Church cannot or doth not err in telling me what is Gods Revelation before I can know or believe any of his Revelation If they mean that this act of faith must go first before I can have any other why may I not know and believe other articles of faith without the divine belief of the Churches authority or infallibility as I may believe this one God hath revealed that the Church is infallible or true in telling me what I must believe If one Article may be believed without that motive and sure it is not believed before it is believed why not others as well as that 3. And which way or by what Revelation did God confer this Infallibility on the Church If by Scripture it is supposed that yet you know not what is in the Scripture or believe it not to be true till you have first believed the Churches Veracity Therefore it cannot be that way If by verbal tradition it is equally supposed that you know not that Tradition to be Gods word and true before you know the Churches Veracity that tells you so So that the Question How I must believe the Churches Veracity herein by what divine revelation before I can believe any other revelation is still unanswered and answerable only by palpable contradiction But were it not for interpreting him contrary to his company I should by his words here judg that it is no Divine faith of the Churches Veracity which he maketh pre-requisite to all other acts of faith but it is Prudential motives of creâ—…bility which must draw him to afford credit to that authority as derived from God which commends to him the Bible as the word of God now that can be no other than the Authority of the Catholick Church Ans. Mark Reader It can be no other than the authority of the Church which must be the prudential motive to credit the authority of the Church as derived from God So the Churches Authority must be first credited that he may credit it or else the Authority not credited must move him to credit it which is all contradiction unless he mean that the Churches Authority credited by a humane faith or by some notifying or conjectural evidences besides divine revelation must move him to believe that it is authorized by God When they have told us whether that first credit given to the Church have any certainty for its object and also what and whence that certainty is we shall know what to say to them Knot against Chillingworth is fain tosay That it is the Churches own Miracles by which it is known to have divine authority before we can believe any word of God And so no man can be sure that Gods word is his word and true till he be first sure that the Church of Rome hath wrought such miracles as prove its veracity as from God which will require in the Catechumene so much acquaintance with Historical Legends which the more he reads them the less he will believe them as will make it a far longer and more uncertain way to become a Christian than better Teachers have of old made use of And 2. it seems when all is done that he taketh this Authority of the Church but for a prudential motive But is it certain or uncertain If uncertain so will all be that 's built upon it If certain again tell us by what ascertaining evidence Reader it is the crooked ways into which byassing-interest hath tempted these men to lead poor souls which are thus perplexing and confounding How plain and sure a way God hath prescribed us I have told you in a small Tractate called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery In short it is possible if a man never hear but one Sermon which mentioneth not the authority of the Church or find a Bible on the high-way and read it that he may see that evidence in it that may perswade him savingly to believe through grace that it truly affirmeth it self to be the word of God But the ordinary method for most rational certainty is To have first Historical ascertaining evidence of the matter of fact viz. that This Book was indeed written and these miracles and other things done as it affirmeth Or first perhaps That this Baptismal Covenant Lords Prayer Creed and Decalogue have been delivered down from the first witnesses of Christ and Miracles wrought to confirm the Gospel which is also written at large in that Book This we have far greater Historical Certainty of than the pretended authority of a judging-Church of Rome even the infallible testimony of all the Churches in the world and as to the essentials Baptism the Creed c. of Hereticks Infidels and Heathens which I have opened at large in a Book called The Reasons of Christian Religion and another called The Unreasonableness of Infidelity and in other writings And the matter of fact with the Book being thus certainly brought down to us as the Statutes of the Land are we then know the Gospel and that Book to be of God by all those evidences which in the foresaid Treatises I have opened at large and more briefly in a Treatise called The Life of Faith the sum of which is the Holy Spirit as Christs Agent Advocate and Witness in his Works of Divine Power Wisdom and Goodness or Love printed first on Christ himself his Life and Doctrine and then on the Apostles their Works and Doctrine and then on all sanctified believers in all ages and especially on our selves besides his antecedent prophesies Pag. 16. He again pretendeth that he need not name the necessary Articles of Faith because I my self say They must be the Essentials and it is supposed I understand my own terms Ans. A candid Disputant The light followeth him while he flyeth from it Doth it follow that if I know my own meaning I therefore know yours and if I know which are the essentials that therefore you know them and are of the same mind Pag. 17. The man would make me believe that I speak not true divinity when I say that Divine and Humane Faith may be conjunct when the testimonies are so conjunct as that we are sure that it is God that speaks by man who is therefore credible because God infallibly guideth and inspireth him He would make you believe that I am singular and erroneous here Ans. And why He saith that would make Christian faith partly humane But 1. when I talk but of two faiths conjunct what if I called the former divine faith only the Christian faith May not a humane yet be conjunct with the Christian 2. But words must be examined If Christian faith be so called from the Object then Christ and not his Apostles are the reason of the name materially we are called Christians for believing in Christ and not for believing in them 2. If Christian faith were taken subjectively it is humane faith for men are the subjects of it 3. If Christian faith be
which they may shortly expect by the perswasions of some I have attempted to make this Return to this one Reply which is all that ever they published against me that I know of And because true Order requireth first that we understand each others terms I must begin with that though it be the last thing in his Book in which you will see what a sandy fabrick it is which is adorned by them with the great Epithetes of Apostolical Ancient Universal Infallible and how little they know or can make others know what it is of which they do dispute or what that Church is to which so many hundred thousand Christians called by them Hereticks have been sacrificed by sword and flames In the second Part I defend the Visibility of the Church which the Protestants are members of against his vain Objections And in the third Part I defend those Additional arguments by which I proved it In all which I doubt not but the impartial understanding Reader may see that their Terrestrial Universal Monarchy and their condemnation of the greatest part of the Church of Christ are contrary to Sense Reason Tradition Consent Antiquity and Scripture and that their Kingdom standeth but on three Legs IGNORANCE and deceit worldly INTEREST and the SWORD and violence And when these and especially the sword of Princes do cease to uphold it it will presently die and come to nothing For though Melchior Canus say that the Roman Priviledges as he calleth them have stood though the greater number of Bishops and Churches and the Arms of Emperours have been against them yet was it upheld against all these by no better means than those aforesaid The greater number of Churches and Bishops viz. of East and South being against them and all the other four Patriarchates renouncing them as they do to this day they laid the faster hold of the West and by mastering Italy flattering and advancing France promising Kingdoms and Empire to their Adherents threatning the deposition of others dividing Germany and all Europe that many might need the Pope and few be able to resist him and by keeping men ignorant that they might be capable of their Government by these means they overcame the Arms of Emperours and made them their Subjects whose Subjects they had been If there were nothing else to satisfie the Reader against Popery but these following Particulars it were a shame to humane nature to receive it 1. The natural incapacity of one man to be a Church-Monarch any more than to be a Civil Monarch of the whole Earth 2. That Bellarmine confesseth that the Pope succeedeth not Peter as an Apostle but as an Universal Pastor But Peter never had any higher office than to be the first Apostle 1 Cor. 12. 28. God hath set in the Church first Apoctles not first a Vice-Christ 3. That they affirm that it is not de fide that the Pope is Peter's Successor 4. That none of the other Apostles had Successors as in superior seats nor did any Patriarch much less twelve claim power as Successors of any Apostle save Antioch and Rome and Antioch as from the same St. Peter but no Universal Soveraignty 5. That whoever will turn Papist must confess that he was an ungodly hypocrite before and that all professed Christians are so save the Papists that know their doctrine 6. That he must renounce the senses of all sound men and believe them all deceived by Miracle The Contents of the first Part. CHAP. 1. Sect. 1. HIs Explication of the terms CATHOLICK CHURCH 1. He excludeth all from Christs Universal Church and Christianity that are no Members of Christian Congregations Yet meaneth not only Churches but Families Ships or any civil Assemblies Damning all solitary Christians or that are alone among Infidels 2. He maketh subjection to the supreme Pastor necessary and yet saith the Votum of it alone will serve Sect. 2. He unchurcheth Parish-Churches He maketh dependance on lawful Pastors in general necessary but not on the Pope particularly Sect. 3 What Faith must be in a Church-member His implicite discourse of implicite faith which indeed is no faith of any particular Article Several senses of implicite faith opened His general faith proved No particular faith In what sense we believe all that God hath revealed Sect. 8. His instances explained Sect. 9. When virtual repentance sufficeth Sect. 10. His avoiding to answer Sect. 11. The Papists Church invisible Sect. 12. His strange Doctrine of generals Sect. 13. What Christianity is is no point of faith with them Sect. 14. The invisibility of their Church further proved Sect. 15. Their contradictions about receiving all faith on the Churches Authority Sect. 16. 17. The true method of believing Sect. 18. Humane faith is joyned with Divine Sect. 20. What the Essentials of Christianity are Sect. 21. Papists utterly disagreed what a Christian is and confounded and their Church invisible Sect. 22. Notes of great moment hereupon The baptizing of men that believe only that there is a rewarding God is a new false baptism Sect. 23. Q 3. Who are the Pastors whose rejection unchurcheth men Of Parish Priests Q. 4. How shall all the world be sure that Popes and Priests had a just Election or ordination Sect. 24 25 26 27 28. CHAP. 2. Their sense of the word HERESY Whether Heresie be in will or understanding Sect. 1. Hereticks by their definition are unknown Sect. 2. The power of judging of the Sufficiency of proposals make 's the Clergie Masters of all men lives Sect. 3. He maketh none Hereticks that deny not Gods Veracity Sect. 4. And all Hereticks to deny it Yea all that receive not every truth safficiently proposed Yet unsaith all and saith that not culpable neglect of sufficient proof of all but contradiction to the known proposal of lawful superiours makes a Heretick Sect. 7. Q. What sufficient proposal is Sect. 8. 9. He saith that the true Church-Governours may be known without Revelation Sect. 10. Sufficiency further examined Sect. 11. He hereticateth themselves or none Sect. 12. Whether every misunderstanding of an intelligible Text of Scripture be Heresie Sect. 13. What Heresie is indeed Sect. 14. CHAP. 3. Their meaning of the word POPE Sect. 1. Popes judged Herteicks by many Councils Where Christs institution of the Papacy must be found Sect. 2. Who ad esse must elect the Pope Sect. 3. W. J. cannot and dare not tell Consecration denyed to be necessary to the Pope Sect. 6. Neither Papal nor Episcopal Iurisdiction he saith depends on Papal or Episcopal ordination Sect. 7. So they may be Laymen What such jurisdiction is Sect. 8. What notice or proof is necessary to the subjects CHAP. 4. Their sense of the word BISHOP The Pope is not of Gods ordaining in their way Sect. 1. 2. Their Bishop of Calcedons testimony put off Sect. 3. They make all men that will or no men to be Bishops His great confusion and contradictions Saying we want not Episcopal Consecration but Election
is no spirit but God and the Anima Mundi and say that these are immaterial and never the more believe that Angels or Souls are spirits And no man can reasonably imagine that omnis spiritus est immaterialis doth include omnis anima est spiritus or that W. I's est spiritus immaterialis So one may say that all that are sanctified shall be glorified and yet not believe that Peter Paul yea or Christ were Holy of this sort of knowledg I mentioned that which is a belief of no more but the formal object of Faith that is Gods veracity that God cannot lye and so that all that God saith is true when yet one that confesseth this denieth all the Bible to be his Word and believeth rather Mahomet Amida or Confutius to have been Gods Messengers or the ancient Oracles at Delphos c. to have been his word But the confused Head of W. I. confoundeth several of these different sorts and because he thought that he might handsomly call a meer general knowledg or faith confused therefore he confoundeth the true confused faith with the general which are easily distinguished And first he calls for my proof That a meer general belief is no belief at all of the particulars though a confused faith may I prove it 1. Where there is no intellectual conception of the particulars there is no actual belief of the particulars But where there is only a conception of a general proposition there is no intellectual conception of the particulars Ergo c. the major is undeniable and the minor no less 2. Where the particular Object is not understood or believed there is not the particular Act of knowing or believing that Object for the Object is essential to the Act But where there is only a knowledg and belief of the general Object there the particular Object is not understood or believed Ergo c. 3. That is not an actual belief of the particulars which may consist with the actual belief of the contradictory But a meer belief of the General Proposition may consist i h the contradictory to the belief of particulars Ergo c. But he comes upon me with some instances so worded as may deceive the ignorant 1. Saith he Doth not this Proposition Omne animal vivit contain the substance of these truths Equus vivit Leo vivit Aquila vivit c Answ. No surely unless by substance you mean not the other Proposition but somewhat else what you list for it containeth not the very subject that there is such a thing as Equus Leo Aquila in being and that they are animalia May not a man that never heard or believed that there was such a creature as an Eagle Lyon c. no more than a Unicorn or Phaenix yet know that omne animal vivit 2. He saith Believing all that is in Scripture is the Word of God and true expresly I believe in confuso all that is in Genesis c. Answ. Yes if in confuso be terminus diminuens to actual belief of the particulars By meer believing the first you do not actually believe a word of Genesis or Exodus c. for your Proposition saith not that there is any such Book in the Scripture As I believe all the holy Scripture to be true and yet believe not Tobit Iudith Bell and the Dragon to be true because I believe them not to be the Holy Scriptures so may others by Genesis Exodus c. as the Hereticks of old denied many Books and as Infidels may believe all that is Gods Word to be true and yet not believe that the Scripture is his Word 3. Saith he Is not an express knowledg of the Genus a confused knowledg of species under it and so the species of the individua Answ. Yes if by confused knowledg you mean no knowledg of them it is no true knowledg of them at all 4. But he saith that my words not knowing whether you be Animal or Cadaver is a contradictory Proposition Answ. Say you so May not I see you asleep and think that you are dead Doth this Proposition Omne animal vivit include that there is such a Wight in being as W. I. or N. N or that he is now alive or that it is really a Man and not a Horse that is so called any more than that Bucephalus was a Man Yet doth he back these absurdities with advising me to a little more heed to what I write Note that page 9 he asserteth that The object of implicite faith delivered in the Schools is nothing save particular truths contained in substance under some general propositions so that they be neither known nor believed distinctly and expresly yet in confuso they are by the knowledg or belief of their general proposition Answ. But there is a confused knowledg of particulars which is actual of the Being of them though not distinct not fit or ripe for words to utter it This is different from the knowledg of meer Generals which is indeed no knowledg of the particulars that any such are contained in those generals at all He next comes to expound his words That faith believeth all that God revealeth explicitely or implicitely that is now some things explicitely and some things implicitely when as I asked him What was the faith in which we must unite who would have expected such an answer That it is a general belief of all things revealed and a particular belief of some things That it is such a belief of all particulars as is no real actual belief of some of them and it is an actual belief of other some But is any man ever the nearer the knowledg of their minds by this 1. Here is no notice what the General is that must be believed He professeth that it is not the formal object only that is The veracity or faithfulness of God the Revealer And what else it is whether that all that the Scripture revealeth is true or that all that the Church declareth to be Gods word is true and whom we must take for that Church c. he hath not told us and so hath given an answer which is no answer 2. Nor hath he told us what the Particulars are that must be believed But we may know what faith it is that the Church must unite in by hearing that it is something we know not what or that it is somewhat in general and somewhat in particular Doth this account satisfie themselves or do they look that it should satisfie us Will this distinguish their Church from Hereticks or Mahometans Do not these believe somewhat in general and somewhat in particular And do not Heathens do the same If this be enough for Christianity or Concord why do they call us Hereticks Are we not all of that Faith which believeth somewhat in General even that all Gods Word is true and somewhat in Particular But it 's well that he saith that the explicite belief of somewhat is necessary though
we may not know what And he tells us That while they have an explicite belief of some Articles they can never be thought to be without faith Answ. Either he meaneth that faith which was in the question which must notifie us from Hereticks and from others without and which the Church must unite in or some other faith If any other doth he not wilfully juggle and fly from answering when he pretends to answer If he means the faith in question then Mahometans and Heathens are of their Faith and Members of their Church yea and all that they call Hereticks and anathematize themselves yea and the Devils that believe and tremble But one would think that pag. 11 he described the necessary implicite Faith when he saith Our ordinary sense is so to believe that point that we have no distinct or express knowledg of it but only a confused understanding because it is contained in confuso under this proposition I believe all that God hath revealed or I believe all that is delivered to be believed in the Holy Scripture Answ. 1. But I must again repeat that here the word confused is used but to confound This is no actual belief of any particular under that proposition When a thing is actually known in it self but only by a General knowledg or not dâ—…stinct this is truly an Impersect knowledg It is to know somewhat of that thing though not its form or individuation If I see something which I know not whether it be a Man or a Tree a Steeple or a Rock I verily know somewhat of that thing it self but not the form of it If I see a Book open at two-yards distance I see the Letters distinctly but not formally for I know not what any one of them is If I see a clod of Earth or a River I see much of the very substance of the earth and water but I discern not the sands or the drops as distinct parts Here something is known though the special or numerical difference much more some accidents be unknown But in knowing W. I's general proposition only I know nothing at all of the particulars as shall yet be further manifested 2. And mark what his general Proposition is which he saith is the object of their Implicite saith viz. I believe all that God hath revealed or all that is delivered to be believed in the Holy Scripture Either he really meaneth that this is the implicite faith by which Christians are notifiâ—…d and which uniteth the Members of the Church and distinguisheth them from those without or he doth not If he do not what doth he but deceive his Râ—…ader If he do then as I said All Christians Hereticks most Mahometans and Heathens believe the first proposition viz. That all is true that God revealeth And Protestants and Papists and most other sorts of Christians agree in the second The Scripture-truth Here then is a justification of our Faith so far But do you think that he meaneth as he seemeth to mean Do they not hold it also necessary that men must take their Church to be the declarer of this Scripture-truth And also that Tradition not written in the Bible be believed Must not both these make up their Implicite Faith If our general Faith and theirs be the same what maketh them accuse us herein as they do But now pag. 11. he proceeds to assault me with such reasoning as this No man knoweth all that God hath revealed to wit with an actual understanding of every particular Ergo say I No man believes all that God hath revealed Now I proceed If no man believe all that God hath revealed then you believe not all that God hath revealed Then further Whoever believeth not all that God hath revealed is no good Christian nor in state of salvation But you believe not all that God hath revealed Ergo you are no good Christian nor in a state of salvation See you not how fair a thred you have spun Or will you say that he that believes not all that God hath revealed is a good Christian If you will you may but no good Christian will believe you Answ. The man seemeth in good sadness in all this Childish Play And must Rome be thus upheld And must poor mens Faith and Consciences be thus laid upon a game at Cheating Words No wonder that this Hector would have nothing said in dispute but syllogism c. Few Lads and Women would unmask his pitiful deceits whether the great disputer saw their vanity himself I know not But men at age that can speak and try sense will see that all this Cant is but the sporting-equivocation of one syllable ALL This ALL is either a term of a meer general proposition e. g. All Gods word is true Here I believe what is predicated of this general word ALL and take this for a true proposition ALL Gods word is true Or it signifieth the very things species or parts as in themselves known and so if the very things species or parts generally expressed by the word ALL be not themselves known as such things species or parts it is no actual knowledg of them at all to know that truth of the said general proposition And doth not every novice in Logick know this The same I say of Beliefs as of Knowledg He is no good Christian who believeth not that all Divine Revelations are true which Hereticks and Heathens believe But neither I nor any Christian known to him or me knoweth or believeth ALL the particular verities which God hath revealed And he believeth not one of them beside that proposition it self which is found among the rest who believeth but that general But yet he will justifie his vanity by more instances pag. 12 he saith When you profess in tâ—…e Creed that God is the Creator of all things visible and invisible I demand Do you believe as you profess If you do then you may believe with an actual belief that he is the Creator of many things visible and invisible whereof you have no actual understanding or which are wholly unknown particularly or distinctly to you or by any other knowledg than as confusedly contained in the word ALL. Ans. 1. What 's all this but to say that I believe this proposition All things of which many are unknown to â—…e are created by God This proposition I know and believe but the things themselves as such I no further believe than I know if I know not that they are I believe not that they are if I know not what they are I believe not what they are that is if I have not an intellectual conception That they are and What they are for believing is indeed but a knowing by the medium of a Testimony or Revelation and the veracity of the Revealer I believe that God maâ—… all that is about the Center of the earth and yet I neither know nor actually believe any one thing species or individual or
