of his Commentators that I have met with excepted against This nor any others of your Church Your self a little beneath grants the point where you say with relation hereunto The means are necessary to the end Several of your men Bellarmine in particular * De Clericis cap. 3. contend that Protestant Churches are no true Churches because as they alledge they want a true Priesthood Besides enough is to be fetcht for this purpose out of your Trent Council | Sess 23 de Sacram. Ordinis but it is needless to do it § 11. From hence then I present you with this Scheme founded on your own Authority you are no surer you have a true Church than you are that you have a true Priesthood you are no surer that you have a true Priesthood even taken in general than you are that you have true Ordination you are not surer that you have true Ordination than you are that your Ordaining Bishops Intend as your Church requires Now in regard you agree not to claim for the Intention the Infallible Certainty of Faith which immediately depends upon divine Revelation I see not how you can reasonably agree to claim the Infallible Certainty of Faith for the truth of your Church Which I commend to the Reader 's observation § 12. You first tell us in general of some Known Principles of your Church from which the Knowledge of the Intention is deducible and afterwards reckon them to be these viz. That the Roman is the only Catholick Church That God will continue and preserve that Church to the Worlds end and all this say you appears from divine Revelation You conclude hence they must have a true Priesthood the Means being necessary to the End. Therefore say you whatsoever Intention of the Prelates is by them believed as Necessary for this End they do certainly believe according to their Principles that God's Providence will secure it his Omnipotence is able to make good his Fidelity § 13. For reply 1. I observe to the Reader That though you have presented us with a list of those Principles from which you pretend to deduce the Knowledge of the Ordainer's Intention yet you only say They appear from Divine Revelation without shewing either what this Revelation is or where it is to be found § 14. 2. As our discourse was at first Personal every one will conceive that if your thoughts had then enabled you to make the above-named distinction I must have asked What the Revelation was and where it appeared on which your said Principles are pretended to rest Nor could you have refused to satisfie my Question without bringing a Cloud upon the Cause you manage And you may easily believe that if I had known what you had been writing at London I should have wisht you would have set down What and Where the Revelation you speak of is that so I might have consented with you or refuted you according to the best judgment I could make of the Thing exhibited I assure you Sir to obtrude upon the World Doctrines under the Notion of Articles of Faith without due proof of their Divine Original is too great an Empire for Creatures to arrogate to themselves nor can one reasonably submit to another in such cases whether they respect God's honour or their own safety Therefore when you talk of Divine Revelation you should have shewed it § 15. You would surely enroll me in the Catalogue of Franticks if I should upon this Occasion spend Years in hunting through all Books for Texts of Scripture which your Popes or their Subjects have fancied to be useful for proving the Roman to be the Universal Church and in confuting their vain Glosses when I have sound them Your Person is not adverse to me but your Cause and therefore you leave the Field and cease to be my Adversary unless you shew me your places of defence and wherein their strength lies and then defy my Assaults But this is not done here Tell me is the Revelation you speak of recorded in the first Verse or Chapter of Genesis or the last Verse of the Revelation or in any Verse between those Have you not read that Pope Boniface the VIII proved the Pope of Rome to be the sole Head of the Christian Church with relation-to which Head you call yours the One and the Whole Church out of the first Verse of Genesis In the beginning God created c. He collected the Argument thus Dicitur in principio non in principiis c. It is said quoth that Pope in the Beginning not in the Beginnings c. And this is urged to prove that there must be One visible Head of the Church and this the Pope of Rome with whom all Christians must believe and to whom all must submit Have you not read how Pope Gregory the VII a great while before that fetcht a proof for the Point out of the 16th Verse of that Chapter God made two great lights the greater light to rule the day c. Illa dignitas quae praeest diebus id est Spiritualibus Major est That is That Dignity that rules the Days that is Spirituals is greater I shall omit the comparison between Popes and Kings which this Text is brought to settle and only apply it to the Point in hand That God made the Pope to Rule all Christians is all that I shall take Notice of as proved by it I have brought these two infallible Interpreters of Scripture upon the Stage and which of you should be such if your Popes be not only to shew it would be endless to seek out those many