the Son then that he is or proceeds from the Father and the Son in this they seem to agree with us in eandem Fidei sententiam upon the same Sentence of Faith though they differ in words Now in this cause where the words differ but the Sentence of Faith is the same penitus eadem even altogether the same Can the Point be Fundamental You may make them no Church as Bellarmine doth and so deny them Salvation which cannot be had out of the true Church but I for my part dare not so do And Rome in this particular should be more moderate if it be but because this Article Filioque was added to the Creed by her self And 't is hard to adde and Anathematize too Num. 3 It ought to be no easie thing to condemn a man of Heresie in foundation of faith much less a Church least of all so ample and large a Church as the Greek especially so as to make them no Church Heaven Gates were not so easily shut against multitudes when S. Peter wore the Keys at his own Girdle And it is good counsel which Alphonsus a Castro one of your own gives Let them consider that pronounce easily of Heresie how easie it is for themselves to erre Or if you will pronounce consider what it is that separates from the Church simply and not in part only I must needs profess that I wish heartily as well as others that those distressed men whose Cross is heavy already had been more plainly and moderately dealt withal though they think a diverse thing from us then they have been by the Church of Rome But hereupon you say you were forc'd F. Whereupon I was forced to repeat what I had formerly brought against D. White concerning Points Fundamental B. § 10 Num. 1 Hereupon it is true that you read a large Discourse out of a Book printed which you said was yours the particulars all of them at the least I do not now remember nor did I then approve But if they be such as were formerly brought against Doctor White they are by him formerly answered The first thing you did was the righting of S. Augustine which Sentence I do not at all remember was so much as named in the Conference much less was it stood upon and then righted by you Another place of S. Augustine indeed was which you omit but it comes after about Tradition to which I remit it But now you tell us of a great Proof made out of this place For these words of yours contain two Propositions One That all Points defined by the Church are Fundamental The other That this is proved out of this place of S. Augustine Num. 2 1 For the first That all Points defined by the Church are fundamental It was not the least means by which Rome grew to her Greatness to blast every Opposer she had with the Name of Heretick or Schismatick for this served to shrivel the Credit of the persons And the persons once brought into contempt and ignominy all the good they desired in the Church fell to dust for want of Creditable Persons to back and support it To make this proceeding good in these later years this course it seems was taken The School that must maintain and so they do That all Points defined by the Church are thereby Fundamental necessary to be believed of the substance of the Faith and that though it be determined quite Extra Scripturam And then leave the wise and active Heads to take order that there be strength enough ready to determine what is fittest for them Num. 3 But since these men distinguish not nor you between the Church in general and a General Councel which is but her Representation for determinations of the Faith though I be very slow in sifting or opposing what is concluded by Lawful General and consenting Authority though I give as much as can justly be given to the Definitions of Councels truly General Nay suppose I should grant which I do not That General Councels cannot erre yet this cannot down with mé That all Points even so defined are Fundamental For Deductions are not prime and native Principles nor are Superstructures Foundations That which is a Foundation for all cannot be one and another to different Christians in regard of it self for then it could be no common Rule for any nor could the Souls of men rest upon a shaking foundation No If it be a true foundation it must be common to all and firm under all in which sense the Articles of Christian Faith are fundamental And Irenaeus lays this for a ground That the whole Church howsoever dispersed in place speaks this with one mouth He which among the Guides of the Church is best able to speak utters no more then this and less then this the most simple doth not utter Therefore the Creed of which he speaks is a common is a constant Foundation And an Explicite Faith must be of this in them which have the use of Reason for both Guides and simple people all the Church utter this Num. 4 Now many things are defined by the Church which are but Deductions out of this which suppose them deduced right move far from the foundation without which Deductions explicitly believed many millions of Christians go to Heaven and cannot therefore be fundamental in the Faith True Deductions from the Article may require necessary belief in them which are able and do go along with them from the Principle to the Conclusion But I do not see either that the Learned do make them necessary to all or any reason why they should Therefore they cannot be fundamental and yet to some mens Salvation they are necessary Num. 5 Besides that which is fundamental in the Faith of Christ is a Rock immoveable and can never be varied Never Therefore if it be fundamental after the Church hath defined it it was fundamental before the Definition else it is moveable and then no Christian hath where to rest And if it be immoveable as indeed it is no Decree of a Councel be it never so General can alter immoveable Verities no more then it can change immoveable Natures Therefore if the Church in a Councel define any thing the thing defined is not fundamental because the Church hath defined it nor can be made so by the Definition of the Church if it be not so in it self For if the Church had this power she might make a new Article of the Faith which the Learned among your selves deny For the Articles of the Faith cannot increase in substance but only in Explication And for this I 'le be judg'd by Bellarmine who disputing against Amb. Catharinus about the certainty of Faith tells us That Divine Faith hath not its certainty because 't is Catholike i. common to the whole Church but because it builds on the Authority of God who is Truth it self and
that shall endeavour to shake the foundation it self upon which the whole Church is grounded Num. 11 Secondly If S. Augustine did mean by Founded and Foundation the definition of the Church because of these words This thing is founded this is made firm by full Authority of the Church and the words following these to shake the foundation of the Church yet it can never follow out of any or all these Circumstances and these are all That all points defined by the Church are fundamental in the Faith For first no man denies but the Church is a Foundation That things defined by it are founded upon it And yet hence it cannot follow That the thing that is so founded is Fundamental in the Faith For things may be founded upon Humane Authority and be very certain yet not Fundamental in the Faith Nor yet can it follow This thing is founded therefore every thing determined by the Church is founded Again that which follows That those things are not to be opposed which are made firm by full Authority of the Church cannot conclude they are therefore Fundamental in the Faith For full Church-Authority always the time that included the Holy Apostles being past by and not comprehended in it is but Church-Authority and Church-Authority when it is at Full Sea is not simply Divine therefore the Sentence of it not fundamental in the Faith And yet no erring Disputer may be indured to shake the foundation which the Church in Councel lays But plain Scripture with evident sense or a full demonstrative Argument must have room where a wrangling and erring Disputer may not be allowed it And there 's neither of these but may convince the Definition of the Councel if it be ill founded And the Articles of the Faith may easily prove it is not Fundamental if indeed and verily it be not so Num. 12 And I have read some-body that says is it not you That things are fundamental in the Faith two ways One in their Matter such as are all things which be so in themselves The other in the Manner such as are all things that the Church hath defined and determined to be of Faith And that so some things that are de modo of the manner of being are of Faith But in plain truth this is no more then if you should say Some things are fundamental in the Faith and some are not For wrangle while you will you shall never be able to prove that any thing which is but de modo a consideration of the manner of being only can possibly be fundamental in the Faith Num. 13 And since you make such a Foundation of this place I will a little view the Mortar with which it is laid by you It is a venture but I shall finde it untempered Your Assertion is All Points defined by the Church are fundamental Your proof this place Because that is not to be shaken which is setled by full Authority of the Church Then it seems your meaning is that this point there spoken of The remission of Original Sin in Baptism of Infants was defined when S. Augustine wrote this by a full Sentence of a General Councel First if you say it was Bellarmine will tell you it is false and that the Pelagian Heresie was never condemned in an Oecumenical Councel but only in Nationals But Bellarmine is deceived For while the Pelagians stood out impudently against National Councels some of them defended Nestorius which gave occasion to the first Ephesine Councel to Excommunicate and depose them And yet this will not serve your turn for this place For S. Augustine was then dead and therefore could not mean the Sentence of that Councel in this place Secondly if you say it was not then defined in an Oecumenical Synod Plena Authoritas Ecclesiae the full Authority of the Church there mentioned doth not stand properly for the Decree of an Oecumenical Councel but for some National as this was condemned in a National Councel And then the full Authority of the Church here is no more then the full Authority of the Church of Africk And I hope that Authority doth not make all Points defined by it to be fundamental You will say Yes if that Councel be confirmed by the Pope And then I must ever wonder why S. Augustine should say The full Authority of the Church and not bestow one word upon the Pope by whose Authority only that Councel as all other have their fulness of Authority in your Judgment An inexpiable Omission if this Doctrine concerning the Pope were true Num. 14 But here A. C. steps in again to help the Jesuite and he tells us over and over again That all points made firm by full Authority of the Church are fundamental so firm he will have them and therefore fundamental But I must tell him That first 't is one thing in Nature and Religion too to be firm and another thing to be fundamental These two are not Convertible 'T is true that every thing that is fundamental is firm But it doth not follow that every thing that is firm is fundamental For many a Superstructure is exceeding firm being fast and close joyned to a sure foundation which yet no man will grant is fundamental Besides whatsoever is fundamental in the Faith is fundamental to the Church which is one by the unity of Faith Therefore if every thing defined by the Church be fundamental in the Faith then the Churches Desinition is the Churches foundation And so upon the matter the Church can lay her own foundation and then the Church must be in absolute and perfect Being before so much as her foundation is laid Now this is so absurd for any man of Learning to say that by and by after A. C. is content to affirm not only that the prima Credibilia the Articles of Faith but all which so pertains to Supernatural Divine and Infallible Christian Faith as that thereby Christ doth dwell in our hearts c. is the foundation of the Church under Christ the Prime Foundation And here he 's out again For first all which pertains to Supernatural Divine and Infallible Christian Faith is not by and by fundamental in the Faith to all men And secondly the whole Discourse here is concerning Faith as it is taken Objectivè for the Object of Faith and thing to be believed but that Faith by which Christ is said to dwell in our hearts is taken Subjective for the Habit and Act of Faith Now to confound both these in one period of speech can have no other aim then to confound the Reader But to come closer both to the Jesuite and his Defender A. C. If all Points made firm by full Authority of the Church be fundamental then they must grant that every thing determined by the Councel of Trent is fundamental in the Faith For with them 't is firm and Catholike which that
Follow me and I will make you fishers of men is as firm a truth as that which he delivered to his Disciples That he must die and rise again the third day For both proceed from the same Divine Revelation out of the mouth of our Saviour and both are sufficiently applied by one and the same full Authority of the Church which receives the whole Gospel of S. Matthew to be Canonical and Infallible Scripture And yet both these Propositions of Christ are not alike fundamental in the Faith For I dare say No man shall be saved in the ordinary way of Salvation that believes not the Death and the Resurrection of Christ. And I believe A. C. dares not say that no man shall be saved into whose capacity it never came that Christ made S. Peter and Andrew fishers of men And yet should he say it nay should he shew it sub annulo Piscatoris no man will believe it that hath not made shipwrack of his common Notions Now if it be thus between Proposition and Proposition issuing out of Christ's own Mouth I hope it may well be so also between even Just and True Determinations of the Church that supposing them alike true and firm yet they shall not be alike fundamental to all mens belief F. Secondly I required to know what Points the Bishop would account Fundamental He said all the Points of the Creed were such B. § 11 Num. 1 Against this I hope you except not For since the Fathers make the Creed the Rule of Faith since the agreeing sense of Scripture with those Articles are the two Regular Precepts by which a Divine is governed about the Faith since your own Councel of Trent Decrees That it is that Principle of Faith in which all that profess Christ do necessarily agree fundamentum firmum unicum not the firm alone but the only foundation since it is Excommunication ipso jure for any man to contradict the Articles contained in that Creed since the whole Body of the Faith is so contained in the Creed as that the substance of it was believ'd even before the coming of Christ though not so expresly as since in the number of the Articles since Bellarmine confesses That all things simply necessary for all mens Salvation are in the Creed and the Decalogue what reason can you have to except And yet for all this every thing fundamental is not of a like nearness to the foundation nor of equal primeness in the Faith And my granting the Creed to be fundamental doth not deny but that there are quaedam prima Credibilia certain prime Principles of Faith in the bosom whereof all other Articles lay wrapped and folded up One of which since Christ is that of S. John Every spirit that confesseth Jesus Christ come in the flesh is of God And one both before the coming of Christ and since is that of S. Paul He that comes to God must believe that God is and that be is a rewarder of them that seek him Num. 2 Here A. C. tells you That either I must mean that those points are only fundamental which are expressed in the Creed or those also which are infolded If I say those only which are expressed then saith he to believe the Scriptures is not fundamental because 't is not expressed If I say those which are infolded in the Articles then some unwritten Church-Traditions may be accounted fundamental The truth is I said and say still that all the Points of the Apostles Creed as they are there expressed are fundamental And therein I say no more then some of your best Learned have said before me But I never either said or meant that they only are fundamental that they are Fundamentum unicum the only Foundation is the Councel of Trent's 't is not mine Mine is That the belief of Scripture to be the Word of God and Infallible is an equal or rather a preceding Prime Principle of Faith with or to the whole Body of the Creed And this agrees as before I told the Jesuite with one of your own great Masters Albertus Magnus who is not far from that Proposition in terminis So here the very foundation of A. C ' Dilemma falls off For I say not That only the Points of the Creed are fundamental whether expressed or not expressed That all of them are that I say And yet though the foundation of his Dilemma be fallen away I will take the boldness to tell A. C. That if I had said that those Articles only which are expressed in the Creed are fundamental it would have been hard to have excluded the Scripture upon which the Creed it self in every Point is grounded For nothing is supposed to shut out its own foundation And if I should now say that some Articles are fundamental which are infolded in the Creed it would not follow that therefore some unwritten Traditions were fundamental Some Traditions I deny not true and firm and of great both Authority and Use in the Church as being Apostolical but yet not fundamental in the Faith And it would be a mighty large fold which should lap up Traditions within the Creed As for that Tradition That the Books of holy Scriptures are Divine and Infallible in every part I will handle that when I come to the proper place for it F. I asked how then it happened as M. Rogers saith that the English Church is not yet resolved what is the right sense of the Article of Christ's descending into Hell B. § 12 Num. 1 The English Church never made doubt that I know what was the sense of that Article The words are so plain they bear thâ—â—â— meaning before them She was content to put that Artiâ—â—â— among those to which she requires Subscription not as doubting of the sense but to prevent the Cavils of some who had been too busie in crucifying that Article and in making it all one with the Article of the Cross or but an Exposition of it Num. 2 And surely for my part I think the Church of England is better resolved of the right sense of this Article then the Church of Rome especially if she must be tryed by her Writers as you try the Church of England by M. Rogers For you cannot agree whether this Article be a meer Tradition or whether it hath any place of Scripture to warrant it Scotus and Stapleton allow it no footing in Scripture but Bellarmine is resolute that this Article is every where in Scripture and Thomas grants as much for the whole Creed The Church of England never doubted it and S. Augustine proves it Num. 3 And yet again you are different for the sense For you agree not Whether the Soul of Christ in triduo mortis in the time of his Death did go down into Hell really and was present there or vertually and by effects only For
