doctrine and practice 79. And thus you see we are at liberty from the former places having shewed that the sense of them either must or may be such as will do your Cause no service But the last you suppose will be a Gordian knot and tie us fast enough The words are He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministery c. Until we all meet into the Unity of faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carryed up and down with every wind of Doctrin Out of which words this is the only Argument which you collect or I can collect for you There is no means to conserve Unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrin unless it be a Church universally infallible But it is impious to say There is no means to conserve Unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrin Therefore there must be a Church Universally Infallible Whereunto I answer that your Major is so far from being confirmed that it is plainly confuted by the place alleadged For that tels us of another means for this purpose to wit the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension and that their consummating the Saints doing the work of the Ministery and edifying the body of Christ was the means to bring those which are there spoken of be they who they will to the Unity of Faith and to perfection in Christ that they might not be wavering and carryed about with every wind of false Doctrin Now the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors are not the present Church therefore the Church is not the only means for this end nor that which is here spoken of 80. Peradventure by he gave you conceive is to be understood he promised that he would give unto the worlds end But what reason have you for this conceit Can you shew that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath this signification in other places and that it must have it in this place Or will not this interpretation drive you presently to this blasphemous absurdity that God hath not performed his promise Unless you will say which for shame I think you will not that you have now and in all Ages since Christ have had Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists for as for Pastors and Doctors alone they will not serve the turn For if God promised to give all these then you must say He hath given all or else that he hath broke his promise Neither may you pretend that the Pastors and Doctors were the same with the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and therefore having Pastors and Doctors you have all For it is apparent that by these names are denoted several Orders of men clearly distinguished and diversified by the Original Text but much more plainly by your own Translations for so you read it some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors and yet more plainly in the parallel place 1 Cor. 12. to which we are referred by your Vulgar Translation God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers therefore this subterfuge is stopped against you Object But how can they which died in the first Age keep us in Unity and guard us from Error that live now perhaps in the last This seems to be all one as if a man should say that Alexander or Julius Caesar should quiet a mutiny in the King of Spain 's Army Answ I hope you will grant that Hippocrates and Galen and Euclid and Aristotle and Salust and Caesar and Livie were dead many Ages since and yet that we are now preserved from error by them in a great part of Physick of Geometry of Logick of the Roman Story But what if these men had writ by Divine Inspiration and writ compleat bodies of the Sciences they professed and writ them plainly and perspicuously You would then have granted I believe that their works had been sufficient to keep us from error and from dissention in these matters And why then should it be incongruous to say that the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension by their writings which some of them writ but all approved are even now sufficient means to conserve us in Unity of Faith and guard us from error Especially seeing these writings are by the confession of all parts true and divine and as we pretend and are ready to prove contain a plain and perfect Rule of Faith and as the * Perron Chiefest of you acknowledge contain immediately all the Principal and fundamental Points of Christianity referring us to the Church and Tradition only for some minute particularities But tell me I pray the Bishops that composed the Decrees of the Councel of Trent and the Pope that confirmed them are they means to conserve you in Unity and keep you from Error or are they not Peradventure you will say Their Decrees are but not their Persons but you will not deny I hope that you owe your Unity and freedome from Error to the Persons that made these Decrees neither will they deny that the writings which they have left behind them are sufficient for this purpose And why may not then the Apostles writings be as fit for such a purpose as the Decrees of your Doctors Surely their intent in writing was to conserve us in Unity of Faith and to keep us from errour and we are sure God spake in them but your Doctors from whence they are we are not so certain Was the Holy Ghost then unwilling or unable to direct them so that their writings should be fit and sufficient to attain that end they aimed at in writing For if he were both able and willing to do so then certainly he did do so And then their writings may be very sufficient means if we would use them as we should do to preserve us in Unity in all necessary
points of Faith and to guard us from all pernitious Error 81. If yet you be not satisfied but will still pretend that all these words by you cited seem clearly enough to prove that the Church is Universally Infallible without which Unity of Faith could not be conserved against every wind of Doctrin I answer That to you which will not understand that there can be any means to conserve the Unity of Faith but only that which conserves your Authority over the Faithful it is no marvel that these words seem to prove that the Church nay that your Church is universally infallible But we that have no such end no such desires but are willing to leave all men to their liberty provided they will not improve it to a Tyranny over others we find it no difficulty to discern between dedit and promisit he gave at his Ascension and he promised to the worlds end Besides though you whom it concernes may haply flatter your selves that you have not only Pastors and Doctors but Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists and those distinct from the former still in your Church yet we that are disinteressed persons cannot but smile at these strange imaginations Lastly though you are apt to think your selves such necessary instruments for all good purposes and that nothing can be well done unless you do it that no unity or constancy in Religion can be maintained but inevitably Christendom must fall to ruin and confusion unless you support it yet we that are indifferent and impartial and well content that God should give us his own favours by means of his own appointment not of our choosing can easily collect out of these very words that not the Infallibility of your or of any Church but the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists c. which Christ gave upon his Ascension were designed by him for the compassing all these excellent purposes by their preaching while they lived and by their writings for ever And if they faile hereof the Reason is not any insufficiency or invalidity in the means but the voluntary perversness of the subjects they have to deal with who if they would be themselves and be content that others should be in the choice of their Religion the servants of God and not of men if they would allow that the way to heaven is no narrower now then Christ left it his yoak no heavier then he made it that the belief of no more difficulties is required now to Salvation than was in the Primitive Church that no error is in it self destructive and exclusive from Salvation now which was not then if instead of being zealous Papists earnest Calvinists rigid Lutherans they would become themselves and be content that others should be plain and honest Christians if all men would believe the Scripture and freeing themselves from prejudice and passion would sincerely endeavour to finde the true sense of it and live according to it and require no more of others but to do so nor denying their Communion to any that do so would so order their publique service of God that all which do so may without scruple or hypocrisie or protestation against any part of it joyn with them in it who doth not see that seeing as we suppose here and shall prove hereafter all necessary truths are plainly and evidently set down Scripture there would of necessity be among all men in all things necessary Unity of Opinion And notwithstanding any other differences that are or could he Unity of Communion and Charity and mutual toleration By which means all Schism and Heresie would be banished the world and those wretched contentions which now read and tear in pieces not the coat but the members and bowels of Christ which mutual pride and Tyrannie and cursing and killing and damning would fain make immortal should speedily receive a most blessed catastrophe But of this hereafter when we shall come to the Question of Schism wherein I perswade my self that I shall plainly shew that the most vehement accusers are the greatest offenders and that they are indeed at this time the greatest Schismatiques who make the way to heaven narrower the yoak of Christ heavier the differences of Faith greater the conditions of Ecclesiasticall Communion harder and stricter then they were made at the beginning by Christ and his Apostles they who talk of Unity but ayme at Tyraunie and will have peace with none but with their slaves and vassals In the mean while though I have shewed how Unity of Faith and Unity of Charity too may be preserved without your Churches Infallibility yet seeing you modestly conclude from hence not that your Church is but only seems to be universally infallible meaning to your self of which you are a better Judge than I Therefore I willingly grant your Conclusion and proceed 83. Whereas you say That D. Potter limits those promises and priviledges to Fundamental points The truth is with some of them he meddles not at all neither doth his adversary give him occasion Not with those out of the Epistle to Timothy and to the Ephesians To the rest he gives other answer besides this 83. But the words of Scripture by you alleadged are Universal and mention no such restraint to Fundamentals as D. Potter applies to them I answer That of the five Texts which you alleadge four are indefinite and only one universal and that you confess is to be restrained and are offended with D. Potter for going about to prove it And Whereas you say they mention no restraint intimating that therefore they are not to be restrained I tell you This is no good consequence for it may appear out of the matter and circumstances that they are to be understood in a restrained sense notwithstanding no restraint be mentioned That place quoted by S. Paul and applyed by him to our Saviour He hath put all things under his feet mentions no exception yet S. Paul tels us not only that it is true or certain but it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under him 84. But your interpretation is better than D. Potters because it is literal I answer His is Literal as well as yours and you are mistaken if you think a restrained sense may not be a literal sense for to Restrained Literal is not opposed but unlimited or absolute and to Literal is not oppos'd Restrained but Figurative 85. Wheras you say D. Potters Bretheren rejecting his limitation restrain the mentioned Texts to the Apostles implying hereby a contrariety between them and him I answer So doth D. Potter restrain all of them which he speaks of in the pages by you quoted to the Apostles in the direct and primary sense of the words Though he tels you there the words in a more restrained sense are true being understood of the Church Universal 86. As for your pretence That to find the meaning of those places you confer divers Texts you consult Originals you examine Translations and use all
the means by Protestants appointed I have told you before that all this is vain and hypocritical if as your manner and your doctrin is you give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of these means if you make not your selves Judges of but only Advocates for the Doctrin of your Church refusing to see what these means shew you if it any way make against the Doctrin of your Church though it be as clear as the light at noon Remove Prejudice eaven the Ballance and hold it eaven make it indifferent to you which way you go to heaven so you go the true which Religion be true so you be of it then use the means and pray for Gods assistance and as sure as God is true you shall be lead into all necessary Truth 87. Whereas you say you neither do nor have any possible means to agree as long as you are left to your selves The first is very true That while you differ you do not agree But for the second That you have no possible means of agreement as long as you are left to your selves i. e. to your own reasons and judgment this sure is very false neither do you offer any proof of it unless you intended this that you do not agree for a proof that you cannot which sure is no good consequence not halfe so good as this which I oppose against it D. Potter and I by the use of these means by you mentioned do agree concerning the sense of these places therefore there is a possible means of agreement and therefore you also if you would use the same means with the same minds might agree so far as it is necessary and it is not necessary that you should agree farther Or if there be no possible means to agree about the sense of these Texts whilst we are left to our selves then sure it is impossible that we should agree in your sense of them which was That the Church is universally infallible For if it were possible for us to agree in this sense of them then it were possible for us to agree And why then said you of the self same Texts but in the page next before These words seem clearly enough to prove that the Church is Universally infallible A strange forgetfulness that the same man almost in the same breath should say of the same words They seem cleerly enough to prove such a Conclusion true and yet that three indifferent men all presum'd to be lovers of Truth and industrious searchers of it should have no possible means while they follow their own reason to agree in the Truth of this Conclusion 88. Whereas you say that It were great impiety to imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no certain infallible means to decide both this and all o'her differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion I desire you to take heed you commit not an impiety in making more impieties than Gods Commandements make Certainly God is no way oblig'd either by his Promise or his Love to give us all things that we may imagine would be convenient for us as formerly I have proved at large It is sufficient that he denyes us nothing necessary to Salvation Deus non deficit in necessariis nee redundat in superfluis So D. Stapleton But that the ending of all Controversies or having a certain means of ending them is necessary to Salvation that you have often said and suppos'd but never proved though it be the main pillar of your whole discourse So little care you take how slight your Foundations are so your Building make a fair shew And as little care how you commit those faults your self which you condemn in others For you here charge them with great impiety who imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no infallible means to determine all differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion And yet afterwards being demanded by D. Potter Why the Questions between the Jesuits and Dominicans remain undetermined You return him this cross Interrogatory Who hath assured you that the Point wherein these learned men differ is a revealed Truth or capable of definition or is not rather by plain Scripture indeterminable or by any Rule of Faith So then when you say It were great impiety to imagine that God hath not left infallible means to decide all differences I may answer It seems you do not believe your self For in this Controversie which is of as high consequence as any can be you seem to be doubtful whether there be any means to determine it On the other side when you ask D. Potter Who assured him that there is any means to determine this Controversie I answer for him that you have in calling it a great impiety to imagine that there is not some infallible means to decide this and all other differences arising about the Interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion For what trick you can devise to shew that this difference between the Dominicans and Jesuits which includes a difference about the sense of many texts of Scripture and many other matters of moment was not included under this and all other differences I cannot imagine Yet if you can find out any thus much at least we shall gain by it that general speeches are not always to be understood generally but sometimes with exceptions and limitations 89. But if there be any infallible means to decide all differences I beseech you name them You say it is to consult and hear Gods Visible Church with submissive acknowledgment of her Infallibility But suppose the difference be as here it is whether your Church be infallible what shall decide that If you would say as you should do Scripture and Reason then you foresee that you should be forced to grant that these are fit means to decide this Controversie and therefore may be as fit to decide others Therefore to avoid this you run into a most ridiculous absurdity and tell us that this difference also Whether the Church be infallible as well as others must be agreed by a submissive acknowledgment of the Churches Infallibility As if you should have said My Bretheren I perceive there is a great Contention amongst you whether the Roman Church be infallible If you will follow my advice I will shew you a ready means to end it you must first agree that the Roman Church is infallible and then your contention whether the Roman Church be infallible will quickly be at an end Verily a most excellent advice and most compendious way of ending all Controversies even without troubling the Church to determine them For why may not you say in all other differences as you have done in this Agree that the Pope is supream head of the Church That the substance of the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is turned into the Body and Blood of Christ That the Communion is to be given to
Creed were faithfully summed and contracted and not one pretermitted altered or mistaken unless we undoubtedly know that the Apostles composed the Creed and that they intended to contract all Fundamental Points of Faith into it or at least that the Church of their times for it seemeth you doubt whether indeed it were composed by the Apostles themselves did understand the Apostles aright and that the Church of their times did intend that the Creed should contain all Fundamental Points For if the Church may err in Points not Fundamental may she not also err in the particulars which I have specified Can you shew it to be a Fundamental Point of Faith that the Apostles intended to comprize all Points of Faith necessary to Salvation in the Creed Your self say no more than that it is very (c) Pag. 241. probable which is far from reaching to a Fundamental Point of Faith Your probability is grounded upon the Judgment of Antiquity and even of the Roman Doctors as you say in the same place But if the Catholique Church may err what certainty can you expect from Antiquity or Doctors Scripture is your total Rule of Faith Cite therefore some Text of Scripture to prove that the Apostles or the Church of their times composed the Creed and composed it with a purpose that it should contain all Fundamental Points of Faith Which being impossible to be done you must for the Creed it self relie upon the infallibility of the Church 4. Moreover the Creed consisteth not so much in the words as in their sense and meaning All such as pretend to the name of Christians recite the Creed and yet many have erred fundamentally as well against the Articles of the Creed as other Points of Faith It is then very frivolous to say The Creed containes all Fundamental Points without specifying both in what sense the Articles of the Creed be true and also in what true sense they be fundamental For both these taskes you are to perform who teach that all Truth is not Fundamental and you do but delude the ignorant when you say that the Creed (d) Pag. 216. taken in a Catholique e sense comprehendeth all Points Fundamental because with you all Catholique sense is not Fundamental for so it were necessary to Salvation that all Christians should know the whole Scripture wherein every least Point hath a Catholique sense Or if by Catholique sense you understand that sense which is so universally to be known and believed by all that whosoever fails therein cannot be saved you trifle and say no more than this All Points of the Creed in a sense necessary to Salvation are necessary to Salvation Or All Points Fundamental are Fundamental After this manner it were an easie thing to make many true Prognostications by saying it will certainly rain when it raineth You say the Creed (f) Pag. 216. was opened and explaind in some parts in the Creeds of Nice c. But how shall we understand the other parts not explained in those Creeds 5. For what Article in the Creed is more Fundamental or may seem more clear than that wherein we believe JESUS CHRIST to be the Mediatour Redeemer and Saviour of Man-kind and the Founder and Foundation of a Catholique Church expressed in the Creed And yet about this Article how many different Doctrins are there not only of old Heretiques as Arius Nestorius Eutiches c. but also Protestants partly against Catholiques and partly against one another For the said main Article of Christ's being the only Saviour of the world c. according to different senses of disagreeing Sects doth involve these and many other such questions That Faith in JESUS CHRIST doth justifie alone that Sacraments have no efficiency in Justification That Baptism doth not avail Infants for Salvation unless they have an Act of Faith That there is no Sacerdotal Absolution from sinnes That good works proceeding from God's grace are not meritorious That there can be no Satisfaction for the temporal punishment due to sin after the guilt or offence is pardoned No Purgatory No prayers for the dead No Sacrifice of the Masse No Invocation No Mediation or Intercession of Saints No inherent Justice No supream Pastor yea no Bishop by divine Ordinance No Real presence No Transubstantiation with divers others And why Because forsooth these Doctrins derogate from the Titles of Mediator Redeemer Advocate Foundation c. Yea and are against the truth of our Saviours humane nature if we believe divers Protestants writing against Transubstantiation Let then any judicious man consider whether D. Potter or others do really satisfie when they send men to the Creed for a perfect Catalogue to distinguish Points Fundamental from those which they say are not Fundamental If he will speak indeed to some purpose let him say This Article is understood in this sense and in this sense it is fundamental That other is to be understood in such a meaning yet according to that meaning it is not so fundamental but that men may disagree and deny it without damnation But it were no policie for any Protestant to deal so plainly 6. But to what end should we use many arguments Even your selfe are forced to limit your own Doctrin and come to say that the Creed is a perfect Catalogue of Fundamental Points taken as it was further opened and explained in some parts by occasion of emergent Heresies in the other Catholique Creeds of Nice Constantinople (g) Pag. 216. Ephesus Chalcedon and Athanasius But this explication or restriction overthroweth your assertion For as the Apostles Creed was not to us a sufficient Catalogue till it was explained by the first Councel nor then till it was declared by another c. So now also as new Heresies may arise it will need particular explanation against such emergent errors and so it is not yet nor ever will be of it self alone a particular Catalogue sufficient to distinguish betwixt fundamental and not fundamental points 7. I come to the second part That the Creed doth not contain all main and principal Points of Faith And to the end we may not strive about things either granted by us both or nothing concerning the point in question I must premise these Observations 8. First That it cannot be denyed but that the Creed is most full and complete to that purpose for which the holy Apostles inspired by God meant that it should serve and in that manner as they did intend it which was not to comprehend all particular Points of Faith but such general heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the Faith of Christ to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred And therefore in respect of Gentiles the Creed doth mention God as Creator of all things and for both Jews and Gentiles the Trinity the Messias and Saviour his birth life death resurrection and glory from whom they were to hope remission of sinnes
we were disobliged from performance of any duty or the eschewing of any vice unless it be expressed in the ten Commandements For to omit the precepts of receiving Sacraments which belong to practice or manners and yet are not contained in the Decalogue there are many sins even against the law of nature and light of reason which are not contained in the ten Commandements except only by similitude analogie reduction or some such way For example 〈◊〉 we find not expressed in the Decalogue either divers sins as Gluttony Drunkenness Pride Sloth Covetuousness in desiring either things superfluous or with too much greediness or divers of our chiefe obligations as Obedience to Princes and all Superiours not only Ecclesiastical but also Civil whose laws Luther Melancthon Calvin and some other Protestants do dangerously affirme not to oblige in conscience and yet these men think they know the ten Commandements as likwise divers Protestants defend Usury to be lawful and the many Treatises of Civilians Canonists and Casuists are witnesses that divers sins against the light of reason and Law of nature are not distinctly expressed in the ten Commandements although when by others diligence they are found unlawful they may be reduced to some of the Commandements and yet not so evidently and particularly but that divers do it in divers manners 12. My third Observation is That our present question being Whether or no the Creed contain so fully all Fundamental Points of Faith that whosoever do not agree in all and every one of those Fundamental Articles cannot have the same substance of Faith nor hope of Salvation if I can produce one or more Points nor contained in the Creed in which if two do not agree both of them cannot expect to be saved I shall have performed as much as I intend and D. Potter must seek out some other Catalogue for Points Fundamental than the Creed Neither is it material to the said purpose whether such Fundamental Points rest only in knowledge and speculation or belief or else be farther referred to work and practice For the habit o◠vertue of Faith which inclineth and enableth us to believe both speculative and practical verities is of one and the self same nature and essence For example by the same Faith whereby I speculatively believe there is a God I likewise believe that he is to be adored served and loved which belong to practice The reason is because the Formal Object or motive for which I yeeld assent to those different sorts of material objects is the same in both to wit the revelation or Word of God Where by the way I note that if the Unity or Distinction and nature of Faith were to be taken from the diversity of things revealed by one faith I should believe speculative verities and by another such as tend to practice which I doubt whether D. Potter himself will admit 13. Hence it followeth that whosoever denyeth any one main practical revealed truth is no lesse an Heretique than if he should deny a Point resting in belief alone So that when D Potter to avoid our argument that all Fundamental Points are not contained in the Creed because in it there is no mention of the Sacraments which yet are Points of so main importance that Protestants make the due administration of them to be necessary and essential to constiture a Church answereth that the Sacraments are to be (p) Pag. 235. reckoned rather among the Agenda of the Church than the Credenda they are rather Divine Rites and Ceremonies than Doctrins he either grants what we affirm or in effect sayes Of two kinds of revealed Truths which are necessary to be believed the Creed contains one sort only ergo it contains all kind of revealed Truths necessary to be believed Our question is not de nomine but re not what be called Points of Faith or of Practice but what Points indeed be necessarily to be believed whether they be termed Agenda or Credenda especially the chiefest part of Christian perfection consisting more in Action than in barren Speculation in good works than bare belief in doing than knowing And there are no less contentions concerning practical than speculative truths as Sacraments obtaining remission of sin Invocation of Saints Prayers for dead Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament and many other all which do so much the more import as on them beside right belief doth also depend our practice and the ordering of our life Though D. Potter could therefore give us as he will never be able to do a minute and exact Catalogue of all Truths to be believed that would not make me able enough to know whether or no I have Faith sufficient for Salvation till he also did bring in a particular List of all believed Truths which tend to practice declaring which of them be fundamental which not that so every man might know whether he be not in some Damnable Error for some Article of Faith which farther might give influence into Damnable works 14. These Observations being premised I come to prove that the Creed doth not contain all Points of Faith necessary to be known and believed And to omit that in general it doth not tell us what Points be fundamental or not fundamental which in the way of Protestants is most necessary to be known in particular there is no mention of the greatest evils from which mans calamity proceeded I mean the sin of the Angels of Adam and of Original sin in us nor of the greatest Good from which we expect all good to wit the necessity of Grace for all works tending to piety Nay there is no mention of Angels good or bad The meaning of that most general head Oportet accedentem c. It behoves (q) Heb. 11.6 him that comes to God to believe that He is and is a Remunerator is questioned by the denial of Merit which makes God a Giver but not a Rewarder It is not expressed whether the Article of Remission of sins be understood by Faith alone or else may admit the efficiency of Sacraments There is no mention of Ecclesiastical Apostolical Divine Traditions one way or other or of holy Scriptures in general and much less of every Book in particular nor of the Name Nature Number Effects Matter Forme Minister Intention Necessity of Sacraments and yet the due Administration of Sacraments is with Protestants an essential Note of the Church There is nothing for Baptism of Children nor against Re-baptization There is no mention in favour or against the Sacrifice of the Mass or Power in the Church to institute Rites Holy dayes c. and to inflict Excommunication or other Censures or Priesthood Bishops and the whole Ecclesiastical Hierarchy which are very Fundamental Points of S. Peters Primacie which to Calvin seemeth a fundamental error not of the possibility or impossibility to keep God's Commandements of the procession of the holy Ghost from the Father and Sonne of Purgatory or Prayer for the
Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely relie Procure will you say to know whether he believe all Fundamental Points of Faith For if he do his faith for point of belief is sufficient for Salvation though he err in an hundred things of less moment But how shall I know whether he hold all Fundamental Points or no For till you tell me this I cannot know whether or no his belief be sound in all Fundamental Points Can you say the Creed Yes and so can many damnable Hereticks But why do you ask me this question Because the Creed contains all fundamental Points of Faith Are you sure of that Not sure I hold it very probable (y) Pag. 241. Shall I hazard my soul on probabilities or even wagers This yeelds a new cause of dispaire But what doth the Creed contain all Points necessary to be believed whether they rest in the understanding or else do further extend to practice No. It was composed to deliver Credenda not Agenda to us Faith not Practice How then shall I know what Points of belief which direct my practice be necessary to Salvation Still you chalk out new paths for Desperation Well are all Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter Fundamental I cannot say so How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not fundamental Read my Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. there you shall find that fundamental Doctrins are such Catholique Verities as principally and essentially pertain (z) Pag. 211 213 214. to be Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those grand and capital Doctrins which make up our Faith in Christ that is that common Faith which is alike precious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest Believer which the Apostle else-where cals the first Principles of the Oracles of God and the form of sound words But how shall I apply these general definitions or descriptions or to say the truth these only varied words and phrases for I understand the word fundamental as well as the word principal essential grand and capital doctrins c. to the particular Articles of the Creed in such sort as that I may be able precisely exactly particularly to distinguish Fundamental Articles from Points of less moment You labour to tell us what Fundamental Points be but not which they be and yet unless you do this your Doctrin serves only either to make men dispair or else to have recourse to those whome you call Papists and which give one certain Rule that all Points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of Faith in such sense as that to deny any one cannot stand with Salvation And seeing your self acknowledges that these men do not err in Points Fundamental I cannot but hold it most safe for me to joyn with them for the securing of my soul and the avoiding of desperation into which this your Doctrin must cast all them who understand and believe it For the whole discourse and inferences which here I have made are either your own direct Assertions or evident Consequences cleerly deduced from them 20. But now let us answer some few Objections of D. Potters against that which we have said before to avoid our argument That the Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed he saith The Creed is an abstract of such (a) Pag. 234. necessary Doctrins as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it and therefore needs not express the Authority of that which it supposes 21. This Answer makes for us For by giving a reason why it was needless that Scripture should be expressed in the Creed you grant as much as we desire namely that the Apostles judged it needless to express all necessary Points of Faith in their Creed Neither doth the Creed suppose or depend on Scripture in such sort as that we can by any probable consequence inferr from the Articles of the Creed that there is any Canonical Scripture at all and much less that such Books in particular be Canonical Yea the Creed might have been the same although holy Scripture had never been written and which is more the Creed even in priority of time was before all the Scripture of the New Testament except the Gospel of S. Mathew And so according to this reason of his the Scripture should not mention Articles contained in the Creed And I note in a word how little connexion D. Potters arguments have while he tels us that The Creed (b) Pag. 234. is an Abstract of such necessary Doctrins as are delivered in Scripture or collected out of it and therefore needs not express the authority of that which it supposes it doth not follow The Articles of the Creed are delivered in Scripture therefore the Creed supposeth Scripture For two distinct writtings may well deliver the same Truths and yet one of them not suppose the other unless D. Potter be of opinion that two Doctors cannot at one time speake the same truth 22. And notwithstanding that D. Potter hath now told us it was needless that the Creed should express Scripture whose Authority it supposes he comes at length to say that the Nicene Fathers in their Creed confessing that the holy Ghost spake by the Prophets doth thereby sufficiently avow the divine Authority of all Canonical Scripture But I would ask him whether the Nicene Creed be not also an Abstract of Doctrins delivered in Scripture as he said of the Apostles Creed and thence did infer that it was needless to express Scripture whose authority it supposes Besides we do not only believe in general that Canonical Scripture is of divine Authority but we are also bound under pain of damnation to believe that such and such particular Books not mentioned in the Nicene Creed are Canonical And lastly D. Potter in this answer grants as much as we desire which is that all Points of Faith are not contained in the Apostles Creed even as it is explained by other Creeds For these words who spake by the Prophets are no waies contained in the Apostles Creed and therefore contain an Addition not an Explanation thereof 23. But how can it be necessary saith D. Potter for any Christian to have more in his Creed than the (c) Pag. 221. Apostles had and the Church of their times I answer You trifle not distinguishing between the Apostles belief and that abridgment of some Articles of Faith which we call the Apostles Creed and withall you beg the question by supposing that the Apostles believed no more than is contained in their Creed which every unlearned person knows and believes and I hope you will not deny but the Apostles were endued with greater knowledg than ordinary persons 24. Your
who were chosen to the Ministry unmarried it was not lawful to take any wife afterward is affirmed by Protestants And your grand Reformer Luther lib. de Contiliis parte prima saith that he understands not the holy Ghost in that Councell For in one Canon is saith that those who have gelded themselves are not fit to be made Priests in another it forbids them to have wives Hath saith he the holy Ghost nothing to do in Councels but to bind and load his Ministers with impossible dangerous and unnecessary laws I forbear to shew that this very Article I confess one Baptism for the Remission of sins will be understood by Protestants in a far different sense from Catholiques yea Protestants among themselves do not agree How Baptism forgives sins nor what grace it conferrs Only concerning the Unity of Baptism against re-baptization of such as were once baptized which I noted as a Point not contained in the Apostles Creed I cannot omit an excellent place of S. Augustine where speaking of the Donatists he hath these words They are so bold as (l) Lib. de Haeres in 69. to re-baptize Catholiques wherein they shew themselves to be greater Heretiques since it hath pleased the universal Catholique Church not to make Baptism void even in the very Heretiques themselves In which few words this holy Father delivereth against the Donatists these Points which do also make against Protestants That to make an Heresie or an Heretique known for such it is sufficient to oppose the definition of God's Church That a Proposition may be Heretical though it be not repugnant to any Texts of Scripture For S. Augustine teacheth that the doctrine of reâ—baptization is heretical and yet acknowledgeth it cannot be convinced for such out of Scripture And that neither the Heresie of re-baptization of those who were baptized by Heretiques nor the contrary Catholique truth being expressed in the Apostles Creed it followeth that it doth not contain all Points of Faith necessary to Salvation And so we must conclude that to believe the Creed is not sufficient for Unity of Faith and Spirit in the same Church unless there be also a total agreement both in belief of other Points of Faith and in external profession and Communion also whereof we are to speak in the next Chapter according to the saying of S Augustine (m) Aug. ep 48. with us in Baptism and in the Creed but in the Spirit of Unity and bâ—nd of peace and lastly in the Catholique church you are not with us The ANSWER to the FOURTH CHAPTER Wherein is shewed that the Creed contains all necessary Points of meer Belief 1. AD § 1 2 3 4 5 6. Concerning the Creed's containing the Fundamentals of Christianity this is D. Potter's Assertion delivered in the 207. p. of his Book The Creed of the Apostles as it is explained in the latter Creeds of the Catholique Church is esteemed a sufficient Summary or Catalogue of Fundamentals by the best learned Romanists and by Antiquity 2. By Fundamentals he understands not the Fundamental Rules of good life and action though every one of these is to be believed to come from God and therefore virtually includes an Article of Faith but the Fundamental Doctrines of Faith such as though they have influence upon our lives as every essential doctrin of Christianity hath yet we are commanded to believe them and not to do them The assent of our understandings is required to them but no obedience from our wills 3. But these speculative Doctrines again he distinguisheth out of Aquinas Occham and Canus and others into two kinds of the first are those which are the Objects of Faith in and for themselves which by their own nature and God's prime intention are essential parts of the Gospel such as the Teachers in the Church cannot without Mortal sin omit to teach the learners such as are intrinsecal to the Covenant between God and man and not only plainly revealed by God and so certain truths but also commanded to be preacht to all men and to be believed distinctly by all and so necessary truths Of the second sort are Accidental Circumstantial Occasional objects of Faith millions whereof there are in holy Scripture such as are to be believed not for themselves but because they are joyned with others that are necessary to be believed and delivered by the same Authority which delivered these Such as we are not bound to know to be divine Revelations for without any fault we may be ignorant hereof nay believe the contrary such as we are not bound to examine Whether or no they be divine Revelations such as Pastors are not bound to teach their Flock nor their Flock bound to know and remember no nor the Pastors themselves to know them or believe them or not to disbelieve them absolutely and always but then only when they do see and know them to be delivered in Scripture as divine Revelations 4. I say when they do so and not only when they may do For to lay an obligation upon us of believing or not disbelieving any Verity sufficient Revelation on God's part is not sufficient For then seeing all the express Verities of Scripture are either to all men or at least to all learned men sufficiently revealed by God it should be a damnable sin in any learned man actually to disbelieve any one particular Historical verity contained in Scripture or to believe the contradiction of it though he knew it not to be there contained For though he did not yet he might have known it it being plainly revealed by God and this revelation being extant in such a Book wherein he might have found it recorded if with diligence he had perused it To make therefore any Points necessary to be believed it is requisite that either we actually know them to be divine Revelations and these though they be not Articles of Faith nor necessary to be believed in and for themselves yet indirectly and by accident and by consequence they are so The necessity of believing them being in forced upon us by a necessity of believing this Essential and Fundamental Article of Faith That all Divine Revelations are true which to disbelieve or not to believe is for any Christian not only impious but impossible Or else it is requisite that they be First actually revealed by God Secondly commanded under pain of damnation to be particularly known I mean known to be divine Revelations and distinctly to be believed And of this latter sort of speculative divine Verities D. Potter affirmed that the Apostles Creed was a sufficient summary yet he affirmed it not as his own opinion but as the doctrin of the ancient Fathers and your own Doctors And besides he affirmed it not as absolutely certain but very probable 5. In brief all that he says is this It is very probable that according to the judgment of the Roman Doctors and the Ancient Fathers the Apostles Creed is to be èsteemed a
between him and Amerbachius and he shall confess as much is and hath been the only fountain of all the Schisms of the Church and that which makes them immortal the common incendiary of Christendom and that which as I said before tears into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo Take away these Walls of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man Master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaim it disclaim it likewise in their actions In a word take away Tyranny which is the Devils instrument to support errors and superstitions and impieties in the several parts of the world which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away Tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage run all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by God's blessing that Universal Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendom to Truth and Unity These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to His blessing I commend them and proceed 18. Your fifth and last Objection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it self nothing else but a Doctrin Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great Ones among you stick not to profess in plain terms who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrin is Catholique and Apostolique So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibet aetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to ' All So that every Age hath its proper verities which the former Age was ignorant of Dis 57. in Epist ad Rom. And again in the Margent Habet unumquodque saeculum peculiares revelationes divinas Every Age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he give us a little before in these words Unius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrin of Augustine only hath brought into the Church the Worship of the Assumption of the Mother of God c. Others again mince and palliate the matter with this pretence that your Church undertakes not to coyn new Articles of Faith but only to declare those that want sufficient Declaration But if sufficient declaration be necessary to make any Doctrin an Article of Faith then this Doctrin which before wanted it was not before an Article of Faith and your Church by giving it the Essential form and last complement of an Article of Faith makes it though not a Truth yet certainly an Article of Faith But I would fain know whether Christ and his Apostles knew this Doctrin which you pretend hath the matter but wants the form of an Article of Faith that is sufficient declaration whether they knew it to be a necessary Article of the Faith or no. If they knew it not to be so then either they taught what they knew not which were very strange or else they taught it not and if not I would gladly be informed seeing you pretend to no new Revelations From whom you learned it If they knew it then either they concealed or declared it To say they concealed any necessary part of the Gospel is to charge them with far greater sacriledge than what was punished in Ananias and Saphira It is to charge these glorious Stewards and Dispensers of the Mysteries of Christ with want of the great vertue requisite in a Steward which is Fidelity It is to charge them with presumption for denouncing Anathema's even to Angels in case they should teach any other Doctrin than what they had received from them which sure could not merit an Anathema if they left any necessary part of the Gospel untaught It is in a word in plain terms to give them the lye seeing they profess plainly and frequently that they taught Christians the whole Doctrin of Christ If they did know and declare it then it was a full and formal Article of faith and the contrary a full and formal Heresie without any need of further declaration and then their Successors either continued the declaration of it or discontinued it If they did the latter How are they such faithful Depositaries of Apostolique Doctrin as you pretend Or what assurance can you give us that they might not bring in new and false Articles as well as suffer the oldand true ones to be lost If they did continue the declaration of it and deliver it to their Successors and they to theirs and so on perpetually then continued it still a full and formal Article of Faith and the repugnant doctrin a full and formal Heresie without and before the definition or declaration of a Councel So that Councels as they cannot make that a truth or falshood which before was not so so neither can they make or declare that to be an Article of Faith or an Heresie which before was not so The supposition therefore on which this Argument stands being false and ruinous whatsoever ' is built upon it must together with it fall to the ground This explication therefore and restriction of this doctrin whereof you make your advantage was to my understanding unnecessary The Fathers of the Church in after-times might have just cause to declare their judgment touching the sense of some general Articles of the Creed but to oblige others to receive their declarations under pain of damnation what warrant they had I know not He that can shew either that the Church of all Ages was to have this Authority or that it continued in the Church for some Ages and then expired He that can shew either of these things let him for my part I cannot Yet I willingly confess the judgment of a Councel though not infallible is yet so far directive and obliging that without apparent reason to the contrary it may be sin to reject it at least not to afford it an outward submission for publique peace sake 19. Ad § 7 8 9. Were I not peradventure more fearful than I need to be of the imputation of tergiversation I might very easily rid my hands of the remainder of this Chapter For in the Question there discussed you grant for ought I see as much as D. Potter desires and D. Potter grants as much as
you desire and therefore that I should disease my self or my Reader with a punctual examination of it may seem superfluous First that which you would have and which your Arguments wholly drive at is this That the Creed doth not contain all main and principal points of Faith of all sorts whether they be speculative or practical where they contain matter of simple belief or whether they contain matter of practice and obedience This D. Potter grants page 215.235 And you grant that he grants it § 8. Where your words are even by D. Potter's own confession it the Creed doth not comprehend Agenda or things belonging to practice as Sacraments Commandements the Acts of Hope and duties of Charity And if you will inferr from hence that therefore C.M. hath no reason to rest in the Apostles Creed as a perfect catalogue of Fundamentals and a full satisfaction to his demand I have without any offence of D. Potter granted as much if that would content you But seeing you go on and because his assertion is not as neither is it pretended to be a total satisfaction to the demand casheer it as impertinent and nothing towards it here I have been bold to stop your proceeding as unjust and unreasonable For as if you should request a Friend to lend you or demand of a debtor to pay you a hundred pounds and he could or should let you have but fifty this were not fully to satisfie your demand yet sure it were not to do nothing towards it Or as this rejoynder of mine though it be not an answer to all your Book but only to the First considerable Part of it and so much of the Second as is material and falls into the first yet I hope you will not deal so unkindly with me◠as for this reason to condemn it of impertinence So D. Potter being demanded a Catalogue of Fundamentals of Faith and finding them of two kinds and those of one kind summ'd up to his hand in the Apostles Creed and this Creed consigned unto him for such a summary by very great Authority if upon these considerations he hath intreated his Demander to accept of thus much in part of payment of the Apostles Creed as a sufficient Summary of these Articles of Faith which are meerly Credenda me-thinks he hath little reason to complain that he hath not been fairly and squarely dealt with Especially seeing for full satisfaction by D. Potter and all Protestants he is referred to Scripture which we affirm contains evidently all necessary points of Faith and rules of obedience and seeing D. Potter in this very place hath subjoyned though not a Catalogue of Fundamentals which because to some more is Fundamental to others less to others nothing at all had been impossible yet such a comprehension of them as may serve every one that will make a conscionable use of it instead of a Catalogue For thus he says It seems to be Fundamental to the Faith and for the salvation of every Member of the Church that he acknowledg and believe all such Points of Faith whereof he may be sufficiently convinced that they belong to the Doctrin of Jesus Christ This general rule if I should call a Catalogue of Fundamentals I should have a President for it with you above exception I mean your Self for Chap. 3. § 19. just such another Proposition you have called by this name Yet because it were a strange figure of speech I forbear it only I will be bold to say that this Assertion is as good a Catalogue of Fundamentals as any you will bring of your Church Proposals though you take as much time to do it as he that undertook to make an Ass speak 20. I come now to shew that you also have requited D. Potter with a mutual courteous acknowledgment of his Assertion That the Creed is a sufficient Summary of all the necessary Articles of Faith which are meerly Credenda 21. First then § 8. you have these words It cannot be denyed that the Creed is most full and compleat to that purpose for which the holy Apostles inspired by God meant that it should serve and in that manner as they did intend it which was not to comprehend all particular Points of Faith but such general heads as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the Faith of Christ to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred These words I say being fairly examined without putting them on the rack will amount to a full acknowledgment of D. Potters Assertion But before I put them to the question I must crave thus much right of you to grant me this most reasonable postulate that the Doctrine of Repentance from dead works which S. Paul saith was one of the two only things which he preacht and the Doctrin of Charity without which the same S. Paul assures us that the knowledge of all mysteries and all faith is nothing were Doctrins more necessary and requisite and therefore more fit to be preacht to Jews and Gentiles than these under what Judge our Saviour suffered that he was buryed and what time he rose again which you have taught us cap. 3. § 2. for their matter and nature in themselves not to be Fundamental 22. And upon this grant I will ask no leave to conclude that whereas you say the Apostles Creed was intended for a comprehension of such heads of faith as were most befitting and requisite for preaching the faith of Christ c. You are now for fear of too much debasing those high Doctrins of Repentance and Charity to restrain your Assertion as D. Potter doth his and though you speak indefinitely to say you meant it only of those heads of Faith which are meerly Credenda And then the meaning of it if it have any must be this That the Creed is full for the Apostles intent which was to comprehend all such general heads of Faith which being points of simple belief were most fit and requisite to be preached to Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred Neither I nor you I believe can make any other sense of your words then this And upon this ground thus I subsume But all the points of belief which were necessary under pain of damnation for the Apostles to preach and for those to whom the Gospel was preached particularly to know and believe were most fit and requisite nay more then so necessary to be preached to all both Jews and Gentiles and might be briefly and compendiously set down and easily learned and remembred Therefore the Apostle's intent by your confession was in this Creed to comprehend all such points And you say The Creed is most full and compleat for the purpose which they intended The Major of this Syllogism is your own The Minor I should think needs no proof yet because all men may not be of my mind I will prove it by
And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your Objection or else negligently to oversee them Especially seeing your friend to whom you are so much beholding Paulus Veridicus in his scurrilous and sophistical Pamphler against B. Usher's Sermon hath so kindly offered to lead you by the hand to the observation of them in these words To consider of your Coinopista or communiter Credenda Articles as you call them universally believed of all these several Professions of Christianity which have any large spread in the World These Articles for example may be the Unity of the Godhead the Trinity of Persons the immortality of the Soul c. Where you see that your friend whom you so much magnifie hath plainly confessed that notwithstanding the Bishop's words the denial of the Doctrin of the Trinity may exclude Salvation and therefore in approving and applauding his Answer to the Bishop's Sermon you have unawares allowed this Answer of mine to your own greatest Objection 46. Now for the foul contradiction which you say the Doctor might easily have espyed in the Bishop's saying he desires your pardon for his oversight sight for Paulus Veridicus his sake who though he set himself to find faults with the Bishop's Sermon yet it seems this he could not find or else questionless we should have heard of it from him And therefore if D. Potter being the Bishop's friend have not been more sharp-sighted than his enemies this he hopes to indifferent Judges will seem no unpardonable offence Yet this I say not as if there were any contradiction at all much less any foul contradiction in the Bishop's words but as Antipheron's picture which he thought he saw in the air before him was not in the air but in his disturbed phansie so all the contradiction which here you descant upon is not indeed in the Bishop's saying but in your imagination For wherein I pray lies this foul contradiction In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words do suppose this neither if they do doth he contradict himself I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speak and write so as here he doth when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and press and illustrate what they have said before And I wonder why with your Eagles eyes you did not espy another foul contradiction in his words as well as this and say that he supposes a man may walk according to the rule of holy obedience and yet vitiate his holy Faith with a lewd and wicked Conversation Certainly a lewd Conversation is altogether as contradictious to holy Obedience as a damnable Heresie to necessary Truth What then was the reason that you espyed not this foul contradiction in his words as well as that Was it because according to the Spirit and Genius of your Church your zeal is greater to that which you conceive true doctrin than holy obedience and think simple error a more capital crime than sins committed against knowledge and conscience Or was it because your Reason told you that herein he meant only to repeat and not to limit what he said before And why then had you not so much candour to conceive that he might have the same meaning in the former part of the disjunction and intend no more but this Whosoever walks according to this rule of believing all necessary Truths and holy Obedience neither poysoning his faith of those Truths which he holds with the mixture of any damnable Heresie nor vitiating it with a wicked life Peace shall be upon him In which words what man of any ingenuity will not presently perceive that the words within the parenthesis are only a repetition of and no exception from those that are without S. Athanasius in his Creed tels us The Catholique Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now do you not tell him that he contradicts himself and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandments of God committing no sin either against the love of God or the love of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will live in constant health had need be exact in his dyet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus he that will come to London must go on straight forward in such a way and neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily believe you would not find any contradiction in his words but confess them as coherent and confonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you would easily perceive it to be of the very same kind and capable of the very same construction And therefore one of the grounds of your accusation is uncertain Neither can you assure us that the Bishop supposes any such matter as you pretend Neither if he did suppose this as perhaps he did were this to contradict himself For though there can be no damnable Heresie unless it contradict some necessary Truth yet there is no contradiction but the same man may at once believe this Heresie and this Truth because there is no contradiction that the same man at the same time should believe contradictions For first whatsoever a man believes true that he may and must believe But there have been some who have believed and taught that contradictions might be true against whom Aristotle disputes in the third of his Metaphysicks Therefore it is not impossible that a man may believe Contradictions Secondly they which believe there is no certainty in Reason must believe that contradictions may be true For otherwise there will be certainty in this Reason This contradicts Truth therefore it is false But there be now divers in the world who believe there is no certainty in Reason and whether you be of their mind or no I desire to be informed Therefore there be divers in the world who believe contradictions may be true Thirdly They which do captivate their understandings to the belief of those things which to their understanding seem irreconcileable contradictions may as well believe real contradictions For the difficulty of believing arises not from their being repugnant but from their seeming to be so But you do captivate your understandings to the belief of those things which seem to your understandings irreconcileable contradictions Therefore it is as possible and easie for you to believe those that indeed are so Fourthly some men may