to another or the King may pardon all crimes by an Act of Oblivion without knowing what they are But if the question were about an intellectual act whose object doth specifie it intrinsecally in the mind As whether the King actually know the particular crimes which he pardoneth If you say that he knoweth the particulars actually in confuso because the only knoweth in general that some crimes there are this is but to talk against all the usual â—…ense of mankind and to call that An actual knowing of particulars in confuso which other men call No actual knowledg of particulars but only of generals which in some cases may be called a virtual knowledg of Particulars which is no actual knowledg of them and in some not But if he had heard some imperfect confused Narratives of the crimes themselves this might be called An actual confâ—…ed knowledg of them But mark Reader what edification is to be expected from these mens Disputations He knew very well that he and I are agreed that all Christians must take Gods Veracity in his Revelations for the formal object without which faith is no faith and so must believe that God cannot lie and that all is true which he asserteth And that we Protestants hold that this is not enough nor includeth the knowledg or belief of any thing which he hath revealed beside this one general He knoweth that our question is Whether it be not necessary to believe some particulars as revealed by God And whether this faith do not go to essentiate a Christian and a member of the Church And if so then what those particulars are which must be believed to constitute a true Christian and member of the Church Now he durst not come into the light and answer this question but as if he were mocking women or children saith All that God hath revealed must be believed explicitely or implicitely We understand you Sir that we must believe this Proposition All that God revealeth is true But is that enough then Heathens Idolaters Sadducees Infidels Mahometans are Christians and members of your Church But do they think so themselves If you can thus with a juggle make all the world Christians the like art may make them subjects of the Pope No saith he there must some things also be believed explicitely But the question is What they are O there you must excuse him he dare not he cannot tell you what But Sir are these some things essential to Christianity and Church-membership or not If you say Not what nothing essential to Christian faith in particular Is it faith and yet a belief of nothing in particular Is there no material difference at all between a Christian and a Sadducee Infidel Mahometan or Heathen And yet cannot Protestants be saved for want of the right belief O marvellous Religion But if any particular belief be necessary cannot it be known what it is How then can a Christian be known by himself or others from all the unbelieving world or your Church from other men This was my question to you Is not your Church then invisible when no man can know what makes a member of it And yet the man talketh confidently in his darkness as if this would serve instead of light and saith I make my Church visible though by comprehending in it all those who profess an explicite faith in several Articles which they understand distinctly and an implicite belief of the rest whereof they have not distinct understanding by professing that they believe all that God hath revealed to be believed by them whatsoever they be in particular Now so long as they persevere in this belief though they should happen through culpable negligence not to arrive to the knowledg of many things which they ought to know necessitate praecepti yet they remain members though corrupt and wicked of the Church Whereby you see how easily I avoid that difficulty which you thought I could not Ans. Too easily against all reason Reader this Paragraph is worth the nothing 1. Several Articles must be believed explicitely but not a word to tell you which or what they are or whether it be any whatever that will serve the turn if it be but that Cain was the son of Adam 2. The implicite belief of all the rest is not here said to be any implicite belief of the Pope Council or Church of Rome but that they believe all that God hath revealed to be believed by them And are we not yet so far right and reconciled This is too kind to the Protestants For it takes in all mankind with them who confess a God For to give him the Lie is to deny his Perfection that is his Godhead 3. Mark that even culpable ignorance of other things unchurcheth not 4. And yet all this denoteth but a corrupt and wicked member of their holy Church which if such cannot be saved 5. And with this chat the man thinks he hath done his business And doubtless there are some so ignorant as to believe him But all this wants but two things to make it just the true Christian faith One is to name those Particulars essential to Christianity which must be believed The other is to distinguish between a sound and serious practical belief and a dead opinion or profession And to conclude that the sincere practical belief constituteth invisible justified members and the profession maketh only visible ones Next he hath another bout against Omne animal vivit the question was whether to know this be to know that W. I. Bucephalus a Phoenix or an Unicorn liveth I say No because it may stand with the ignorance that ever there was or will be such an Animal as is called W. I. or any of the rest But he makes all good on his side by talking of Impossibilities and such-like words which are of the same use in respect to our arguments that Drums in an Army are to drown the groans of dying men and put courage into the Soldiers He saith When Philosophers say Omne animal vivit they mean it of the essence or notion of Animal to be a living thing and this is true of me and all particulars whether we be in actual existence or not Is not here excellent Philosophy It 's very true that this is a true Proposition Omne animal vivit whether VV. I. exist or not But is this true of VV. I. and all particulars VVhether they exist or not That which existeth not is nothing neither VV. I. nor any particular The sum is then Nothing is a living thing or animal There is a VV. I. and all particulars which are all nothing and yet are animals or live Who would not turn Papist and run into a Nunnery that is but charmed with such Philosophy Next pag 15. he saith That how much must be believed explicitely is a dispute among Divines not necessary to be determined here yet I will say something to that presently Ans. I warrant you
nothing is necessary to you to do which you cannot do without coming into the light It 's a dispute among the Papists Divines what a Christian is or what Christianity is And yet they have an Infallible Judg of all the Scripture and all Controversies And yet they can tell that Protestants are Hereticks And yet they can tell who are members of their Church though it be a dispute among Divines But mark that this is not then with them de fide any point of faith what a Christian is or what must be believed For their Divines dispute not that which they take to be de fide I told him that a man may believe that the Bible is true and Gods word and yet not know a word that is in it or that Christ is the Messias or that there was ever such a person He answereth that This is morally impossible For either such a person believes the Bible rashly and imprudently and then according to all Divines his faith cannot be supernatural and divine or sufficient to constitute him a Christian or he believeth it prudently by prudential motives of credibility Now that can be no other than the authority of the Catholick Church which he cannot be ignorant to profess the faith of Christ there being no other save that though he know not by experience that Christ is mentioned in the Bible he cannot but know that he is professed to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by those of the Catholick Church who delivered the Bible to him as the word of God and that such a faith is necessary to Salvation Ans. Here are many things worthy our consideration 1. That a man is not a member of the Church that is a Christian unless his faith be supernatural and divine not only in the object but his act And surely no man knoweth what other mans act of faith is supernatural and divine Therefore no man knoweth who is a Christian and so their Church is still invisible 2. No man that believeth the Bible rashly and imprudently is a Christian And no man knoweth whether another believe it not rashly and imprudently yea whether he believe it at all Therefore no man knoweth who is a Christian or member of the Church of Rome 3. No other motive than the authority of the Catholick Church can serve to free a man from this rashness imprudence and nullity of his Christianity 1. But why then had we not this General The Church Catholick is to be believed and the Scripture to be received only by its authority before in the description of implicite or explicite faith 2. Was that man no Christian in the Primitive times who was converted by a single Apostle and took not the faith on the authority of the Catholick Church Did the Eunuch converted by Philip Act. 8. or the Jaylor and Lydia converted by Paul Act. 16. or the 3000 converted by Peter Act. 2. receive faith on the authority of the Catholick Church Or the Indians when converted by Frumentius and Edesus or the Abassian Empire that till lately knew nothing of the Pope and his pretensions Or do we read that the Apostles did use that argument The authority of the Catholick Church to convert their hearers or that they always first told them of the authority of such a Church If by the Church you mean any single Apostle or Teacher hold to that and we shall do well enough with you 3. But Authority is an ambiguous word and may deceive We maintain that a preserving and teaching ministerial authority is usually needful to mens conversion to the faith though not absolutely necessary to be first believed by the hearer But a judging authority viz. Whether there be a God a Christ a Scripture a Heaven c. or not which determineth by a sentence rather than teacheth by opening that evidence which caused belief in the Teacher himself this is not necessary to mans faith 4. And what if a man should hear a Preacher open the other reasons of Christianity without talking of the Catholick Church and its authority and should hereupon believe or should believe by the bare reading of a Bible how prove you that this man is no Christian nor shall be saved when Christ saith He that believeth shall be saved and shall not perish and saith not He that believeth on any other motive than the authority of the Catholick Church and that must be the Romans believeth rashly and impudently and shall perish 4. But it 's well worth the enquiry could we possibly find it out what he meaneth by knowing the Church and its profession and its authority and whether this be an act of necessary faith before any thing else can be believed Or what other points of faith are contained in our belief of this Church and its authority And what is the foundation of this faith It seems that he supposeth that the Church must be known before that the Christian faith be believed And that in knowing the Church we must know the faith of the Church It is one thing to know that they are a company of men called the Christian Church and another thing to know what a Christian Church is and another thing to know that this company of men is that Church Must all these be known before we can believe or but one or two and which 1. If the name were enough a man may know that a company of men are called Christians or Mahumetanes who knoweth not at all what Christianity or Mahumetanism is You say that it must be known that they profess to trust in Christ this they may do and not know who Christ is whether God or man or what he hath done or will do for us If you say that they must know that they profess that Christ is the Saviour so they may do and yet not know what the word Saviour signifieth or what Christ ever did or will do for our Salvation 2. But if he mean here that every one that will believe Gods Word must first know the Church as defined or know it in all its essence then 1. How few will he be able to prove to be Christians And how will he know who they are 2. And still the question recurreth what is it that must be particularly believed to essentiate the Church For if he know not that he cannot know that he knoweth what the Church is 3. And when that is done it seems he must know which is that Church considered in existence as different from all Heresies and other Societies But by this method our difficulties are multiplied 1. How shall I be sure that this Church doth not deceive me in saying that this and not that is Gods Word Is this by an act of knowledg or of divine faith If of knowledg what evidences prove it If of faith then I must believe God before I can believe him that is I must believe that this is his Revelation and true that the Roman-Catholick
denominated from the prime or second efficient of the revelation it is the belief of God and of Christ as Mediator and not of the Apostles and so Gods own Veracity and not mans is the objectum formale fidei divinae 4. But why may not a subordinate humane faith be conjoined with this and so we believe Christ to be the Messiah at once 1. By the testimony of God 2. Of Christ as man 3. And of the Prophets and Apostles 1. Did not the union of the Divine nature with the humane make Christ as man to be credible If so why should we not believe him 2. Did not the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost and divine inspiration joined to it make the Apostles and Prophets credible persons If so why should we not believe them 3. Did not the Miracles which they wrought render the persons and their testimonies credible together with the circumstances of their being eye-witnesses and such-like 4. Is not every honest man credible according to the measure of his skill and honesty 5. Doth not every man know that there may be many efficient causes conjoined in producing one effect May not faith now be wrought by the Preachers word and Spirit Why else doth Christ say to Paul Acts 26. 17 18 I send thee to open their eyes and turn them c. And Paul directeth Timothy to save himself and those that hear him Why may not believing God believing Christ as man and believing Peter and Iohn c. that saw him risen be conjunct causes of our faith in Christs Resurrection If they might not produce one faith at least they might produce three faiths united by conjunction But would one ever have expected this from a Jesuit or Roman Priest Remember Reader that Divine belief and a belief of the Church Council Pope or Priest are not to be taken for conjunct causes of our believing the Gospel or Christian faith in this mans opinion But he saith Though the Prophet be a humane person yet he speaks when he is inspired by God not by humane but divine authority God speaking by his mouth Ans. It is Veracity that is the thing that we now speak of and is the authority in question And doth not Gods Veracity give Veracity to the Speaker and use it Doth God speak by Prophets and Christs Humanity as through an inanimate Pipe or Whistle or as by Balaam's asse Doth he make no use of the reason and honesty of the speaker nor make them more knowing and more honest true and careful that they may be the fitter to be believed Is this Roman Divinity Why then do the Apostles so oft protest that they speak the truth and lye not even of that which they had seen and heard Would the Gospel have been equally credible to us if all the witnesses had in other matters been knaves and lyars 2. Reader judg whether those that accuse the Roman Clergy of Fanaticism and Enthusiasm do them any wrong while they think that God maketh them infallible by such inspiration as maketh no use of their Reason Learning or Honesty And read but what their own Historians say of Fifty Popes together besides all the rest and of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries of the Church and of the Popes that were lads and could not read Mass but were illiterate Read what their Councils have said of some whom they deposed as inhuman Monsters and judg whether it be easie to believe that any inspiration used those men as infallible deliverers of that Christian faith and see here why it is that they think wit and honesty no more necessary in Pope or Councils if God use them but as an organ-pipe or trumpet Pag. 18. When he is urged to tell me what it is that is the necessary belief of their Church which must make a man a member of it he again bids me tell him what points I make essential to a Christian and I shall save him the labour Ans. And are we indeed agreed And yet do they writeso many Volumes to the contrary Reader I take him at his word I have said that it is The belief and consent to the Baptismal Covenant that is the constitutive essence of a Christian. Remember this when they jest at Fundamentals and tell us of damnation if we believe not their Councils and the Country-Priests that are the reporters of them Remember now the extent of the Christian Church that it reacheth to all that believe and consent to the Baptismal Covenant But will these wavering men long stand to this and confess their Sect to be but a fourth or third part of the Church But perhaps they will say That words not understood are no true faith we are yet to seek what believing in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost do mean and comprehend Answ. These ignorances or artifices have too long abused unstudied men It is not now the unsearchable truth of mens subjective faith or internal acts which we dispute of But it is of necessary objective faith or what ex parte objecti is essentially necessary to true subjective faith in case it be truly believed which God only can tell And I say 1. It is no meer words spoken more or less which can prove to another the sincerity of the speakers belief of them 2. But the words of the Baptismal Profession and Covenant if sincerely believed contain all essential to the Christian faith 3. And for more or fewer words I say that the more understanding any man hath the more fully and easily he may understand the sense of those words though general and few but to an ignorant person there must be many words and oft repeated to make him understand the same thing which the other doth by these few And must we therefore have as many symbols of Christianity as there are various degrees of Understandings 4. And the Church hath in its best times taken up with the Creed as the Exposition of the Baptismal faith and if it now contain any words more than essential that crosseth not its use which was to be a just and satisfactory Explication of that Baptismal faith which had nothing but the Essentials And accordingly till faith and piety degenerated into opinion and tyranny Baptized persons were accounted Christians and members of the Catholick Church and as obliged to live as Christs Disciples in love to one another it being none but Christ himself who instituted Baptism as our Christening to be the symbol and badg of his Disciples Pag. 19. When I had prest him to a particular answer and told him what would follow upon the Answers which I supposed he might make he tells me that Divines have a hundred times told us that some things must be believed necessitate praecepti and some things necessitate medii Ans. We have heard some things some things so oft that we would fain know what things at last are necessary ut media Reader if these Writers must not be ashamed of their