them concluded and both of them wrote Books to maintain their Opinions and both of their Books were published by Authority And therefore I think 't is allowed in the Church of Rome to private men to express your Catholike Doctrine and in a matter subject to Question And therefore also if another man in the Church of England should be of a contrary Opinion to M. Rogers and declare it under the Title of the Catholike Doctrine of the Church of England this were no more than Soto and Vega did in the Church of Rome And I for my part cannot but wonder A. C. should not know it For he says that for ought he knows private men are not allowed so to express their Catholike Doctrine And in the same Question both Catharinus and Bellarmine take on them to express your Catholike Faith the one differing from the other almost as much as Soto and Vega and perhaps in some respect more F. But if M. Rogers be only a private man in what Book may we find the Protestants publike Doctrine The Bishop answered That to the Book of Articles they were all sworn B. § 14 Num. 1 What Was I so ignorant to say The Articles of the Church of England were the Publike Doctrine of all the Protestants Or that all the Protestants were sworn to the Articles of England as this speech seems to imply Sure I was not Was not the immediate speech before of the Church of England And how comes the Subject of the Speech to be varied in the next lines Nor yet speak I this as if other Protestants did not agree with the Church of England in the chiefest Doctrines and in the main Exceptions which they joyntly take against the Roman Church as appears by their several Confessions But if A. C. will say as he doth that because there was speech before of the Church of England the Jesuite understood me in a limited sense and meant only the Protestants of the English Church Be it so there 's no great harm done but this that the Jesuite offers to inclose me too much For I did not say that the Book of Articles only was the Continent of the Church of Englands publike Doctrine She is not so narrow nor hath she purpose to exclude any thing which she acknowledges hers nor doth she wittingly permit any Crossing of her publike Declarations yet she is not such a shrew to her Children as to deny her Blessing or Denounce an Anathema against them if some peaceably dissent in some Particulars remoter from the Foundation as your own School-men differ And if the Church of Rome since she grew to her greatness had not been so fierce in this Course and too particular in Determining too many things and making them matters of Necessary Belief which had gone for many hundreds of years before only for things of Pious Opinion Christendom I perswade my self had been in happier peace at this Day than I doubt we shall ever live to see it Num. 2 Well But A. C. will prove the Church of England a Shrew and such a Shrew For in her Book of Canons She excommunicates every man who shall hold any thing contrary to any part of the said Articles So A. C. But surely these are not the very words of the Canon nor perhaps the sense Not the Words for they are Whosoever shall affirm that the Articles are in any part superstitious or erronious c. And perhaps not the sense For it is one thing for a man to hold an Opinion privately within himself and another thing boldly and publikely to affirm it And again 't is one thing to hold contrary to some part of an Article which perhaps may be but in the manner of Expression and another thing positively to affirm that the Articles in any part of them are superstitious and erroneous But this is not the Main of the Business For though the Church of England Denounce Excommunication as is before expressed Yet she comes far short of the Church of Rome's severity whose Anathema's are not only for 39 Articles but for very many more above one hundred in matters of Doctrine and that in many Poynts as far remote from the Foundation though to the far greater Rack of mens Consciences they must be all made Fundamental if that Church have once Determined them whereas the Church of England never declared That every one of her Articles are Fundamental in the Faith For 't is one thing to say No one of them is superstitious or erroneous And quite another to say Every one of them is fundamental and that in every part of it to all mens Belief Besides the Church of England prescribes only to her own Children and by those Articles provides but for her own peaceable Consent in those Doctrines of Truth But the Church of Rome severely imposes her Doctrine upon the whole World under pain of Damnation F. And that the Scriptures only not any unwritten Tradition was the Foundation of their Faith B. § 15 Num. 1 The Church of England grounded her Positive Articles upon Scripture and her Negative do refute there where the thing affirmed by you is not affirmed by Scripture nor directly to be concluded out of it And here not the Church of England only but all Protestants agree most truly and most strongly in this That the Scripture is sufficient to salvation and contains in it all things necessary to it The Fathers are plain the School-men not strangers in it And have not we reason then to account it as it is The Foundation of our Faith And Stapleton himself though an angry Opposite confesses That the Scripture is in some sort the Foundation of Faith that is in the nature of Testimony and in the matter or thing to be believed And if the Scripture be the Foundation to which we are to go for witness if there be Doubt about the Faith and in which we are to find the thing that is to be believed as necessary in the Faith we never did nor never will refuse any Tradition that is Universal and Apostolike for the better Exposition of the Scripture nor any Definition of the Church in which she goes to the Scripture for what she teaches and thrusts nothing as Fundamental in the Faith upon the world but what the Scripture fundamentally makes materiam Credendorum the substance of that which is so to be believed whether immediately and expresly in words or more remotely where a clear and full Deduction draws it out Num. 2 Against the beginning of this Paragraph A. C. excepts And first he says 'T is true that the Church of England grounded her Positive Articles upon Scripture That is 't is true if themselves may be competent Judges in their own Cause But this by the leave of A. C. is true without making our selves Judges in our own Cause For that all the Positive Articles of the present Church of
of these Premises he would infer For hence he tells us He gathered that D. White 's Opinion was That the Romane Church held and taught in all Ages unchanged Faith in all Fundamental points and did not in any Age erre in any Point Fundamental This is very well For A. C. confesses he did but gather that this was Doctor White 's Opinion And what if he gathered that which grew not there nor thence For suppose all the Premises true yet no Cartrope can draw this Conclusion out of them And then all A. C's labour 's lost For grant some one Church or other must still be Visible And grant that this Visible Church held all Fundamentals of the Faith in all Ages And grant again that D. White could not assigne any Church differing from the Romane that did this Yet this will not follow that therefore the Romane did it And that because there 's more in the Conclusion than in the Premises For A. C's Conclusion is That in D. White 's Opinion the Roman Church held and taught in all Ages unchanged Faith in all Fundamental points And so far perhaps the Conclusion may stand taking Fundamental points in their literal sense as they are expressed in Creeds and approved Councels But then he addes And did not in any Age erre in any Point Fundamental Now this can never follow out of the Premises before laid down For say some one Church or other may still be Visible And that Visible Church hold all Fundamental Points in all Ages And no man be able to name another Church different from the Church of Rome that hath done this yet it follows not therefore That the Church of Rome did not erre in any Age in any Point Fundamental For a Church may hold the Fundamental Point literally and as long as it stays there be without control and yet erre grosly dangerously nay damnably in the Exposition of it And this is the Church of Rome's Case For most true it is it hath in all Ages maintained the Faith unchanged in the Expression of the Articles themselves but it hath in the Exposition both of Creeds and Councels quite changed and lost the sense and the meaning of some of them So the Faith is in many things Changed both for Life and Belief and yet seems the same Now that which deceives the World is That because the Bark is the same men think this Old Decayed Tree is as Sound as it was at first and not Weather-beaten in any Age. But when they can make me believe that Painting is true Beauty I 'll believe too that Rome is not only sound but beautiful Num. 6 But A. C. goes on and tells us That hereupon the Jesuite asked whether Errours in Points not Fundamental were damnable And that D. White answered they were not unless they were held against Conscience 'T is true that Errour in Points not Fundamental is the more damnable the more it is held against Conscience But it is true too that Errour in Points not Fundamental may be damnable to some men though they hold it not against their Conscience As namely when they hold an Errour in some Dangerous Points which grate upon the Foundation and yet will neither seek the means to know the Truth nor accept and believe Truth when 't is known especially being men able to Judge which I fear is the case of too many at this day in the Roman Church Out of all which A. C. tells us The Jesuite collected that D. White 's Opinion was That the Roman Church held all Points Fundamental and only erred in Points not Fundamental which he accounted not damnable so long as he did not hold them against his Conscience And that thereupon he said D. White had secured him since he held no Faith different from the Roman nor contrary to his Conscience Here again we have but A. C's and the Jesuites Collection But if the Jesuite or A. C. will collect amiss who can help it Num. 7 I have spoken before in this very Paragraph to all the Passages of A. C. as supposing them true and set down what is to be answered to them in case they prove so But now 't is most apparent by Dr. White 's Answer set down before at large that he never said that the Church of Rome erred only in Points not Fundamental as A. C. would have it But that he said the contrary Namely that some errours of thy Church were Fundamental reductivè by a reducement if they which embraced them did pertinaciously adhere to them having sufficient means of information And again expresly That he did not say that none were damnable so long as they were not held against Conscience Now where is A. C's Collection For if a Jesuite or any other may collect Propositions which are not granted him nay contrary to those which are granted him he may infer what he please And he is much to blame that will not infer a strong Conclusion for himself that may frame his own Premises say his Adversary what he will And just so doth A. C. bring in his Conclusion to secure himself of salvation because he holds no Faith but the Romane nor that Contrary to his Conscience Presupposing it granted that the Church of Rome errs only in not Fundamentals and such Errours not Damnable which is absolutely and clearly denied by D. White To this A. C. says nothing but that D. White did not give this Answer at the Conference I was not present at the Conference between them so to that I can say nothing as a witness But I think all that knew D. White will believe his affirmation as soon as the Jesuites To say no more And whereas A. C. refers to the Relation of the Conference between D. White and M. Fisher most true it is there D. White is charged to have made that Answer twice But all this rests upon the credit of A. C. only For he is said to have made that Relation too as well as this And against his Credit I must engage D. Whites who hath avowed another Answer as before is set down Num. 8 And since A. C. relates to that Conference which it seems he makes some good account of I shall here once for all take occasion to assure the Reader That most of the Points of Moment in that Conference with D. White are repeated again and again and urged in this Conference or the Relation of A. C. and are here answered by me For Instance In the Relation of the first Conference the Jesuite takes on him to prove the Unwritten Word of God out of 2 Thes. 2. pag. 15. And so he doth in the Relation of this Conference with me pag. 50. In the first he stands upon it That the Protestants upon their Principles cannot hold That all Fundamental points of Faith are contained in the Creed pag. 19. And so he doth in this pag. 46. In the first he
can neither deceive nor be deceived And he adds That the Probation of the Church can make it known to all that the Object of Divine Faith is revealed from God and therefore certain and not to be doubted but the Church can adde no certainty no firmness to the Word of God revealing it Num. 6 Nor is this hard to be farther proved out of your own School for Scotus professeth it in this very particular of the Greek Church If there be saith he a true real difference between the Greeks and the Latines about the Point of the Procession of the Holy Ghost then either they or we be verè Haeretici truly and indeed Hereticks And he speaks this of the old Greeks long before any Decision of the Church in this Controversie For his instance is in S. Basil and Greg. Nazianz. on the one side and S. Hierome Augustine and Ambrose on the other And who dares call any of these Hereticks is his challenge I deny not but that Scotus adds there That howsoever this was before yet ex quo from the time that the Catholike Church declared it it is to be held as of the substance of Faith But this cannot stand with his former Principle if he intend by it That whatsoever the Church defines shall be ipso facto and for that Determinations sake Fundamental For if before the Determination supposing the Difference real some of those Worthies were truly Hereticks as he confesses then somewhat made them so And that could not be the Decree of the Church which then was not Therefore it must be somewhat really false that made them so and fundamentally false if it made them Hereticks against the Foundation But Scotus was wiser then to intend this It may be he saw the stream too strong for him to swim against therefore he went on with the Doctrine of the Time That the Churches Sentence is of the substance of Faith but meant not to betray the truth For he goes no farther then Ecclesia declaravit since the Church hath declared it which is the word that is used by divers Num. 7 Now the Master teaches and the Scholars too That every thing which belongs to the Exposition or Declaration of another intus est is not another contrary thing but is contained within the Bowels and nature of that which is interpreted from which if the Declaration depart it is faulty and erroneous because instead of declaring it gives another and contrary sense Therefore when the Church declares any thing in a Councel either that which she declares was intus or extra in the nature and verity of the thing or out of it If it were extra without the nature of the thing declared then the Declaration of the thing is false and so far from being fundamental in the Faith If it were intus within the compass and nature of the thing though not open and apparent to every eye then the Declaration is true but not otherwise fundamental then the thing is which is declared for that which is intus cannot be larger or deeper then that in which it is if it were it could not be intus Therefore nothing is simply fundamental because the Church declares it but because it is so in the nature of the thing which the Church declares Num. 8 And it is slight and poor Evasion that is commonly used that the Declaration of the Church makes it Fundamental quoad nos in respect of us for it doth not that neither For no respect to us can vary the Foundation The Churches Declaration can binde us to Peace and External Obedience where there is not express Letter of Scripture and sense agreed on but it cannot make any thing fundamental to us that is not so in its own Nature For if the Church can so adde that it can by a Declaration make a thing to be fundamental in the Faith that was not then it can take a thing away from the foundation and make it by declaring not to be Fundamental which all men grant no power of the Church can do For the power of adding any thing contrary and of detracting any thing necessary are alike forbidden and alike denied Now nothing is more apparent then this to the eye of all men That the Church of Rome hath determined or declared or defined call it what you will very many things that are not in their own nature fundamental and therefore neither are nor can be made so by her adjudging them Now to all this discourse that the Church hath not power to make any thing fundamental in the Faith that intrinsecally and in its own nature is not such A. C. is content to say nothing Num. 9 2 For the second That it is proved by this place of S. Augustine That all points defined by the Church are fundamental You might have given me that place cited in the Margin and cased my pains to seek it but it may be there was somewhat in concealing it For you do so extraordinarily right this place that you were loth I think any body should see how you wrong it The place of S. Augustine is this against the Pelagians about Remission of Original Sin in Infants This is a thing founded an erring Disputer is to be born with in other Questions not diligently digested not yet made firm by full Authority of the Church their errour is to be born with but it ought not to go so far that it should labour to shake the foundation it self of the Church This is the place but it can never follow out of this place I think That every thing defined by the Church is fundamental Num. 10 For first he speaks of a foundation of Doctrine in Scripture not a Church-definition This appears for few lines before he tells us There was a Question moved to S. Cyprian Whether Baptism was concluded to the eighth day as well as Circumcision And no doubt was made then of the beginning of sin and that out of this thing about which no Question was moved that Question that was made was Answered And again That S. Cyprian took that which he gave in Answer from the foundation of the Church to confirm a stone that was shaking Now S. Cyprian in all the Answer that he gives hath not one word of any Definition of the Church therefore ea res that thing by which he answered was a Foundation of prime and setled Scripture-Doctrine not any Definition of the Church Therefore that which he took out of the Foundation of the Church to fasten the stone that shook was not a Definition of the Church but the Foundation of the Church it self the Scripture upon which it is builded as appeareth in the Milevitane Councel where the Rule by which Pelagius was condemned is the Rule of Scripture Therefore S. Augustine goes on in the same sense That the Disputer is not to be born any longer
Councel Decrees Now that Councel Decrees That Orders collated by the Bishop are not void though they be given without the consent or calling of the People or of any Secular Power And yet they can produce no Author that ever acknowledged this Definition of the Councel fundamental in the Faith 'T is true I do not grant that the Decrees of this Councel are made by full Authority of the Church but they do both grant and maintain it And therefore 't is Argumentum ad hominem a good argument against them that a thing so defined may be firm for so this is and yet not fundamental for so this is not Num. 15 But A. C. tells us further That if one may deny or doubtfully dispute against any one Determination of the Church then he may against another and another and so against all since all are made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation sufficiently applied by one and the same full Authority of the Church which being weakned in any one cannot be firm in any other First A. C. might have acknowledged that he borrowed the former part of this out of Vincentius Lirinensis And as that Learned Father uses it I subscribe to it but not as A. C. applies it For Vincentius speaks there de Catholico Dogmate of Catholick Maximes and A. C. will force it to every Determination of the Church Now Catholike Maximes which are properly fundamental are certain prime truths deposited with the Church and not so much determined by the Church as published and manifested and so made firm by her to us For so Vincentius expresly Where all that the Church doth is but ut hoc idem quod anteà that the same thing may be believed which was before believed but with more light and clearness and in that sense with more firmness then before Now in this sense give way to a Disputator errans every Cavilling Disputer to deny or quarrel at the Maximes of Christian Religion any one or any part of any one of them and why may he not then take liberty to do the like of any other till he have shaken all But this hinders not the Church her self nor any appointed by the Church to examine her own Decrees and to see that she keep Dogmata deposita the Principles of Faith unblemished and uncorrupted For if she do not so but that Novitia veteribus new Doctrines be added to the old the Church which is Sacrarium veritatis the Repository of Verity may be changed in lupanar errorum I am loath to English it By the Church then this may nay it ought to be done however every wrangling Disputer may neither deny nor doubtfully dispute much less obstinately oppose the Determinations of the Church no not where they are not Dogmata Deposita these deposited Principles But if he will be so bold to deny or dispute the Determinations of the Church yet that may be done without shaking the foundation where the Determinations themselves belong but to the fabrick and not to the foundation For a whole frame of Building may be shaken and yet the foundation where it is well laid remain firm And therefore after all A. C. dares not say the foundation is shaken but only in a sort And then 't is as true that in a sort it is not shaken Num. 16 2 For the second part of his Argument A. C. must pardon me if I dissent from him For first All Determinations of the Church are not made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation For some Determinations of the Church are made firm to us per chirographum Scripturae by the hand-writing of the Scripture and that 's Authentical indeed Some other Decisions yea and of the Church too are made or may be if Stapleton inform us right without an evident nay without so much as a probable Testimony of Holy Writ But Bellarmine falls quite off in this and confesses in express terms That nothing can be certain by certainty of Faith unless it be contained immediately in the Word of God or be deduced out of the Word of God by evident consequence And if nothing can be certain but so then certainly no Determination of the Church it self if that Determination be not grounded upon one of these either express Word of God or evident consequence out of it So here 's little agreement in this great Point between Stapleton and Bellarmine Nor can this be shifted off as if Stapleton spake of the Word of God Written and Bellarmine of the Word of God Unwritten as he calls Tradition For Bollarmine treats there of the knowledge which a man hath of the certainty of his own Salvation And I hope A. C. will not tell us there 's any Tradition extant unwritten by which particular men may have assurance of their several Salvations Therefore Bellarmine's whole Disputation there is quite beside the matter or else he must speak of the written Word and so lye cross to Stapleton as is mentioned But to return If A. C. will he may but I cannot believe that a Definition of the Church which is made by the express Word of God and another which is made without so much as a probable Testimony of it or a clear Deduction from it are made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation Nay I must say in this case that the one Determination is firm by Divine Revelation but the other hath no Divine Revelation at all but the Churches Authority only ◠Secondly I cannot believe neither That all Determinations of the Church are sufficiently applied by one and the same full Authority of the Church For the Authority of the Church though it be of the same fulness in regard of it self and of the Power which it commits to General Councels lawfully called yet it is not always of the same fulness of knowledge and sufficiency nor of the same fulness of Conscience and integrity to apply Dogmata Fidei that which is Dogmatical in the Faith For instance I think you dare not deny but the Councel of Trent was lawfully called and yet I am of Opinion that few even of your selves believe that the Councel of Trent hath the same fulness with the Councel of Nice in all the forenamed kinds or degrees of fulness Thirdly suppose that all Determinations of the Church are made firm to us by one and the same Divine Revelation and sufficiently applied by one and the sante full Authority yet it will not follow that they are all alike fundamental in the Faith For I hope A. C. himself will not say that the Definitions of the Church are in better condition then the Propositions of Canonical Scripture Now all Propositions of Canonical Scripture are alike firm because they all alike proceed from Divine Revelation but they are not all alike fundamental in the Faith For this Proposition of Christ to S. Peter and S. Andrew