offered are either innocently or perhaps affectedly ignorant of the contrariety of them for men in such cases easily to swallow and digest contradictions he that denies it possible must be a meer stranger in the world 48. Ad § 18. This Paragraph consists of two immodest Untruths obtruded upon us without shew or shadow of Reason and an evident Sophism grounded upon an affected mistake of the sense of the word Fundamental 49. The first Untruth is that D. Potter makes a Church of men agreeing scarcely in one Point of Faith of men concurring in some one or few Articles of Belief and in the rest holding conceits plainly contradictory Agreeing only in this one Article that Christ is our Saviour but for the rest like to the parts of a Chimaera c. Which I say is a shameless calumny not only because D. Potter in this Point delivers not his own judgment but relates the opinion of others M. Hooker and M. Morton but especially because even these men as they are related by D. Potter to the constituting of the very Essence of a Church in the lowest degree require not only Faith in Christ Jesus the Son of God and Saviour of the World but also submission to his Doctrin in mind and will Now I beseech you Sir tell me ingenuously whether the Doctrin of Christ may be called without blasphemy scarcely one Point of Faith or whether it consists only of some one or few Articles of Belief Or whether there be nothing in it but only this Article That Christ is our Saviour Is it not manifest to all the world that Christians of all Professions do agree with one consent in the belief of all those Books of Scripture which were not doubted of in the Ancient Church without danger of damnation Nay is it not apparent that no man at this time can without hypocrisie pretend to believe in Christ but of necessity he must do so Seeing he can have no reason to believe in Christ but he must have the same to believe the Scripture I pray then read over the Scripture once more or if that be too much labour the New Testament only and then say whether there be nothing there but scarcely one Point of Faith But some one or two Articles of Belief Nothing but this Article only That Christ is our Saviour Say whether there be not there an infinite number of Divine Verities Divine Preecepts Divine Promises and those so plainly and undoubtedly delivered that if any sees them not it cannot be because he cannot but because he will not So plainly that whosoever submits sincerely to the Doctrin of Christ in mind and will cannot possibly but submit to these in act and performance And in the rest which it hath pleased God for reasons best known to himself to deliver obscurely or ambiguously yet thus far at least they agree that the sense of them intended by God is certainly true and that they are without passion or prejudice to endeavour to find it out The difference only is Which is that true sense which God intended Neither would this long continue if the walls of separation whereby the Devil hopes to make their Divisions eternal were pulled down and error were not supported against Truth by humane advantages But for the present God forbid the matter should be so ill as you make it For whereas you looking upon their Points of difference and agreement through I know not what strange glasses have made the first innumerable and the other scarse a number the truth is clean contrary That those Divine Verities Speculative and Practical wherein they universally agree which you will have to be but a few or but one or scarcely one amount to many millions if an exact account were taken of them And on the other side the Points in variance are in comparison but few and those not of such a quality but the Error in them may well consist with the belief and obedience of the entire Covenant ratified by Christ between God and man Yet I would not be so mistaken as if I thought the errors even of some Protestants unconsiderable things and matters of no moment For the truth is I am very fearful that some of their opinions either as they are or as they are apt to be mistaken though not of themselves so damnable but that good and holy men may be saved with them yet are too frequent occasions of our remisness and slackness in running the race of Christian Profession of our deferring Repentance and Conversion to God of our frequent relapses into sin and not seldom of security in sinning consequently though not certain causes yet too frequent occasions of many mens damnation and such I conceive all these Doctrins which either directly or obliquely put men in hope of eternal happiness by any other means saving only the narrow way of sincere and universal obedience grounded upon a true and lively Faith These errors therefore I do not elevate or extenuate an◠on condition the ruptures made by them might be composed do heartily wish that the cement were made of my dearest bloud and only not to be an Anathema from Christ Only this I say that neither are their Points of agreement so few nor their differences so many as you make them nor so great as to exclude the opposite Parties from being Members of one Church Militant and joynt-heirs of the glory of the Church Triumphant 50. Your other palpable untruth is that Protestants are far more bold to disagree even in matters of Faith than Catholique Divines you mean your own in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For neither do they differ at all in matters of Faith if you take the word in the highest sense and mean by matters of Faith such Doctrins as are absolutely necessary to Salvation to be believed or not to be dis-believed And then in those wherein they do differ with what colour or shadow of Argument can you make good that they are more bold to disagree than you are in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For is there not as great repugnancy between your assent and dissent your affirmation and negation your Est Est Non Non as there is between theirs You follow your Reason in those things which are not determined by your Church and they theirs in things not plainly determined in Scripture And wherein then consists their greater their far greater boldness And what if they in their contradictory opinions pretend both to relie upon the truth of God doth this make their contradictions ever a whit the more repugnant I had always thought that all contradictions had been equally contradictions and equally repugnant because the least of them are as far asunder as Est and Non est can make them and the greatest are no farther But then you in your differences by name about Predetermination the Immaculate Conception the Pope's Infallibility upon what other motive do you
relie Do not you cite Scripture or Tradition or both on both sides And do you not pretend that both these are the infallible Truths of Almighty God 51. You close up this Section with a fallacy proving forsooth that we destroy by our confession the Church which is the house of God because we stand only upon Fundamental Articles which cannot make up the whole fabrick of the Faith no more than the foundation of a house alone can be a house 52. But I hope Sir you will not be difficult in granting that that is a house which hath all the necessary parts belonging to a house Now by Fundamental Articles we mean all those which are necessary And you your self in the very leaf after this take notice that D. Potter doth so Where to this Question How shall I know in particular which Points be and which be not Fundamental You scurrilously bring him in making this ridiculous answer Read my Answer to a late Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken c. There you shall find that Fundamental Doctrins are such Catholick Verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved All which words he used not to tell what Points be Fundamental as you dishonestly impose upon him but to explain what he meant by the word Fundamental May it please you therefore now at last to take notice that by Fundamental we mean all and only that which is necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect Salvation in a Church which hath all things Fundamental to Salvation Unless you will you say that more is necessary than that which is necessary 53. Ad § 19. This long discourse so full of un-ingenuous dealing with your adversary perhaps would have done reasonably in a Farce or a Comedy and I doubt not but you have made your self and your courteous Readers good sport with it But if D. Potter or I had been by when you wrote it we should have stopt your carere at the first starting and have put you in mind of these old School-Proverbs Ex falso supposito sequitur quodlibet and Uno absurdo dato sequuntur mille For whereas you suppose first that to a man desirous to save his soul and requiring whose direction he might rely upon the Doctors answer would be Upon the truly Catholick Church I suppose upon better reason because I know his mind that he would advise him to call no man Master on Earth but according to Christs command to rely upon the direction of God himself If he should enquire where he should find this direction He would answer him In his Word contained in Scripture If he should enquire what assurance he might have that the Scripture is the Word of God He would answer him that the doctrin it self is very fit and worthy to be thought to come from God nec vox hominem sonat and that they which wrote and delivered it confirmed it to be the Word of God by doing such works as could not be done but by power from God himself For assurance of the Truth hereof he would advise him to rely upon that which all wise men in all matters of belief rely upon and that is the consent of Ancient Records and Universal Tradition And that he might not instruct him as partial in this advice he might farther tell him that a Gentleman that would be nameless that has written a Book against him called Charity maintained by Catholiques though in many things he differ from him yet agrees with him in this that Tradition is such a principle as may be rested in and which requires no other proof As indeed no wise man doubts but there was such a man as Julius Caesar or Cicero that there are such Cities as Rome or Constantinople though he have no other assurance for the one or the other but only the speech of people This tradition therefore he would counsel him to rely upon and to believe that the Book which we call Scripture was confirmed abundantly by the works of God to be the Word of God Believing it the Word of God he must of necessity believe it true and if he believe it true he must believe it contains all necessary direction to eternal happiness because it affirms it self to do so Nay he might tell him that so far is the whole Book from wanting any necessary direction to his eternal Salvation that one only Author that hath writ but too little Books of it S. Luke by name in the beginning of his Gospel and in the beginning of his Story shews plainly that he alone hath written at least so much as is necessary And what they wrote they wrote by Gods direction for the direction of the world not only for the Learned but for all that would do their true endeavour to know the will of God and to do it therefore you cannot but conceive that writing to all and for all they wrote so as that in things necessary they might be understood by all Besides that here he should find that God himself has engaged himself by promise that if he would love him and keep his Commandements and pray earnestly for his Spirit and be willing to be directed by it he should undoubtedly receive it even the Spirit of Truth which shall lead him into all truth that is certainly at least into all necessary Truths and suffer him to fal into no pernicious error The sum of his whole direction to him briefly would be this believe the Scripture to be the Word of God use your true endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it and then you may rest securely that you are in the true way to eternal happiness This is the substance of that Answer which the Doctor would make to any man in this case and this is a way so plain that fools unless they will cannot err from it Because not knowing absolutely all truth nay not all profitable truth and being feee from err our but endeavouring to know the truth and obey it and endeavouring to be free from err our is by this way made the only condition of Salvation As for your supposition That he would advise such a man to rely upon the Catholique Church for the finding out the doctrin of Christ he utterly disclaims it and truly very justly There being no certain way to know that any Company is a true Church but only by their professing the true doctrin of Christ And therefore as it is impossible I should know that such a company of Philosophers are Peripateticks or Stoicks unless I first know what was the doctrin of the Peripateticks and Stoicks so is it impossible that I should certainly know any company to be the Church of Christ before I know what is the doctrin of Christ the Profession whereof constitutes the visible Church the
Belief and Obedience the invisible And therefore whereas you would have him be directed by the Catholique Church to the doctrin of Christ the contrary rather is most certain and necessary that by the fore-knowledg of the doctrin of Christ he must be directed to a certain assurance which is the Catholique Church if he mean not to choose at a venture but desire to have certain direction to it This supposition therefore being the hinge whereon your whole Discourse turns is the Minerva of your own Brain and therefore were it but for this have we not great reason to accuse you of strange immodesty in saying as you do That the whole Discourse and Inferences which here you have made are either D. Potters own direct assertions or evident consequences clearly deduced from them Especially seeing your proceeding in it is so consonant to this ill beginning that it is in a manner wholly made made up not of D. Potters assertions but your own fictions obtruded on him 54. To the next Question Cannot General Councils err You pretend he answers They may err damnably Let the Reader see the place and he shall find damnably is your addition To the third Demand Must I consult about my difficulties with every particular person of the Catholick Church You answer for him that which is most false that it seems so by his words The whole militant Church that is all the members of it cannot possibly err either in the whole faith or any necessary Article of it which is very certain for should it do so it should be the Church no longer But what sense is there that you should collect out of these words that every member of the militant Church must be consulted with By like reason if he had said that all men in the world cannot err If he said that God in his own person or his Angels could not erre in these matters you might have gathered from hence that he laid a necessity upon men in doubt to consult with Angels or with God in his own person or with All men in the world Is it not evident to all sober men that to make any man or men fit to be consulted with besides the understanding of the matter it is absolutely requisite that they may be spoken with And is it not apparently impossible that any man should speak with all the members of the Militant Church Or if he had spoken with them All know that he had done so Nay does not D. Potter say as much in plain terms Nay more do not you take notice that he does so in the very next words before these where you say he affirms that the Catholique Church cannot be told of private injuries unless you will perswade us there is a difference between the Catholique Church and the whole Militant Church For whereas you make him deny this of the Catholique Church united and affirm it of the Militant Church dispersed into particulars The truth is he speaks neither of united nor dispersed but affirms simply as appears to your shame by your own quotations that the Catholique Church cannot be told of private injuries and then that the whole Militant Church cannot erre But then besides that the united Church cannot be consulted and the dispersed may What a wild imagination is it and what a strange injustice was it in you to father it upon him I beseech you Sir to consider seriously how far blind zeal to your superstition hath transported you beyond all bounds of honesty and discretion and made you careless of speaking either truth or sense so you speak against D. Potter 55. Again you make him say The Prelates of Gods Church meeting in a lawful Council may erre damnably and from this you collect It remains then for your necessary instruction you must repair to every particular member of the Universal Church spread over the face of the earth And this is also Pergula pictoris veri nihil omnia ficta The Antecedent false not for the matter of it but that D. Potter says it And the consequence as far from it as Gades from Ganges and as coherent as a rope of Sand. A general Council may err therefore you must travel all the world over and consult with every particular Christian As if there were nothing else to be consulted with Nay as if according to the Doctrin of Protestants for so you must say there were nothing to be consulted with but only a general Council or all the World Have you never heard that Protestants say That men for their direction must consult with Scripture Nay doth not D. Potter say it often in this very Book which you are confuting Nay more in this very page out of which you take this piece of your Cento A General Council may erre damnably are there not these plain words In searches of Truth he means divine Truth God ever directs us to the infallible Rule of Truth the Scripture With what conscience then or modesty can you impose upon him this unreasonable consequence and pretend that your whole discourse is either his own direct assertions or evident consequences clearly deduced from them You add that yet he teaches as if he contradicted himself that the promises of God made to the Church for his assistance are not intended to particular persons but only to the Catholick Church which sure agrees very well with any thing said by D. Potter If it be repugnant to what you said for him falsely what is that to him 56. Neither yet is this to drive any man to desperation unless it be such a one as hath such a strong affection to this word Church that he will not go to Heaven unless he hath a Church to lead him thither For what though a Council may err and the whole Church cannot be consulted with yet this is not to send you on the Fool 's Pilgrimage for Faith and bid you go and conferre with every Christian soul man and woman by Sea and by Land close prisoner or at liberty as you dilate the matter But to tell you very briefly that Universal Tradition directs you to the Word of God and the Word of God directs you to Heaven And therefore here is no cause of desperation no cause for you to be so vain and tragical as here you would seem Yet upon Supposal you say of this miraculous pilgrimage for Faith before I have the Faith of Miracles how shall I proceed at our meeting Or how shall I know the man on whom I may securely rely And hereunto you frame this Answer for the Doctor Procure to know whether he believe all Fundamental Points of Faith Whereas in all the Doctors Book there is no such Answer to any such Question or any like it Neither do you as your custom is note any Page where it may be found which makes me suspect that sure you have some private licence to use Heretiques as you call them at your pleasure and make them answer any
thing to any thing 57. Wherein I am yet more confirmed by the Answer you put in his mouth to your next demand How shall I know whether he hold all Fundamental points or no For whereas hereunto D. Potter having given one Answer fully satisfactory to it which is If he truly believe the undoubted Books of Canonical Scripture he cannot but believe all Fundamentals and another which is but something towards a full satisfaction of it That the Creed contains all the Fundamentals of simple Belief you take no notice of the former and pervert the latter and make him say The Creed contains all Fundamentals of Faith Whereas you know and within six or seven lines after this confess that he never pretended it to contain all simply but all of one sort all necessary Points of simple belief Which assertion because he modestly delivers as very probable being willing to conclude rather less than more than his reasons require hereupon you take occasion to ask Shall I hazzard my soul on probabilities or even wagers As if whatsoever is but probable though in the highest degree of probability were as likely to be false as true Or because it is but Morally not Mathematically certain that there was such a Woman as Q. Elizabeth such a man as H. the 8. that is in the highest degree probable therefore it were an even wager there were none such By this reason seeing the truth of your whole Religion depends finally upon Prudential motives which you do but pretend to be very credible it will be an even wager that your Religion is false And by the same reason or rather infinitely greater seeing it is impossible for any man according to the grounds of your Religion to know himself much less another to be a true Pope or a true Priest nay to have a Moral certainty of it because these things are abnoxious to innumerable secret and undiscernable nullities it will be an even wager nay if we proportion things indifferently a hundred to one that every Consecration and Absolution of yours is void and that whensoever you adore the Host you and your Assistants commit Idolatry That there is a nullity in any Decree that a Pope shall make or any Decree of a Council which he shall confirm Particularly it will be at least any even wager that all the Decrees of the Council of Trent are void because it is at most but very probable that the Pope which confirmed them was true Pope If you mislike these Inferences then confess you have injur'd D. Potter in this also that you have confounded and made all one Probabilities and even Wagers Whereas every ordinary Gamester can inform you that though it be a thousand to one that such a thing will happen yet it is not sure but very probable 58. To make the measure of your injustice yet fuller you demand If the Creed contains only points of simple belief how shall you know what points of belief are necessary which direct our practise D. Potter would have answered you in our Saviours words Search the Scriptures But you have a great mind it seems to be dispairing and therefore having proposed your Question will not suffer him to give you Answer but shut your ears and tell him still he chalks out new paths for desperation 59. In the rest of your interlude I cannot but commend one thing in you that you keep a decorum and observe very well the Rule given you by the great Master of your Art Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerat sibi constet One vein of scurrility and dishonesty runs clean through it from the beginning to the end Your next demand then is Are all the Articles of the Creed for their nature and matter Fundamental and the Answer I cannot say so Which Answer though it be true D. Potter no where gives it neither hath he occasion but you make it for him to bring in another question and that is How then shall I know which in particular be and which be not Fundamental D. Potter would have answered It is a vain question believe all and you shall be sure to believe all that is Fundamental 60. But what says now his prevaricating Proxy What does he make him say This which follows Read my Answer to a late Popish Pamphlet intituled Charity Mistaken There you shall find that Fundamental doctrins are such Catholique verities as principally and essentially pertain to the Faith such as properly constitute a Church and are necessary in ordinary course to be distinctly believed by every Christian that will be saved They are those Grand and Captital Doctrins which make up our Faith that is the Common Faith which is alike pretious in all being one and the same in the highest Apostle and the meanest believer which the Apostle elsewhere cals The first Principles of the Oracles of God and The form of sound words 61. But in earnest Good Sir doth the Doctor in these places by you quoted make to this question this same sottish answer Or do you think that against an Heretique nothing is unlawful Certainly if he doth answer thus I will make bold to say he is a very fool But if he does not as indeed he does not then But I forbear you and beseech the Reader to consult the places of D. Potter's Book and there he shall find that in the former half of these as you call them varyed words and phrases he declared only what he meant by the word Fundamental which was needful to prevent mistakes and cavilling about the meaning of the word which is metaphorical and therefore ambiguous and that the latter half of them are several places of Scripture imployed by D. Potter to shew that his distinction of Fundamental and not Fundamental hath express ground in it Now of these two places very pertinent unto two very good purposes you have exceeding fairly patcht together a most ridiculous Answer to a Question that D. Potter never dreamed of But the words you will say are in D. Potters Book though in divers places and to other purposes Very true And so the words of Ausonius his obscene Fescennine are taken out of Virgil yet Virgil surely was not the Author of this Poem Besides in D. Potters book there are these words Dreâ—d Soveraign amongst the many excellent vertues which have made your Majesties person so dear unto God c. And why now may you not say as well that in these he made Answer to your former question what Points of the Creed were and what were not Fundamentals 62. But unlâ—ss this question may be answered his doctrin you say serves only either to make men despair or else to have recourse to these whom we call Rapists It seems a little thing will make you despair if you be so sullen as to do so because men will not trouble themselves to satisfie your curious questions And I pray be not offended with me for so esteeming it because as
and therefore it is not an abridgement of them Those that are out of it it comprehends not at all and therefore it is not an abridgement of them If you would call it now an abridgment of the Faith this would be sense and signifie thus much That all the necessary Articles of the Christian Faith are comprised in it For this is the proper duty of Abridgements to leave out nothing necessary and to take in nothing unnecessary 66. Moreover in answer to this demand you tell us that the Doctor begs the Question supposing that the Apostles believed no more than is contained in their Creed I Answer He supposes no such matter but only that they knew no more necessary Articles of simple belief than what are contained in their Creed So that here you abuse D. Potter and your Reader by taking sophistically without limitation that which is delivered with limitation 67. But this Demand of D. Potter's was equivalent to a Negation and intended for one How can it be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed than the Apostles had All one with this It cannot be necessary c. And this negation of his he inforces with many arguments which he proposes by way of interrogation thus May the Church of after Ages make the narrow way to Heaven narrower than our Saviour left it Shall it be a fault to straiten and encumber the King 's high way with publique nuisances and is it lawful by adding new Articles to the Faith to retrench any thing from the Latitude of the King of Heavens high way to eternal Happiness The yoke of Christ which he said was easie may it be justly made heavier by the Governors of the Church in after-ages The Apostles profess they revealed to the Church the whole Counsel of God keeping back nothing needful for our Salvation What tyranny then to impose any new unnecessary matters on the Faith of Christians especially as the late Popes have done under the high commanding form Qui non crediderit damnabitur If this may be done Why then did our Saviour reprehend the Pharises so sharply for binding heavy burdens and laying them on mens shoulders And why did he teach them that in vain they worshipped God teaching for Doctrines mens Traditions And why did the Apostles call it tempting of God to lay those things upon the necks of Christians that were not necessary 68. All which Interrogations seem to me to contain so many plain and convincing Arguments of the premised Assertion to all which one excepted according to the advice of the best Masters of Rhetorick in such Cases you have answered very discreetly by saying O. But when you write again I pray take notice of them and if you can devise no fair and satisfying Answer to them then be so ingenuous as to grant the Conclusion That no more can be necessary for Christians to believe now than was in the Apostles time A conclusion of great importance for the decision of many Controversies and the disburdening of the Faith of Christ from many incumbrances 69. As for that one which you thought you could fasten upon grounded on the 20. Act. 27. let me tell you plainly that by your Answering this you have shewed plainly that it was wisely done of you to decline the rest You tell D. Potter That needful for salvation is his gloss which perhaps you intended for a piece of an Answer But good Sir consult the place and you shall find that there S. Paul himself says that he kept back 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not any thing that was profitable and I hope you will make no difficulty to grant that whatsoever is needful for salvation is very profitable 70. But then you say This is no proof unless he beg the Question and suppose that whatsoever the Apostles revealed to the Church is contained in the Creed I Answer it is not D. Potter that begs the Question but you that mistake it which is not here in this particular place Whether all Points of simple Belief necessary for the salvation of the Primitive Christians were contained in the Apostles Symbol for that and the proofs of it follow after in the next § p. 223. of D. Potter's Book but Whether any thing can be necessary for Christians to believe now which was not so from the beginning D. Potter maintains the Negative and to make good his opinion thus he argues S. Paul declared to the Ephesians the whole Counsel of God touching their Salvation Therefore that which S. Paul did not declare can be no part of the Counsel of God and therefore not necessary And again S. Paul kept back nothing from the Ephesians that was profitable Therefore he taught them all things necessary to salvation Consider this I pray a little better and then I hope you will acknowledge that here was no Petitio principii in D. Potter but rather Ignoratio Elenchi in you 71. Neither is it material that these words were particularly directed by S. Paul to the Pastors of the Church For to say nothing that the Point here issuable is not Whom he taught whether Priests or Laymen But how much he taught and whether all things necessary it appears plainly out of the Text and I wonder you should read it so negligently as not to observe it that though he speaks now to the Pastors yet he speaks of what he taught not only them but also the Laity as well as them I have kept back nothing says S. Paul that was profitable but have shewed and have taught you publikely and from house to house Testifying I pray observe both to the Jews and also to the Greeks Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ And a little after I know that ye all among whom I have gone Preaching the Kingdom of God shall see my face no more Wherefore I take you to record this day that I am innocent from the blood of all men for I have kept nothing back but have shewed you all the Counsel of God And again Remember that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears Certainly though he did all these things to the Pastors among the rest nay above the rest yet without Controversie they whom he taught publikely and from house to house The Jews and Greeks to whom he testified 1. preached Faith and Repentance Those all amongst whom he went preaching the kingdom of God Those Every one whom for three years together he warned were not Bishops and Pastors only 72. Neither is this to say that the Apostles taught Christians nothing but their Creed nothing of the Sacraments Commandments c. for that is not here the point to be proved but only that they taught them all things necessary so that nothing can be necessary which they did not teach them But how much of this they put into their Creed Whether all the necessary Points of simple Belief as we
being prepared in mind to come out of all Error in Faith or material Heresie which certainly you will not deny or if you do you pull down the only pillar of your Church and Religion and deny that which is in effect the only thing you labour to prove through your whole Book 79. The latter Creed which now we have is so uneffectual for these good purposes that you your self tell us of innumerable gross damnable Heresies that have been are and may be whose contrary Truths are neither explicitly nor by consequence comprehended in this Creed So that no man by the belief of this Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary Points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to mis-guide men into this as you conceive it pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary Points of Faith whereas indeed according to you they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better than that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed propos'd by me I believe the Roman Church to be infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 80. But say you by this kind of arguing one might infer quite contrary If the Apostles Creed contain all Points necessary to Salvation What need have we of any Church to teach us And consequently what need of the Article of the Church To which I answer that having compared your inference and D. Potter's together I cannot discover any shadow of resemblance between them nor any shew of Reason why the perfection of the Apostles Creed should exclude a necessity of some body to deliver it Much less why the whole Creed's containing all things necessary should make the belief of a part of it unnecessary As well for ought I understand you might avouch this inference to be as good as D. Potters The Apostles Creed contains all things necessary therefore there is no need to believe in God Neither doth it follow so well as D. Potter's Argument follows That if the Apostles Creed contains all things necessary that all other Creeds and Catechisms wherein are added divers other Particulars are superfluous For these other Particulars may be the duties of obedience they may be profitable Points of Doctrine they may be good expositions of the Apostles Creed and so not superfluous and yet for all this the Creed may still contain all Points of Belief that are simply necessary These therefore are poor consequences but no more like D. Potters than an apple is like an oister 81. But this consequence after you have sufficiently slighted and disgraced it at length you promise us news and pretend to grant it But what is that which you mean to grant That the Apostles did put no Article in their Creed but only that of the Church Or that if they had done so they had done better than now they have done This is D. Potter's inference out of your Doctrin and truly if you should grant this this were news indeed Yes say you I will grant it but only thus far that Christ hath referred us only to his Church Yea but this is clean another thing and no news at all that you should grant that which you would fain have granted to you So that your dealing with us is just as if a man should proffer me a courtesie and pretend that he would oblige himself by a note under his hand to give me twenty pound and instead of it write that I owe him forty and desire me to subsctibe to it and be thankful Of such favours as these it is very safe to be liberal 82. You tell us afterward but how it comes in I know not that it were a childish argument The Creed contains not all things necessary Ergo It is not profitable Or The Church alone is sufficient to teach us by some convenient means Ergo She must teach us without means These indeed are childish arguments but for ought I see you alone are the father of them for in D. Potter's book I can neither meet with them nor any like them He indeed tels you that if by an impossible supposition your Doctrin were true another and a far shorter Creed would have been more expedient even this alone I believe the Roman Church to be infallible But why you should conclude he makes this Creed which we have unprofitable because he says another that might be conceived upon this false supposition would be more profitable or that he lays a necessity upon the Church of teaching without means or of not teaching this very Creed which now is taught these things are so subtil that I cannot apprehend them To my understanding by those words And sent us to the Church for all the rest he does rather manifestly imply that the rest might be very well not only profitable but necessary and that the Church was to teach this by Creeds or Catechisms or Councels or any other means which she should make choice of for being Infallible she could not chuse amiss 83. Whereas therefore you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholique Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if in stead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the Faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion For then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary Points of simple Belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbol should
His Understanding is united to God by Faith his Will by Charity The former relies upon his infallible Truth The latter carrieth us to his infinite Goodness Faith hath a deadly opposite Heresie Contrary to the Union or Unity of Charity is Separation and Division Charity is twofold As it respects God his Opposite Vice is Hatred against God as it uniteth us to our Neighbour his contrary is Separation or division of affections and will from our Neighbour Our Neighbour may be considered either as one private person hath a single relation to another or as all concur to make one Company or Congregation which we call the Church and this is the most principal reference and Union of one man with another because the chiefest Unity is that of the Whole to which the particular Unity of Parts is subordinate This Unity or Oneness if so I may call it is effected by Charity uniting all the members of the Church in one Mystical Body contrary to which is Schism from the Greek word signifying Scissure or Division Wherefore upon the whole matter we find that Schism as the Angelical Doctor S. Thomas defines it is A voluntary separation (c) 2.2 q. 39. art in corp ad 3. from the Unity of that Charity whereby all the members of the Church are united From hence he deduceth that Schism is a special and particular vice distinct from Heresie because they are opposite to two different Vertues Heresie to Faith Schism to Charity To which purpose he fitly alledgeth S. Hierom upon these words Tit. 3. A man that is an Heretique after the first and second admonition avoid saying I conceive that there is this difference betwixt Schism and Heresie that Heresie involves some perverse assertion Schism for Episcopal dissention doth separate men from the Church The same Doctrine is delivered by S. Austin in these words Heretiques (d) Lib. de Fid. Symbol cap. 10. and Schismatiques call their Congregations Churches but Heretiques corrupt the Faith by believing of God false things but Schismatiques by wicked divisions break from fraternal Charity although they believe what we believe Therefore the Heretique belongs not to the Church because she loves God nor the Schismatique because she loves her Neighbour And in another place he saith It is wont to be demanded (e) Qu. Evang ex Mat. q. 11. how Schismatiques be distinguished from Heretiques and this difference is found that not a diverse Faith but the divided society of Communion doth make Schismatiques It is then evident that Schism is different from Heresie Nevertheless saith S. Thomas (f) Ubi supra As he who is deprived of Faith must needs want Charity so every Heretique is a Schismatique but not conversively every Schismatique is an Heretique though because want of Charity disposes and makes way to the destruction of Faith according to those words of the Apostle Which a good conscience some casting off have suffered shipwrack in their Faith Schism speedily degenerates to Heresie as S. Hierom after the rehearsed words teacheth saying Though Schism in the beginning may in some sort be understood different from Heresie yet there is no Schism which doth not faign some Heresie to it self that so it may seem to have departed from the Church upon good reason Nevertheless when Schism proceeds originally from Heresie Heresie as being in that case the predominant quality in these two peccant humours giveth the denomination of an Heretique as on the other side we are wont especially in the beginning or for a while to call Schismatiques those men who first began with only Schism though in process of time they fell into some Heresie and by that means are indeed both Schismatiques and Heretiques 4. The reason why both Heresie and Schism are repugnant to the being of a good Catholique is Because the Catholique or Universal Church signifies One Congregation or Company of faithful people and therefore implies not only Faith to make them Faithful believers but also Communion or common Union to make them One in Charity which excludes Separation and Division and therefore in the Apostles Creed Communion of Saints is immediatly joyned to the Catholique Church 5. From this definition of Schism may be inferred that the guilt thereof is contracted not only by division from the Universal Church but also by a Separation from a particular Church or Diocess which agrees with the Universal In this manner Meletius was a Schismatique but not an Heretique because as we read in S. Epiphanius (h) Haeres 68. he was of the right Faith for his Faith was not altered at any time from the holy Catholique Church c. He made a Sect but departed not from Faith Yet because he made to himself a particular Congregation against S. Peter Archbishop of Alexandria his lawful Superiour and by that means brought in a division in that particular Church he was a Schismatique And it is well worth the noting that the Meletians building new Churches put this Title upon them The Church of Martyrs and upon the ancient Churches of those who succeeded Peter was inscribed The Catholique Church For so it is A new Sect must have a new name which though it be never so gay and specious as the Church of Martyrs the Reformed Church c. yet the Novelty sheweth that it is not the Catholique not a true Church And that Schism may be committed by division from a particular Church we read in Optatus Milevitanus (i) Lib. 1. conâ— Parmen these remarkable words which do well declare who be Schismatiques brought by him to prove that not Caecilianus but Parmenianus was a Schismatique For Caecilianus went not out from Majorinus thy Grand Father he means his next predecessour but one in the Bishoprick but Majorinus from Caecilianus neither did Caecilianus depart from the Chair of Peter or of Cyprian who was but a particular Bishop but Majorinus in whose Chair thou fittest which had no beginning before Majorinus himself Seeing it is manifestly known that these things were so done it evidently appearch that you are heirs both of Traditors that is of those who delivered up the holy Bible to be burned and of Schismatiques And it seemeth that this kind of Schism must principally be admitted by Protestants who acknowledge no one visible Head of the whole Church but hold that every particular Diocess Church or Countrey is governed by it self independently of any one Person or General Councel to which all Christians have obligation to submit their judgments and wills 6. As for the grievousness or quantity of Schism which was the second Point proposed S. Thomas teacheth 2. Point The grievousness of Schism that amongst sins against our Neighbour Schism (l) Supra art 2. ad 3. is the most grievous because it is against the spiritual good of the multitude or Community And therefore as in a Kingdom or Commonwealth there is as great difference between the crime of rebellion or sedition and debates
among private men as there is inequality betwixt one man and a whole kingdom so in the Church Schism is as much more grievous than Sedition in a Kingdom as the spiritual good of souls surpasseth the civil and political weal. And S. Thomas adds further and they lose the spiritual Power of Jurisdiction and if they go about to absolve from sin or to excommunicate their actions are invalid which he proves out of the Canon Novitianus Causa 7 quaest 1. which saith He that keepeth neither the Unity of spirit nor the peace of agreement and separates himself from the bond of the Church and the Colledge of Priests can neither have the Power nor dignity of a Bishop the Power also of Order for example to consecrate the Eucharist to ordain Priests c. they cannot lawfully exercise 7. In the judgment of the holy Fathers Schism is a most grievous offence S. Chrysostom (m) Hom. 11. in ep ad Eph. compares these Schismatical dividers of Christ's mystical body to those who sacrilegiously pierced his natural body saying Nothing doth so much incense God as that the Church should be divided Although we should do innumerable good works if we divide the full Ecclesiastical Congregation we shall be punished no less than they who tore his natural body For that was done to the gain of the whole world although not with that intention but this hath no profit at all but there ariseth from it most great harm These things are spoken not only to those who bear office but also to those who are governed by them Behold how neither a moral good life which conceit deceiveth many nor authority of Magistrates nor any necessity of Obeying Superiours can excuse Schism from being a most hainous offence Optatus Milevitanus (o) Lib. cont Parmen calls Schism Ingens flagitium a huge crime And speaking to the Donatists saith that Schism is evil in the highest degree even you are not able to deny No less pathetical is S. Augustine upon this subject He reckons Schismatiques amongst Pagans Heretiques and Jews saying Religion is to be sought neither in the confusion of Pagans nor (p) Lib. de vera Relig. cap. 6. in the filth of Heretiques nor in the languishing of Schismatiques nor in the Age of the Jews but amongst those alone who are called Christian Catholiques or Orthodox that is lovers of Unity in the whole body and followers of truth Nay he esteems them worse than Infidels and Idolaters saying Those whom the Donatists (q) Cont. Donatist l. 1. cap. 8. heal from the wound of Infidelity and Idolatry they hurt more grievously with the wound of Schism Let here those men who are pleased untruly to call us Idolaters reflect upon themselves and consider that this holy Father judgeth Schismatiques as they are to be worse than Idolaters which they absurdly call us And this he proveth by the example of Core Dathan and Abiram and other rebellious Schismatiques of the old Testament who were conveyed alive down into Hell and punished more openly than Idolaters No doubt saith this holy Father but (r) Ibid. l. 2. c. 6. that was committed most wickedly which was punished most severely In another place he yoketh Schism with Heresie saying upon the Eighth Beatitude Many (s) De serm Dom. in monte cap. 5. Heretiques under the name of Christians deceiving mens souls do suffer many such things but therefore they are excluded from this reward because it is not only said Happy are they who suffer persecution but there is added for Justice But where there is not sound Faith there cannot be justice Neither can Schismatiques promise to themselves any part of this reward because likewise where there is no Charity there cannot be Justice And in another place yet more effectually he saith Being out of (t) Epist 204. the Church and divided from the heap of Unity and the bond of Charity thou shouldst be Punished with eternal death though thou shouldest be burned alive for the name of Christ And in another place he hath these words If he hear not the Church let him be to (u) Cont. advers Leg. Prophet l. 2. cap. 17. thee as an Heathen or Publican which is more grievous than if he were smitten with the sword consumed with flames or cast to wilde beasts And elsewhere Out of the Catholique Church saith he one (w) De gest cum Emerit may have Faith Sacraments Orders and in sum all things except Salvation With S. Augustine his Countryman and second self in sympathy of spirit S. Fulgentius agreeth saying Believe this (x) De fide ad Pet. stedfastly without doubting that every Heretique or Schismatique baptized in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost if before the end of his life he be not reconciled to the Catholique Church what Alms soever he give yea though he should shed his blood for the name of Christ he cannot obtain Salvation Mark again how no moral honesty of life no good deeds no Martyrdom can without repentance avail any Schismatique for Salvation Let us also add that D. Potter saith Schism is no less (y) Pag. 42. damnable than Heresie 8. But O you Holy Learned zealous Fathers and Doctors of Gods Church out of these premises of the grievousness of Schism and of the certain damnation which it bringeth if unrepented what conclusion draw you for the instruction of Christians S. Augustine maketh this wholesome inference There is (z) Cont. Parm. l. 2. cap. 62. no just necessity to divide Unity S. Irenaeus concludeth They cannot (a) Cont. haeres l 4. cap. 62. make any so important reformation as the evil of the Schism is pernitious S. Denis of Alexandria saith Certainly (b) Apud Euseb Hist Eccles lib. 6. all things should rather be endured than to consent to the division of the Church of God those Martyrs being no less glorious that expose themselves to hinder the dismembring of the Church than those that suffer rather than they will offer sacrifice to Idols Would to God all those who divided themselves from that visible Church of Christ which was upon earth when Luther appeared would rightly consider of these things And thus much of the second Point 3. Point Perpetual Visibility of the Church 9 We have just and necessary occasion eternally to bless Almighty God who hath vouchsafed to make us members of the Catholique Roman Church from which while men fall they precipitate themselves into so vast absurdities or rather sacrilegious blasphemies as is implyed in the Doctrin of the total deficiency of the visible Church which yet is maintained by divers chief Protestants as may at large be seen in Breerely and others out of whom I will here name Jewel saying The truth was unknown (c) Apol. part 4. c. 4. divis 2. And in his defence printed Ann. 1571. Pag. 426. at that time and unheard of when Martin Luther and Ulderick
time from whence did Donatus Luther appear From what earth did he spring From what sea is he come From what heaven did he drop And in another place How can they vaunt (z) Lib. 3. cont Parm. to have any Church if â—he have ceased ever since those times And all Divines by defining Schism to be a division from the true Church suppose that there must be a known Church from which it is possible for men to depart But enough of this in these few words 4. Point Luther and all that follow him are Schismatiques 12. Let us now come to the fourth and chiefest Point which was to examine whether Luther Calvin and the rest did not depart from the external Communion of Christ's Visible Church and by that separation became guilty of Schism And that they are properly Schismatiques clearly followeth from the grounds which we have laid concerning the nature of Schism which consists in leaving the external Communion of the Visible Church of Christ our Lord and it is clear by evidence of fact that Luther and his followers forsook the Communion of that Ancient Church For they did not so much as pretend to joyn with any Congregation which had a being before their time for they would needs conceive that no Visible Company was free from errors in Doctrin and corruption in practice And therefore they opposed the Doctrin they withdrew their obedience from the Prelates they left participation in Sacraments they changed the Liturgy of publique Service of whatsoever Church then extant And these things they pretended to do out of a perswasion that they were bound forsooth in conscience so to do unless they would participate with errors corruptions and superstitions We dare not saith D. Potter communicate (a) Pag. 68. with Rome either in her publique Liturgy which is manifestly polluted with gross superstition c. or in those corrupt and ungrounded opinions which she hath added to the Faith of Catholiques But now let D. Potter tell me with what visible Church extant before Luther he would have adventured to communicate in her publique Liturgy and Doctrin since he durst not communicate with Rome He will not be able to assign any even with any little colour of common sense If then they departed from all visible Communities professing Christ it followeth that they also left the Communion of the true visible Church which soever it was whether that of Rome or any other of which Point I do not for the present dispute Yea this the Lutherans do not only acknowledge but prove and brag of If saith a learned Lutheran there had been right (b) Georgius Milius in Aug. Confess art 7. de Eccles Pag. 137 Believers which went before Luther in his office there had then been no need of a Lutheran Reformation Another affirmeth it to be ridiculous to think that in the time (c) Bened. Morgenstern tract de Eccles Pag. 145. before Luther any had the purity of Doctrin and that Luther should receive it from them and not they from Luther Another speaketh roundly and saith It is impudency to say that many learned men (d) Conrad Schlusselb in Theol. Calvin lib. 2. fol. 130. in Germany before Luther did hold the Doctrin of the Gospel And I add That far greater impudency it were to affirm that Germany did not agree with the test of Europe and other Christian Catholique Nations and consequently that it is the greatest impudency do deny that he departed from the Communion of the visible Catholique Church spread over the whole world We have heard Calvin saying of Protestants in general We were even forced (e) Epist 141. to make a separation from the whole world And Luther of himself in particular In the beginning (f) In praefat operum suorum I was alone Ergo say I by your good leave you were at least a Schismatique divided from the Ancient Church and a member of no new Church For no sole man can constitute a Church and though he could yet such a Church could not be that glorious Company of whose number greatness and amplitude so much hath been spoken both in the old Testament and in the New 13. D. Potter endeavours to avoid this evident Argument by divers evasions but by the confutation thereof I will with God's holy assistance take occasion even out of his own Answers and grounds to bring unanswerable reasons to convince them of Schism 14. His chief Answer is That they have not left the Church but her corruption 15. I reply This answer may be given either by those furious people who teach that those abuses and corruptions in the Church were so enormous that they could not stand with the nature or being of a true Church of Christ Or else by those other more calm Protestants who affirm that those errors did not destroy the being but only deform the beauty of the Church Against both these sorts of men I may fitly use that unanswerable Dilemma which S. Augustine brings against the Donatists in these concluding words Tell me whether the (g) Lib. 2. cont Epist Gaudent cap. 7. Church at that time when you say she entertained those who were guilty of all crimes by the contagion of those sinful persons perished or perished not Answer Whether the Church perished or perished not Make choice of what you think If then she perished What Church brought forth Donatus we may say Luther But if she could not perish because so many were incorporated into her without Baptism that is without a second baptism or rebaptization and I may say without Luther's Reformation answer me I pray you what madness did more the Sect of Donatus to separate themselves from her upon pretence to avoid the communion of bad meaâ— I beseech the Reader to ponder every one of S. Augustine's words and to consider whether any thing could have been spoken more directly against Luther and his followers of what sort soever 16. And now to answer more in particular I say to those who teach that the visible Church of Christ perished for many Ages that I can easily afford them the courtesie to free them from meer Schism but all men touched with any spark of zeal to vindicate the wisdom and goodness of our Saviour from blasphemous injury cannot chuse but believe and proclaim them to be superlative Arch-heretiques Nevertheless if they will needs have the honour of Singularity and desire to be both formal Heretiques and properly Schismatiques I will tell them that while they dream of an invisible Church of men which agreed with them in Faith they will upon due reflection find themselves to be Schismatiques from those corporeal Angels or invisible men because they held external Communion with the visible Church of those times the outward Communion of which visible Church these modern hot-spurs forsaking were thereby divided from the outward Communion of their hidden Brethren and so are Separatists from the external Communion of them
with whom they agree in Faith which is Schism in the most formal and proper signification thereof Moreover according to D. Potter those boisterous Creatures are properly Schismatiques For the reason why he thinks himself and such as he is to be cleared from Schism notwithstanding their division from the Roman Church is because according to his Divinity the property of (h) Pag. 76. Schism is witness the Donatists and Luciferians to cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation the Church from which it separates But those Protestants of whom we now spake cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation the Church from which they separated themselves and they do it directly as the Donatists in whom you exemplifie did by affirming that the true Church had perished and therefore they cannot be cleared from Schism if you may be their Judge Consider I pray you how many prime Protestants both domestical and forraign you have at one blow struck off from hope of Salvation and condemned to the lowest pit for the grievous sin of Schism And withall it imports you to consider that you also involve your self and other moderate Protestants in the self-same crime and punishment while you communicate with those who according to your own principles are properly and formally Schismatiques For if you held your self obliged under pain of damnation to forsake the Communion of the Roman Church by reason of her Errors and Corruptions which yet you confess were not Fundamental shall it not be much more damnable for you to live in Communion and Confraternity with those who defend an error of the failing of the Church which in the Donatists you confess (i) Pag. 126. to have been properly heretical against the Article of our Creed I believe the Church And I desire the Reader here to apply an authority of S. Cyprian Epist 76. which he shall find alledged in the next number And this may suffice for confutation of the aforesaid Answer as it might have relation to the rigid Calvinists 17. For Confutation of those Protestants who hold that the Church of Christ had always a being and cannot err in Points Fundamental and yet teach that she may err in matters of less moment wherein if they forsake her they would be accounted not to leave the Church but only her corruptions I must say that they change the state of our present Question not distinguishing between internal Faith and external Communion not between Schism and Heresie This I demonstrate out of D. Potter himself who in express words teacheth that the promises which our Lord hath made (k) Pag. 151. unto his Church for his assistance are intended not to any particular Persons or Churches but only to the Church Catholique and they are to be extended not to every parcel or particularity of truth but only to Points of Faith or Fundamental And afterwards speaking of the Universal Church he saith It is comfort (l) Pag. 155. enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all capital dangers and conserve her on earth against all enemies but she may not hope to triumph over all sin and error till she be in heaven Out of which words I observe that according to D. Potter the self-same Church which is the Universal Church remaining the Universal true Church of Christ may fall into errors and corruptions from whence it clearly followeth that it is impossible to leave the External communion of the Church so corrupted and retain external communion with the Catholique Church since the Church Catholique and the Church so corrupted is the self-same one Church or company of men And the contrary imagination talks in a dream as if the errors and infections of the Catholique Church were not inherent in her but were separate from her like to Accidents without any Subject or rather indeed as if they were not Accidents but Hypostases or Persons subsisting by themselves for men cannot be said to live in or out of the Communion of any dead creature but with persons endued with life and reason and much less can men be said to live in the Communion of Accidents as errors and corruptions are and therefore it is an absurd thing to affirm that Protestants divided themselves from the corruptions of the Church but not from the Church her self seeing the corruptions of the Church were inherent in the Church All this is made more clear if we consider that when Luther appeared there were not two distinct visible true Catholique Churches holding contrary Doctrines and divided in external Communion one of the which two Churches did triumph over all error and corruption in Doctrine and practice but the other was stained with both For to faign this diversity of two Churches cannot stand with record of histories which are silent of any such matter It is against D. Potter's own grounds that the Church may err in Points not Fundamental which were not true if you will imagine a certain visible Catholique Church free from error even in Points not Fundamental It contradicteth the words in which he said the Church may not hope to triumph over all error till she be in heaven It evacuateth the brag of Protestants that Luther reformed the whole Church and lastly It maketh Luther a Schismatique for leaving the Communion of all visible Churches seeing upon this supposition there was a visible Church of Christ free from all corruption which therefore could not be forsaken without just imputation of Schism We must therefore truly affirm that since there was but one visible Church of Christ which was truly Catholique and yet was according to Protestants stained with corruption when Luther left the external Communion of that corrupted Church he could not remain in the Communion of the Catholique Church no more than it is possible to keep company with D. Christopher Potter and not keep company with the Provost of Queens Colledge in Oxford if D. Potter and the Provost be one and the self-same man For so one should be and not be with him at the same time This very Argument drawn from the Unity of God's Church S. Cyprian urgeth to convince that Novatianus was cut ost from the Church in these words The Church is (m) Epist 76. ad Mag. One which being One cannot be both within and without If she be with Novatianus she was not with Cornelius But if she were with Cornelius who succeeded Fabianus by lawful ordination Novatiâ—nus is not in the Church I purposely here speak only of external Communion with the Catholique Church For in this Point there is great difference between internal acts of our understanding and will and of external deeds Our Understanding and Will are faculties as Philsophers speak abstractive and able to distinguish and as it were to part things though in themselves they be really conjoyned But real external deeds do take things in gross as they find them not separating things which in
