First General Councils An obscure Authority obscurely cited from Bishop Usher n. 5â—â— 58. He draws an Argument for no-subjection due to the Pope from the disobedient Acts of Schismaticks and Hereticks against him n. 60. The 28. Canon of Chalcedon though admitted proves not Mr. Baxter's Assertion ibidem What is meant by the Merits of S. Peter when they are alledged by Ancient Fathers as the prime Ground of the Popes Supremacy Baxter Num. 47. You ask were they different Congregations Answ. As united in Christ they were one Church but as assembling at one time or in one place or under the same guide so they were not one but divers Congregations Iohnson Num. 47. You answer not the question for they might be in different places and times and under several guides and yet be one and the same Congregation as appears in the succession and extension of the Catholick Church The question I demanded is this were they all united in the profession of one and the same Faith and unity of External Communion without these two it is impossible to be united in Christ as I shall prove hereafter Baxter Num. 48. That there were any Papists of 400. years after Christ do yo prove if you are able My Conclusion that all have been against you for many hundred years must stand good till on prove that some were for you Yet I have herewith proved that there were none at least that could deserve the name of the Church Iohnson Num. 48. I have proved there were some in citing the Orat on of the Legates from Pope Celestine in the first Ephesine Council who you grant were for us and if they were for us then all were not against us for so many hundred years See Baxt. p. 23. for you speak there of the first 400. years Now though that Council was celebrated in the year 430. yet both that in a moral consideration passes for 400. and those Legates witnessing what they said to have alwayes been known to every one notum omnibus c. give an Authentical Testimony that it was alwayes acknowledged as a Christian Truth in and through the Church and consequently within the first 400. years No nor was the Council of Ephesus nor any part of it then against us For if they had they would have at least some of them contradicted that which they had in your supposition esteemed so manifest an untruth and contrary to the liberty and jurisdiction of all other Bishops and Churches as imposing upon them a Superiour and Judge who had no lawfull Authority over them Baxter Num. 49. Do you think to satisfie any reasonable man by calling for positive proof from Authors of such Negatives Iohnson Num. 49. I demand no proof of a Negative prove I demand it My demand is to shew any one Congregation of Christians always visible since Christ till now See Baxt. p. 5. beâ—â—de that which acknowledged the Popes Supremacy which is an Affirmative Baxter Num. 50. Yet proof you shall not want such as the nature of the point requireth viz. That the said Churches of Ethiopia India the outer Armenia and other Extra-Imperial Nations were not under the Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome Iohnson Num. 50. I suppose you mean by were not under c. were never under the Bishop of Rome otherwise your instance proves nothing for if they were under him in any age and for any time since Christ you can never make them to be an instance of those who were perpetually in all Ages a visible Congregation of Christians not acknowledging the Popes Supremacy for in that Age wherein they were subject to him they did acknowledge it Baxter Num. 51. You find all these Churches or most of them at this day that remain from under your Iurisdiction and you cannot tell when or how they turned from you If you could it had been done Iohnson Num. 51. I neither find it nor can find it till you tell me which were these Extra-Imperial Churches you mean when you say other Extra-Imperial Nations Mean you all other or some other If all I find the quite contrary For the Goths successively inhabitants of Spain never acknowledged themselves Subjects to the Empire who notwithstanding are now subject to the Roman Bishop and consequently were and are for some time under him And the Suedes and Danes which pretend to proceed from the Goths Vandals c. though now they reject all obedience to him yet in the year 1500. they all acknowledged themselves to be his Subjects in Spirituals and that for many hundred of years together Well then I find not all Extra-Imperial Churches from under the Popes Jurisdiction and some who are I can and do find when and how they turned from him It was about the year 1520. by occasion of the Lutheran Heresie as all the world knows If you mean onely some of those other Extra-Imperial Churches when you have told me which are those some you shall have an Answer In the interim give me leave to tell you that to maintain your Novelty you must shew all Extra-Imperial to have been exempt for if any one were not all might have been subject nay were to have been so à paritate rationis As to the Indians they were not alwayes Extra-Imperial For in the year 163. they subjected themselves to the Roman Emperour Antoninus Pius Euseb. in Chronic Anno 22. Anton. Eutrop. lib. 8. Evagr. Id. c. 7. The Armenians that were Christians were not alwayes Extra-Imperial For in the year 572. being grievously persecuted for the Christian Faith by the Persians they rendred themselves Subjects to the