not obvious to every eye there And that this is S. Augustine's meaning is manifest by himself who best knew it For when he had said as he doth That to baptize children is Antiqua fidei Regula the Ancient Rule of Faith and the constant Tenet of the Church yet he doubts not to collect and deduce it out of Scripture also For when Pelagius urged That Infants needed not to be baptized because they had no Original Sin S. Augustine relies not upon the Tenet of the Church only but argues from the Text thus What need have Infants of Christ if they be not sick For the sound need not the Physitian S. Mat. 9. And again is not this said by Pelagins ut non accedaent ad Jesum That Infants may not come to their Saviour Sed clamat Jesus but Jesus cries out Suffer Little ones to come unto me S. Mar. 10. And all this is fully acknowledged by Calvine Namely That all men acknowledge the Baptism of Infants to descend from Apostolical Tradition And yet that it doth not depend upon the bare and naked Authority of the Church Which he speaks not in regard of Tradition but in relation to such proof as is to be made by necessary Consequence out of Scripture over and above Tradition As for Tradition I have said enough for that and as much as A. C. where 't is truly Apostolical And yet if any thing will please him I will add this concerning this particular The Baptizing of Infants That the Church received this by Tradition from the Apostles By Tradition And what then May it not directly be concluded out of Scripture because it was delivered to the Church by way of Tradition I hope A. C. will never say so For certainly in Doctrinal things nothing so likely to be a Tradition Apostolical as that which hath a root and a Foundation in Scripture For Apostles cannot write or deliver contrary but subordinate and subservient things F. I asked how he knew Scripture to be Scripture and in particular Genesis Exodus c. These are balieved to be Scripture yet not proved out of any Place of Scripture The Bishop said That the Books of Scripture are Principles to be supposed and needed not to be proved B. § 16 Num. 1 I did never love too curious a search into that which might put a man into a wheel and circle him so long between proving Scripture by Tradition and Tradition by Scripture till the Devil find a means to dispute him into Infidelity and make him believe neither I hope this is no part of your meaning Yet I doubt this Question How do you know Scripture to be Scripture hath done more harm than you will be ever able to help by Tradition But I must follow that way which you draw me And because it is so much insisted upon by you and is in it self a matter of such Consequence I will sift it a little farther Num. 2 Many men labouring to settle this great Principle in Divinity have used divers means to prove it All have not gone the same way nor all the right way You cannot be right that resolve Faith of the Scriptures being the Word of God into only Tradition For only and no other proof are equal To prove the Scripture therefore so called by way of Excellence to be the Word of God there are several Offers at divers proofs For first some fly to the Testimony and witness of the Church and her Tradition which constantly believes and unanimously delivers it Secondly some to the Light and the Testimony which the Scripture gives to it self with other internal proofs which are observed in it and to be found in no other Writing whatsoever Thirdly some to the Testimony of the Holy Ghost which clears up the light that is in Scripture and seals this Faith to the Souls of men that it is Gods Word Fourthly all that have not imbrutished themselves and sunk below their species and order of Nature give even Natural Reason leave to come in and make some proof and give some approbation upon the weighing and the consideration of other Arguments And this must be admitted if it be but for Pagans and Insidels who either consider not or value not any one of the other three yet must some way or other be converted or left without excuse Rom. 1. and that is done by this very evidence Num. 3 1. For the first The Tradition of the Church which is your way That taken and considered alone it is so far from being the only that it cannot be a sufficient Proof to believe by Divine Faith that Scripture is the Word of God For that which is a full and sufficient proof is able of it self to settle the Soul of man concerning it Now the Tradition of the Church is not able to do this For it may be further asked Why we should believe the Churches Tradition And if it be answered We may believe Because the Church is infallibly governed by the Holy Ghost it may yet be demanded of you How that may appear And if this be demanded either you must say you have it by special Revelation which is the private Spirit you object to other men or else you must attempt to prove it by Scripture as all of you do And that very offer to prove it out of Scripture is a sufcient acknowledgment that the Scripture is a higher Proof than the Churches Tradition which in your Grounds is or may be Questionable till you come thither Besides this is an Inviolable ground of Reason That the Principles of any Conclusion must be of more credit than the Conclusion it self Therefore if the Articles of Faith The Trinity the Resurrection and the rest be the Conclusions and the Principles by which they are proved be only Ecclesiastical Tradition it must needs follow That the Tradition of the Church is more infallible than the Articles of the Faith if the Faith which we have of the Articles should be finally Resolved into the Veracity of the Churches Testimony But this your Learned and wary men deny And therefore I hope your self dare not affirm Num. 4 Again if the Voyce of the Church saying the Books of Scripture commonly received are the Word of God be the formal Object of Faith upon which alone absolutely I may resolve my self then every man not only may but ought to resolve his Faith into the Voyce or Tradition of the Church for every man is bound to rest upon the proper and formal Object of the Faith But nothing can be more evident than this That a man ought not to resolve his Faith of this Principle into the sole Testimony of the Church Therefore neither is that Testimony or Tradition alone the formal Object of Faith The Learned of your own part grant this Although in that Article of the Creed I believe the Catholike Church
into the Canon if the evidence of this Light were either Universal or Infallible of and by it self And this though I cannot approve yet methinks you may and upon probable grounds at least For I hope no Romanist will deny but that there is as much light in Scripture to manifest and make ostension of it self to be infallibly the written Word of God as there is in any Tradition of the Church that it is Divine and infallibly the Unwritten Word of God And the Scriptures saying from the mouths of the Prophets Thus saith the Lord and from the mouths of the †Apostles that the Holy Ghost spake by them are at least as able and as fit to bear witness to their own Verity as the Church is to bear witness to her own Traditions by bare saying they come from the Apostles And your selves would never go to the Scripture to prove that there are Traditions as you do if you did not think the Scripture as easie to be discovered by inbred light in it self as Traditions by their light And if this be so then it is as probable at the least which some of ours affirm That Scripture may be known to be the Word of God by the Light and Lustre which it hath in it self as it is which you affirm That a Tradition may be known to be such by the light which it hath in it self which is an excellent Proposition to make sport withal were this an Argument to be handled merrily Num. 11 3. For the third Opinion and way of proving either some think that there is no sufficient warrant for this unless they fetch it from the Testimony of the Holy Ghost and so look in vain after special Revelations and make themselves by this very Conceit obnoxious and easie to be led by all the whisperings of a seducing private spirit or else you would fain have them think so For your side both upon this and other Occasions do often challenge That we resolve all our Faith into the Dictates of a private Spirit from which we shall ever prove our selves as free if not freer than you To the Question in hand then Suppose it agreed upon that there must be a Divine Faith cui subesse non potest falsum under which can rest no possible errour That the Books of Scripture are the written Word of God If they which go to the testimony of the Holy Ghost for proof of this do mean by Faith Objectum Fidei the Object of Faith that is to be believed then no question they are out of the ordinary way For God never sent us by any word or warrant of his to look for any such special and private Testimony to prove which that Book is that we must believe But if by Faith they mean the Habit or Act of Divine infused Faith by which vertue they do believe the Credible Object and thing to be believed then their speech is true and confessed by all Divines of all sorts For Faith is the gift of God of God alone and an infused Habit in respect whereof the Soul is meerly recipient And therefore the sole Infuser the Holy Ghost must not be excluded from that work which none can do but He. For the Holy Ghost as He first dictated the Scripture to the Apostles So did he not leave the Church in general nor the true members of it in particular without Grace to believe what himself had revealed and made Credible So that Faith as it is taken for the vertue of Faith whether it be of this or any other Article though it receive a kind of preparation or Occasion of Beginning from the Testimony of the Church as it proposeth and induceth to the Faith yet it ends in God revealing within and teaching within that which the Church preached without For till the Spirit of God move the Heart of man he cannot believe be the Object never so Credible The speech is true then but quite out of the State of this Question which inquires only after a sufficient means to make this Object Credible and fit to be believed against all impeachment of folly and temerity in Belief whether men do actually believe it or not For which no man may expect inward private Revelation without the external means of the Church unless perhaps the case of Necessity be excepted when a man lives in such a time and place as excludes him from all ordinary means in which I dare not offer to shut up God from the Souls of men nor to tye him to those ordinary ways and means to which yet in great wisdom and providence He hath tied and bound all mankind Num. 12 Private Revelation then hath nothing ordinarily to do to make the Object Credible in this That Scripture is the Word of God or in any other Article For the Question is of such outward and evident means as other men may take notice of as well as our selves By which if there arise any Doubting or Infirmity in the Faith others may strengthen us or we afford means to support them Whereas the Testimony of the Spirit and all private Revelation is within nor felt nor seen of any but him that hath it So that hence can be drawn no proof to others And Miracles are not sufficient alone to prove it unless both They and the Revelation too agree with the Rule of Scripture which is now an unalterable Rule by man or Angel To all this A. C. says nothing save that I seem not to admit of an Infallible Impulsion of a private Spirit ex parte subjecti without any infallible Reason and that sufficiently applied ex parte objecti which if I did admit would open a gap to all Enthusiasms and dreams of fanatical men Now for this yet I thank him For I do not only seem not to admit but I do most clearly reject this phrensie in the words going before Num. 13 4. The last way which gives Reason leave to come in and prove what it can may not justly be denied by any reasonable man For though Reason without Grace cannot see the way to Heaven nor believe this Book in which God hath written the way yet Grace is never placed but in a reasonable Creature and proves by the very seat which it hath taken up that the end it hath is to be spiritual eye-water to make Reason see what by Nature only it cannot but never to blemish Reason in that which it can comprehend Now the use of Reason is very general and man do what he can is still apt to search and seek for a Reason why he will believe though after he once believes his Faith grows stronger than either his Reason or his Knowledge and great reason for this because it goes higher and so upon a safer Principle than either of the other can in this life Num. 14 In this Particular the Books called the Scripture
C's words are very considerable For he charges the Protestants to be the Authors of the Schism for obstinate holding and teaching contrary Opinions To what I pray Why to the Roman Faith To the Roman Faith It was wont to be the Christian Faith to which contrary Opinions were so dangerous to the Maintainers But all 's Roman now with A. C. and the Jesuite And then to countenance the Business S. Bernard and S. Augustine are brought in whereas neither of them speak of the Roman and S. Bernard perhaps neither of the Catholike nor the Roman but of a Particular Church or Congregation Or if he speak of the Catholike of the Roman certainly he doth not His words are Quae major superbia c. What greater pride than that one man should prefer his judgment before the whole Congregation of all the Christian Churches in the world So A. C. out of Saint Bernard But Saint Bernard not so For these last words of all the Christian Churches in the world are not in Saint Bernard And whether Toti Congregationi imply more in that Place than a Particular Church is not very manifest Nay I think 't is plain that he speaks both of and to that particular Congregation to which he was then preaching And I believe A. C. will not easily find where tota Congregatio the whole Congregation is used in Saint Bernard or any other of the Fathers for the whole Catholike Church of Christ. And howsoever the meaning of S. Bernard be 't is one thing for a private man Judicium suum praeferre to prefer and so follow his private Judgment before the Whole Congregation which is indeed Lepra proprii Consilii as S. Bernard there calls it the proud Leprosie of the Private Spirit And quite another thing for an Intelligent man and in some things unsatisfied modestly to propose his doubts even to the Catholike Church And much more may a whole National Church nay the whole Body of the Protestants do it And for S. Augustine the Place alledged out of him is a known Place And he speaks indeed of the Whole Catholike Church And he says and he says it truly 'T is a part of most insolent madness for any Man to dispute whether that be to be done which is usually done in and through the whole Catholike Church of Christ Where first here 's not a word of the Roman Church but of that which is tota per Orbem all over the World Catholike which Rome never yet was Secondly A. C. applies this to the Roman Faith whereas S. Augustine speaks there expresly of the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church and particularly about the Manner of Offering upon Maundy Thursday whether it be in the Morning or after Supper or both Thirdly 't is manifest by the words themselves that S. Augustine speaks of no Matter of Faith there Roman nor Catholike For Frequentat and Faciendum are for Things done and to be done not for Things believed or to be believed So here 's not One Word for the Roman Faith in either of these Places And after this I hope you will the less wonder at A. C's Boldness Lastly a right sober man may without the least Touch of Insolencie or Madness dispute a Business of Religion with the Roman either Church or Prelate as all men know Irenaeus did with Victor so it be with Modesty and for the finding out or Confirming of Truth free from Vanity and purposed Opposition against even a Particular Church But in any other way to dispute the Whole Catholike Church is just that which S. Augustine calls it Insolent Madness Num. 5 But now were it so that the Church of Rome were Orthodox in all things yet the Faith by the Jesuite's leave is not simply to be called the Roman but the Christian and the Catholike Faith And yet A. C. will not understand this but Roman and Catholike whether Church or Faith must be one and the same with him and therefore infers That there can be no just Cause to make a Schism or Division from the whole Church For the whole Church cannot universally erre in Doctrine of Faith That the whole Church cannot universally erre in the Doctrine of Faith is most true and 't is granted by drivers Protestants so you will but understand it s not erring in Absolute Fundamental Doctrines And therefore 't is true also that there can be no just Cause to make a Schism from the whole Church But here 's the Jesuite's Cunning. The whole Church with him is the Roman and those parts of Christendom which subject themselves to the Roman Bishop All other parts of Christendom are in Heresie and Schism and what A. C. pleases Nay soft For another Church may separate from Rome if Rome will separate from Christ. And so far as it separates from Him and the Faith so far may another Church fever from it And this is all that the Learned Protestants do or can say And I am sure all that ever the Church of England hath either said or done And that the whole Church cannot erre in Doctrines absolutely Fundamental and Necessary to all mens Salvation besides the Authority of thoso Protestants most of them being of prime Rank seems to me to be clear by the Promise of Christ S. Matth. 16. That the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Whereas most certain it is that the Gates of Hell prevail very far against it if the Whole Militant Church universally taken can Erre from or in the Foundation But then this Power of not Eâ—ring is not to be conceived as if it were in the Church primò per se Originally or by any power it hath of it self For the Church is constituted of Men and Humanum est errare all men can erre But this Power is in it partly by the vertue of this Promise of Christ and partly by the Matter which it teacheth which is the unerring Word of God so plainly and manifestly delivered to her as that it is not possible she should universally fall from it or teach against it in things absolutely necessary to Salvation Besides it would be well weighed whether to believe or teach otherwise will not impeach the Article of the Creed concerning the Holy Catholike Church which we profess we believe For the Holy Catholike Church there spoken of contains not only the whole Militant Church on earth but the whole Triumphant also in Heaven For so S. Augustine hath long since taught me Now if the whole Catholike Church in this large extent be Holy then certainly the whole Militant Church is Holy as well as the Triumphant though in a far lower degree in as much as all Sanctification all Holiness is imperfect in this life as well in Churches as in Men Holy then the whole Militant Church is For that which the Apostle speaks of Abraham is true of the Church which is a Body Collective made