reality are joyned together Thus one man may consider and love a sinner as he is a man friend benefactor or the like and at the same time not consider him nor love him as he is a sinner because these are acts of our Understanding and Will which may respect their objects under some one formality or consideration without reference to other things contained in the self-same objects But if one should strike or kill a sinful man he will not be excused by alledging that he killed him not as a man but as a sinner because the self-same person being a man and the sinner the external act of murder fell joyntly upon the man and the sinner And for the same reason one cannot avoid the company of a sinner and at the same time be really present with that man who is a sinner And this is our case and in this our Adversaries are egregiously and many of them affectedly mistaken For one may in some Points believe as the Church believeth and disagree from her in other One may love the truth which she holds and detest her pretended corruptions But it is impossible that a man should really separate himself from her external Communion as she is corrupted and be really within the same external Communion as she is sound because she is the self-same Church which is supposed to be sound in some things and to err in others Now our question for the present doth concern only this Point of external Communion because Schism as it is distinguished from Heresie is committed when one divides himself from the External Communion of that Church with which he agrees in Faith Whereas Heresie doth necessarily imply a difference in matter of Faith and belief and therefore to say that they left not the visible Church but her errors can only excuse them from Heresie which shall be tryed in the next Chapter but not from Schism as long as they are really divided from the external Communion of the self-same visible Church which notwithstanding those errors wherein they do in judgment dissent from her doth still remain the true Catholique Church of Christ and therefore while they forsake the corrupted Church they forsake the Catholique Church Thus then it remaineth clear that their chiefest Answer changeth the very state of the question confoundeth internal acts of the Understanding with the external Deeds doth not distinguish between Schism and Heresie and leaves this demonstrated against them That they divided themselves from the Communion of the visible Catholique Church because they conceived that she needed Reformation But whether this pretence of Reformation will acquit them of Schism I refer to the unpartial Judges heretofore (n) Numb 8. alleadged as to S. Irenaeus who plainly saith They cannot make any so important REFORMATION as the Evil of the Schism is pernitious To S. Denis of Alexandria saying Certainly all things should be endured rather than to consent to the division of the Church of God those Martyrs being no less glorious that expose themselves to hinder the dismembring of the Church then those that suffer rather than they will offer sacrifice to Idols To S. Augustine who tels us That not to hear the Church is a more grievous thing than if he were stricken with the sword consumed with flames exposed to wild Beasts And to conclude all in few words he giveth this general prescription There is no just necessity to divide unity And D. Potter may remember his own words There neither was (s) Pag. 75. nor can be any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself But I have shewed that Luther and the rest departed from the Church of Christ if Christ had any Church upon earth Therefore there could be no just cause of Reformation or what else soever to do as they did and therefore they must be contented to be held for Schismatiques 18. Moreover I demand whether those corruptions which moved them to forsake the Communion of the Visible Church were in manners or doctrin Corruption in manners yields no sufficient cause to leave the Church otherwise men must go not only out of the Church but out of the world as the Apostle (t) 1 Cor. 5.10 saith Our blessed Saviour foretold that there would be in the Church tares with choise Corn and sinners with just men If then Protestants wax zealous with the Servants to pluck up the weeds let them first hearken to the wisdom of the Master Let both grow up And they ought to imitate them who as S. Augustine saith Tolerate for the good of (u) Ep. 162. Unity that which they detest for the good of equity And to whom the more frequent and foul such scandals are by so much the more is the merit of their perseverance in the Communion of the Church and the Martyrdom of their patience as the same Saint calls it If they were offended with the life of some Ecclesiastical persons must they therefore deny obedience to their Pastors and finally break with Gods Church The Pastor of Pastors teacheth us another lesson Upon the Chair of Moses (w) Mat. 33. have sitten the Scribes and Pharisees All things therefore whatsoever they shall say to you observe yee and do yee but according to their works do you not Must people except against laws and revolt from Magistrates because some are negligent or corrupt in the execurion of the same laws and performance of their office If they intended reformation of manners they used a strange means for the atchieving of such an end by denying the necessity of Confession laughing at austerity of pennance condemning the Vows of Chastity Poverty Obedience breaking Fasts c. And no less unfit were the Men than the Means I love not recrimination But it is well known to how great crimes Luther Calvin Zuinglius Beza and others of the prime Reformers were notoriously obnoxious as might be easily demonstrated by the only transcribing of what others have delivered upon that subject whereby it would appear that they were very far from being any such Apostolical men as God is wont to use in so great a work And whereas they were wont especially in the beginning of their revoult maliciously to exaggerate of the faults some Clergy men Erasmus said well Ep. ad Fratres inferior is Germaniae Let the riot lust ambition avarice of Priests and whatsoever other crimes be gathered together Heresie alone doth exceed all this filthy lake of vices Besides nothing at all was omitted by the sacred Council of Trent which might tend to Reformation of manners And finally the vices of others are not hurtful to any but such as imitate and consent to them according to the saying of S. Augustine we conserve (y) Ep. 116. innocency not by knowing the ill deeds of men but by not yielding conscent to such as we know and by not judging rashly of such faults as we know not If you answer that not corruption in
manners but the approbation of them doth yield sufficient cause to leave the Church I reply with S. Augustine that the Church doth as the pretended Reformers ought to have done tolerate or bear with scandals and corruptions but neither doth nor can approve them The Church saith he being placed (z) Pag. 75. betwixt much chaffe and cockle doth bear with many things but doch not approve nor dissemble nor act those things which are against Faith and good life But because to approve corruption in manners as lawful were an error against Faith it belongs to corruption in Doctrin which was the second part of my demand 19. Now then that corruptions in Doctrin I still speak upon the untrue supposition of our Adversaries could not afford any sufficient cause or colourable necessity to depart from that Visible Church which was extant when Luther rose I demonstrate out of D. Potter's own confession that the Catholique Church neither hath nor can err in Points Fundamental as we shewed out of his own express words which he also of set purpose delivereth in divers other places and all they are obliged to maintain the same who teach that Christ had alwayes a visible Church upon earth because any one Fundamental error overthrows the being of a true Church Now as Schoolmen speak it is implicatio in terminis a contradiction so plain that one word destroyeth the other as if one should say A living dead man to affirm that the Church doth not err in Points necessary to Salvation or damnably and yet that it is damnable to remain in her Communion because she teacheth errors which are confessed not to be damnable For if the error be not damnable nor against any Fundamental Article of Faith the belief thereof cannot be damnable But D. Potter teacheth that the Catholique Church cannot and that the Roman Church hath not erred against any Fundamental Article of Faith Therefore it cannot be damnable to remain in her Communion and so the pretended corruptions in her doctrins could not induce any obligation to depart from her Communion nor could excuse them from Schism who upon pretence of necessity in Point of Conscience forsook her And D. Potter will never be able to salve a manifest contradiction in these his words To depart from the Church a of Rome in some Doctrins and practises there might be necessary cause though she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation For if notwithstanding these Doctrins and practises she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation how could it be necessary to Salvation to forsake her And therefore we must still conclude that to forsake her was properly an act of Schism 20. From the self-same ground of the infallibility of the Church in all Fundamental Points I argue after this manner The visible Church cannot be forsaken without damnation upon pretence that it is damnable to remain in her Communion by reason of corruption in Doctrin as long as for the truth of her Faith and belief she performeth the duty which she oweth to God and her Neighbour As long as she performeth what our Saviour exacts at her hands as long as she doth as much as lies in her power to do But even according to D. Potters Assertions the Church performeth all these things as long she erreth not in Points Fundamental although she were supposed to err in other Points not Fundamental Therefore the Communion of the visible Church cannot be forsaken without damnation upon pretence that it is damnable to remain in her Communion by reason of corruption in Doctrin The Major or first Proposition of it self is evident The Minor or second Proposition doth necessarily follow out of D. Potter's own Doctrin above-rehearsed that the promises of our Lord made to his Church for his assistance are to be (b) Pag. 131. extended only to Points of Faith or Fundamental Let me note here by the way that by his or he seems to exclude from Faith all Points which are not Fundamental and so we may deny innumerable Texts of Scripture That It is (c) Pag. 155. comfort enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all capital dangers c. but she may not hope to triumph over all sin and error till she be in heaven For it is evident that the Church for as much as concerns the truth of her Doctrins and belief ows no more duty to God and her Neighbour neither doth our Saviour exact more at her hands nor is it in her power to do more than God doth assist her to do which assistance is promised only for Points Fundamental and consequently as long as she teacheth no Fundamental error her Communion cannot without damnation be forsaken And we may fitly apply against D. Potter a Concionatory declamation which he makes against us where he saith May the Church of after-Ages make the narrow way to heaven (d) Pag. 221. narrower than our Saviour lest it c since he himself obligeth men under pain of damnation to forsake the Church by reason of errors against which our Saviour thought it needless to promise his assistance and for which he neither denyeth his grace in this life or glory in the next Will D. Potter oblige the Church to do more then she may even hope for or to perform on earth that which is proper to heaven alone 21. And as from your own Doctrin concerning the infallibility of the Church in Fundamental Points we have proved that it was a grievous sin to forsake her so do we take a strong argument from the fallibility of any who dare pretend to reform the Church which any man in his wits will believe to be indued with at least as much infallibility as private men can challenge and D. Potter expresly affirmeth that Christs promises of his assistance are not intended (e) Pag. 151. to any particular persons or Churches and therefore to leave the Church by reason of errors was at best hand but to flit from one erring company to another without any new hope of triumphing over errors and without necessity or utility to forsake that Communion of which S. Augustine saith There is (f) Ep. cont Parmen lib. 2. c. 1â— no just necessity to divide Unity Which will appear to be much more evident if we consider that though the Church had maintained some false Doctrins yet to leave her Communion to remedy the old were but to add a new increase of errors arising from the innumerable disagreements of Sectaries which must needs bring with it a mighty mass of fallehoods because the truth is but one and indivisible And this reason is yet stronger if we still remember that even according to D. Potter the visible Church hath a blessing not to err in Points Fundamental in which any private Reformer may fail and therefore they could not pretend any necessity to forsake that Church out of whose Communion they were exposed to danger of falling into many more and even into
damnable errors Remember I pray you what your self affirms pag. 69. where speaking of our Church and yours you say All the difference is from the weeds which remain there and here are taken away Yet neither here perfectly nor every where alike Behold a fair confession of corruptions still remaining in your Church which you can only excuse by saying they are not Fundamental as likewise those in the Roman Church are confessed to be not Fundamental What man of judgment will be a Protestant since that Church is confessedly a corrupt one 22. I still proceed to impugn you expresly upon your own grounds You say That it is comfort enough for the Church that the Lord in mercy will secure her from all capital dangers but she may not hope to triumph over all sin and error till she be in heaven Now if it be comfort enough to be secured from all capital dangers which can arise only from error in Fundamental Points why were not your first Reformers content with enough but would needs dismember the Church out of a pernicious greediness of more than enough For this enough which according to you is attained by not erring in Points Fundamental was enjoyed before Luther's reformation unless you will now against your self affirm that long before Luther there was no Church free from error in Fundamental Points Moreover if as you say no Church may hope to triumph over all error till she be in heaven You must either grant that errors not Fundamental cannot yield sufficient cause to forsake the Church or else you must affirm that all Community may and ought to be forsaken and so there will be no end of Schisms or rather indeed there can be no such thing as Schism because according to you all communities are subject to errors not Fundamental for which if they may be lawfully forsaken it followeth clearly that it is not Schism to forsake them Lastly since it is not lawful to leave the Communion of the Church for abuses in life and manners because such miseries cannot be avoided in this world of temptation and since according to your Assertion no Church may hope to triumph over all sin and error You must grant that as she ought not to be left by reason of sin so neither by reason of errors not Fundamental because both sin and error are according to you impossible to be avoided till she be in heaven 23. Furthermore I ask Whether it be the Quantity and Number or Quality and Greatness of doctrinal errors that may yield sufficient cause to relinquish the Churches Communion I prove that neither Not the Quality which is supposed to be beneath the degree of Points Fundamental or necessary to Salvation Not the Quantity or Number for the foundation is strong enough to support all such unnecessary additions as you tearm them And if they once weighed so heavy as to overthrow the foundation they should grow to Fundamental errors into which your self teach the Church cannot fall Hay and stubble say you and such (g) Pag. 155. unprofitable stuffe laid on the roof destroys not the house whilest the main pillars are standing on the foundation And tell us I pray you the precise number of errors which cannot be tolerated I know you cannot do it and therefore being uncertain whether or no you have cause to leave the Church you are certainly obliged not to forsake her Our blessed Saviour hath declared his will that we forgive a private offender seventy seven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of trespasses and why then dare you alledge his command that you must not pardon his Church for errors acknowledged to be not Fundamental What excuse can you feign to your selves who for Points not necessary to Salvation have been occasions causes and Authors of so many mischiefs as could not but unavoidably accompany so huge a breach in Kingdoms in Common-wealths in private persons in publique Magistrates in body in soul in goods in life in Church in the State by Schisms by rebellions by war by famin by plague by bloud-shed by all sorts of imaginable calamities upon the whole face of the earth wherein as in a map of Desolation the heaviness of your crime appears under which the world doth pant 24. To say for your excuse that you left not the Church but her errors doth not extenuate but aggravate your sin For by this device you sow seeds of endless Schisms and put into the mouth of aâ— Separatists a ready Answer how to avoid the note of Schism from your Protestant Church of England or from any other Church whatsoever They will I say answer as you do prompt that your Church may be forsaken if she fall into errors though they be not Fundamental and further that no Church must hope to be free from such errors which two grounds being once laid it will not be hard to infer the consequence that she may be forsaken 25. From some other words of D. Potter I likewise prove that for Errors not Fundamental the Church ought not to be forsaken There neither was saith he nor can be (h) Pag. 75. any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself To depart from a particular Church and namely from the Church of Rome in some Doctrins and practises there might be just and necessary cause though the Church of Rome wanted nothing necessary to Salvation Mark his Doctrin that there can be no just cause to depart from the Church of Christ and yet he teacheth that the Church of Christ may err in Points not Fundamental Therefore say I we cannot forsake the Roman Church for Points not Fundamental for then we might also forsake the Church of Christ which your self deny and I pray you consider whether you do not plainly contradict your self while in the words above recited you say there can be no just cause to forsake the Catholique Church and yet that there may be necessary cause to depart from the Church of Rome since you grant that the Church of Christ may err in Points not Fundamental and that the Roman Church hath erred only in such Points as by and by we shall see more in particular And thus much be said to disprove their chiesest Answer that they left not the Church but her corruptions 26. Another evasion D. Potter bringeth to avoid the imputation of Schism and it is because they still acknowledg the Church of Rome to be a Member of the body of Christ and not cut off from the hope of Salvation And this saith he clears us from the (i) Pag. 76. imputation of Schism whose property it is to cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation the Church from which it separates 27. This is an Answer which perhaps you may get some one to approve if first you can put him out of his wits For what prodigious Doctrins are these Those Protestants who believe
but that they left the said Communities So Luther and the rest cannot so much as pretend not to have left the visible Church which according to them was infected with many diseases but can only pretend that they did not sin in leaving her And you speak very strangely when you say In a society of men universally infected with some disease they that should free themselves from the common disease could not be therefore said to separate from the Society For if they do not separate themselves from the Society of the infected persons how do they free themselves and depart from the common disease Do they at the same time remain in the company and yet depart from those infected creatures Wee must then say that they separate themselves from the persons though it be by occasion of the disease Or if you say they free their own pâ—rsons from the common disease yet so that they remaine still in the Company infected subject to the Superiours and Governours thereof eating and drinking and keeping publique Assemblies with them you cannot but know that Luther and your Reformers the first pretended free persons from the supposed common infection of the Romane Church did not so for they endeavoured to force the Society whereof they were parts to be healed and reformed as they were and if â—t refused they did when they had forces drive them away even their Superiours both Spirituall and Temporall as is notorious Or if they had not power to expel that supposed infected Community or Church of that place they departed from them corporally whom mentally they had forsaken before So that you cannot deny but Luther forsook the external Communion and commpany of the Catholique Church for which as your self (z) Pag. 75. confess There neither was nor can be any just cause no more than to depart from Christ himself We do therefore infer that Luther and the rest who forsook that visible Church which they found upon earth were truly and properly Schismatiques 25. Moreover it is evident that there was a division between Luther and that Church which was Visible when he arose but that Church cannot be said to have divided her self from him before whose time the was and in comparison of whom she was a Whole and he but a part therefore we must say that he divided himself and went out of her which is to be a Schismatique or Heretique or both By this argument Optatus Melivitanus proveÌ„th that not Caecilianus but Parmenianus was a Schismatique saying For Caecilianus went (a) Lib. 1. cont Parmen not out of Majorinus thy Grandfather but Majorinus from Cecilianus neither did Caecilianus depart from the Chair of Peter or Cyprian but Majorinus in whose Chayr thou sittest which had no beginning before Majorinus Since it manifestly appeareth that these things were acted in this manner it is clear that you are heirs both of the deliverers up of the holy Bible to be burned and also of Schismatiques The Whole argument of this holy Father makes directly both against Luther and all those who continue the division which he begun and proves That going out convinceth those who go our to be Schismatiques but not those from whom they depart That to forsake the Chair of Peter is Schism yea that it is Schism to erect a Chair which had no origin or as it were predecessour before it self That to continue in a division begun by others is to be Heires of Schismatiques and lastly that to depart from the Communion of a particular Church as that of S. Cyprian was is sufficient to make a man incur the guilt of Schism and consequently that although Protestants who deny the Pope to be supream Head of the Church do think by that Heresie to clear Luther from Schism in disobeying the Pope Yet that will not serve to free him from Schism as it importeth a division from the obedience or Communion of the particular Bishop Diocess Church and Country where he lived 36. But it is not the Heresie of Protestants or any other Sectaries that can deprive S. Peter and his Successors of the authority which Christ our Lord conferred upon them over his whole militant Church which is a Point confessed by learned Protestants to be of great Antiquity and for which the judgement of divers most ancient holy Fathers is reproved by them as may be seen at large in Brerely (b) Tract 1. Sect. 3. subd 10. exactly citing the places of such chief Protestants And we must say with S. Cyprian Heresies (c) Ep. 55. have sprung and Schisms been bred from no other cause then for that the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest and Judge is considered to be for the time in the Church of God Which words do plainly condemn Luther whether he will understand them as spoken of the Universal or of every particular Church For he withdrew himself both from the obedience of the Pope and of all particular Bishops and Churches And no less clear is the said Optatus Melivitanus saying Thou canst not deny (d) Lib. 2. cont Parmen but that thou knowest that in the City of Rome there was first an Episcopal Chair placed for Peter wherein Peter the head of all the Apostles sate whereof also he was called Cephas in which one Chair Unity was to be kept by all lest the other Apostles might attribute to themselves each one his particular Chair and that he should be a Schismatique and sinner who against that one single Chair should erect another Many other authorities of Fathers might be alleadged to this purpose which â—omit my intention being not to handle particular controversies 37. Now the arguments which hitherto I have brought prove that Luther and his followers were Schismatiques without examining for as much as belongs to this Point whether or no the Church can erre in any one thing great or small because it is universally true that there can be no just cause to forsake the Communion of the visible Church of Christ according to S. Augustin saying It is not possible (e) Ep. 48. that any may have just cause to separate their Communion from the Communion of the whole world and call themselves the Church of Christ as if they had separated themselves from the Communion of all Nations upon just cause But since indeed the Church cannot erre in any one Point of Doctrin nor can approve any corruption in manners they cannot with any colour avoid the just imputation of eminent Schism according to the verdict of the same holy Father in these words The most manifest (f) De Bapt. lib. 5. cap. 1. sacriledge of Schism is eminent when there was no cause of separation 38. Lastly I prove that Protestants cannot avoid the note of Schism at least by reason of their mutual separation from one another For most certain it is that there is very great difference for the outward face of a Church and profession of a different
faith between the Lutherans the rigid Calvinists and Protestants of England So that if Luther were in the right those other Protestants who invented Doctrins far different from his and divided themselues from him must be reputed Schismatiques and the like argument may proportionably be aplyed to their further divisions and subdivisions Which reason I yet urge more strongly out of D. Potter (g) Pag. 20. who affirmes that to him and to such as are convicted in conscience of the errors of the Roman Church a reconciliation is impossible and damnable And yet he teacheth that their differnce from the Roman Church is not in Fundamental Points Now since among Protestants there is such diversity of belief that one denieth what the other affirmeth they must be convicted in conscience that one part is in error at least not Fundamental and if D. Potter will speak consequently that a reconciliation between them is impossible and damnable and what greater division or Schism can there be than when one part must judge a reconciliation with the other to be impossible and damnable 39. Out of all which premisses this Conclusion followes That Luther and his followers were Schismatiques from the universal visible Church from the Pope Christs vicar on earth and Successour to S. Peter from the particular Diocess in which they received Baptism from the Country or Nation to which they belonged from the Bishop under whom they lived many of them from the Religious Oâ—der in which they were professed from one another And Lastly from a mans self as much as is possible because the self-same Protestant to day is convicted in conscience that his yesterday's Opinion was an error as D. Potter knows a man in the world who from a Puritan was turned to a moderate Protestant with whom therefore a reconciliation according to D. Potter's grounds is both impossible and damnable 40. It seems D. Potters last refuge to excuse himself and his Brethren from Schism is because they proceeded according to their conscience dictating an obligation under damnation to forsake the errors maintained by the Church of Rome His words are Although we confess the (h) Pag. 81. Church of Rome to be in some sense a true Church and her errours to some men not damnable yet for us who are convinced in conscience that she erres in many things a necessity lies upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those errors 41. I answer It is very strange that you judge us extreamly Uncharitable in saying Protestants cannot be saved while your self avouch the same of all learned Catholiques whom ignorance cannot excuse If this your pretence of conscience may serve what Schiâ—matique in the Church what popular seditious brain in a Kingdom may not alledge the dictamen of conscience to free themselves from Schism or Sedition No man wishes them to do any thing against their conscience but we say that they may and ought to rectifie and depose such a conscience which is easie for them to do even according to your own affirmation that we Catholiques want no means necessary to Salvation Easie to do Nay not to do so to any man in his right wits must seem impossible For how can these two apprehensions stand together In the Roman Church I enjoy all means necessary to Salvation and yet I cannot hope to be saved in that Church or Who can enjoyn in one brain not crackt these Assertions After due examination I judge the Roman errors not to be in themselves fundamental or damnable and yet I judge that according to true reason it is damnable to hold them I say according to true reason For if you grant your conscience to be erroneous in judging that you cannot be saved in the Roman Church by reason of her errours there is no other remedy but that you must rectifie your erring conscience by your other judgment that her errors are not fundamental nor damnable And this is no more Charity than you daily afford to such other Protestants as you term Brethren whom you cannot deny to be in some errors unless you will hold That of contradictory Propositions both may be true and yet you do not judge it damnable to live in their Communion because you hold their errors not to be fundamental You ought to know that according to the Doctrin of all Divines there is great difference between a speculative perswasion and a practical dictamen of conscience And therefore although they had in speculation conceived the visible Church to err in some doctrins of themselves not damnable yet with that speculative judgment they might and ought to have entertained this practical dictamen that for Points nor substantial to Faith they neither were bound nor lawfully could break the bond of Charity by breaking unity in God's Church You say that hay and stubble (i) Pag. 155. and such unprofitable stuffe as are corruptions in Points not fundamental laid on the roof destroyes not the house whilst the main pillars are standing on the foundation And you would think him a mad man who to be rid of such stuffe would set his house on fire that so he might walk in the light as you teach that Luther was obliged to forsake the house of God for an unnecessary light not without a combustion formidable to the whole Christian world rather than bear with some errors which did not destroy the foundation of Faith And as for others who entred in at the breach first made by Luther they might and ought to have guided their consciences by that most reasonable rule of Vincentius Lyrinensis delivered in these words Indeed it is a matter of great (k) Adv. haeres c. 27. moment and both most profitable to be learned and necessary to be remembred and which we ought again and again to illustrate and inculcate with weighty heaps of examples that almost all Catholiques may know that they ought to receive the Doctors with the Church and not forsake the Faith of the Church with the Doctors And much less should they forsake the Faith of the Church to follow Luther Calvin and such other Novellists Moreover though your first Reformers had conceived their own opinions to be true yet they might and ought to have doubted whether they were certain because your self affirm That Infallibility was not promised to any particular Persons or Churches And since in cases of uncertainties we are not to leave our Superiour nor cast off his obedience or publiquely oppose his Decrees your Reformers might easily have found a safe way to satisfie their zealous conscience without a publique breach especially if with this their uncertainty we call to minde the peaceable possession and prescription which by the confession of your own Brethren the Church and Pope of Rome did for many Ages enjoy I wish you would examine the works of your Brethren by the words your self set down to free S. Cyprian from Schism every syllable of which words convinceth Luther and his
Copartners to be guilty of that crime and sheweth in what manner they might with great ease and quietness have rectified their consciences about the pretended errors of the Church S. Cyprian say you was a peaceable (l) Pag. 124. and modest man dissented from others in his judgement but without any breach of Charity condemned no man much less any Church for the contrary opinion He believed his own Opinion to be true but believed not that it was necessary and therefore did not proceed rashly and peremptorily to censure others but lest them to their liberty Did your Reformers imitate this manner of proceeding Did they censure no man much less any Church S. Cyprian believed his own Opinion to be true but believed not that it was necessary and THEREFORE did not proceed rashly and peremptorily to censure others You believe the Points wherein Luther differs from us not to be fundamental or necessary and why do you not thence infer the like THEREFORE he should not have proceeded to censure others In a word since their disagreement from us concerned only Points which were not fundamental they should have believed that they might have been deceived as well as the whole visible Church which you say may erre in such Points and therefore their Doctrins being not certainly true and certainly not necessary they could not give sufficient cause to depart from the Communion of the Church 42. In other places you write so much as may serve us to prove that Luther and his followers ought to have deposed and rectified their consciences As for example when you say When the Church (m) Pag. 105. hath declared herself in any matter of opinion or of rites her declaration obliges all her children to peace and external obedience Nor is it fit or lawful for any private man to oppose his judgment to the publique as Luther and his fellows did He may offer his opinion to be considered of so he do it with evidence or great probability of Scripture or reason and very modestly still containing himself within the dutiful respect which he oweth but if he will factiously advance his own conceits his own conceits and yet grounded upon evidence of Scripture and despise the Church so far as to cut off her Communion he may be justly branded and condemned for a Schismatique yea and an Heretique also in some degree and in foro exteriori though his opinion were true and much more if it be false Could any man even for a Fee have spoken more home to condemn your Predecessors of Schism or Heresie Could they have stronger Motives to oppose the Doctrin of the Church and leave her Communion than evidence of Scripture And yet according to your own words they should have answered and rectified their conscience by your Doctrin that though their opinion were true and grounded upon evidence of Scripture or Reason yet it was not lawful for any private maâ— to oppose his judgment to the publique which obligeth all Christians to peace and external obedience and if they cast off the Communion of the Church for maintaining their own Conceits they may be branded for Schismatiques and Heretiques in some degree et in foro exteriori that is all other Christians ought so to esteem of them and why then are we accounted uncharitable for judging so of you and they also are obliged to behave themselves in the face of all Christian Churches as if indeed they were not Reformers but Schismatiques and Heretiques or as Pagans and Publicans I thank you for your ingenuous confession in recompence whereof I will do a deed of Charity by putting you in minde into what Labyrinths you are brought by teaching that the Church may erre in some Points of Faith and yet that it is not lawful for any man to oppose his judgement or leave her Communion though he have evidence of Scripture against her Will you have such a man to dissemble against his conscience or externally deny a truth known to be contained in holy Scripture How much more coherently do Catholiques proceed who believe the universal infallibility of the Church and from thence are assured that there can be no evidence of Scripture or reason against her definitions nor any just cause to forsake her Communion M. Hooker esteemed by many Protestants an incomparable man yeelds as much as we have alleadged out of you The will of God is saith he to have (n) In his preface to his Bookes of Ecclesiastical Policy Sect. 6. Pag. 28. them do whatsoever the sentence of judiciall and final decision shall determine yea though it seem in their private opinion to swarve utterly from that which is right Doth not this man tell Luther what the will of God was which he transgressing must of necessity be guilty of Schism And must not M. Hooker either acknowledge the universal infallibility of the Church or else drive men into the perplexities and labyrinths of dissembling against their conscience whereof now I speak Not unlike to this is your Doctrin delivered elsewhere Before the Nicene Councel say you many (o) Pag. 132. good Catholique Bishops were of the same opinion with the Donatists that the Baptism of Heretiques was ineffectual and with the Novatians that the Church ought not to absolve some grievous sinners These errors therefore if they had gone no further were not in themselves Heretical especially in the proper and most heavy or bitter sense of that word neither was it in the Churches intention or in her power to make them such by her declaration Her intention was to silence all disputes and to settle peace and unity in her government to which all wise and peacable men submitted whatsoever their opinion was And those factious people for their unreasonable and uncharitable opposition were very justly branded for Schismatiques For us the Mistaker will never prove that we oppose any declaration of the Catholique Church c. and therefore he doth unjustly charge us either with Schism or Heresie These words manifestly condemne your Reformers who opposed the visible Church in many of her Declarations Doctrins and Commands imposed upon them for silencing all disputes and setling peace and Vnity in the government and therefore they still remaining obstinately disobedient are justly charged with Schism and Heresie And it is to be observed that you grant the Donatists to have been very justly branded for Schismatiques although their opposition against the Church did concerne as you hold a Point not Fundamental to the Faith and which according to S. Augustin cannot be proved out of Scripture alone and therefore either doth evidently convince that the Church is universally infallible even in Points not Fundamental or else that it is Schism to oppose her Declarations in those very things wherein she may erre and consequently that Luther and his fellowes were Schismatiques by opposing the visible Church of Points not Fundamental though it were untruly supposed that she erred in such Points But by the
Mat. 18. the Church let him be to thee as a Pagan or Publican And He (b) Luk. 10.16 that despiseth you despiseth me We heard above Optatus Milevitanus saying to Parmenianus that both he and all those other who continued in the Schism begun by Majorinus did inherit their Fore-fathers Schism and yet Parmenianus was the third Bishop after Majorinus in his Sea and did not begin but only continue the Schism For saith this holy Father Caecilianus (c) Lib. 1. cont Parm. went not out of Majorinus thy Grand-father but Majorinus from Caecilianus neither did Caecilianus depart from the Chair of Peter or Cyprian but Majorinus in whose Chair thou fittest which before Majorinus Luther had no beginning Seeing it is evident that these things passed in this manner that for example Luther departed from the Church and not the Church from Luther it is clear that you be HEIRS both of the givers up of the Bible to be burned and of SCHISMATIQUES And the Regal Power or example of Henry the Eighth could not excuse his subjects from Schism according to what we have heard out of S. Chrysostom saying Nothing doth so much provoke (d) Hom. 11. in ep ad Eph. the wrath of Almighty God as that the Church should be divided Although we should do innumerable good deeds if we divide the full Ecclesiastical Congregation we shall be punished no less than they who did rend his natural Body for that was done to the gain of the whole world though not with that intention but this hath no good in it at all but that the greatest hurt riseth from it These things are spoken not only to those who bear office but to such also as are governed by them Behold therefore how lyable both Subjects and Superiours are to the sin of Schism if they break the unity of Gods Church The words of S. Paul can in no occasion be verified more than in this of which we speak They who do such things (e) Rom. 1.31 are worthy of death and not only they that do them but they also that consent with the doers In things which are indifferent of their own nature Custom may be occasion that some act not well begun may in time come to be lawfully continued But no length of Time no Quality of Persons no Circumstance of Necessity can legitimate actions which are of their own nature unlawful and therefore division from Christs Mystical Body being of the number of those Actions which Divines teach to be intrinsecè malas evil of their own nature and essence no difference of Persons or Time can ever make it lawful D. Potter saith There neither was nor can be any cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself And who dates say that it is not damnable to continue a Separation from Christ Prescription cannot in conscience run when the first beginner and his successors are conscious that the thing to be prescribed for example goods or lands were unjustly possessed at the first Christians are not like strayes that after a certain time of wandring from their right home fall from their owner to the Lord of the Soil but as long as they retain the indelible Character of Baptism and live upon earth they are obliged to acknowledge subjection to Gods Church Humane Laws may come to nothing by discontinuance of time but the Law of God commanding us to conserve Unity in his Church doth still remain The continued disobedience of Children cannot deprive Parents of their parental right nor can the Grand-child be undutiful to his Grand-Father because his Father was unnatural to his own Parent The longer Gods Church is so disobeyed the profession of her Doctrin denyed her Sacraments neglected her Liturgy condemned her Unity violated the more grievous the fault grows to be As the longer a man withholds a due debt or retains his neighbours goods the greater injustice he commits Constancy in evil doth not extenuate but aggravate the same which by extension of time receiveth increase of strength and addition of greater malice If these mens conceits were true the Church might come to be wholly divided by wicked Schisms and yet after some space of time none could be accused of Schism nor be obliged to return to the visible Church of Christ and so there should remain no one true visible Church Let therefore these men who pretend to honour reverence and believe the Doctrin and practice of the Visible Church and to condemn their forefathers who forsook her and say They would not have done so if they had lived in the dayes of their Fathers and yet follow their example in remaining divided from her Communion consider how truly these words of our Saviour fall upon them Woe be to you because you build (f) Mar. 23. ver 29 c. the Prophets Sepulchers and garnish the monuments of just men and say If we had been in our Fathers dayes we had not been their fellows in the bloud of the Prophets Therefore you are a testimony to your own selves that you are the sons of them that killed the Prophets and fill up the measure of your Fathers 46. And thus having demonstrated that Luther his Associates and all that continue in the Schism by them begun are guilty of Schism by departing from the visible true Church of Christ it remaineth that we examin what in particular was that visible true Church from which they departed that so they may know to what Church in particular they ought to return and then we shall have performed what was proposed to be handled in the fifth Point 47. That the Roman Church I speak not for the present of the particular Diocess of Rome but of all visible Churches dispersed throughout the whole world agreeing in Faith with the Chair of Peter 5. Point Luther and the rest departed from the Roman Church whether that Sea were supposed to be in the City of Rome or in any other place That I say the Church of Rome in this sense was the visible Catholique Church out of which Luther departed is proved by your own confession who assign for notes of the Church the true Preaching of Gods Words and due administration of Sacraments both which for the substance you cannot deny to the Roman Church since you confess that she wanted nothing Fundamental or necessary to Salvation and for that very cause you think to clear your self from Schism whose property as you say is to cut off from the (g) Pag. 76. Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation the Church from which it separates Now that Luther and his fellows were born and baptized in the Roman Church and that she was the Church out of which they departed is notoriously known and therefore you cannot cut her off from the Body of Christ and hope of Salvation unless you will acknowledge your self to deserve the just imputation of Schism Neither can you deny her to be
truly Catholique by reason of pretended corruptions not Fundamental For your self avouch and endeavour to prove that the true Catholique Church may err in such Points Moreover I hope you will not so much as go about to prove that when Luther rose there was any other true visible Church disagreeeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular Doctrins and you cannot deny but that England in those days-agreed with Rome and other Nations with England And therefore either Christ had no visible Church upon Earth or else you must grant that it was the Church of Rome A truth so manifest that those Protestants who affirm the Roman Church to have lost the nature and being of a true Church do by inevitable consequence grant that for divers ages Christ had no visible Church on earth from which error because D. Potter disclaimeth he must of necessity maintain that the Roman Church is free from Fundamental and damnable error and that she is not cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation And if saith he any Zelols amongst us have proceeded (h) Ibid. to heavier censures their zeal may be excused but their Charity and wisdom cannot be justified 48. And to touch particulars which perhaps some may object No man is ignorant that the Grecians even the Schismatical Grecians do in most Points agree with Roman Catholiques and disagree from the Protestant Reformation They teach Transubstantiation which Point D. Potter also (i) Pag. 225. confesseth Invocation of Saints and Angels Veneration of Reliques and Images Auricular Confession enjoyned Satisfaction Confirmation with Chrism Extream Unction All the seven Sacraments Prayer Sacrifice Alms for the dead Monachism That Priests may not marry after their Ordination In which Points that the Grecians agree with the Roman Church appeareth by a Treatise published by the Protestant Divines of Wittemberg intituled Acta Theologorum Wittembergensium Jeremiae Patriarchae Constantinop de Augustana consessione c. Wittembergae anno 1584. by the Protestant (k) De statu Eccles Pag. 253. Crispinus and by Sir Edwin Sands in the Relation of the State of Religion of the West And I wonder with what colour of truth to say no worse D. Potter could affirm that the Doctrins debated between the Protestants (l) Pag. 22â— and Rome are only the partial and particular fancies of the Roman Church unless happily the opinion of Transubstantiation may be excepted wherein the latter Grecians seem to agree with the Romanists Beside the Protestant Authors already cited Petrus Arcudius a Grecian and a learned Catholique Writer hath published a large Volume the Argument and Title whereof is Of the agreement of the Roman and Greek Church in the seven Sacraments As for the Heresie of the Grecians that the Holy-Ghost proceeds not from the Son I suppose that Protestants disavow them in that error as we do 49. D. Potter will not I think so much wrong his reputation as to tell us that the Waldenses Wiecliffe Huss or the like were Protestants because in some things they disagreed from Catholiques For he well knows that the example of such men is subject to these manifest exceptions They were not of all Agesâ— nor in all Countries but confined to certain places and were interrupted in Time against the notion and nature of the word Catholique They had no Ecclesiastical Hierarchy nor Succession of Bishops Priests and Pastors They differed among themselves and from Protestants also They agreed in divers things with us against Protestants They held Doctrins manifestly abusurd and damnable heresies 50. The Waldenses began not before the year 1218. so far were they from Universality of all Ages For their Doctrin first they denyed all Judgments which extended to the drawing of bloud and the Sabbath for which cause they were called In-sabbatists Secondly they taught that Lay-men and women might consecrate the Sacrament and preach no doubt but by this means to make their Master Waldo a meer lay-man capable of such functions Thirdly that Clergy-men ought to have no possessions or proprieties Fourthly that there should be no division of Parishes not Churches for a walled Church they reputed as a Barn Fifthly that men ought not to take an Oath in any case Sixthly that those persons sinned mortally who accompanyed without hope of issue Seventhly they held all things done above the girdle by kissing touching words compression of the breasts c. to be done in Charity and not against Continency Eightly that neither Priest nor civil Magistrate being guilty of mortal sin did enjoy their dignity or were to be obeyed Ninthly they condemned Princes and Judges Tenthly they assinned singing in the Church to be an hellish clamor Eleventhly they taught that men might dissemble their Religion and so accordingly they went to Catholique Churches dissembling their Faith and made Offertoâ—ies Confessions and Communions after a dissembling manner Waldo was so unlearned that saith (m) Act. Mon. â—… Pag. 628. Fox he gave rewards to certain learned men to translate the holy Scripture for him and being thus holpen did as the same Fox there reporteth conferr the form of Religion in his time to the insallible Word of God A goodly example for such as must needs have the Scripture in English to be read by every simple body with such fruit of godly Doctrine as we have seen in the foresaid gross heresies of Waldo The followers of Waldo were like their Master so unlearned that some of them saith (n) Ibid. Fox expounded the words Joan. 1. Sui eum non receperunt Swine did not receive hâ—m And to conclude they agreed in divers things with Catholiques against Protestants as may be seen in (o) Tract 2. cap. 2. sect sâ—â—…d 3. Bâ—erely 51. Neither can it be pretended that these are slanders forged by Catholiques For besides that the same things are testified by Protâ—stant writers as Illyricus Cowper and others our Authors cannot be suspected of partiality in disfavour of Protestants unless you will say perhaps that they were Prophets and some hundred years ago did both foresee that there were to be Protestants in the world and that such Protestants were to be like the Waldenses Besides from whence but from our Histories are Protestants come to know that there were any such men as the Waldenses and that in some Points they agreed with the Protestants and disagreed from them in others And upon what ground can they believe our Author for that part wherein the Waldenses were like to Protestants and imagin they lyed the rest 52. Neither could Wickliffe continue a Church never interrupted from the time of the Waldenses after whom he lived more than one hundred and fifty years to wit the year 1371. He agreed with Catholiques about the worshipping of Reliques and Images and about the Intercession of our blessed Lady the ever Immaculate Mother of God he went so far as to say It seems to me (p) In serm de Assump Mariae
impossible that we should be rewarded without the intercession of the Virgin Mary He held seven Sacraments Purgatory and other Points And against both Catholiques and Protestants he maintained sundry damnable Doctrins as divers Protestant Writers relate As first If a Bishop or Priest be in deadly sin he doth not indeed either give Orders Consecrate or Baptize Secondly That Ecclesiastical Ministers ought not to have any temporal possessions nor propriety in any thing but should beg and yet he himself brake into heresie because he had been deprived by the Archbishop of Canterbury of a certain Benefice as all Schisms and Heresies begin upon passion which they seek to cover with the cloak of Reformation Thirdly he condemned lawful Oaths like the Anabaptists Fourthly he taught that all things came to pass by absolute necessity Fifthly he defended humane merits as the wicked Pelagians did namely as proceeding from â—atural forces without the necessary help of Gods grace Sixthly that no man is a Civil Magistrate while he is in mortal sin and that the people may at their pleasure correct Princes when they offend by which Doctrin he proves himself both an Heretique and a Traytour 53. As for Huss his chiefest Doctrins were That Lay people must receive in both kinds and That Civil Lords Prelates and Bishops lose all right and authority while they are in mortal sin For other things he wholly agreed with Catholiques against Protestants and the Bohemians his followers being demanded in what points they disagreed from the Church of Rome propounded only these The necessity of Communion under both kinds That all Civil Dominion was forbidden to the Clergie That Preaching of the Word was free for all men and in all places That open crimes were in no wise to be permitted for avoiding of greater evil By these particulars if is apparent that Husse agreed with Protestants against us in one only Point of both kinds which according to Luther is a thing indifferent because he teacheth that Christ in this matter (q) In epist ad Bohemâ—s commanded nothing as necessary And he saith further If thou come to a place (r) De utraque specie Sacram. where one only kind is administred use one kind only as others do Melancthon likewise holds it a a thing (Å¿) In Cent. epist Theol. pag. 225. indifferent and the same is the opinion of some other Protestants All which considered it is clear that Procestants cannot challenge the Waldenses Wickliffe and Husse for members of their Church and although they could yet that would advantage them little towards the finding them out a perpetual visible Church of theirs for the reasons above (t) Numb 49. specified 54. If D. Potter would go so far off as to fetch the Muscovites Armenians Georgians Aethiopians or Abissines into his Church they would prove over dear bought For they eiâ—her hold the damnable Heresie of Eutyches or use Circumcision or agree with the Greek or Roman Church And it is most certain that they have nothing to do with the Doctrin of the Protestants 55. It being therefore granted that Christ had a visible Church in all Ages and that there can be none assigned but the Church of Rome it follows that she is the true Catholique Church and that those pretended Corruptions for which they forsook her are indeed divine truths delivered by the visible Catholique Church of Christ And that Luther and his followers departed from her and consequently are guilty of Schism by dividing themselves from the Communion of the Roman Church Which is clearly convinced out of D. Potter himself although the Roman Church were but a particular Church For he saith Whosoever professes (u) Pag. 67. himself to forsake the Communion of any one member of the body of Christ must confess himself consequently to forsake the whole Since therefore in the same place he expresly acknowledges the Church of Rome to be a member of the body of Christ and that it is clear they have forsaken her it evidently follows that they have forsaken the whole and therefore are most properly Schismatiques 56. And lastly since the crime of Schism is so grievous that according to the Doctrin of holy Fathers rehearsed above no multitude of good works no moral honesty of life no cruel death endured even for the profession of some Article of Faith can excuse any one who is guilty of that sin from damnation I leave it to be considered whether it be not true Charity to speak as we believe and to believe as all Antiquity hath taught us That whosoever either begins or continues a division from the Roman Church which we have proved to be Christ's true Militant Church on earth cannot without effectâ—al repentance hope to be a member of his Triumphant Church in heaven And so I conclude with these words of blessed S. Augustiae It is common (w) Cont. Parm lib. 2. c. 3. to all Heretiques to be unable to see that thing which in the world is the most manifest and placed in the light of all Nations out of whose unity whatsoever they work though they seem to do it with great care and diligence can no more avail them against the wrath of God than the Spider's web against the extremity of cold But now it is high time that we treat of the other sort of Division from the Church which is by Heresie The ANSWER to the FIFTH CHAPTER The separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon just and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schism 1. AD § 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. In the seven first Sections of this Chapter there be many things said and many things supposed by you which are untrue and deserve a censure As 2. First That Schism could not be a Division from the Church or that a Division from the Church could not happen unless there always had been and should be a visible Church Which Assertion is a manifest falshood For although there never had been any Church Visible or Invisible before this Age nor should be ever after yet this could not hinder but that a Schism might now be and be a Division from the present visible Church As though in France there never had been until now a lawful Monarch nor after him ever should be yet this hinders not but that now there might be a Rebellion and that Rebellion might be an Insurrection against Soveraign Authority 3. That it is a point to be granted by all Christians that in all Ages there hath been a visible Congregation of faithful people Which Proposition howsoever you understand it is not absolutely certain But if you mean by Faithful as it is plain you do free from all error in faith then you know all Protestants with one consent affirm it to be false and therefore without proof to take it for granted is to beg the Question 4. That supposing Luther and they which did first separate from the Roman Church were guilty
of Schism it is certainly consequent that all who persist in this Division must be so likewise Which is not so certain as you pretend For they which alter without necessary cause the present government of any State Civil or Ecclesiastical do commit a great fault whereof notwithstanding they may be innocent who continue this alteration and to the utmost of their power oppose a change though to the former State when continuance of time hath once setled the present Thus have I known some of your own Church condemn the Low-countrey men who first revolted from the King of Spain of the sin of Rebellion yet absolve them from it who now being of your Religion there are yet faithful maintainers of the common liberty against the pretences of the King of Spain 5. Fourthly That all those which a Christian is to esteem neighbours do concur to make one company which is the Church Which is false for a Christian is to esteem those his neighbours who are not members of the true Church 6. Fifthly That all the Members of the Visible Church are by charity united into one Mystical body Which is manifestly untrue for many of them have no Charity 7. Sixthly That the Catholique Church signifies one company of faithful people which is repugnant to your own grounds For you require not true Faith but only the Profession of it to make men members of the visible Church 8. Seventhly That every Heretique is a Schismatique Which you must acknowledge false in those who though they deny or doubt of some Point professed by your Church and so are Heretiques yet continue still in the Communion of the Church 9. Eighthly That all the Members of the Catholique Church must of necessity be united in external Communion Which though it were much to be desired it were so yet certainly cannot be perpetually true For a man unjustly excommmunicated is not in the Churches Communion yet he is still a Member of the Church and divers time it hath happened as in the case of Chrysostom and Epiphanius that particular men and particular Churches have upon an overvalued difference either renounced Communion mutually or one of them separated from the other and yet both have continued Members of the Catholique Church These things are in those seven Sections either said or supposed by you untruly without all shew or pretence of proof The rest is impertinent common place wherein Protestants and the cause in hand are absolutely unconcern'd And therefore I pass to the eighth Section 10. Ad § 8. Wherein you obtrude upon us a double Fallacy One in supposing and taking for granted that whatsoever is affirmed by three Fathers must be true whereas your selves make no scruple of condemning many things of falshood which yet are maintained by more than thrice three Fathers Another in pretending their words to be spoken absolutely which by them are limited and restrained to some particular cases For whereas you say S. Austin c. 62. l. 2. cont Parm. inferrs out of the former premises That there is no necessity to divide Unity to let pass your want of diligence in quoting the 62. Chapter of that Book which hath but 23. in it to pass by also that these words which are indeed in the 11. Chapter are not inferred out of any such premises as you pretend this I say is evident that he says not absolutely that there never is or can be any necessity to divide Unity which only were for your purpose but only in such a special case as he there sets down That is When good men tolerate bad men which can do them no spiritual hurt to the intent they may not be separated from these who are spiritually good Then saith he there is no necessity to divide Unity Which very words do clearly give us to understand that it may fall out as it doth in our case that we cannot keep Unity with bad men without spiritual hurt i.e. without partaking with them in their impieties and that then there is a necessity to divide Unity from them I mean to break off conjunction with them in their impieties Which that it was S. Austin's mind it is most evident out of the 21. c. of the same Book where to Parmenian demanding How can a man remain pure being joyned with those that are corrupted he answers Very true this is not possible if he be joyned with them that is if he commit any evil with them or favour them which do commit it But if he do neither of these he is not joyned with them And presently after These two things retained will keep such men pure and uncorrupted that is neither doing ill nor approving it And therefore seeing you impose upon all men of your Communion a necessity of doing or at least approving many things unlawful certainly there lies upon us an unavoidable necessity of dividing Unity either with you or with God and whether of these is rather to be done be ye Judges 11. Irenaeus also says not simply which only would do you service there cannot possibly be any so important Reformation as to justifie a separation from them who will not reform But only they cannot make any corruption so great as is the pernitiousness of a Schism Now They here is a relative and hath an antecedent expressed in Irenaeus which if you had been pleased to take notice of you would easily have seen that what Iraeneus says falls heavy upon the Church of Rome but toucheth Protestants nothing at all For the men he speaks of are such as Propter modicas quaslibet causas for trifling or small causes divide the body of Christ such as speak of peace and make war such as strain at gnats and swallow Camels And these saith he can make no reformation of any such importance as to countervail the danger of a division Now seeing the causes of our separation from the Church of Rome are as we pretend and are ready to justifie because we will not be partakers with her in Superstition Idolatry Impiety and most cruel Tyranny both upon the bodies and souls of men Who can say that the causes of our separation may be justly esteemed Modicae quaelibet causae On the other side seeing the Bishop of Rome who was contemporary to Irenaeus did as much as in him lay cut off from the Churches unity many great Churches for not conforming to him in an indifferent matter upon a difference Non de Catholico dogmate sed de Ritu vel Ritus potiùs tempore Not about any Catholique doctrine but only a Ceremony or rather about the time of observing it so Petavius values it which was just all one as if the Church of France should excommunicate those of their own Religion in England for not keeping Christmas upon the same day with them And seeing he was reprehended sharply and bitterly for it by most of the Bishops of the world as Eusebius testifies Euseb hist l. 5. c. 24. Perron Replic 3.