Texts supposed by Roman Catholicks to tend to make out that the Roman is the One Catholick Church of Christ upon Earth and to expose their extravagant Mis-expositions of them I might soon begin with Genesis but might be long before I had run through the Bible If these two Popes had spoken onely in general words as you do of Divine Revelation for their Headships on which your Matter vertually depends I am so dull I should never unless by chance have found out what Scriptures they referred to for it And so though I had discussed a hundred other Texts if those had been left out it might have been said I had left my work undone But wise Men will not judge I ought to undertake Unreasonable tasks or seek a Needle in a Bottle of Hay But I spend time For it had been enough to say I am only proving a Negative and need do no more than over-turn what you are pleased to erect for your Defence You have set me no more work here than I have considered and so I have no more to do here about your divine Revelation whether you refer to Scripture or any thing else § 16. Yet it cannot but be worth our Notice That your Method of maintaining your Church is most easie and expedite When you find your selves unable particularly to prove your performance of
Ultimate but as something in general which relates to Christ's Institution or the Appointment or Practice of the Church or the like Sect. 6. 5. That a Virtual Intention is Necessary and Sufficient Sect. 7. Your Sense of the Terms must as was said before be mine And that I have truly represented your Sense your Authors already produced or referred to will amount to a full Certificate They will secure me upon the Supposition made that the Doctrine of your Councils is capable of being understood at least by the leading Members of your own Church If it be not you magnifie those your Councils without Reason which either could not speak intelligibly or for some odd Ends seemed to define Faith when they did Nothing 6. I deny that your Priesthood taken Indeterminately or in general doth in an Ordinary way or without Special Revelation admit the infallible Certainty of Divine Faith Or that taken determinately or in particular it admits either the aforesaid Certainty of Faith or an Experimental or yet a Moral Certainty properly so called § 1. By certainty I still mean an Intellectual certainty such as is consentaneous to its Object which is the Measure and Foundation of it These things being thus set in open view it will be easily apprehended That our Question is a Complex Question and is resolvable into two simple ones which as they are stated will stand thus § 2. 1. Whether the Roman Church which makes Priestly Orders necessarily depend upon the Ordaining Bishops at least Virtual Intention of the End of Ordination can be certain with an absolute or infallible Certainty of Faith that they have some true Priests in general § 3. 2. Whether that Church can be certain with the aforesaid Certainty of Faith or with a Moral Certainty That they have This or That true Priest in particular Now I deny to your Church the fore-named respective Certainties of their having a true Priesthood in either Sense and which is more have taken upon me to prove the Negative a task I cannot complain of though it be not very natural because I was for once content to take it upon my self Pray mark That I moreover deny a Theological Certainty of your Priesthood taken in either of the Senses of it above-mentioned That is I deny that it can be concluded either from two Revealed Propositions or from one Revealed and another Evident by the Light of Nature Bellarmine's Silence of it tempted me to omit it in the last Section THE SECOND PART BEING Argumentative SECT I. The general Order of proceeding The first part of Mr. G's Letter set down and examined HAVING finisht the Explications required of me in a far other and ampler manner than was required and whatever else I thought useful in a previous way for the clearer sight of the point in question I shall now declare in what general Order I purpose to proceed § 1. 1. I shall evince by managing the Medium already exhibited that the Roman Church is uncertain of their having any Priesthood as Priesthood is taken determinately or as I may say in the parcels This was the only thing I formerly stood upon when I had occasion in a very short Paper a single Folio page to expose the Evils incident to Roman Catholicks from their doctrine of the Intention Let me say by the way I mean that Paper to which one of your Priests told me in your hearing he had some years ago seen an Answer I add I wish I could see it too that I might for some reasons compare it with yours And this was the only thing I intended to do at the first starting of the Argument with you as knowing it would enable me when made good to load you sufficiently with unwelcome consequences and to set That in the light which it would be your interest to keep in darkness § 2. 