up of the spiritual seed of Abraham Rom. 11. If the root be holy so are the branches Well then the whole Militant Church is Holy and so we believe Why but will it not follow then That the whole Militant Church cannot possibly erre in the Foundations of the Faith That she may erre in Superstructures and Deductions and other by and unnecessary Truths if her Curiosity or other weakness carry her beyond or cause her to fall short of her Rule no doubt need be made But if She can erre either from the Foundation or in it She can be no longer Holy and that Article of the Creed is gone For if she can erre quite from the Foundation then She is nor Holy nor Church but becomes an Infidel Now this cannot be For all Divines Ancient and Modern Romanists and Reformers agree in this That the whole Militant Church of Christ cannot fall away into general Apostacie And if She Erre in the Foundation that is in some one or more Fundamental Points of Faith then She may be a Church of Christ still but not Holy but becomes Heretical And most Certain it is that no Assembly be it never so general of such Hereticks is or can be Holy Other Errors that are of a meaner alay take not Holiness from the Church but these that are dyed in grain cannot consist with Holiness of which Faith in Christ is the very Foundation And therefore if we will keep up our Creed the whole Militant Church must be still Holy For if it be not so still then there may be a time that Falsum may subesse Fidei Catholicae That falshood and that in a high degree in the very Article may be the Subject of the Catholike Faith which were no less than Blasphemy to affirm For we must still believe the Holy Catholike Church And if She be not still Holy then at that time when she is not so we believe a Falshood under the Article of the Catholike Faith Therefore a very dangerous thing it is to cry out in general terms That the whole Catholike Militant Church can Erre and not limit nor distinguish in time that it can erre indeed for Ignorance it hath and Ignorance can Erre But Erre it cannot either by falling totally from the Foundation or by Heretical Error in it For the Holiness of the Church consists as much if not more in the Verity of the Faith as in the Integrity of Manners taught and Commanded in the Doctrine of Faith Num. 6 Now in this Discourse A. C. thinks he hath met with me For he tells me That I may not only safely grant that protestants made the Division that is now in the Church but further also and that with a safe Confidence as one did was it not you saith he That it was ill done of those who first made the Separation Truly I do not now remember whether I said it or no. But because A. C. shall have full satisfaction from me and without any Tergiversation if I did not say it then I do say it now and most true it is That it was ill done of those who ere they were that first made the separation But then A. C. must not understand me of Actual only but of Causal separation For as I said before the Schism is theirs whose the Cause of it is And he makes the Separation that gives the first just Cause of it not he that makes an Actual Separation upon a just Cause preceding And this is so evident a Truth that A. C. cannot deny it for he says 't is most true Neither can he deny it in this sense in which I have expressed it for his very Assertion against us though false is in these Terms That we gave the first Cause Therefore he must mean it of Causal not of Actual Separation only Num. 7 But then A. C. goes on and tells us That after this Breach was made yet the Church of Rome was so kind and careful to seek the Protestants that She invited them publikely with Safe-conduct to Rome to a General Councel freely to speak what they could for themselves Indeed I think the Church of Rome did carefully seek the Protestants But I doubt it was to bring them within their Net And she invited them to Rome A very safe place if you mark it for them to come to just as the Lyon in the Apologue invited the Fox to his own Den. Yea but there was Safe-Conduct offered too Yes Conduct perhaps but not safe or safe perhaps for going thither but none for coming thence Vestigia nulla retrorsum Yea but it should have been to a General Councel Perhaps so But was the Conduct safe that was given for coming to a Councel which they call General to some others before them No sure John Hus and Jerome of Prage burnt for all their Safe-Conduct And so long as Jesuites write and maintain That Faith given is not to be kept with Hereticks And the Church of Rome leaves this lewd Doctrine uncensured as it hath hitherto done and no exception put in of force and violence A. C. shall pardon us that we come not to Rome nor within the reach of Roman Power what freedom of Speech soever be promised us For to what end Freedom of Speech on their part since they are resolved to alter nothing And to what end Freedom of speech on our part if after speech hath been free life shall not Num. 8 And yet for all this A. C. makes no doubt but that the Romane Church is so far from being Cause of the continuance of the Schism or hinderance of the Re-union that it would yet give a free hearing with most ample Safe-Conduct if any hope might be given that the Protestants would sincerely seek nothing but Truth and Peace Truly A. C. is very Resolute for the Roman Church yet how far he may undertake for it I cannot tell But for my part I am of the same Opinion for the continuing of the Schism that I was for the making of it That is that it is ill very ill done of those whoever they be Papists or Protestants that give just Cause to continue a Separation But for free-hearings or Safe-Conducts I have said enough till that Church do not only say but do otherwise And as for Truth and Peace they are in every mans mouth with you and with us But lay they but half so close to the hearts of men as they are common on their tongues it would soon be better with Christendom than at this day it is or is like to be And for the Protestants in general I hope they seek both Truth and Peace sincerely The Church of England I am sure doth and hath taught me to pray for both as I most heartily do But what Rome doth in this if the world will not see I will not Censure Num. 9 And for that which A. C. adds That such a
above a thousand years ago by many both National and Provincial Synods For the Councel at Rome under Pope Sylvester An. 324. condemned Photinus and Sabellius And their Heresies were of high Nature against the Faith The Councel at Gangra about the same time condemned Eustathius for his condemning of Marriage as unlawful The first Councel at Carthage being a Provincial condemned Rebaptization much about the year 348. The Provincial Councel at Aquileia in the year 381. in which S. Ambrose was present condemned Palladius and Secundinus for embracing the Arrian Heresie The second Councel of Carthage handled and Decreed the Belief and Preaching of the Trinity And this a litte after the year 424. The Councel of Milevis in Africa in which S. Augustine was present condemned the whole Course of the Heresie of Pelagius that great and bewitching Heresie in the year 416. The second Councel at Orange a Provincial too handled the great Controversies about Grace and Free-will and set the Church right in them in the year 444. The third Councel at Toledo a National one in the year 589. determined many things against the Arrian Heresie about the very Prime Articles of Faith under fourteen several Anathema's The fourth Councel at Toledo did not only handle Matters of Faith for the Reformation of that People but even added also some things to the Creed which were not expresly delivered in former Creeds Nay the Bishops did not only practise this to Condemn Heresies in National and Provincial Synods and so Reform those several Places and the Church it self by parts But They did openly challenge this as their Right and Due and that without any leave asked of the Sea of Rome For in this Fourth Councel of Toledo They Decree That if there happen a Cause of Faith to be setled a General that is a National Synod of all Spain and Galicia shall be held thereon And this in the year 643. Where you see it was then Catholike Doctrine in all Spain that a National Synod might be a Competent Judge in a Cause of Faith And I would fain know what Article of the Faith doth more concern all Christians in general than that of Filióque And yet the Church of Rome her self made that Addition to the Creed without a General Councel as I have shewed already And if this were practised so often and in so many places why may not a National Councel of the Church of England do the like as She did For She cast off the Pope's Usurpation and as much as in her lay restored the King to his right That appears by a Book subscribed by the Bishops in Henry the eighth's time And by the Records in the Arch-bishops Office orderly kept and to be seen In the Reformation which came after our Princes had their parts and the Clergy theirs And to these Two principally the power and direction for Reformation belongs That our Princes had their parts is manifest by their Calling together of the Bishops and others of the Clergy to consider of that which might seem worthy Reformation And the Clergy did their part For being thus called together by Regal Power they met in the National Synod of sixty two And the Articles there agreed on were afterwards confirmed by Acts of State and the Royal Assent In this Synod the Positive Truths which are delivered are more than the Polemicks So that a meer Calumny it is That we profess only a Negative Religion True it is and we must thank Rome for it our Confession must needs contain some Negatives For we cannot but deny that Images are to be adored Nor can we admit Maimed Sacraments Nor grant Prayers in an unknown tongue And in a corrupt time or place 't is as necessary in Religion to deny falshood as to assert and vindicate Truth Indeed this later can hardly be well and sufficiently done but by the former an Affirmative Verity being ever included in the Negative to a Falshood As for any Error which might fall into this as any other Reformation if any such can be found then I say and 't is most true Reformation especially in Cases of Religion is so difficult a work and subject to so many Pretensions that 't is almost impossible but the Reformers should step too far or fall too short in some smaller things or other which in regard of the far greater benefit coming by the Reformation it self may well be passed over and born withal But if there have been any wilful and gross errors not so much in Opinion as in Fact Sacriledge too often pretending to reform Superstition that 's the Crime of the Reformers not of the Reformation and they are long since gone to God to answer it to whom I leave them Num. 6 But now before I go off from this Point I must put you in remembrance too That I spake at that time and so must all that will speak of that Exigent of the General Church as it was for the most part forced under the Government of the Roman Sea And this you understand well enough For in your very next words you call it the Roman Church Now I make no doubt but that as the Universal Catholike Church would have reform'd her self had she been in all parts freed of the Roman Yoke so while she was for the most in these Western parts under that yoke the Church of Rome was if not the Only yet the Chief Hinderance of Reformation And then in this sense it is more than clear That if the Roman Church will neither Reform nor suffer Reformation it is lawful for any other Particular Church to Reform it self so long as it doth it peaceably and orderly and keeps it self to the Foundation and free from Sacriledge F. I asked Quo Judice did this appear to be so Which Question I asked as not thinking it equity that Protestants in their own Cause should be Accusers Witnesses and Judges of the Roman Church B. § 25 Num. 1 You do well to tell the reason now why you asked this Question For you did not discover it at the Conference if you had you might then have received your Answer It is most true No man in common equity ought to be suffered to be Accuser Witness and Judge in his own Cause But is there not as little reason and equity too that any man that is to be accused should be the Accused and yet Witness and Judge in his own Cause If the first may hold no man shall be Innocent and if the last none will be Nocent And what do we here with in their own Cause against the Roman Church Why Is it not your own too against the Protestant Church And if it be a Cause common to both as certain it is then neither Part alone may be Judge If neither alone may judge then either they must be judged by a Third which stands indifferent to both and
Nay make it appear that ever any Prophet in that which he delivered from God as infallible Truth was ever discursive at all in the Means Nay make it but probable in the ordinary course of Prophecie I hope you go no higher nor will I offer at God's absolute Power That that which is discursive in the Means can be Prophetick in the Conclusion you shall be my great Apollo for ever In the mean time I have learnt this from yours That all Prophecy is by Vision Inspiration c. that no Vision admits discourse That all Prophecie is an Illumination not always present but when the Word of the Lord came to them that was not by discourse And yet you say again That this Prophetick Infallibility of the Church is not gotten without study and Industry You should do well to tell us too why God would put his Church to study for the Spirit of Prophecie which never any Particular Prophet was put unto And whosoever shall studie for it shall not do it in vain since Prophecie is a Gift and can never be an acquired Habit. And there is somewhat in it that Bellarmine in all his Dispute for the Authority of General Councels dares not come at this Rock He prefers the Conclusion and the Canon before the Acts and the Deliberations of Councels and so do we but I do not remember that ever he speaks out That the Conclusion is delivered by Prophecie or Revelation Sure he sounded the shore and found danger here He did sound it For a little before he speak plainly would his bad Cause let him be constant Councels do deduce their Conclusions What from Inspiration No But out of the Word of God and that per ratiocinationem by Argumentation Neither have they nor do they write any immediate Revelations Num. 4 The second Reason why Stapleton will have it Prophetick in the Conclusion is Because that which is determined by the Church is matter of Faith not of Knowledge And that therefore the Church proposing it to be believed though it use Means yet it stands not upon Art or Means or Argument but the Revelation of the Holy Ghost Else when we embrace the Conclusion proposed it should not be an Assent of Faith but an Habit of Knowledge This for the first Part That the Church uses the Means but follows them not is all one in substance with the former Reason And for the later Part That then our admitting the Decree of a Councel would be no Assent of Faith but an Habit of Knowledge what great inconvenience is there if it be granted For I think it is undoubted Truth That one and the same Conclusion may be Faith to the Believer that cannot prove and Knowledge to the Learned that can And S. Augustine I am sure in regard of one and the same thing even this the very wisdom of the Church in her Doctrines ascribes Understanding to one sort of men and Belief to another weaker sort And Thomas goes with him Num. 5 Now for farther satisfaction if not of you yet of others this may well be thought on Man lost by sin in the Integrity of his Nature and cannot have Light enough to see the way to Heaven but by Grace This Grace was first merited after given by Christ this Grace is first kindled by Faith by which if we agree not to some Supernatural Principles which no Reason can demonstrate simply we can never see our way But this Light when it hath made Reason submit it self clears the eye of Reason it never puts it out In which sense it may be is that of Optatus That the very Catholike Church it self is reasonable as well as diffused every where By which Reason enlightned which is stronger than Reason the Church in all Ages hath been able either to convert or convince or at least stop the mouthes of Philosophers and the great men of Reason in the very Point of Faith where it is at highest To the present occasion then The first immediate Fundamental Points of Faith without which there is no Salvation as they cannot be proved by Reason so neither need they be determined by any Councel nor ever were they attempted they are so plain set down in the Scripture If about the sense and true meaning of these or necessary deduction out of these Prime Articles of Faith General Councels determine any thing as they have done in Nice and the rest there is no inconvenience that one and the same Canon of the Councel should be believed as it reflects upon the Articles and Grounds indemonstrable and yet known to the Learned by the Means and Proof by which that Deduction is vouched and made good And again the Conclusion of a Councel suppose that in Nice about the Consubstantiality of Christ with the Father in it self considered is indemonstrable by Reason There I believe and assent in Faith But the same Conclusion if you give me ground of Scripture and the Creed and somewhat must be supposed in all whether Faith or Knowledge is demonstrable by natural Reason against any Arrian in the world And if it be demonstrable I may know it and have an Habit of it And what inconvenience in this For he weaker sort of Christians which cannot deduce when they have the Principle granted they are to rest upon the Definition onely and their Assent is meer Faith yea and the Learned too where there is not a Demonstration evident to them assent by Faith onely and not by Knowledge And what inconvenience in this Nay the necessity of Nature is such that these Principles once given the understanding of man cannot rest but it must be thus And the Apostle would never have required a man to be able to give a Reason and an account of the hope that is in him if he might not be able to know his account or have lawful interest to give it when he knew it without prejudicing his Faith by his Knowledge And suppose exact Knowledge and meer Belief cannot stand together in the same Person in regard of the same thing by the same means yet that doth not make void this Truth For where is that exact knowledge or in whom that must not meerly in points of Faith believe the Article or ground upon which they rest But when that is once believed it can demonstrate many things from it And Definitions of Councels are not Principia Fidei Principles of Faith but Deductions from them Num. 1 And now because you ask Wherein are we nearer to Unity by a Councel if a Councel may erre Besides the Answer given I promised to consider which Opinion was most agreeable with the Church which most able to preserve or reduce Christian Peace The Romane That a Councel cannot erre or the Protestants That it can And this I propose not as a Rule but leave the Christian world to consider of it
a Schismatical Church yet never bowed their knee to Baal 3. Reg. 19. But 't is quite another thing to live in a Schismatical Church and Communicate with it in the Schism and all the Superstitions and Corruptions which that Church teaches nay to live and die in them For certainly here no man can so live in a Schismatical Church but if he be of capacity enough and understand it he must needs be a Formal Schismatick or an Involved One if he understand it not And in this case the Church of Rome is either far worse or more cruel than the Church of Israel even under Ahab and Jezabel was The Synagogue indeed was corrupted a long time and in a great degree But I do not finde that this Doctrine You must sacrifice in the high places Or this You may not go and worship at the one Altar in Jerusalem was either taught by the Priests or maintained by the Prophets or enjoyned the people by the Sanedrim Nay can you shew me when any Jew living there devoutly according to the Law was ever punished for omitting the One of these or doing the Other But the Church of Rome hath solemnly decreed her Errours And erring hath yet decreed withal That she cannot erre And imposed upon Learned men disputed and improbable Opinions Transubstantiation Purgatory and Forbearance of the Cup in the blessed Eucharist even against the express Command of our Saviour and that for Articles of Faith And to keep off Disobedience what ever the Corruption be she hath bound up her Decrees upon pain of Excommunication and all that follows upon it Nay this is not enough unless the Fagot be kindled to light them the way This then may be enough for us to leave Rome though the old Prophet forsook not Israel 3. Reg. 13. And therefore in this present case there 's peril great peril of damnable both Schism and Heresie and other sin by living and dying in the Roman Faith tainted with so many superstitions as at this day it is and their Tyranny to boot So that here I may answer A. C. just as S. Augustine answered Petilian the Donatist in the fore-named case of Baptism For when Petilian pleaded the Concession of his Adversaries That Baptism as the Donatists administred it was good and lawful and thence inferred just as the Jesuite doth against me that it was better for men to joyn with his Congregation than with the Church S. Augustine answers We do indeed approve among Hereticks Baptism but so not as it is the Baptism of Hereticks but as it is the Baptism of Christ. Just as we approve the Baptism of Adulterers Idolaters Witches and yet not as 't is theirs but as 't is Christs Baptism For none of these for all their Baptism shall inherit the Kingdom of God And the Apostle reckons Hereticks among them Galat. 5. And again afterwards It is not therefore yours saith Saint Augustine which we fear to destroy but Christs which even among the Sacrilegious is of and in it self holy Now you shall see how full this comes to our Petilianist A. C. for he is one of the Contractors of the Church of Christ to Rome as the Donatists confined it to Asrick And he cries out That a Possibility of Salvation is a free Confession of the Adversaries and is of force against them and to be thought extorted from them by force of Truth it self I answer I do indeed for my part leaving other men free to their own judgment acknowledge a Possibility of Salvation in the Roman Church But so as that which I grant to Romanists is not as they are Romanists but as they are Christians that is as they believe the Creed and hold the Foundation Christ himself not as they associate themselves wittingly and knowingly to the gross Superstitions of the Romish Church Nor do I fear to destroy quod ipsorum est that which is theirs but yet I dare not proceed so roughly as with theirs or for theirs to deny or weaken the Foundation which is Christs even among them and which is and remains holy even in the midst of their Superstitions And I am willing to hope there are many among them which keep within that Church and yet wish the Superstitions abolished which they know and which pray to God to forgive their errours in what they know not and which hold the Foundation firm and live accordingly and which would have all things amended that are amiss were it in their power And to such I dare not deny a Possibility of Salvation for that which is Christs in them though they hazzard themselves extremely by keeping so close to that which is Superstition and in the Case of Images comes too near Idolatry Nor can A. C. shift this off by adding living and dying in the Romane Church For this living and dying in the Romane Church as is before expressed cannot take away the Possibility of Salvation from them which believe and repent of whatsoever is errour or sin in them be it sin known to them or be it not But then perhaps A. C. will reply that if this be so I must then maintain that a Donatist also living and dying in Schism might be saved To which I answer two ways First that a plain honest Donatist having as is confessed true Baptism and holding the Foundation as for ought I know the Donatists did and repenting of what ever was sin in him and would have repented of the Schism had it been known to him might be saved Secondly that in this Particular the Romanist and the Donatist differ much And that therefore it is not of necessary consequence that if a Romanist now upon the Conditions before expressed may be saved Therefore a Donatist heretofore might For in regard of the Schism the Donatist was in one respect worse and in greater danger of damnation than the Romanist now is And in another respect better and in less danger The Donatist was in greater danger of damnation if you consider the Schism it self then for they brake from the Orthodox Church without any cause given them And here it doth follow if the Romanist have a Possibility of Salvation therefore a Donatist hath But if you consider the Cause of the Schism now then the Donatist was in less danger of Damnation than the Romanist is Because the Church of Rome gave the first and the greatest cause of the Schism as is proved before And therefore here it doth not follow That if a Donatist have possibility of Salvation Therefore a Romanist hath For a lesser Offender may have that possibility of safety which a greater hath not And last of all whereas A. C. adds that confessedly there is no such Peril That 's a most loud untruth and an Ingenuous man would never have said it For in the same place where I grant a possibility of Salvation in the Roman Church I presently add that it is no