l. 2. c. and as Cardinal Perron though mincing the matter yet confesseth by this very Irenaeus himself in particular admonished that for so small a cause propter tam modicam causam he should not have cut off so many Provinces from the body of the Church and lastly seeing the Ecclesiastical Story of those times mentions no other notable example of any such Schismatical presumption but this of Victor certainly we have great inducement to imagine that Irenaeus in this place by you quoted had a special aim at the Bishop and Church of Rome Once this I am sure of that the place fits him and many of his successors as well as if it had been made purposely for them And this also that be which finds fault with them who separate upon small causes implies clearly that he conceived there might be such causes as were great and sufficient And that then a Reformation was to be made notwithstanding any danger of division that might ensue upon it 12. Lastly S. Denis of Alexandria says indeed and very well that all things should be rather endured than we should consent to the division of the Church I would add Rather than consent to the continuation of the division if it might be remedied But then I am to tell you that he says not All things should rather be done but only All things should rather be endured or suffered wherein he speaks not of the evil of Sin but of Pain and Misery Not of tolerating either Error or Sin in others though that may be lawful much less of joyning with others for quietness sake which only were to your purpose in the profession of Error and practice of Sin but of suffering any affliction nay even martyrdom in our own persons rather than consent to the division of the Church Omnia incommoda so your own Christo pherson enforced by the circumstances of the place translates Dionysius his words All miseries should rather be endured than we should consent to the Churches division 13. Ad § 9. In the next Paragraph you affirm two things but prove neither unless a vehement Asseveration may pass for a weak proof You tell us first That the Doctrin of the total deficiency of the visible Church which is maintained by divers chief Protestants implies in it vast Absurdity or rather sacrilegious Blasphemy But neither do the Protestants alledged by you maintain the deficiency of the Visible Church but only of the Churches visibility or of the Church as it is Visible which so acute a man as you now that you are minded of it I hope will easily distinguish Neither do they hold that the visible Church hath failed totally and from its Essence but only from its purity and that it fell into many corruptions but yet not to nothing And yet if they had held that there was not only no pure visible Church but none at all surely they had said more than they could justifie but yet they do not shew neither can I discover any such Vast absurdity or Sacrilegious Blasphemy in this Assertion You say secondly that the Reason which cast them upon this wicked Doctrin was a desperate voluntary necessity because they were resolved not to acknowledge the Roman to be the true Church and were convinced by all manner of evidence that for divers Ages before Luther there was no other But this is not to dispute but to divine and take upon you the property of God which is to know the hearts of men For why I pray might not the Reason hereof rather be because they were convinced by all manner of evidence as Scripture Reason Antiquity that all the visible Churches in the world but above all the Roman had degenerated from the purity of the Gospel of Christ and thereupon did conclude there was no visible Church meaning by no Church none free from corruption and conformable in all things to the doctrin of Christ 14 Ad § 10. Neither is there anyr epugnance but in words only between these as you are pleased to stile them exterminating Spirits those other whom out of Courtesie you intitle in your 10. § more moderâ—te Protestants For these affirming the Perpetual Visibility of the Church yet neither deny nor doubt of her being subject to manifold and grievous corruptions and those of such a nature as were they not mitigated by invincible or at least a very probable ignorance none subject to them could be saved And they on the other side denying the Churches Visibility yet plainly affirm that they conceive very good hope of the Salvation of many of their ignorant and honest Fore fathers Thus declaring plainly though in words they denyed the Visibility of the true Church yet their meaning was not to deny the perpetuity but the perpetual purity incorruption of the Visible Church 15. Ad § 11. Let us proceed therefore to your 11. Section where though D. Potter and other Protestants granting the Churches perpetual Visibility make it needless for you to prove it yet you will needs be doing that which is needless But you do it so coldly and negligently that it is very happy for you that D. Potter did grant it 16. For What if the Prophets spake more obscurely of Christ than of the Church What if they had fore-seen that greater contentions would arise about the Church than Christ Which yet he that is not a meer stranger in the story of the Church must needs know to be untrue and therefore not to be fore-seen by the Prophets What if we have manifestly received the Church from the Scriptures Does it follow from any or all these things that the Church of Christ must be always visible 17. Besides What Protestant ever granted that which you presume upon so confidently that every man for all the affairs of his soul must have recourse to some Congregation If some one Christan lived alone among Pagans in some Countrey remote from Christendom shall we conceive it impossible for this man to be saved because he cannot have recourse to any Congregation for the affairs of his soul will it not be sufficient for such a ones salvation to know the doctrin of Christ and live according to it Such fancies as these you do very wisely to take for granted because you know well 't is hard to prove them 18. Let it be as unlawful as you please to deny and dissemble matters of faith Let them that do so not be a Church but a damned crew of Sycophants What is this to the Visibility of the Church May not the Church be Invisible and yet these that are of it profess their faith No say you Their profession will make them visible Very true visible in the places where and in the times when they live and to those persons unto whom they have necessary occasion to make their profession But not visible to all or any great or considerable part of the world while they live much less conspicuous to all ages after them
Now it is a Church thus illustriously and conspicuously visible that you require by whose splendour all men may be directed and drawn to repair to her for the affairs of their souls Neither is it the Visibility of the Church absolutely but this degree of it which the most rigid Protestants deny which is plain enough out of the places of Napper cited by you in your 9 â—h Part of this Chapter Where his words are God hath withdraw his visible Church from open Assemblies to the hearts of particular godly men And this Church which had not open Assemblies he calls The Latent and Invisible Church Now I hope Papists in England will be very apt to grant men may be so farr Latent and Invisible as not to profess their faith in open Assemblies nor to proclà im it to the world and yet not deny nor dissemble it nor deserve to be esteemed a damned crew of dâ—ssembling Sycophants 19. But Preaching of the word and administration of the Sacraments cannot but make a Church visible and these are inseparable notes of the Church I answer they are so far inseparable that wheresoever they are there a Church is But not so but that in some cases there may be a Church where these notes are not Again these notes will make the Church visible But to whom Certainly not to all men nor to most men But to them only to whom the Word is preached and the Sacraments are administred They make the Church visible to whom themselves are visible but not to others As where your Sacraments are administred and your Doctrin preached it is visible that there is a Popish Church But this may perhaps be visible to them only who are present at these performances and to others as secret as if they had never been performed 20. But S. Austin saith It is an impudent abominable detestable speech c. to say The Church hath perished I answer 1. All that S. Austin says is not true 2. Though this were true it were nothing to your purpose unless you will conceive it all one not to be and not to be conspicuously visible 3. This very speech that the Church perished might be false and impudent in the Donatists and yet not so in the Protestants For there is no incongruity that what hath lived 500 years may perish in 1600. But. S. Austin denyed not only the actual perishing but the possibility of it and not only of its falling to nothing but of its falling into corruption I answer though no such thing appears out of those places yet I believe heat of disputation against the Donatists and a desire to over-confute them transported him so far as to urge against them more than was necessary and perhaps more than was true But were he now revived and did but confront the doctrin of after-ages with that his own experience would enforce him to change his opinion As concerning the last speech of S. Austin I cannot but wonder very much why he should think it absurd for any man to say There are sheep which he knows not but God knows and no less at you for obtruding this sentence upon us as pertinent proof of the Churches visibility 21. Neither do I see how the Truth of any present Church depends upon the Perpetual Visibility nay nor upon the perpetuity of that which is past or future For what sense is there that it should not be in the power of God Almighty to restore to a flourishing estate a Church which oppression hath made Invisible to repair that which is ruined to reform that which was corrupted or to revive that which was dead Nay what Reason is there but that by ordinary means this may be done so long as the Scriptures by Divine Providence are preserved in their Integrity and Authority As a Common-wealth though never so far collapsed and over-run with disorders is yet in possibility of being reduc'd unto its Original state so long as the Ancient Laws and Fundamental Constitutions are extant and remain inviolate from whence men may be directed how to make such a Reformation But S. Austine urges this very Argument against the Donatists and therefore it is good I answer that I doubt much of the Consequence and my Reason is because you your selves acknowledge that even General Councils and therefore much more particular Doctors though infallible in their determinations are yet in their Reasons and Arguments whereupon they ground them subject to like Passions and Errors with other men 22. Lastly whereas you say That all Divines define Schism A Division from the true Church and from thence collect That there must be a known Church from which it is possible for men to depart I might very justly question your Antecedent and desire you to consider whether Schism be not rather or at least be not as well a division of the Church as from it A separation not of a part from the whole but of some parts from the other And if you liked not this definition I might desire you to inform me in those many Schisms which have hapned in the Church of Rome which of the parts was the Church and which was divided from it But to let this pass certainly your consequence is most unreasonable For though whensoever there is a Schism it must necessarily suppose a Church existent there yet sure we may define a Schism that is declare what the word signifies for Defining is no more though at this present there were neither Schism nor Church in the world Unless you will say that we cannot tell what a Rose is or what the word Rose signifies but only in the Summer when we have Roses or that in the world to come when men shall not marry it is impossible to know what it is to marry or that the Plague is not a disease but only when some body is infected or that Adultery is not a sin unless there be Adulterers or that before Adam had a Child he knew not and God could not have told him what it was to be a Father Certainly Sir you have forgot your Metaphysicks which you so much glory in if you know not that the connexions of essential predicates with their subjects are eternal and depend not at all upon the actual existence of the thing defined This definition therefore of Schism concludes not the existence of a Church even when it is defined much less the perpetual continuance of it and least of all the continuance of it in perpetual visibility and purity which is the only thing that we deny you are to prove By this time you perceive I hope that I had reason to say that it was well for you that D. Potter granted the Churches perpetual Visibility for for ought I can perceive this Concession of his is the best stake in your hedge the best piller upon which this conclusion stands which yet is the only ground-work of your whole Accusation 23. Ad § 12.47 48 49 50 51 52 53
54 55. The remainder of this Chapter to convince Luther and all that follow him to be Schismatiques affords us Arguments of two sorts the first drawn from the nature of the thing the second from D. Potters words and acknowledgements So that the former if they be good must be good against all Protestants the later only against D. Potter I will examin them all and doubt not to make it appear even to your self if you have any indifference that there is not any sound and concluding reason amongst them but that they are all poor and miserable Sophisms 24 First then to prove us Schismatiques you urge from the nature of Schism this only Argument Whosoever leave the external Communion of the visible Church are Schismatiques But Luther and his followers left the external Communion of the visible Church of Christ Therefore they are Schismatiques The Major of this Syllogism you leave naked without proof and conceive it as it should seem able enough to shift for it self The Minor or second Proposition of this Argument you prove by two other The first is this They which forsook the external Communion of all visible Churches must needs forsake the external Communion of the true visible Church of Christ But Luther and his followers forsook the external Communion of all visible Churches Therefore they forsook the external Communion of the true visible Church The Major of this Syllogism you take for granted as you have reason The Minor you prosecute with great pomp of words and prove with plenty of Reasons built upon the confessions of D. Potter Luther Calvin and other Protestants and this you do in the 12 § of this Chapter The second Argument to prove the Assumption of your Syllogism stands thus The Roman Church when Luther and his followers made the separation was the true visible Church of Christ But Luther and his followers forsook the external Communion of the Roman Church Therefore they forsook the external Communion of the true visible Church of Christ The Assumption of this Syllogism needs no proof the Proposition which needs it very much you endeavour to confirm by these Reasons 1. The Roman Church had the notes of the Church assigned by Protestants i.e. The true Preaching of the Word and due administration of the Sacraments Therefore she was the true Church The Antecedent is proved Because D. Potter confesses she wanted nothing Fundamental or necessary to salvation Therefore for the Substance of the matter she had these notes 2. Either the Roman Church was the true visible Church or Protestants can name and prove some other disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular Doctrins or else they must say There was no visible Church But they will not say There was no Church They cannot name and prove any other disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular Doctrins because this cannot be the Greek Church nor that of the Waldenses Wick ifites Hussites nor that of the Muscovites Armenians Georgians Aethiopians which you confirm by several Arguments Therefore they must grant that the Roman Church was the true visible Church And this is the business of your 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 and 55. Sections of this Chapter 25. Now to all this I answer very briefly thus That you have played the unwise builder and erected a stately structure upon a false foundation For whereas you take for granted as an undoubted Truth That whosoever leave the external communion of the visible Church are Schismatical I tell you Sir you presume too much upon us and would have us grant that which is the main point in Question For either you suppose the external Communion of the Church corrupted and that there was a necessity for them that would communicate with this Church to communicate in her corruptions Or you suppose her Communion uncorrupted If the former and yet will take for granted that all Schismatiques that leave her Communion though it be corrupted you beg the Question in your Proposition If the later you beg the Question in your supposition for Protestants you know are Peremptory and Unanimous in the Denial of both these things Both that the Communion of the Visible Church was then uncorrupted And that they are truly Schismatiques who leave the Communion of the Visible Church if corrupted especially if the case be so and Luther's was so that they must either leave her Communion or of necessity Communicate with her in her corruptions You will say perhaps That you have already proved it impossible that the Church or her Communion should be corrupted And therefore that they are Schismatiques who leave the external Communion of the visible Church because she cannot be corrupted And that hereafter you will prove that corruptions in the Churches Communion though the belief profession of them be made the condition of her communion cannot â—ustifie a separation from it therefore that they are schismaticks who leave the Churches communion though corrupted I answer that I have examined your proofs of the former and found that a vein of Sophistry runs clean through them And for the later it is so plain and palpable a falsehood that I cannot but be confident whatsoever you bring in proof of it will like the Apples of Sodom fall to Ashes upon the first touch And this is my first and main exception against your former discourse that accusing Protestants of a very great and horrible crime you have proved your accusation only with a Fallacy 26. Another is that although it were granted Schism to leave the external Communion of the visible Church in what state or case so ever it be and that Luther and his followers were Schismatiques for leaving the external Communion of all visible Churches yet you fail exceedingly of clearing the other necessary point undertaken by you That the Roman Church was then the Visible Church For neither do Protestants as you mistake make the true preaching of the Word and due administration of the Sacraments the notes of the visible Church but only of a visible Church now these you know are very different things the former signifying the Church Catholique or the whole Church the later a Particular Church or a part of the Catholique And therefore suppose out of curtesie we should grant what by argument you can never evince that your Church had these notes yet would it by no means follow that your Church were the Visible Church but only a Visible Church not the whole Catholique but only a part of it But then besides where doth D. Potter acknowledge any such matter as you pretend Where doth he say that you had for the substance the true Preaching of the Word or due Administration of the Sacraments Or where does he say that from which you collect this you wanted nothing Fundamental or necessary to Salvation He says indeed that though your Errors were in themselves damnable and full of great impiety yet he hopes
that those amongst you who were invincibly ignorant of the truth might by Gods great mercy have their errors pardoned and their souls saved And this is all he says and this you confess to be all he says in divers places of your Book which is no more than you your self do and must affirm of Protestants and yet I believe you will not suffer us to inferr from hence that you grant Protestants to have for the substance the true preaching of the Word and due administration of the Sacraments and want nothing fundamental or necessary to salvation And if we should draw this consequence from your concession certainly we should do you injury in regard many things may in themselves and in ordinary course be necessary to salvation to those that have means to attain them as your Church generally hath which yet by accident to these which were by some impregnable impediment debarred of these means may by Gods mercy be made unnecessary 27. Lastly whereas you say that Protestants must either grant that your Church then was the visible Church or name some other disagreeing from yours and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrin or acknowledge there was no visible Church It is all one as if to use S. Paul's similitude the head should say to the foot Either you must grant that I am the whole body or name some other member that is so or confess that there is no body To which the foot may answer I acknowledge there is a body and yet that no member beside you is this body nor yet that you are it but only a part of it And in like manner say we We acknowledge a Church there was corrupted indeed universally but yet such a one as we hope by Gods gracious acceptance was still a Church We pretend not to name any one Society that was this Church and yet we see no reason that can inforce us to confess that yours was the Church but only a part of it and that one of the worst then extant in the World In vain therefore have you troubled your self in proving that we cannot pretend that either the Greeks Waldenses Wickliffites Hussites Muscovites Armenians Georgians Abyssines were then the visible Church For all this discourse proceeds upon a false and vain supposition and begs another point in Question between us which is that some Church of one denomination and one Communion as the Roman the Greek c. must be always exclusively to all other Communions the whole visible Church And though perhaps some weak Protestant having this false principle setled in him that there was to be always some Visible Church of one denomination pure from all error in doctrin might be wrought upon prevailed with by it to forsake the Church of Protestants yet why it should induce him to go to yours rather than the Greek Church or any other which pretends to perpetual succession as well as yours that I do not understand unless it be for the reason which Aeneus Sylvius gave why more held the Pope above a Council than a Council above the Pope which was because Popes did give Bishopricks and Archbishopricks but Councils gave none and therefore suing in Forma Pauperis were not like to have their cause very well maintained For put the case I should grant of meer favour that there must be always some Church of one Denomination and Communion free from all errours in doctrin and that Protestants had not always such a Church it would follow indeed from thence that I must not be a Protestant But that I must be a Papist certainly it would follow by no better consequence than this If you will leave England you must of necessity go to Rome And yet with this wretched Fallacy have I been sometimes abused my self and known many other poor souls seduced not only from their own Church and Religion but unto yours I beseech God to open the eyes of all that love the truth that they may not always be held captive under such miserable delusions 28. We see then how unsuccessful you have been in making good your accusation with reasons drawn from the nature of the thing and which may be urged in common against all Protestants Let us come now to the Arguments of the other kind which you build upon D. Potter's own words out of which you promise unanswerable reasons to convince Protestants of Schism 29. But let the understanding Reader take with him but three or four short Remembrances and I dare say he shall find them upon examination not only answerable but already answered The Memorandums I would commend to him are these 30. 1. That not every separation but only a causeless separation from the external Communion of any Church is the Sin of Schism 31. 2. That Imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alleage to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome 32. 3. That to leave the Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church at least as D. Potter understands the words is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to have those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and Obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publike worship of God This little Armour if it be rightly placed I am perswaded will repel all those Batteries which you threaten shall be so furious 33. Ad § 13 14 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austine against Donatus applyed to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madness moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoyd the Communion of bad men Whereunto one fair answer to let pass many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospel as it is not is impertinently applyed to Luther and Lutherans whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties And your not substituting Luther instead of Donatus in the later part of the Dilemma as well as in the former would make a suspicious man conjecture that you your self took notice of this exception of disparity between Donatus and Luther 34. Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrin if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you do understand it is a certain truth and it is easier for you to declaim as you do than to dispute against it But these men you say must
with you and have so ordered your Communion that either we must communicate with you in these things or nothing And for this very reason though it were granted that these Protestants held this Doctrin which you impute to them And though this Errour were as damnable and as much against the Creed as you pretend Yet after all this this-parity between you and them might make it more lawful for us to communicate with them than you because what they hold they hold to themselves and refuse not as you do to communicate with them that hold the contrary 41. Thus we may answer your Argument though both your former Suppositions were granted But then for a second answer I am to tell you that there is no necessity of granting either of them For neither do these Protestants hold the failing of the Church from its being but only from its visibility which if you conceive all one then must you conceive that the Stars fail every day and the Sun every night Neither is it certain that the doctrin of the Churches failing is repugnant to the Creed For as the truth of the Article of the remission of sins depends not upon the actual remission of any mans sins but upon Gods readiness and resolution to forgive the sins of all that believe and repent so that although unbelief or impenitence should be universal and the Faithful should absolutely fail from the children of men and the Son of Man should find no faith on the earth yet should the Article still continue true that God would forgive the sins of all that repent In like manner It is not certain that the truth of the Article of the Catholique Church depends upon the actual existence of a Catholique Church but rather upon the right that the Church of Christ or rather to speak properly the Gospel of Christ hath to be universally believed And therefore the Article may be true though there were no Church in the world In regard this notwithstanding it remains still true that there ought to be a Church and this Church ought to be Catholique For as of these two Propositions There is a Church in America and There should be a Church in America the truth of the later depends not upon truth of the former so neither does it in these two There is a Church diffused all the world over and There should be a Church diffused all the world over 42. Thirdly if you understand by errors not fundamental such as are not damnable it is not true as I have often told you that we confess your errors not fundamental 43. Lastly for your desire that I should here apply an authority of St. Cyprian alleaged in your next number I would have done so very willingly but indeed I know not how to do it for in my apprehension it hath no more to do with your present business of proving it unlawful to communicate with these men who hold the Church was not alwayes visible than In nova fert animus Besides I am here again to remember you that St. Cyprians words were they never so pertinent yet are by neither of the parts litigant esteemed any rule of faith And therefore the urging of them and such like authorities serves only to make Books great and Controversies endless 44. Ad § 17. The next Section in three long leaves delivers us this short sense That those Protestants which say they have not left the Churches external Communion but only her corruptions pretend to do that which is impossible Because these corruptions were inherent in the Churches external Communion and therefore he that forsakes them cannot but forsake this 45. Ans But Who are they that pretend they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion Some there be that say they have not left the Church that is not ceased to be members of the Church but only left her corruptions some that they have not left the communion but the corruptions of it meaning the internal communion of it and conjunction with it by faith and obedience which disagree from the former only in the maner of speaking for he that is in the Church is in this kind of communion with it and he that is not in this internal communion is not in the Church Some perhaps that they left not your external communion in all things meaning that they left it not voluntarily being not fugitivi but fugati Casauâ—um in Eâ— ad Card. Perron as being willing to joyn with you in any act of piety but were by you necessitated and constrained to do so because you would not suffer them to do well with you unless they would do ill with you Now to do ill that you may do well is against the will of God which to every good man is a high degree of necessity But for such Protestants as pretend that de facto they foâ—sook your corruptions only and not your external communion that is such as pretend to communicate with you in your Confessions and Liturgies and participation of Sacraments I cannot but doubt very much that neither you nor I have ever met with any of this condition And if perhaps you were led into error by thinking that to leave the Church and to leave the external communion of it was all one in sense and signification I hope by this time you are disabus'd and begin to understand that as a man may leave any fashion or custome of a Colledge and yet remain still a member of the Colledge so a man may possibly leave some opinion or practice of a Church formerly common to himself and others and continue still a member of that Church Provided that what he forsakes be not one of those things wherin the essence of the Church consists Wheras peradventure this practise may be so involved with the external communion of this Church that it may be simply impossible for him to leave this practise and not to leave the Churches external communion 46 You will reply perhaps That the difficulty lies as well against those who pretend to forsake the Churches corruptions and not the Church as against those who say they forsook the Churches corruptions and not her external communion And that the reason is still the same because these supposed corruptions were inherent in the whole Church and therefore by like reason with the former could not be forsaken but if the whole Church were forsaken 47. Ans A pretty Sophism and very fit to perswade men that it is impossible for them to forsake any error they hold or any vice they are subject to either peculiar to themselves or in common with others Because forsooth they cannot forsake Themselves and Vices and Errors are things inherent in themselves The deceit lies in not distinguishing between a Local and a Moral forsaking of any thing For as it were an absurdity fit for the maintainers of Transubstantiation to defend that a man may Locally and properly depart from the Accidents
external communion was corrupted and needed Reformation 53. That a pretence of Reformation will acquit no man from Schism we grant very willingly and therefore say that it concernes every man who separates from any Churches communion even as much as his Salvation is worth to look most carefully to it that the cause of his separation be just and necessary For unless it be necessary it can very hardly be sufficient But whether a true Reformation of our selves from errors superstition and impieties will not justifie our separation in these things our separation I say from them who will not reform themselves and as much as in them lies hinder others from doing so This is the point you should have spoken to but have not As for the sentences of the Fathers to which you refer us for the determination of this Question I suppose by what I have said above the Reader understands by alleadging them you have gain'd little credit to your cause or person And that if they were competent Judges of this controversie their sentence is against you much rather than for you 54. Lastly whereas you desire D. Potter to remember his own words There neither was nor can be any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself and pretend that you have shewed that Luther did so The Doctor remembers his words very well and hath no reason to be ashamed of them Only he desires you to remember that hereafter you do not confound as hitherto you have done Departing from the Church i.e. ceasing to be a member of it with departing from the Churches external communion and then he is perswaded it will appear to you that against Luther and his followers you have said many things but shewed nothing 55. But the Church Universal remaining the Church Universal according to D. Potter may fall into error And from hence it cleerly followes that it is impossible to leave the external communion of the Church so corrupted and retain external communion with the Catholique Church Ans The reason of this consequence which you say is so cleer truly I cannot possibly discern But the conclusion inferr'd me-thinks is evident of it self and therefore without proof I grant it I mean that it is impossible to leave the external communion of the Catholique Church corrupted and to retain external communion with the Catholique Church But what use you can make of it I do not understand Unless you will pretend that to say a man may forsake the Churches corruptions and not the Church is all one as to say he may forsake the Churches external communion and not forsake it If you mean so sure you mistake the meaning of Protestants when they say They forsook not the Church but her corruptions For in saying so they neither affirm nor deny that they forsook the external communion of the Church nor speak at all of it But they mean only that they ceased not to be still members of the Church though they ceased to believe and practise some things which the whole Church formerly did believe and practise And as for the external Communion of the Visible Church we have without scruple formerly granted that Protestants did forsake it that is renounce the practice of some observances in which the whole Visible Church before them did communicate But this we say they did without Schism because they had cause to do so and no man can have cause to be a Schismatique 56. But your Argument you conceive will be more convincing if we consider that when Luther appeared there were not two distinct Visible true Churches one Pure the other Corrupted but one Church only Ans The ground say Histories are silent of any such matter I answer there is no necessity that you or I should have read all Histories that may be extant of this matters nor that all should be extant that were written much less extant uncorrupted especially considering your Church which had lately all the power in her hands hath been so pernitiously industrious in corrupting the monuments of Antiquity that made against her nor that all Records should remain which were written nor that all should be recorded which was done Neither secondly to suppose a Visible Church before Luther which did not err is it to contradict this ground of D. Potters that the Church may err Unless you will have us believe that May be and Must be is all one and that all which may be true is true which rule if it were true then sure all men would be honest because all men may be so and you would not make so bad Arguments unless you will pretend you cannot make better Nor thirdly is it to contradict these words The Church may not hope to triumph over all error till she be in Heaven For to triumph over error is to be secure from it to be out of danger of it not to be obnoxious to it Now a Church may be free from error and yet not secure from it and consequently in this Protestants that Luther reformed the whole Church perhaps though I know not who they be that say so by a frequent Synecdoche they may mean by the whole the greatest and most illustrious part of it the lustre whereof did much obscure the other though it were not wholly invisible Besides if their brag be evacuated as you call it let it be so I see no harm will come of it Lastly whereas you say that supposing a visible pure Church Luther must be a Schismatick who separated from all visible Churches I tell you if you will suppose a visible Church extant before and when Luther arose conformable to him in all points of doctrin necessary and profitable then Luther separated not from this Church but adjoyned himself to it Not indeed in place which was not necessary not in external communion which was impossible but by the Union of faith and charity Upon these grounds I say that the ground of this Argument is no way made certain yet because it is not manifestly false I am content to let it pass And for ought I see it is very safe for me to do so for you build nothing upon it which I may not fairly grant For what do you rupted Luther forsaking the external communion of the corrupted Câ—urch could not but forsake the external communion of the Catholique Church Well let this also be granted what will come of it What that Luther must be a Schismatique By no means For not every separation but only a causless separation from the communion of the Church we maintain to be Schismatical Hereunto may be added that though the whole Church were corrupted yet properly speaking it is not true that Luther and his Followers forsook the whole corrupted Church or the external communion of it But only that he forsook that Part of it which was corrupted and still would be so and forsook not but only reformed another Part which Part they themselves
were and I suppose you will not go about to persuade us that they forsook themselves or their own communion And if you urge that they joyned themselves to no other part therefore they separated from the whole I say it follows not in as much as themselves were a part of it and still continued so and therefore could no more separate from the whole than from themselves Thus though there were no part of the people of Rome to whom the Plebeians joyned themselves when they made their Secession into the Aventine Hill yet they divided themselves from the Patricians only and not from the whole people because themselves were a part of this people and they divided not from themselves 57. Ad § 18. In the 18. § you prove that which no man denies that Corruption in manners yeelds no sufficient cause to leave the Church yet sure it yields sufficient cause to cast them out of the Church that are after the Churches publique admonition obstinate in notorious impieties Neither doth the cutting off such men from the Church lay any necessary upon us either to go out of the world or out of the Church but rather puts these men out of the Church into the world where we may converse with them freely without scandal to the Church Our blessed Saviour foretold you say that there should be in the Church tares with choise corn Look again I pray and you shall see that the field he speaks of is not the Church but the world and therefore neither do you obey our Saviour's command Let both grow up till the harvest who teach it to be lawfull to root these tares such are Heretiques out of the world neither do Protestants disobey it if they eject manifest Hreretiques and notorious sinners out of the Church 58. Ad § 19. In the 19. you are so curteous as to suppose corruptions in your doctrin and yet undertake to prove that neither could they afford us any sufficient cause or colourable necessity to depart from them Your reason is Because damnable errors there were none in your Church by D. Potters confession neither can it be damnable in respect oferror to remain in any Churches communion whose errors are not damnable For if the error be not damnable the belief thereof cannot Ans D. Potter confesseth no such matter but only that he hopes that your errors though in themselves sufficiently damnable yet by accident did not damn all that held them such he means and saies as were excusably ignorant of the Truth and amongst the number of their unknown sins repented daily of their unknown errors The truth is he thinks as ill of your errors and their desert as you do of ours only he is not so peremptory and presumptuous in judging your persons as you are in judging ours but leaves them to stand or fall to their own Masters who is infinitely merciful and therefore will not damn them for meer errors who desire to find the truth and cannot and withal infinitely just and therefore it is to be feared will not pardon them who might easily have come to the knowledge of the truth and either through Pride or Obstinacie or Negligence would not 59. To your minor also I answer almost in your own words § 42. of this Chap. I thank you for your courteous Supposal that your Church may erre and in recompence thereof will do you a charity by putting you in mind into what Labyrinths you cast your self by supposing that the Church may erre in some of her Proposals and yet denying it lawful for any man though he know this which you suppose to oppose her judgement or leave her communion Will you have such a man dissemble against his conscience or externally deny that which he knows true No that you will not for them that do so you your self have pronouced a damned crew of dissembling Sycophants Or would you have him continue in your Communion and yet profess your Church to erre This you your selves have made to him impossible Or would you have him believe those things true which together profess your Church to erre This you your selves have made to him impossible Or would you have him believe those things true which together with him you have supposed to be Errors This is such a one as is assur'd or perswaded of that which you here suppose that your Church doth erre and such only we say are obliged to forsake your communion is as Schoolmen speak Implicatio in terminis a contradiction so plain that one word destroyeth another as if one should say a living dead man For it is to require that they which believe some part of your Doctrin false should withall believe it all true Seeing therefore for any man to believe your Church in error and profess the contrary is damnable Hypocrisie to believe it and not believe it a manifest repugnancy and thirdly to profess it and to continue in your Communion as matters now stand a plain impossibility what remians but that whosoever is supposed to have just reason to disbelieve any doctrin of your Church must of necessity forsake her Communion Unless you would remit so far from your present rigour as to allow them your Churches communion who publikely profess that they do not believe every article of her established doctrin Indeed if you would do so you might with some coherence suppose your Church in error and yet find fault with men for abandoning her communion because they might continue in it and suppose her in error But to suppose your Church in error and to excommunicate all those that believe your own supposition and then to complain that they continue not in your communion is the most ridiculous incongruity that can be imagined And therefore though your corruptions in doctrin in themselves which yet is false did not yet your obliging us to profess your doctrin uncorrupted against knowledge and conscience may induce an obligation to depart from your communion As if there were any society of Christians that held there were no Antipodes notwithstanding this error I might communicate with them But if I could not do so without professing my self of their belief in this matter then I suppose I should be excus'd from Schism if I should forsake their communion rather than profess my self to believe that which I do not believe Neither is there any contradiction or shadow of contradiction that it may be necessary for my salvation to depart from this Churches communion And that this Church though erring in this matter wants nothing necessary to Salvation And yet this is that manifest contradiction which D. Potter you say will never be able to salve viz. That there might be necessary cause to depart from the Church of Rome in some Doctrins and Practises though she wanted nothing necessary to Salvation 60. And your Reason wherewith you prove that there is in these words such a plâ—in contradiction is very notable For say you if she wanted
contempt Dissimulation Opposition Oppression of them may consist with salvation I truly for my part though I hope very well of all such as seeking all truth find that which is necessary who endeavouring to free themselves from all Errors any way contrary to the purity of Christianity yet fail of performance and remain in some yet if I did not find in my self a love and desire of all profitable truth If I did not put away idleness and prejudice and worldly affections and so examin to the bottom all my opinions of divine matters being prepar'd in mind to follow God and God only which way soever He shall lead me If I did not hope that I either do or endeavour to do these things certainly I should have little hope of obtaining salvation 62. But to oblige any man under pain of damnation to forsake a Church by reason of such errours against which Christ thought it superfluous to promise his assistance and for which he neither denies his grace here nor his glory hereafter what is it but to make the narrow way to heaven narrower than Christ left it Answ It is not for Christ himself hath obliged us hereunto He hath forbad us under pain of damnation to profess what we believe not and consequently under the same penalty to leave that Communion in which we cannot remain without this hypocritical profession of those things which we are convinc'd to be erroneous But then besides it is here falsely supposed as hath been shewed already that Christ hath not promised assistance to those that seek it but only in matters simply necessary Neither is there any reason why any Church even in this world should despair of victory over all errours pernitious or noxious provided she humbly and earnestly implore divine assistance depend wholly upon it and be not wanting to it Though a Triumph over all sin and errour that is security that she neither doth nor can err be rather to be desired than hoped for on earth being a felicity reserved for heaven 63. Ad § 21. But at least the Roman Church is as infallible as Protestants and Protestants as fallible as the Roman Church therefore to forsake the Roman Church for errours what is it but to flit from one erring Society to another Ans The inconsequence of this Argument is too apparent Protestants may err as well as the Church of Rome therefore they did so Boys in the Schools know that à Posse ad Esse the Argument follows not He is equally fallible who believes twice two to be four as he that believes them to be twenty yet in this he is not equally deceived and he may be certain that he is not so One Architect is no more infallible than another and yet he is more secure that his work is right and streight who hath made it by the level than he which hath made it by guess and by chance So he that forsakes the errours of the Church of Rome and therefore renounceth her communion that he may renounce the profession of her errours though he knows himself fallible as well as those whom he hath forsaken yet he may be certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear that he is not herein deceived because he may see the doctrin forsaken by him repugnant to Scripture and the doctrin embraced by him consonant to it At least this he may know that the doctrin which he hath chosen to him seems true and the contrary which he hath forsaken seems false And therefore without remorse of conscience he may profess that but this he cannot 64. But we are to remember that according to D. Potter the visible Church hath a blessing not to err in Fundamentals in which any private Reformer may fail therefore there was no necessity of forsaking the Church out of whose communion they were exposed to danger of falling into many more and even into damnable errours Answ The visible Church is free indeed from all errours absolutely destructive and unpardonable but not from all errour which in it is self damnable not from all which will actually bring damnation upon them that keep themselves in them by their own voluntary and avoidable fault From such errours which are thus damnable D. Potter doth no where say that the visible Church hath any priviledge or exemption Nay you your self teach that he plainly teacheth the contrary and thereupon will allow him to be no more charitable to Papists than Papists are to Protestants and yet upon this affected mistake your Discourse is founded in almost forty places of your Book Besides any private man who truly believes the Scripture and seriously endeavours to know the will of God and to do it is as secure as the visible Church more secure than your Church from the danger of erring in fundamentals for it is impossible that any man so qualified should fall into any errour which to him will prove damnable For God requires no more of any man to his Salvation but his true endeavour to be saved Lastly abiding in your Churches Communion is so farr from securing me or any man from damnable errour that if I should abide in it I am certain I could not be saved For abide in it I cannot without professing to believe your entire doctrin true profess this I cannot but I must lie perpetually and exulcerate my conscience And though your errours were not in themselves damnable yet to resist the known Truth and to continue in the profession of known errours and falsehood is certainly a capital sin and of great affinity with the sin which shall never be forgiven 65. But neither is the Church of Protestants perfectly free from errours and corruptions so the Doctor confesses p. 69. which he can only excuse by saying they are not fundamental as likewise those in the Roman Church are confessed not to be fundamental And what man of judgment will be a Protestant since that Church is confessedly a corrupted one Ans And yet you your self make large Discourses in this very Chapter to perswade Protestants to continue in the Church of Rome though supposed to have some corruptions And why I pray may not a man of judgment continue in this Communion of a Church confessedly corrupted as well as a Church supposed to be corrupted requires the belief and profession of her supposed corruptions as the condition of her Communion which this Church confessedly corrupted doth not What man of judgment will think it any disparagement to his judgment to preferr the better though not simply the best before that which is stark naught To preferr indifferent good health before a diseased and corrupted state of Body To preferr a field not perfectly weeded before a field that is quite over-run with weeds and thorns And therefore though Protestants have some Errours yet seeing they are neither so great as yours nor impos'd with such tyranny nor maintained with such obstinacy he that conceives it any disparagement to his
pardon the errours of an erring Church yet certainly it is not his will that we should err with the Church or if we do not that we should against conscience profess the errours of it 71. Ad § 24. But Schismatiques from the Church of England or any other Church with this very Answer that they forsake not the Church but the errours of it may cast off from themselves the imputation of Schism Ans True they may make the same Answer and the same defence as we do as a murtherer can cry Not guilty as well as an innocent person but not so truly nor so justly The question is not what may be pretended but what can be proved by Schismatiques They may object errours to other Churches as well as we do to yours but that they prove their accusation so strongly as we can that appears not To the Priests and Elders of the Jews imposing that sacred silence mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles Saint Peter and St. John answered They must obey God rather than men The three Children to the King of Babylon gave in effect the same answer Give me now any factious Hypocrite who makes Religion the pretence and cloak of his Rebellion and Who sees not that such a one may answer for himself in those very formal words which the holy Apostles and Martyrs made use of And yet I presume no Christian will deny but this Answer was good in the mouth of the Apostles and Martyrs though it were obnoxious to be abused by Traytors and Rebels Certainly therefore it is no good consequence to say Schismatiques may make use of this Answer therefore all that do make use of it are Schismatiques But moreover it is to be observed that the chief part of our defence that you deny your communion to all that deny or doubt of any part of your doctrin cannot with any colour be imployed against Protestants who grant their Communion to all who hold with them not all things but things necessary that is such as are in Scripture plainly delivered 72. But the forsaking the Roman Church opens a way to innumerable Sects and Schisms and therefore it must not be forsaken Ans We must not do evil to avoid evil neither are all courses presently lawful by which inconveniences may be avoided If all men would submit themselves to the chief Mufty of the Turks it is apparent there-would be no divisions yet unity is not to be purchased at so dear a rate It were a thing much to be desired that there were no divisions yet difference of opinions touching points controverted is rather to be chosen than unanimous concord in damned errours As it is better for men to go to heaven by divers ways or rather by divers paths of the same way than in the same path to go on peaceably to hell Amica Pax magis amica Veritas 73. But there can be no just cause to forsake the Church so the Doctor grants who notwithstanding teacheth that the Church may err in points not fandamental therefore neither is the Roman Church to be forsaken for such errours Ans There can be no just cause to forsake the Church absolutely and simply in all things that is to cease being a member of the Church This I grant if it will do you any service But that there can be no just cause to forsake the Church in some things or to speak more properly to forsake some opinions and practices which some true Church retains and defends this I deny and you mistake the Doctor if you think he affirms it 74. Ad § 26 27. What prodigious doctrins say you are these Those Protestants who believe that your Church erred in points necessary to salvation and for that cause left her cannot be excused from damnable Schism But others c. Prodigious doctrins indeed But who I pray are they that teach them Where does D. Potter accuse those Protestants of damnable Schism who left your Church because they hold it erroneous in necessary points What Protestant is there that holds not that you taught things contrary to the plain precepts of Christ both Ceremonial in mutilating the Communion and Moral in points of Superstition and Idolatry and most bloody tyranny which is without question to err in necessary matters Neither does D. Potter accuse any man of Schism for holding so if he should he should call himself a Schismatique Only he says such if there be any such as affirm that ignorant souls among you who had no means to know the truth cannot possibly be saved that their wisdom and charity cannot be justified Now you your self have plainly affirmed That ignorant Protestants dying with contrition may be saved and yet would be unwilling to be thought to say that Protestants err in no points necessary to salvation For that may be in it self and in ordinary course where there are means of knowledge necessary which to a man invincibly ignorant will prove not necessary Again where doth D. Potter suppose as you make him that there were other Protestants who believed that your Church had no errours Or where does he say they did well to forsake her upon this ridiculous reason because they judged that she retained all means necessary to salvation Do you think us so stupid as that we cannot distinguish between that which D. Potter says and that which you make him say He vindicates Protestants from Schism two ways The one is because they had just and great and necessary cause to separate which Schismatiques never have because they that have it are no Schismatiques For schism is always a causeless separation The other is because they did not joyn with their separation an uncharitable damning of all those from whom they did divide themselves as the manner of Schismatiques is Now that which he intends for a circumstance of our separation you make him make the cause of it and the motive to it And whereas he says Though we separate from you in some things yet we acknowledge your Church a member of the body of Christ and therefore are not Schismatiques You make him say most absurdly We did well to forsake you because we judged you a member of the body of Christ Just as if a brother should leave his brothers company in some ill courses and should say to him Herein I forsake you yet I leave you not absolutely for I acknowledge you still to be my brother and shall use you as a brother And you perverting his speech should pretend that he had said I leave your company in these il courses and I do well to do so because you are my brother so making that the cause of leaving him which indeed is the cause that he left him no farther 75. But you say The very reason for which he acquitteth himself from Schism is because he holds that the Church which they forsook is not cut off from the Body of Christ Ans This is true But can you not perceive a