2. I shall consider a little beyond my first purpose how far your Priesthood taken indeterminately and as I may say in the gross will follow the fate of the other This being said I come to produce your Letter purporting an Answer to my Argument and to examine its force If I find my self so bridled up by it that I cannot run my designed course I will acknowledge the power of your Curb but if not I surely go forward to your loss The former part of Mr. Goodall's Letter Sir It was alledged to you that the Orders of the English Church had been by Roman Catholicks judged invalid by reason of your altering the Form of Ordination and sufficient discovering your Intention not to do as the Church doth in that Sacrament And your way of defending your Ordination seemed to me very strange when you retorted in this manner I deny say you that the Roman Church is certain that she hath any Priesthood or Sacraments according to her own Principles and I oblige my self to deal with Mr. Goodall about this point Witness my hand Thomas Marsden I accepted and subscribed Edward Goodall For when you deny that we are certain that we have any Priesthood according to our own Principles it were but reasonable for you to expect of us that we should be uncertain at least that you have any since you so earnestly contend to derive your Succession and Orders from us See for this Mr. Mason Archbishop Laud Bishop Bramhal Bishop Taylor Dr. Fern Dr. Hammond c. And there is an old rule you know Nil dat quod in se non habet But whatsoever you pretend of our being uncertain concerning the truth of our Priesthood yet for our comfort you are certain enough of it and therefore you never re-ordain those Priests who sometimes though rarely Apostatize from the Roman Catholick to joyn in your Communion The words you have used in Stating the point against the Roman Catholick Church are very extraordinary when you deny her to be certain that she hath any Priesthood or Sacraments according to her own principles Thus you The Examination of it follows Sir Although the Prefatory part of your Letter here recited does not at all affect my Argument by way of Answer and so without any prejudice might be passed by without regard yet on other accounts I find it my concern to dissect it and to expose its putrid parts § 3. You then undertake two things in it 1. To relate some matters of Fact which passed between you and me 2. To insinuate some disadvantages incurred on my part through at least an unwary manage of things Both these shall be inspected For the first Your Relation of Fact contains two things 1. Your charging the Church of England with the invalidity of her Orders both because we had altered the Form of Ordination and also discovered our Intention not to do as the Church doth in that Sacrament as you term it 2. My attempt to discharge her by denying the Roman Church to be certain that she hath a true Priesthood or Sacraments according to her own principles
genere i. e. To the truth of the Sacrament there is not required such an Intention of the Minister as respects the effect of Baptism in special but it suffices to intend what the Church intends in the general § 5. De Burgo cap. 5.2 par having described the Intention in the like manner concludes thus Requiritur ergo generalis intentio ad minus c. i. e. There is a general Intention required at the least c. Which exactly jumps with the sense of the Trent definition But I need cite no more for This the Roman Doctors being generally of the same mind § 6. You ask again Whether the Intention required he Habitual Vertual or Actual To which my Answer must be the same your selves use to give viz. The Habitual is too short as being no more than one asleep may have The Actual through humane infirmity and wandring of thoughts may sometimes happen to be wanting in well-meaning Ministers and therefore is not necessarily required But the Vertual is necessary to the Sacraments § 7. By Vertual Roman Catholicks mean the force of the Actual Intention exerted a little before the doing of the Sacramental Action ex gr If a Bishop intends actually to make N. N. a Priest of Christ's Church or to do something to him which Christ or the Church hath appointed the Action of Ordination for or the like and goes to Church and attires himself c. for that purpose though while he applies the respective Matter and Form his mind happens to range out to some other Objects yet the Action done by vertue of the late Actual Intention hath those influences shed into it from the past Intention which suffice to perfect the Ordination § 8. I shall set forth Bellarmine's words to evince the point because they are short and clear de Sacram. in gen l. 1. c. 27. Non requiritur necessario actualis intentio nec sufficit habitualis sed virtualis requiritur sufficit quamvis danda sit opera ut actualis habeatur i. e. Actual Intention is not required necessarily nor is Habitual sufficient but a Virtual Intention is required and is sufficient although endeavours are to be used that the Actual may be had § 9. To him I shall joyn a Book which will outweigh ten thousand private Authors viz. the Mass-book of Pope Pius the 5th de defect c. num 7. Si intentio non sit actualis in ipsa Consecratione propter evagationem mentis sed Virtualis cum accedens ad Altare intendit facere quod facit Ecclesia conficitur Sacramentum etsi curare debet Sacerdos ut etiam actualem Intentionem abhibeat i. e. If there be not actual Intention in the very Consecration of the Eucharist by reason of the wandring out of the mind but a Virtual one