Case of Rebaptization For here though he were a main Leader in that Errour yet all the whole Church grant him safe and his Followers in danger of damnation But if any man be a Leader and a Teaching Heretick and will adde Schism to Heresie and be obstinate in both he without Repentance must needs be lost while many that succeed him in the Errour onely without the Obstinacy may be saved For they which are misled and swayed with the Current of Time hold the same Errours with their Misleaders yet not supinely but with all sober diligence to finde out the Truth Not pertinaciously but with all readiness to submit to Truth so soon as it shall be found Not uncharitably but retaining an internal Communion with the Whole Visible Church of Christ in the Fundamental Points of Faith and performance of acts of Charity not facticusly but with an earnest desire and a sincere endeavour as their Place and Calling gives them means for a perfect Union and Communion of all Christians in Truth as well as Peace I say these however misled are neither Hereticks nor Schismaticks in the sight of God and are therefore in a state of Salvation And were not this true Divinity it would go very hard with many poor Christian souls that have been and are misled on all sides in these and other Distracted times of the Church of Christ Whereas thus habituated in themselves they are by God's mercy safe in the midst of those waves in which their Misleaders perish I pray you Mark this and so by God's Grace will I. For our Reckoning will be heavier if we thus mislead on either side than theirs that follow us But I see I must look to my self for you are secure For F. D. White said I hath secured me that none of our Errours be damnable so long as we hold them not against our Conscience And I hold none against my Conscience B. § 37 Num. 1 It seems then you have two Securities D. White 's Assertion and your Conscience What Assurance D. White gave you I cannot tell of my self nor as things stand may I rest upon your Relation It may be you use him no better than you do me And sure it is so For I have since spoken with D. White the late Reverend Bishop of Ely and he avows this and no other Answer He was asked in the Conference between you Whether Popish Errours were Fundamental To this he gave an Answer by distinction of the Persons which held and professed the Errours Namely that the Errours were Fundamental reductivè by a Reducement if they which embraced them did pertinaciously adhere to them having sufficient means to be better informed Nay farther that they were materially and in the very Kinde and Nature of them Leaven Dross Hay and Stubble Yet he thought withal that such as were misled by Education or long Custom or over-valuing the Soveraignty of the Romane Church and did in simplicity of heart embrace them might by their general Repentance and Faith in the Merit of Christ attended with Charity and other Vertues finde mercy at God's hands But that he should say signantèr and expresly That none either of yours or your Fellows Errours were damnable so long as you hold them not against Conscience that he utterly disavows You delivered nothing to extort such a Confession from him And for your self he could observe but small love of Truth few signes of Grace in you as he told me Yet he will not presume to judge you or your Salvation It is the Word of Christ that must judge you at the later day For your Conscience you are the happier in your Errour that you hold nothing against it especially if you speak not against it while you say so But this no man can know but your self For no man knows the thoughts of a man but the spirit of a man that is within him to which I leave you Num. 2 To this A. C. replies And first he grants that D. White did not signanter and expresly say these precise words So then here 's his plain Confession Not these precise words Secondly he saith that neither did D. White signantèr and expresly make the Answer above mentioned But to this I can make no Answer since I was not present at the first or second Conference Thirdly he saith that the Reason which moved the Jesuite to say D. White had secured him was because the said Doctor had granted in his first Conference with the Jesuite these things following First That there must be one or other Church continually visible Though D. White late Bishop of Ely was more able to Answer for himself yet since he is now dead and is thus drawn into this Discourse I shall as well as I can do him the right which his Learning and Pains for the Church deserved And to this first I grant as well as he That there must be some one Church or other continually visible Or that the Militant Church of Christ must always be visible in some Particulars or Particular at least express it as you please For if this be not so then there may be a time in which there shall not any where be a Visible Profession of the Name of Christ which is contrary to the whole scope and promise of the Gospel Num. 3 Well What then Why then A. C. addes That D. White confessed that this Visible Church had in all Ages taught that unchanged Faith of Christ in all Points Fundamental D. White had reason to say that the Visible Church taught so but that this or that particular Visible Church did so teach sure D. White affirmed not unless in case the whole Visible Church of Christ were reduced to one Particular onely Num. 4 But suppose this What then Why then A. C. tells us that D. White being urged to assigne such a Church expresly granted he could assigne one different from the Romane which held in all Ages all points Fundamental Now here I would fain know what A. C. means by a Church different from the Romane For if he mean different in place 'T is easie to affirm the Greek Church which as hath before been proved hath ever held and taught the Foundation in the midst of all her Pressures And if he mean different in Doctrinal things and those about the Faith he cannot assigne the Church of Rome for holding them in all Ages But if he mean different in the Foundation it self the Creed then his urging to assigne a Church is void be it Rome or any other For if any other Church shall thus differ from Rome or Rome from it self as to deny this Foundation it doth not it cannot remain a Differing Church sed transit in Non Ecclesiam but passes away into No Church upon the Denial of the Creed Num. 5 Now what A. C. means he expresses not nor can I tell but I may peradventure guess near it by that which out
is or can make me But if he ask how I know infallibly I believe them in their true and uncorrupted sense Then I answer There 's no man of knowledge but he can understand the plain and simple Decision expressed in the Canon of the Councel where 't is necessary to Salvation And for all other debates in the Councels or Decisions of it in things of less moment 't is not necessary that I or any man else have Infallible Assurance of them though I think 't is possible to attain even in these things as much Infallible Assurance of the uncorrupted sense of them as A. C. or any other Jesuites have Num. 6 A. C. asks again What Text of Scripture tells That Protestants now living do believe all this or that all this is expressed in those particular Bibles or in the Writings of the Fathers and Councels which now are in the Protestants hands Good God! Whither will not a strong Bias carry even a learned Judgment Why what Consequence is there in this The Scripture now is the onely Ordinary Infallible Rule of Divine Faith Therefore the Protestants cannot believe all this before mentioned unless a particular Text of Scripture can be shewed for it Is it not made plain before how we believe Scripture to be Scripture and by Divine and Infallible Faith too and yet we can shew no particular Text for it Beside were a Text of Scripture necessary yet that is for the Object and the thing which we are to believe not for the Act of our believing which is meerly from God and in our selves and for which we cannot have any Warrant from or by Scripture more than that we ought to believe but not that we in our particular do believe The rest of the Question is far more inconsequent VVhether all this be expressed in the Bibles which are in Protestants hands For first we have the same Bibles in our hands which the Romanists have in theirs Therefore either we are Infallibly sure of ours or they are not Infallibly sure of theirs For we have the same Book and delivered unto us by the same hands and all is expressed in ours that is in theirs Nor is it of moment in this Argument that we account more Apocryphal than they do For I will acknowledge every Fundamental point of Faith as proveable out of the Canon as we account it as if the Apocryphal were added unto it Secondly A. C. is here extreamly out of himself and his way For his Question is VVhether all this be expressed in the Bibles which we have All this All what Why before there is mention of the four General Councels and in this Question here 's mention of the Writings of the Fathers and the Councels And what will A. C. look that we must shew a Text of Scripture for all this and an express one too I thought and do so still 't is enough to ground Belief upon Necessary Consequence out of Scripture as well as upon express Text. And this I am sure of that neither I nor any man else is bound to believe any thing as Necessary to Salvation be it found in Councels or Fathers or where you will if it be Contrary to express Scripture or necessary Consequence from it And for the Copies of the Councels and Fathers which are in our hands they are the same that are in the hands of the Romanists and delivered to Posterity by Tradition of the Church which is abundantly sufficient to warrant that So we are as Infallibly sure of this as 't is possible for any of you to be Nay are we not more sure For we have used no Index Expurgatorius upon the Writings of the Fathers as you have done So that Posterity hereafter must thank us for true Copies both of Councels and Fathers and not you Num. 7 But A. C. goes on and asks still Whether Protestants be Infallibly sure that they rightly understand the sense of all which is expressed in their Books according to that which was understood by the Primitive Church and the Fathers which were present at the four first General Councels A. C. may ask everlastingly if he will ask the same over and over again For I pray wherein doth this differ from his Question save onely that here Scripture is not named For there the Question was of our Assurance of the Incorrupted sense And therefore thither I refer you for Answer with this That it is not required either of us or of them that there should be had an Infallible assurance that we rightly understand the sense of all that is expressed in our Books And I think I may believe without sin that there are many things expressed in these Books for they are theirs as well as ours which A. C. and his Fellows have not Infallible assurance that they rightly understand in the sense of the Primitive Church or the Fathers present in those Councels And if they say Yes they can because when a difficulty crosses them they believe them in the Churches sense Yet that dry shift will not serve For belief of them in the Churches sense is an Implicite Faith but it works nothing distinctly upon the understanding For by an Implioite Faith no man can be infallibly assured that he doth rightly understand the sense which is A. C's Question whatever perhaps he may rightly believe And an Implicite Faith and an Infallible understanding of the same thing under the same Considerations cannot possibly stand together in the same man at the same time Num. 8 A. C. hath not done asking yet But he would farther know Whether Protestants can be Infallibly sure that all and onely those points which Protestants account Fundamental and necessary to be expresly known by all were so accounted by the Primitive Church Truly Unity in the Faith is very Considerable in the Church And in this the Protestants agree and as Uniformly as you and have as Infallible Assurance as you can have of all points which they account Fundamental yea and of all which were so accounted by the Primitive Church And these are but the Creed and some few and those Immediate deductions from it And †Tertullian and Ruffinus upon the very Clause of the Catholike Church to decipher it make a recital onely of the Fundamental Points of Faith And for the first of these the Creed you see what the sense of the Primitive Church was by that Famous and known place of Irenaeus where after he had recited the Creed as the Epitome or Brief of the Faith he adds That none of the Governours of the Church be they never so potent to Express them selves can say alia ab his other things from these Nor none so weak in Expression as to diminish this Tradition For since the Faith is One and the same He that can say much of it says no more than he ought Nor doth he diminish it that can say but little And in
this the Protestants all agree And for the second the immediate Deductions they are not formally Fundamental for all men but for such as are able to make or understand them And for others 't is enough if they do not obstinately or Schismatically refuse them after they are once revealed Indeed you account many things Fundamental which were never so accounted in any sense by the Primitive Church such as are all the Decrees of General Councels which may be all true but can never be all Fundamental in the Faith For it is not in the power of the whole Church much less of a General Councel to make any thing Fundamental in the Faith that is not contained in the Letter or sense of that common Faith which was once given and but once for all to the Saints S. Jude 3. But if it be A. C's meaning to call for an Infallible Assurance of all such Points of Faith as are Decreed by General Councels Then I must be bold to tell him All those Decrees are not necessary to all mens salyation Neither do the Romanisis themselves agree in all such determined Points of Faith Be they determined by Councels or by Popes For Instance After those Books which we account Apocryphal were defined to be Canonical and an Anathema pronounced in the Case Sixtus Senensis makes scruple of some of them And after Pope Leo the tenth had defined the Pope to be above a General Councel yet many Roman Cathalikes defend the Contrary And so do all the Sorbâ—nists at this very day Therefore if these be Fundamental in the Faith the Romanists differ one from another in the Faith nay in the Fundamentals of the Faith And therefore cannot have Infallible Assurance of them Nor is there that Unity in the Faith amongst them which they so much and so often boast of For what Scripture is Canonical is a great point of Faith And I believe they will not now Confess That the Popes power over a General Councel is a small one And so let A. C. look to his own Infallible Assurance of Fundamentals in the Faith for ours God be thanked is well And since he is pleased to call for a particular Text of Scripture to prove all and every thing of this nature which is ridiculous in it self and unreasonable to demand as hath been shewed yet when he shall be pleased to bring forth but a particular known Tradition to prove all and every thing of this on their side it will then be perhaps time for him to call for and for us to give farther Answer about particular Texts of Scripture Num. 9 After all this Ouestioning A. C. infers That I had need seek out some other Infallible Rule and means by which I may know these things infallibly or else that I have no reason to be so confident as to adventure my soul that one may be saved living and dying in the Protestant faith How weak this Inference is will easily appear by that which I have already said to the premises And yet I have somewhat left to say to this Inference also And first I have lived and shall God willing die in the Faith of Christ as it was professed in the Ancient Primitive Church as it was professed in the present Church of England And for the Rule which governs me herein if I cannot be confident for my soul upon the Scripture and the Primitive Church expounding and declaring it I will be confident upon no other And secondly I have all the reason in the world to be confident upon this Rule for this can never deceive me Another that very other which A. C. proposes namely the Faith of the Roman Church may Therefore with A. C's leave I will venture my salvation upon the Rule aforesaid and not trouble my self to seek another of mans making to the forsaking and weakening of this which God hath given me For I know they Committed two Evils which forsook the Fountain of Living Waters to hew out to themselves Cisterns broken Cisterns that can hold no Water Jer. 2. For here 's the Evil of Desertion of that which was Right and the Evil of a bad Choice of that which is hew'd out with much pains and care and is after Useless and Unprofitable But then Thirdly I finde that a Romanist may make use of an Implicite Faith at his pleasure but a Protestant must know all these things Infallibly that 's A. C's word Know these things Why but is it not enough to believe them Now God forbid it should Else what shall become of Millions of poor Christians in the world which cannot know all these things much less know them Infallibly Well I would not have A. C. weaken the Belief of poor Christians in this fashion But for things that may be known as well as believed nor I nor any other shall need forsake the Scripture to seek another Rule to direct either our Conscience or our Confidence Num. 10 In the next place A. C. observes That the Jesuite was as confident for his part with this difference that he had sufficient reason of his Confidence but I had not for mine This is said with the Confidence of a Jesuite but as yet but said Therefore he goes on and tells us That the Jesuite had reason of his Confidence out of express Scriptures and Fathers and the Infallible Authority of the Church Now truly Express Scriptures with A. C's patience he hath not named one that is express nor can he And the few Scriptures which he hath alledged I have Answered and so have others As for Fathers he hath named very few and with what success I leave to the Readers judgment And for the Authority of the Catholike Church I hold it as Infallible as he and upon better Grounds but not so of a General Councel which he here means as appears after And for my part I must yet think and I doubt A. C. will not be able to disprove it that express Scripture and Fathers and the Authority of the Church will rather be found proofs to warrant my Confidence than his Yea but A. C. saith That I did not then taxe the Jesuite with any rashness It may be so Nor did he me So there we parted even Yea but he saith again that I acknowledge there is but one saving Faith and that the Lady might be saved in the Romane Faith which was all the Jesuite took upon his soul. Why but if this be all I will confess it again The first That there is but one faith I confess with S. Paul Ephes. 4. And the other that the Lady might be saved in the Romane Faith or Church I confess with that charity which S. Paul teacheth me Namely to leave all men especially the weaker both sex and sort which hold the Foundation to stand or fall to their own Master Rom. 14. And this is no mistaken charity As