Roman Emperour Nor were they always a separate Congregation from those who acknowledged the Spiritual Soveraignty of the Roman Bishop â—â—n Flor. in literis unionis de Armenorum concordia Vide Plat. Naucler Volaterranum Chalcond Emilium Onuphrium Genebrard de Concilio Flor. See Iovius Gen. Maseus Iâ—â—rriâ—â— in anno 1524. For in the year 1145. they and the Indian Christians subjected themselves to him and again Anno 1439. and so remain for the present Nor were the Ethiopians in all ages a different Congregation from the Romane For Anno 1524. the Emperour and High Priest David promised obedience to the Sea Apostolick And Claudius his Successor did the like Anno 1557. Now let us review the force of your instances You undertook to shew in Answer to my Minor some visible Congregation beside that which acknowledges the Popes Supreme power in all Ages since Christ. To prove this you nominate onely the Indians Ethiopians Armenians Now no one of these Three have been in all Ages a visible Congregation beside that of Rome for each of them at one time or other became the same Congregation to that by subjecting and conforming themselves to and with the Bishop of Rome as I have proved You assert that these Three are and ever were Extra-Imperial Nations and upon that score in your principles independent of the Roman Bishop
we have seen nor will the communion of one heretick or schismatick with another serve the turn as St. Aug. cited by your self delivers l. de unitate Eccles. c. 4. That such as communicate with a part and not with the whole wheresoever it is diffused it is manifest they are not in the Catholick Church Now suppose one singular person turn a professed heretick or schismatick and leaves the external communion of the whole Church he can have no external communion at all if then he seduce to his party another that other can have no communion but with the first who had no communion with the Church so that their communion is without the Church and so will ever be though they increase to thousands and millions This truth therefore thus established my first argument returns upon you shew me said I any Congregation of Christians perpetually visible besides that which acknowledges the Popes supremacy c. This you have not been able to do but by producing known and notorious heretical congregations those I have proved not to be either one and the same congregation amongst themselves which I demanded nor one with the Catholick visible Church because no profess'd hereticks properly so call'd can be true members of the true Church And particularly you fail in this second part for till you prove Protestants to be no hereticks you can never evince them to be true parts of Christs visible Church Now therefore it remains that you begin again and find out some new solution for my argument for as yet you have brought nothing satisfactory to salve it but I hope God will give you the grace to desist from such imposible enterprises strike you with a sweet stroak of mercy as he did St. Paul and change you into a child of his holy Church which are the truest hearty desires of Your assured best wishing friend William Iohnson An Explication of The Catholick Church The chief terms used in this Controversie disputed betwixt Mr. Baxter and William Iohnson William Iohnson THe Catholick Church of Christ 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 lawfull Pastours Mr. Baxter Of your definition of the Catholick Church Qu. 2. Whether you exclude not all those converted among Infidels that never had external Cemmunion nor were members of any particular visible Church of which you make the Catholick to be constituted William Iohnson It is sufficient that such be subject to the supream Pastours 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 Pastour to be included in my Definition Mr. Baxter You see then that your Definitions signifie nothing no man knows your meaning by them William Iohnson You shall presently see that your Exceptions signifie lesse then nothing Mr. Baxter First you make the Catholick Church to consist onely of visible Assemblies and after you allow such to be members of the Church that are no visible Assemblies William Iohnson I make those converted Infidells visible Assemblies as my Definition speaks though not actuall members of any particular visible Church as your Exception speaks 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 me Mr. Baxter 3. You now mention subjection to the supream Pastour as sufficient which in your discription or Definition you did not William Iohnson Am I obliged to mention all things in my Definitions which I express after in answering your Exceptions prove that Mr. Baxter 3. If to be onely in voto resolved to be of a particular Church will serve then inexistence is not necessary to be onely in voto of the Catholick Church proves no man a member of the Catholick Church but proves the contrary because it is Terminus Diminuens 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 onely mention it in your Definition but confine that Church to such William Iohnson I make them Actually inexsistent in some visible Assembly according to my Definition and in voto onely in a particular Church which is your Exception now every particular family or neighbourhood nay of two or three gathered together in prayer is an actual Assembly of Christians though it be no actual