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A59916
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The infallibility of the Holy Scripture asserted, and the pretended infallibility of the Church of Rome refuted in answer to two papers and two treatises of Father Johnson, a Romanist, about the ground thereof / by John Sherman.
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Sherman, John, d. 1663.
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1664
(1664)
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Wing S3386; ESTC R24161
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665,157
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994
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the Judges of Controversies or to be infallible Wherefore they cannot be either judges or infallible for if they be true Judges then they judge truly against themselves when they judge it to be as certain as Scripture that there is no Judge but Scripture And if they be truly infallible in defining them they truly and by infallible authority define themselves to be fallible whilest they define it to be Scripture that the true Church is fallable Wherefore infallibly they are fallible and consequently infallibly they are not the true Church which we have demonstrated to be infallible and all those Texts authorities and Reasons must needs prove all Churches false that be fallible whilest they prove the true Church necessarily to be infallible But all Churches besides the Roman by their own faith are according to infallible Scripture fallible None of them therefore is the true Church If then the Roman Church be not the true Church then Christ hath no true Church left on Earth nor hath not had these many Ages Hence you may gather why I never was sollicitous to prove all that was said of the Church by the Scriptures and Fathers to be said of the Roman Church for whilest I did shew them to be said of such a Church as might be of an Authority infallibile and sufficient to ground Faith It followed manifestly that all was said of the Roman no other being Infallible and so Christ should have no true Church if this be not a true one For I have demonstrated that no other can be Infallible This being a Demonstration until this Argument be answered I hold my self bound to say no more yet I must needs tell you in brief a small part of that which I can and will say if this point be again pressed I will shew how unanimously the Fathers acknowledge this St. Cyprian Ep. 3. l. 1. saith that false Faith cannot have Access to the Roman Church St. Hierome in 1. ad Tim. calleth Damasus the Pope of Rome The Rector of the House of God which St. Paul calleth the Pillar and Foundation of truth And in his Epistle to the same Pope he saith To your Holiness that is to the Chair of Peter I am joyned in communion Upon this Rock I know the Church to be built He that gathers not with thee scatters So the Fathers in the Councel of Chalcedon at the voice of St. Leo Pope of Rome said Peter hath spoken by the mouth of Leo. And many such other places I will alledge for which now I remit you to Stapleton and Bellarmine who both shew most diligently how all other Churches have gone to Rome to receive judgement in their chief Causes See this done in all Ages in Bell. 3. De Verbo Dei e. 6. I will shew also how all Churches of all Ages which were not confessed Heretical or Schismatical Churches have been ever joyned in communion to the Roman until St. Gregory the greats time and then ever since and how in his time England received the same Roman Faith which now all Roman Catholiques professe and all Protestants deny And I will shew that this faith then brought into England from Rome did not in any point of Faith controverted between the Roman Catholiques and the Protestants differ from that undoubted true Apostolical Faith which our old Brittains received from Rome in the second age of the Church in the dayes of Eleutherius and from hence the present Roman Churches communion in Doctrine with the Ancient Apostolical Church will appear I will shew that perpetual visibility agreeth onely to the Roman Church and consequently that in her onely that Prophesie concerning Christ was fulfilled That he should reigne in the House of Jacob for ever and of his reign there shall be no end We can shew how he hath reigned here by known and manifest Pastors of the Church who have in all ages appeared in Councils to govern his Church I pray set us but know the name of one of your Pastors Doctors or Preachers in those last thousand ages which preceded Luther All are bound to be of the true Church but to be of an invisible Church having onely Invisible Pastors administring Sacraments in an invisible manner no man can be bound to be of I will shew that all conversions of Nations from Idolatry so often promised to be made by the true Church were all and every one of them made by such as did communicate with the Roman Church and no one Nation ever converted from Paganisme by those who professed Protestant Religion or held these points in which Protestants differ from us I will add also that all who have been eminent for sanctity of Life or glory of Miracles have all been joyned in communion to the Roman Church and you cannot name any one famous in either of these respects whom you can prove to have been a Protestant a most evident sign of the Truth of the Roman Church Compare any other Church to it in all these points here mentioned and you shall see all incomparably more verified in the Roman Church then in any other differing from her or agreeing with you yea verified in none but her I have then I hope performed my Promise to shew a clear way how in the midst of so many Religions to find the true One by the Infallible Authority of the Catholick Church which I have shewed to be the Judge in all Controversies of Faith and of Authority sufficient to ground true Faith upon and that when all this is done This is that holy and direct way so direct unto us that fools cannot erre by it and wise men must erre if they walk not by it The Conclusion Shewing the Reply to my Papers to have been fully answered in the former Discourse This Reply consisteth of Eight Answers with a word or two at the end and at the beginning of these Answers To all these in Order FIrst at the beginning you say there is little reason for you to rejoyn because I wave the Application of my discourse as to the Roman Church I answer That my Position was that the Church is the Ground of Faith Of the Roman Church it was to no end to speak until I had been first granted that some Church or other was the Ground of Faith A man must first prove to a Jew that the Messias is come and then he must prove that Christ was this Messias Again all my Proofs proved an infallible Church to be the ground of Faith of which no fallible Church could be a sure Ground as is manifest But all Churches but the Roman Church do profess according to Scripture themselves to be fallible whence it followeth that all Churches but the Roman must needs be fallible For if they or any of them be infallible then they teach the infallible Truth when they teach themselves to be fallible No Church therefore can be Infallible but she who teacheth her self to be Infallible Consequently when I proved the