cannot fall into fundamental errors because when it does so it is no longer a Church As they are certain that men cannot become unreasonable creatures because when they do so they are no longer men But for fundamental errors of the former sort which yet I hope will warrant our departure from any Communion infected with them and requiring the profession of them from such fundamental errors we do not teach so much as that the Church Catholique much less which only were for your purpose that your Church hath any protection or security but know for a certain that many errors of this nature had prevailed against you and that a vain presumption of an absolute divine assistance which yet is promised but upon conditions made both your present errors incurable and exposed you to the imminent danger of more and greater This therefore is either to abuse what we say or to impose falsely upon us what we say not And to this you presently add another manifest falsehood viz. that we say That no particular person or Church hath any promise of assistance in points fundamental Whereas cross to this in diameter there is no Protestant but holds and must hold that there is no particular Church no nor person but hath promise of divine assistance to lead them into all necessary truth if they seek it as they should by the means which God hath appointed And should we say otherwise we should contrary plain Scripture which assures us plainly That every one that seeketh findeth and every one that as keth receiveth and that if we being evil can give good gifts to our children much more shall our heavenly Father give his Spirit to them that ask it and that if any man want wisdom especially spiritual wisdom he is to ask of God who giveth to all men and upbraideth not 89. You obtrude upon us thirdly That when Luther began he being but one opposed himself to all as well Subjects as Superiors Ans If he did so in the cause of God it was heroically done of him This had been without hyperbolizing Mundus contra Athanasium and Athanasius contra Mundum neither is it impossible that the whole world should so far lie in wickedness as S. John speaks that it may be lawful and noble for one man to oppose the world But yet were we put to our oaths we should surely not testifie any such thing for you for how can we say properly without streining that he opposed himself to All unless we could say also that All opposed themselves to him And how can we say so seeing the world can witness that so many thousands nay millions followed his standard assoon as it was advanced 90. But none that lived immediately before him thought or spake as he did This is first nothing to the purpose The Church was then corrupted and sure it was no dishonour to him to begin the Reformation In the Christian warfare every man ought to strive to be foremost Secondly it is more than you can justifie For though no man before him lifted up his voyce like a trumpet as Luther did yet who can assure us but that many before him both thought and spake in the lower voyce of petitions and remonstrances in many points as he did 91. Fourthly and lastly whereas you say that many chief learned Protetestants are forced to confess the Antiquity of your Doctrin and Practise I answer Of many Doctrins and Practises of yours this is not true nor pretended to be true by those that have dealt in this Argument Search your Store-house M. Brerely who hath travailed as far in this Northwest discovery as it was possible for humane industry and when you have done so I pray inform me what confessions of Protestants have you for the Antiquity of the Doctrin of the Communion in one kind the lawfulness and expedience of the Latin-Service For the present use of Indulgences For the Popes power in Temporalities over Princes For the picturing of the Trinity For the lawfulness of the worship of Pictures For your Beads and Rosary and Ladies Psalter and in a word for your whole worship of the Blessed Virgin For your Oblations by way of Consumption and therefore in the quality of Sacrifices to the Virgin Mary and other Saints For your saying of Pater-nosters and Creeds to the honour of Saints and of Ave-Maries to the honor of other Saints besides the Blessed Virgin For the infallibility of the Bishop or Church of Rome For your prohibiting the Scripture to be read publikely in the Church in such languages as all may understand For your Doctrin of the blessed Virgin 's immunity from actual sin and for your doctrin and worship of her immaculate Conception For the necessity of Auricular Confession For the necessity of the Priests Intention to obtain benefit by any of your Sacraments And lastly not to trouble my self with finding out more for this very Doctrin of Licentiousness That though a man live and die without the Practise of Christian vertues and with the habits of many damnable sins unmortified yet if in the last moment of life he have any sorrow for his sins and joyn confession with it certainly he shall be saved Secondly they that confess some of your doctrins to have been the Doctrin of the Fathers may be mistaken being abused by many words and phrases of the Fathers which have the Roman sound when they are farr from the sense Some of them I am sure are so I will name Goulartius who in his Commentaries on S. Cyprian's 35. Ep. grants that the sentence Heresies have sprung c. quoted by you § 36. of this Chapter was meant of Cornelius whereas it will be very plain to any attentive Reader that S. Cyprian speaks there of himself Thirdly though some Protestants confess some of your Doctrin to be Ancient yet this is nothing so long as it is evident even by the confession of all sides that many errors I instance in that of the Millenaries and the communicating of Insants were more ancient Not any Antiquity therefore unless it be absolute and primitive is a certain sign of true Doctrin For if the Church were obnoxious to corruption as we pretend it was who can possibly warrant us that part of this corruption might not get in and prevail in the 5. or 4. or 3. or 2. age Especially seeing the Apostles assure us that the mystery of iniquity was working though more secretly even in their times If any man ask How could it become universal in so short a time Let him tell me how the Errour of the Millenaries and the communicating of Infants became so soon universal and then he shall acknowledge what was done in some was possible in others Lastly to cry quittance with you as there are Protestants who confess the antiquity but always post-nate to Apostolique of some poynts of your Doctrin so there want not Papists who acknowledge as freely the Novelty of many of them and the
seems to me to imply the contradiction of the first For to say That the Sacriledge of Schism is eminent when there is no cause of separation implies to my understanding that there may be a cause of Separation Now in the first he says plainly That this is impossible Neither doth any reconciliation of his words occurre to me but only this that in the former he speaks upon supposition that the Publique service of God wherein men are to communicate is unpolluted and no unlawful thing practiced in their communion which was so true of their communion that the Donatists who separated did not deny it And to make this answer no improbable evasion it is observable out of S. Austin and Optatus that though the Donatists at the beginning of their Separation pretended no cause of it but only that the men from whom they separated were defiled with the contagion of Traditors yet afterwards to make the continuance of it more justifiable they did invent and spread abroad this calumny against Catholiques that they set pictures upon their altars which when S. Austin comes to Answer he does not deny the possibility of the thing for that had been to deny the Catholique Church to be made up of men all which had free-will to evil and therefore might possibly agree in doing it and had he denyed this the Action of after-Ages had been his refutation Neither does he say as you would have done that it was true they placed pictures there and moreover worshipped them but yet not for their own sakes but for theirs who were represented by them Neither does he say as you do in this Chapter that though this were granted a Corruption yet were they not to separate for it What then does he Certainly nothing else but abhorr the thing and deny the imputation Which way of answering does not I confess plainly shew but yet it somewhat intimates that he had nothing else to answer and that if he could not have denyed this he could not have denyed the Donatists separation from them to have been just If this Answer to this litle Argument seem not sufficient I add moreover that if it be applyed to Luther's separation it hath the common fault of all your Allegations out of Fathers Impertinence For it is one thing to separate from the communion of the whole world another to separate form all the Communions in the world One thing to divide from them who are united among themselves another to divide from them who are divided among themselves Now the Donatists separated from the whole world of Christians united in one Communion professing the same Faith serving God after the same maner which was a very great Argument that they could not have just cause to leave them according to that of Tertullian Variâsse debuer at error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unum est non est Erratum sed Traditum But Luther and his followers did not so The world I mean of Christians and Catholiques was divided and subdivided long before he divided from it and by their divisions had much weakned their own authority and taken away from you this plea of S. Austin which stands upon no other Foundation but the Unity of the whole worlds Communion 102. Ad § 38. If Luther were in the right most certain those Protestants that differed from him were in the wrong But that either he or they were Schismatiques it follows not Or if it does then either the Jesuits are Schismatiques from the Dominicans or they from the Jesuits The Canonists from the Jesuits or the Jesuits from the Canonists The Scotists from the Thomists or they from the Scotists The Franciscans from the Dominicans or the Dominicans from the Franciscans For between all these the world knows that in point of Doctin there is a plain and irreconcileable contradiction and therefore one Part must be in error at least not Fundamental Thus your Argument returns upon your self and if it be good proves the Roman Church in a manner to be made up of Schismatiques But the answer to it is that it begges this very false and vain Supposition That whosoever in any point of doctrin is a Schismatique 103. Ad § 39. In the next place you number up your victories and tell us that out of these premises this conclusion follows That Luther and his followers were Schismatiques from the Visible Church the Pope the Diocess wherein they were baptized from the Bishop under whom they lived from the Countrey to which they belonged from their Religious order wherein they were professed from one another and lastly from a mans self Because the self same Protestant is convicted to day that his yesterdayes opinion was an error To which I Answer that Luther and his followers separated from many of these in some opinions and practices But that they did it without cause which only can make them Schismatiques that was the only thing you should have prov'd and to that you have not urged one reason of any moment All of them for weight and strength were cosen-germans to this pretty device wherewith you will prove them Schismatiques from themselves because the self same Protestant to day is convicted in conscience that his yesterdayes opinion was an error It seems then that they that hold errors must hold them fast and take special care of being convicted in conscience that they are in error for fear of being Schismatiques Protestants must continue Protestants and Puritans Puritans and Papists Papists nay Jewes and Turks and Pagans must remain Jews and Turks and Pagans and go on constantly to the Devil or else forsooth they must be Schismatiques and that from themselves And this perhaps is the cause that makes Papists so obstinate not only in their common superstition but also in adhering to the proper phancies of their several Sects so that it is a miracle to hear of any Jesuit that hath forsaken the opinion of the Jesuits or any Dominican that hath chang'd his for the Jesuits Whithout question this Gentleman my adversary knows none such or else methinks he should not have objected it to D. Potter That he knew a man in the world who from a Puritan was turned to a moderate Protestant which is likely to be true But sure if this be all his fault he hath no reason to be ashamed of his acquaintance For possibly it may be a fault to be in errour because many times it proceeds from a fault But sure the forsaking of errour cannot be a sin unless to be in errour be a vertue And therefore to do as you do to damn men for false opinions and to call them Schismatiques for leaving them to make pertinacy in errour that is an unwillingness to be convicted or a resolution not to be convicted the form of Heresie and to find fault with men for being convicted in conscience that they are in error is the most incoherent and contradictious injustice that ever was heard of But Sir
it an act of humility to do so Many more would have been had they with liberty and indifference of judgement examined the grounds of the Religion which they profess But to think that all the Learned of your side are actually convinc'd of errors in your Church and yet will not forsake the profession of them this is so great an uncharitableness that I verily believe D. Potter abhorres it Your next falshood is That the Doctor affirms that you Catholiques want no means of Salvation and that he judges the Roman errors not to be in themselves fundamental or damnaâ—le Which calumny I have very often confuted and in this very place it is confuted by D. Potter and confessed by your self For in the beginning of this Answer you tell us that the Doctor avouches of all Catholiques whom ignorance cannot excuse that they cannot be saved Certainly then he must needs esteem them to want something necessary to Salvation And then in the Doctor 's saying it is remarkable that he confesses your errors to some men not damnable which cleerly imports that according to his judgement they were damnable in themselves though by accident to them who lived and died in invincible ignorance and with repentance they might prove not damnable A Third is that these Assertions the Roman Errors are in themselves not damnable and yet it is damnable for me who know them to be errors to hold and confess them are absolutely inconsistent which is false for be the matter what it will yet for a man to tell a lie especially in matter of Religion cannot but be damnable How much more then to go on in a course of lying by professing to believe these things divine Truths which he verily believes to be falshoods and fables A fourth is that if we erred in thinking that your Church holds errors this error or erroneous conscience might be rectified and deposed by judging those errors not damnable For what repugnance is there between these two Suppositions that you do hold some errors and that they are not damnable And if there be no repugnance between them how can the belief of the later remove or destroy or it be erroneous rectifie the belief of the former Nay seeing there is a manifest consent between them how can it be avoided but the belief of the later will maintain and preserve the belief of the former For who can conjoyn in one brain not crackt pardon me if I speak to you in your own words these Assertions In the Roman Church there are errors not damnable and In the Roman Church there are no errors at all Or what sober understanding would ever think this a good collection I esteem the errors of the Roman Church not damnable therefore I do amiss to think that she erres at all If therefore you would have us alter our judgement that your Church is erroneous your only way is to shew your doctrin consonant at least not evidently repugnant to Scripture and Reason For as for this device this short cut of perswading our selves that you hold no errors because we believe your errors are not damnable assure your self it will never hold 106. A fifth falshood is That we daily do this favour for Protestants you must mean if you speak consequently to judge they have no errors because we judge they have none damnable Which the world knows to be most untrue And for our continuing in their communion notwithstanding their errors the justification hereof is not so much that their errors are not damble as that they require not the belief and profession of these errors among the conditions of their communion Which puts a main difference between them and you because we may continue in their communion without professing to believe their opinions but in yours we cannot A fixt is that according to the Doctrin of all Divines there is any difference between a Speculative Perswasion of conscience of the unlawfulness of any thing and a Practical Dictamen that the same thing is unlawful For these are but diverse words signifying the same thing neither is such perswasion wholly speculative but tending to practice nor such a dictamen wholly practical but grounded upon speculation A seventh is That Protestants did only conceive in speculation that the Church of Rome erred in some doctrins and had not also a practical dictamen that it was damnable for them to continue in the profession of these errors An eighth is that it is not lawful to separate from any Churches communion for errors not appertaning to the substance of Faith Which is not universally true but with this exception unless that Church requires the belief and profession of them The ninth is that D. Potter teacheth that Luther was bound to forsake the house of God for an unnecessary light Confuted manifestly by D. Potter in this very place for by the house of God you mean the Roman Church and of her the Doctor saies That a necessity did lie upon him even under pain of damnation to forsake the Church of Rome in her errors This sure is not to say that he was obliged to forsake her for an unnecessary light The tenth is covertly vented in your intimation That Luther and his followers were the proper cause of the Christian worlds Combustion Whereas indeed the true cause of this lamentable effect was your violent persecution of them for serving God according to their conscience which if it be done to you you condemn of horrible impiety and therefore may not hope to be excused if you do it to others 107. The eleventh is that our first reformers ought to have doubted whether their opinions were certain Which is to say that they ought to have doubted of the certainty of Scripture which in formal and express terms contains many of these opinions And the reason of this assertion is very vain for though they had not an absolute infallibility promised unto them yet may they be of some things infallibly certain As Euclide sure was not infallible yet was he certain enough that twice two were four and that every whole was greater than a part of that whole And so though Calvin and Melancthon were not infallible in all things yet they might and did know well enough that your Latine Service was condemned by Saint Paul and that the Communion in both kinds was taught by our Saviour The twelfth and last is this that your Church was in peaceable possession you must mean of her Doctrin and the Professors of it and enjoyed prescription for many ages For besides that Doctrin is not a thing that may be possessed And the professors of it were the Church it self and in nature of possessors If we speak improperly rather than the thing possessed with whom no man hath reason to be offended if they think fit to quit their own possession I say that the possession which the governours of your Church held for some ages of the party governed was not peaceable but got
by fraud and held by violence 108. These are the Falshoods which in this Answer offer themselves to any attentive Reader and that which remains is meer impertinence As first that a pretence of conscience will not serve to justifie Separation from being Schismatical Which is true but little to the purpose seeing it was not an erroneous perswasion much less an Hypocritical pretence but a true and well grounded conviction of conscience which D. Potter alleaged to justifie Protestants from being Schismatical And therefore though seditious men in Church and State may pretend conscience for a cloak of their rebellion yet this I hope hinders not but that an honest man ought to obey his rightly informed conscience rather than the unjust commands of his tyrannous Superiours Otherwise With what colour can you defend either your own refusing the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy or the ancient Martyrs and Apostles and Prophets who oftentimes disobeyed the commands of men in authority and for their disobedience made no other but this Apology We must obey God rather than men It is therefore most apparent that this answer must be meerly impertinent seeing it will serve against the Martyrs and Apostles and Prophets and even against your selves as well as against Protestants To as little purpose is your rule out of Lyrinensis against them that followed Luther seeing they pretend and are ready to justifie that they forsook not with the Doctors the faith but only the corruption of the Church As vain altogether is that which followes That in cases of uncertainty we are not to leave our Superiour or cast off his obedience nor publiquely oppose his decrees From whence it will follow very evidently that seeing it is not a matter of faith but disputed question amongst you Whether the Oath of Allegeance be lawful that either you acknowledge not the King your Superior or do against conscience in opposing his and the Kingdoms decree requiring the taking of this Oath This good use I say may very fairly be made of it and is by men of your religion But then it is so far from being a confutation that it is rather a confirmation of D. Potter's assertion For he that useth these words Doth he not plainly import and such was the case of Protestants that we are to leave our Superiours to cast off obedience to them and publiquely to oppose their Decrees when we are certain as Protestants were that what they command God doth countermand Lastly S. Cyprians example is against Protestants impertinently and even ridiculously alleadged For what if S. Cyprian holding his opinion true but not necessary condemned no man much less any Church for holding the contrary Yet me thinks this should lay no obligation upon Luther to do so likwise seeing he held his own opinions not only true but also necessary and the doctrin of the Roman Church not only false but damnable And therefore seeing the condition and state of the parties censured by S. Cyprian and Luther was so different no marvel though their censures also were different according to the supposed merit of the parties delinquent For as for your obtruding again upon us That we believe the points of difference not Fundamental or necessary you have been often told that it is a Calumny We hold your errors as damnable in themselves as you do ours only by accident through invincible ignorance we hope they are not unpardonable and you also profess to think the same of ours 109. Ad § 42. The former part of this discourse grounded on D. Potter's words p. 105. I have already in passing examined and confuted I add in this place 1. That though the Doctor say It is not fit for any private man to oppose his judgement to the publique that is his own judgement and bare authority yet he denies not but occasions may happen wherein it may be warrantable to oppose his reason or the authority of Scripture against it and is not then to be esteem'd to oppose his own judggment to the publique but the judgement of God to the judgement of men Which his following words seem to import He may offer his opinion to be considered of so he do it with evidence or great probability of Scripture or Reason Secondly I am to tell you that you have no ground from him to enterline his words with that Interrogatory his own conceits and yet grounded upon evidence of Scripture For these things are in his words opposed and not confounded and the latter not intended for a repetition as you mistake it but for an Antithesis of the former He may offer saith he his opinion to be considered of so he do it with evidence of Scripture But if he will factiously advance his own conceits that is say I clean contrary to your gloss Such as have not evident nor very probable ground in Scripture for these conceits are properly his own he may justly be branded c. Now that this of the two is the better gloss it is proved by your own interrogation For that imputes absurdity to D. Potter for calling them a mans own conceits which were grounded upon evidence of Scripture And therefore you have shewed little candour or equity in fastening upon them this absurd construction They not only bearing but even requiring another more fair and more sensible Every man ought to be presum'd to speak sense rather than non-sense coherently rather than contradictiously if his words be fairly capable of a better construction For M. Hooker if writing against Puritans he had said something unawares that might give advantage to Papists it were not inexcusable seeing it is a matter of such extream difficulty to hold such a temper in opposing one extream opinion as not to seem to favour the other Yet if his words be rightly consider'd there is nothing in them that will do you any service For though he saies that men are bound to do whatsoever the sentence of finall Decision shall determin as it is plain me are bound to yield such an obedience to all Courts of civil judicature yet he saies not they are bound to think that determination lawful and that sentence just Nay it is plain he saies that they must do according to the Judge's sentence though in their private opinion it seem unjust As if I be cast wrongfully in a suit at law and sentenced to pay an hundred pound I am bound to pay the mony yet I know no law of God or man that binds me in conscience to acquit the Judge of error in his sentence The question therefore being only what men ought to think it is vain for you to tell us what M. Hooker saies at all For M. Hooker though an excellant man was but a man And much more vain to tell us out of him what men ought to do for point of external obedience When in the very same place he supposeth and alloweth that in their private opinion they may think This sentence to which they
his judgment in this matter this express limitation of his former resolution he makes in the very same Section which affords your former quotation and therefore what Apology can be made for you and your Store-house M. Brerely for dissembling of it I cannot possibly imagine 111. D. Potter p. 131. sayes That errors of the Donatists and Novatians were not in themselves Heresies nor could be made so by the Churches determination But that the Churches intention was only to silence disputes and to settle peace and unity in her government which because they factiously opposed they were justly esteemed Schismatiques From hence you conclude that the same condemnation must pass against the first Reformers seeing they also opposed the commands of the Church imposed on them for silencing all Disputes and setling Peace and Unity in Government But this Collection is deceitful and the reason is Because though the first Reformers as well as the Donatists and Novatians opposed herein the Commands of the Visible Church that is of a great part of it yet the Reformers had reason nay necessity to do so the Church being then corrupted with damnable errors which was not true of the Church when it was opposed by the Novatians and Donatists And therefore though they and the Reformers did the same action yet doing it upon different grounds it might in these merit applause and in them condemnation 112 Ad § 43. The next § hath in it some objections against Luther's person and none against his cause which alone I have undertaken to justifie and therefore I pass it over Yet this I promise that when you or any of your side shall publish a good defence of all that your Popes have said and done especially of them whom Bellarmine believes in such a long train to have gone to the Divel then you shall receive an ample Apology for all the actions and words of Luther In the mean time I hope all reasonable and equitable judges will esteem it not unpardonable in the great and Heroical spirit of Luther if being opposed and perpetually baited with a world of Furies he were transported sometimes and made somewhat furious As for you I desire you to be quiet and to demand no more whether God be wont to send such Furies to preach the Gospel Unless you desire to hear of your killing of Kings Massacring of Peoples Blowing up of Parliaments and have a mind to be askt Whether it be probable that that should be Gods cause which needs to be maintained by such Divellish means 113 Ad § 44 45. In the two next Particles which are all of this Chapter that remain unspoken to you spend a great deal of reading and wit and reason against some men who pretending to honour and believe the Doctrin and practice of the visible Church you mean your own and condemning their Forefathers who forsook her say they would not have done so yet remain divided from her Communion Which men in my judgment cannot be defended For if they believe the Doctrin of your Church then must they believe this doctrin that they are to return to your Communion And therefore if they do not so it cannot be avoided but they must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so I leave them only I am to remember you that these men cannot pretend to be Protestants because they pretend to believe your Doctrin which is opposite in Diameter unto the doctrin of Protestants and therefore in a Work which you profess to have written meerly against Protestants all this might have been spared CHAP. VI. That Luther and the rest of Protestants have added Heresie unto Schism BEcause Vice is best known by the contrary Vertue we cannot well determine what Heresie is nor who be Heretiques but by the opposite vertue of Faith whose Nature being once understood as far as belongs to our present purpose we shall pass on with ease to the definition of heresie and so be able to discern who be Heretiques And this I intend to do not by entring into such particular Questions as are controverted between Catholiques and Protestants but only by applying some general grounds either already proved or else yielded to on all sides 2 Almighty God having ordained Man to a supernatural End of Beatitude by supernatural means it was requisite that his understanding should be enabled to apprehend that End and Means by a supernatural knowledge And because if such a knowledge were no more than probable it could not be able sufficiently to overbear our will and encounter with human probabilities being backed with the strength of flesh and blood It was further necessary that this supernatural knowledge should be most certain and infallible and that Faith should believe nothing more certainly than that it self is a most certain Belief and so be able to bear down all gay probabilities of humane Opinion And because the aforesaid means and end of Beatifical Vâ—sion do fat exceed the reach of natural wit the certainty of faith could not always be joyned with such evidence of reason as is wont to be found in the Principles or Conclusions of humane natural Sciences that so all flesh might not glory in the arm of flesh but he who glories should glory (a) 2 Cor. 1â— in our Lord. Moreover it was expedient that our belief or assent to divine truths should not only be unknown or inevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it self and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernatural evidence that so we might have occasion to actuate and testifie the obedience which we ow to our God not only by submitting our will to his Will and Commands but by subjecting also our Understanding to his Wisdom and words captivating as the Apostle speaks the same Understanding (b) 2 Cor. 10.5 to the Obedience of Faith Which occasion had been wanting if Almighty God had made clear to us the truths which now are certainly but not evidently presented to our minds For where truth doth manifestly open it self not obedience but necessity commands our assent For this reason Divines teach that the Objects of faith being not evident to humane reason it is in mans power not only to abstain from believing by suspending our Judgments or exercising no act one way or other but also to disbelieve that is to believe the contrary of that which faith proposeth as the example of innumerable Arch-heretiques can bear witness This obscurity of faith we learn from holy Scripture according to those words of the Apostle Faith is the (c) Heb. 11. substance of things to be hoped for the argument of things not appearing And We see by a glass (d) 1 Cor. 13. in a dark manner but then face to face And accordingly S. Peter faith Which you do well attending unto as to (e) 2 Pet. 1.19 a Candle shining in a dark place 3 Faith being then obscure whereby it differeth from natural Sciences and yet being
no wonder that no one can be excused from deadly and damnable sin for if voluntary Blasphemy and Perjury which are opposed only to the infused Moral Vertue of Religion can never be excused from mortal sin much less can Heresie be excused which opposeth the Theological Vertue of Faith 11 If any object that Schism may seem to be a greater sin than Heresie because the Vertue of Charity to which Schism is opposite is greater than Faith according to the Apostle saying Now there remain (o) 1 Cor. 13.13 Faith Hope Charity but the greater of these is Charity S. Thomas answers in these words Charity hath two Objects one principal to wit the Divine (p) 2.2 q. 39. ar 2. in corp ad 3. Goodness and another secondary namely the good of our Neighbour But Schism and other sins which are committed against our Neighbour are opposite to Charity in respect of this secondary good which is less than the object of Faith which is God as he is the Prime Verity on which Faith doth relie and therefore these sins are less than Infidelity He takes Infidelity after a general manner as it comprehends Heresie and other vices against Faith 12 Having therefore sufficiently declared wherein Heresie consists Let us come to prove that which we proposed in this Chapter Where I desire it be still remembred That the visible Catholique Church cannot err damnably as D. Potter confesseth And that when Luther appeared there was no other visible true Church of Christ disagreeing from the Roman as we have demonstrated in the next precedent Chapter 13 Now that Luther and his followers cannot be excused from formal Heresie I prove by these reasons To oppose any truth propounded by the visible true Church as revealed by God is formal Heresie as we have shewed out of the desinition of Heresie But Luther Calvin and the rest did oppose divers truths propounded by the visible Church as revealed by God yea they did therefore oppose her because she propounded as divine revealed truths things which they judged either to be false or humane inventions Therefore they committed formal Heresie 14 Moreover every Errour against any doctrin revealed by God is a damnable Heresie whether the matter in it self be great or small as I proved before and therefore either the Protestants or the Roman Church must be guilty of formal Heresie because one of them must err against the word and testimony of God but you grant perforce that the Roman Church doth not err damnably and I add that she cannot err damnably because she is the truly Catholique Church which you confess cannot err damnably Therefore Protestants must be guilty of formal Heresie 15 Besides we have shewed that the visible Church is Judge of Controversies and therefore must be infallible in all her Proposals which being once supposed it manifestly followeth that to oppose what she delivereth as revealed by God is not so much to oppose her as God himself and therefore cannot be excused from grievous Heresie 16 Again if Luther were an Heretique for those points wherein he disagreed from the Roman Church All they who agree with him in those very points must likewise be Heretiques Now that Luther was a formal Heretique I demonstrate in this manner To say that God's visible true Church is not universal but confined to one only place or corner of the world is according to your own express words (q) Pag. 126. properly Heresie against that Article of the Creed wherein we profess to believe the holy Catholique Church And you brand Donatus with heresie because he limited the universal Church to Africa But it is manifest and acknowledged by Luther himself and other chief Protestants that Luther's Reformation when it first began and much more for divers ages before was not Universal nor spread over the world but was confined to that compass of ground which did contain Luther's body Therefore his Reformation cannot be excused from formal Heresie If S. Augustine in those times said to the Donatists There are innumerable testimonies (r) Epist 50. of holy Scripture in which it appeareth that the Church of Christ is not only in Africa as these men with most impudent vanity do rave but that she is spread over the whole earth much more may it be said It appeareth by innumerable testimonies of holy Scripture that the Church of Christ cannot be confined to the City of Wittemberg or to the place where Luther's feet stood but must be spread over the whole world It is therefore most impudent vanity and dotage to limit her to Luthers Reformation In another place also this holy Father writes no less effectually against Luther than against the Donatists For having out of those words In thy seed all Nations shall be blessed proved that God's Church must be universal he saith Why (Å¿) De Unit. Eccles cap. 6. do you superadd by saying that Christ remains heir in no part of the earth except where he may have Donatus for his Coheir Give me this Universal Church if it be among you shew your selves to all Nations which we already shew to be blessed in this Seed Give us this Church or else laying aside all fury receive her from us But it is evident that Luther could not When he said At the beginning I was alone give us an universal Church Therefore happy had he been if he had then and his followers would now receive her from us And therefore we must conclude with the same holy Father saying in another place of the universal Church She hath this (t) Cont. lit Petil. lib. 1. cap. 104. most certain mark that she cannot be hidden She is then known to all Nations The Sect of Donatus is unknown to many Nations therefore that cannot be she The Sect of Luther at least when he began and much more before his beginning was unknown to many Nations therefore that cannot be she 17 And that it may yet further appear how perfectly Luther agreed with the Donatists It is to be noted that they never taught that the Catholique Church ought not to extend it self further than that part of Africa where their faction raigned but only that in fact it was so confined because all the rest of the Church was prophaned by communicating with Caecilianus whom they falsly affirmed to have been ordained Bishop by those who were Traditors or givers up of the Bible to the Persecutors to be burned yea at that very time they had some of their Sect residing in Rome and sent thither one Victor a Bishop under colour to take care of the Brethren in that City but indeed as Baronius (u) Anno 321. nu 2. Spond observeth that the world might account them Catholiques by communicating with the Bishop of Rome to communicate with whom was ever taken by the Ancient Fathers as an assured sign of being a true Catholique They had also as S. Augustin witnesseth a pretended (w) De Uâ—i Eccles c
3. Church in the house and territory of a Spanish Lady called Lucilla who went flying out of the Catholique Church because she had been justly checked by Caecilianus And the same Saint speaking of the conference he had with Fortunius the Donatist saith Here did he first (x) Ep. 163. attempt to affirm that his Communion was spread over the whole Earth c. but because the thing was evidently false they got out of this discourse by confusion of language whereby nevertheless they sufficiently declared that they did not hold that the true Church ought necessarily to be confined to one place but only by meer necessity were forced to yield that it was so in fact because their Sect which they held to be the only true Church was not spread over the world In which point Fortunius and the rest were more modest than he who should affirm that Luther's reformation in the very beginning was spread over the whole Earth being at that time by many degrees not so far diffused as the Sect of the Donatists I have no desire to prosecure the similitude of Protestanes with Donatists by remembring that the Sect of these men was begun and promoted by the passion of Lucilla and Who is ignorant what influence two women the Mother and Daughter ministred to Protestancy in England Nor will I stand to observe their very likeness of phrase with the Donatists who called the Chair of Rome the Chair of pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot which is D. Potter's own phrase wherein he is less excusable than they because he maintaineth her to be a true Church of Christ and therefore let him duly ponder these words of S. Augustin against the Donatists If I persecute him justly who detracts (y) Conc. super gest cum Emerit from his Neighbour why should I not presecute him who detracts from the Church of Christ and saith This is not she but this is an Harlot And least of all will I consider whether you may not be well compared to one Ticonius a Dona i st who wrote against Parmenianus likewise a Donatist who blasphemed that the Church of Christ had perished as you do even in this your Book write against some of your Protestant Brethren or as you call them Zelots among you who hold the very same or rather a worse Heresie and yet remained among them even after Parmenianus had excommunicated him as those your Zealous Brethren would proceed against you if it were in their power and yet like Ticonius you remain in their Communion and come nor into that Church which is hath been and shall ever be universal For which very cause S. Augustin complains of Ticonius that although he wrote against the Donatists yet he was of an heart (z) De doctr Christ lib. 3. cap. 30. so extremely absurd as not to forsake them altogether And speaking of the same thing in another place he observes that although Ticonius did manifestly confute them who affirmed that the Church had perished yet he saw not saith this holy Father that which in good consequence (a) Cont. Parm. l. 1. cap. 1. he should have seen that those Christians of Africa belonged to the Church spread over the whole world who remained united not with them who were divided from the communion and unity of the same world but with such as did communicate with the whole world But Parmenianus and the rest of the Donatists saw that consequence and resolved rather to settle their mind in obstinacy against the most manifest truth which Ticonius maintained than by yielding thereto to be overcome by those Churches in Africa which enjoyed the Communion of that Unity which Ticonius defended from which they had divided themselves How firly these words agree to Catholiques in England in respect of the Protestants I desire the Reader to consider But these and the like resemblances of Protestants to the Donatists I willingly let pass and only urge the main point That since Luther's Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was because so forsooth they will needs have it in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true and unsported Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O blasphemy an Harlot Moreover the same heresie follows out of the doctrin of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may err in points not fundamental because we have shewed that every errour against any one revealed truth is Heresie and damnable whether the matter be otherwise of it self great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie Besides we will hereafter prove that by any act of Heresie all divine faith is lost and to imagine a true Church of faithful persons without any faith is as much as to fancy a living man without life It is therefore clear that Donatist-like they hold that the Church of Christ perished yea they are worse than the Donatists who said that the Church remained at least in Africa whereas Protestants must of necessity be forced to grant that for a long space before Luther she was no where at all But let us go forward to other reasons 18 The holy Scripture and Ancient Fathers do assign Separation from the Visible Church as a mark of Heresie according to that of S. John They went out (b) 2. Joan. 19. from us And Some who (c) Act. 15.24 went out from us And Out of you shall (d) Act. 20.30 arise men speaking perverse things And accordingly Vincentius Lyrinensis saith Who ever (e) Lib. adversus haer c. 34. began heresies who did not first separate himself from the Universality Antiquity and Consent of the Catholique Church But it is manifest that when Luther appeared there was no visible Church distinct from the Roman out of which she could depart as it is likewise wel known that Luther and his followers departed out of her Therefore she is no way liable to this Mark of Heresie but Protestants cannot possibly avoid it To this purpose S. Prosper hath these pithy words A Christian communicating (f) Dimid temp cap. 5. with the universal Church is a Catholique and he who is divided from her is an Heretique and Antichrist But Luther in his first Reformation could not communicate with the visible Catholique Church of those times because he began his Reformation by opposing the supposed Errors of the then visible Church we must therefore say with S. Prosper that he was an Heretique c. Which likewise is no less clearly proved out of S. Cyprian saying Not we (g) Ep. 57. ad Damas departed from them but they from us and since Heresies and Schisms are bred afterwards while they make to themselves divers Conventicles they have forsaken the head and origin of Truth 19. And that we might not remain doubtful what Separation
it is which is the mark of Heresie the Ancient Fathers tell us more in particular that it is from the Church of Rome as it is the Sea of Peter And therefore D. Potter need not to be so hot with us because we say and write that the Church of Rome in that sense as she is the Mother-Church of all others and with which all the rest agree is truly called the Catholique Church S. Hierome writing to Pope Damasus saith I am in the Communion (h) Lib. 1. Apolog of the Chair of Peter I know that the Church is built upon that Rock Whosoever shall eat the Lamb out of this house he is prophane If any shall not be in the Ark of Noe he shall perish in the time of the deluge Whosoever doth not gather with thee doth scatter that is he that is not of Christ is of Antichrist And elsewhere Which doth he (i) Ibid. lib. 3. call his faith That of the Roman Church Or that which is contained in the Books of Origen If he answer The Roman then we are Catholiques who have translated nothing of the error of Origen And yet farther Know thou that the k Roman faith commended by the voyce of the Apostle doth not receive these delusions though an Angel should denounce otherwise than it hath once been preached S. Ambrose recounting how his Brother Satyrus inquiring for a Church wherein to give thanks for his delivery from shipwrack saith He called unto him (l) De obitu Satyri fratris the Bishop neither did he esteem any favour to be true except that of the true faith and he asked of him whether be agreed with the Catholique Bishops that is with the Roman Church And having understood that he was a Schismatique that is separated from the Roman Church he abstained from communicating with him Where we see the privâ—ledge of the Roman Church confirmed both by word and deed by doctrin and practice And the same Saint saith of the Roman Church From thence the Rites (m) Lib. 1. ep 4. ad Imperatores of Venerable Communion do flow to all Saint Cyprian saith They are bold (n) Epist 55. ad Cornel. to sail to the Chair of Peter and to the principal Church from whence Priestly Unity hath sprung Neither do they consider that they are Romans whose faith was commended by the preaching of the Apostle to whom falshood cannot have access Where we see this holy Father joyns together the principal Church and the Chair of Peter and affirmâ—th that falshood not only hath not had but cannot have access to that Sea And elsewhere Thou wrotest that I should send (o) Epist 52. a Copy of the same letters to Cornelius our Colleague that laying aside all sollicitude he might now be assured that thou didst communicate with him that is with the Catholique Church What think you M. Doctor of these words Is it so strange a thing to take for one and the same thing to communicate with the Church and Pope of Rome and to communicate with the Catholique Church S. Irenaeus saith Because it were long to number the succession of all Chuâ—ches (p) Lib. 3 cont haer c. 3. we declaring the Tradition and faith preached to men and coming to us by Tradition of the most great most ancient and most known Church founded by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul which Tradition it hath from the Apostles coming to us by succession of Bishops we confound all those who any way either by evil complacence of themselves or vain glory or by blindness or ill opinion do gather otherwise than they ought For to this Church for a more powerful Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithful people of what place soever in which Roman Church the Tradition which is from the Apostles hath alwayes been conserved from those who are every where Saint Augustine saith It grieves us (q) In Psal coâ—t patrâ—m Donati to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeded to whom She is the Rock which the proud Gates of Hell do not overcome And in another place speaking of Caecilianus he saith He might contemâ— the conspiring (r) Ep. 162. multitude of his Enemies because he knew himself to be united by Communicatory letters both to the Roman Church in which the Principality of the Sea Apostolique did alwayes flourish and to other Countâ—ies from whence the Gospel came first into Africa Ancient Tertullian saith If thou be neer Italy thou hast Rome whose (s) Praescr cap. 36. Authority is nâ—er at hand to us a happy Church into which the Apostles have poured all Doctrine together with their bloud Saint Basil in a letter to the Bishop of Rome saith In very deed that which was given (t) Epist ad Pont. Rom. by our Lord to thy Piety is worthy of that must excellent voyce which procâ—â—â—med thee Blessed to wit that thou mayst discern betwixt that which is counterfeit and that which is lawful and pure and without any diminution mayest preach the faith of our Ancestours Maximâ—nianus Bishop of Constantinople about twelve hundred years ago said All the bounds of the earth who have siâ—ccrely acknowledged our Lord and Catholiques through the whole world professing the true faith look upon the power of the Bishop of Rome as upon the Sun c. For the Creator of the world amongst all men of the world elected him he speaks of S. Peter to whom he granted the Chair of Dectour to be principally possessed by a perpetual right of Priviledge that whosoever is desirous to know any Divine and profound thing may have recourse to the Oracle and Doctrin of this Instruction John Patriarch of Constantinople more than eleven hundred years ago in an Epistle to Pope Hormisda writeth thus Because (u) Epist ad Hormis P. P. the beginning of salvation is to conserve the rule of right Faith and in no wise to swarve from the Tradition of our Fore Fathers because the words of our Lord cannot fail saying Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church the proofs of deeds have made good those words because in the Sea Apostolical the Catholique Religion is alwayes conserved inviolable And again We promise hereafter not to recite in the sacred Mysteries the names of them who are excluded from the Communion of the Catholique Church that is to say who consent not fully with the Sea Apostolique Many other Authorities of the Ancient Fathers might be produced to this purpose but these may serve to shew that both the Latin and Greek Fathers held for a Note of being a Catholique or an Heretique To have been united or divided from the Sea of Rome And I have purposely alleadged only such Authorities of Fathers as speak of the priviledges of the Sea of Rome as of things permanent and depending