particular Church for according to S. Hierom Ecclesia est plebs unita Episcopo now this part of my Definition so much here opposed by you is in effect the same with the first part of the Definition of the visible Church delivered in your 39. Articles Article 19. for that sayes the visible Church of Christians is a Congregation of faithfull men c. And my Definition sayes the Catholick Church is all those Assemblies Congregations or Communities of Christians who live in unity of faith c. which unity makes them one intire and universal congregation of the faithfull In this therefore consists your fallacy that you esteem none to be actually members of the universal Church unlesse they be actual members of some particular Church which I denie and affirm that one may be actually a member of the universal Church though he be not actually but in voto a member of any particular Church for to be actually of the universal requires no more necessarily then to be an actual part of some Assembly though it be no particular Church Reply Will you say you meant in voto who then can understand you when you say they must be of visible Assemblies and mean they need not be of any but onely to wish desire or purpose it Rejoynder This is answered already above it is not necessary all should be actual members of any particular Church it is sufficient if they be actually of some Assembly or Congregation of Christians though it be no particular Church Mr. Baxter But yet you say nothing to my ease in its latitude many a one may be converted to Christ by a solitary Preacher or by two or three that never tell him that there is any supream pastour in the world how then can he be subject to that supposed Pastour that never heard of him The English and Dutch convert many Indians to the faith of Christ that never heard of a supream Pastour William Iohnson Whether he be named or no yet the Church must be supposed to be sufficiently explicated to those Convertists and that must be represented 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 seeing all of my profession hold to be by a chief Pastour and I have here undertaken to prove it is so by subjecting
themselves to Christs manner of Government they virtually subject themselves to a chief Pastour Mr. Baxter If it be necessary that a particular Church must be assigned for such members by the supream Pastours then they are yet little the better that never have any Assignation from him as few have Rejoynder Who sayes it is necessary ad esse to be a part of the Catholick Church that all Assemblies of Christians should be actual members of some particular visible Church prove I say so from my words nor is it necessary the chief Pastour should assign any it suffices that those Christians be resolved to conform when it is assigned Mr. Baxter Qu. 2. What is that faith in unity where 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 what part William Iohnson Answ. Of all either explicitely or implicitely Mr. Baxter Your second Answer further proves that your Definitions signifie just nothing they must live in the unity of the faith that is either with faith or without it with a belief of what God hath revealed to be be believed or without it for to believe any point implicitly in your ordinary sense is not to believe it but onely to believe one of the premises whence the conclusion must be inferr'd But why do you not tell me what you mean by an implicite faith faith is called implicite in several senses 1. When several truths are actually understood and believed in confuso or in grosse in some one proposition which containeth the substance of them all but not with accurate distinct conceptions nor such as are ripe for any fit expression This indistinct immature imperfect kind of apprehension may be called implicite 2. When a general proposition is believed as the matter of our faith but the particulars are not understood or not believed As to believe that omne Animal vivit not knowing whether you be Animal or Cadaver or to believe all that is in Scripture is the word of God and true but not to know what is in the Scripture 3. What is onely the formal object of faith that is believed without understanding the Material object The first sort of these I confess is actual though indistinct but I suppose you mean not this 1. Because it is not the ordinary sense of your party 2. Because else you damn either all the world or most of your own professed party at least as no members of the Church for few or none have an actual understanding and belief of all that God ever revealed to them because all men or most at least have been sinfully negligent in searching after and receiving truth and so are sinfully ignorant no man knoweth all that God hath revealed or that he ought to know 3. Because by this rule it is impossible for you or any man to know who is indeed a member of your Church for you cannot know mens confused knowledge or know that it extendeth to all revealed for if you speak of all revealed in general or in Scripture you still damn all or most in your own sense for none as I said understand it all to a word but if you speak of all which that particular man hath had sufficient means to know It is then impossible for you to make a judgement of any mans faith by this for you can never discern all the means internal or external that ever he had much less can you discern