tergiversation what sort of Disputants should blush would you think after all this what his answer is You shall have it in his own words And know you not that Divines are divided what are the points necessary to be believed explicitely necessitate medii Some and those the more ancient hold that the explicite belief of God of the whole Trinity of Christ his Passion Resurrection c. are necessary necessitate medii Others among the Recentiors that no more than the belief of the Deity and that he is a rewarder of our works is absolutely necessary with that necessity to be explicitely believed Now to answer your Question what it is whereby our Church-members are known I answer that 1. All those who are baptized and believe all the points of our faith explicitely if any such are to be found are undoubted members of our Church 2. All those who believe explicitely all the Artiales whatever belongs to them in particular by reason of their respective offices in the Church 3. Those who so believe all things necessary necessitate medii or necessitate praecepti extended to all adulti 4 All those who believe in that manner all things held necessary necessitate medii according to the first opinion of the more ancient Doctors 5. It is probable though not altogether so certain as the former that such as believe explicitely the Deity and that he is a rewarder of our works and the rest implicitely as contained in confuso in that are parts of the Catholick Church Baptism supposed 〈◊〉 Nowâ—… seeing all those in my four first Numbers which comprehend almost all Christians are certainly parts of the Catholick Church we have a sufficient certainly of a determinate Church consisting at least of these by reason whereof our Church has a visible consistency those of the fifth rank though not so certain not taking away the certainty of the former See you not by this Discourse that we answer sufficiently to your question by telling which are undoubted members Ans. Reader how sad is the case of mankind when such a talker as this shall go for a Champion and prevail with silly souls in the matters of Salvation against common reason and the notices of Christianity Mark here 1. He asketh me Know you not that Divines are divided Yes and I know how lamentably you have divided the Christian world See Reader what is the unity and concord of the Church of Rome Not only the Laity but their Divines are divided about the very essence of a Christian and their Church These are the men that cry up Unity as a mark of their Church and cry out of us as Schismaticks as if we were all crumbled into dust by Sects because we differ about some small circumstances of Worship or Exposition of some imposed words of men or of some difficult point of no flat necessity 2. Note here also the Infallibility of their Church and what a priviledg they have in having a Iudg of Controversies While their Doctors are divided on the question what a Christian is And Pope and Council dare not or cannot or will not determinate what maketh a Christian or member of their Church O happy infallible Judg of Controversies 3. Note also the extent of the Roman faith 〈◊〉 it is so big as that it and its circumstances fill large Volumes called the Councils and yet it is no article of their faith what Christianity is or what must constitute a member of their Church but this is left at liberty to disputes 4. Note also the great partiality of the Papists The Doctors may be divided about the essence of Christianity and may deny faith in Christ to be particularly necessary to a Christian. But if a man believe not that Rome is the Mistris of all Churches and the Pope the Universal Governourr and that there is no bread and wine in the Lords Supper when the Priest hath consecrated he is to be exterminated or burnt as a Heretick and Princes deposed that will not execute it 5. Note here that here is not a word in all this of believing the Pope to be the Governour of all the Churches in the world Either they take this to be essential to a member of their Church or not If they do are they not juglers and ashamed of their faith when they thus hide it If not what is become of their Sectarian Church and all their accusations and condemnations of most of the Christian World who believe no such office of the Pope And what a Society is that where the reception of the Pars Imperans is not necessary to every subject 6. Note here whether the Roman Religion be mutable or not and whether constancy be a note of their verity When he professeth that the ancient Doctors and the Recentiors or Novelists do differ about the very essence of Christianity Have these Recentiors antiquity to boast of 7. Note also from hence the validity of their common argument from Tradition As if all their Church were now and always of one mind when at present they are divided about the essence of Christianity and the Recentiors forsake the Ancients But had these Ancients Tradition for their opinion or not If they had how come the Recentiors to forsake it If not what an insufficient thing is your Tradition that hath not told you what a Christian or Church-member is And yet we must take this Tradition as sufficient to tell us what orders and ceremonies Peter setled at Rome 8. I pray you note that even their ancient Doctors opinion which is all that must keep his cause from utter shame he durst not describe in answer to my question but having named five words God the whole Trinity Christ his Passion and Resurrection he craftily shuts it up with an Eâ—… caetera so that if you suppose him to say that these five things are all that they require he may deny it because he added an c. If you ask what are the â—…est you are where we begun an c. is all the answer 9. Well let us peruse his five particular sort of members distinctly which make up their Church and try 〈◊〉 be the mâ—…ey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 or whether the Reader will not wonder that such trained disputers have no more to say nor a more plausible sort of fraud to use 1. His first sort of visible members are All those that are baptized and believe explicitely all the points of our faith if any such are to be found Ans. Is not this a modest Parenthesis whether any such are to be found he seemeth uncertain and yet saith These are the undoubted members of our Church The undoubted members when he doubteth himself whether any such are to be found And can we find the Church by them then And no wonder that they are not to be found for note Reader that he never tells you here yet at all what the faith of their Church is but only that if any have it all they
what is the notorious Tradition of all the Christian world I that search after it in all the books that I can get can scarce give a good account of the Tradition of much of the greater part of Christians Nay no Universal Tradition at all is notorious to most Christians much less to all the Heathens and Infidels on earth It is not notorious to most in England what is the Tradition of the Abassians Syrians Armenians Greeks no nor of the Italians French Spaniards Germans c. That is notorious to Scholars which is not so to the unlearned and to Antiquaries which is not so to other Scholars Here W. I. answereth two things 1. That to know some Laws of the Commonwealth is of importance to salvation 2. That God should have made a visible Government imprudently whose Governors could not be known but by revelation R. B. 1. And how comes importing to be put instead of necessity to salvation This is but fraud 2. It were worth our diligent enquiry could we prevail with these men to open to us this mystery How it is that the Pope and his Council may be known to be the supreme Governors of the world without revelation I will abate my Antagonists the answering of all the rest if they will but be intreated to answer me this one question It seems that it is by no promise of Christ no word of God no nor by any revelation of the Spirit or Miracles that we must know them to be our Governors I confess I can know without revelation that they claim such authority as any Traytor or Usurper may do but that they have such authority it is past my reach to conjecture which way it is to be proved without revelation But I intreat the Reader to remember this in all our further disputes with them That they confess that it is not by revelation by Scripture Spirit Miracles or Tradition made known that the Pope and his Council are the supreme Governors of the Universal Church And yet we must know this before we can believe in Christ or believe the Scripture to be true And we must know it of necessity to salvation And another difficulty here seemeth insuperable viz. Seeing this is not a matter of Revelation it can be no matter of Divine faith and if so how is all other faith resolved into it and how is the belief of this which is no belief called our implicite belief of all the word of God can no man be saved that cannot unriddle all these contradictions Next I further noted R. B. That if he lay the sufficiency on the respect to all mens various capacities of receiving the notice then they can never know who are Hereticks but if they lay it on a general publication then all or almost all men are Hereticks being unavoidably ignorant of many things so published To this he saith That he Judgeth of no mans conscience Ans. But do not they judg of them that burn them and depose Princes for not exterminating them He saith It is sufficient 1. that such as acknowledg themselves they know such points of faith to be propounded by the Roman Church which I infallibly believe to be the true Church and that notwithstanding reject them as errors give me ground to presume them to be Hereticks Ans. 1. I perceive that it is not the Pope only that is infallible but you also are infallible in believing his Church But alas how many are deceived and deceivers that call themselves infallible 2. But if your belief in the Pope were infallible must all others be hereticks and be burnt that have not attained to your degree of knowledg or self-conceitedness 3. Just now you said the Governours of the Church need no revelation to make them known and now it is an article of your belief That the Roman Church is the true Church so slippery is your foundation 4. But what meaneth that hard word The true Church Is it not enough if it were proved a true Church Either you mean the universal Church or a particular Church if the former why speak you so sneakingly and did not speak out that the Roman Church is all the whole Church that Christ hath on earth Which assertion we abhor and despair of any thing like a proof of it If the latter what is it to us whether Rome be a true Church any more than whether Ephesus Thessalonica or such other be so 5. But to leave your parenthesis what 's all this to the most of the Christian world that do not acknowledg themselves that they know such points of faith to be propounded by the Church of Rome There is not one of five hundred among us that ever read your Councils nor knoweth one of many things propounded by you to be such And are all these now absolved from heresie How long will that be their security if the burning and exterminating Religion should prevail And is it my hard fate to become a Heretick more than all the rest of my neighbours because I have read your Councils when they have not Then I would counsel all that love not to be burned to take heed of medling with such Councils I have oft read how dangerous a thing you judg it for unlicensed men to read Gods word and of many that have been burned for it and its consequents and how you account it the way to Heresie But I have not oft before read how dangerous it is to read your Decrees or to know all that the Church of Rome propoundeth for he that knoweth them all must have a very ready commandable faith such as can believe in despight of Sense Reason Scripture and Tradition to escape the guilt of Heresie But I pray you were you not inexorable executioners when it cometh next to the burning of Dissenters that you will spare all that confess not that they know what is propounded by your Church yea though they take not their parish-priest that tells it them to be infallible especially if they know him to be a common lyar or one that holds that lying for mens good is a venial sin or none W. I. 2. Such as oppose what all visible Churches have most notoriously practised and believed as Divine truths while they were so universally taught and practised I may safely presume to be Hereticks R. B. 1. No Oâ—…dipus can tell whether while here refer to believed or to oppose If to the latter then neither Abassines Armenians Greeks or Protestants are Hereticks for they oppose not such points while they were so universally taught and practised whatever their forefathers did for they have themselves so many partners as derogates from the pretended Universality of the Adversaries But if by all the visible Church you mean all except themselves or if the word while relate to believe then the Church of Rome are characterized by you for certain Hereticks for I defie impudence it self in challenging it to deny that the Universal
taught thee to understand what a Pope is and what makes him so and who is he thou art far more teachable than I am for he leaveth me more at a loss than he found me CHAP. IV. What mean you by the word Bishop W. J. I mean by Bishop such a Christian Pastor as hath power and jurisdiction to govern the inferior Pastors Clergy and people within his Diocess and to confirm and give holy Orders to such as are subject to him R. B. Here I desired to know of him whether he meant a power given by God or by men and if by God whether mediately or immediately But this he was not willing to answer Saying W. J. The definition abstracts from particulars and subsists without determining that question R. B. But sure equivocals make no good definitions and power or Episcopacy given by God and given by man cannot be ejusdem speciei and therefore the word as to them is equivocal Here therefore I asked Q. 1. Whether seeing they seem to make the Pope himself but a humane creature or jure humano they set not the Bishop above him if the Bishop be jure divino And if not whether they make not all their Churches humane things or however the Roman Church to be humane and so its form not necessary to Salvation if the Pope be humane W. J. Where said I that Election was jure humano that there be an election of him is jure divino by competent Electors the determination who hic nunc are competent is jus Ecclesiasticum Know you not that neither the Electors nor Consecrators of him give him Papal jurisdiction but Christ R. B. 1. You say that there is no need of Revelation to know the Church-Governours therefore they are not of Gods making unless it be jure naturali which none pretend For God no way giveth right but by natural evidence of this will or by Revelation either natural in the constitution of the Creatures or natural by Providential alterations or by Supernatural notice 2. If God have not annexed the power to any one sort of Electors choice or have given no power to any determinate persons to choose a Pope nor to any to choose the Choosers then either God giveth no power to the Pope or else he giveth Papal power to every one that shall be chosen by whomsoever The later you abhor for then any man might be Pope at his pleasure and there might be a thousand at once The former consequence is plain because if God make not every man a Pope but one man in the world the Donation of God must by God be some way applied to that person rather than to others Now if God hath neither impowred any determinate or specified persons to elect him rather than others nor any to elect Electors nor yet made the Consecrators the determining appliers there is no way by which God applieth it more to that man than to others You neither do nor can name any other way Now you confess that God hath not given the power of Election to any determinate persons but that the Electors may be sometimes people sometime Presbyters or both sometime Princes sometime Bishops sometime Cardinals All that God saith you hold is that they be competent But this determineth of none And you neither do nor can tell us to whom God hath given the power to judg antecedently of the Electors competency and to choose the choosing persons without which it will never be any mans work unless all that think themselves competent may choose Popes You dare not undertake to tell us whether it be all the Christian world or only the City of Rome Princes Prelates Presbyters people or who that God hath made choosers of the choosers So that you cannot say that God giveth the Pope his power by your way 3. But on the by I desire those that say that their Electors or Ordainers give Ministers their power to learn here this truth from you that God giveth the power by his Donative word and men do but determine of the person that shall from God receive it But yet a determination there must be and that of Gods appointment R. B. I told him that R. Smith called Bishop of Calcedon Governour of the English Papists ubi supra confesseth it to be no part of their faith that the Pope is St. Peters successor jure divino He answereth W. J. You should have done well to cite the place for I have no time to seek whole books over R. B. Note what trust is due to this sort of men I had to him in the same book cited the words in pag. 289. of my book and R. Calcedons book cap. 5. the words are To us it suffereth that the Bishop of Rome is St. Peter 's successor and this all the Fathers testifie and all the Catholick Church believeth but whether it be jure divino or humano is no point of faith Now when he came to the words where I cited them he wisely takes no notice of them And now when I refer him to the citation which was a few leaves before the weary wary man instead of an answer saith I should have done well to cite the place for he hath not time to seek whole books But what good will well-doing do to such a one as you where the better it is the worse you like it Is not this a false intimation that I did not cite them R. B. Qu. 4. I asked How shall we know who hath this Episcopal power What election or consecration is necessary to it If I know not who hath it I am never the better He answereth W. J. As you know who hath temporal power by an universal or most common consent of the people The Election is different according to different times places and other circumstances Episcopal Consecration is not absolutely necessary to true Episcopal Iurisdiction R. B. More hard things still 1. I know who is King in temporal power in our hereditary Kingdom by the constitution of the Monarchy confest by all men to be hereditary and so attested by Law and History and by most credible testimony and uncontrouled fame that CHARLES the Second is the true Heir And in Elective Kingdoms as Poland it is known by publick undenied testimony But do Bishops become such by their birthright and hereditary Title who hath asserted that If it be by Election the Electors must have just power to elect 2. But what mean you by common consent of the people No man can tell whether you join those words to know or to hath If you mean that I must know it by the peoples consent as notifying it to me it 's nothing to our question now nor is it always true The greater part of the people may mistake the Prince's right and suppose it to be in a Usurper and yet the Prince doth not lose his right by that nor must I believe them And I think in your Schisms
deny the Popes Soveraignty and that as by tradition And how lame their tradition is which is carried but by their private affirmation and is but the unproved saying of a Sect. To this he saith W. J. That this belongs to our Controversie and not to the explication of our terms And so I must pass it by R. B. Q. 2. What proof or notice must satisfie as in particulars what is true tradition W. J. Such as with proportion is a sufficient proof or notice of the Laws and Customs of temporal Kingdoms R. B. But you durst not tell us what that is that is proportionable This was answered before I added Is it necessary for every Christian to be able to weigh the credit of contradicting-parties When one half of the world say one thing and the other another thing what opportunity have ordinary Christians to compare them and discern the moral advantages on each side As in the case of the Popes Soveraignty when two or three parts are against it and the rest for it Doth salvation lye on this W. J. As much as they have to know which books are and which are not Canonical Scripture among those that are in controversie R. B. That these books were sent to the Churches from the Apostles 1. Is a matter of fact 2. And an assertion easily remembred 3. And all the Churches are agreed of all that we take as Caâ—…cal 4. And yet men that practically believe but the Creed and Summaries of Religion shall certainly be saved though they erroneously doubted of some of the uncontroverted books as Chronicles Esther Canticles c. much more that receive not the controverted Apocrypha But 1. Your Traditions in question are many particulars hard for to be remembred 2. And that of matter of faith and fact where a word forgotten or altered changeth the thing 3. And most Christians in the world are against it 4. And you would lay the peoples salvation on it yea and make it one of your cheating quibbles to prove your religion safer than ours because some Protestants say a Papist may be saved but you say that Protestants cannot be saved that is because you have less sincerity and charity Is not here difference enough If you hold that all they are damned that believed not that all the Apocryphal books were Canonical peruse Bishop Cousins Catalogue of Councils and Fathers that received them not and see whether you damn not almost all the Church But if you confess that there is no more necessity to salvation for men to be the subjects of your Pope than there is that they try all the Apocrypha whether it be Canonical and know it why then do you found your belief that Christ is the Son of God upon your forebelieving that the Pope is his Vicar or your Church his Church And why do you make such a stir in the world to affright poor people to believe and be subject to your Pope I here asked him Must all the people here take the words of their present Teacher And he durst not answer yea or nay but as much as they do for the determination of Canonical Scriptures Ans. If it be no more it giveth them no certainty but by the belief of one man as a Teacher they are brougâ—…â—…o â—…cern themselves those notifying evidences by which the Teacher himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 books are 〈◊〉 And if they attain no higher than to believe fide Dâ—… the 〈◊〉 Doctrines the doubting or ignorance of some texts or books will not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Scripture that impress of Divine authority which to a prepared heaâ—… oâ—… reader will 〈◊〉 convince him that they are of God though not râ—…e him of every particular Text and Book R. B. Then most of the world must believe against you because most of the teachers are against you Tradition quite â—…eth Pâ—…er W. J. There is no Congregation of Christians united in the same profession of faith external Communion and dependance of Pastors which is contrary in belief â—…o 〈◊〉 any way to be parallel with us in extent and multitude Prove there is and name it All our adversaries together are a patcht body of a thousand different professions and as much adversaries one to another as they are to us the one justifying us in that wherein the other condemn us so that no beed is to be taken to their testimonies non sunt convenientia R B. They agree not with your interest But if the Testimonies and Tradition of two or three parts of the Christian world be not to be heeded I doubt the testimony of your third or fourth part will prove much less regardable Let us try the case for here you are utterly confounded 1 Indeed none that our ordinary language calleth a Congregation that is men that meet locally together are so big as all your party But a Church far better united than you are is far greater than yours Those that have all the Essentials of the one Church of Christ are that one Church of Christ But the Reformed Churches the Greeks Armenians Abassines Syrians Iacobites Georgians Copties c. have all the Essentials of the one Church of Christ Therefore they are that one Church of Christ. The Major is undeniable The Minor is thus proved They that hold the same Head of the Church believing in the same God the Father Son and â—…ly Gâ—…st and are devoted to him in the same Baptismal Covenant and believe all the Articles of faith desire and practice essential to Christianity in the Creed Lords-prayer and Decalogue and receiâ—…e all the â—…re as Gods â—…ord which iâ—…â—…y here received by us as Canonical these have all the â—…ls of the one Church of Christ and much more But such are all the forementioned Christians Ergo c. The Head and the Body are the constitutive parts of the Church The Head is Christ the Body are Christians 1. They are united in the same profession of faith viz. the same Baptism â—…reed and Scriptures 2. They are united in the same external communion if you mean external worship of God in all the Essentials of it and much more They have the same Scriptures read and 〈◊〉 they preach the same Gospel they use the same Sacraments of the Covenant of Grace viz. Baptism and the Lords Supper yea they are commonly for some Confirmation Ordination 〈◊〉 of penitence and absolution of Pâ—…nitents Matrimony c. though they agree not whether the name of Sacraments be fit for them all much less Sacraments of the Coveâ—… Grace they observe the same Lords day for publick worship they pray confess sin give thanks and praises to God and hold the communion of Saints and communication to each other in want This is their external communion 3. They have the same depenâ—… of the people on their Pastors as the Ministers of Christ authorized to 〈◊〉 and guide the Churches and to go before them in the publick worshipping of God But if