on our Saviour's promise to S. Peter from which a general rule and ground ought to be taken for all Ages because Heaven and Earth shall (w) Mat. 24.35 pass but the word of our Lord shall remain for ever So that I here conclude that seeing it is manifest that Luther and his followers divided themselves from the Sea of Rome they bear the inseparable Mark of Heresie 20. And though my meaning be not to treat the point of Ordination or Succession in the Protestants Church because the Fathers alleadged in the last reason assign Succession as one mark of the true Church I must not omit to say that according to the grounds of Protestants themselves they can neither pretend personal Succession of Bishops nor Succession of Doctrin For whereas Succession of Bishops signifies a never-interrupted line of Persons endued with an indelible Quality which Divines call a Character which cannot be taken away by deposition degradation or other means whatsoever and endued also with Jurisdiction and Authority to teach to preach to govern the Church by laws precepts censures c. Protestants cannot pretend Succession in either of these For besides that there was never Protestant Bishop before Luther and that there can be no continuance of Succession where there was no beginning to succeed they commonly acknowledge no Character and consequently must affirm that when their pretended Bishops or Priests are deprived of Jurisdiction or degraded they remain meer lay persons as before their Ordination fulfilling what Tertullian objects as a mark of Heresie To day a Priest to morrow (x) Praescr cap. 41. a Lay-man For if here be no immoveable Character their power of Order must consist only in Jurisdiction and authority or in a kind of moral deputation to some function which therefore may be taken away by the same power by which it was given Neither can they pretend Succession in Authority or Jurisdiction For all the Authority or Jurisdiction which they had was conferred by the Church of Rome that is by the Pope Because the whole Church collectively doth not meet to ordain Bishops or Priests or to give them Authority But according to their own doctrin they believe that the Pope neither hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm which they swear even when they are ordained Bishops Priests and Deacons How then can the Pope give Jurisdiction where they swear he neither hath or OUGHT to have any Or if yet he had how could they without Schism withdraw themselves from his obedience Besides the Roman Church never gave them Authority to oppose Her by whom it was given But grant their first Bishops had such Authority from the Church of Rome after the decease of those men Who gave Authority to their pretended Successours The Primate of England But from whom had he such Authority And after his decease who shall conferr Authority upon his Successors The Temporal Magistrate King Henry neither a Catholique nor a Protestant King Edward a Child Queen Elizabeth a Woman An Infant of one hours Age is true King in case of his Predecessor's decâ—ase But shall your Church lie fallow till that Infant-King and green Head of the Church come to years of discretion Do your Bishops your Hierarchy your Succession your Sacraments your being or not being Heretiques for want of Succession depend on this new-found Supremacy-doctrin brought in by such a man meerly upon base occasions and for shameful ends impugned by Calvin and his followers derided by the Christian world and even by chief Protestants as D. Andrews Wotton c. not held for any necessary point of Faith And from whom I pray you had Bishops their Authority when there were no Christian Kings Must the Greek Patriarchs receive spiritual Jurisdiction from the Great Turk Did the Pope by the Baptism of Princes lose the spiritual Power he formerly had of conferring spiritual Jurisdiction upon Bishops Hath the Temporal Magistrate authority to preach to assoil from sins to inflict Excommunications and other Censures Why hath he not power to excommunicate as well as to dispense in Irregularity as our late Soveraign Lord King James either dispensed with the late Archbishop of Canterbury or else gave commission to some Bishops to do it And since they were subject to their Primate and not he to them it is clear that they had no power to dispense with him but that power must proceed from the Prince as Superiour to them all and head of the Protestants Church in England If he have no such authority how can he give to others what himself hath not Your Ordination or Consecration of Bishops and Priests imprinting no Character can only consist in giving a Power Authority Jurisdiction or as I said before some kind of Depuration to exercise Episcopal or Priestly functions If then the Temporal Magistrate conferrs this power c. he can nay he cannot chuse but Ordain and Consecrate Bishops and Priests as often as he conferrs Authority or Jurisdiction and your Bishops assoon as they are designed and confirmed by the King must ipso facto be Ordained and Consecrated by him without intervention of Bishops or Matter and Form of Ordination Which absurdities you will be more unwilling to grant than well able to avoid if you will be true to your own doctrins The Pope from whom originally you must beg your Succession of Bishops never received nor will nor can acknowledge to receive any Spiritual Jurisdiction from any Temporal Prince and therefore if Jurisdiction must be derived from Princes he hath none at all and yet either you must acknowledge that he hath true Spiritual Jurisdiction or that your selves can receive none from him 21. Moreover this new Reformation or Reformed Church of Protestants will by them be pretended to be Catholique or Universal and not confined to England alone as the Sect of the Donatists was to Africa and therefore it must comprehend all the Reformed Churches in Germany Holland Scotland France c. In which number they of Germany Holland and France are not governed by Bishops nor regard any personal succession unless of such fat-beneficed Bishops as Nicholas Amsfordius who was consecrated by Luther though Luther himself was never Bishop as witnesseth (y) In Millenario sexto Pag. 187. Dresserus And though Scotland hath of late admitted some Bishops I much doubt whether they hold them to be necessary or of divine Institution and so their enforced admitting of them doth not so much furnish that Kingdom with personal succession of Bishops as it doth convince them to want succession of doctrin since in this their neglect of Bishops they disagree both from the milder Protestants of England and the true Catholique Church And by this want of a continued personal Succession of Bishops they retain the note of Schism and Heresie So that the Church of Protestants must either not be universal as being confined to England Or
of the Apostles the (h) Lib. 28. cont Faust cap. 2. Church hath brought down to our days by a never-interrupted course of times and by undoubted succession of connection Now that the Reformation begun by Luther was interrupted for divers ages before him is manifest our of History and by his endeavouring a Reformation which must presuppose Abuses He cannot therefore pretend a continued Succession of that Doctrin which he sought to revive and reduce to the knowledge and practise of men And they ought not to prove that they have a Succession of doctrin because they agreee with the doctrin of the Apostles but contrarily we must infer that they agree not with the Apostles because they cannot pretend a never-interrupted succession of doctrin from the times of the Apostles till Luther And here it is not amiss to note that although the Waldeases Wickliff c. had agreed with Protestants in all points of doctrin yet they could not brag of Succession from them because their doctrin hath not been free from interruption which necessarily crosseth Succession 25 And as want of Succession of Persons and Doctrin cannot stand with that Universality of Time which is inseparable from the Catholique Church so likewise the disagreeing Sects which are dispersed throughout divers Countries and Nations cannot help towards that Universality of Place wherewith the true Church must be endued but rather such local multiplication doth more and more lay open their division and want of succession in Doctrin For the excellent Observation of S. Augustine doth punctually agree with all modern Heretiques wherein this holy Father having cited these words our of the Prophet Ezechiel (i) Cap. 24. My flocks are dispersed upon the whole face of the Earth he adds this remarkable sentence Not all Heretiques (k) Lib. de Pastorib c. 8. are spread over the face of the Earth and yet there are Heretiques spread over the whole face of the Earth some here some there yet they are wanting in no place they know not one another One Sect for example in Africa another Heresie in the East another in Egypt another in Mesopotania In divers places there are divers one Mother pride hath begot them all as our own Mother the Catholique Church hath brought forth all saithful people dispersed throughout the whole world No wonder then if Pride breed Dissention and Charity Union And in another place applying to Heretiques those words of the Canticles If thou know not (l) Cant. 1. thy self go forth and follow after the steps of the flocks and seed the kids he saith If thou know not thy self go (m) Ep. 48. thou forth I do not cast thee out but go thou out that it may be said of thee They went from us but they were not of us Go thou out in the steps of the flocks not in my steps but in the steps of the flocks nor of one flock but of divers and wandring flocks And feed thy Kids not as Peter to whom is said Feed thy sheep but seed thy kids in the Tabernacle of the Pastors not in the Tabernacle of the Pastor where there is one flock and one Pastor In which words this holy Father doth set down the Marks of Heresie to wit going out from the Church and Want of Unity among themselves which proceed from not acknowledging one supreme Visible Pastor and Head under Christ And so it being Proved that Protestants havâ—â— neither succession of Persons nor Doctrin nor Universality of Time or Place cannot avoid the just note of Heresie 26 Hitherto we have brought arguments to prove that Luther and all Protestants are guilty of Heresie against the Negative Precept of saith which obligeth 〈◊〉 under pain of damnation not to imbrace any one errour contrary to any Truth sufficiently propounded as testified or revealed by Almighty God Which were enough to make good that among Persons who disagree in any one Point of Faith one part only can be saved Yet we will now prove that whosoever erreth in any one point doth also break the Affirmative Precept of Faith whereby we are obliged positively to believe some revealed truth with an infallible and supernatural Faith which is necessary to salvation even necessitate sinis or medii as Divines speak that is so necessary that not any after he is come to the use of Reason was or can be saved without it according to the words of the Apostle Without saith (n) Heb. 11.6 it is impossible to please God 27 In the beginning of this Chapter I shewed that to Christian Catholique faith are required Certainty Obscurity Prudence and Supernaturality All which Conditions we will prove to be wanting in the belief of Protestants even in those points which are true in themselves and to which they yield assent as happeneth in all those particulars wherein they agree with us from whence it will follow that they wanting true Divine saith want means absolutely necessary to salvation The faith of Protestants wanteth Certainty 28 And first that their belief wanteth Certainty I prove because they denying the Universal infallibility of the Church can have no certain ground to know what Objects are revealed or testified by God Holy Scripture is in it self most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain means to know what Scâ—ipture is Canonical nor what Translations be faithful nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Every Protestant as I suppose is perswaded that his own opinions be true and that he hath used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer Conferring of divers Texts c. and yet their disagreements shew that some of them are deceived And therefore it is clear that they have no one certain ground whereon to relie for understanding of Scripture And seeing they hold all the Articles of Faith even concerning fundamental points upon the self same ground of Scripture interpreted not by the Churches Authority according to some other Rules which as experience of their contradictions teach do sometimes fail it is clear that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all And albeit sometime it chance to hit on the truth yet it is likewise apt to lead them to error As all Arch-heretiques believing some truths and withall divers errors upon the same ground and motive have indeed no true divine infallible faith but only a fallible humane opinion and perswasion For if the ground upon which they rely were certain it could never produce any errour 29 Another cause of uncertainty in the faith of Protestants must rise from their distinction of points fundamental and not fundamental For since they acknowledge that every error in fundamental points destroyeth the substance of faith and yet cannot determine what points be fundamental it followeth that they must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error and so want the substance of faith
though I deny that it is required of us to be certain in the highest degree infallibly certain of the truth of the things which we believe for this were to know and not believe neither is it possible unless our evidence of it be it natural or supernatural were of the highest degree yet I deny not but we ought to be and may be infallibly certain that we are to believe the Religion of Christ For first this is most certain that we are in all things to do according to wisdom and reason rather than against it Secondly this is as certain That wisdom and Reason require that we should believe those things which are by many degrees more credible and probable than the contrary Thirdly this is as certain that to every man who considers impartially what great things may be said for the truth of Christianity and what poor things they are which may be said against it either for any other Religion or for none at all it cannot but appear by many degrees more credible that Christian Religion is true than the contrary And from all these premisses this conclusion evidently follows that it is infallibly certain that we are firmly to believe the truth of Christian Religion 9 Your discourse therefore touching the fourth requisite to faith which is Prudence I admit so far as to grant 1. That if we were required to believe with certainty I mean a Moral certainty things no way represented as infallible and certain I mean morally an unreasonable obedience were required of us And so likewise were it were we required to believe as absolutely certain that which is no way represented to us as absolutely certain 2. That whom God obligeth to believe any thing he will not fail to furnish their understandings with such inducements as are sufficient if they be not negligent or perverse to perswade them to believe 3. That there is an abundance of Arguments exceedingly credible inducing men to believe the Truth of Christianity I say so credible that though they cannot make us evidently see what we believe yet they evidently convince that in true wisdom and prudence the Articles of it deserve credit and ought to be accepted as things revealed by God 4. That without such reasons and inducements our choice even of the true faith is not to be commended as prudent but to be condemned of rashness and levity 10 But then for your making Prudence not only a commendation of a believer and a justification of his faith but also essential to it and part of the definition of it in that questionless you were mistaken and have done as if being to say what a man is you should define him A Reasonable creature that hath skill in Astronomy For as all Astronomers are men but all men are not Astronomers and therefore Astronomy ought not to be put into the definition of Men where nothing should have place but what agrees to all men So though all that are truly wise that is wise for eternity will believe aright yet many may believe aright which are not wise I could wish with all my heart as Moses did that all the Lords people could Prophesie That all that believe the true Religion were able according to S. Peter's injunction to give a reason of the hope that is in them a reason why they hope for eternal happiness by this way rather than any other neither do I think it any great difficulty that men of ordinary capacities if they would give their mind to it might quickly be enabled to do so But should I affirm that all true believers can do so I suppose it would be as much against experience and modesty as it is against Truth and Charity to say as you do that they which cannot do so either are not at all or to no purpose true believers And thus we see that the foundations you build upon are ruinous and deceitful and so unfit to support your Fabrick that they destroy one another I come now to shew that your Arguments to prove Protestants Heretiques are all of the same quality with your former grounds which I will do by opposing clear and satisfying Answers in order to them 11 Ad § 13. To the first then delivered by you § 13. That Protestants must be Heretiques because they opposed divers Truths propounded for divine by the Visible Church I answer It is not heresie to oppose any truth propounded by the Church but only such a Truth as is an essential part of the Gospel of Christ 2. The Doctrins which Protestants opposed were not Truths but plain and impious falshoods Neither thirdly were they propounded as Truths by the Visible Church but only by a Part of it and that a corrupted Part. 12 Ad § 14. The next Argument in the next Particle tell us That every error against any doctrin revealed by God is damnable Heresie Now either Protestants or the Roman Church must err against the word of God But the Roman Church we grant perforce doth not err damnably neither can she because she is the Catholique Church which we you say confess cannot err damnably Therefore Protestants must err against God's word and consequently are guilty of formal Heresie Whereunto I answer plainly that there be in this argument almost as many falshoods as assertions For neither is every error against any Doctrin revealed by God a damnable Heresie unless it be revealed publiquely and plainly with a command that a I should believe it 2. D. Potter no where grants that the Errors of the Roman Church are not in themselves damnable though he hopes by accident they may not actually damn some men amongst you and this you your self confess in divers places of your Book where you tell us that he allows no hope of Salvation to those amongst you whom ignorance cannot exouse 3. You beg the Question twice in taking for granted First That the Roman Church is the truly Catholique Church which without much favour can hardly pass for a part of it And again that the Catholique Church cannot fall into any error of it self damnable for it may do so and still be the Catholique Church if it retain those Truths which may be an antidote against the malignity of this error to those that held it out of a simple un-affected ignorance Lastly though the thing be true yet I might well require some proof of it from you that either Protestants or the Roman Church must err against God's word For if their contradiction be your only reason then also you or the Dominicans must be Heretiques because you contradict one another as much as Protestants and Papists 13 Ad § 15. The third Argument pretends that you have shewed already that the Visible Church is Judge of Controversies and therefore infallible from whence you suppose that it follows that to oppose her is to oppose God To which I answer that you have said only and not shewed that the Visible Church is Judg of Controversies
And indeed how can she be Judge of them if she cannot decide them And how can she decide them if it be a question Whether she be judge of them That which is question'd it self cannot with any sense be pretended to be fit to decide other questions and much less this question Whether it have Authority to judge and decide all questions 2. If she were Judge it would not follow that she were infallible for we have many Judges in our Courts of Judicature yet none infallible Nay you cannot with any modesty deny that every man in the world ought to judge for himself what Religion is truest and yet you will not say that every man is infallible 3. If the Church were supposed infallible yet it would not follow at all much less manifestly that to oppose her Declaration is to oppose God unless you suppose also that as she is infallible so by her opposers she is known or believed to be so Lastly If all this were true as it is all most false yet were it to little purpose seeing you have omitted to prove that the Visible Church is the Roman 14 Ad § 16. Instead of a fourth Argument this is presented to us That if Luther were an Heretique then they that agreed with him must be so And that Luther was a formal Heretique you endeavour to prove by this most formal Syllogism To say the Visible Church is not Universal is properly an Heresie But Luther 's Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Whereunto I Answer first to the first part that it is no way impossible that Luther had he been the inventor and first broacher of a false Doctrin as he was not might have been a formal Heretique and yet that those who follow him may be only so materially and improperly and indeed no Heretiques Your own men out of St. Austin distinguish between Haeretici Haereticorum sequaces And you your self though you pronounce the leaders among the Arrians formal Heretiques yet confess that Salvian was at least doubtful whether those Arrians who in simplicity followed their Teachers might not be excused by ignorance And about this suspension of his you also seem suspended for you neither approve nor condemn it Secondly to the second part I say that had you not presumed upon our ignorance in Logick as well as Metaphysicks and School-Divinity you would never have obtruded upon us this rope of sand for a formal Syllogism It is even Consen-German to this To deny the Resurrection is properly an Heresie But Luther's Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Or to this To say the Visible Church is not Universal is properly an Heresie But the preaching of the Gospel at the beginning was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie For as he whose Reformation is but particular may yet not deny the Resurrection so many he also not deny the Churches Universality And as the Apostles who preached the Gospel in the beginning did believe the Church Universal though their preaching at the beginning was not so So Luther also might and did believe the Church Universal though his Reformation were but particular I say he did believe it Universal even in your own sense that is Universal de jure though not de facto And as for Universality in fact he believed the Church much more Universal than his Reformation For he did conceive as appears by your own Allegations out of him that not only the Part reformed was the true Church but also that they were Part of it who needed Reformation Neither did he ever pretend to make a new Church but to reform the old one Thirdly and lastly to the first proposition of this unsyllogistical syllogism I answer That to say the true Church is not always de facto universal is so far from being an Heresie that it is a certain truth known to all those that know the world and what Religions possess far the greater part of it Donatus therefore was not to blame for saying that the Church might possibly be confin'd to Africk but for saying without ground that then it was so And S. Augustin as he was in the right in thinking that the Church was then extended farther than Africk so was he in the wrong if he thought that of necessity it alwayes must be so but most palpably mistaken in conceiving that it was then spread over the whole earth and known to all nations which if passion did not trouble you and make you forget how lately almost half the world was discovered and in what estate it was then found you would very easily see and confess 15 Ad § 17. In the next Section you pretend that you have no desire to prosecute the similitude of Protestants with the Donatists and yet you do it with as much spight and malice as could well be devised but in vain For Lucilla might do ill in promoting the Sect of the Donatists and yet the mother and the daughter whom you glance at might do well in ministring influence as you phrase it to Protestants in England Unless you will conclude because one woman did one thing ill therefore no woman can do any thing well or because it was ill done to promote one Sect therefore it must be ill done to maintain any 16 The Donatists might do ill in calling the Chair of Rome the Chair of Pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot and yet the state of the Church being altered Protestants might do well to do so and therefore though S. Austin might perhaps have reason to persecute the Donatists for detracting from the Church and calling her harlot when she was not so yet you may have none to threaten D. Potter that you would persecute him as the Application of this place intimates you would if it were in your power plainly shewing that you are a curst Cow though your horns be short seeing the Roman Church is not now what it was in S. Austin's time And hereof the conclusion of your own book affords us a very pregnant testimony where you tell us out of Saint Austin that one grand impediment which among many kept the seduced followers of the faction of Donatus from the Churches Communion was a calumny raised against the Catholiques That they did set some strange thing upon their Altar To how many saith S. Austin did the reports of ill tongues shut up the way to enter who said that we put I know not what upon the Altar Out of detestation of the calumny and just indignation against it he would not so much as name the impiety wherewith they were charged and therefore by a Rhetorical figure calls it I know not what But compare with him Optatus writing of the same matter and you shall plainly perceive that this I know not what pretended to be set upon the Altar was indeed a Picture which the Donatists knowing how detestable a thing it
was to all Christians at that time to set up any Pictures in a Church to worship them as your new fashion is bruited abroad to be done in the Churches of the Catholique Church But what answer doth S. Austin and Optatus make to this Accusation Do they confess and maintain it Do they say as you would now It is true we do set Pictures upon our Altar and that not only for ornament or memory but for worship also but we do well to do so and this ought not to trouble you or affright you from our Communion What other answer your Church could now make to such an objection is very hard to imagine And therefore were your Doctrin the same with the Doctrin of the Fathers in this point they must have answered so likewise But they to the contrary not only deny the crime but abhorr and detest it To little purpose therefore do you hunt after these poor shadows of resemblances between us and the Donatists unless you could shew an exact resemblance between the present Church of Rome and the ancient which seeing by this and many other particulars it is demonstrated to be impossible that Church which was then a Virgin may be now a Harlot and that which was detraction in the Donatists may be in Protestants a just accusation 17 As ill success have you in comparing D. Potter with Tyconius whom as S. Austin finds fault with for continuing in the Donatists separation having forsaken the ground of it the Doctrin of the Churches perishing so you condemn the Doctor for continuing in their communion who hold as you say the very same Heresie But if this were indeed the Doctrin of the Donatists how is it that you say presently after that the Protestants who hold the Church of Christ perished were worse than Donatists who said that the Church remained at least in Africa These things me-thinks hang not well together But to let this pass The truth is this difference for which you would fain raise such a horrible dissention between D. Potter and his Brethren if it be well considered is only in words and the manner of expression They affirming only that the Church perished from its integrity and fell into many corruptions which he denies not And the Doctor denying only that it fell from its essence and became no Church at all which they affirm not 18 These therefore are but velitations and you would seem to make but small account of them But the main point you say is that since Luther 's Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O Blasphemy an Harlot By which words it seems you are resolute perpetually to confound True and Unspotted and to put no difference between a corrupted Church and none at all But what is this but to make no difference between a diseased and a dead man Nay what is it but to contradict your selves who cannot deny but that sins are as great stains and spots and deformities in the sight of God as errours and confess your Church to be a congregation of men whereof every particular not one excepted and consequently the generality which is nothing but a collection of them is polluted and defiled with sin You proceed 19 But say you The same heresie follows out of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may err in points not fundamental because we have shewed that every error against any revealed truth is Heresie and Damnable whether the matter be great or small And how can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain damnable Heresie Besides we will hereafter prove that by every act of Heresie all divine faith is lost and to maintain a true Church without any faith is to fancy a living man without life Answ What you have said before hath been answered before and what you shall say hereafter shall be confuted hereafter But if it be such a certain ground that every error against any one revealed truth is a damnable Heresie then I hope I shall have your leave to subsume That the Dominicans in your account must hold a damnable heresie who hold an error against the immaculate Conception which you must needs esteem a revealed truth or otherwise why are you so urgent and importunate to have it defined seeing your rule is Nothing may be defined unless it be first revealed But without your leave I will make bold to conclude that if either that or the contrary assertion be a revealed truth you or they chuse you whether must without contradiction hold a damnable Heresie if this ground be true that every contradiction of a revealed Truth is such And now I dare say for fear of inconvenience you will begin to temper the crudeness of your former assertion and tell us that neither of you are Heretiques because the Truth against which you err though revealed is not sufficiently propounded And so say I Neither is your doctrin which Protestants contradict sufficiently propounded For though it be plain enough that your Church proposeth it yet still me-thinks it is as plain that your Churches proposition is not sufficient and I desire you would not say but prove the contrary Lastly to your Question How can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie I Answer she may be more truly said to perish when she is not only permitted to do so but de facto doth maintain a damnable Heresie Again she may be more truly said to perish when she falls into an Heresie which is not only damnable in it self and ex natura rei as you speak but such an Heresie the belief of whose contrary Truth is necessary not only necessitate praecepti but medii and therefore the Heresie so absolutely and indispensably destructive of salvation that no ignorance can excuse it nor any general repentance without a dereliction of it can beg a pardon for it Such an heresie if the Church should fall into it might be more truly said to perish then if it fell only into some heresie of its own nature damnable For in that state all the members of it without exception all without mercy must needs perish for ever In this although those that might see the truth and would not cannot upon any good ground hope for salvation yet without question it might send many souls to heaven who would gladly have embrac'd the truth but that they wanted means to discover it Thirdly and lastly she may yet more truly be said to perish when she Apostates from â—hrist absolutely or rejects even those Truths out of which her Heresies may be reformed as if she should directly deny Jesus to be the Christ or the Scripture to be the Word of God Towards which
state of Perdition it may well be feared that the Church of Rome doth somewhat incline by her superinducing upon the rest of her errors the Doctrin of her own infallibility whereby her errors are made incurable by her pretending that the Scripture is to be interpreted according to her doctrin and not her doctrin to be judg'd of by Scripture whereby she makes the Scripture uneffectual for her Reformation 20. Ad § 18. I was very glad when I heard you say The Holy Scripture and antient Fathers do assign Separation from the visible Church as a mark of Heresie for I was in good hope that no Christian would so belie the Scripture as to say so of it unless he could have produced some one Text at least wherein this was plainly affirmed or from whence it might be undoubtedly and undeniably collected For assure your self good Sir it is a very hainous crime to say Thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so I expected therefore some Scripture should have been alledged wherein it should have been said Whosoever separates from the Roman Church is an Heretique or the Roman Church is infallible or the Guide of faith or at least There shall be always some visible Church infallible in matters of faith Some such direction as this I hoped for And I pray consider whether I had not reason The Evangelists and Apostles who wrote the new Testament we all suppose were good men and very desirous to direct us the surest and plainest way to heaven we suppose them likewise very sufficiently instructed by the Spirit of God in all the necessary points of the Christian faith and therefore certainly not ignorant of this Unum Necessarium this most necessary point of all others without which as you pretend and teach all faith is no Faith that is that the Church of Rome was designed by God the guide of Faith We suppose them lastly wise men especially being assisted by the spirit of wisdom and such as knew that a doubtful and questionable Guide was for mens direction as good as none at all And after all these suppositions which I presume no good Christian will call into question is it possible that any Christian heart can believe that not One amongst them all should ad rei memoriam write this necessary doctrin plainly so much as once Certainly in all reason they had provided much better for the good of Christians if they had wrote this though they had writ nothing else Me-thinks the Evangelists undertaking to write the Gospel of Christ could not possibly have omitted any one of them this most necessary point of faith had they known it necessary S. Luke especially who plainly professes that his intent was to write all things necessary Me-thinks S. Paul writing to the Romans could not but have congratulated this their Priviledge to them Me-thinks instead of saying Your faith is spoken of all the world over which you have no reason to be very proud of for he says the very same thing to the Thessalonians he could not have fail'd to have told them once at least in plain terms that their Faith was the Rule for all the World for ever But then sure he would have forborn to put them in fear of an impossibility as he doth in his eleventh Chapter that they also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles if they did not look to their standing might fall away to infidelity as the Jews had done Me-thinks in all his other Epistles at least in some at least in one of them he could not have failed to have given the world this direction had he known it to be a true one that all men were to be guided by the Church of Rome and none to separate from it under pain of damnation Me-thinks writing so often of Heretiques and Antichrist he should have given the world this as you pretend only sure preservative from them How was it possible that S. Peter writing two Catholick Epistles mentioning his own departure writing to preserve Christians in the faith should in neither of them commend them to the guidance of his pretended Successours the Bishops of Rome How was it possible that S. James and S. Jude in their Catholique Epistles should not give this Catholique direction Me-thinks S. John instead of saying He that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God The force of which direction your glosses do quite enervate and make unavailable to discern who are the sons of God should have said He that adheres to the doctrin of the Roman Church and lives according to it he is a good Christian and by this mark ye shall know him What man not quite out of his wits if he consider as he should the pretended necessity of this doctrin that without the belief hereof no man ordinarily can be saved can possibly force himself to conceive that all these good and holy men so desirous of mens salvation and so well assured of it as it is pretended should be so deeply and affectedly silent in it and not One of them say it plainly so much as once but leave it to be collected from uncertain Principles by many more uncertain Consequences Certainly he that can judge so uncharitably of them it is no marvel if he censure other inferiour servants of Christ as Atheists and Hypocrites and what he pleases Plain places therefore I did and had reason to look for when I heard you say the holy Scripture assigns separation from the visible Church as a Mark of Heresie But instead hereof what have you brought us but meer impertinencies S. John saith of some who pretended to be Christians and were not so and therefore when it was for their advantage forsook their profession They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us Of some who before the decree of the Councel to the contrary were perswaded and accordingly taught that the convert Gentiles were to keep the Law of Moses it is said in the Acts Some who went out from us And again S. Paul in the same book forwarns the Ephesians that out of them should arise men speaking perverse things And from these places which it seems are the plainest you have you collect that separation from the Visible Church is assigned by Scripture as a Mark of Heresie Which is certainly a strange and unheard-of strain of Logick Unless you will say that every Text wherein it is said that some body goes out from some body affords an Argument for this purpose For the first place there is no certainty that it speaks of Heretiques but no Christians of Antichrists of such as denied Jesus to be the Christ See the place and you shall confess as much The second place it is certain you must not say it speaks of Heretiques for it speaks only of some who believed and taught an Error while it was yet a question and not
evident and therefore according to your doctrin no formal Heresie The third saies indeed that of the Professors of Christianity some shall arise that shall teach Heresie But not one of them all that says or intimates that whosoever separates from the Visible Church in what state soever is certainly an heretique Heretiques I confess do always do so But they that do so are are not always Heretiques for perhaps the state of the Church may make it necessary for them to do so as Rebels always disobey the command of their King yet they which disobey a King's command which perhaps may be unjust are not presently Rebels 21 Your Allegations out of Vincentius Prosper and Cyprian are liable to these exceptions 1. That they are the sayings of men not assisted by the Spirit of God and whose Authority your selves will not submit to in all things 2. That the first and last are meerly impertinent neither of them affirming or intimating that separation from the present Visible Church is a mark of Heresie and the former speaking plainly of separation from Universality Consent and Antiquity which if you will presume without proof that we did and you did not you beg the Question For you know we pretend that we separated only from that present Church which had separated from the doctrin of the Ancient and because she had done so and so far forth as she had done so no farther And lastly the latter part of Prospers words cannot be generally true according to your own grounds For you say a man may be divided from the Church upon meer Schism without any mixture of Heresie And a man may be justly excommunicated for many other sufficient causes besides Heresie Lastly a man may be divided by an unjust excommunication and be hoth before and after a very good Catholique and therefore you cannot maintain it Universally true That he who is divided from the Church is an Heretique and Antichrist 22. In the 19. § we have the Authority of eight Fathers urg'd to prove That the separation from the Church of Rome as it is the See of S. Peter I conceive you mean as it is that particular Church is the mark of Heresie Which kind of argument I might well refuse to answer unless you would first promise me that whensoever I should produce as plain sentences of as great a number of Fathers as ancient for any doctrin whatsoever that you will subscribe to it though it fall out to be contrary to the doctrin of the Roman Church For I conceive nothing in the world more unequal or unreasonable then that you should press us with such Authorities as these and think your selves at liberty from them and that you should account them Fathers when they are for you and Children when they are against you Yet I would not you should interpret this as if I had not great assurance that it is not possible for you ever to gain this cause at the tribunal of the Fathers nay not of the Fathers whose sentences are here alleadged Let us consider them in order and I doubt not to make it appear that far the greater part of them nay al of them that are any way considerable fal short of your purpose 23. S. Hierome you say writing to Pope Damasus saith I am in the Communion of the Chair of Peter c. But then I pray consider he saith it to Pope Damasus and this will much weaken the Authority with them who know how great over-truths men usually write to one another in Letters Consider again that he says only that he was then in Communion with the Chair of Peter Not that he alwayes would or of necessity must be so for his resolution to the contrary is too evident out of that which he saith elsewhere which shall be produced hereafter He says that the Church at that present was built upon that Rock but Not that only Nor that alwayes Nay his judgment as shall appear is express to the contrary And so likewise the rest of his expressions if we mean to reconcile Hierome with Hierome must be conceived as intended by him of that Bishop and Sea of Rome at that present time and in the present State and in respect of that doctrin which he there intreats of For otherwise had he conceiv'd it necessary for him and all men to conform their judgment in matters of faith to the judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome how came it to pass that he chose rather to believe the Epistle to the Hebrews Canonical upon the authority of the Eastern Church than to reject it from the Canon upon the authority of the Roman How comes it to pass that he dissented from the Authority of that Church touching the Canon of the Old Testament For if you say that the Church then consented with S. Hierome I fear you will lose your Fort by maintaining your Out-works and by avoiding this run into a greater danger of being forc'd to confess the present Roman Church opposite herein to the Ancient How was it possible that he should ever believe that Liberius Bishop of Rome either was or could have been brought over by the sollicitation of Fortunatianus Bishop of Aquileia Hierom. de scrip Eccl. tit Fortunatianus and brought after two years banishment to subscribe Heresie Which Act of Liberius though some fondly question being so vain as to expect we should rather believe them that lived but yesterday 1300 years almost after the thing is said to be done and speaking for themselves in their own Cause rather than the dis-interessed time-fellows or immediate-Successors of Liberius himself yet I hope they will not proceed to such a degree of immodesty as once to question Whether S. Hierome thought so And if this cannot be denyed I demand then If he had lived in Liberius his time could he or would he have written so to Liberius as he does to Damasus Would he have said to him I am in the Communion of the Chair of Peter I know that the Church is built upon this Rock Whosoever gathereth not with thee scattereth Would he then have said the Roman faith and the Catholique were the same or that the Roman faith received no delusions no not from an Angel I suppose he could not have said so with any coherence to his own belief and therefore conceive it undeniable that what he said then to Damasus he said it though perhaps he streined too high only of Damasus and never conceiv'd that his words would have been extended to all his Predecessors and all his Successors 24. The same Answer I make to the first place of S. Ambrose viz. That no more can be certainly concluded from it but that the Catholique Bishops and the Roman Church were then at unity so that whosoever agreed with the later could not then but agree with the former But that this Rule was perpetual and that no man could ever agree with the Catholique Bishops but he must
Apostolique Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church an Argument of their Errour So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolique Churches nay more from these than from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetual Succession of them but in other Apostolique Churches they wanted both These scatter'd men saith he of the Donatists Epist 165. read in the holy books the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and mad than to the Lectors reading these Epistles to say Peace with you and to separate from the peace of these Churches to which these Epistles were written So Optatus having done you as it might seem great service in upbraiding the Donatists as Schismatiques because they had not Communion with the Church of Rome overthrows and undoes it all again and as it were with a spunge wipes out all that he hath said for you by adding after that they were Schismatiques because They had not the fellowship of Communion with the seven Churches of Asia to which S. John writes whereof he pronounces confidently though I know not upon what ground Extraseptem Ecclesias quicquid foris est alienum est Now I pray tell me do you esteem the Authority of these Fathers a sufficient assurance that separation from these other Apostolique Churches was a certain mark of Heresie or not If so then your Church hath been for many Ages heretical If not How is their authority a greater Argument for the Roman than for the other Churches If you say they conceived separation from these Churches a note of Schism only when they were united to the Roman so also they might conceive of the Roman only when it was united to them If you say they urg'd this only as a probable and not as a certain Argument so also they might do that In a word whatsoever answer you can devise to shew that these Fathers made not separation from these other Churches a mark of Heresie apply that to your own Argument and it will be satisfied 32 The other place is evidently impertinent to the present question nor is there it in any thing but this That Caecilian might contemn the multitude of his adversaries because those that were united with him were more and of more account than those that were against him Had he preferr'd the Roman Church alone before Caecilian's enemies this had been little but something but when other Countries from which the Gospel came first into Africa are joyned in this Patent with the Church of Rome how she can build any singular priviledge upon it I am yet to learn Neither do I see what can be concluded from it but that in the Roman Church was the Principality of an (a) You do ill to translate it the Principality of the Sea Apostolique as if there were but one whereas Saint Austin presently after speaks of Apostolical Churches in the plural number and makes the Bishops of them joynt-Commissioners for the judging of Ecclesiastical causes Apostolique Sea which no man doubts or that the Roman Church was not the Mother Church because the Gospel came first into Africa not from her but from other Churches 33. Thus you see his words make very little or indeed nothing for you But now his Action which according to Cardinal Perron's rule is much more to be regarded than his words as not being so obnoxious to misinterpretation I mean his famous opposition of three Bishops of Rome in Succession touching the great question of Appeals wherein he and the rest of the African Bishops proceeded so far in the first or second Milevitan Councel as to (b) The words of the Decree which also Bellarm l. 1. de Matrim c. 17. assures us to be perform'd by S. Austin are these Si qui Africani ab Episcopis provocandum putaverint non nisi ad Africana provocent Concilia vel ad Primates provinciarum suarum Ad transmarina autem qui putaverit apellandum à nullo intra Africam in Communionem suscipiatur This decree is by Gratian most impudently corrupted For whereas the Fathers of that Councel intended it particularly against the Church of Rome he tels us they forbad Appeals to All excepting only the Church of Rome decree any African Excommunicate that should appeal to any man out of Africk and therein continued resolute unto death I say this famous Action of his makes clearly and evidently and infinitely against you For had Boniface and the rest of the African Bishops a great part whereof were Saints and Martyrs believed as an Article of faith that Union and Conformity with the doctrin of the Roman Church in all things which she held necessary was a certain note of a good Catholique and by God's Command necessary to Salvation how was it possible they should have opposed it in this Unless you will say they were all so foolish as to believe at once direct contradictions viz. that conformity to the Roman Church was necessary in all points and not necessary in this or so horribly impious as believing this doctrin of the Roman Church true and her power to receive Appeals derived from divine Authority notwithstanding to oppose and condemn it and to Anathematize all those Africans of what condition soever that should appeal unto it I say of what condition soever For it is evident that they concluded in their determination Bishops as well as the inferiour Clergy and Laity And Cardinal Pâ—rron's pretence of the contrary is a shameless falshood repugnant to the plain words of the (c) The words are these Praefato debito salutationis officio impendiò deprecamur ut deinceps ad aures vestras hinc venientes non saciliùs admittat is nec à nobis excommunicatos ultra in Communionem velitis recipere quia hoc etiam Niceno Concilio de finitum facile advertet venerabilitastus Nam si de inferioribus Clericis vel Laicis videtur id praecaveri quanto magis hoc de Episcopis voluit observari Remonstrance of the African Bishops to Celestine Bishop of Rome 34 Your allegation of Tertullian is a manifest conviction of your want of sincerity For you produce with great ostentation what he saies of the Church of Rome but you and your fellows always conceal and dissemble that immediatly before these words he artributes as much for point of direction to any other Apostolique Church and that as he sends them to Rome who lived neer Italy so those neer Achaia he sends to Corinth those about Macedonia to Philippi and Thessalonica those of Asia to Ephesus His words are Go to now thou that wilt better imploy thy curiosity in the business of thy salvation run over the Apostolical Churches wherein the Chairs of the Apostles are yet sate upon in their places wherein the Authentique Epistles are recited sounding out the voice and representing the face of
every one Is Achaia near thee there thou hast Corinth If thou art not far from Macedonia thou hast Philippi thou hast Thessalonica If thou canst go into Asia there thou hast Ephesus If thou be adjacent to Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is neer at hand to us in Africk A happy Church into which the Apostles powred forth all their Doctrin together with their blood c. Now I pray you Sir tell me if you can for blushing why this place might not have been urg'd by a Corinthian or Philippian or Thessalonian or an Ephesian to shew that in the judgment of Tertullian separation from any of their Churches is a certain mark of Heresie as justly and rationally as you alledge it to vindicate this priviledge to the Roman Church only Certainly if you will stand to Tertullian's judgment you must either grant the authority of the Roman Church though at that time a good Topical Argument and perhaps a better than any the Heretiques had especially in conjunction with other Apostolique Churches yet I say you must grant it perforce but a fallible Guide as well as that of Ephesus and Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth or you must maintain the Authority of every one of these infallible as well as the Roman For though he make a Panegyrick of the Roman Church in particular and of the rest only in general yet as I have said for point of direction he makes them all equal and therefore makes them chuse you whether either all fallible or all infallible Now you will and must acknowledge that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Churches of Ephesus or Corinth or if he did that as experience shews he erred in doing so and what can hinder but then we may say also that he never intended to attribute infallibility to the Roman Church or if he did that he erred in doing so 35 From the saying of S. Basil certainly nothing can be gathered but only that the Bishop of Rome may discern between that which is counterfeit and that which is lawful and pure and without any diminution may preach the faith of our Ancestors Which certainly he might do if ambition and covetousness did not hinder him or else I should never condemn him for doing otherwise But is there no difference between may and must Between he may do so and he cannot but do so Or doth it follow because he may do so therefore he always shall or will do so In my opinion rather the contrary should follow For he that saith you may do thus implies according to the ordinary sense of words that if he will he may do otherwise You certainly may if you please leave abusing the world with such Sophistry as this but whether you will or no of that I have no assurance 36 Your next Witness I would willingly have examined but it seems you are unwilling he should be found otherwise you would have given us your direction where we might have him Of that Maximianus who succeeded Nestorius I can find no such thing in the Councels Neither can I believe that any Patriarch of Constantinople twelve hundred years ago was so base a parasite of the Sea of Rome 37 Your last Witness John of Constantinople I confess speaks home and advanceth the Roman Sea even to heaven But I fear it is that his own may go up with it which he there professes to be all one sea with the sea of Rome and therefore his Testimony as speaking in his own case is not much to be regarded But besides I have little reason to be confident that this Epistle is not a forgery for certainly Binius hath obtruded upon us many a hundred such This though written by a Grecian is not extant in Greek but in Latin only Lastly it comes out of a supicious place an old book of the Vatican Library which Library the world knows to have been the Mint of very many Impostures 38 Ad § 20 21 22 23. The sum of your discourse in the four next Sections if it be pertinent to the Question in agitation must be this Want of succession of Bishops and Pastors holding always the same doctrin and of the forms of ordaining Bishops and Priests which are in use in the Roman Church is a certain mark of Heresie but Protestants want all these things Therefore they are Heretiques To which I answer that nothing but want of truth and holding error can make or prove any man or Church heretical For if he be a true Aristotelian or Platonist or Pyrrhonian or Epicurean who holds the doctrin of Aristotle or Plato or Pirrho or Epicurus although he cannot assign any that held it before him for many ages together why should I not be made a true and orthodox Christian by believing all the doctrin of Christ though I cannot derive my descent from a perpetual Succession that believ'd it before me By this reason you should say as well that no man can be a good Bishop or Pastor or King or Magistrate or Father that succeeds a bad one For if I may conform my will and actions to the Commandments of God why may I not embrace his doctrin with my understanding although my predecessor do not so You have above in this Chapter defin'd Faith A free Infallible obscure supernatural assent to divine Truths because they are revealed by God and sufficiently propounded This definition is very phanrastical but for the present I will let it pass and desire you to give me some piece or shadow of reason why I may not do all this without a perpetual Succession of Bishops and Pastors that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as malitiously of me as your blind zeal to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I do believe the Gospel of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted books of Canonical Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I believe it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be divine Revelation and yet in this I do not depend upon any Succession of men that have alwayes believed it without any mixture of Errour nay I am fully perswaded there hath been no succession and yet do not find my self any way weakned in my faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your Divels at Lowden do tricks against it but though an Angel from heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I perswade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so hypersceptical as to perswade me that I am not sure that I do believe all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you believe the Church of Rome For if