whether his faith be commensurate to the truth so farre revealed so that by this course you make your Church invisible I pray tell me how you can avoid it William Iohnson Your discourse about implicite faith seems strange I require a proof from you that in your ordinary sense it is no belief at all 2. That it is onely to believe one of the premises whence the conclusion must be inferr'd 3. Tell me why you require that I should have declared to you what I meant by implicite faith when you suppose that I speak in the ordinary sense of our schoolmen and I could not but suppose you understood their doctrine 4. Why do you put the belief of the formal object without the belief of the material object of faith a third member of implicite belief or who did ever so before you 5. Why do you confound the two first members of your Distinction both of them being knowledge or belief in confuso your first is when several truths are actually understood and believed in confuso or in gross in some one proposition which containeth the substance of them all c. thus you Your second is to believe that omne animal vivit not knowing whether you be Animal or Cadaver or to believe that all that is in Scripture is the word of God and true but not to know what is in the Scripture thus you Now tell me does not this proposition omne Animal vivit contain the substance of these truths Equus vivit Leo vivit Aquila vivit c. so that by believing or knowing this proposition distinctly omne Animal vivit I believe or know in confuso those other propositions contained as species under their genus in it and the like is of your second proposition for believing all that is in Scripture is the word of God and true expresly I believe in confuso all that is in Genesis Exodus Leviticus c. to be the word of God and true though I neither believe or know expresly and distinctly all that is contained in those books can you deny this If you proceed in Philosophical principles is not the express knowledge of the genus a confused knowledge of species under it and an express knowledge of the species a confused knowledge of the individua under it and a knowledge or belief when they are known or believed in confuso Thus you give distinctions without differences and examples to illustrate your distinctions which quite destroy them 6. Why put you a contradictory proposition you say thus not knowing whether you that is such a man be Animal or Cadaver now this is a plain implicancy in adjecto for it is as impossible that you or any man should be a Cadaver as that a man should be a barn door the one being as truely disparate from a true man as the other and disparates you know cannot predicate the one of the other every one therefore knows who knows what a man is that no man is or can be Cadaver a dead caâ—â—kass so that no man can be ignorant whether you be Animal or Cadaver A little more heed to what you write would do well when you dispute 7. Why say you you suppose I mean nor your first manner of implicite faith when I and all who understand themselves must either mean that or nothing The object of implicite faith delivered in the Schools being nothing else save particular truths contained in substance under some general proposition so that though they be
neither known nor believed distinctly or expresly yet they are known or believed in confuso confusedly and implicitly by the knowledge or belief of their general proposition 8. Why misconceive you the notion of implicite faith it is not as you conceit therefore no faith at all of all the particulars in Scripture because he who has it understands not distinctly many truths contained in Scripture for a Christian has implicite faith because such determinate truths being de facto contained in Scripture by believing all that is contained therein he believes confusedly or implicitly every one of the said truths though he have not distinct knowledge of many of them 9. But most of all I wonder why you take my second answer in a quite other sense then I intended it for your second question being this whether I mean by faith the belief of all that God hath revealed to be believed or of part c. My Answer is this of all either Explicitly or Implicitly that is that those of the Catholick Church must believe all the very same Articles and points of faith by an Explicite faith in order at least to some of them and by an Implicite faith in order to the rest so an explicite faith of some Articles is necessary to all who actually believe with a Divine faith now you would make me say as appears by your Reply that implicite faith is sufficient in relation to all points of faith whatsoever as if I held it not necessary to believe any thing at all explicitly for you press me thus they must live in unity of the faith that is either with faith or without it with a belief of what God hath revealed or without it which inference you could never urge against me if you had supposed me to hold that some explicite faith is alwayes necessary to salvation in such as are capable of actual belief for whilst they have explicite faith of some Articles they can never be thought to be without faith nor could you with reason draw any such consequence from my speaking in this distributive sense both because it is the ordinary sense of the Schools where an explicite faith of some Articles is held necessary to salvation and because my Answer