Virgin Mary and yet you take it for a controversie c. are these as sufficiently proposed as that there is a God or Christ 3. When Petavius citeth the words of most of the Doctors or Fathers that wrote before the Council of Nice and of Eusebius himself that was of the Council and subscribed it as being for Arrianisme or dangerously favouring it did all these Fathers think that the proposal of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was as sufficient as of a God or Christ. § 15. He taketh upon him to clear his Argument by two deluding instances which suppose an equality in the revelation But he that knoweth not 1 that it was long before all the Canonical books were equally known to be Gods word 2. And that yet it is not equally certain what Councils are true and what Traditions 3. And that there is great difference between one Text of Scripture and another in intelligible places else why do their Expositions so disagree yea of Councils too 4. And that the Hereticks have still pleaded Scripture and Tradition and Councils as well as the Orthodox as the Eutychians c. did the Council of Nice all equally professing to believe Scripture Tradition and true Councils but not equally understanding them I say he that knoweth not all this knoweth not the matters of Fact which should be known in this Dispute But how he will excuse the Papists from Heresie by his Reasoning I know not e. g. Christ Instituting his Supper saith equally 1. This is my Body and This is the New Testament 2. And equally saith Take Eat and Drink this The Papists 1. Do not believe that literally this Cup is the New Testament though equally said 2. Nor do they believe that they must Drink of it though equally Commanded Ergo by W. I's Arguing The Papists believe not that the Bread is literally Christs Body or that it must be Eaten because of Christs Truth or Authority that spake it else they would have believed both § 16. He addeth a Supposition like the rest that a Calvinist is assured that the Pope is not the Antichrist by the same Authority which he acknowledgeth to be the sufficient proposer of the Articles of his Faith And yet here may lie one of his usual Equivocations The Authority of the Author and prime Revealer of the Gospel is one and the Authority of the prime Instrumental Revealers is another The first is Gods the second is the Prophets and Apostles Tell us where either of these say that the Pope it not Antichrist But the Authority of a distant Messenger and Teacher is of a third rank A Drunken or Fornicating Priest may be such a Messenger or Teacher and may give an Infidel those Reasons of the Faith which by Gods Blessing may bring him to Believe And it is possible such a Priest and a Synod of such may say that the Pope is not Antichrist and another Synod may say he is § 17. I came next to Answer a question of his own Whether I take the Church of Rome and the Protestants to be one Church I Answered that They have two Heads and We but one As they are meer Christians united in Christ they are one Church with us as Papists united in the Pope they are not And if any so hold the Papacy as not really to hold Christianity those are not of the Christian Church with us otherwise they are though a Corrupt Diseased Erroneous part To this he saith who ever called a King and his Viceroy a Captain and Lieutenant two Heads The Pope is a dependent Officer Answ. 1. But if you distinguish between a Visible Head and an Invisible and say that the Pope only is the Visible Head of the Church as Visible and that Christ is only the Invisible Head by Influx and that it were a Monstrous Body if it had not such a Visible Head as you do 2. And if this Visible Head be an Usurpation never owned by Christ then I have reason to distinguish the Policy which is of Gods making from that which is an Usurpation and of Mens relations accordingly If any King should say I am a Vice-God or Gods Viceroy to Govern all the Earth â—…nd that by Gods Appointment and none can be saved that Obey me not I would distinguish between the World or particular Persons as Gods Subjects and as this Vice-Gods Subjects § 18. But he saith Is it possible for two Persons to be Papists and one to destroy his Christianity and the other not Answ. Yes very possible and common That is one holdeth those Errors which by consequence subvert some Article of the Christian Faith but as to the Words not understood or not understanding the consequences or only speculatively and at the same time holdeth the subverted Articles not discerning the contradiction fastly and practically another doth the contrary Even as a Monothelite or a Nestorian or Eutychian may either be one that only as to the Words or superficially erreth and in sence or practically holds the Truth or one that is contrary This should seem no strange thing to you for even a Man that professeth only Christianity may do it but Nomine tenus not understanding it or superficially and not practically and be no true Christian indeed § 19. When I exprest my hope that even he and I as Christians are of one Church he will not believe it 1. Because I am of a Church by my self neither of theirs nor any other part 2. Because I have no Faith Answ. It seems then that meer Christianity is no Faith and that there are none of the meer Christian Church but I. But who will believe the latter and when will he prove either An Answer to W. J's Seventh CHAPTER § 1. TO his Question Why we separated from them I Answered that as they are Christians we separate not from them As Papists we were never of them but our Fore-fathers thought Repentance of Sin to be no Sin If by Popery they separate from Christianity they are damnable Separatists if they do not we are of the same Church whether they will or not 〈◊〉 To this he saith That We separate from them as much as the Pelagians Donatists Acacians Luciferians Nestorians and Eutychians did from the Church Answ. 1. The Doctrinal Errors and the Separation are of different consideration The Pelagians Erred as some Dominicans say the Iesuites do The Donatists like the Papists appropriated the Church to their own Bishops and Party we do none of this Lucifer Calaritanus was too Zealous against the Arrians not communicating with them upon so short Repentance as others did But they went not so far as Crab saith the Roman Council in Sylvester's dayâ—… did that Received no Repentance before forty Years Nor so far as the honest Elebertine Council in the number of Years of Mens exclusion from the Communion I take Lucifer for Erroneous and Schismatical but not comparable to the Papists who err far more and yet separate from most of the
the Arrians yea and of Marcian Leo Zeno Anastaslus Iustine almost all the Churches of the Empire continued charging each others with Heresie and Councils charging and condemning Councils Bishops deposing and cursing Bishops and Monks as their Souldiers fighting it out to blood when the obeying or cursing the Council of Calcedon divided the Bishops for many Princes reigns and when one part called the other Nestorians and the other called them Eutychians almost every where and when after that the Monothelites cause was in many Emperors Reign uppermost one while and down another and navicula Petri that alone scaped before was thus drowned by Honorius if Councils belie him not and Popes with the rest When the very same Bishops as at Ephesus and Calcedon went one way in one Council and another way in the next and subscribed to one Edict e. g. of Basiliscus and quickly to the contrary of another and cryed 〈◊〉 we did it through fear How should we then know by Fathers Bishops and Councils what was their concordant Commentary of the Scripture 4. I ask you what exposition of the Universal Church is it that we profess to differ from for our novelties name them if you can Either by the Universal Church you mean properly all Christians or most If All alas when and where shall we find their agreement in any more than we hold with them If most do we not know that the most two parts to one are against the Popes Sovereignty which is Essential to your Church Do not the Greeks once a year excommunicate or curse you To tell us now That above two parts of the Christian world are none of the Church because they differ from the Universal Church and that the third part is that Universal which he that believeth not is no Christian are words that deserve indignation and not belief and without the medium of Swords and Flames and tormenting inquisitions on one side and great Bishopricks and Abbies Wealth Ease and Domination on the other had long ago been scorned out of the Christian world § 10. But he also denyeth that we believe with a saving divine faith any of the said mysteries and that our Profession general and particular affirmeth it Answ. It 's like the Devil the Accuser of the brethren will deny it too of our Hearts we will not enter a dispute of our Professions let our books be witnesses Reader canst thou believe that we profess not to believe any Christian verity with a Divine faith yea but the man meaneth that it is not a Divine faith if it be not from the beleif of the Pope and his Party And how then shall we believe the Popes own authority § 11. II. My ad Argument to prove that we hold all the Essentials of Christianity was Those that profess as much and much more of the Christian Faith and Religion as the Catechumens were ordinarily taught in the ancient Churches and the Competentes at Baptisme did profess do profess the true Christian Religion in all it's Essentials but so do the Protestants c. To this he calls for Form again as if here were no Universal and then denyeth the Major but his words shew that indeed it is the Minor Because the Catechumens professed to believe implicitly all that was taught as matter of Faith by the Catholick Church in that Article I believe the Holy Church which the Protestants do not Answ. An unproved fiction on both parts 1. Shew us in Fathers Councils or any true Church-Records that Catechumens were then used to make any other exposition of those words than we do Did they ever profess that a Pope or a General Council cannot erre de fide did they not call many of those Councils General though violent and erroneous which they cursed The great doubt then was which party was the true Church and Christians then judged not of Faith by the Church-men but of the Church by the Faith else they had not so oft rejected and Hereticated many Popes Patriarches and the farre greater part of the Bishops as they did 2. And Protestants deny no article which ab omnibus ubique et semper as Lerinens speaks was accounted necessary to â—…ation yea it is one reason why they cannot be Papists because most of the Catholick Church are against the Papacy and all were against it or without it for many hundred Years after Christ. Let the Reader peruse Cyril Hieros Catech. August and all others that give us an account of the Churches Catechism and see whether he can find in it I believe that the Bishop of Rome is made by Christ the Governour of all the World and is Infallible in himself or with his Council and that we must believe all that they say is the Word of God because they say it or else we cannot be saved But it is an easie way to become the Lords of all the World if they can perswade all Men to believe that none but their Subjects can be saved 3. And what an useless thing to they make Gods Word that they may set up their own Expositions in its stead We know that the Word supposeth that the Ignorant must have Teachers Without Teaching Children cannot so much as learn to Speak And Oportet discentem credere fide humanâ that is he must suppose his Teacher wiser than himself or else how can he judge him fit to Teach him But what is Teaching but Teaching the Learner to know the same things that the Teacher doth by the same Evidence Is it only to know what the Teacher holdeth without knowing why If so must we know it by Word or Writing If by Word only when and where shall every Man and Woman come to be Catechized by the Universal Church That is by all the Christian World Or is every Priest the Universal Church Or is he Infallible And how come Words spoken to be more intelligible than words written Doth writing make them unintelligible Why then are their Councils and Commentaries written But if Writing will serve why not God's writing as well as theirs If God say Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart Are not these words intelligible till a Pope Expound them When the Pope permitted his Casuists to expound them so as that Loving God once a Moneth or once a Year will serve for Salvation and that Attrition which is Repeating only out of Fear with the Sacrament of Penance will also serve Cannot a Man be saved that Believeth Repenteth and Loveth God upon the bare Commands of God and Scripture without hearing what all the Christian World or Councils say If I make to my self no Graven Image so as to bow down and Worship towards it by virtue of the second Commandment will this damn me because I receive not the Papists obliteration or contradiction of this Commandment as an Exposition If all the Docrees of Councils be as necessary as the Creed and Scripture why were not the Councils read in the
Church still three hundred Years before there was any General Council as well as the Scriptures And why do not Hierome Chrysostome Augustine c. Exhort Meâ—… and Women to read the Councils as much as the Scriptures At least methinks you should allow the Scripture an Equality with Councils But if God have spoken that which is nonsence or unintelligible till Councils or lopes Expound it Scripture is far from having such Equality Then Paul and Peter spake not intelligibly but P. Paul 4 and 5. and the Council of Trent did Then Councils may save them that know not Scripture but Scripture cannot save them that know not the Councils And do all the Papists Men and Women know the Councils In short If a Tyrannical Sect of Priests can get this Monopoly or Peculiar of expounding all Gods Laws and Word so that the Scripture will not save any but by their Expositions it will become more the word of the Pope or Council than of God And when all is done every Priest must be the pope and Council to us that never saw them and must be the immediate Object of our Infallible belief And if the Pope can so communicate to so great a swarm the sweetness of participating in his Universal Dominion and Infallibility no wonder if Self-love bid them serve his Usurpation But by that time every Woman must be sure 1. That the Pope is Christs Vicar General indeed 2. That with a Council he is Infallible 3. And that Gods Revelation must be received only on this Deliverers Authority 4. And the sence of all on his Exposition 5. And know how Men believed the first three hundred Years before such Popes or Councils ever were 6. And can tell certainly which Councils be true and which false and which of them must be believed and which not 7. And is sure that every Priest doth Infallibly Report all this to her 8. And doth give a true Exposition of each Council before another Council do Expound them 9. And be sure that she hath all that those Councils have made necessary and have not had a sufficient proposal of more I say by that time all this certainty be attained the Popish Faith will appear to be harder work than they think that hear Deceivers say Believe as the Church believeth and you shall be saved Judge how far the Pope Exalteth himself above God when it is thus confidently told us That we nor no Men believe with a Divine and Saving Faith any one word of God if we believe it meerly because God hath given it us in the Sealed Scriptures and add not the Expositions of the Papal Church § 12. My next Argument was Those that explicitely profess the belief of all that was contained in the Churches Creeds for six hundred Years after Christ and much more Holy truth and implicitely to believe all that is contained in the Holy Scriptures and to be willing and diligent for the explicite knowledge of all the rest with a resolution to Obey all the will of God which they know do profess the true Christian Religion in all its Essentials But so do the Protestants c. Here again the Formalist wants Form An Enumeration of particulars in a Description is not equal to an Universal with him unless he read All. And then he denyeth the Major 1. Because our General Profession is contradicted in particulars Answ. 1. Bare Accusation without Proof is more easie than honest 2. There is a contradiction direct and understood which proveth that the Truth is not believed and a contradiction by consequence not understood which stands with a belief of the Truth The latter all Men in the World have that have any Moral Error 3. O what self-condemning Men are these How certainly hath a Papist no true Faith if abundance of contrary Errors nullifie Faith His second Reason is You distinguish not between implicitely contained in general Principles and explicitely contained in the Creed and Scriptures Answ. A very Logical Answer To what purpose should I do it His third is the strength Creeds and Scriptures are not enough Traditions and General Councils in matters of Faith must be believed Answ. 1. I would matters of Practice were more at Liberty that Princes were not bound to Murder or exterminate all their Subjects as Hereticks that will not be Hereticks and inhumane and to Rebel perfidiously against those Princes that are Sentenced by his Holiness for not doing it 2. Alas who can be saved on these Mens terms If the belief of all the Creeds and all the Scriptures be not a Faith big enough to save him And yet perhaps you may hear again that Men may be saved without any of all this save believing that there is a Rewarding God and that the Pope and his Subjects are the Infallible Church Universal And it is but proving an insufficient proposal and we are delivered from Traditions Councils Scriptures Creeds and all And never was the proposal of Councils more insufficient than when Councils were most frequent when in the Reign of Constantius Valens Valentinian Theodosius Arcadius and Honorius good Theodosius junior Marcian Leo Zeno Anastasius Iustin Iustinian and long after Anathematizing one General Council and crying up another and setting Council against Council was too much of the Religion of those times 4. Again he denyeth that Protestants not excused by Invincible Ignorance believe any Article with a Saving Faith Answ. Easie Disputing Cannot a Quaker say so too by us and you But how unhappy a thing is Knowledge then and how blessed a thing is Invincible Ignorance which may prevent so many Mens Damnation § 13. I proved the Major by the express Testimony of many Papists ad hominem To which he saith It is to no purpose For our Question is not of what is to be believed expresly only but of what is to be believed both expresly and implicitely of all Christians respectively Answ. Reader Judge with what Ingenuity these Men Dispute And how they make nothing of giving up all their cause and yet Cant on with any of the most senseless words He had largely enough told us before that the belief of General Truths explicitely is the Implicite belief of the contained particulars though unknown to the Believer I am now proving that Protestants explicite Faith leaveth out no Article necessary to be explicitely believed To this end I cite Bellarmine and Costerus and after many others consessing what I say in plainest words even the sufficiency of our enumeration He denyeth none of my proof as to explicite belief And do we need any more Is not all that which he calleth explicite belief the meer denomination of the Explicite from the particulars implyed in it Can any Man want an Implicite belief that wanteth no Explicite belief If I am not bound explicitely to believe that the Pope and his Council is the Universal Church or the Infallible deliverer of Traditions or Expounder of Scripture or my rightful Governours how am I
sincerity but the very Being of them is the Papists confutation of us § 18. Secondly I proved it from our knowledge and sense of our own Acts. When I know and feelmy Love shall I believe a Pope that never saw me that tells me I do not know or feel it To this his easie Answer serveth He saith I do not feel that I truly Love God or his Servants if I be a Formal Protestant my Heart deceives me Answ. No wonder if all these Priests are Infallible that know all our Hearts so much better than we But who shall be Judge The true searcher of Hearts If the Fruits must be the Evidence I should rather fear that such Murderers of hundred thousands as killed the Waldenses Albigenses French English Dutch c. were like to be without Love than all those meek and Godly Protestants that I have known for no Murderer hath Eternal Life But forma is sometime taken for figura and for outward appearance only And such formal Protestants as have but the cloathing of Christianity have not indeed the Love of God § 19. He addeth What would you say to an Arrian a Turk or Jew that would urge the like knowledge or feeling Answ. The same that I would do to a bloody Papist And'I would tell him that if a Bediam think that he is a Prince or a Fool that he is Wise or a Beggar that he is a Lord or an illiterate Man that he is Learned it doth not follow that no Man can know that he is a Prince or a Lord or Wise or Learned I would tell him that there can be no effect without the adequate cause nor is there a cause where there is no effect And lie that perceiveth not God's amiableness in the necessary demonstrations of it cannot Love that Goodness he perceiveth not nor can any desire or seek the Heaven which he believeth not And I would tell him that he that believeth not in a Redeemer or a Sanctifier cannot Love him nor can he Love Believers and Godly Men as such who knoweth not that they as such are Lovely And that if really he Love God and Holyness and the hopes of Heaven before this World it will work in his seeking them above the World If you had Argued rationally against our Love of God and Holyness from any proved defect in the necessary cause which is in you we had been Obliged thankfully to hear and try your words But let Reason judge e. g. whether that man be like to love this world best and be loth to leave it who looketh to go at death into the flames of Purgatory or he that looketh to go to the glorious presence of his Redeemer And whether he be like to Love God best that look eth to be tormented by him in those flames or he that looketh to passe into heavenly perfect Love Christ telleth us that forgiving much causeth Love If a man were to torment you so long would it make you love him or at least is it a good proof that Protestants Love not God because they believe not that he will torment them in flames but presently comfort them § 20. II. My ad Argument to prove the perpetual visibility of our Church was this The Church whose Faith is contained in the Holy Scripture as its rule in all points necessary to Salvation hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on Earth But the Church whose Faith is contained in the Holy Scriptures as it's rule in all points necessary to Salvation is it of which the Protestants are members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible c. Here he wanteth Form again because the praedicate of the Minor is the Subject of the conclussion and then he distinguisheth of the Maior of containing Involutely in General principles he granteth it but if expresly he denyeth it Answ. 1. The marvellous Logician it seems is but for one mood or figure but by what authority or Reason 2. He denyeth that the Churches Faith in all points necessary to Salvation is expresly contained in the Scripture I proved the contrary ad hominem before out of Bellarmine and Costerus plain words and shall by and by further prove it Mark again the Papists value of the Holy Scriptures he that explicitly believeth all that it expresly delivereth and no more say these men cannot be saved and yet if they believe none of it but a rewarding Deity say most or some more of the Creed say others men may be saved if they do but believe that all is Gods word and truth which the Pope and his Priests or Council say is such Next he distinguisheth of all things necessary to Salvation to be by all distinctly known and expresly believed and so he granteth the Scripture-sufficiency Very good Now all that is so necessary to a distinct knowledge and express belief is there But of all things to be Believed implicitly and distinctly known he denyeth it These distinctions supposed saith he I deny your Consequence Answ. Here is all new still 1. He calleth my Conclusion my Consequence and reciteth it 2. What he meaneth by things to be distinctly known by all and yet Believed but implicitely is past my understanding having to do with that man that hath all this while described implicite Belief by the express Belief of some meer General truth And must men know all that distinctly which they Believe not distinctly but in their general the man sure was confounded or confoundeth me The General to be Believed is the Pope and Councils authority in propounding and expounding Gods word This is their saving Faith the Belief of all that they propose is implicitely contained in this but must all this be distinctly known by all and yet not distinctly Believed The first would damn all that know not every one of their Councils decrees de fide the ad will shew that they Believe nothing at all for he that knoweth distinctly what the Pope saith and yet Believeth it not distinctly cannot Believe the general of his veracity But perhaps he spake distributively of two sorts of Faith viz. both the Implicite and the Explicite and so meant to deny the Scripture-sufficiency only to the first if so I shewed the flat contradiction of it before Where there is all that is necessary to be Believed expresly eo nomine there is all that is necessary to be Believed implicitely because to be Believed implicitly with this man is but to be the unknown consequent or inclose of that which is Believed expresly § 21. For the proof of my Major the Scripture-sufficiency as to all things commonly necessary to Salvation after Bellarmine and Costerus I have cited the plain words at large of 1. Ragus in Council Basil. Bin. p. 299. 2. Gerson de exam doct p. 2. cont 2. 3. Durandus in Praefat. Hierom. in hym 4. Aquinas 22. 9. 1. à 10. ad 1. de Verit. disp de fide q.