Faith in such holiness of life and conversation as is without all infamy and reproach That is as our English renders that Creed exceeding well Which Faith unless a man do keep whole and undefiled even with such a life as Monius himself shall not be able to carp at So Athanasius who certainly was passing able to express himself in his own Language in the beginning of that his Creed requires That we keep it entire without diminution and undesiled without blame And at the end that we believe it faithfully without wavering But inviolate is the mistaken word of the old Interpreter and with no great knowledge made use of by A. C. And then fourthly though this be true Divinity That he which hopes for Salvation must believe the Whole Creed and in the right sense too if he be able to comprehend it yet I take the true and first meaning of inviolate could Athanasius his word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have signified so not to be the holding of the true sense but not to offer violence oâ— a forced sence or meaning upon the Creed which every man doth not that yet believes it not in a true sence For not to believe the true sence of the Creed is one thing But 't is quite another to force a wrong sence upon it Fifthly a Reason would be given also why A. C. is so earnest for the whole Faith and bauks the word which goes with it which is holy or undesiled For Athanasius doth alike exclude from Salvation those which keep not the Catholike Faith holy as well as these which keep it not whole I doubt this was to spare many of his holy Fathers the Popes who were as far as any the very â—ewdâ—st among men without exception from keeping the Catholike Faith holy Sixthly I agree to the next part of his Exposition That a man that will be saved must believe the whole Creed for the true formal reason of divine Revelation For upon the Truth of God thus revealed by Himself 〈◊〉 the infallible certainty of the Christian Faith But I do not grant that this is within the compass of S. Athanasius his word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor of the word Inviolate But in that respect 't is a meer strain of A. C. And then lastly though the whole Catholike Church be sufficient in applying this to us and our Belief not our Understanding which A. C. is at again yet Infallible She is not in the proposal of this Revelation to us by every of her Pastors some whereof amongst you as well as others neglect or forget at least to feed Christ's sheep as Christ and his Church hath fed them Num. 13 But now that A. C. hath taught us as you see the meaning of S. Athanasius in the next place he tells us That if we did believe any one Article we finding the same formal Reason in all and applied sufficiently by the same means to all would easily believe all Why surely we do not believe any one Article onely but all the Articles of the Christian Faith And we believe them for the same formal Reason in all namely Because they are revealed from and by God and sufficiently applied in his Word and by his Churches Ministration But so long as they do not believe all in this sort saith A. C. Look you He tells us we do not believe all when we profess we do Is this man become as God that he can better tell what we believe than we our selves Surely we do believe all and in that sort too Though I believe were S. Athanasius himself alive again and a plain man should come to him and tell him he believed his Creed in all and every particular he would admit him for a good Catholike Christian though he were not able to express to him the formal reason of that his belief Yea but saith A. C. while they will as all Hereticks do make choice of what they will and what they will not believe without relying upon the Infallible Authority of the Catholike Church they cannot have that one saving Faith in any one Article Why but whatsoever Hereticks do we are not such nor do we so For they which believe all the Articles as once again I tell you we do make no choice And we do relie upon the Infallible Authority of the Word of God and the whole Catholike Church And therefore we both can have and have that one saving Faith which believes all the Articles entirely though we cannot believe that any particular Church is infallible Num. 14 And yet again A. C. will not thus be satisfied but on he goes and adds That although we believe the same truth which other good Catholikes do in some Articles yet not believing them for the same formal reason of Divine Revelation sufficiently applied by Infallible Church-Authority c. we cannot be said to have one and the same Infallible and Divine Faith which other good Catholike Christians have who believe the Articles for this formal Reason sufficiently made known to them not by their own fancy nor the fallible Authority of humane deductions but by the Infallible Authority of the Church of God If A. C. will still say the same thing I must still give the same answer First he confesses we believe the same Truth in some Articles I pray mark his phrase the same Truth in some Articles with other good Catholike Christians so far his Pen hath told Truth against his will for he doth not I wot well intend to call us Catholikes and yet his Pen being truer than himself hath let it fall For the word other cannot be so used as here it is but that we as well as they must be good Catholikes For he that shall say the old Romans were valiant as well as other men supposes the Romans to be valiant men And he that shall say The Protestants believe some Articles as well as other good Catholikes must in propriety of speech suppose them to be good Catholikes Secondly as we do believe those some Articles so do we believe them and all other Articles of Faith for the same formal reason and so applied as but just before I have expressed Nor do we believe any one Article of Faith by our own fancy or by fallible Authority of humane deductions but next to the Infallible Authority of God's Word we are guided by his Church But then A. C. steps into a Conclusion whither we cannot follow him For he says that the Article to be believed must be sufficiently made known unto us by the Infallible Authority of the Church of God that is of men Infallibly assisted by the Spirit of God as all lawfully called continued and confirmed General Councels are assisted That the whole Church of God is infallibly assisted by the Spirit of God so that it cannot by any errour fall away totally from Christ the Foundation I make no doubt For if it could the gates
Church and in that sense which he would have it And his Reason is * Because sound Doctrine is indivisible from true and lawful Succession Where you shall see this great Clerk for so he was not able to stand to himself when he hath forsaken Truth For 't is not long after that he tells us That the People are led along and judge the Doctrine by the Pastors But when the Church comes to examine she judges the Pastors by their Doctrine And this he says is necessary Because a man may become of a Pastor a Wolf Now then let Stapleton take his choice For either a Pastor in this Succession cannot become a Wolf and then this Proposition's false Or else if he can then sound Doctrine is not inseparable from true and Legitimate Succession And then the former Proposition's false as indeed it is For that a good Pastor may become a Wolf is no news in the Ancient Story of the Church in which are registred the Change of many Great men into Hereticks I spare their Names And since Judas chang'd from an Apostle to a Devil S. John 6. 't is no wonder to see others change from Shepherds into Wolves I doubt the Church is not empty of such Changelings at this day Yea but Stapleton will help all this For he adds That suppose the Pastors do forsake true Doctrine yet Succession shall still be a true Note of the Church Yet not every Succession but that which is legitimate and true Well And what is that Why That Succession is lawful which is of those Pastors which hold entire the Unity and the Faith Where you may see this Sampson's hair cut off again For at his word I 'll take him And if that onely be a Legitimate Succession which holds the Unity and the Faith entire then the Succession of Pastors in the Romane Church is illegitimate For they have had more Schisms among them than any other Church Therefore they have not kept the Unity of the Church And they have brought in gross Superstition Therefore they have not kept the Faith entire Now if A. C. have any minde to it he may do well to help Stapleton out of these briars upon which he hath torn his Credit and I doubt his Conscience too to uphold the Corruptions of the Sea of Rome Num. 9 As for that in which he is quite mistaken it is his Inference which is this That I should therefore consider carefully Whether it be not more Christian and less brain-sick to think that the Pope being S. Peter's Successour with a General Councel should be Judge of Controversies c. And that the Pastoral Judgment of him should be accounted Infallible rather than to make every man that can read the Scripture Interpreter of Scripture Decider of Controversies Controller of General Counsels and Judge of his Judges Or to have no Judge at all of Controversies of Faith but permit every man to believe as he list As if there were no Infallible certainty of Faith to be expected on earth which were instead of one saving Faith to induce a Babylonical Confusion of so many faiths as fancies Or no true Christian Faith at all From which Evils Sweet Jesus deliver us I have considered of this very carefully But this Inference supposes that which I never granted nor any Protestant that I yet know Namely That if I deny the Pope to be Judge of Controversies I must by and by either leave this supream Judicature in the hands and power of every private man that can but read the Scripture or else allow no Judge at all and so let in all manner of Confusion No God forbid that I should grant either For I have expresly declared That the Scripture interpreted by the Primitive Church and a lawful and free General Councel determining according to these is Judge of Controversies And that no private man whatsoever is or can be Judge of these Therefore A. C. is quite mistaken and I pray God it be not wilfully to beguile poor Ladies and other their weak adherents with seeming to say somewhat I say quite mistaken to infer that I am either for a private Judge or for no Judge for I utterly disclaim both and that as much if not more than he or any Romanist whoever he be But these things in this passage I cannot swallow First That the Pope with a General Councel should be Judge for the Pope in Ancient Councels never had more power than any the other Patâ—â—â—râ—hs Precedency perhaps for Orders sake and other respects he had Nor had the Pope any Negative voice against the rest in point of difference No nor was he held superiour to the Councel Therefore the ancient Church never accounted or admitted him a Judge no not with a Councel much less without it Secondly it will not down with me that his Pastoral Judgement should be Infallible especially since some of them have been as Ignorant as many that can but read the Scripture Thirdly I cannot admit this â—eâ—ther though he do most cunningly thereby abuse his Readers That any thing hath been said by me out of which it can justly be inferred That there 's no Infallible certainty of Faith to be expected on earth For there is most Infallible certainty of it that is of the Foundations of it in Scripture and the Creeds And 't is so clearly delivered there as that it needs no Judge at all to sit upon it for the Articles themselves And so entire a Body is this one Faith in it self as that the Whole Church much less the Pope hath not power to add one Article to it nor leave to detract any one the least from it But when Controversies arise about the meaning of the Articles or Superstructures upon them which are Doctrines about the Faith not the Faith it self unless where they be immediate Consequences then both in and of these a Lawful and free General Councel determining according to Scripture is the best Judge on earth But then suppose uncertainty in some of these superstructures it can never be thence concluded That there is no Infallible certainty of the Faith it self But 't is time to end especially for me that have so Many Things of Weight lying upon me and disabling me from these Polemick Discourses beside the Burden of sixty five years compleat which draws on apace to the period set by the Prophet David Psal. 90. and to the Time that I must go and give God and Christ an Account of the Talent committed to my Charge In which God for Christ Jesus sake be merciful to me who knows that however in many Weaknesses yet I have with a faithful and single heart bound to his free Grace for it laboured the Meeting the Blessed Meeting of Truth and Peace in his Church and which God in his own good time will I hope effect To Him be all Honour and Praise for ever AMEN FINIS A Table
Spiritui sancto Nobis not used by any posteriour Councel 155. the first and later Councels differently assisted 156 166. whence they have their power and assistance 150 c. the prior may be amended by the posterior 158 c. what decrees of them are necessary to be believed 161. how they are held by the Romanists to be infallible 163. their decrees by Stapleton held to be the Oracles of the Holy Ghost 156. that they are not Prophetical in their conclusions 163 164. Of their necessity and frequency 128. that they may erre the whole Church not erring 168. their errours how to be amended 101. how made of no worth at all by the Romanists without the Pope 17â— Councels and Fathers how we are sure we have their true copies â—â—6 217. Conclusions of Councels how to be believed 226 their determinations not all of equal authority 234. by whom they were and ought to be called 140 141. against the Popes being above a general Councel 218 252. Conditions required to make a Councel lawful 142 143. Protestants invited to one upon doubtful and dangerous terms 92 Of the Councel of Florence and the Greeks their subscribing to it â—27 Councel of Constance her injurious proceeding against Husse c. 92 93. Becanus his defence of it confuted ibid. it s great errour touching Communion in one kinde 170 Councel of Nice the absence of the Western Bishops from it how recompenced 144 Councel of Africk in S. Cypriâ—ns time erred about Baptism by Hereticks 158 Councel of Trent how occasioned and what an one it was 99. not general nor legal and so null 140 143. compared with ancient Councels 26 27 142 143 c. the blinde pâ—rtinacy of the Fathers there 93. her dangerous and wilful errour concerning the intention of those that administer the Sacraments 179 180. claimed by Soâ—o and Vega for their contrary Tenets 32 of things there determined 24. there the Pope ought not to have sate as President 140 141. Bishops made of purpose to make a major part there 143. more Italian Bishops in it than of all Christendome beside ibid. its addition of twelve new Articles to the Creed 222 Creed that it is a Rule of faith 27. that it is wholly grounded on Scripture 29. some words added to it why and by whom 9. Iremâ—us his famous testimony of it 218 Athanasian Creed expounded and vindicated 210 223 S. Cyprian cleared 3 c. and 6 and righted 237 S. Cyril of Alexandria vindicated 8 9 D DEmonstrative reasons of greater force than any other humane proof 161. direct proof and demonstrative how they differ 35 Descent of Christ into Hall how hâ—ld by the Church of England and how by those of Rome 29 30 198 Dissent and difference in opinion what may stand with the peace of the Church 234 235 Disputations their use 82. when and how lawful for a private man to dispute with the whole Church â—4 publike disputations how safe or available 94 95. in what case to be admitted between the English and the Romish Clergy 94 Divinity that it hath a science above it and what 79. the Principles of it otherwise confirmed than those of any other Art 67 68 78 79 Donatus two of that name 196 Donatists compared with the Romanists 194 195 196 whether any of them living and dying so had possibility of salvation and which 195 196. whether they were guilty of Hâ—resie ibid. E EMperour whom the Jesuites would have to be 233 137 vid. Pope Epiphanius cleared and vindicated 121 122 Errours not fundamental to whom and in what case damnable 208 209 242. Errours of Councels vid. Councels Errours of the Romane Church wanting all proof from ancient Councels and Fathers 221 c. 250. what be the most dangerous of them 245. Errours of Papists to whom fundamental 217. vid. Church of Rome Eucharist a threefold Sacrifice in it 199 200. mutilated by the Romane Church 12 170 171. upon what hard terms the Bohemians were dispens'd with to have it in both kinds 198. the Papists tyed by their own grounds to believe of it as the Church of England doth 187 c. the Church of England and other Protestants believe Christs real presence in it 188 289 c. 191 192 193. Concoâ—itancy in it Thomas of Aquin's fiction confuted 198. Bellarmines notorious contradiction of Christs being in it corporally present 192 193. his new and intricate Doctrine touching Tran substantiation 213 214. of the unbloody Sacrifice and the bloody how they differ 199 200. the propitiatory and gratulatory Sacrifice how they differ 199 200 Expositions such only right as the thing expounded containeth 20 The Extravagants censured 139 F FAith how it is unchangable and yet hath been changed 7. what is certain by the certainty of it 25 26. not to be termeâ— the Romane but the Christian or Catholike Faith 88 c. the two Regular precepts of it 27. of its prime Principles and how they differ from the Articles of it 28. the last Resolution of it into what it should be 41 42 c. 57 65 66 215 223 224 c. Faith acquired faith in sus'd wherein either or both required 233. how few things are essential to the Faith 234 235. how its Principles differ from those of sciences 67. its foundation the Scripture 34. by it man brought to his last happiness 68 70 71. how by it the understanding is captivated 72. that it is an act produced by the will 48 68. the Principles of it have sufficient evidence of proof 77. It and Reason compared in their objects c. 164 c. a latitude in it in reference to different mens salvation 212 236. things of two sorts belonging to it 24. what by it to be believ'd explicitly what not 217 218. of the perfection and certainty of it 252. of things not necessary to salvation no infallible Faith can be among men 233. foundation of Faith how shaken 25. how fretted by those of Rome 59. the Catholike and now Romane Faith â—ot both one 220. Faith of Scripture to be Gods Word infused by the Holy Ghost 47 48. the true grounds of it 71 72 73 74. our Faith of it how it differs from that of those who wrote Scripture 70 71. Faith of Scripture that it hath all perfections necessary 73 74. how firm and invincible it is 74 75 Felicity what it is and that the soul of man is capable of it 72 Ferus his acknowledgment of the difference 'twixt the first Councels and the late ones 156 Fundamental what maketh a point to be such 19 20 22. that decrees of Councels are not such 87. what points be so and what not 17 18. 21 22 27 c. 217 218. not all of a like primeness 28. all Fundamentals held by the whole Church 18. Points not Fundamental how and to whom necessary to salvation 18 19. Firm and Fundamental how they differ 23 G GErson his ingenuity 99 Holy Ghost how said to be lost 14. his