connaturally admits of that sense And lastly because though the words precisely in themselves were capable of your affixed sense yet when words are of a doubtful meaning no man with reason can bind his words to one determinate sense but must leave the determination to him who framed the proposition 10. But now let us try a while what will follow from your Doctrine of Implicite Faith as that term is ordinarily understood by us To believe any point in our ordinary sense say you is not to believe it now our ordinary sense as I have declared is so to believe that point that we have no distinct or expresse knowledge of it but onely a confused understanding because it is contained in confuso under this Proposition I believe all that God has revealed or I believe all that is delivered to be believed in Canonical Scripture Let us therefore settle this Assertion out of your Doctrine whosoever believes all that God has revealed or all that is in canonical Scripture believes no one particular point contained confusedly in those Propositions which he understands not with an actual understanding in particular to be revealed farther then as contained in those Propositions this is your Doctrine now I subsume But no man knoweth all that God hath revealed to wit with that actual understanding of every particular required by you immediately before as is above explicated this minor is yours Ergo say I no man believes all that God hath revealed now I proceed if no man believe all that God has revealed then you believe not all that God has revealed this is evident then further whosoever believs not all that God has revealed is no good Christian nor in state of Salvation But you believe not all that God has revealed Ergo you are no good Christian nor in state of Salvation See you not how fair a thred you have spun against your self or will you say that he who believes not all which God hath revealed is a good Christian if you will you may but sure if you doe so no good Christian will believe you and that you may see how far you are out in asserting this that one cannot truly believe what he understands not actually and in particular or no farther then as the particulars are contained in that universal proposition I believe all that God has revealed or that is in Scripture when you recite the Nicene Creed wherein you professe to believe that God is creator of all things visible and invisible I demand do you truly believe as you professe to believe when you say those words if you do not you make a profession against your own Conscience if you do then you may believe with an actual Belief that he is Creator of many particular things both visible and invisible whereof you have no actual understanding or which are wholly unknown in particular or distinctly to you or by any other knowledge then as confusedly contained in the word all you recite the Athanasian Creed and there professe to believe that all men shall rise at the last coming of Christ and give an account of their works and yet you have no actual knowledge of many thousands and millions of them The like is of St. Paul when he tells us all men are to stand before the Tribunal of Christ c. shall we say that St. Paul believed not as he professed to believe Acts 24.5 14. Credens omnibus quae in Lege Prophetis scripta sunt yet cannot we suppose that he had then an actual understanding of every particular contained in them II. And that you may see by instances how untrue your Assertion is a Christian I suppose has by vincible or culpable oblivion forgot some grievous Sinne of his Life past he comes to the point of Death he is heartily sorrowfull even for the pure love of God for all his sinnes committed against the Law of God without any actual remembrance or understanding of that forgotten sin and so dyes must not one say in your Principle that such a Penitent had no actual sorrow for that forgotten sin implicitly because he had no actual understanding of it what horrid Doctrine would this be the like is of one who forgives from his heart all Injuries done against him but has no actual Remembrance of some of them does he not therefore actually forgive even those which he has forgotten a thousand like Examples might be brought which I leave to your learned consideration having been something with the longest in this Point because I know it imports much to make a true understanding betwixt us 12. why are you so wavering and inconstant in your Propositions first you say that few or none have an actual understanding or belief
NOVELTY REPREST In a Reply to M r. BAXTER'S Answer to WILLIAM JOHNSON WHEREIN The oecumenical Power of the four first General Councils is Vindicated the Authority of Bishops asserted the compleat Hierarcy of Church Government established his novel succession evacuated and professed Hereticks demonstrated to be no true parts of the visible Church of Christ. By WILLIAM JOHNSON Prophanas vocum i. e. dogmatum novitates devita quas recipere atque sectari numquam Catholicorum semper vero Haereticorum fuit Lirinensis contra Haereses c. 23 24. c. Retenta est Antiquitas explosa Novitas Idem c. 10. PARIS Printed for E. C. Anno 1661. The Preface MEdusa sister to Euryale and Sthemione and daughter of a sea-monster ensnared by her beautie and golden tresses Neptune god of the Ocean and with him polluted the Temple of Minerva and had for issue Pegasus