10. ad 11. 5. Scatus in Prolegom in sect 1. 6. Greg. Armin. in Prol. e. g. q. 1. art 2. Resp. fol. 3. 4. 7. Guil. Parisiens de Legib. c. 16. p. 46. 8. Bellarmine again de verbo Dei li. 10. c. 10. ad arg 5. c. And then I most fully proved it out of the ancient Church-Doctors But to all these he giveth such frivolous Answers that it irketh me to weary the Reader by repeating and answering them And he that will faithfully peruse the Authors words I think will either need no other confutation of him or is uncapable of understanding one when he seeth it The fore-confuted contradiction of sufficient explicite and yet not sufficient implicite is the chief and next a vain supposition that to say that Scripture is sufficient to all Theological points and conclusions is less than to say it is sufficient to necessary Articles of Faith and if any of them speak of the Churches exposition he denyeth the Scripture-sufficiency as a rule and yet their Councils need exposition too § 22. III. My 3d. Argument for our Churches perpetual visibility was If the Roman Church as Christian though not as Papal hath been visible ever since the dayes of the Apostles then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the dayes of the Apostles but the Antecedent is their own Therefore they may not deny the Consequent Here he wants Form again because as Christian is in the Antecedent and not in the sequel Answ. He might have seen that it is but an Expository term in a parenthesis and so the same exposition in the consequent is supposed Next he saith that it is a fallacy a secundum quid ad simpliciter Answ. so then the Church as Christian is not the Christian Church but secundum quid but we that know no other profess to be of no other nor to prove the visibility of any other than the Church as Christian. Let them prove more that pretend to any other Next he saith that the Protestants have been visible as Christians is all that can be pretended and yet that also he denyeth for they believe not one Article with an infallible supernatural divine Faith Answ. 1. The question is whether they profess not so to do nay rather whether their objective Faith that is all the Creed and Holy Scriptures be not infallible of supernatural Revelation and Divine he that denyeth this seemeth an Infidel But if all the members of the Church must have an actual subjective Faith that is of supernatural divine infusion Then 1. No hypocrite is a Church-member 2. And no man can know who is a Church-member besides himself 3. And so the Church of Rome is invisible this is clear 2. I must not too oft write the same things if the Reader will peruse a small Tract of mine called The certainty of Christianity without Popery he shall soon see whether the Papists Faith or Ours be the more certain and divine Of which also I have said more in my Treatise called The safe Religion and Mr. Pool in his nullity of the Roman Faith § 23. I here shewed that having proved our visibility as Christian I need not prove a visibility as Papal any more than he that would prove his humane Genealogie having some leprous Ancestors need to prove that all were leprous Here he denyeth Popery to be Leprosie and again falsly tells us that if it were so all the visible Church in the world was leprous which needs no more confutation than is oft given it § 24. He tells me how an 1500 the Pope was in possession and we dispossest him without order c. Answ. An old Cant but 1. I have fully proved that he never was in possession of the Government of the Christian world 2. Nor in the Empire or any other Princes dominion but by humane donation and consent as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury is in England 3. And that they that gave him that power may on just reason take it away And that the Bishop of another Princes Countrey cannot stand here by his authority when he hath lost the Government of England himself § 25. IV. My 4th Argument added more than my Thesis required viz. If there have been since the dayes of Christ a Christian Church that was not subject to the Roman Pope as the Vicar of Christ and universal Head and Governour of the Church then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible both in it's Being and in it's freedom from Popery But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the Consequent To this 1. he wants the word ever in the Antecedent And yet before abated it but he knoweth that since was put for ever since 2. He saith I suppose that the sole denyal of the Popes supremacy constitutes the Church whereof the Protestants are members Answ. In despight of my frequent professions to the contrary who still tell him that our Christianity and Relation to Christ and one another makes us Church-members and our freedom from the Papacy is our renunciation of an Usurper § 26. I proved my Antecedent 1. from the express words of the Council of Calcedon can 28 which he answers as before where he is consuted § 27. 2. My 2d proof was from the silence of the ancient writers Tertullian Cyprian Athan. Nazianzene Nissene Basil Optatus Augustine c. that used not this argument of Popes power over all the world as of Divine Right to confute the Hereticks that they had to do with when two words had expeditiously done all if this had then been Believed Here he saith Their authors have proved that the Fathers did so Answ. Soon said and as soon denyed The books are in our hands as well as yours I will now instance but in Cyprian and the African Churches in his dayes and in Augustine and the same Churches in his dayes 1. Did Cyprian and his Council believe Stephens Universal Monarchy when he opposed his judgment with so much vehemency and set the Scripture against his plea from tradition Let him that will read his Epistles of this too long to be recited believe it if he can And when he twitted his arrogance in Council with nemo nostrum se dicit Episcopum Episcoporum 2. The plea of Aurelius Augustine and the rest of the African Bishops I have formerly recited of which Harding saith that the Africans seduced by Aurelius continued twenty years in Schism from Rome and did Augustine and all the rest then believe the Popes Sovereignty even in the Empire I did plainly show that if the Donatisâ—…s Novatians and all such Sects had believed the Roman Sovereignty and Infallibility they had not so differed from them if they did not believe it the Fathers would have taken the neerest way and wrote their Volumnes to convince them that this Papal Rule was it that must end all their controversies instead of writing voluminously from Scripture and the nature of the
it was at once specially when Binnius said that at Eph. 2. Concil Only Peter's Ship escaped drowning As to his Cavil at my Translation Whether Ab aliis plerisque totius orbis Episcopis be not to be Translated if not almost all the rest at least most of the rest of the Bishops of the whole World rather than very many others I leave to the ordinary Readers Judgment And as for either Canus or his own saying that all these the Greeks and most of the Bishops of the whole World the greater number of Churches and the Armed Emperours were all Schismaticks Hereticks and no Christians but Equivocally it is no weak proof of the falseness of their Cause and Tyranny that cannot stand without unchristening most of the Bishops and Churches in the World with such Emperours Canus his confession of the Historical Truth may be pleaded by me while I hate their Robbing Christ of the greatest part of his Church because they are not the Popes § 38. My Eighth Proof of the Novelty of the Papal Sovereignty was from Historical Testimony that the Papal sovereignty was no part of the Churches Faith nor owned by the Ancients This is done at large by Bloudel de Primatu and Pet. Moulin de Novitate Papismi usher Field of the Church lib. 5. Chaucer Whittaker Io. White and many other I instanced only in many Historians Regino Herman Contract Marian Scotus Beneventus de Rambaldis and others that say Phocas first constituted saith one or Boniface obtained of Phocas say others that the Church of Rome should be the Head of all Churches To this 1. He thinks I have forgot my first Thesis because he forgot that when I had proved by three Arguments my Thesis in the fourth to satisfie their importunity I proved it with the Addition that there hath been a Christian Church still visible that Obeyed not the Pope and so added ten more Arguments to prove this Negative or Exclusive part After he cometh to this again and would have ut Caput esset to be no more than an acknowledgment of a controverted Title But at least the Primus constituit confuteth that and it is not ut diceretur haberetur or denuò esset He citeth Platina as if it were a wonder for the Popes Houshold Servant to say that it was his Right 2. But I specially note that both what is said of Phocas and by him of Iustinian Gratian c. who constitute and command this Primacy and Subjection to it shew that it was but Imperial as to bounds and Authority I before mentioned Suarez himself in his Excellent Book De Legibus saying That God hath made no Laws of Church-policy And if so not of the Papacy § 39. I noted their Novelty out of Platina in Gregor saying What should I say more of this Holy Man whose whole Institution of the Church-Office specially the Old one was Invented and Approved by him which Order I would we did follow then Learned Men would not at this day abhor the reading of the Office Hence I Note 1. That all their Church-Office was new being Gregory's Invention though no doubt much of the Matter had been in use before that form 2. Therefore the maintainers of Tradition cannot prove that because they thus Worship God now therefore they always did so 3. Gregory's Invented Office hardly received in Spain was so altered in Platina's time that Learned Men abhorred the Reading of it 4. Why might they not corrupt Church-Government where Ambition had a thousand times greater baits as well as Church-Offices This is their Antiquity and constancy This W. I. thought meet in silence to pass by § 40. My Ninth Proof of the Novelty of the Papal Sovereignty was If the Generality of Christians in the first Ages and many if not most in the latter Ages have been free from the Essentials of the Papists Faith then their Faith hath had no Successive Visible Church professing it in all Ages but the Christians that are against it have been Visible But the Antecedent is true The Antecedent I proved in twelve Instances To this he saith It followeth not that though our Church as Papal had no Successive Visibility the Church whereof the Protestants are Members had ever since Christs time on Earth a Successive Visibility When you have proved this Consequence I Oblige my self to answer your Instances and so he durst not meddle with that matter but puts it off Answ. Reader see here what an Issue our Dispute is brought to Can you wish a plainer I proved that our Religion being nothing else but Christianity our Church hath been still Visible because it is confessed that the Christian Church hath been still Visible But the Papists must have us prove also that our Church-hath been still Visible as without Popery I now prove Popery a Novelty and doth not that then fully prove my Consequence that the Christian Church was Visible without it And I prove that this Novelty of Popery is yet received but by the third part of Christians of whom I am perswaded ten to one are either compelled to profess what they believe not or understand it not Therefore the Christian Church was once wholly and is yet mostly without Popery I know not when a Cause is given up if here he give not up his Cause § 41. Twelve new Articles of the Papal Faith I named 1. That the Pope is above aâ—… General Council Decreed at Later and Florence 2. Contrarily That the Council is above the Pope and may Iudge him c. Decreed at Basil and Constance True before as a point of Humane Order but not made ever an Article of Faith 3. That the Pope may Depose Princes and give their Dominions to others if they exterminate not all their Subjects that deny Transubstantiation Decreed at Later sub Innoc. 3. 4. That the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Iesus Christ is truly and really and substantially in the Eucharist and that there is a change of the whole substance of Bread into the Body and of the whole substance of Wine into the Blood which they call Transubstantiation Decreed at Trent and proved new by Ed. Albertinus Bishop Cousin's History of Trans and by my self 5. That the Eucharist is rightly given and taken under one kind without the Cup Decreed at Constance and Trent 6. That we must never take and Interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers See the Trent-Oath whereas 1. We have no certainty whom to take for Fathers a great part being called both Fathers and Hereticks by the Papists 2. And they greatly disagree among themselves 3. And have not unanimously given us any sence at all of a quarter of the Bible if of the hundredth part 7. That there is a Purgatory and that the Souls there detained are holpen by the Suffrages of the Faithful 8. That the Holy Catholick Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all Churches and
His shameful reformation of Syllogisms and pretence of Logical form Sect. 6. He denieth Protestants to be of the Church of Christ. I prove it His silly cavils at the form of the Argument Sect. 7. Protestants profess all the Essentials of Christianity Proved His cavils shamed Sect. 8. His oft repeated Reason confuted of not receiving the Churches expositions Sect. 9. The novelty and discord of Popery The confusions in Councils Sect. 10. My second Argument's to prove that we hold all essentials The Popish faith explained Sect. 12. My third Argument Creed and Scriptures are with them too little and yet an insufficient proposal makes Christianity it self unnecessary Sect. 12. He giveth up his Cause confessing the sufficiency of our explicite belief Sect. 13. My fourth Argument His ridiculous denying that to deny the minor is to deny the antecedent Sect. 14. The minor proved All Protestants as such profess to love God Ergo sincere Protestants do love him What miracles believing in the Pope doth Sect. 15. He had no way to deny that Protestants profess true faith but by his impudent denying 1. That we profess to love God 2. And that we feel that we do love him Sect. 20. My second Argument to prove the perpetual visibility of our Church confoundeth him Sect. 21. Scripture sufficiency Sect. 22. My third Argument and his shameful Answer Sect. 25. My fourth Argument proveth the visibility of our Church not only as Christian but as without Popery Ten sub-arguments for that 1 From the twenty-eighth Canon of Conc. Calced 2. From the silence of the old Writers against Hereticks Sect. 28. 3. From Tradition proved 4. From Churches never subject to Rome His citations briefly confuted Sâ—…ct 30. 5. From the non-subjection even of the Imperial Churches Sect. 32. 6. From Gregory the first 's testimony Sect. 33. 7. From their confessions Aen. Silvius Reynerius Canus Binnius vindicated Sect. 38. 8. Phocas giving the Primacy to Boniface Sect. 39 9. Their Liturgy new Sect. 40. Twelve instances of new Articles of the Papists Faith which he durst not Answer Sâ—…ct 42. The tenth Argument he yieldeth the cause in sense Sâ—…ct 43. Notable testimonies unanswered Sâ—…ct 44. Papists differ de fide Sect. 47. What Hereticks are or are not in the Church fully opened His shameful exclaiming against me for distinguishing Sect. 48. Fifty six of Philastrius Heresies named many being small matters and many notorious certain truths Sect. 49. The woful work of Hereticating Councils Sect. 50. Councils hereticated Popes and one another Almost all the Christian world hereticate one another Sect. 55. His reasons answered for unchurching all Hereticks Sect. 60. Their Doctrine of sufficient proposal fullier confuted and their hereticating and unchurching themselves evinced Mr. Iohnson's alias Terret's Explication of seven Terms of our Questions examined and his confusion manifested CHAP. I. Question 1. WHAT mean you by the Catholick Church W. J. The Catholick Church is all those Visible Assemblies Congregations or Communities of Christians who live in unity of true faith and external Communion with one another and in dependance of their lawful Pastors R. B. Qu. 1. Whether you exclude not all those converted among Infidels that never had external communion nor were members of any particular visible Church of which you make the Catholick to to be constituted W. J. It is sufficient that such be subject to the supreme Pastors in voto or quantum in se est resolved to be of that particular Church actually which shall or may be designed for them by that Pastor to be included in my definition R. B. You see then that your definitions signifie nothing No man knoweth your meaning by them W. J. You shall presently see that your Exceptions signifie less than nothing R. B. 1. You make the Catholick Church to consist only of visible Assemblies and after you allow such to be members of the Church that are no visible Assemblies W. J. I make those converted Infidels visible Assemblies as my definition speaks though not actual members of any particular visible Church For though every particular visible Church be an assembly of Christians yet every assembly of Christians is not a particular visible Church I do not therefore allow such to be of the Church who are no visible assemblies as you misconceive R. B. 1. Would any man have understood that by Visible Assemblies the man had not meant only Churches but also Families Schools Cities c 2. Doth he not here expresly deny all those persons to be of the Church who are not members of some other visible assemblies And if a man be a Pilgrim a Hermite or if one or many be cast upon an uninhabited coast and if any are members of no visible assembly as Merchants Embassadors to Infidels c. when will he prove that this unchristeneth or unchurcheth them R. B. 2. You now mention subjection to the supreme Pastor as sufficient which in your description or definition you did not W. J. Am I obliged to mention all things in my definition which I express after in answering your Exceptions Ans. All that belongs to a notifying definition R. B. 3. If to be only in Voto resolved to be of a particular Church will serve then inexistence is not necessary To be only in Voto of the Catholick Church proveth no man a member of it because it is terminus diminuens but the contrary Seeing then by your own confession inexistence in a particular Church is not of necessity to inexistence in the Catholick Church why do you not only mention it in your definition but confine the Church to it W. J. I make them actually inexistent in some visible assembly according to my definition and in Voto only in a particular Church Now every particular family or neighbourhood nay two or three gathered in prayer is an actual assembly R. B. Strange Doctrine so it is of necessity to our Christianity and Salvation that we be members of a Christian City or Village or Fair or Market or some Meeting And so all Christians that live solitarily in Wildernesses or among Turks or Heathens are all unchristened and damned W. J. St. Hierome saith Ecclesia est plebs unita Episcopo In this consists your fallacy that you esteem none to be actually members of the Universal Church unless they be actual members of some particular Church which I deny R. B. I thought verily it had been I that was denying it all this while This is dispuâ—…ing in the dark Will you say that you meant in Voto who can understand you then when you say They must be of visible assemblies and mean that they need not be of any but wish they were or purpose to be so W. J. It is sufficient if they be actually of some assembly or congregation of Christians though it be no particular Church R. B. 1. Here is a new Exposition of Solomon's Vae soli Wo to him that is alone for he is unchristened by it or