when the Priest coming to the Altar intends to do what the Church doth the Sacrament is made although the Priest ought to take care that he also actually intend We conclude then that the Actual Intention is congruous but the Virtual is necessary and sufficient SECT VII Roman Catholicks not certain of their Priesthood taken in general by any simple or absolute Certainty Nor certain of it taken in special by any simple or so much as a Moral Certainty YOur last Question is What certainty I speak of in my Propositions when I deny the Roman Church to be certain She hath any true Priesthood whether it be Moral Metaphysical or Mathematical § 1. Here I must premise a distinction in Order to the clear resolution of your Question Your Priesthood may be considered either confusedly and in general as inherent or existing in some persons of your Church indeterminately consider'd as if it were said there are in the Roman Church some true Priests although it be not known that This or That individual person be such a one Or distinctly and in particular as inherent in These or Those persons determinately considered whose names may be told or their persons mark'd or pointed out As if it were said Father A. or B. is a true Priest § 2. Now for Answer I deny the Roman Church is simply or absolutely certain that she hath any true Priesthood in the first sense The Proposition is not evident by its own light to all that understand the Terms and therefore I deny that you have for it the certainty of Intelligence which is all one I suppose with that you call Metaphysical certainty Nor is it any Conclusion evidently deduced from first Principles and therefore I deny that you have for it the certainty of Science which is the same I suppose that you call Mathematical certainty If you make good your Priesthood either of these ways our understandings could not resist the evidence presented inasmuch as the Reason of our assent to first Principles is the clear immediate connexion of the Terms and the Reason of our assent to Scientifical Conclusions is the clear connexion of the Terms with an evident Medium But your men never pretended to prove this point either of these ways that I have heard of nor would I have said one word of this kind had not the Terms of your Question offered me the occasion However to accommodate my self to your thoughts so far as I can I will suppose You meant not to use those words Mathematical and Metaphysical in a proper sense but only in an allusive way to denote by them a simple Certainty equal to that of Intelligence or Science which you suppose to spring from a diverse root viz. Divine Revelation But then I must answer on as I have begun by denying that you have any Certainty of Faith for the Matter § 3. For the Proposition taken in the second Sense viz. That you have any Persons in your Church determinately or singularly considered as Father A. or B. who are true Priests I deny that you have for it either the absolute and infallible Certainty of Faith or so much as a Moral Certainty properly so called § 4. And here it will be as needful a piece of work as any I have yet done to prepare the Reader for making a sure judgment of what shall follow to open the Nature of Moral Certainty And because your Authors are sufficiently agreed about it it will not matter much which of them I call forth to describe it Let Cardinal Bellarmine be the Man who sets forth the Matter very distinctly Le justif lib. 3. cap. 2. He then as others do having divided Certainty into Evident and Obscure Certainty assigns three degrees to both of them Of the Evident he gives the first degree to first Principles the second to Science the third to Experience Of Obscure Certainty he gives the first degree to Divine Faith the second to Humane Faith the third to Opinion Having said this in a previous way I shall now produce what he says touching Moral Certainty Secundum gradum c. Those things saith he obtain the second degree of
doubtful we are rather to interpret them in the more favourable sense when there is an Obligation upon us to pass our judgment But this tye of making a charitable judgment is too weak a stay for Conscience in the great concerns of Religion such as the Minister's Intention on which you make your Baptism the Consecration of the Eucharist c. depend This will appear by considering these two things § 26. 1. The judgment of Charity alwaies supposes the Object Uncertain or to speak more properly the Understanding Uncertain For what needs Charity come into the Scale if Evidence hath weighed it down beforehand What needs the Will come into the work but that the Understanding is at a loss § 27. 