the winged Courser Minerva that learned and Virgin Goddess in revenge of so foul an injury metamorphos'd each hair of Medusaes head into a serpent and laid so heavy a Curse upon her that every one whose eyes were so curious as fixedly to behold her chang'd into stones whereupon the Beldam Medusa took her flight into the Dorcades islands in the Aethiopick sea and there raging like a hellish furie made her self Queen and Generaless of a femal armie her two sisters being the chief Commanders under her wasting and depopulating all where they march'd with unheard of cruelty The noble and valiant Captain Perseus covering his breast with a brazen shield of Minerva marched undauntedly towards this hideous Monster and discovering by the reflexion she made in the brightness of his shield while shee and her brood of serpents were all asleep at one blow cut off her head and those of the serpents with it and took it upon the point of his fauchion with him into Africa but such was the venome and pestilence of that inchaunted head that every drop of bloud which fell from it turn'd into a serpent whereby the whole coast of Africa was fill'd with snakes and vipers This though a fiction seems to be a fit Embleme of Heresie S. Greg. in Iob. lib. 35. cap. 34. The sea whale or Monster mother of Medusa by reason of her immense bulk and strength of body toweing her self over all other creatures in the Ocean is Pride and Ambition styled by Saint Austin the mother of hereticks Lib. 2. c. 3. contra lit Parmen Medusa seducing the heart of inconstant Neptune with her youth and beauty is a luxuriant wit priding it self in the invention of novelties in Religion The violation of Minervaes Temple the staining of the holy Church with sordid tenets and practices Pegasus the high flying thoughts of heretical spirits Those snakes and serpents crawling from Medusaes head and twisting themselves about her neck gnawing and consuming not onely one another but the head which bore them are wicked Heresies hatch'd in the brain and nourish'd in the head of Arch-Hereticks condemning and thwarting one another by perpetual contrarieties and still gnawing upon the Conscience which brought them forth The Petrifying Metamorphosis wrought upon the curious spectators of Medusa is the obduratenesse of those hearts who open too broad an eye to the speculations of Hereticks The wasting and destroying what ever oppos'd that femal army the horrible rebellions civil warres destractions desolations caus'd by Hereticks both in ancient and in our present ages The undaunted Perseus the supreme Bishop of the Catholick Church guarded with the shield of Faith and arm'd with the sword of Saint Peter cuts off the serpentine head of Medusa errours and heresies with his definitions decrees censures and anathemaes the drops of bloud distilling from Medusaes head even after it was struck dead and divided from her shoulders turning into so many snakes and adders the pullulation of new divisions and subdivisions of Heresies spreading themselves all o-over and infesting the countries where they fall with implacable dissentions and tumults each against other This is the sad story of Medusa Emblemis'd And yet happy had been our Nation and many others with it had it rested in the nature of an Embleme and been no more then a bare speculation But as it hath faln heavy upon several Countries in all precedent ages so in this and the former has it almost crush'd ours and many adjacent to us the histories are too too fresh in our memories and the late pressures too broad before our eyes to need recital and yet we might hope to obliterate their foul Characters in time were there not new drops distilling from Medusaes ghastly head and perpetuating that generation of vipers which took their first birth from it Force of Reason and Authority had devested our adversaries of both and so enervated their Principles that they had no consistency when behold a new brood of unheard of Novelties dropping from Medusa's brain rise-up to reestablish their dying cause Sects and Schismes are united as parts to the Catholick Church Oecumenicall Councils are despoiled of their ancient Authority Ecclesiasticall Decrees pin'd up within the Circuit of the Romane Empire true Christian and Divine Faith made consistent in the same soul with Heresie ancient Theologicall Definitions question'd and revers'd c. And those Principles once advanced which both Parties condemned and execrated as Diabolicall our Arguments are frustrated and we put upon a necessity to prove what we and all Christians suppos'd hitherto as undeniable Truths This is the task which Mr. Richard Baxter inventer of the said Novelties hath put upon me a man who had his fecunditie of invention been equalliz'd with a soliditie in Learning might have proved as offensive as he is now invective against the Roman Church My present work therefore is not so much a defence of mine own as of the common cause of Christians against those young Meducean Serpents new bred Novelties hissing against it so that it may be equally intitled CHISTIANITY MAINTAIN'D and NOVELTY REPRES'T Yet I have made choice of the latter as not daring to assume a Title to any writing of mine which a Person so far excelling me in all respects has prefixed to his own in answer to another bold oppugner of Christian Principles Whosoever therefore shall please to peruse this present Tract shall I hope find the whole controversie laid open so plain before his eyes that he needs no more then to parallell each answer to its respective objection in their severall Paragraphs for to this end I have inserted the whole first part of Mr. Baxters last Answer by Sections verbatim and to each applyed my rejoinder that neither the Reader may be put to the cost or trouble of perusing Mr. Baxters Book nor he himself have any occasion to complain that I accuse him to say any thing which he expresses not in his own Treatise For the same end also I have reprinted here the whole precesse of the argument with all our precedent respective Answers and Replies that the