unchurched O poor Anchorites Hermites that are alone and shipwrackt Christians c. 2. Here is a new found priviledg of having company if in a Tavern or Alehouse and of being married and in a family such may be Christians when the solitary cannot Who would have thought that the Papists had held this But you say nothing to the case of them that are converted to Christ by a solitary Preacher that never tells him of a supreme Pastor as the English and Dutch convert many Indians Can they be subject to him that they hear not of W. J. Whether he be named or no the Church must be supposed to be sufficiently explicated to them as having some prudent manner of Government so that they must be instructed to render obedience to such Governours as Christ instituted in his Church which is virtually to a chief Pastor R. B. 1. So they that take the Pope for Antichrist may virtually be Papists Be content with that virtue 2. But I think that even that general belief of Pastoral Government is necessary ad bene esse rather than ad esse of a Christian. R. B. 1. I note by the way to be hereafter remembred his description of a particular Church as given by Hierome that it is Plebs unita Episcopo and Cyprian saith Ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia And Ignatius To every church there is one Altar and one Bishop with the Prosbyters and Deacons But by this Rule they make those that are now called Parish-Churches to be no Churches but only parts of a particular Church 2. Note that in his Definition he maketh living in external communion essential to those Congregations or Communities of Christians who make up the Catholick Church but tells us not whether it must be a Civil or only a Religious Communion or what Religious Communions besides unity of faith and dependance on Pastors it must be If by those words pag. 3. every particular family or neighbourhood he express that external communion then if their Pastors never give them Gods Word Sacraments or Prayer it may serve 3. He saith p. 4. In this consists your fallacy that you esteem none to be actually members of the universal Church unless they be actual members of some particular Church which I deny Which is his meer fiction of which I was so far from giving him any occasion that I was charging it as an error on himself reasonably supposing that by Visible Assemblies he had meant Churches 4. Note that he maketh it essential to the members of the Catholick Church that they depend on their lawful Pastors and yet that it is but a virtual subjection to the Pope by subjecting themselves to Christs manner of Government which is essential 1. Are not all Protestants and other Christians that own not the Pope true members of the Church then while they subject themselves in general to Christs manner of Government 2. He subjecteth himself to no Governour who doth it not to some existent individual For the universal existeth not but in the individuals And if it be not necessary that the Pope be this individual then subjection to some other is more essential than to the Pope And who is that who must be preferred before him Q. 2. What is that Faith in unity whereof all members of the Catholick Church do live Is it the belief of all that God hath revealed to be believed or of part and of what part W. J. Of all either explicitely or implicitely R. B. He might easily have known that it is explicite belief which the question meant for his implicite belief is the actual belief of nothing but the general and not of any unknown particulars Where there is no object in esse cognito vel percepto there is no act of faith for the object essentiateth the act in specie And where only the general object is perceived and no particular e. g. All that God saith in Scripture is true when one word of Scripture is not known there is no object for a particular belief But it is the belief of this or that in particular that we enquire of e. g. that Jesus is the Christ c. Your implicite belief is actual belief of the general but of particulars it is actually none at all as common reason tells us His reply to this I shall answer by parts in order R. B. We have here a most implicite account of the implicite faith which is essential to a Church-member The man would make the ignorant believe that their Schools are agreed of the sense when he might easily know the contrary I mentioned different senses of implicite faith 1. When Particulars are known and believed actually but confusedly and not distinctly but in gross So Dr. Holden in Analys sid seemeth to take it so the parts are seen or known oft in the whole so a purblind man seeth all the letters men trees c. before him I see all the sand in the hour-glass or much but not distinctly one sand from another This is a real knowledg of the very things but an imperfect knowledg 2. But besides this there is a knowledg of things only in their general nature which is a real knowledg but partial and imperfect As when I see something coming towards me afar of and know not whether it be a man or a beast I say it is an animal or a wight but what I know not This is not to know the thing formally but to know aliquid rei somewhat of that thing 3. There is also a knowledg which besides the general nature extendeth to some inadequate conception of the form but leaveth out other parts of the conception which are essential As when one knoweth so much of a man as that he hath a rational soul and not that he hath a body or that his soul is a virtus intellectiva but not that it is volitiva or when one knoweth that fire is formally a virtus illuminativa but not that it is calefactiva or motiva This is a real knowledg but partial and not formal being not of the whole essence So when one knoweth Christ to be God but not to be man or man and not God or to be a Teacher but not a King or Priest this is not properly to know Christ but somewhat of Christ. 4. There is a knowledg of meer universal Propositions which is but Organical as to things And this is no knowledg of all the particular things spoken of nor oft of many nor sometimes of any of them nor of the particular Propositions which should be further known nor of the conclusion that should be infer'd from both For instance Men may say that Omnis spiritus est immaterialis And one may mean and know by it but as the Sadducees or Hobs or Gassendus that a spirit is a chimaera si daretur spiritus immaterialis foret And another may doubt and mean si detur spiritus immaterialis est And another may hold that there
are Christians Is this a satisfactory answering And yet if you will know the truth from their common writings the faith of their Church containeth these great bodies 1. All that is in the holy Scripture and the Apocrypha 2. All the Decrees of their General Councils if not also the Provincials and Popes Decretals that are de fide 3. All their unwritten Traditions de fide which they have yet to bring forth as need requireth And do you not approve his modesty that saith If any such be found that believeth all this 2. The second sort of their Church-members are All who believe explicitely all Articles and whatever belongs to them in particular by reason of their respective offices Ans. But he tells you not a word what Articles these be nor what belongeth to their Offices whether it be all the Articles of all the Creeds or also of their Councils Decrees or when it shall be known what is necessary to be believed about their office And is here any notice how to know a member of their Church any more than in the former He that believeth all that he should believe is a Christian But is there any such and what is that all and how shall we know them 3. His third sort of members are Those who so believe all things necessary necessitate medii vel praecepti extended to all the adult Ans. And what 's this but the same again we know none but the adult that are to believe And so here we are told That all men that believe all things commanded are Christians We were told this before But it was with If any such are to be found And who knows by this what your All is When we find men that do all commanded and sin not we will hope to find men that know all revealed and have no ignorance yet here is no visible Church 4. His fourth sort are All those who believe in that manner all things necessary necessitate medii according to the first opinion of the more ancient Doctors But what those things are we are not yet told but five words set down with an c. And is here yet a word to satisfie any man of reason what their faith is or what Christianity is or what maketh a member of their Church or is the bond of union But Reader hath God left us so much in the dark Is Christianity any thing or nothing If something hath it not an essence which may be defined Is this all our notice of it That men that know all that God hath reveal'd and believe it are Christians or such as believe five Articles caetera Judge now whether their Church be not invisible And if any little part of it were visible what 's that to the rest or to that visibility of particular members He tells us these are almost all Christians and yet questioned whether any of the first be found and the rest are no more to be found than they 5. And his fifth sort he confesseth himself to be uncertain which yet it s doubted are no small part that go for Papists And note I pray you that it is the present Church which they use to approach to for necessary resolution and the Recentiors are more the present Church than the Ancients And according to these 1. Their Church is confessedly doubtful or unknown as to most or multitudes of members 2. And note that their Articles being but two That God is and that he rewardeth works all the common Heathens of the world and all the Mahometans are of the Papists Faith and Church according to this opinion 3. But mark Reader another desperate corruption That Baptism must concur with these two articles O horrid corruption of Christianity it self Is this antiquity and tradition Did the Christian Church use to baptize men that believed neither in Jesus Christ nor the Holy Ghost if they did but believe a God and a Rewarder Do you baptize such in your Church I suppose even Pope Stephen himself would have been for the re-baptining of such Reader if one of us had charged such doctrine on the Papists as this their Champion doth should we not have been thought to slander them viz. That their later Doctors hold that all that believe explicitely but a God and a Rewarder and are baptized are members of the Church of Rome and consequently that all that believe but this much should be baptized that is all the Mahometans and almost all the Heathens in the world And is Baptism and the Creed come to this But I confess if the world were perswaded of this the Pope could make his use of it For when he is once taken for Governour of all the Church on earth if he can but prove all the world to be the Church it followeth that he is Governour of all the world And what need they now their feigned embassies and submissions to prove the Abassines Armenians and Greeks to be of their Church when Heathens and Mahometans are proved of it and yet are Protestants no part He tells us That a living body may be defined by head shoulders arms though there be a doubt among Philosophers whether hair humours c. be animated or parts Ans. But 1. it is known then that there is visibly head and shoulders c. But you tell us not how to know any individual persons to be visible members of your Church To tell us that there are some men that hold all that they are bound to hold maketh none visible while we are not told either what they are bound to believe or by what profession or proof it must be known that they do so When we tell you that sincere justifying faith and love do prove true Christians and that such there are it 's agreed that this proveth but a Church as invisible or unknown to us because we know not who have this sincerity So is it when you tell us that there are men that believe all that 's necessary for till it be known what that is no profession can thereby prove them Christians 2. But what if you had told us how to know those men that are certain or eminent members of your Church Is it nothing to you to leave all the world besides almost uncertain whether they be in the Church or not How know you whom to admit to your Sacramental Communion or to use as a Christian When a Congregation of many thousand persons called Papists meet you cannot tell how many of these are of your Church and yet you give them the Eucharist And it seemeth by you that they must be Baptized though you know not after whether they be members of the Church Remember Reader that our question is not what mercy God sheweth to the rest of the world nor whether any out of the Christian Church be saved But it is what is the faith which is essential to a member of the Christian Church and whether Papists make it not uncertain and whether he
separateth from that Parish-Church may yet be 〈◊〉 member of the Church Universal while he separateth not from it But I see that Guiliel de Sancto Amore and such others had greater reason to condemn the Friers and Watson and such others the Jesuits than we knew of I noted also the difficulty How we shall know the Authority of every Parish-Priest Bishop Archbishop Patriarch and Pope And 1. in a Country where Orders have ordinarily been forged To this he answered As much as you can be assured of any being Pastor of such a Church or Bishop or Iustice c. Aâ—…s 1. If you prove it a duty to believe and obey every such deceiver that hath no authority we will not believe till you prove it that to do otherwise doth unchurch us 2. And if two or three claim authority over us at once as they did in the Papacy about forty years together are we cut off from Christ if we receive not both or how shall we know which If either will serve then they that took Iohn of Constantinople for Universal Bishop were as much in the Church as they that received Pope Boniface as such And they that followed Dioscorus at Alexandria being Orthodox as they that adhered to Proterius c. Is it no matter who it be so we think him to be the right Why then do you deny our English Clergy when we judg them to have the true authority 2. I asked What if we be ignorant whether the ordainer had intentionem ordinandi how shall we be sure of the authority of the Ordained He answered As sure as you can be that you were the lawful child of your parents who could not be truly married without intention Ans. This is new Doctrine they that speak the words and do the actions which properly signifie a true intention and do profess it do thereby mutually oblige themselves in the relation of husband and wife to each other and they that truly so oblige themselves are truly though sinfully married For what is Marriage but such a mutual obliging contract they are truly my parents and I owe them obedience whatever their intention was But you hold a man to be no Priest that was not ordained ex â—…entione ordinandi and our Salvation to lie on our obeying him as a Priest who is none My fourth Question was How the people that dwell in other Countrys can know whether the Priest Prelate or Pope had necessary Election and Ordination To which he saith Wâ—…en it is publickly allowed in the Church witnessed to be performed according to Canonical prescription by those that were present and derived to the people without contradiction by publick fame Ans. 1. This alloweth the Ministry in Ethiopia Armenia Moscovie Grâ—…ece as much as the Roman For it is publickly allowed and attested and brought to the people by uncontradicted fame And so is the Ministry of the Reformed Churches to all that hear not your contradiction 2 But with Rome the case is otherwise one part of the Church hath publickly allowed one Pope and all his Clergy and another part rejected him and allowed another and his Clergy and publick fame hath contradicted one party 3. And what can fame say to us in England of the Election or Ordination made at Rome of a Pope Prelate or Parish-priest when we hear not any witness of it 4. And how can we expect contradiction of an action done a thousand miles off which none near knew of 5. And yet how few Priests or Prelates are they whose authority fame publisheth without contradiction Do not Protestants contradict the authority of your Priests and most of the Christian World the authority of your Pope My fifth Question was If you tell me your own opinion of the sufficient means to know the Popes or Priests authority how shall I know that you are not deceived unless a Council bad desined it sufficient To this he saith That the orders prescribed in the Canon Law and universally received are sufficient for this without Decrees of General Councils for they are no points of faith but of order and discipline whereof a moral certainty and Ecclesiastical authority are sufficient Ans. 1. Is this moral certainty true certaints or uncertainty If true certainty it hath its moral ascertaining evidences And what are those 2. Who is the maker of this Canon Law If not General Councils how shall we know their authority If the Pope and Cardinals how shall we know whether those of e. g. Stephen Sergius or Formosus be the authentick ones and so of many other contradictory ones If a General Council damn and depose e. g. Eugenius the fourth as a Heretick c. and he make Canons after how shall we know that they are authoritative 3. But are your matters of order and discipline no matters of faith Then God hath not bound us to believe that the Pope is the Universal Bishop or Pastor or that Rome hath any authority over the world or other Christian Churches or that your Priests are the true Ministers of Christ and have any authority over us or that the Mass is to be celebrated c. But either these are matters of Divine or Humane Law If man only command them how cometh our Christianity and Salvation to be laid on them What man commands man may abrogate unless extrinsick accidents hinder If God command them doth God command any thing which he binds us not to believe to be our duty Many things may be de fide revealed which are not de moribus nor to be done but nothing is by God commanded to be done which is not first to be known or believed to be duty 4. If it be no matter of faith how to know that your Elections and Ordinations are true then it is no matter of faith that you are true Pastors or have any authority because without true Election and Ordination it is not so and if so then it 's no heresie to believe that you are all deceivers 5. Your Authority or Decrees below that of Pope and General Councils pretend to no Infallible certainty upon this it seems your Church is built and into uncertainty its authority resolved and yet from this we must fetch our certainty of the Gospel in your way And is not the Gospel then made uncertain by you which must be believed on the authority of an uncertain Ministry yea and are not Councils uncertain which consist of such a Ministry 6. It 's a vanity to pretend that your Canon Law is universally received most of the Christian World receive but part of it and much no part at all unless you call the Scripture the Canon Law 7. If your Canon Law be so universally received and sufficient then when that Law is received into England England must be burnt as a land of Hereticks for that 's part of your Law and so your Ministry and our burning as Hereticks have the same authority My next Question was If I culpably were
part of the Church I next told him that the Jesuit Turnbull against Rob. Baronius maintaineth that Revelation is no part of the formal object of faith and therefore to deny it is not to deny the formal object 2. And that forma dat nomen and he is no Heretick that is none formally To the latter he giveth no answer and to the first as bad as none viz. that the Heretick denieth also the material object and what 's that to the case in hand and that which he is obliged by sufficient reason to believe to be revealed of God and therefore virtually denieth God to be true Ans. But I again reply 1. Virtual is not actual 2. It is no virtual denial that God is true but only that the proposer is true To be obliged to believe a thing to be Gods word only proveth that I break that obligation if I believe it not to be his word but not at all that I believe God to be a lyar whose word I believe it not to be Again this maketh all Christians to be Hereticks past dispute For all Christians receive not something or other small or great which they were obliged to belieâ—…e to be Gods word Do you err in any thing that is revealed by Scripture or Tradition or not If you say no and so that your understanding hath no sin you deceive your self and the truth is not in you If yea then were you not obliged to believe the contrary to be Gods word if not obliged then your error is no sin so that you make every sinful error to be Heresie and proudly deny that you have any sinful error lest you should be a Heretick I added that their Church is constituted of men that sinfully neglect some point of truth or other sufficiently proposed Ergo is it constituted of Hereticks To this he answers That whatever their neglect be to know what is propounded yet so long as they believe explicitely what is necessary to be so believed necessitate medii and implicitely the rest they can be no Hereitcks for it is not the ignorance though culpable but contradiction to what is known to them to be propounded by those that have power to oblige them as being their lawful superiors which makes an heretick R. B. 1. But still you agree not nor tell us what is explicitely to be believed necessarily 2. By this we are all absolved from heresie for we believe all explicitely that is necssary necessitate medii and all the rest implicitely by a double implicite faith 1. In God and our Redeemer 2. In the inspired Apostles and Prophets we believe all to be true which God hath revealed and which his Apostles have delivered as Gods word 3. Yea and all that we know to be propounded by any obliging superiors for we know not the Pope nor your contradictory Councils to be such My next Qu. 2. was What mean you by sufficient proposal W. I. Such as is sufficient among men in humanis to oblige one to take notice that a King hath exacted such and such Laws c. that is a publick testimony that such things are revealed by the infallible authority of those who are the highest tribunal of Gods Church or by notorious and universal trâ—…dition R. B. 1. Here the Reader may see that he taketh sufficiency respectively to the Promulgator viz. as much as he was obliged to do for a King is not bound to publish his Laws in every parish or county but only to make such a publication of them in the chief places of his kingdom as that men may take notice of them Kings send not Schoolmasters to teach every man how to prove that his Laws are not counterfeit and what they are and what is the meaning of them For the enacting of them being a late matter of fact and easily notified as near unto them and no other knowledg or belief of them being required but such as is necessary to that part of the obedience of them which belongeth to every man in his place this is not necessary And if such a publication of Gods Laws be sufficient millions that never heard a word of the Bible or what Christ is have such a sufficient publication for the Gospel is published in many parts of the world and perhaps in many places of the Kingdoms where they dwell though they never heard it 2. But when men have the publick testimony that such statutes are made and such a Book sent from God this doth not acquaint men what those Statutesor that Book contains sothat by this rule it should be sufficient to know that God made the Bible without knowing what is in it or else he that is but told that there is such a book is bound by that much to know all that is in it 3. But note the Popish difficulty of faith W. I. tells us after the rest that we must know these things revealed by the infallible authority of those who are the highest tribunal of Gods Church c. And is it possible for one that knoweth nothing of Christ or the Scripture or that Christ hath a Church to know yet 1. That he hath a Church 2. And that he hath authorized some men to be the highest Tribunal to judg that Church through all the world And 3. That he hath particularly authorized them to judg which is and is not his revelation 4. And to know who be the men that are this highest Tribunal to all the world viz. for those of Abassia that had not so much History as to tell them that there was such a City as Rome or such a man as the Pope in the world till Oviedo was sent who told it but to few could yet know that this Pope and his Council are their Judges and from them they must receive the Gospel 5. And to know that this Universal Tribunal is infallible before they believe in Christ himself who is supposed to give them their Infallibility Alas must every poor Infidel know all this before he can believe in Christ when we that live among them and read their laws and doctrines cannot easily believe the Infallibility of those Popes who by General Councils are charged not only with Murder Adultery Simony Perjury c. but with Heresie also or Infidelity Nor the Infallibility of those General Councils who are accused by Popes and by other Councils of Error Heresie or Schism 4. But he addeth another way Or by notorious and universal Tradition And 1. If this will serve then I hope we may have true faith that believe no humane infallible Tribunal over all the world much less that the Pope and his Council are such a Tribunal for we have notorious Universal Tradition delivering us all our Religion 2. But yet these are hard terms for every poor Heathen to come to Christ by Alas how shall the millions of people through the world who know nothing that is many days journey from their houses know