procession from the Son added to the Creed by the Romane Church 16 97. the Greek Church her errour touching this 14. what and how dangerous 16 God proof of the true one by testimony of the false ones 50 Government of the Church in what sense Monarchical in what Aristocratical 130 131 c. how a Monarchical not needful 138 S. Gregory Naz. vindicated 8 his humility and mildness 110 Pope Gregory VII the raiser of the Papacy to the height 135 136. his XXVII Conâ—lusions the Basis of the Papal greatness 118 Creek Church notwithstanding her errour still a true Church 16. and justified by some Romanists ibid. her hard usage by the Church of Rome 17. of her Bishops their subscription to the Councel of Florence 227 H HEresies what maketh them 20. the occasion of their first springing up 128. how and by whom began at Rome 10 11 Hereticks who and who not 105. none to be rashly condemned for such 17. that some may pertain to the Church 105. who they be that teach that faith given to Hereticks is not to be kept 92 93 S. Hierome explained 6 88. in what esteem he had Bishops 115 Hooker righted 56 57 158 I St. James believed to have been Successor of our Lord in the Principality of the Church 122 Idolaters their gods how put down by Christian Religion 50 51. Idolatry how maintained in the Church of Rome and with what evil consequents 181 c. Of Jeremias the Greek Patriarch 〈◊〉 Censâ—â—e 145 Jesuites◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of dealing in this Conference 211. their cunning in expounding the Fathers to their own purpose 7. their confidence 15. their arrogancy 111. their subtile malignity 244. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to themselves infallibility 61. their desire of having one King 〈◊〉 one Pope 65 66. their late cunning argument to draw Protestants to them answered c. 194. their falsification of the Authors words 86 87. A perfect Jesuitism 84 Jews the ground of their belief of the old Testament 79 Images how worshipped by the Church of Rome 12. against adoration of them 181. Cassander his complaint of it 182. The flying from Image-worship should not make 〈◊〉 to run into prophaneness and irreverence against God 183 Infallible two acceptions of it 80 Infallible and Firm how they differ 127. the evils ensuing the opinion of the Churches and the Popes Infallibility 143 c. 170 175. what an Infallibilty of the Church Stapleton is forced to acknowledge 166 167 Vid. Councels and Pope and Church Innocent the third â—â—â— extolling the Pope above the Emperour 134 c. Against Invocation of Sainâ—t 181 Irenâ—â—â— vindicated 118 c. 249 250 251 Israel a Church after her separation from Judah 97 Judge who to be in controversies touching faith and manners 101 102 c. 108 253. what Judges of this kinde the Church hath 127 253. who to judge when a general Councel cannot be had 129. that no visible Judge can prevent or remedy all Heresie and Schism 130. A visible living Judge of all Controversies whether always necessary 130. c. wherein private men may judge and wherein not 2 149 160 K THe Keys to whom given and how 123 167 Kings Custodes utriúsque tabulae 134. not to be tyranniz'd over by the Pope 125. their supremacy in things spiritual 134. some Romanists for the deposing and killing of them 221 Knowledge of God how difficult 71 72. what Knowledge needful to breed faith 55 56. what degree of it is necessary to salvation hard to determine 212 236. the Apostles Knowledge how different from that of their hearers 69 L AGainst Limbus Patrum 198 213 Literae Communicatoriae what they were and of what use 132 Peter Lombard condemned of Heresie by the Pope 174 M MAldonate answered 147 Manichees their soul Heresie and what stumbled them 151 Manners Corruption in them no sufficient cause of separation 94 95 Martyrs of the Feasts made of old at their Oratories 182 Mass the English Liturgy better and safer than it 201. what manner of sacrifice it is made by them of Rome 200 Matrix and Radix in S. Cyprian not the Roman Church 238 240 Merits against their condignity 185 Miracles what proofs of Divine truth 48 69. not wrought by all the Writers of Scripture 69. what kind of assent is commonly given to them ibid. Multitude no sure mark of the truth 198 N NOvatians their original 3 10. Novatian how dealt with by Saint Cyprian 23 239 c. O OBedience of that which is due to the Church her Pastors 155 Occham his true Resolution touching that which maketh an Article of faith 254 Origen his Errours obtruded by Ruffinus 6. he the first Founder of Purgatory 227 231 P PApists their denying possibility of salvation to Protestants confuted and their reasons answered 185 186 187. of their going to Protestant Churches and joyning themselves to their Assemblies 244 Parents their power over their children 103 Parliaments what matters they treat of and decree 138 139 Pastors lawfully sent what assistance promised to them 61 62. their Embassie of what authority 64 Patriarchs all alike supream 111 112 116. no appeal from them 117 111 1â—2 People the unlearned of them saved by the simplicity of faith 105 Perfidia the different significations of it 4 5 6 S. Peter of Christs prayer for him 106 107 124 125. of his Primacy Preeminency and Power 121 c. 123 152. in what sense the Church is said to be built upon him 122. that he fell but not from the faith 123 124. whether he were universal Pastor 125. the highest power Ecclesiastical how given to him and how to the rest of the Apostles 109 110 247 248 Pope not infallible 2 3 4 5 6 11 12 58 59 124 147 253. how improbable and absurd it is to say he is so 174 175 c. he made more infallible by the Romanists than a general Councel 172. his infallibility held by some against Conscience 174 175. if he had any it were useless 177. how opposed by Alphonsus à Castro 172 173. the belief and knowledge of it both of them impossible 177. that he may erre and hath erred 136. that he may erre as Pope 174 175. prefer'd by some before a general Councel 172. not Monarch of the Church 132. he hath not a negative voice in Councels 253. made by some as infallible without as with a general Councel 172 173. his confirmation of general Councels of what avail 180. of his power in France and Spain 132 133 136. how much greater he is made by some than the Emperour 132 133 c. 137. his power slighted by some great Princes 132 133 136. whether he may be an Heretick and being one how to be dealt with 176. all his power prerogatives c. indirectly denied by Stapleton 30 Popes the fall of some of them and the consequents thereof 95 Of their Power and Principality 109 110 c. 253. their subjection to the Emperour 115 116. and how lost by the Emperor
peradventure all this be contained I believe those things which the Church teacheth yet this is not necessarily understood That I believe the Church teaching as an Infallible Witness And if they did not confess this it were no hard thing to prove Num. 5 But her'e 's the cunning of this Devise All the Authorities of Fathers Councels nay of Scripture too though this be contrary to their own Doctrine must be finally Resolved into the Authority of the present Roman Church And though they would seem to have us believe the Fathers and the Church of old yet they will not have us take their Doctrine from their own Writings or the Decrees of Councels because as they say we cannot know by reading them what their meaning was but from the Infallible Testimony of the present Roman Church reaching by Tradition Now by this two things are evident First That they ascribe as great Authority if not greater to a part of the Catholike Church as they do to the whole which we believe in our Creed and which is the Society of all Christians And this is full of Absurdity in Nature in Reason in All things that any Part should be of equal worth power credit or authority with the Whole Secondly that in their Doctrine concerning the Infallibility of their Church their proceeding is most unreasonable For if you ask them Why they believe their whole Doctrine to be the sole true Catholike Faith Their Answer is Because it is agreeable to the Word of God and the Doctrine and Tradition of the Ancient Church If you ask them How they know that to be so They will then produce Testimonies of Scripture Councels and Fathers But if you ask a third time By what means they are assured that these Testimonies do indeed make for them and their Cause They will not then have recourse to Text of Scripture or Exposition of Fathers or Phrase and propriety of Languagâ— in which either of them were first written or to the scope of the Author or the Causes of the thing uttered or the Conference with like Places or the Antecedents and Consequents of the same Places or the Exposition of the dark and doubtful Places of Scripture by the undoubted and manifest With divers other Rules given for the true knowledge and understanding of Scripture which do frequently occur in S. Augustine No none of these or the like helps That with them were to admit a Private Spirit or to make way for it But their final Answer is They know it to be so because the present Roman Church witnesseth it according to Tradition So arguing â— primo ad ultimum from first to last the Present Church of Rome and her Followers believe her own Doctrine and Tradition to be true and Catholike because she professes it to be such And if this be not to prove idem per idem the same by the same I know not what is which though it be most absurd in all kind of Learning yet out of this I see not how 't is possible to winde themselves so long as the last resolution of their Faith must rest as they teach upon the Tradition of the present Church only Num. 6 It seems therefore to me very necessary that we be able to prove the Books of Scripture to be the Word of God by some Authority that is absolutely Divine For if they be warranted unto us by any Authority less than Divine then all things contained in them which have no greater assurance than the Scripture in which they are read are not Objects of Divine belief And that once granted will enforce us to yield That all the Articles of Christian Belief have no greater assurance than Humane or Moral Faith or Credulity can afford An Authority then simply Divine must make good the Scriptures Infallibility at least in the last Resolution of our Faith in that Point This Authority cannot be any Testimony or Voice of the Church alone For the Church consists of men subject to Error And no one of them since the Apostles times hath been assisted with so plentiful a measure of the Blessed Spirit as to secure him from being deceived And all the Parts being all liable to mistaking and fallible the Whole cannot possibly be Infallible in and of it self and priviledged from being deceived in some Things or other And even in those Fundamental Things in which the Whole Universal Church neither doth nor can Erre yet even there her Authority is not Divine because She delivers those supernatural Truths by Promise of Assistance yet tyed to Means And not by any special immediate Revelation which is necessarily required to the very least Degree of Divine Authority And therefore our Worthies do not only say but prove That all the Churches Constitutions are of the nature of Humane Law And some among you not unworthy for their Learning prove it at large That all the Churches Testimony or Voyce or Sentence call it what you will is but suo modo or aliquo modo not simply but in a manner Divine Yea and A. C. himself after all his debate comes to that and no further That the Tradition of the Church is at least in some sort Divine and Infallible Now that which is Divine but in a sort or manner be it the Churches manner is aliquo modo non Divina in a sort not Divine But this Great Principle of Faith the Ground and Proof of whatsoever else is of Faith cannot stand firm upon a Proof that is and is not in a manner and not in a manner Divine As it must if we have no other Anchor than the External Tradition of the Church to lodge it upon and hold it steddy in the midst of those waves which daily beat upon it Num. 7 Now here A. C. confesses expresly That to prove the Books of Scripture to be Divine we must be warranted by that which is Infallible He confesses farther that there can be no sufficient Infallible Proof of this but Gods Word written or unwritten And he gives his Reason for it Because if the Proof be meerly Humane and Fallible the Science or Faith which is built upon it can be no better So then this is agreed on by me yet leaving other men to travel by their own way so be they can come to make Scripture thereby Infallible That Scripture must be known to be Scripture by a sufficient Infallible Divine Proof And that such Proof can be nothing but the Word of God is agreed on also by me Yea and agreed on for me it shall be likewise that Gods Word may be written and unwritten For Cardinal Bellarmine tells us truly that it is not the writing or printing that make Scripture the Word of God but it is the Prime Unerring Essential Truth God himself uttering and revealing it to his Church that makes it Verbum Dei the Word of God And this Word of
yet we yeeld as full and firm Assent not only to the Articles but to all the Things rightly deduced from them as we do to the most evident Principles of Natural Reason This Assent is called Faith And Faith being of things not seen Heb. 11. would quite lose its honour nay it self if it met with sufficient Grounds in Natural Reason whereon to stay it self For Faith is a mixed Act of the Will and the Understanding and the Will inclines the Understanding to yeeld full approbation to that whereof it sees not full proof Not but that there is most full proof of them but because the main Grounds which prove them are concealed from our view and folded up in the unrevealed Counsel of God God in Christ resolving to bring mankind to their last happiness by Faith and not by knowledge that so the weakest among men may have their way to blessedness open And certain it is that many weak men believe themselves into Heaven and many over-knowing Christians lose their way thither while they will believe no more than they can clearly know In which pride and vanity of theirs they are left and have these things hid from them S. Matth. 11. Fourthly That the Credit of the Scripture the Book in which the Principles of Faith are written as of other writings also depends not upon the subservient Inducing Cause that leads us to the first knowledge of the Author which leader here is the Church but upon the Author himself and the Opinion we have of his sufficiencie which here is the Holy Spirit of God whose Pen-men the Prophets and Apostles were And therefore the Mysteries of Divinity contained in this Book As the Incarnation of our Saviour The Resurrection of the dead and the like cannot finally be resolved into the sole Testimony of the Church who is but a subservient Cause to lead to the knowledge of the Author but into the Wisdom and Sufficiencie of the Author who being Omnipotent and Omniscient must needs be Infallible Fifthly That the Assurance we have of the Pen-men of the Scriptures the Holy Prophets and Apostles is as great as any can be had of any Humane Authors of like Antiquity For it is morally as evident to any Pagan that S. Matthew and S. Paul writ the Gospel and Epistles which bear their Names as that Cicero or Seneca wrote theirs But that the Apostles were divinely inspired whilst they writ them and that they are the very Word of God expressed by them this hath ever been a matter of Faith in the Church and was so even while the Apostles themselves lived and was never a matter of Evidence and Knowledge at least as Knowledge is opposed to Faith Nor could it at any time then be more Demonstratively proved than now I say not scientifice not Demonstratively For were the Apostles living and should they tell us that they spake and writ the very Oracles of God yet this were but their own Testimony of themselves and so not alone able to enforce Belief on others And for their Miracles though they were very Great Inducements of Belief yet were neither they Evident and Convincing Proofs alone and of themselves Both because There may be counterfeit Miracles And because true ones are neither Infallible nor Inseparable Marks of Truth in Doctrine Not Infallible For they may be Marks of false Doctrine in the highest degree Deut. 13. Not proper and Inseparable For all which wrote by Inspiration did not confirm their Doctrine by Miracles For we do not find that David or Solomon with some other of the Prophets did any neither were any wrought by S. John the Baptist S. Joh. 10. So as Credible Signs they were and are still of as much force to us as 't is possible for things on the credit of Relation to be For the Witnesses are many and such as spent their lives in making good the Truth which they saw But that the Workers of them were Divinely and Infallibly inspired in that which they Preacht and Writ was still to the Hearers a matter of Faith and no more evident by the light of Humane Reason to men that lived in those Days than to us now For had that been Demonstrated or been clear as Prime Principles are in its own light both they and we had apprehended all the Mysteries of Divinity by Knowledge not by Faith But this is most apparent was not For had the Prophets or Apostles been ordered by God to make this Demonstratively or Intuitively by Discourse or Vision appear as clear to their Auditors as to themselves it did that whatsoever they taught was Divine and Infallible Truth all men which had the true use of Reason must have been forced to yeeld to their Doctrine Esay could never have been at Domine quis Lord who hath believed our Report Esay 53. Nor Jeremy at Domine factus sum Lord I am in derision daily Jer. 20. Nor could any of S. Pauls Auditors have mocked at him as some of them did Act. 17. for Preaching the Resurrection if they had had as full a view as S. Paul himself had in the Assurance which God gave of it in and by the Resurrection of Christ vers 31. But the way of Knowledge was not that which God thought fittest for mans Salvation For Man having sinned by Pride God thought fittest to humble him at the very root of the Tree of Knowledge and make him deny his understanding and submit to Faith or hazard his happiness The Credible Object all the while that is the Mysteries of Religion and the Scripture which contains them is Divine and Infallible and so are the Pen-men of them by Revelation But we and all our Forefathers the Hearers and Readers of them have neither knowledge nor vision of the Prime Principles in or about them but Faith only And the Revelation which was clear to them is not so to us nor therefore the Prime Tradition it self delivered by them Sixthly That hence it may be gathered that the Assent which we yeeld to this main Principle of Divinity That the Scripture is the Word of God is grounded upon no Compelling or Demonstrative Ratiocination but relies upon the strength of Faith more than any other Principle whatsoever For all other necessary Points of Divinity may by undeniable Discourse be inferred out of Scripture it self once admitted but this concerning the Authority of Scripture not possibly But must either be proved by Revelation which is not now to be expected Or presupposed and granted as manifest in it self like the Principles of natural knowledge which Reason alone will never Grant Or by Tradition of the Church both Prime and Present with all other Rational Helps preceding or accompanying the internal Light in Scripture it self which though it give Light enough for Faith to believe yet Light enough it gives not to be a convincing Reason and proof for
Calvinists if they might be rightly understood they also maintain a most true and Real presence though they cannot permit their Judgement to be Transubstantiated And they are Protestants too And this is so known a Truth that ‖ Bellarmine confesses it For he saith Protestants do often grant that the true and real Body of Christ is in the Eucharist But he addes That they never say so far as he hath read That it is there Truely and Really unless they speak of the Supper which shall be in Heaven Well first if they grant that the true and Real Body of Christ is in that Blessed Sacrament as Bellarmine confesses they do and 't is most true then A. C. is false who charges all the Protestants with denyal or doubtfulness in this Point And secondly Bellarmine himself also shews here his Ignorance or his Malice Ignorance if he knew it not Malice if he would not know it For the Calvinists at least they which follow Calvin himself do not onely believe that the true and real Body of Christ is received in the Eucharist but that it is there and that we partake of it verè realitèr which are Calvins own words and yet Bellarmine boldly affirms that to his reading no one Protestant did ever affirm it And I for my part cannot believe but Bellarmine had read Calvin and very carefully he doth so frequently and so mainly Oppose him Nor can that Place by any Art be shifted or by any Violence wrested from Calvin's true meaning of the Presence of Christ in and at the blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist to any Supper in Heaven whatsoever But most manifest it is that Quod legerim for ought I have read will not serve Bellarmine to excuse him For he himself but in the very Chapter going before quotes four Places out of Calvin in which he says expresly That we receive in the Sacrament the Body and the Bloud of Christ Verè truly So Calvin says it four times and Bellarmine quotes the places and yet he says in the very next Chapter That never any Protestant said so to his Reading And for the Church of England nothing is more plain than that it believes and teaches the true and Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist unless A. C. can make a Body no Body and Bloud no Bloud as perhaps he can by Transubstantiation as well as Bread no Bread and Wine no Wine And the Church of England is Protestant too So Protestants of all sorts maintain a true and Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and then where 's any known or damnable Heresie here As for the Learned of those zealous men that died in this Cause in Q. Maries days they denied not the Real presence simply taken but as their Opposites forced Transubstantiation upon them as if that and the Real presence had been all one Whereas all the Ancient Christians ever believed the one and none but Modern and Superstitious Christians believe the other if they do believe it for I for my part doubt they do not And as for the Unlearned in those times and all times their zeal they holding the Foundation may eat out their Ignorances and leave them safe Now that the Learned Protestants in Queen Mary's days did not deny nay did maintain the Real presence will manifestly appear For when the Commissioners obtruded to Jo. Frith the Presence of Christ's natural Body in the Sacrament and that without all figure or similitude Jo. Frith acknowledges That the inward man doth as verily receive Christ's Body as the outward man receives the Sacrament with his Mouth And he addes That neither side ought to make it a necessary Article of Faith but leave it indifferent Nay Archbishop Cranmer comes more plainly and more home to it than Frith For if you understand saith he by this word really Reipsa that is in very deed and effectually so Christ by the grace and efficacie of his Passion is indeed and truly present c. But if by this word Really you understand Corporalitèr Corporally in his natural and Organical Body under the Forms of Bread and Wine 't is contrary to the Holy Word of God And so likewise Bishop Ridley Nay Bishop Ridley addes yet farther and speaks so fully to this Point as I think no man can adde to his Expression And 't is well if some Protestants except not against it Both you and I faith he agree in this That in the Sacrament is the very true and natural Body and Bloud of Christ even that which was born of the Virgin Mary which ascended into heaven which sits on the right hand of God the Father which shall come from thence to judge the quick and the dead Onely we differ in modo in the way and manner of being We confess all one thing to be in the Sacrament and dissent in the Manner of Being there I confess Christs natural Body to be in the Sacrament by Spirit and Grace c. You make a grosser kinde of Being inclosing a natural Body under the shape and form of Bread and Wine So far and more Bishop Ridley And Archbishop Cranmer confesses That he was indeed of another Opinion and inclining to that of Zuinglius till Bishop Ridley convinced his Judgement setled him in this Point And for Calvin he comes no whit short of these against the Calumny of the Romanists on that behalf Now after all this with what face can A. C. say as he doth That Protestants deny or doubt of the true and Real presence of Christ in the Sacrament I cannot well tell or am unwilling to utter Fifthly whereas 't is added by A. C. That in this present case there is no peril of any damnable Heresie Schisme or any other Sin in resolving to live and die in the Roman Church That 's not so neither For he that lives in the Roman Church with such a Resolution is presumed to believe as that Church believes And he that doth so I will not say is as guilty but guilty 〈…〉 is more or less of the Schism which that Church first caused by her Corruptions and now continues by them and her power together And of all her Damnable Opinions too in point of Misbelief though perhaps A. C. will not have them called Heresies unless they have been condemned in some General Councel And of all other sins also which the Doctrine and Misbelief of that Church leads him into And mark it I pray For 't is one thing to live in a Schismatical Church and not Communicate with it in the Schism or in any false Worship that attends it For so Elias lived among the Ten Tribes and was not Schismatical 3 Reg. 17. And after him Elizaeus 4 Reg. 3. But then neither of them either countenanced the Schism or worshipped the Calves in Dan or in Bethel And so also beside these Prophets did those Thousands live in