such and the consent of all Orthodox Christians who ever since esteemed them no other or you must make condemned Hereticks parts of the Catholick Church against all antiquity and Christianity And for those Greeks near Constantinople who are not infected with Nestorianism and Eutychianism yet in the Procession of the Holy Ghost against both us and you they must be thought to maintain manifest Heresie it being a point in a fundamental matter of faith the Trinity and the difference betwixt those Greeks and the Western Church now for many hundred of years and in many General Councils esteemed and defined to be reall and great yea so great that the Greeks left the Communion of the Roman Church upon that difference alone and ever esteemed the Bishop of * See Nilus on this Subject Rome and his party to have fallen from the true faith and lost his ancient Authority by that sole pretended error and the Latins always esteemed the Greeks to be in a damnable error in maintaining the contrary to the doctrine of the Western or Roman Church in that particular And yet sure they understood what they held and how far they differed one from another much better then some Novel Writers of yours who prest by force of Argument have no other way left them to maintain a perpetual visibility then by extenuating that difference of Procession betwixt the Greek and Latin Church which so many ages before Protestancy sprung up was esteemed a main fundamental error by both parts caused the Greeks to abandon all subjection and Communion to the Bishops of Rome made them so divided the one from the other that they held each other Hereticks Schismaticks and desertors of the true Faith as they continue still to do to this day and yet you will have them both parts of the Catholick Church But when you have made the best you can of these Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants whom you first name you neither have deduced nor can deduce them successively in all ages till Christ as a different Congregation of Christians from that which holds the Popes Supremacy which was my Proposition For in the year 1500. those who became the first Protestants were not a Congregation different from those who held that supremacy nor in the year 500 were the Greeks a visible Congregation different from it nor in the year 300. were the Nestorians nor in the year 200. the Eutychians a different Congregation from those who held the said Supremacy But in those respective years those who first begun those Heresies were involved within that Congregation which held it as a part of it and assenting therein with it who after in their several ages and beginnings fell off from it as dead branches from the tree that still remaining what it ever was and only continuing in a perpetuall visibility of succession Though therefore you profess never to have seen convincing proof of this in the first 400 years and labour to infringe it in the next ages yet I will make an Essay to give you a taste of those innumerable proofs of this visible consent in the Bishop of Romes Supremacy not of Order only but of Power Authority and jurisdiction over all other Bishops in the ensuing instances which happened within the first 400 or 500 or 600 years (a) Liberatus in Brev. c. 16. Iohn Bishop of Antioch makes an Appeal to Pope Simplicius And Flavianus (b) Epist. praeambula Concil Chalcedon Bishop of Constantinople being deposed in the false Council of Ephesus immediatly appeals to the Pope as to his judge (c) Concil Chalcedon Act. 1. Theodoret was by Pope Leo restored and that by an (d) Concil Chalcedon Act. 8. appeal unto a just judgement (e) S. Cyprian Epist. 67. Saint Cyprian desires Pope Stephen to depose Marcian Bishop of Arles that another might be substituted in his place And to evince the supream Authority of the Bishops of Rome it is determined in the (f) Concil Sard. cap. 4 cited by S. Athan. Apol. 2. page 753. Council of Sardis That no Bishop deposed by other neighbouring Bishops pretending to be heard again was to have any successor appointed untill the case were defined by the Pope Eustathius (g) St. Basil Epist. 74. Bishop of Sebast in Armenia was restored by Pope Liberius his Letters read and received in the Council of Tyana and (h) St. Chrysost. Epist. 