and pat could the most important matter in debate betwixt us have been more distinctly orderly and fully put down than to have shewn from place to place where I had not answered directly to the state of the question or had hit the question but did not sufficiently take off the Argument And could his Reply be by this manner more clear and perspicuous when it cannot appeare plainly how he took off my Answers or answered to the matter or form of my occasionall Arguments If this be an orderly Combate then let us beat the aire and that will be sufficient to beat an Adversary Thus much of the first Chapter which is no hard Chapter The Answer to the second Chapter No necessity of a Judge in all Controversies to whom all should be bound simply to submit their assent Num. 1. MY Adversarie says here that I go about to perswade him that he is most likely to take up his Religion by prejudice Ans It seems he is pleased to forbeare any Answer to my retortion of his similitude but he takes notice of my returning to him the greater probabilitie of prejudice in point of Religion to be on their part And he argues the contrary because being Recusants upon this account are liable to lose two parts of their Estates and what else we are or shall be pleased to take from them be it goods libertie or life Ans The prejudice on their part was as I said upon the opinion of the infalibilitie of their Church so that I spake upon account of a religious interesse and he answers me upon a civill account rather This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore this answer is not pertinent And whereas he would seem to have good ground in Conscience for his Religion for which he suffers so much if he intends to vye with us in that kind others of our Religion have suffered more from them Surely he forgets the Marian days wherein we dropped more blood than they have done And whereas he saies to me and what else you are or shall be pleased to take from us As to this much might be said also without passion in the same kind No man can take away more from us than our lives one would think Yes Roman Catholicks would take away from us Heaven too They had almost destroyed me upon earth saith the Psalmist But these will destroy us in heaven also Secondly If he who was mine Adversary was a Native of England he was as much included in the order of his deprivation as I. Thirdly I will say more yet that some of his Religion have had more favour than we Yea yet more than this one whom I think he knows well hath lost more in proportionall quantity as Aquinas distinguisheth than any of them hath lost who hath lost but two parts of three and for Conscience too Therefore that character which I gave the Romanist he is to keep still untill he can prove it doth belong more to us Certainly this is not proved not to belong to them because they have suffered so much for their Religion for we have suffered more and therefore it doth not belong to us but them rather But this suffering de se is easily known not to make an Argument for unlesse our cause be good before we suffer we have no cause to suffer at all The saying is common Causa non passio facit Martyrem Fourthly As for the present sufferings of the Papists they are neither rightly charged either upon our Church or upon our Kingdome for there is not yet proved any legall consent of either to what they or others have suffered Nay fifthly At the day of Judgement we shall see whether they are not more like to answer for what we have suffered than we for what they have suffered in these times So that while they do not see what is true against them they will seem to see what is not true against us As Tertullian said But let us come to the matter To examine then your grounds in the second num Num. 2. That God hath made man to a supernaturall end and to be attained by supernaturall meanes we grant as Aquinas in the begining of of his sums Take men indefinitely and confusely without exclusion of Infants dying before Baptisme from Salvation possible and those who are not compotes mentis and we grant it And also that amongst those meanes the first is true faith and that according to his mercifull providence he hath provided us some way to this faith so easie that all if they pleased might be brought to the knowledge of it namely exceptis excipiendis And that the greater part of men are ignorant yea all naturally ignorant of the way to this supernaturall end as Aquinas because it is supernaturall these things we yield to you And that because the far greater part were ignorant it beseemed his goodnesse who is the lover of soules to provide us such a way as that ignorant men should not be able unlesse by wilful carelesnesse to erre by it These things we do willingly yield But we demurre upon your assumption that this way should be the Church as you interpret that of Isaiah the 35 where you say the Prophet speakes of a path and a way which shall be so direct that fools cannot erre by it Here we must stand a while and inquire what is the sense of this way And first I must note that you do not rightly render the words according to the Hebrew veritie You say and it shall be unto you a direct way so that fools cannot erre But it is not so in the text But thus He shall be to them or with them walking the way and fools shall not erre How is your Church like to be this way when either you erre in not following it or it doth erre in not right following the text And you make it to be in the text a direct way and so that fools cannot erre Whereas it is rather shall not erre which doth note so much infalibilitie as preservation from error Now a negative of the act doth not prove a negative of the power for then the Argument would be good a non esse ad non posse Therefore could my Adversary have proved that the Church of Rome never erred which will never be proved yet all is not yet whole because infalibilitie is not yet proved by the not erring but by an impossibilitie of erring And if you may erre by carelesnesse as before then when were any sure of being right for who can be sure he hath been as carefull as he should be and therefore if this be the condition of not being deceived yea of infalibilitie it is at least morally impossible that any should be assured in their faith because they may be wanting in their diligence and so also may demerit a deprivation of Divine light My Adversary goes on To elude this text you say sure we may be that