a man may perswade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the foresaid truths upon the foresaid motives without any dependance upon any succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this phancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretique but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretique whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in our own power therefore our being or not being Heretiques depends not on it Besides What is more certain than that he may make a straight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the world had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the word of God and the Rule of faith regulate his faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his word believed he by his Providence must take order that either by succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserv'd and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Bar do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined of times make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroncous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formerly alledged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men otthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39 When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelibe Character be any reality or whether it be a creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a word whether our Bishops and Priests have it not as well as yours and whether some mens perswasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans perswasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Layman by just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Heretiques that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferr'd on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Pope's right or an usurpation If it were his right Whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only Whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to make it from him Or if not Whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it Whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude Because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an usurp'd Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his sword to his Praefect with this Commission that If he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so Why not against her errors in doctrin if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her doctrin if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from errour and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out a false unto a true way of eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as
well as the Cardinals do the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonical exception Whether the Doctrin that the King is Supreme Head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperours were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found doctrin Whether it may not be true that Bishops being made Bishops have their authority immediatly from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the King's authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has authority immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give authority to a Physician to practise Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperour would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have question'd his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited King JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his Injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispens'd with Whether the Pope's irregularities if he should chance to incur any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a character and ours doth not Whether the power of consecrating and ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of architecture and had it immediatly by infusion from God himself yet if they were the King's subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a Fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do not follow that whensoever the King commands an house to be built a message to be delivered or a murtherer to be executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Archirect messenger or executioner As well as that they are ipso facto ordain'd and consecrated who by the King's authority are commended to the Bishops to be ordained and consecrated Especially seeing the King will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the King's designation Whether many Popes though they were not consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperours had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other man Lastly Whether any one kind of these external forms and orders and government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unprov'd and unprobable 40 Ad § 23. The Fathers you say assign Succession as one mark of the true Church I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the truth of their doctrin and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urg'd it not against all Heretiques that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their doctrin and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urg'd it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus
or there are If you say the first you make all Religion an uncertain thing If the second then either you must ridiculously perswade that your Church is infallible because it is infallible or else that there are other certain grounds besides your Churches infallibility 46. But you proced and tell us that Holy Scripture is in it self most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain means to know what Scripture is Canonical nor what Translations be faithful nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Answ But all these things must be known before we can know the direction of your Church to be infallible for no other proof of it can be pretended but only some Texts of Canonical Scripture truly interpreted Therefore either you are mistaken in thinking there is no other means to know these things but your Churches infallible direction or we are excluded from all means of knowing her direction to be infallible 47 But Protestants though as you suppose they are perswaded their own opinions are true and that they have used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer conferring of Texts c. yet by their disagreement shew that some of them are deceived Now they hold all the Articles of their faith upon this only ground of Scripture interpreted by these rules and therefore it is clear that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all The first of these suppositions must needs be true but the second is apparently false I mean that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath used those means which are prescribed for understanding of Scripture But that which you collect from these suppositions is clearly inconsequent and by as good Logick you might conclude that Logick and Geometry stand upon no certain grounds that the rules of the one and the principles of the other do sometimes fail because the disagreement of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived Might not a Jew conclude as well against all Christians that they have no certain ground whereon to rely in their understanding of Scripture because their disagreements shew that some are deceived because some deduce from it the infallibility of a Church and others no such matter So likewise a Turk might use the same argument against both Jews and Christians and an Atheist against all Religions and a Sceptick against all Reason Might not one say Mens disagreement in Religion shews that there is no certainty in any and the other that experience of their contradictions teacheth that the rules of reason do sometimes fail Do not you see and feel how void of reason and how full of impiety your sophistry is And how transported with zeal against Protestants you urge arguments against them which if they could not be answered would overthrow not only your owne but all Religion But God be thanked the answer is easie and obvious For let men but remember not to impute the faults of men but only to men and then it will easily appear that there may be sufficient certainty in Reason in Religion in the rules of interpreting Scripture though men through their faults take not care to make use of them and so run into divers errors and dissentions 48. But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamental and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error Answ By like reason since you acknowledg that every error in points defin'd and declared by your Church destroies the substance of faith and yet cannot determine what points be defined it followeth that you must remain uncertain whether or no you be not in some fundamental error and so want the substance of faith without which there can be no hope of salvation Now that you are uncertain what points are defined appears from your own words c. 4. § 3. of your second Part where say you No less impertinent is your discourse concerning the difficulty to know what is Heresie For we grant that it is not alwaies easy to determine in particular occasions whether this or that Doctrin be such because it may be doubtful whether it be against any Scripture or divine Tradition or definition of the Church Neither were it difficult to extort from you this confession by naming divers Points which some of you say are defin'd others the contrary And others hang in suspense and know not what to determin But this I have done elsewhere as also I have shewed plainly enough that though we cannot perhaps say in particular Thus much and no more is fundamental yet believing all the Bible we are certain enough that we believe all that is fundamental As he that in a Receit takes twenty ingredients whereof ten only are necessary though he know not which those ten are yet taking the whole twenty he is sure enough that he has taken all that are necessary 49. Ad § 29. But that he who erreth against any one revealed truth loseth all Divine Faith is a very true doctrin delivered by Catholique Divines you mean your own with so general a consent that the contrary is wont to be censur'd as temerarious Now certainly some Protestants must do so because they hold contradictions which cannot all be true Therefore some of them at least have no divine faith Answ I pass by your weakness in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines which yet in you might very deservedly be censur'd For when D. Potter to shew the many actual dissentions between the Romish Doctors notwithstanding their braggs of potential Unity referres to Pappus who has collected out of Bellar. their contradictions and set them down in his own words to the number of 237. and to Flacius de Sectis Controversiis Religionis Papisticae you making the very same use of M. Breerely against Protestants yet jeer and scorn D. Potter as if he offer'd you for a proof the bare authority of Pappus and Flacius and tell him which is all the Answer you vouchsafe him It is pretty that he brings Pappus and Flacius flat Heretiques to prove your many contradictions As if he had proved this with the bare authoritie the bare judgement of these men which sure he does not but with the formall words of Bellarmine faithfully collected by Pappus And why then might not we say to you Is it not prettie that you bring Breerely as flat an Heretique as Pappus or Flacius to prove the contradictions of Protestants Yet had he been so vain as to press you with the meer authority of Protestant Divines in any point me-thinks for your own sake you should have pardon'd him who here and in many other places urge us with the judgement of your Divines as with weighty arguments Yet if the authority of your Divines were even Canonical certainly nothing could be concluded from it in this matter there being not one of them who delivers for
true doctrin this Position of yours thus nakedly set down That any error against any one revealed truth destroies all divine faith For they all require not your self excepted that this truth must not only be revealed but revealed publiquely and all things considered sufficiently propounded to the erring Party to be one of those which God under pain of damnation commands all men to believe And therefore the contradiction of Protestants though this vain doctrin of your Divines were supposed true is but a weak argument That any of them have no divine Faith seeing you neither have nor ever can prove without begging the Question of your Churches infallibility that the truths about which they differ are of this quality and condition But though out of courtesie we may suppose this doctrin true yet we have no reason to grant it nor to think it any thing but a vain and groundless fancie and that this very weak and inartificial argument from the authority of your Divines is the strongest pillar which it hath to support it Two reasons you alleadge for it out of Thomas Aquinas the first whereof vainly supposeth against reason and experience that by the commission of any deadly sinne the habit of Charitie is quite exstirpated And for the second though you cry it up for an Achilles and think like the Gorgons head it will turne us all into stone and in confidence of it insult upon Doctor Potter as if he durst not come neare it yet in very truth having considered it well I finde it a serious grave prolixe and profound nothing I could answer it in a word by telling you that it begges without all proof or colour of proof the main Question between us That the infallibilitie of your Church is either the formal motive or rule or a necessarie condition of faith which you know we flatly deny and therefore all that is built upon it has nothing but wind for a foundation But to this answer I will adde a large consutation of this vain fancie out of one of the most rational and profound Doctors of your own Church I mean Essius who upon the third of the Sent. the 23. dist the 13. § writes thus It is disputed saith he whether in him who believes some of the Articles of our faith and disbelieves others or perhaps some one there be faith properly so called in respect of that which he does believe In which question we must before all carefully distinguish between those who retaining a general readiness to believe whatsoever the Church believes yet erre by ignorance in some Doctrin of faith because it is not as yet sufficiently declared to them that the Church does so believe and those who after sufficient manifestation of the Churches Doctrin do yet choose to dissent from it either by doubting of it or affirming the contrary For of the former the answer is easie but of these that is of Heretiques retaining some part of wholesome Doctrin the question is more difficult and on both sides by the Doctors probably disputed For that there is in them true faith of the Articles wherein they do not erre first experience seems to convince For many at this day denying for example sake Purgatory or Invocation of Saints nevertheless firmly hold as by divine revelation that God is Three and One that the Son of God was incarnate and suffered and other like things As anciently the Novatians excepting their peculiar error of denying reconciliation to those that fell in persecution held other things in common with Catholiques So that they assisted them very much against the Arrians as Socrates relates in his Eccl. Hist Moreover the same is proved by the example of the Apostles who in the time of Christ's passion being scandaliz'd lost their faith in him as also Christ after his resurrection upbraids them with their incredulity and calls Thomas incredulous for denying the Resurrection John 20. Whereupon S. Austin also in his preface upon the 96 Psalme saith That after the Resurrection of Christ the faith of those that fell was restored again And yet we must not say that the Apostles then lost the faith of the Trinity of the Creation of the world of Eternal life and such like other Articles Besides the Jewes before Christs comming held the faith of one God the Creator of Heaven and Earth who although they lost the true faith of the Messias by not receiving Christ yet we cannot say that they lost the faith of one God but still retained this Article as firmely as they did before Add hereunto that neither Jews nor Heretiques seem to lye in saying they believe either the books of the Prophets or the four Gospels it being apparent enough that they acknowledge in them Divine Authority though they hold not the true sense of them to which purpose is that in the Acts chap. 20. Believest thou the Propheis I know that thou believest Lastly it is manifest that many gifts of God are found even in bad men and such as are out of the Church therefore nothing hinders but that Jews and Heretiques though they erre in many things yet in other things may be so divinely illuminated as to believe aright So S. Austine seems to teach in his book De Unico Baptismo contra Petilianum c. 3. in these words When a Jew comes to us to be made a Christian we destroy not in him God's good things but his own ill That he believes One God is to be worshipped that he hopes for eternal life that he doubts not of the Resurrection we approve and commend him we acknowledge that as he did believe these things so he is still to believe them and as he did hold so he is still to hold them Thus he subjoyning more to the same purpose in the next and again in the 26 Chapter and in his third Book De Bapt. contr Donat. cap. ult and upon Psal 64. But now this reason seems to perswade the contrary Because the formal object of faith seems to be the first verity as it is manifested by the Churches Doctrin as the Divine and infallible Rule wherefore whosoever adheres not to this Rule although he assent to some matters of faith yet he embraces them not with faith but with some other kind of assent as if a man assent to a conclusion not knowing the reason by which it is demonstrated he hath not true knowledge but an opinion only of the same conclusion Now that an Heretique adheres not to the rule aforesaid it is manifest Because if he did adhere to it as divine and infallible he would receive all without exception which the Church teacheth and so would not be an Heretique After this manner discourseth Saint Thom. 2.2 q. 5. art 3. From whom yet Durand dissents upon this distinction thinking there may be in an Heretique true faith in respect of the Article in which he doth not erre Others as Scotus and Bonaventure define not the matter plainly but seem to choose
a middle way To the authority of S. Austin and these School-men this may be adjoyned That it is usual with good Christians to say that Heretiques have not the entire faith Whereby it seems to be intimated that some part of it they do retain Whereof this may be another reason That if the truths which a Jew or a Heretique holds be should not hold 〈◊〉 by faith but after some other manner to wit by his own proper will and judgment it will follow that all the excellent knowledge of God and divine things which is found in them is to be attributed not to the grace of God but the strength of Free-will which is against S. Austine both elsewhere and especially in the end of his book De potentia As for the reason alleaged to the contrary We answer It is impertinent to faith by what means we believe the prime Verity that is by what means God useth to confer upon men the gift of faith For although now the ordinary means be the Testimony and teaching of the Church yet it is certain that by other means faith hath been given heretofore and is given still For many of the Ancients as Adam Abraham Melchisedeck Job received faith by special revelation the Apostles by the Miracles and preaching of Christ others again by the preaching and miracles of the Apostles And Lastly others by other means when as yet they had heard nothing of the infallibility of the Church To little Children by Baptism without any other help faith is infus'd And therefore it is possible that a man not adhering to the Churches doctrin as a Rule infallible yet may receive some things for the word of God which do indeed truly belong to the faith either because they are now or heretofore have been confirm'd by miracles or because he manifestly sees that the ancient Church taught so or upon some other inducement And yet nevertheless we must not say that Heretiques and Jewes do hold the Faith but only some part of the Faith For the Faith signifies an entire thing and compleat in all parts whereupon an Heretique is said to be simply an Infidel to have lost the Faith and according to the Apostle 1 Tim. 1. to have made shipwrack of it although he holds some things with the same strength of assent and readiness of will wherewith by others are held all those points which appertain to the Faith And thus farre Aestius Whose discourse I presume may pass for a sufficient refutation of your argument out of Aquinas And therefore your Corollaries drawn from it That every errour aqainst faith involves opposition against God's testimony That Protestants have no Faith no certainty And that you have all Faith must together with it fall to the ground 50. But If Protestants have certainty they want obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing This argument you prosecute in the next Paragraph But I can find nothing in it to convince or perswade me that Protestants cannot have as much certainty as is required to faith of an object not so evident as to beget science If obscurity will not consist with certainty in the highest degree then you are to blame for requiring to faith contradicting conditions If certainty and obscurity will stand together what reason can be imagin'd that a Protestant may not entertain them both as well as a Papist Your bodies and souls your understandings and wills are I think of the same condition with ours And why then may not we be certain of an obscure thing as well as you And as you make this long discourse against Protestants why may not we putting Church instead of Scripture send it back again to you And say If Papists have certainty they want obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing or not necessitating our understanding to an assent For the whole edifice of the faith of Papists is setled on these two principles These particular propositions are the propositions of the Church And the sense and meaning of them is clear and evident at least in all points necessary to salvation Now these principles being once suppos'd it clearly followeth that what Papists believe as necessary to salvation is evidently known by them to be true by this argument It is certain and evident that whatsoever is the word of God or Divine Revelation is true But it is certain and evident that these propositions of the Church in particular are the word of God and Divine Revelations Therefore it is certain and evident that all propositions of the Church are true Which conclusion I take for a Major in a second argument and say thus It is certain and evident that all propositions of the Church are true But it is certain and evident that such particulars for example The lawfulness of the halfe Communion The lawfulness and expedience of Latine Service the Doctrin of Transubstantiation Indulgences c. are the Propositions of the Church Therefore it is certain and evident that these particular objects are true Neither will it avail you to say that the said principles are not evident by natural discourse but only by the eye of reason clear'd by grace For supernatural evidence no less yea rather more drowns and excludes obscurity than natural evidence doth Neither can the Party so enlightned be said voluntarily to captivate his understanding to that light but rather his understanding is by necessity made captive and forc'd not to disbelieve what is presented by so clear a light And therefore your imaginary faith is not the true faith defined by the Apostle but an invention of your own And having thus cryed quittance with you I must intreat you to devise for truly I cannot some answer to this argument which will not serve in proportion to your own For I hope you will not pretend that I have done you injurie in setling your faith upon principles which you disclaim And if you alleadge this disparitie That you are more certain of your principles than we of ours and yet you do not pretend that your principles are so evident as we do â—hat ours are what is this to say but that you are more confident than we but confess you have less reason for it For the evidence of the thing assented to be it more or less is the reason and cause of the assent in the understanding But then besides I am to tell you that you are here as every where extreamely if not affectedly mistaken in the doctrin of Protestants who though they acknowledge that the things which they believe are in themselves as certain as any demonstrable or sensible verities yet pretend not that their certainty of adherence is most perfect and absolute but such as may be perfected and increas'd as long as they walk by faith and not by sight And consonant hereunto is their doctrin touching the evidence of the objects whereunto they
adhere For you abuse the world and them if you pretend that they hold the first of your two principles That these particular Books are the word of God for so I think you mean either to be in it selfe evidently certain or of it self and being devested of the motives of credibility evidently credible For they are not so fond as to conceive nor so vain as to pretend that all men do assent to it which they would if it were evidently certain nor so ridiculous as to imagine that if an Indian that never heard of Christ or Scripture should by chance find a Bible in his owne Language and were able to read it that upon the reading it he would certainly without a miracle believe it to be the word of God which he could not chuse if it were evidently credible What then do they affirm of it Certainly no more than this that whatsoever man that is not of a perverse minde shall weigh with serious and mature deliberation those great moments of reason which may incline him to believe the Divine authority of Scripture and compare them with the leight objections that in prudence can be made against it he shall not chuse but finde sufficient nay abundant inducements to yeeld unto it firm faith and sincere obedience Let that learned man Hugo Grotius speak for all the rest in his Book of the truth of Christian Religion which Book whosoever attentively peruses shall find that a man may have great reason to be a Christian without dependance upon your Church for any part of it and that your Religion is no foundation of but rather a scandal and an objection against Christianity He then in the last Chapter of his second Book hath these excellent words If any be not satisfied with these arguments above-said but desires more forcible reasons for confirmation of the excellency of Christian Religion let such know that as there are variety of things which be true so are there divers wayes of proving or manifesting the truth Thus is there one way in Mathematicks another in Physicks a third in Ethicks and lastly another kind when a matter of fact is in question wherein verily we must rest content with such testimonies as are free from all suspicion of untruth otherwise down goes all the frame and use of history and a great part of the Art of Physick together with all dutifulness that ought to be between parents and children for matters of practice can no way else be known but by such testimonies Now it is the pleasure of Almighty God that those things which he would have us to believe so that the very belief thereof may be imputed to us for obedience should not so evidently appear as those things which are apprehended by sense and plain demonstration but only be so farre forth revealed as may beget faith and a perswasion thereof in the hearts and minds of such as are not obstinate That so the Gospel may be as a touch-stone for triall of mens judgements whether they be sound or unsound For seeing these arguments whereof we have spoken have induced so many honest godly and wise men to approve of this Religion it is thereby plain enough that the fault of other mens infidelity is not for want of sufficient testimony but because they would not have that to be had and embraced for truth which is contrary to their wilful desires it being a hard matter for them to relinquish their honors and set at naught other commodities which thing they know they ought to do if they admit of Christ's doctrin and obey what he hath commanded And this is the rather to be noted of them for that many other historical narrations are approved by them to be true which notwithstanding are only manifest by authority and not by any such strong proofs and perswasions or tokens as do declare the history of Christ to be true 52. And now you see I hope that Protestants neither do need nor protend to any such evidence in the doctrin they believe as cannot well consist both with the essence and the obedience of faith Let us come now to the last Nullity which you impute to the faith of Protestants and that is want of Prudence Touching which point as I have already demonstrated that wisdome is not essential to faith but that a man may truly believe truth though upon insufficient motives So I doubt not but I shall make good that if prudence were necessary to faith we have better title to it than you and that if a wiser then Solomon were here he should have better reason to believe the Religion of Protestants than Papists the Bible rather than the Councel of Trent But let us hear what you can say 53. Ad § 31. You demand then first of all What wisdome was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other Visible Church of Christ upon earth I answer Against God and truth there lies no Prescription and therefore certainly it might be great wisdome to forsake ancient errors for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be follow'd then innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdome either for the whole Visible Church nay for all the men in the world having wandred from the way of Truth to return unto it or for a part of it nay for one man to do so although all the world besides were madly resolute to do the contrary It might be great wisdome to forsake the errors though of the only Visible Church much more of the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Visible Church does somwhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the ditch he liv'd in to be all the world 54. You demand again What wisdome was it to forsake a Church acknowledg'd to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c. usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdome to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to salvation but accused and convicted of Many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledg'd to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetual Succession of Bishops holding alwaies the same doctrin and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetual possession of all the world whereas the world knowes that a little before Luther's arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependance of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more than those crouching Anticks which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear do indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and salfe Church may give authority to preach the truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a
false Church may preserve the Scripture trure as now the old Testament is preserved by the Jewes either not being arriv'd to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawful Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we aske your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrin it is a thing we need not and you have as little as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependance that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may pass for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you do somtimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant souls may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seems you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your scale nothing but smoak and wind vain shadows and phantastical pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Scale but those negative commendations which you are pleas'd to afford them nothing but No unity nor means to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose than Luthers body no Universality of time or place no Visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of persons or doctrin no leader but Luther in a quarel begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they receiv'd from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three grains of partiality your Scale might seem to turne But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsely made against them the rest vainly that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this trial and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alleadged for Protestants which is here dissembled Then I hope our cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55. I say then that want of Universality of time and place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrin before Luther Luther's being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordination Scriptures personal and yet not doctrinal Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrin and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your house upon the sand And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I do not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Heretiques I tell you that though all Heretiques are choosers yet all choosers are not Heretiques otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Heretiques As for our wanting Unity and Means of proving it Luther 's opposing your Church upon meere passion Our following private men rather than the Catholique Church the first and last are meere untruths for we want not Unity nor Means to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our means to obtain it Neither do we follow any private men but only the Scripture the word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luther's opposing your Church upon meere passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposition not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemne us unless you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56. It remains now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may be alleaged for the justification of Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the ballance Know then Sir that when I say The Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferr'd before yours as on the one side I do not understand by your Religion the doctrin of Bellarmin or Baronius or any other private man amongst you nor the Doctrin of the Sorbon or of the Jesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or profess to agree the Doctrin of the Councel of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrin of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelberg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their faith and actions that is The BIBLE The BIBLE I say The BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides It and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to eternal hapiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councels against Councels some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one age against a Consent of Fathers of another age the Church of one age against the Church of
examination the grounds of it prove uncertain or to leave it if they prove apparently false My own experience assures me that in this imputation I do you no injury but it is very apparent to all men from your ranking doubting of any part of your Doctrin among mortal sins For from hence it followes that seeing every man must resolve that he will never commit mortal sin that he must never examin the grounds of it at all for fear he should be mov'd to doubt or if he do he must resolve that no motives be they never so strong shall move him to doubt but that with his will and resolution he will uphold himself in a firm beliefe of your Religion though his reason and his understanding fail him And seeing this is the condition of all those whom you esteem good Catholiques who can deny but you are a Company of men unwilling and afraid to understand lest you should do good That have eyes to see and will not see that have not the love of truth which is only to be known by an indifferent tryall and therefore deserve to be given over to strong delusions men that love darkness more than light in a word that you are the blind leading the blind and what prudence there can be in following such Guides our Saviour hath taught us in saying If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch 73. There remains unspoken to in this Section some places out of S. Austin and some sayings of Luther wherein he confesses that in the Papacy are many good things But the former I have already considered and return'd the argument grounded on them As for Luther's speeches I told you not long since that we follow no private men and regard not much what he saies either against the Church of Rome or for it but what he proves He was a man of a vehement spirit and very often what he took in hand he did not do it but over-do it He that will justifie all his speeches especially such as he wrote in heat of opposition I believe will have work enough Yet in these sentences though he over-reach in the particulars yet what he saies in general we confess true and confess with him that in the Papacy are many good things which have come from them to us but withal we say there are many bad neither do we think our selves bound in prudence either to reject the good with the bad or to retain the bad with the good but rather conceive it a high point of wisdome to separate between the pretious and the vile to sever the good from the bad and to put the good in vessels to be kept and to cast the bad away to try all things and to hold that which is good 74. Ad § 32. Your next and last argument against the faith of Protestants is because wanting Certainty and Prudence it must also want the fourth condition Supernaturality For that being a humane perswasion it is not in the essence of it supernatural and being imprudent and rash it cannot proceed from Divine motion and so is not supernatural in respect of the cause from which it proceedeth Ans This little discourse stands wholly upon what went before and therefore must fall together with it I have proved the Faith of Protestants as certain and as prudent as the faith of Papists and therefore if these be certain grounds of supernaturality our faith may have it as well as yours I would here furthermore be inform'd how you can assure us that your faith is not your perswasion or opinion for you make them all one that your Churches Doctrin is true Or if you grant it your perswasion why is it not the perswasion of men and in respect of the subject of it an humane perswasion I desire also to know what sense there is in pretending that your perswasion is not in regard of the object only and cause of it but in the nature or essence of it supernatural Lastly whereas you say that being imprudent it cannot come from divine motion certainly by this reason all they that believe your own Religion and cannot give a wise and sufficient reason for it as millions amongst you cannot must be condemn'd to have no supernatural faith or if not then without question nothing can hinder but that the imprudent faith of Protestants may proceed from divine motion as well as the imprudent faith of Papists 75. And thus having weighed your whole discourse and found it altogether lighter than vanity why should I not invert your conclusion and say Seeing you have not proved that whosoever errs against any one point of Faith loseth all divine Faith nor that any error whatsoever concerning that which by the Parties litigant may be esteem'd a matter of faith is a grievous sin it follows not at all that when two men hold different doctrins concerning Religion that but one can be saved Not that I deny but that the sentence of Saint Chrysostome with which you conclude this Chapter may in a good sense be true for oftimes by the faith is meant only that Doctrin which is necessary to Salvation and to say that salvation may be had without any the least thing wich is necessary to salvation implyes a repugnance and destroys it self Besides not to believe all necessary points and to believe none at all is for the purpose of salvation all one and therefore he that does so may justly be said to destroy the Gospel of Christ seeing he makes it uneffectual to the end for which it was intended the Salvation of mens soules But why you should conceive that all differences about Religion are concerning matters of faith in this high notion of the word for that I conceive no reason CHAP. VII In regard of the Precept of Charity towards ones self Protestants are in state of Sin as long as they remain separated from the Roman-Church THAT due Order is to be observed in the Theological Vertue of Charity whereby we are directed to preferre some Objects before others is a truth taught by all Divines and declared in these words of holy Scripture He hath ordered (a) Cant. 2 4 Charity in me The reason whereof is because the infinite Goodness of God which is the formal object or Motive of Charity and for which all other things are loved is differently participated by different Objects and therefore the love we bear to them for Gods sake must accordingly be unequal In the vertue of Faith the case is far otherwise because all the Objects or points which we believe do equally participate the divine Testimony or Revelation for which we believe alike all things propounded for such For it is as impossible for God to speak an untruth in a small as in a great matter And this is the ground for which we have so often affirmed that any least error against Faith is in jurious to God and destructive of Salvation 2. This order in
that generally speaking in things necessary only because they are commanded it is sufficient for avoiding sin that we proceed prudently and by the conduct of some probable opinion maturely weighed and approved by men of vertue learning and wisdome Neither are we alwayes obliged to follow the most strict and severe or secure part as long as the doctrin which we embrace proceeds upon such reasons as may warrant it to be truly probable and prudent though the contrary part want not also probable grounds For in humane affairs and discourse evidence and certainty cannot be alwayes expected But when we treat not precisely of avoiding sin but moreover of procuring some thing without which I cannot saved I am obliged by the Law and Order of Charity to procure as great certainty as morally I am able and am not to follow every probable opinion or dictamen but tutiorem partem the safer part because if my probability prove false I shall not probably but certainly come short of Salvation Nay in such case I shall incurre a new sin against the Vertue of Charity towards my self which obligeth every one not to expose his soul to the hazard of eternal perdition when it is in his power with the assistance of Gods grace to make the matter sure From this very ground it is that although some Divines be of opinion that it is not a sin to use some Matter or Form of Sacraments only probable if we respect precisely the reverence or respect which is due to Sacraments as they belong to the Moral infused Vertue of Religion yet when they are such Sacraments as the invalidity thereof may endanger the salvation of souls all do with one consent agree that it is a grievous offence to use a doubtful or only probable Matter or Form when it is in our power to procure certainty If therefore it may appear that though it were not certain that Protestancy unrepented destroyes Salvation as we have proved to be very certain yet at least that it is probable and withal that there is a way more safe it will follow out of the grounds already laid that they are obliged by the law of Charity to embrace that safe way 5. Now that Protestants have reason at least to doubt in what case they stand is deduced from what we have said and proved about the universal infallibility of the Church and of her being Judge of Controversies to whom all Christians ought to submit their Judgement as even some Protestants grant and whom to oppose in any one of her definitions is a grievous sin As also from what we have said of the Unity Universality and Visibility of the Church and of Succession of Persons and Doctrin Of the conditions of Divine Faith Certainty Obscurity Prudence and Supernaturality which are wanting in the faith of Protestants Of the frivolous distinction of points fundamental and not fundamental the confutation whereof proveth that Heretiques disagreeing among themselves in any least point cannot have the same faith nor be of the same Church Of Schism of Heresie of the Persons who first revolted from Rome and of their Motives of the Nature of Faith which is destroyed by any least error and it is certain that some of them must be in error and want the substance of true faith and since all pretend the like certainty it is cleer that none of them have any certainty at all but that they want true faith which is a means most absolutely necessary to Salvation Moreover as I said heretofore since it is granted that every Error in fundamentall points is damnable and that they cannot tell in particular what points be fundamental it followes that none of them knowes whether he or his Brethren do not erre damnably it being certain that amongst so many disagreeing Persons some must erre Upon the same ground of not being able to assigne what points be fundamental I say they cannot be sure whether the difference among them be fundamental or no and consequently whether they agree in the substance of faith and hope of Salvation I omit to adde that you want the Sacrament of Penance instituted for remission of sins or at least you must confess that you hold it not necessary and yet your own Bretheren for example the Century-Writers do (g) Cent. 3 cap. 6. Col. 127. acknowledge that in times of Cyprian and Tertullian Private Confession even of Thoughts was used and that it was then commanded and thought necessary The like I say concerning your Ordination which at least is very doubtful and consequently all that depends thereon 6. On the other side that the Roman Church is the safer way to Heaven not to repeat what hath been already said upon divers occasions I will again put you in mind that unless the Roman Church was the true Church there was no visible true Church upon earth A thing so manifest that Protestants themselves confess that more than one thousand yeers the Roman Church possessed the whole world as we have shewed heretofore out of their own (h) Chap. 5. Num. 9. words from whence it followes that unless Ours be the true Church you cannot pretend to any perpetual visible Church of your Own but Ours doth not depend on yours before which it was And here I wish you to consider with fear and trembling how all Roman Catholiques not one excepted that is those very men whom you must hold not to erre damnably in their belief unless you will destroy your own Church and salvation do with unanimous consent believe and profess that Protestancy unrepented destroyes Salvation and then tell me as you will answer at the last day Whether it be not more safe to live and die in that Church which even your selves are forced to acknowledg not to be cut off from hope of Salvation which are your own words than to live in a Church which the said confessedly true Church doth firmly believe and constantly profess not to be capable of Salvation And therefore I conclude that by the most strict obligation of Charity towards your own soul you are bound to place it in safety by returning to that Church from which your Progenitors Schismatically departed lest too late you find that saying of the holy Ghost verified in your selves He that loves (i) Eccl. 3.27 the danger shall perish therein 7. Against this last argumant of the greater security of the Roman Church drawn from your own confession you bring an Objection which in the end will be found to make for us against your self It is taken from the words of the Donatists speaking to Catholiques in this manner Your selves confess (k) Pag. 112. our Baptism Sacraments and Faith here you put an Explication of your own and say for the most parts as if any small error in faith did not destroy all Faith to be good and available We deny yours to be so and say There is no Church no salvation amongst you Therefore it is safest for
ours by your own confession is safe whereas we hold that in yours there is no hope of salvation Therefore you may and ought to imbrace ours This is our Argument◠And if the Dominicans and Jesuits did say one to another as we say you then one of them might with good consequence press the other to believe his opinion You have still the hard fortune to be beaten with your own weapon 12. It remaineth then that both in regard of Faith and Charity Protestants are obliged to unite themselves with the Church of Rome And I may adde also in regard of the Theological Vertue of Hope without which none can hope to be saved and which you want either by excess of Confidence or defect 〈◊〉 Despaire not unlike to your Faith which I shewed to be either deficient in Certainty or excessive in Evidence as likewise according to the rigid Calvinists it is either so strong that once had it can never be lost or so more than weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotten For the true Theological Hope of Christians is a Hope which keeps a mean between Presumption and Desperation which moves us to work our salvation with fear and trembling which conducts us to make sure our salvation by good works as holy Scripture adviseth But contrarily Protestants do either exclude Hope by Despair with the Doctrin That our Saviour died not for all and that such want grace sufficient to salvation or else by vain Presumption grounded upon a fantastical perswasion that they are Predestinate which Faith must exclude all fear and trembling Neither can they make their Calling certain by good works who do certainly believe that before any good works they are justified and justified even by Faith alone and by that Faith whereby they certainly believe they are justified Which point some Protestants do expresly affirm to be the soul of the Church the principal Origin of salvation of all other points of Doctrin the chiefest and weightiest as already I have noted Chap. 3. n. 19. And if some Protestants do now relent from the rigour of the foresaid doctrin we must affirm that at least some of them want the Theological Vertue of Hope yea that none of them can have true Hope while they hope to be saved in the Communion of those who defend such doctrins as do directly overthrow all true Christian Hope And for as much as concerns Faith we must also inferr that they want Unity therein and consequently have none at all by their disagreement about the soul of the Church the principal Origin of salvation of all other points of Doctrin the chiefest and weightiest And if you want true Faith you must by consequence want Hope or if you hold that this point is not to be so indivisible on either side but that it hath latitude sufficient to imbrace all parties without prejudice to their salvation notwithstanding that your Brethren hold it to be the soul of the Church c. I must repeat what I have said heretofore that even by this Example it is cleer you cannot agree what points be fundamental And so to whatsoever answer you fly I press you in the same manner and say that you have no Certainty whether you agree in fundamental points or Unity and substance of Faith which cannot stand with difference in fundamentals And so upon the whole matter I leave it to be considered whether Want of Charity can be justly charged on us because we affirm that they cannot without repentance be saved who want of all other the most necessary means to salvation which are the three Theological Vertues FAITH HOPE and CHARITY 13. And now I end this first part having as I conceive complyed with my first design in that measure which Time Commodity scarcity of Books and my own small Abilities could afford which was to shew that Amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved For since there must be some infallible Means to decide all Controversies concerning Religion and to propound truth revealed by Almighty God and this means can be no other but the Visible Church of Christ which at the time of Luther's appearance was only the Church of Rome and such as agreed with her We must conclude that whosoever opposeth himself to her definitions or forsaketh her Communion doth resist God himself whose Spouse she is and whose divine truth she propounds and therefore becomes guilty of Schism and Heresie which since Luther his Associates and Protestants have done and still continue to do it is not Want of Charity but abundance of evident cause that forceth us to declare this necessary Truth PROTESTANCY UNREPENTED DESTROIES SALVATION The ANSWER to the SEVENTH CHAPTER That Protestants are not bound by the Charity which they owe to themselves to re-unite themselves to the Roman-Church THE first four Paragraphs of this Chapter are wholly spent in an unnecessary introduction unto a truth which I presume never was nor will be by any man in his right wits either denyed or question'd and that is That every man in Wisdom and Charity to himself is to take the safest way to his eternal Salvation 2. The sift and sixt are nothing in a manner but references to discourses already answered by me and confuted in their proper places 3. The seventh eighth ninth tenth and eleventh have no other foundation but this false pretence That we confess the Roman Church free from damnable error 4. In the twelfth there is something that has some probability to perswade some Protestants to forsake some of their opinions or others to leave their communion but to prove Protestants in general to be in the state of sin while they remain separate from the Roman Church there is not one word or syllable and besides whatsoever argument there is in it for any purpose it may be as forcibly return'd upon Papists as it is urg'd against Protestants in as much as all Papists either hold the doctrin of Predetermination and absolute Election or communicate with those that do hold it Now from this doctrin what is more prone and obvious than for every natural man without Gods especial preventing grace to make this practical collection Either I am elected or not elected If I be no impiety possible can ever damne me If not no possible industry can ever save me Now whether this disjunctive perswasion be not as likely as any doctrin of any Protestants to extinguish Christian hope and filiall fear and to lead some men to dispaire others to presumption all to a wretchless and impious life I desire you ingeniously to inform mee and if you deny it assure your self you shall be contradicted and confuted by men of your own Religion and your own Society and taught at length this charitable Doctrin that though mens opinions may be charg'd with the absurd consequencs which naturally flow from them yet the men themselves are not I mean if they perceive not the consequence of these