him in both all the rest of his life for this blessing thus bestowed on him Now thus far these dissenting Churches agree that in the Eucharist there is a Sacrifice of Duty and a Sacrifice of Praise and a Sacrifice of Commemoration of Christ. Therefore according to the former Rule and here in truth too 't is safest for a man to believe the Commemorative the the Praising and the Performing Sacrifice and to offer them duely to God and leave the Church of Rome in this Particular to her Superstitions that I may say no more And would the Church of Rome stand to A. C's Rule and believe dissenting Parties where they agree were it but in this and that before of the Real presence it would work far toward the Peace of Christendom But the Truth is They pretend the Peace of Christendom but care no more for it than as it may uphold at least if not increase their own Greatness My fourth Instance shall be in the Sacrament of Baptism and the things required as necessary to make it effectual to the Receiver They in the common received Doctrine of the Church of Rome are three The Matter the Form and the Intention of the Priest to do that which the Church doth and intends he should do Now all other Divines as well ancient as modern and both the dissenting Churches also agree in the two former but many deny that the Intention of the Priest is necessary Will A. C. hold his Rule That 't is safest to believe in a controverted Point of Faith that which the dissenting Parties agree on or which the Adverse Part Confesses If he will not then why should he press that as a Rule to direct others which he will not be guided by himself And if he will then he must go professedly against the Councel of Trent which hath determined it as deside as a Point of Faith that the Intention of the Priest is necessary to make the Baptism true and valid Though in the History of that Councel 't is most apparent the Bishops and other Divines there could not tell what to answer to the Bishop of Minors a Neapolitane who declared his Judgement openly against it in the face of that Councel My fifth Instance is We say and can easily prove there are divers Errours and some gross ones in the Roman Missal But I my self have heard some Jesuites confess that in the Liturgie of the Church of England there 's no positive Errour And being pressed why then they refused to come to our Churches and serve God with us They answered they could not do it Because though our Liturgie had in it nothing ill yet it wanted a great deal of that which was good and was in their Service Now here let A. C. consider again Here is a plain Concession of the adverse Part And both agree there 's nothing in our Service but that which is holy and good What will the Jesuite or A. C. say to this If he forsake his ground then it is not safest in point of Divine Worship to joyn in Faith as the dissenting Parties agree or to stand to the Adversaries own Confession If he be so hardy as to maintain it then the English Liturgy is better and safer to worship God by than the Roman Mass. Which yet I presume A. C. will not confess Num. 8 In all these Instances the Matter so falling out of it self for the Argument enforces it not the thing is true but not therefore true because the dissenting Parties agree in it or because the adverse Part Confesses it Yet lest the Jesuite or A. C. for him farther to deceive the weak should infer that this Rule in so many Instances is true and false in none but that one concerning Baptism among the Donatists and therefore the Argument is true ut plerumque as for the most and that therefore 't is the safest way to believe that which dissenting Parties agree on I will lay down some other Particulars of as great Consequence as any can be in or about Christian Religion And if in them A. C. or any Jesuite dare say that 't is safest to believe as the dissenting Parties agree or as the adverse Party confesses I dare say he shall be an Heretick in the highest degree if not an Insidel And First where the Question was betwixt the Orthodox and the Arrian whether the Son of God were consubstantial with the Father The Orthodox said he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same substance The Arrian came within in a Letter of the Truth and said he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of like substance Now he that says he is of the same substance confesses he is of like substance and more that is Identity of Substance for Identity contains in it all Degrees of likeness and more But he that acknowledges and believes that He is of like nature and no more denies the Identity Therefore if this Rule be true That it is safest to believe that in which the dissenting Parties agree or which the Adverse Part Confesses which A. C. makes such great vaunt of then 't is safest for a Christian to believe that Christ is of like nature with God the Father and be free from Belief that He is Consubstantial with him which yet is Concluded by the Councel of Nice as necessary to Salvation and the Contrary Condemned for Damnable Heresie Secondly in the Question about the Resurrection between the Orthodox and diverse â—ross Hereticks of old and the Anabaptists and Libertines of late For all or most of these dissenting Parties agree that there ought to be a Resurrection from sin to a state of Grace and that this Resurrection only is meant in divers Passages of holy Scripture together with the Life of the Soul which they are content to say is Immortal But they utterly deny any Resurrection of the Body after Death So with them that Article of the Creed is gone Now then if any man will guide his Faith by this Rule of A. C. The Consent of dissenting Parties or the Confession of the Adverse Part he must deny the Resurrection of the Body from the Grave to Glory and believe none but that of the Soul from sin to Grace which the Adversaries Confess and in which the Dissenting Parties agree Thirdly in the great Dispute of all others about the Unity of the Godhead All dissenting Parties Jew Turk and Christian Among Christians Orthodox and Anti-Trinitarian of old And in these later times Orthodox and Socinian that Horrid and mighty Monster of all Heresies agree in this That there is but one God And I hope it is as necessary to believe one God our Father as one Church our Mother Now will A. C. say here 't is safest believing as the dissenting Parties agree or as the Adverse Parties Confess namely That there is but one God and so deny the Trinity and therewith the Son of God the Saviour of
defining any one Divine Truth how can we be Infallibly certain of any other Truth defined by it For if it may erre in one why not in another and another and so in all 'T is most true if such a Councel may erre in one it may in another and another and so in all of like nature I say in all of like nature And A. C. may remember he expressed himself a little before to speak of the Defining of such Divine Truths as are not absolutely necessary to be expresly known and actually believed of all sorts of men Now there is there can be no necessity of an Infallible certainty in the whole Catholike Church and much less in a General Councel of thing not absolutely necessary in themselves For Christ did not intend to leave an Infallibe certainty in his Church to satisfie either Contentious or Curious or Presumptuous Spirits And therefore in things not Fundamental not Necessary 't is no matter if Councels erre in one and another and a third the whole Church having power and means enough to see that no Councel erre in Necessary things and this is certainty enough for the Church to have or for Christians to expect especially since the Foundation is so strongly and so plainly laid down in Scripture and the Creed that a modest man might justly wonder why any man should run to any later Councel at least for any Infallible certainty Num. 22 Yet A. C. hath more Questions to ask and his next is How we can according to the ordinary Course be Infallibly assured that it erres in one and not in another when it equally by one and the same Authority defines both to be Divine Truth A. C. taking here upon him to defend M. Fisher the Jesuite could not but see what I had formerly written concerning this difficult Question about General Councels And to all that being large he replied little or nothing Now when he thinks that may be forgotten or as if he did not at all lye in his way he here turns Questionist to disturb that business and indeed the Church as much as he can But to this Question also I answer again If any General Councel do now erre either it erres in things absolutely necessary to Salvation or in things not necessary If it erre in things Necessary we can be infallibly assured by the Scripture the Creeds the four first Councels and the whole Church where it erres in one and not in another If it be in non necessariis in things not necessary 't is not requisite that we should have for them an infallible assurance As for that which follows it is notoriously both cunning and false 'T is false to suppose that a General Councel defining two things for Divine Truths and erring in one but not erring in another doth define both equally by one and the same Authority And 't is cunning because these words by the same Authority are equivocal and must be distinguished that the Truth which A. C. would hide may appear Thus then suppose a General Councel erring in one point and not in another it doth define both and equally by the same delegated Authority which that Councel hath received from the Catholike Church But it doth not define both and much less equally by the same Authority of the Scripture which must be the Councels Rule as well as private mens no nor by the same Authority of the whole Catholike Church who did not intentionally give them equal power to define Truth and errour for Truth And I hope A. C. dares not say the Scripture according to which all Councels that will uphold Divine Truth must Determine doth equally give either ground or power to define Errour and Truth Num. 23 To his former Questions A. C. adds That if we leave this to be examined by any private man this examination not being Infallible had need to be examined by another and this by another without end or ever coming to Infallible certainty necessarily required in that one faith which is necessary to salvation and to that peace and unity which ought to be in the Church Will this inculcating the same thing never be left I told the Jesuite before that I give no way to any private man to be Judge of a General Councel And there also I shewed the way how an erring Councel might be rectified and the peace of the Church either preserved or restored without lifting any private spirit above a Councel and without this process in Infinitum which A. C. so much urges and which is so much declined in all Sciences For as the understanding of a man must always have somewhat to rest upon so must his Faith But a private man first for his own satisfaction and after for the Churches if he have just cause may consider of and examine by the Judgment of discretion though not of power even the Definitions of a General Councel But A. C. concludes well That an Infallible certainty is necessary for that one Faith which is necessary to salvation And of that as I expressed before a most infallible certainty we have already in the Scripture the Creeds and the four first General Councels to which for things Necessary and Fundamental in the Faith we need no assistance from other General Councels And some of your own very honest and very Learned were of the same Opinion with me And for the peace and unity of the Church in things absolutely necessary we have the same infallible direction that we have for Faith But in Things not necessary though they be Divine Truths also if about them Christian men do differ 't is no more than they have done more or less in all Ages of the Church and they may differ and yet preserve the One necessary Faith and Charity too entire if they be so well minded I confess it were heartily to be wished that in these things also men might be all of one mind and one judgment to which the Apostle exhorts 1 Cor. 1. But this cannot be hoped for till the Church be Triumphant over all humane frailties which here hang thick and close about her The want both of Unity and Peace proceeding too often even where Religion is pretended from Men and their Humours rather than from Things and Errours to be found in them Num. 24 And so A. C. tells me That it is not therefore as I would perswade the fault of Councels Definitions but the pride of such as will prefer and not submit their private Judgments that lost and continues the loss of peace and unity of the Church and the want of certainty in that one afore-said soul-saving Faith Once again I am bold to tell A. C. there is no want of certainty most infallible certainty of That one soul-saving Faith And if for other opinions which flutter about it there be a difference a dangerous difference as at this day there is yet
can against me so they observe my Limitations which if they do A. C. and his fellows will of all the rest have but little comfort in such a limited Possibility ‖ L. 1. De Bapt. cont Dâ—n c. 3. Graviter peccarent in rebus ad salutem animae pertinentibus c. eo solo quod certis incerta praeponerent * Propter incertitudinem propriae Justitiae periculum inanis gloriae tutissimum est fiduciam totam in solâ Dei misericordiâ beâ—ignitate reponere Bellar. L. 5. de Justif. c. 7. §. Sit tertia Propositio †And this piece of Cunning to affright the weak was in use in Justin Martyrs time Quosdam scimus c. ad Iracundiam suà m Evangelium pertrabentes c. quibus si potestas ea obtigisset ut nonnullos Gehennae traderent Orbem quoque Universum consumpsissent Just. Martyr Epist. ad Zenam Sereâ—â—m And here 't is ad Iracundiam suam Ecclesiam pertrabentes c. ‖ § 35. Nu. 3. A. C. p. 56. S. Mat. 18. 17. * And this is proved by the Creed In which we profess our Belief of the Catholike not of the Roman Church * This is a free Confession of the Adversaries Argument against themselves and therefore is of force A. C. p. 64. But every Confession of Adversaries or others is to be taken with its Qualities and Conditions If you leave out or change these you wrong the Confession and then 't is of no force And so doth A. C. here And though Bellarm. makes the Confession of the Adversary a note of the true Church L. 4. de 〈◊〉 Eccl. 16. yet in the very beginning where he lays his Ground §. 1. he lays it in a plain fallacy a secundùm quid ad simpliciter †For they are no mean Differences that are between us by Bellarmines own Confession Agendum est non de rebus levibus sed de gravissimis Questionibus qua ad ipsa Fidei fundamenta pertinent c. Bellarm. in praefat Operibus praefix◠§. 3. And therefore the Errours in them and the Corruptions of them cannot be of small Consequence by your own Confession Yes by your own indeed For you A. C. say full as much if not more than Bellarmine Thus We Catholikes hold all points In which Protestants differ from us in Doctrine of Faith to be Fundamental and necessary to be Believed or at least not denied A. C. Relation of the first Conference p. 2â— * Esse vâ—â—â— apud Donatistas Baptismum illi aesserunt nos concedimus c. L. 1. de Bap. cont Donat. c. 3. †Corpus Christi manducatur in Coena c. tantùm Coelesti spirituali ratione Medium autem quo Corpus Christi accipitur manducatur in Coenâ Fides est Eccl. Angl. Art 28. After a spiritual manner by Faith on our behalf and by the working of the Holy Ghost on the behalf of Christ. Fulk in 1 Cor. 11. p. 528. Christus se cum ommibus bonis suis in Coena offert nos cum recipimus fide c. Calv. 4. Instit. c. 17. §. 5. Et Hooker L. 5. §. 67. p. 176. And say not you the same with us Spiritualis manducatio quae per Animam fit ad Christi Carnem in Sacramento pertingit Cajet Tom. 2. Opusc. de Euchar. Tract 2. Cap. 5. Sed spiritualiter id est invisibiliter per virtutem Spiritus Sancti Thom. p. 3. q. 75. A. 1 ad â— Spiritualiter manducandus est per Fidem Charitatem Tâ—na in Heb. 13. Difficultate 8. ‖ I would have no man troubled at the words Truly and Really For that blessed Sacrament received as it ought to be doth Truly and Really exhibit and apply the Body and the Blood of Christ to the Receiver So Bishop White in his Defence against T. W. P. Edit London 1617. p. 138. And Calvia in 1 Cor. 10. 3. Verè datur c. And again in 1 Cor. 11. 24. Neque enim Mortis tantùm Resurrectionis suae beneficium nobis offert Christus sed Corpus ipsum in quo passus est resurrexit Concludo Realitâ—r uâ— vulgò loquuntur hoc est Verè nobis in Coenâ— datur Christi Corpus ut sit Anâ—mis nostris in Cibum Salutarem c. * Hoc totum pendâ—t ex Principiis Metaphysicis Philosophicis ad Fidei Doctrinam non est necessarium Suarez iâ— 3. Thom. Disput. 50. §. 2. A. C. p. 64 65. †Bellar. L. 3. de Eucha c. 18. §. Ex his colligimus * Sed quidquid sit de Modis loquendi illud teuendum est Conversionem Panis Vini in Corpus Sanguinem Christi esse substantialem sed arcanam ineâ—â—abilem nullis natur olibus Conversionibus per omnia similem c. Bellar. in Recognit hujus loci Et Vid. § 38. Num. 3. A. C. p. 64. * Sed quia ita magnum firmamentum vanitatis vestrae in hâc sententiâ esse arbitramini ut ad hoc tibi terminandam putares Epistolam quo quasi recentiùs in Animis Iâ—gentem remaneret brevitèr respondeo c. S. August L. 2. cont Lit. Petil c. 108. And here A. C. ad hoc sibi putavit terminandam Collationem sed frustra ut apparebit Num. 6. †§. 35. N. 3. A. C. p. 65. A. C. p. 65. Punct 1. Punct 2. A. C. p. 65. Punct 3. A. C. p 66. * Caterùm his absurditatibus sublatis quicquid ad Exprimen 〈…〉 〈…〉 〈…〉 Sanguinis Domini Communicationem que sub 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 symbolis fidelibus exhibetur facere potest libenter recipio Calv. L. 4. Inst. c. 17. § 19 〈…〉 per symbola 〈◊〉 viâ—i Christus verè nobis 〈◊〉 c. 〈◊〉 â—â—s 〈◊〉 substantiâ— ejus facti sumus Ibid. § 11. †§ 35. Num. 3. Punct 4. A. C. p. 66. * Bellarm. L. 1. de Euchar. c. 2. â— Quintâ— dâ—cit Sacramentarii saepè dicunt reale Corpus Christi in Coenà adesse sed realitèr 〈…〉 dicunt quod legerim nis◠〈◊〉 loquuntur de Coenâ quae fit in Coelâ— c. And that he means to brand Protestants under the name of Sacramentarii is plain For he says the Councel of Trent opposed this word realitèr Figmento Calvinistico to the Calvinistical Figment Ibid. A. C. p. 65. †Calv. in 1 Con. 10. 3. verè c. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Cor. 〈◊〉 24. realiter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. ‖ Bellar. L. 1. 〈◊〉 Eucharistiâ— c. â—â— 5 〈…〉 docet * The Body of Christ is given taken and eaten in the Supper of the Lord onely after an Heavenly and Spiritual manner And the means whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten is Faith Eccl. Angl. Art 28. So here 's the manner of Transubstantiation denied but the Body of Christ twice affirmed And in the Prayer before Consecration thus Grant us graciâ—â—â— Lord so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his Bloud c. And