formal Hereticks if any such were R. B. As Iohn 22 23 Eugenius 4th c. W. J. Prove that R. B. The Articles brought against them and the judgments thereupon are a proof if any thing may be called a proof viz. in the Council at Rome against Iohn in the Councils of Constance against divers at Basil against Eugenius and others much elder against Honorius c. Is a General Council no proof I added that so they were no Christians and he answers Prove that To which I say General Councils are your Catholick Church representative and those charge these Popes with Heresie and Infidelity If you are so frontless as to deny it I will not therefore tire the Reader with transcribing Councils as oft as you can say Prove it I added And all those that wanted the necessary abilities to the essentials of their works He saith Prove that there were such Popes I answer That you have had children Popes and some that were illiterate and ignorant I have oft proved by the express testimonies of your own Historians How oft must I repeat them I added That therefore their Church hath oft been headless and the Succession interrupted Councils having thus censured many Popes W. J. When you have proved the precedents prove that R. B. Reader is not the cause of the Papacy in a desperate case if Arms upheld it not when their Champion hath no more to say for the very successive being of the Popes but to bid me prove that which all men that read them know is commonly and copiously asserted by their Councils and Historians How oft have I cited their Platina Werverus yea Baroâ—…us Binnius Genebrard their greatest flatterers telling us that some were Children and some illiterate and fifty together were not Apostolical but Apostatical c. W. I. Prove that they were lawful Councils which so censured any Popes which we admit as true and lawful R. B. Alas poor men are you driven to that 1. If you have the face to deny those to be lawful Councils that censured Honorius the two Iohns Eugenius c. we may as well and a little better use the same liberty and question whether that of Trent Florence Lateran c. were lawful 2. May not the world see now what is the foundation of your faith and the validity of your Authority and Tradition even your own wills General Councils tell you the sense of the Church and the Tradition of your fore-fathers if you like them But if the Pope dislike them they are no lawful Councils and their testimony null The sum is whatever Councils say the Pope shall never be proved a Heretick or Infidel till he will say that he is one himself and will subscribe as Marcellinus did to his own condemnation or with Liberius confess his fault 3. And have not these men a notable advantage to proselyte Ladies and illiterate persons when if General Councils damn their Popes it is but bidding them Prove those to have been lawful Councils And though I can prove to them that even their own Popes have affirmed them lawful yet few women are so far skilled in History and so they must yield to every impudent deceiver And when I have proved all it is but as Bellarmine's fetching a denial out of the word Conciliariter against the approbation of Martin 5. 4. But is this enough for you what if none were lawful Councils that displease the Pope Are they therefore no competent witnesses of a matter of fact In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established And are not so many hundred Bishops and other Clerks as were at the Councils of Basil Constance Pisa c. competent Witnesses that the Pope was a Heretick Simonest Murderer c. had the Pope but consented these Councils had been the Catholick Church and infallible And may they not be credible Witnesses against him till he consent How shall we believe them when they tell us what was held and done in all the Christian World a thousand or fourteen hundred years ago if after examination of Witnesses we may not believe them concerning one man one publick sinner in their own time and known to many of themselves What then would the testimony of a Historian or an hundred Historians signifie if the testimony of many hundred Bishops congregate and deliberately examining consulting and sentencing be false R. B. I next asked Q. 2. Where and how must this Institution of Christ of the Papacy be found W. J. In the revealed Word of God written or unwritten R. B. 1. Remember Reader that even now he told us that the Church-Governours are known without Revelation else God had made an imprudent Government He could not mean that they are known to be men but Governours distinct from Usurpers or else he had spoke non-sense or impertinently And yet now it is in the revealed word of God 2. I answered That they never gave the world assurance how to know the measure of their unwritten word nor where to find it so as to know what it is W. J. We say we have R. B. Just as now you do to me If that Word of God be still unwritten and neither to be found in your Councils nor any of your Books I challenge all the reason in the world to tell us where we may certainly come to know what it is and when we have all especially when so great Councils as Ariminum Ephes. 2 Constance and Basil may be deceived in your very Fundamentals of Authority in matter of fact so near at hand R. B. Till you prove Christs institution which you have nevâ—… done you free us from believing in the Pope W. J. All are free from believing in the Pope we believe in God but not in the Pope who of us ever charged you to do so R. B. Even they that charge us to trust our very Salvation upon his Infallibility Veracity or Authority as from which only with his Council we must know what is Gods Word and what the meaning of it what is it to believe in but to believe his Authority and Veracity and trust upon it But we thank you for discharging us from believing in the Pope But I doubt when we are in your power you will call us to an after-reckoning and burn us for not believing on him when you acquit us from believing in him so much of your faith doth lie on a Letter R. B. Quest. 3. Will any ones Election prove him to be Pope or who must elect him ad esse W. J. Such as by approved custom are esteemed by those to whom it belongs fit for that charge and with whose election the Church is satisfied R. B. Now we come to their desperation never were men put to more open confusion in the very essence of their cause Something must be said but they know not what I noted here that if no Election or any ones Election will serve turn the Scholars
you mean that they have not the same extâ—… communion of Pastors in dependance on one as the 〈◊〉 Pastor or Governour of all the rest indeed there is none such but you For it is in that that they differ from you Reader is not here an excellent Disputer I affirm that the judgment of most of the Christian world is against the Papists in the point of an Universal Head or Governour of all Churches He saith that no one party which is for an Universal Governour and yet is against an Universal Governour is so big as their party I grant it Had they all dependance on one as an Universal Governour they were not against on Universal Governour The Abassines have one Abuna but he claimeth no Universal Government The Armenians have their Catholick Bishop but he claimeth no Universal power The Greeks have their Patriarch at Constantinople but he pretendeth not to govern all the World We are all against any Head of the whole Church on Earth but Christ and therefore are united under no other You say that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 patcht body of a thousand different professions c. Ans Reproach not the Body of Christ they are far more united than your Church as Papal Are not the seâ—…en points of 〈◊〉 mentioned by Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4 5 6 7 as good as yours 1. They have one â—…ead that never â—…arieth and whom all receive you have a Head rejected by most Christians and oft turn'd into two or three Heads one saying I am the Head and another I am the Head and setting the world in blood and contention to try it out which of them shall get the better as your forty years Schisms shewed 2. Therefore this Church which you reproach as patcht is but one But yours is really many and not one specifically as well as oft numerically when there were two or three Popes you had two or three Churches For it is the pars imperans that individuateth the Society And de specie you are still three Churches as holding three several heads one holdeth the Pope to be the Head another a Council and a third the Pope and Council agreeing And these Heads have oft condemned and deposed one another Councils namned Popes as Hereticks Infidels Simonists Murderers Adulterers and Popes accused Councils of schism and rebellion at least And to this day there is no certainty which were true Popes nor which were true Councils some being called by you Reprobate because they pleased not the Popes and some approved But our Head of the Church is not thus divided nor schismatical 3 Our common faith is still the same and its rule the same but yours is mutable by new additions as long Councils will make new Decrees and no man can tell when you have all and your faith is come to its full stature Nay and your Decrees which are your rule of faith are so many and obscure that you are not agreed your selves in the number or the meaning of them 4. It is a notorious truth that all these Churches which you say have a thousand professions as they all agree in one Christian profession so do less differ among themselves than your seemingly united Church doth with it self whether you respect the number or the weight of differences 1. For the Number sint libri judices all the Christian World besides hath not so many nor I think half so many Volumes of Controversies as your Writers have written against one another as far as is come to the notice of this part of the World 2. And for the Weight 1. I have shewed that you are divided in your very Fundamentals the Supremacy you confess here that your Church is not at all agreed what the Christian faith is or who is a Christian some say he that believeth the Church and that God is a rewarder others say a Christian must believe in Christ c. 2. Your Commentators differ about the sense of hundreds or thousands of Texts of Gods own word 3. Your Disputers about Grace and Free-will accuse one the other of making God the cause of Sin and of denying the Grace of God 4. Your Moralists differ about many instances of Excommunicating Kings and then killing them and of the Popes power to depose them and of perjury lying murder adultery fornication false witness yea about loving God himself whether it be necessary to love him once a year or whether attrition that is repentance from bare fear with penance may not serve turn to Salvation with abundance such And we confess that other Christians have their differences And what wonder while they are so imperfect in knowledg and all grace And now if Concord or Discord must tell us whose Tradition or Judgment is most regardable let the Impartial judg whether the moâ—…â—…egardable Tradition of the far greatest part of the Church be not against you and whether your reproaching them for discord condemn not your selves much more than them If a subject should stile himself the Kings Vicegerent and claim much of his Prerogative without his Commission and a third part of the Kingdom should unite in receiving and obeying him and have otherwise a thousand contentions among them Qu. Whether these or the rest of the Kingdom were the more and better united When I next questioned Whether the vulgar that know not Councils resolve not their faith into the belief of the Parish-priest he saith no. And saith That the Priest is but the means by whom we come to believe and tells us that else we know not whether there were any Christians 500 years ago c. Ans. But if they will be content with Ministerial teaching and Historical proof of things past we would not differ from them we do not only assert these as well as they but we say that as we have sounder teaching so we have far better Historical Tradition of our faith than that which dependeth on a pretended fanâ—…tick Infallibility or authority of their Pope and Sect even the Historical Tradition of the whole Christian World and of many of the enemies themselves CHAP. VI. What mean you by a GENERAL COUNCIL W. I. A General Council I take to be an Assembly of Bishops and other chief Prelates called convened confirmed by those who have sufficient spiritual authority to call convene and confirm it R. B. Here is nothing still but flying and hiding his cause is such that he dare not answer Note that 1. Here is no mention of what extent it must be at all whether these Prelates must be sent from all the Christian world or whence The least Provincial Council that ever was called may be a General Council by this description 2. He tells us of other chief Prelates and yet never tells what sort of things he meaneth by chief Prelates that are no Bishops And when he hath told us doubtless he will never prove nor I hope affirm that any such Prelates are of Christs institution And if the
coram Ecclesia That the true Church of Christ hath no other Head than Christ himself no Vicarious Universal Head Pope nor Council That the Protestants profess themselves Members of no other Universal Church but that of which Christ only is the Head and all Christians at least not cast out are Members that this Christian Church hath been visible to God by real consent and visible to man by professed consent from the first being of it to this day And when they ask us Where was your Church before Luther we say where there were Christians before Luther Our Religion is nothing but simple Christianity We are oâ—… no Catholick Church but the Universality of Christians We know no other but lament that the pride of the Clergy growing up from Parochial to Diocesan and from Diocesan to Metropolitical and Patriarchal and thence to Papal hath invented any other and that the Serpent that tempted Eve hath drawn them from the Christian simplicity They deny not the successive visibility of Christianity and the Christian Church We desire no more we own we know no other Religion and no other Church But the Roman Artifice here comes in and when their HUMANE UNIVERSAL HEAD hath made the grand Schism of the Christian World hence they have learnt to make Christians of no Christians and no Christians of Christians as Pride and Ignorance serving this usurping interest please Their Doctors are not agreed whether any more be necessary explicitely to be believed to Salvation than that there is a God and that our works shall be rewarded without believing a word of Christ or the Gospel and whether they that believe not in Christ are Christians or whether being no Christians yet they are Members of the Christian Church And the greater part are here on the wider Latitudinarian side as you may see in Fr. S. Clara's Problemes Deus Nat. Grat. and in the words of this W. I. before answered And yet these charitable men conclude that two or three parts of the true Christian world Abassines Copties Syrians Iacobites Georgians Armenians Greeks Moscovites Protestants are all out of the Church of Christ though their own Fryars that have lived among some of them in the East profess that they are no Hereticks and are better Men than the Papists are and none worse of Life than the Roman Party And whence is this strange difference Why it is because that these are none of them subject to the Pope which it is supposed that those are that believe only that there is a God and a Reward But how is this their only explicite Faith if they must also believe that the Pope is the Vice-Christ And some of them tell you further that he that should so far believe his Ghostly Father the Priest as to hold that he is not bound to love God because the Priest tells him so is not only excusable but he meriteth by it So much more necessary to Salvation is it to love the Priest than to love God And yet after all this their own Leaders confess that it is no Article of their Faith that the Pope is Peter's Successour and that it is not by Revelation that the Church-Governours must be known as I have shewed out of Ri. Smyth Bishop of Calcedon and of England and in the fore-confuted Writings of W. I The things that I maintain are I. That the Protestants Religion and Church being only the Christian as such had an uninterrupted succession as such which the Papists deny not II. That the Papal Church as such cannot prove its constant visibility and succession Nay though it be their part to prove it we are ready to prove 1. That it is a Novelty 2. That it hath been often and notoriously interrupted and their Papacy hath not had any continued succession of Men truly Popes by their own Laws and Rules and in their own Account CHAP. I. The Confutation of W. J's Reply THE first regardable Passage in W. I's Reply is p. 53 54. Where he maintaineth that whatsoever hath been ever in the Church by Christ's institution is essential to the Church and nothing meerly Integral or Accidents Because I had omitted the word ever in the Confutation he taketh that as the Insufficiency of all that I said against him and challengeth me still to give an Instance of any Institution not essential to the Church of Christ that hath been ever in it But Reader is Perpetuity any proof of an Essential He was forced to confess that as other Societies so the Church hath Accidents but he faith no Accidents instituted have been ever in it It may be we shall have a Quibble here upon the sense of the word ever whether it was from Everlasting or from the Creation or before Christ's Incarnation or before his Resurrection or the forming of his Church by the Spirit in the Apostles But in Consistency with his own Cause which is That the Papacie hath been ever in the Church he must take up with this last sense Well Let us see what work these Men make and how they are taken in the Traps that they lay for others But first he shall have some confuting Instances 1. Every word of Christ's own Doctrine and Speeches recorded in the Gospel hath been ever in the Church and instituted by Christ but every word of Christ's own Doctrine and Speeches recorded in the Gospel is not essential to the Church Therefore every thing instituted by Christ that hath been ever in the Church is not essential to it If you say that it was not all written till after some years it was yet all in the Church even in the Minds of them that wrote it and the other Apostles and in their Preachings as is like If you say that all this is essential alas then if false Copies have lost us a word the Church is lost and those Churches that received not some words were Unchurched That Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate hath been ever in the Church's Creed and yet the Name of Pontius Pilate is not essential to Christianity 2. The Administring the Lord's Supper in both kinds Bread and Wine hath been ever in the Church and of Christ's own Institution Is this essential to the Church Perhaps some will have the impudence to say that it is not now in it because the Pope hath cast it out but it is now in all the rest of the Church And we might as well say the Papacie is not now in because other Churches do reject it 3. Prayer in a known Tongue was ever in the Church and of Christ's Institution and yet you think it not essential to it 4. The use of the second Commandment as such Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image c. was ever in the Church and yet you have left it out of the Decalogue 5. The Office of Deacons hath been ever in the Church since their Institution Act. 6. yet few think them essential to the