justification by faith without the works of the Law were never read in the Church but when the 13. Chapter of the 1. Epistle to the Corinth concerning the absolute necessity of Charity should be to prevent misprision read together with them 33. Whereas you say that some Protestants do expresly affirm the former point to be the soul of the Church c. and therefore they must want the Theological vertue of Hope and that none can have true hope while they hope to be saved in their communion I answ They have great reason to believe the Doctrin of justification by faith only a point of great weight and importance if it be rightly understood that is they have reason to esteem it a principal and necessary duty of a Christian to place his hope of justification and salvation not in the perfection of his own righteousness which if it be imperfect will not justifie but only in the mercies of God through Christs satisfaction and yet notwithstanding this nay the rather for this may preserve themselves in the right temper of good Christians which is a happy mixture and sweet composition of confidence and fear If this Doctrin be otherwise expounded than I have here expounded I will not undertake the justification of it only I will say that which I may do truly that I never knew any Protestant such a soli-sidian but that he did believe these divine truths That he must make his calling certain by good works That he must work out his salvation with Fear and Trembling and that while he does not so he can have no well grounded hope of Salvation I say I never met with any who did not believe these divine Truths and that with a more firm and a more unshaken assent than he does that himself is predestinate and that he is justified by believing himself justified I never met with any such who if he saw there were a necessity to do either would not rather forgoe his belief of these Doctrins than the former these which he sees disputed and contradicted and opposed with a great multitude of very potent Arguments than those which being the express words of Scripture whosoever should call into question could not with any modesty pretend to the title of Christian And therefore there is no reason but we may believe that their full assurance of the former Doctrin doth very well qualifie their perswasion of the later and that the former as also the lives of may of them do sufficiently testifie are more effectual to temper their hope and to keep it at a stay of a filial and modest assurance of Gods favour built upon the conscience of his love and fear than the later can be to swell and puffe them up into vain confidence and ungrounded presumption This reason joyn'd with our experience of the honest and religious conversation of many men of this opinion is a sufficient ground for Charity to hope well of their Hope and to assure our selves that it cannot be offensive but rather most acceptable to God if notwithstanding this diversity of opinion we embrace each other with the strict embraces of love and communion To you and your Church we leave it to separate Christians from the Church and to proscribe them from heaven upon trivial and trifling causes As for our selves we conceive a charitable judgement of our Bretheren and their errors though untrue much more pleasing to God than a true judgement if it be uncharitable and therefore shall alwayes choose if we do err to err on the milder and more merciful part and rather to retain those in our Communion which deserve to be ejected than eject those that deserve to be retain'd 34. Lastly whereas you say that seeing Protestants differ about the point of Justification you must needs inferre that they want Unity in faith and consequently all faith and then that they cannot agree what points are fundamentall I answer to the first of these inferences that as well might you inferre it upon Victor Bishop of Rome and Polycrates upon Stephen Bishop of Rome and Saint Cyprian in asmuch as it is undeniably evident that what one of those esteemed necessary to salvation the other esteemed not so But points of Doctrin as all other things are as they are and not as they are esteemed neither can a necessary point be made unnecessary by being so accounted nor an unnecessary point be made necessary by being overvalued But as the ancient Philosophers whose different opinions about the Soule of man you may read in Aristotle de anima and Cicero's Tusculan Questions notwithstanding their divers opinions touching the nature of the soule yet all of them had soules and soules of the same nature Or as those Physitians who dispute whether the Brain or Heart be the principall part of a man yet all of them have brains and have hearts and herein agree sufficiently So likewise though some Protestants esteem that Doctrine the soule of the Church which others do not so highly value yet this hinders not but that which is indeed the soule of the Church may be in both sorts of them And though one account that a necessary truth which others account neither necessary nor perhaps true yet this notwithstanding in those truths which are truly and really necessary they may all agree For no Argument can be more sophistical than this They differ in some points which they esteem necessary Therefore they differ in some that indeed and in truth are so 35. Now as concerning the other Inference That they cannot agree what points are fundamental I have said and prov'd formerly that there is no such necessity as you imagine or pretend that men should certainly know what is and what is not fundamental They that believe all things plainly delivered in Scripture believe all things fundamental and are at sufficient Unity in matters of Faith though they cannot precisely and exactly distinguish between what is fundamental and what is profitable nay though by error they mistake some vain or perhaps some hurtful opinions for necessary and fundamental Truths C 3. Sect. 54. alibi Besides I have shewed above that as Protestants do not agree for you over-reach in saying they cannot touching what points are fundamental so neither do you agree what points are defin'd and so to be accounted and what are not nay nor concerning the subject in which God hath placed this pretended Authority of defining some of you setling it in the Pope himself though alone without a Councel Others in a Councel though divided from the Pope Others only in the conjunction of Councel and Pope Others not in this neither but in the acceptation of the present Church Universal Lastly others not attributing it to this neither but only to the perpetual Succession of the Church of all ages of which divided Company it is very evident and undeniable that every former may be and are obliged to hold many things defin'd and therefore
necessary which the latter according to their own grounds have no obligation to do nay cannot do so upon any firm and sure and infallible foundation THE CONCLVSION AND thus by God's assistance and the advantage of a good cause I am at length through a passage rather tyring than difficult arriv'd at the end of my undertaken Voyage and have as I suppose made appear to all dis-interessed and unprejudicate Readers what in the beginning I undertook that a vein of Sophistry and Calumny runs clean through this first part of your Book wherein though I never thought of the directions you have been pleas'd to give me in your Pamphlet entituled A direction to N. N. yet upon consideration of my Answer I find that I have proceeded as if I had had it alwayes before my eyes and steer'd my course by it as by a card and compass For first I have not proceeded by a meer destructive way as you call it nor objected such difficulties against your Religion as upon examination tend to the overthrow of all Religion but have shewed that the truth of Christianity is cleerly independent upon the truth of Popery and that on the other side the arguments you urge and the courses you take for the maintenance of your Religion do manifestly tend if they be closely and consequently followed to the destruction of all Religion and lead men by the hand to Atheism and Impiety whereof I have given you ocular demonstrations in divers places of my book but especially in my answer to your Direction to N. N. Neither can I discover any repugnance between any one part of my answer and any other though I have used many more judicious and more searching eyes than mine own to make if it were possible such a discovery and therefore am in good hope that though the musick I have made be but dull and flat and even downright plain-song even your curious and critical ears shall discover no discord in it but on the other side I have charg'd you frequently and very justly with manifest contradiction and retractation of your own assertions and not seldom of the main grounds you build upon and the principal conclusions which you endeavour to maintain which I conceive my self to have made apparent even to the eye c. 2. § 5. c. 3. § 88. c. 4. § 14. and 24. c. 5. § 93. c. 6. § 6 7 12 17. c. 7. § 29. and in many other parts of my Answer And though I did never pretend to defend D. Potter absolutely and in all things but only so farre as he defends Truth neither did D. Potter desire me nor any law of God or man oblige me to defend him any farther yet I do not find that I have cause to differ from him in any matter of moment particularly not concerning the infallibility of God's Church which I grant with him to be infallible in fundamentals because if it should erre in fundamentals it were not the Church Nor concerning the supernaturality of Faith which I know and believe as well as you to be the gift of God and that flesh and bloud reveal'd it not unto us but our Father which is in heaven But now if it were demanded What defence you can make for deserting Charity Mistaken in the main Question disputed between him and Dr. Potter Whether Protestancy without a particular repentance and dereliction of it destroy Salvation whereof I have convinc'd you I believe your answer would be much like that which Ulysses makes in the Metamorphosis for his running away from his friend Nestor that is none at all For Opposing the Articles of the Church of England the Approbation I presume cleers my Book from this imputation And whereas you give me a Caution that my grounds destroy not the belief of diverse Doctrins which all good Christians believe yea and of all verities that cannot be prov'd by natural reason I profess sincerely that I do not know nor believe that any ground laid by me in my whole Book is any way inconsistent with any one such Doctrin or with any verity revealed in the Word of God though never so improbable or incomprehensible to Natural Reason and if I thought there were I would deal with it as those primitive Converts dealt with their curious Books in the Acts of the Apostles For the Epistle of St. James and those other Books which were anciently controverted and are now received by the Church of England as Canonical I am so far from relying upon any Principles which must to my apprehension bring with them the denial of the authority of them that I my self believe them all to be Canonical For the overthrowing the Infallibility of all Scripture my Book is so innocent of it that the Infallibility of Scripture is the chiefest of all my grounds And lastly for Arguments tending to prove an impossibility of all Divine Supernatural Infallible Faith and Religion I assure my self that if you were ten times more a Spider than you are you could suck no such poyson from them My heart I am sure is innocent of any such intention and the Searcher of all hearts knows that I had no other end in writing this Book but to confirm to the uttermost of my ability the truth of the Divine and Infallible Religion of our dearest Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus which I am ready to seal and confirm not with my Arguments only but my Bloud Now these are the Directions which you have been pleas'd to give me whether out of a fear that I might otherwise deviate from them or out of a desire to make others think so But howsoever I have not to my understanding swarved from them in any thing which puts me in good hope that my Answer to this first Part of your Book will give even to you your self indifferent good satisfaction I have also provided though this were more than I undertook a just and punctual examination and refutation of your second Part But if you will give your consent I am resolv'd to suppress it and that for divers sufficient and reasonable considerations First because the discussion of the Controversies intreated of in the first Part if we shall think fit to proceed in it as I for my part shall so long as I have truth to reply will I conceive be sufficient employment for us though we cast off the burden of those many lesser disputes which remain behind in the Second And perhaps we may do God and his Church more service by exactly discussing and fully clearing the truth in these few â—â—an by handling many after a sleight and perfunctory manner Secondly because the addition of the Second Part whether for your purpose or mine is clearly unnecessary there being no understanding man Papist or Protestant but will confess that for as much as concerns the main question now in agitation about the saveableness of Protestants if the first part of your Book be answered there needs no reply to the Second
as on the other side I shall willingly grant if I have not answered the First I cannot answer a great part of the Second Thirdly because the addition of the Second not only is unnecessary but in effect by your self confess'd to be so For in your preamble to your Second Part you tell us That the substance of the present Controversie is handled in the first and therein also you pretend to have answered the chief grounds of D. Potters book So that in replying to your Second Part I shall do little else but pursue shadows Fourthly because your Second Part setting aside Repetitions and References is in a manner made up of Disputes about particular matters which you are very importunate to have forborn as suspecting at least pretending to suspect that they were brought in purposely by D. Potter to dazle the Reader 's eyes and distract his mind that he might not see the clearness of the reasons brought in defence of the General Doctrin delivered in Charity Mistaken All which you are likely enough if there be occasion to say again to me and therefore I am resolv'd for once even to humour you so farre as to keep my discourse within those very lists and limits which your self have prescrib'd and to deal with you upon no other arguments but only those wherein you conceive your chief advantage and principal strength and as it were your Sampson's lock to lye wherein if I gain the cause clearly from you as I verily hope by Gods help I shall do it cannot but redound much to the honour of the truth maintain'd by me which by so weak a Champion can overcome such an Achilles for error even in his strongest holds For these reasons although I have made ready an answer to your Second Part and therein have made it sufficiently evident That for shifting evasions from D. Potter's arguments for impertinent cavills and frivolous exceptions and injurious calumnies against him for his misalleadging of Authors For proceeding upon false and ungrounded principles for making inconsequent and sophistical deductions and in a word for all the vertues of an ill answer your Second Part is no way second to the first Yet notwithstanding all this advantage I am resolv'd if you will give me leave either wholly to suppress it or at least to deferre the publication of it untill I see what exceptions upon a twelve-months examination for so long I am well assur'd you have had it in your hands you can take at this which is now published that so if my grounds be discovered false I may give over building on them or if it shall be thought fit build on more securely when it shall appear that nothing material and of moment is or can be objected against them This I say upon a supposition that your self will allow these reasons for satisfying and sufficient and not repent of the motion which your self has made of reducing the Controversie between us to this short Issue But in case your minde be altered upon the least intimation you shall give me that you do but desire to have it out your desire shall prevail with me above all other reasons and you shall not fail to receive it with all convenient speed Only that my Answer may be compleat and that I may have all my work together and not be troubled my self nor enforc'd to trouble you with after-reckonings I would first entreat you to make good your Promise of not omitting to answer all the particles of D. Potters book which may any way import and now at least to take notice of some as it seems to me not unconsiderable passages of it which between your first and second Part as it were between two stools have been suffer'd hitherto to fall to the ground and not been vouchsaf'd any answer at all For after this neglectful fashion you have passed by in silence First his discourse wherein he proves briefly but very effectually that Protestants may be sav'd and that the Roman Church especially the Jesuits are very uncharitable S. 1. p. 6 7 8 9. Secondly the authorities whereby he justifies That the ancient Fathers by the Roman understood alwayes a particular and never the Catholique Church to which purpose he alleageth the words of Ignatius Ambrose Innocentius Celestine Nicolaus S. 1. p. 10. Whereunto you say nothing neither do you infringe his Observation with any one Instance to the contrary Thirdly the greatest and most substantial part of his answers to the Arguments of Charity Mistaken built upon Deut. 17. Numb 16. Mat. 28.20 Mat. 18.17 and in particular many pregnant and convincing Texts of Scripture quoted in the margent of his book p. 25. to prove that the Judges of the Synagogue whose Infallibility yet you make an Argument of yours and therefore must be more credible then yours are vainly pretended to have been infallible but as they were oblig'd to judge according to the Law so were obnoxious to deviations from it S. 2. p. 23 24 25 26 27. Fourthly his discourse wherein he shewes the difference between the Prayers for the dead used by the Ancients and those now in use in the Roman Church Fifthly the Authority of three Ancient and above twenty modern Doctors of your own Church alleadg'd by him to shew that in their opinion even Pagans and therefore much more erring Christians if their lives were morally honest by Gods extraordinary mercy and Christs merit may be saved S. 2. p. 45. Sixthly a great part of his discourse whereby he declares that actual and external Communion with the Church is not of absolute necessity to Salvation nay that those might be saved whom the Church utterly refus'd to admit to her Communion S. 2. p. 46 47 48 49. Seventhly his discourse concerning the Churches latitude which hath in it a clear determination of the main Controversie against you For therein he proves plainly that all appertain to the Church who believe that Jesus is the Christ the sonne of God and Saviour of the world with submission to his Doctrin in mind and will which he irrefragably demonstrates by many evident Texts of Scripture containing the substance of his Assertion even in terms S. 4. p. 114 115 116 117. Eighthly that wherein he shews by many pertinent examples that grosse error and true Faith may be lodged together in the same mind And that men are not chargeable with the damnable consequences of their erroneous opinions S. 4 p. 112. Ninthly a very great part of his Chapter touching the dissentions of the Roman-Church which he shews against the pretences of Charity Mistaken to be no less than ours for the importance of the matter and the pursuit of them to be exceedingly uncharitable S. 6. p. 188 189 190 191 193 194 195 196 197. Tenthly his clear refutation and just reprehension of the Doctrine of implicite Faith as it is deliver'd by the Doctors of your Church which he proves very consonant to the Doctrin of Heretiques and Infidels but evidently
repugnant to the word of God Ibid. p. 201 202 203 204 205. Lastly his discourse wherein he shews that it is unlawful for the Church of after Ages to add any thing to the Faith of the Apostles And many of his Arguments whereby he proves that in the judgement of the Ancient Church the Apostles Creed was esteem'd a sufficient summary of the necessary Points of simple belief and a great number of great authorities to justifie the Doctrin of the Church of England touching the Canon of Scripture especially the old Testament S. 7. p. 221 223 228 229. All these parts of Doctor Potter's book for reason best known to your self you have dealt with as the Priest and Levite in the Gospel did with the wounded Samaritan that is only look't upon them and pass'd by But now at least when you are admonish't of it that my Reply to your second part if you desire it may be perfect I would entreat you to take them into your consideration and to make some shew of saying something to them lest otherwise the world should interpret your obstinate silence a plain confession that you can say nothing FINIS THE Apostolical Institution OF EPISCOPACY DEMONSTRATED BY WILL. CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD NOSCE TE IPSVM NE QUID NIMIS LONDON Printed by E. Cotes dwelling in Aldersgate-street Anno Dom. M.DC.LXIV THE Apostolical Institution OF EPISCOPACY DEMONSTRATED SECT I. IF we abstract from Episcopal Government all accidentals and consider only what is essential and necessary to it we shall finde in it no more but this An appointment of one man of eminent sanctity and sufficiency to have the care of all the Churches within a certain Precinct or Diocess and furnishing him with authority not absolute or arbitrary but regulated and bounded by Laws and moderated by joyning to him a convenient number of assistants to the intent that all the Churches under him may be provided of good and able Pastors and that both of Pastors and people conformity to Laws and performance of their duties may be required under penalties not left to discretion but by Law appointed SECT II. To this kind of Government I am not by any particular interest so devoted as to think it ought to be maintained either in opposition to Apostolick Institution or to the much desired reformation of mens lives and restauration of Primitive discipline or to any Law or Precept of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for that were to maintain a means contrary to the end for Obedience to our Saviour is the end for which Church-Government is appointed But if it may be demonstrated or made much more probable than the contrary as I verily think it may I. That it is not repugnant to the government setled in and for the Church by the Apostles II. That it is as complyable with the Reformation of any evill which we desire to reform either in Church or State or the introduction of any good which we desire to introduce as any other kind of Government And III. That there is no Law no Record of our Saviour against it Then I hope it will not be thought an unreasonable Motion if we humbly desire those that are in Authority especially the High Court of Parliament That it may not be sacrificed to Clamour or over-born by Violence and though which God forbid the greater part of the Multitude should cry Crucifie Crucifie yet our Governours would be so full of Justice and Counage as not to give it up until they perfectly understand concerning Episcopacy it self Quid mali fecit SECT III. I shall speak at this time only of the first of these three points That Episcopacy is not repugnant to the Government setled in the Church for perpetuity by the Apostles Whereof I conceive this which follows is as clear a Demonstration as any thing of this nature is capable of That this Government was received universally in the Church either in the Apostles time or presently after is so evident and unquestionable that the most learned adversaries of this Government do themselves confess it SECT IV. Petrus Molinaeus in his Book De munere pastorali purposely written in defence of the Presbyterial-government acknowledgeth That presently after the Apostles times or even in their time as Ecclesiastical story witnesseth it was ordained That in every City one of the Presbytery should be called a Bishop who should have pre-eminence over his Colleagues to avoid confusion which oft times ariseth out of equality And truly this form of Government all Churches every where received SECT V. Theodorus Beza in his Tract De triplici Episcopatûs genere confesseth in effect the same thing For having distinguished Episcopacy into three kinds Divine Humane and Satanical and attributing to the second which he calls Humane but we maintain and conceive to be Apostolical not only a priority of Order but a superiority of Power and Authority over other Presbyters bounded yet by Laws and Canons provided against Tyranny he clearly professeth that of this kind of Episcopacy is to be understood whatsoever we read concerning the authority of Bishops or Presidents as Justin Martyr calls them in Ignatius and other more ancient Writers SECT VI. Certainly from * To whom two others also from Geneva may be added Daniel Chamierus in Panstratia tom 2. lib. 10. cap. 6. Sect. 24. and Nicol. Vedelius Exereitat 3. in epist Ignatii ad Philadelph cap. 14. Exercit. 8. in Epist ad Mariam cap. 3. which is fully also demonstrated in D. Hammond's Dissertations against Blondel which never were answered and never will by the testimonies of those who wrote in the very next Age after the Apostles these two great Defenders of the Presbytery we should never have had this free acknowledgement so prejudicial to their own pretence and so advantagious to their adversaries purpose had not the evidence of clear and undeniable truth enforced them to it It will not therefore be necessary to spend any time in confuting that uningenuous assertion of the anonymous Author of the Catalogue of Testimonies for the equality of Bishops and Presbyters who affirms That their disparity began long after the Apostles times But we may safely take for granted that which these two learned Adversaries have confessed and see whether upon this foundation laid by them we may not by unanswerable reason raise this superstructure That seeing Episcopal Government is confessedly so Ancient and so Catholique it cannot with reason be denyed to be Apostolique SECT VII For so great a change as between Presbyterial Government and Episcopal could not possibly have prevailed all the world over in a little time Had Episcopal Government been an aberration from or a corruption of the Government left in the Churches by the Apostles it had been very strange that it should have been received inany one Church so suddainly or that it should have prevailed in all for many Ages after Variâsse debuerat error Ecclesiarum quod
autem apud omnes unum est non est erratum sed traditum Had the Churches err'd they would have varied What therefore is one and the same amongst all came not sure by error but tradition Thus Tertullian argues very probably from the consent of the Churches of his time not long after the Apostles and that in matter of opinion much more subject to unobserv'd alteration But that in the frame and substance of the necessary Government of the Church a thing alwayes in use and practice there should be so suddain a change as presently after the Apostles times and so universal as received in all the Churches this is clearly impossible SECT VIII For What universal cause can be assigned or faigned of this universal Apostasie You will not imagine that the Apostles all or any of them made any decree for this change when they were living or left order for it in any Will or Testament when they were dying This were to grant the question to wit That the Apostles being to leave the Government of the Churches themselves and either seeing by experience or foreseeing by the Spirit of God the distractions and disorders which would arise from a multitude of equals substituted Episcopal Government instead of their own General Councels to make a Law for a general change for many ages there was none There was no Christian Emperour no coercive power over the Church to enforce it Or if there had been any we know no force was equal to the courage of the Christians of those times Their lives were then at command for they had not then learnt to fight for Christ but their obedience to any thing against his Law was not to be commanded for they had perfectly learn't to die for him Therefore there was no power then to command this change or if there had been any it had been in vain SECT IX What device then shall we study or to what fountain shall we reduce this strange pretended alteration Can it enter into our hearts to think that all the Presbyters and other Christians then being the Apostles Schollers could be generally ignorant of the Will of Christ touching the necessity of a Presbyterial Government Or dare we adventure to think them so strangely wicked all the World over as against knowledge and conscience to conspire against it Imagine the spirit of Diotrephes had entred into some or a great many of the Presbyters and possessed them with an ambitious desire of a forbidden superiority was it possible they should attempt and atchieve it once without any opposition or contradiction and besides that the contagion of this ambition should spread it self and prevail without stop or controul nay without any noise or notice taken of it through all the Churches in the World all the watchmen in the mean time being so fast asleep and all the dogs so dumb that not so much as one should open his mouth against it SECT X. But let us suppose though it be a horrible untruth that the Presbyters and people then were not so good Christians as the Presbyterians are now that they were generally so negligent to retain the government of Christ's Church commanded by Christ which we now are so zealous to restore yet certainly we must not forget nor deny that they were men as we are And if we look upon them but as meer natural men yet knowing by experience how hard a thing it is even for Policy arm'd with Power by many attempts and contrivances and in along time to gain upon the liberty of any one people undoubtedly we shall never entertain so wild an imagination as that among all the Christian Presbyteries in the World neither conscience of duty nor love of liberty nor aversness from pride and usurpation of others over them should prevail so much with any one as to oppose this pretended universal invasion of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the liberty of Christians SECT XI When I shall-see therefore all the Fables in the Metamorphosis acted and prove Stories when I shall see all the Democracies and Aristocracies in the World lye down and sleep and awake into Monarchies then will I begin to believe that Presbyterial Government having continued in the Church during the Apostles times should presently after against the Apostles doctrine and the will of Christ be whirl'd about like a scene in a masque and transformed into Episcopacy In the mean time while these things remain thus incredible and in humane reason impossible I hope I shall have leave to conclude thus Episcopal Government is acknowledged to have been universally received in the Church presently after the Apostles times Between the Apostles times and this presently after there was not time enough for nor possibility of so great an alteration And therefore there was no such alteration as is pretended And therefore Episcopacy being confessed to be so Ancient and Catholique must be granted also to be Apostolique Quod erat demonstrandum FINIS NINE SERMONS The First Preached before His MAJESTY King CHARLES the FIRST The other Eight upon special and eminent Occasions BY WILL. CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD NOSCE TE IPSVM NE QUID NIMIS LONDON Printed by E. Cotes dwelling in Aldersgate-street Anno Dom. M.DC.LXIV TO THE READER Christian Reader THese Sermons were by the Godly and Learned Author of them fitted to the Congregations to which he was to speak and no doubt intended only for the benefit of Hearers not of Readers Nevertheless it was the desire of many that they might be published upon the hope of good that might be done to the Church of God by them There is need of plain Instructions to incite men to holiness of life as well as accurate Treatises in Points Controverted to discern Truth from Error For which end I dare promise these Sermons will make much where they find an honest and humble Reader It was the Author's greatest care as you may find in the reading of them To handle the Word of God by manifestation of the truth commending himself to every mans conscience in the fight of God as once St. Paul pleaded for himself 2 Cor. 4.2 And if that be the property which they say of an eloquent and good speaker Non ex ore sed ex pectore To speak from his heart rather than his tongue then surely this Author was an excellent Orator one that spake out of sound understanding with true affection How great his parts were and how well improved as may appear by these his Labours so they were fully known and the loss of them sufficiently bewailed by those among whom he lived and conversed Many excellencies there were in him for which his memory remains but this above all was his crown that he unfeignedly sought God's glory and the good of mens souls It remains that these Sermons be read by thee with a care to profit and thanks to God for the benefit thou hast by them sith they are such talents
the whole Scripture except it be in a History or where the quotation is mentioned Therefore surely it may be pertinent and sometimes useful even in the Church to have Atheism discovered to have this Doctrin preach'd and re-preach'd it was so in David's times and it shall go hard but we shall shew that we our selves though never so wise and learn'd and knowing in our own opinion yet that we also ought not to take it to heart if sometimes we be suspected and challenged of Atheism 10. That Temptation which the Devil found hard enough for himself even when he was an Angel of Light namely Ero similis Altissimo I shall be like the most Highest Now that it is his Office and employment to become a Tempter He has since scarce ever varied At the first exercise of his Trade with his first customers Adam and Eve he begun with it Ye shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evil. And if we shall unpartially examin our own thoughts we shall find almost in every suggestion at least some degree and tincture of Atheism either we do exalt and Deifie our own selves or else we do dishonour and in a manner degrade Almighty God deposing him from that soveraignty and sway which he ought to exercise in our Hearts and Consciences 11. This I say is true in some measure in all temptations in all sins whatsoever there is some quantity of Atheism though the sins be but of an ordinary size and rank But this is not that which I would now stand upon It concerns me to show that though men be never so Orthodox in their Opinions though they pretend to never so much zeal of the Truth which they profess yet unless that Divine Truth be powerful and perswasive enough to the performance and practise of such Duties as bear a natural resemblance and proportion unto it They that make such a Profession of Gods Truth do but flatter themselves they only think they believe but indeed and in truth there is no such thing as Faith in them For we must know that there is no Divine Truth so utterly speculative but that there naturally and infallibly flows and results from it as necessarily as warmth from light a Duty to be practis'd and put in execution Insomuch that it is impossible for a man to be truly perswaded of the one but he shall infallibly be perswaded to the other 1 Joh 2 4. So that he which saith He knoweth God and keepeth not his Commandements is a Lyar and the Truth is not in him And this I shall endeavour to confirm by Induction examining the truth and reality of our assent to the chief Fundamental Points of our Religion by our practises answerable thereto and concluding that where the latter is not to be found it is but a vain perswasion and phantastical illusion for a man to think he hath the former 12. But in the first place that we may be the better able and without interruption proceed in this design'd course I will first remove an Objection which may seem to prevail against that which hath been spoken to this effect Object Jam. 11.19 The Devils as Saint James saith believe and tremble They do indeed assent unto the Truth of all the mysteries of our Salvation In the place of St. James they acknowledg One God In Matth. 8.28 they acknowledg the second Article of our Faith allowing Christ to be Son of God And the like may be said of the others following And yet if we examin their practise How absolutely contradicting and warring is it with their profession Therefore it may seem that where there is a firm assent to Divine Truths there may consist with it a contrary repugnant practise 13. For answer therefore we must know Sol. that the Assent which the Devil gives to the Revelations of God is extreamly different from that belief which is exacted of us Christians and which every one of us though never so vitious and irreligious would gladly perswade our selves that we allow unto Gods Word For though for example the Devils acknowledge the Precepts and Commandements of God to be Holy and Just and Good and most fit to be observed As likewise that to those who sincerely and without Hypocrisie shall perform these Commandements of God Heb. 11.1 the promises of God shall be Yea and Amen they shall infallibly attain those joys which exceed mans understanding to comprehend Yet these things to them are only as a Tale which is told or rather they are to them occasion of horrour and gnashing of Teeth that there should be such glorious comfortable things which do nothing concern them and of malice and hatred to those who have an interest in them and are in a fair possibility of attaining unto them And therefore no marvail if such a Faith as this be barren and unfruitful of Good Works Whereas our Faith saith St. Paul is the substance of things hoped for of things which concern us we do not only acknowledg that the Precepts of God are good but also necessarily to be performed by us and that the promises of God are not only desireable in themselves but also that being such they were revealed for our sakes and are infallibly destin'd unto us when we shall have performed such conditions as may by the assistance of God be executed by us even with ease and pleasure Now wheresoever such perswasions as these are it is impossible even if the Devils themselves could be supposed capable of them but that there should accompany them earnest and serious endeavours not to come short of the Glory of God This difficulty therefore being dissolved I shall persue the examination of our belief of the Foundations of our Religion by the fruits and issues of it in the practises of our lives 14. We will begin with some of Gods Attributes Whosoever thou art that professest thy self a Christian thou believest that God whom thou servest is present every where both in Heaven and Earth insomuch that it is altogether impossible for thee to exclude him from thy company wheresoever thou goest he will pursue thee Though thou shouldst cloath thy self with darkness as it were with a garment the darkness would be to Him as the Noon-day And though it were possible for thee to deceive the eyes and observation of Men and Angels yea even of thine own Conscience yet to him thou wouldst be open and transparent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it were Dissected and having thy very Entrails exposed to his sight 15. Thou canst hide therefore nothing which thou doest from his eyes he taketh notice of every word which thou speakest he hears even the very whispering of thy thoughts And all this thou sayest thou acknowledgest Out of thy own mouth shalt thou be condemned thou wicked Servant Darest thou then make thy Master a witness of thy Rebellion and Disobedience When thou art about the fulfilling of any of thine ungodly lusts thou retirest thy self from company
I say our Saviour took to perform an admirable miracle even upon the man himself and that he brought about by as unlikely a course only with inviting himself to his house By which unexpected affability and courtesie of our Saviour this so notorious and famous Publican and sinner was so surpriz'd with joy and comfort that presently he gives over all thought and consideration of his trade as a thing of no moment and being to receive Christ into his house and knowing how ill agreeing companions Christ and Mammon would prove in the same lodging he resolves to sweep it and make it clean for the entertaining of him he empties it of that dross and dung wherewith before it was defiled half of his estate goes away at a clap upon the poor and the remainder in all likelihood is in great danger to be consum'd by that noble and generous offer which he makes in the words of my Text Whomsoever I have defrauded by forged cavillation I restore c. 4. In which words I shall observe unto you these two General Parts Division First a Discovery and it may be confession of his beloved bosome sin the sin of his trade in these words If I have defrauded any man or whomsoever I have defrauded Secondly Satisfaction tendered in the words following I restore unto him four fold In the former General we may take notice of two particulars 1. Zacchaeus his willingness and readiness of his own accord to discover and confess his sin when he said Whomsoever I have defrauded And 2. the nature and heinousness of the crime discovered which is called a defrauding by forged cavillation or as some Translations read with false accusation In the second General likewise which is the satisfaction tendered by Zacchaeus there offer themselves two particulars more namely 1. So much of the satisfaction as was necessary to be performed by virtue of an indispensable Precept and that is Restitution in these words I restore unto him 2. That which was voluntary and extraordinary namely the measure and excess of this Restitution which he professeth should be four fold Of these two parts therefore with their several particulars in the same order as they have been proposed briefly and with all the plainness and perspicuity I can imagine And 1. Of the former General and therein of the first Particular namely Zacchaeus his readiness to confess his Sin in these words If I c. 5. I said even now only General I. It may be this was a confession of his crime but now I will be more resolute Partic. 1. and tell you peremptorily this was a confession for without all question Zacchaeus as the case stood now with him was in no humour of Justifying himself he had no mind to boast his integrity in his office Or if he had he might be sure that common fame if that were all yet that alone might be a sufficient argument at least too great a presumption against him to confute him But to put it out of question Our Saviour himself by applying the 10. verse of this Chapter to him acknowledgeth him for a sinful undone man one that had so far lost himself in the wandring mazes of this wicked world that unless Christ himself had taken the pains to search and enquire after him and having found him by the power and might of his Grace to rescue and recover him from the errour of his ways by restoring him his eyes whereby he might take notice towards what a dangerous precipice he was hastening there had been no possibility but at last he must have needs fallen headlong into the gulf of destruction 6. Now it being I suppose evident that Zacchaeus was guilty and that in a high degree and openly and scandalously guilty of the crime here discover'd there is no doubt to be made but that he who was so willing to unlock and disperse his ill gotten treasures would not begin to divert his covetousness upon his sins he would not hoard them up but would place his glory even in his shame and whereas he had been the servant and slave of sins he would wear his shackles and fetters as signs of the glorious victory which through Christ he had won and emblemes of that blessed change which he found in himself being rescued from the basest slavery that possibly can be imagined into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God 7. But it may be you will say Suppose Zacchaeus did freely and voluntarily confess his sin to Christ who had authority to forgive him his sins though he had never discovered them what collection shall be made from hence Zacchaeus might be as bold as he would with himself but as for us his example shall be no rule to us we thank God this is Popery in these daies and since we have freed our selves from this burden we will not be brought into bondage to any man we will confess our sins I warrant you only to God who is only able to forgive us them as for the Minister it may be we will sometimes be beholding to him to speak some comfortable words now and then to us when we are troubled in conscience and we have not been taught to go any further 8. I confess I find no great inclination in my self especially being in the Pulpit to undertake a controversie even where it may seem to offer it self much less to press and strein a Text for it for I desire to have no adversaries in my Preaching but only the Devil and Sin Only having now mentioned Confession and considering how much the Doctrine of our holy Mother the Church hath been traduc'd not only by the malice and detraction of our professed enemies of the Church of Rome but also by the suspicious ignorance and partiality of her own children who out of a liking of the zeal or rather fury of some former Protestant Writers have laid this for a ground of stating Controversies of our Religion That that is to be acknowledged for the Doctrine of these Reformed Churches which is most opposite and contradicting to the Church of Rome So that as the case goes now Controversies of Religion are turn'd into private quarrels and it is not so much the Truth that is sought after as the salving and curing the reputation of particular men 9. These things therefore considered truly for my part I dare not take upon me so much to gratifie the Papists as to think my self oblig'd to maintain many incommodious speeches of some of our Divines in this point Hoc Ithacus velit magno mercentur Atridae They will never be unfurnish'd of matter to write Books to the worlds end if this shall be the method of stating Controversies Oh what an impregnable cause should we have against the Church of Rome if we our selves did not help to weaken and betray it by mixing therewith the interests and conceits of particular men 10. Give me therefore leave I pray you to give you
the state of the Question and the Doctrine of our Church in the words of one who both now is and for ever will worthily be accounted The glory of this Kingdome Bishop Usher's Ans to the Jesuit Cap. of Confession p. 84. Be it known saith he to our adversaries of Rome I add also to our adversaries even of Great Britain who sell their private fancies for the Doctrine of our Church that no kind of Confession either publick or private is disallow'd by our Church that is any way requisite for the due execution of that ancient Power of the Keys which Christ bestowed upon his Church The thing which we reject is that new pick-lock of Sacramental Confession obtruded upon mens consciences as a matter necessary to salvation by the Canons of the late Conventicle of Trent in the 14. Session 11. And this truth being so evident in Scripture and in the writings of the ancient best times of the Primitive Church the safest interpreters of Scripture I make no question but there will not be found one person amongst you who when he shall be in a calm unpartial disposition that will offer to deny For I beseech you give your selves leave unpartially to examine your own thoughts Can any man be so unreasonable as once to imagine with himself that when our Saviour after his Resurrection having received as himself saith all power in heaven and earth having led captivity captive came then to bestow gifts upon men when he I say in so solemn a manner having first breath'd upon his Disciples thereby conveying and insinuating the Holy Ghost into their hearts renewed unto them or rather confirm'd and seal'd unto them that glorious Commission which before he had given to Peter sustaining as it were the person of the whole Church whereby he delegated to them an authority of binding and loosing sins upon earth with a promise that the proceedings in the Court of Heaven should be directed and regulated by theirs on Earth Can any man I say think so unworthily of our Saviour as to esteem these words of his for no better than complement for nothing but Court-holy-water 12. Yet so impudent have our adversaries of Rome been in their dealings with us that they have dared to lay to our charge as if we had so mean a conceit of our Saviour's gift of the Keys taking advantage indeed from the unwary expressions of some particular Divines who out of too forward a zeal against the Church of Rome have bended the staffe too much the contrary way and in stead of taking away that intolerable burden of a Sacramental necessary universal Confession have seem'd to void and frustrate all use and exercise of the Keys 13. Now that I may apply something of that which hath now been spoken to your hearts and consciences Matters standing as you see they do since Christ for your benefit and comfort hath given such authority to his Ministers upon your unfeigned repentance and contrition to absolve and release you from your sins why should I doubt or be unwilling to exhort and perswade you to make your advantage of thi◠gracious promise of our Saviours why should I envy you the participation of so heavenly a Blessing Truly if I should deal thus with you I should prove my self a malicious unchristian-like malignant Preacher I should wickedly and unjustly against my own conscience seek to defraud you of those glorious Blessings which our Saviour hath intended for you 14. Therefore in obedience to his gracious will and as I am warranted and even enjoyned by my holy Mother the Church of England expresly in the Book of Common-Prayer in the Rubrick of Visiting the Sick which Doctrine this Church hath likewise embraced so far I beseech you that by your practise and use you will not suffer that Commission which Christ hath given to his Ministers to be a vain form of words without any sense under them not to be an antiquated exspired Commission of no use nor validity in these daies But whensoever you find your selves charg'd and oppressed especially with such Crimes as they call Peccata vastantia conscientiam such as do lay waste and depopulate the conscience that you would have recourse to your spiritual Physician and freely disclose the nature and malignancy of your disease that he may be able as the cause shall require to proportion a remedy either to search it with corrosives or comfort and temper it with oyl And come not to him only with such a mind as you would go to a learned man experienc'd in the Scriptures as one that can speak comfortable quieting words to you but as to one that hath authority delegated to him from God himself to absolve and acquit you of your sins If you shall do this Assure your souls that the understanding of man is not able to conceive that transport and excess of joy and comfort which shall accrew to that mans heart that is perswaded that he hath been made partaker of this Blessing orderly and legally according as out Saviour Christ hath prescribed 15. You see I have dealt honestly and freely with you it may be more freely than I shall be thanked for But I should have sinn'd against my own soul if I had done otherwise I should have conspir'd with our adversaries of Rome against our own Church in affording them such an advantage to blaspheme our most holy and undefiled Religion It becomes you now though you will not be perswaded to like of the practise of what out of an honest heart I have exhorted you to yet for your own sakes not to make any uncharitable construction of what hath been spoken And here I will acquit you of this unwelcome subject and from Zacchaeus his confession of his Sin I proceed to my second particular namely the nature and hainousness of the crime confess'd which is here call'd a defrauding another by forged cavillation 16. The crime here confessed is called in Greek Sycophancy Partic. II. for the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the understanding of which word in this place we shall not need so much to be beholden to the Classical Greek Authors as to the Septuagint who are the best Interpreters of the Idiom of the Greek language in the Evangelical writings Two Reasons of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are given the one by Ister in Atticis the other by Philomnestus de Smynthiis Rhodiis both recorded by Athenaeus in that treasury of ancient learning his Deipnosophists in the third Book which because they are of no great use for the interpretation of S. Luke I willingly omit 17. Now there are four several words in the Hebrew which the Seventy Interpreters have rendred in the old Testament by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the verbal thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One whereof signifies to abalienate or wrest any thing from another by fraud and sophistry opposed to another word in the same language which imports
Personal Succession and not Succession of Doctrin Is not this to verefie the name of Heresie which signifieth Election or Choice Whereby they cannot avoid that note of Imprudency or as S. Augustine calls it Foolishness set down by him against the Manichees and by me recited before I would not saith he believe (r) Cont. ep Fund c. 5. the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Those therefore whom I obeyed saying Believe the Gospel why should I not obey the same men saying to me Do not believe Manichaeus Luther Calvin c. Chuse what thou pleasest If thou say Believe the Catholiques they warn me not to believe thee Wherefore if I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say Do not believe the Catholiques thou shall not do well in forcing me to the saith of Manichaeus because by the Preaching of Catholiques I believed the Gospel it self If thou say you did well to believe them Catholiques commending the Gospel but you did not well to believe them discommending Manichaeus dost thou think me so very FOOLISH that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not Nay this holy Father is not content to call it Fool shness but meer Madness in these words Why should I not most diligently enquire (f) Lib de util Cred. c. 14. what Christ commanded of those before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Canst thou better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the Belief thereof had been recommended by thee to me This therefore I believed by fame strengthned with Celebrity Consent Antiquity But every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing which deserves Authority What MADNESS is this Believe them Catholiques that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said why I beseech thee Surely if they Catholiques were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my self that I were not to believe Christ then I should learn any thing concerning him from other than those by whom I believed him Lastly I ask What wisdom it could be to leave all visible Churches and consequently the true Catholique Church of Christ which you confess cannot err in points necessary to salvation and the Roman Church which you grant doth not err in fundamentals and follow private men who may err even in points necessary to salvation Especially if we add that when Luther rose there was no visible true Catholique Church besides that of Rome and them who agreed with her in which sense she was and is the only true Church of Christ and not capable of any Error in faith Nay even Luther who first opposed the Roman Church yet coming to dispute against other Heretiques he is forced to give the Lye both to his own words and deeds in saying We freely confess (t) In epist cont Anab. ad duos Paroches to 2. Germ. Wit fol. 229 230. that in the Papacy there are many good things worthy the name of Christian which have come from them to us Namely we consess that in the Papacy there is true Scripture true Baptism the true Sacrament of the Altar the true keyes for the remission of sins the true office of Preaching true Catechism as our Lords Prayer Ten Commandments Articles of faith c. And afterward I avouch that under the Papacy is true Christianity yea the Kâ—â—nâ—land Marrow of Christianity and many pious and great Saints And again he affirmeth that the Church of Rome hath the true Spirit Gospel Faith Baptism Sacraments the Keyes the Office of Preaching Prayer Holy Scripture and whatsoever Christianity ought to have And a little before I hear and see that they bring in Anabaptism only to this end that they may spight the Pope as men that will receive nothing from Antichrist no otherwise than the Sacramentaries do who therefore believe only Bread and Wine to be in the Sacrament meerly in hatred against the Bishop of Rome and they think that by this means they shall overcome the Papacy Verily these men rely upon a weak ground for by this means they must deny the whole Scripture and the Office of Preaching For we have all these things from the Pope otherwise we must go make a new Scripture O Truth more forcible as S. Austin says to wring out (x) Cont. Donat. past collat c 24. Confession then is any rack or torment And so we may truly say with Moyses Inimici nostri sunt Judices Our very Enemies give (y) Deut. 32.31 Their faith wants Supernaturality sentence for us 33 Lastly since your faith wanteth Certainty and Prudence it is easie to inferr that it wants the fourth Condition Supernaturality For being but an Humane perswasion or Opinion it is not in nature or essence Supernatural And being imprudent and rash it cannot proceed from Divine Motion and grace and therefore it is neither supernatural in it self not in the cause from which it proceedeth 34 Since therefore we have proved that whosoever errs against any one point of faith loseth all divine faith even concerning those other Articles wherein he doth not err and that although he could still retain true faith for some points yet any one errour in whatsoever matter concerning faith is a grievous sin it clearly follows that when two or more hold different doctrins concerning faith and Religion there can be but one Part saved For declaring of which truth if Catholiques be charged with want of Charity and Modesty and be accused of rashness ambition and fury as D. Potter is very free in this kind I desire every one to ponder the whole words of S. Chrysostom who teacheth that every least error overthrows all faith and whosoever is guilty thereof is in the Church like one who in the Common wealth forgeth false coin Let them hear saith this holy Father what S. Paul saith Namely that they who brought in some small error (z) Gal. 1.7 had overthrown the Gospel For to shew how small a thing ill mingled doth corrupt the whole he said that the Gospel was subverted For as he who clips a little of the stamp from the King's money makes the whole piece of no value so whosoever takes away â—he least particle of sound faith is wholly corrupted always going from that beginning to worse things Where then are they who condemn us as contentious persons because we cannot agree with Heretiques and do often say that there is no difference betwixt us and them but that our disagreement proceeds from Ambition to domineer And thus having shewed that Protestants want true Faith it remaineth that according to my first design I examine whether they do not also want Charity as it respects a mans self The ANSWER to the SIXTH CHAPTER That Protestants are not Heretiques