2. The Soul is not a jot nearer Truth by this judgment of Charity The pious affection of the Will is indeed exercised but it makes not the Act of the Understanding more certain Truth is the Object of the Intellect alone and therefore certainty is not at all taken from the Will but from the Evidence of the Object or from the motive to Faith. § 28. I forbear to add That the Understanding may be easily and is often exposed to the danger of falsehood by the charitable inclination of the Will and that ignorance may contribute much to the false quiet of the mind The will hath nothing to do with the Understanding that I know of in order to Knowledge but barely to stir it up to act When that is done it must judge for it self and hath Rules of its own to examine things by but the bent or biass of the Will is none of them And he that makes himself as I may so say certain without or beyond Rational Motives is but blindly perswaded or pertinacious I have said enough if not too much to convince That the judgment of Charity concerning the Intention amounts not to an intellectual certainty of it Which is the only thing I was concerned to make out in this place § 29. Now since neither Reason nor Authority will ascertain the Intention and since the Judgment of Charity falls short of the mark I may I hope without presumption conclude that my Proposition is verified viz. That the Intention of the Ordaining Bishop is a Condition which no man living knows whether it be fulfill'd or no in Ordination And then the premises being true the conclusion is so too viz. The Church of Rome requires a condition to Ordination which no man living knows whether it be fulfill'd or no. I confess I have extended my proof to a far greater Latitude as I have done some other things in these Papers than any thing you have offered exacted from me but I had rather be accused of being over than short Besides I had a mind to prevent the often re-hearing of the Cause to which several little new Suggestions might give occasion by a more particular sifting of it I had also a respect to some others who had never seen the Subject set in a full light But after all I am sensible I have done something more than needed § 30. I have indeed considered the Proposition only under the limitation before express'd excepting the Ordaining Bishops out of no man living knows Who may therefore pretend to know their own Intention and by consequence that there are true Priests among you But if an Interpretation I gave you of my Proposition at Pn. had not without Reason been displeasing to you what I have already done would have left your Bishops unsecured of your Priesthood as well as all the rest of your Communion However I shall with little ado cure that defect by offering the same thing in such words as will not I think be evaded SECT VII The Ordaining Bishops not certain whether there be true Priests in the Roman Church HAving already proved That all Roman Catholicks except the Ordaining Bishops are Uncertain whether the said Bishops Intend aright in their particular Ordinations and consequently as uncertain whether they make any true Priests I come now to prove That the Ordaining Bishops so called are uncertain whether or no they Intend with such an Intention as is available or effectual to Ordination In order hereunto I will let my first Syllogism stand as before * Part I. Sect. l. The minor Proposition of it which only could regularly be denied is this The Roman Church requires a condition to Ordination which no man living knows whether or no it be fulfill'd To wrap up the Bishops in the same uncertainty with the rest I prove it thus The Intention of a person who is a true Bishop is a Condition which no man living knows the Ordainers themselves not excepted whether it be fulfilled in Ordination But the Roman Church requires the Intention of a person who is a true Bishop to Ordination Ergo The Roman Church requires a condition to Ordination which no man living knows the Ordainers themselves not excepted whether it be fulfill'd in Ordination The minor is clear for it is not every man's using the Matter and Form of the Church and intending to do as the Church doth although you say This may suffice to Baptism that you hold to be sufficient to ordination You judge not only Lay-men but simple Priests uncapable of doing that work as the Curse of your Trent-Council makes appear * Si quis dixcrit Episcopos non esse Presbyteris superiores vel non babete potestatem Confirmandi Ordinandi vel cam quam habent illis cum Presbyteris communem esse Auathema sit Sess 23. Can. 7. If any one shall say That Bishops are not Superior to Priests or have not the power of Confirming and Ordaining or that the power they have is common to them with Priests let him be Anathema The Ordainer then must of Necessity be a Bishop This for the Minor. If there be any difficulty in the matter it respects the Major But I am now to shew there is none at all This then I lay down as evident except the Ordainer know that he is in Truth what he is called viz. a Bishop he knows not that his Intention is such as operates in and is effectual to Ordination nor consequently that he makes a true Priest My Medium you know points directly at this and the connexion is unquestionable according to your selves Which being said it onely remains that I make out That none of your Bishops know that they are true Bishops I do it thus No Bishops that are Vncertain whether or no they are true Priests know that they are true Bishops But all the Roman Bishops are uncertain whether or no they are true Priests Ergo No Roman Bishops know that they are true Bishops To verifie the Major I need but say 1. Your Church holds That no man can be a Bishop who is not first a Priest A tast of Authority may satisfie for this If any one faith Suarez * Si quis ita consecrcetur Episcopus per