received by the Proposal of the Papal Church as such whereas now we perceive that it may be received from the Church though they know it not to be Papal And we thought it must have been received as from a General Council or the Church universal but it seems here it is needful but that it be from their particular Pastors 4. By this it seems that there are other Pastors that must be believed received and obeyed before the Pope and Subjection to them is of absolute necessity to salvation and Churchmembership when subjection to the Pope is of no such necessity How the Pope will take this we know not but 5. It leaveth us to new doubts as hard as any of the rest How to know that such indeed are our lawful Pastors before we know that there is a Christ or a Pope and how to know which are they We perceive now that Implicite Faith is not necessarily the believing Pope or Council but the believing those that Christ hath instituted to be our lawful Pastors Qu. 1. But can we know that Christ instituted them before we know that there is a Christ or that he is true Christ Q 2. Can you be true Pastors without derivation from and dependance on the Pope or be so known by the People O that you would but come into the light and tell us how And then Q. 3. tell us why the same People may not take Protestant Armenian Abassine Bishops or Presbyters for true Pastors by the same Proof Q. 4. And doth not the Proof or Knowledge that Men are our Lawful Pastors without knowing that they have Ordination Jurisdiction Mission or Confirmation as you distinguish them from the Pope or are subject to him also prove that quoad esse Men may be cur true Pastors without any of these relations to the Pope For the esse rei is presupposed to the Proof and Knowledge 〈◊〉 And in relations the Fundamentum entereth the Definition I conclude that being my self unfeignedly and earnestly desirous to know the truth whether the Pope be the appointed Church-Monarch of Government of all Christians that dwell on the Face of the Earth and having diligently read what you and abuâ—… 〈◊〉 more have written for it I profess that I never yet heard or saw any Proposal of it nor yet of abundance of your Doctrines which was sufficient to convince my understanding of it but much to convince me of the contrary And I may suppose this to be the case of most who need as clear evidence as I and therefore that we are none of us by your Concession obliged either necessitate medii or praecepti to believe you or to be your Subjects And I confess I like the preaching of these Men whose labour is only to subject Men to Christ and to their Lawful Magistrates and Domestick Governours and to the Teaching-Conduct of those that speak to them the Word of God better than theirs that make it the Foundation of their Religion to make all Men on Earth their Subjects And yet Teachers we acknowledge necessary to our Faith but it is not first necessary to believe them to be sent by Christ before we believe in Christ. But 1. The first Messengers Apostles did at once affirm that Christ is the Saviour of the World and that he sent them to witness his Resurrection Miracles and Works and to preach his Gospel And the Tongues Miracles c. by which they proved it was a Proof of both at once but principally of the former For if an un-called Preacher had wrought a Miracle it would have proved his Doctrine but not his Calling 2. But ordinary Preachers now give us the Evidences of the truth of the Gospel which were heretofore delivered to the Church The Doctrine's self-evidencing Divinity as it hath the Impress of God's Power Wisdom and Love his Holiness Justice and Mercy with the antecedent Prophesies fulfilled and the concomitant and subsequent Miracles and the continued Seal of the sanctifying Spirit in all Believers And by these we are first drawn by the inward operation of the Holy Ghost to believe in the Father Son and Holy Spirit before we believe that he sent these Men to be our Lawful Pastors Yea without believing them oft-times to be our Pastors or any Pastors at all We detest those Self-Preachers that would make the World believe that we must believe them to be our Lawful Pastors and receive them before we believe in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and receive him And we detest that false Doctrine that saith That a Lay-man may not convert Souls to the Faith of Christ and that God's Word and Spirit may not by his opening that Word win Souls that know not yet what Ministry Christ hath instituted To my Instance of the Iberians converted by a Maid and the Indians by Frumentius and Edesius he answers 1. That he can prove the Papacy preach'd to them as well as I can Iustification by Faith alone or any other parcicular Point of our Doctrine 2. We must both say that all important truths of Christianity were preached to them and till you have evinced this of the Supremacy to be none of those it is to be supposed it was sufficiently declared to them 3. Explicating the Article of the Catholick Church it 's supposed they were told it consisted of Pastor and People united and that they must obey their Lawful Pastors in which Doctrine the Pope is implicitely included Answ. 1. Our Doctrine as you call it is Christianity and I can prove nothing preached but what made them Christians which you confess may be without believing the Pope's Supremacy 2. A brave Argument All important truths were preached Ergo you must prove that this is not one of them 1. All important truths cannot in reason be supposed to be preached by those two Lay-men and by a Maid All essential truths we may suppose preached or else they could not be Christians We heard before that you would perswade us that every truth of continued institution is not only important but essential to the Church Whence you may infer in your way that the Maid and the two Lay-men had preached every such truth and left not one out or else there was no Christians and Church 2. It 's your part to prove that the Papacy is such an important truth and not mine to prove the Negative which yet I have oft and fully done 3. The Article of the Catholick Church was not at first in the Creed as the old Copies shew And Baptism was Administred without mentioning that Article 4. If holding that People must obey their Lawful Pastors will serve then we are all right 〈◊〉 if this be an implicite belief of the Papacy we are all Papists yea perhaps Mahometans and Heâ—…thens are Papists too by such a belief To 〈◊〉 Instance from Act. 2. he saith 1. Who can tell whether Peter told them not of his Supremâ—… 〈◊〉 2. They address'd their Speech first
to him c. Answ. 1. Who can tell that Peter did preach his own Supremacy I prove he did not Because if he did it was as necessary to be believed or not If not he preached it not among things necessary If yea then had he so preached it that Text or some other would have mentioned it Peter or Paul or some Apostle would have express'd it on Record which they have not done yea have denyed it 2. Those that Paul preach'd to Act. 16. and other places address'd their Speech first to him But doth it follow that therefore he was Governour of all the Apostles How unhappy are great Conquerours that must fight many bloody Battels to win one Kingdom of another Mans in Comparison of the Pope who without a blow or a word of good reason can hope by such gross Sophismes as these to get the Monarchy of the whole Earth To my Instance of those converted by the English and Dutch in the Indies he bids me prove them to be instructed in the true Faith Answ. They that are instructed in the Baptismal Covenant the Creed and in general the truth of all the Sacred Scriptures and are devoted to God by the Baptismal Covenant and taught to conform their Desires to the Lord's-prayer and their Practice to the Decalogue to live soberly righteously and godly and in love to God and Man and in good works and hope of Heaven are instructed in the true Faith But such are they in question c. Do you so oft say that less than all the Creed is necessitate medii to be believed and many of you not so much as Christ himself and yet is not all that Protestants teach the true Faith O Impartiality Next to my Instance of the Abassian Empire he bids me also prove them to be Orthodox Catholick Christians Answ. 1. I must first know what you mean by Orthodox and Catholick which your ill faculty of expounding makes me despair of If by Orthodox you mean such as have no errours I cannot prove it but it 's shame for such erroneous Men as you to demand it But if you mean but such as hold all the Essentials of Christianity and much more the former Argument joyned with all just Testimonies of them such as you have in Damianus a Goes Alvarez Godignus c. prove it So if by Catholick you mean a Papist I cannot prove it but the eontrary But if you mean Parts of the Universal Church it 's proved as afore Note here what vafritious Men these are that save or â—…amn Empires to and fro as the interest of their arguing requireth When we prove that the rest of the Christian Church is twice or thrice as great as all the Papal Church then they tell us that Greeks Abassines c. are of their mind and they feign that the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. are all subject to the Pope and have submitted to him Godignus wrote to confute one of their own Writers that affirmeth the Abassines to be for the Pope But when their Cause bids them say otherwise then we are challenged to prove them Catholick Christians and Orthodox Had you put me to prove the Papists such you had put me harder to it Our next Point is of the Visibility of Christ as Head of the Church where he saith p. 65. He is most certainly an invisible Pastor both in Heaven and on Earth For though his Person may be seen there yet the Exercise of his Pastorship consisting only in spiritual Influences and internal Graces cannot be seen by any Corporal Eye whatsoever Therefore as a Pastor of the Militant Church he is wholly invisible so you put a visible Body without a visible Head all that is visible in the Pastoral Function being performed by visible Pastors and all that is invisible by our Saviour So you by a strange piece of Novelty constitute a visible Body without a visible Head you destroy the visible Church and frame a Monster Answ. What abundance of Heresies must I charge on such Men if I judged them according to their terms and rigour of judging 1. Christ as a visible Head of the Church is here denyed Whereas 1. It is not that he is Visus but Visibilis that we assert 2. And he was seen till about thirty three years of Age on Earrh He was seen to do Miracles suffer rise ascend 3. He was seen of Paul and Stephen after his Ascension 4. The poor scattered Flock on Earth is but a Handful to the Church Triumphant that see him still in Heaven and it is the same Body 5. He will come visible in Glory to Judgment 6. Every Believer after a few hasty hours passeth to the sight of him 7. And we shall all see him in Heaven for ever Compare this now with the Visibility of the greatest Earthly Monarchs who are never seen to the thousandth Person of their Empires and rarely to any but their Courtiers and some of them rarely to the most of them but to some very few and quickly die and are seen here no more And yet may not Christ be called a Visible Head And yet we say but that he is visible in tantum and not every-where nor to every one 2. But it is not his Person that he saith is invisible but worse than that it is the Exercise of his Pastorship which he erroneously that I say not heretically affirmeth to consist only in spiritual Influxes and internal Graces So that here 1. He denyeth all Christ's visible teaching and government while he was on Earth were his words to be strictly understood and all his Mission and Commissioning of his Apostles c. 2. He denyeth all the Sacred Scriptures which are Christ's visible Doctrine Laws and Promises and so the visible Exercise of his Office as the King's Laws are of his 3. He denyeth all Christ's visible Administrations by his Officers Princes and Pastors as if it were a good Argument that Christ doth it not because they do it whereas it is he that visibly ruleth as to the effect here questioned by them as it is the visible Government of the King which is exercised all abroad the Kingdom by his Command 4. He denyeth Christ's visible Mercies Provision Protection Deliverances of many sorts which are all parts of the Exercise of his Office 5. He denyeth all the visible Miracles which Christ hath wrought by others whilst yet their Church so boasteth of them as if they were their very Foundation as I shewed out of Knot against Chillingworth who ultimately resolveth their Faith into them and they would have us think that they are costant things If you say that Christ is not seen here I answer It is not Christ's Person now whose Visibility he speaks of but the Exercise of his Office 6. He denyeth all the visible punishments which Christ himself inflicteth on his sinning People and on his Enemies though they are many and notorious and as God is known by the
necessary to make us Members Answ. As the union of King and Subjects maketh one Kingdom so the union of Christ and Christians maketh one Church and we call none Christians that profess not true Faith and Charity and their seed But he saith the Question is How a Heretick or Schismatick can be a true Christian. Answ. Ambiguous words are the game of deceivers and to open the ambiguity marreth their cause The word Heretick I have told you signifieth either one that denyeth an Essentiall part of Christianity or one that only denyeth an Integral part The former are no Christians the latter may § 13. But he will prove that no Heretick is a Christian or hath true Faith viz. Whoever hath true faith believeth the material object of faith for the Divine authority of God revealing it That is certain But so doth no Heretick That 's very false of both sorts of Hereticks 1. You call the Luciferians the Novatians c. Hereticks and who can see reason to doubt but they might believe that all that God saith is true 2. Overdoing is undoing As you are the greatest causes of Schisme by overdoing as against Schisme so you would justifie almost all the Hereticks in the world by your blind overdoing as against Hereticks and while you would make most or much of Christs Church to be Hereticks you would make men believe that there are none All that believe that there is a God believe that he is Verax no Lyar but true All that believe that God is no Lyar but true of his word believe all to be true which they judge to be his word But saith W. I no Heretick believeth any thing on the authority of God revealing that is because God that revealeth it is true And so all those that believe that God is true and that any thing is true because he revealeth it are no Hereticks And who knoweth other mens hearts better You or They You take me it's like for a Heretick I say that I believe that God cannot Lye and I believe in Christ because God the â—…evealer is true You say Then I am no Heretick If an Arrian can but truly say that he believeth all Gods word to be true but he taketh not Christs Consubstantial eternal Deity to be Gods word you will justifie him to be no Heretick And yet the poor Iconoclasts the Waldenses the Berengarians can find no place in this mans Church when yet he thus acquitteth almost all Hereticks in the whole world Nothing but humerous singularity can pretend any probable reason why an Arrian a Nestorian an Eutychian a Monothelite yea a Mahometan or other Infidel may not believe that God is no Lyar but all that is indeed his word is true § 14. But he will not be unreasonable without reason His Argument is Whosoever believeth the material object of Faith for the Divine Authority of God revealing it must believe all things which are as sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed of God as are the Articles which he believeth protesteth to and believe nothing as revealed which is as sufficiently declared to him to be erroneous and not revealed c. But every Heretick doth otherwise If he believe some and refuse others equally propounded it is not for Divine Authority Answ. If you believe this reasoning your self you deserve little belief from others 1. The word sufficiently propounded will never sufficiently be expounded by you nor ever is like to be Sometimes by sufficient as in the Dominicans controversie of sufficient grace is meant that which quo posito res fieri potest sine quo non potest And so taken as necessarium or possible for the minimum tale it hath no degrees But usually we take sufficient in such a latitude as that things may be in many degrees one more sufficient than another that is more apt and powerfull to produce the effect And for the first remember that if you judge so mercifully of Hereticks as that no one is such that hath not a proposal in the very first sense sufficient you can call no Arrian nor Photinian or Gnostick a Heretick till you know that the Proposal was to him sufficient And how much less can you call the Nestorians or Eutychians or the Abassines Syrians Armenians c. Hereticks when you know them not and know not the sufficiency of their proposals And to know that a proposal was sufficient to Nestorius Eutyches or Dioscorus doth not prove that there was such sufficient proposal to all others that go under such names either then or now Who knoweth not that an unlearned man hath need of clearer and ofter teaching than the Learned and one that by Education is prepossest with contrary conceptions hath need of more than the unprejudiced and one that is corrupted by sensual lusts hath need of more than the temperate And what man is well able to judge of the measures of sufficiency as to other then much less to whole Nations whom we know not 2. But as to your Minor which by the word as sufficiently sheweth that you take sufficiency as it hath degrees here you seem plainly to absolve all the Hereticks in the world e. g. As if a Monothelite were no Heretick unless it be as sufficiently in degree revealed that Christ hath two wills as it is that he is the Christ and rose again or as if an Arrian were no Heretick unless it be as sufficiently revealed that Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same substance with the Father as it is that he dyed 3. And the supposition in your Minor is notoriously false that all Hereticks have as sufficient a proposal of all they deny as of that which they believe For if the meaning of the words revealing be not equally plain and intelligible then the proposal is not equally sufficient But c Can any man not blinded by faction believe that God hath no more plainly told us that Christ dyed rose and ascended than that he hath two distinct wills or that he hath but one person or that his mother is to be called The parent of God and one that did beget and bring forth God and that God dyed yea or that Christ is God of God Light of Light very God of very God and yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only from the same substance but the same substance Though these are equally true they are not equally clear and evident Do the Quartodecimani the Luciferians the Iovinians deny Truthes as sufficiently proposed as that there is a God or a Christ If you say that though they be not equally proposed in Scripture yet they are by Councils or Traditions I Answer 1. Were they no points of Faith nor the denyal Heresie for 300 years before the first General Council 2. When they of Constance and Basil are for the Supremacy of Councils as de fide and they of Laterane and Florence against them when the Council of Basil decreed the Immaculate conception of the
bound or how can I be said to believe Implicitely their unknown Doctrine or Articles of Faith What is my Implicite belief of Scripture-Particles but my General belief that all the Scripture is Gods Word and true And what is Implicite belief of Popish Traditions in particular but the explicite belief that all Popish Traditions in general are true If therefore these Disputers confess the sufficiency of our explicite neccessary belief and yet damn us for the insufficiency of our implicite belief they shamefully contradict themselves and give up their cause § 14. Next I thus Argued If sincere Protestants are Members of the True Church as intrinsecally informed or as Bellarmine speaketh Living Members then professed Protestants are Members of the true Church as extrinsecally denominated or as it is Visible consisting of Professours But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the Consequent To this when I had given the Reason of the Consequence undenyable and said I prove the Antecedent or Minor he saith You prove say you your Antecedent or Minor which is a Syntax in Logick and deserves a Ferula for no Minor can be an Antecedent Answ. For this Mans sake I will know a Man better than by his Hectoring before I will go to School to a boaster Reader 1. What is that Error in Logick that is called a Syntax I thought Order or Concord had been no Error I confess my self not wise enough to understand this great Logician And his Ferula is too ready which must be used for Syntaxes when it is more used for violation of Syntax 2. Risum teneatis Can no Antecedent be a Minor so did Dr. Peter Heylin tell me before him in his Certamen Epistolare I suppose I shall never hear a third say so What 's the matter that the Boys Laugh at this and say that to deny the Antecedent of an hypothetical Proposition and to deny the minor is all one Is it that Boys have made all our usual Logicks and now these two Logick Doctors have Reformed them Or hath this Man pretended to be a Champion in that Art in which he is below the Novices He had hit it if he had held to his offer to Dispute before a Lady a Girle only in Syllogism by the Pen for this with her might have past for currant and invincible Logick § 15. I proved the Minor thus All that by Faith in Christ are brought to the unfeigned Love of God above all and special Love of his Servants and unfeigned willingness to Obey him are Members of the True Church as intrinsecally informed But such are all sincere Protestants c. This Minor the Man denyeth and saith That Protestants have not these things Answ. 1. Mark how hard this Man is put to it to renounce his Charity He cannot do it without denying what he granteth A sincere Professor of any Religion is one that really is what he professeth to be He denyeth not that Protestants profess to Love God c. And yet he denyeth the Minor that sincere Protestants do love God As if he that sincerely professeth to Love God doth not Love him These are Papist's Syllogisms 2. Note That this Man seemeth to know all Protestants Hearts better than they do themselves and can prove them all Hypocrites that Love not God 3. But by this you see how he reproacheth all those Protestants that turn Papists as having all been but before but graceless ungodly Hypocrites And what wonder then if they turn 4. But it may be his word formally is a cheat A Protestant is a Christian renouncing Popery It is his Christianity which containeth his Love to God His renouncing Popery is but his freedom from their sin And perhaps the Man hath a mind to call this the Form of Protestants But I hope his Talk shall not deprive us of the Love of God or of our Neighbour In the mean time any Man that can truly say that he is not an ungodly Hypocrite without the Love of God and Man hath Argument enough to Answer any Papist in himself 5. Again Reader mark how much these Men magnifie themselves and how much they vilifie the Word and Works of God Let a Man see all Gods wonderful Goodness in his Works and in his Mercies to himself and all Mankind let him read and believe all the wonderful Love of the Father and Grace of the Son that is described in all the Scriptures Let him believe the Promises there Recorded of Everlasting Glory and All this is insufficient to cause him savingly to Love God or Man But let him but add the belief that the Pope is the Governour of all the Earth and that he and his Council must be believed in all their Traditions and Expositions and then the work will be done and he may Love God unseignedly and be Loved by him The Holy Ghost will not work by the Scripture unless we take the Pope for the Expositor Yea more if a Man never heard of Scripture or if he believe not in Christ for want of the Popes sufficient proposal he may Love God and be saved so he do but believe that the Pope with his Council is a sufficient proposer And is there any account in Reason to be given of this strange Phaenomenon why a Man can Love God if he believe in the Pope of Rome and yet cannot Love him by all his Works and Mercies with the belief of all the Scriptures Or is it as very a Miracle as Transubstantiation and Sanctification by Holy-Water or the Opus operatum and one of those Miracles that prove the Church of Rome to be all the Church on Earth § 16. But he repeateth again the thred-bare Reason Had they this they would never have disobeyed and disbelieved all the Churches in the World Answ. That is the Pope and his Priests who are against the far greatest part of the Christian World and Yearly Anathematized by the Greeks who when they had lost the Primacy of the Eastern part of one Empire have tryed to make up the loss by laying Claim to all the Earth O! of what consequence is Obedience to an Ambitious Pope or Priest in comparison of Obedience to all the written Laws of God § 17. I proved the Minor two ways 1. If this the Love of God c. be in our profession then the sincere are such indeed But this is in our profession Ergo Of this he denyeth the Minor It is not in our profession What not that we Love God and are willing to understand and obey his Word Is he not driven up to the Wall even to another denyal of all Mens Eyes and Ears Do not I profess it while I write these words And have not I professed it in sixty Volumns and more And do not Protestant Libraries contain such professions and their Pulpits ring of them every Lords Day What is a Profession but Words and Writings And are not these Audible and Visible to the World And yet the denying not of the