2. ad Innocent Saint Chrysostome expresly desires Pope Innocent not to punish his Adversaries if they do repent Which evinces that Saint Chrysostome thought that the Pope had power to punish them And the like is written to the Pope by the (i) Concil Ephes. p. 2. Act. 5. Council of Ephesus in the case of Iohn Bishop of Antioch (k) St. Athanas. ad Solit. Epist. Iulius in lit ad Arian ap Athan. Apol. 1. pag. 753. Theodoret lib. 2. cap. 4. Athanas. Apol. 2. Zozom lib. 3. cap. 7. The Bishops of the Greek or Eastern Church who sided with Arius before they declared themselves to be Arians sent their Legates to Iulius Bishop of Rome to have their cause heard before him against S. Athanasius the same did S. Athanasius to defend himself against them which Arian Bishops having understood from Iulius that their Accusations against S. Athanasius upon due examination of both parties were found groundless and false required rather fraudulently then seriously to have a fuller Tryal before a General Council at Rome which to take away all shew of excuse from them Pope Iulius assembled Saint Athanasius was summoned by the Pope to appear before him and the * The Appeal of Theodoret from that Council as to his judge is so undeniable that Chamier is forced to acknowledge it Tom. 2. l. 13. â—â— 9. p. 498 and the whole Council of Calcedon acknowledged the right of that Appeal restoring Theodoret to his Bishoprick by force of an Order given upon that Appeal by Leo Pope to restore him Concerning Saint Athanasius being judged and righted by Iulius Pope Chamier cit p. 497. acknowledges the matter of fact to be so but against all antiquity pretends that judgment to have been unjust Which had it been so yet it shews a true power of judging in the Pope though then unduly executed otherwise Saint Athanasius would never have made use of it neither can it be condemned of injustice unless Saint Athanasius be also condemned as unjust in consenting to it Nicâ—â—ph lib. 13. cap. 34. Chamier cit p. 498. says other Bishops restored those who were wrongfully deposed as well as the Pope Which though it were so yet never was there any single Bishop sâ—â—ve the Pope who restored any who were out of their respective Diocess or Patriarchates but always collected together in a Synod by common voice and that in regard only of their neighbouring Bishops whereas the Bishop of Rome by his sole and single authority restored Bishops wrongfully deposed all the Church ever Council in Judgement
to an Argument not precise I therefore expect accordingly that the unlearned be not made the Iudges of a Dispute which they are not fit to judge of seeing you desire us to avoid their road William Iohnson Num. 2. When I press you to as much brevity as my first Adversary prest me I shall require no more and shall easily bear with penetrations of Syllogisms and mediate consequences when they are proveable in lawfull form My chief care was to obstruct all excursions amplifications and irregularities quite out of form and all Sophisms and Fallacies which I have avoided When the learned are sufficiently informed I hope they will have so watchful a care of conscience and Christian charity that they will impart what they finde to be truth to the ignorant And this I expected signally from you in whom I discovered a fervent desire to publish what you thought truth to every one Baxter Num. 3. And by a Congregation of Christians you may mean Christians politically related to one Head whether Christ or the Pope But the word Assemblies expresseth their actual Assembling together and so excludeth all Christians that are or were members of no particular Assemblies from having relation to Christ our Head or the Pope your Head and so from being of the Congregation as you call the Church universal Iohnson Num. 3. Assembly implies no more an actual assembling then Congregation an actual congregating prove it does They are both taken in the same sense in Scripture and approved Authors and comprised in the word caetus and the one as capable to include a head and members subject to it as the other Baxter Num. 4. I had great reason to avoid the snare of an Equivocation or ambiguity of which you gave me cause of jealousie by your whatsoever as I told you as seeming to intimate a false supposition To your like I answer it is unlike and still more intimates the false supposition Whatsoever Congregation of men is the Common-wealth of England is a phrase that importeth that there is a Congregation of men which is not the â—â—ommon-wealth of England which is true there being more men in the world so Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church doth seem to import that you suppose there is a Congregation of Christians univocally so called that are not the true Church which you would distinguish from the other which I only let you know at the entrance that I deny that you may not think it granted Iohnson Num. 4. My Simile is alike in what I prest it Viz. That no man can rightly understand me as you do to mean by Congregation a part of the Church when I say it is the whole Church The disparity mentioned by you shall hereafter be examined when I come to confute your Novelty in that point In the interim you may please to take notice that there are as well Congregations of Christians univocally so called which are not the Church as there are of men which are not the Common-wealth of England Such are the Senate of Venice the Common-Council of London the Parliament of Paris c. Baxter Num. 5. Yet I must tell you that nothing is more ordinary then for the body to be said to do that which a part of it only doth as that the Church administreth Sacraments Discipline Teacheth c. The Church is assembled in such a Council c. when yet it is but a small part of the Church that doth these things And when Bellarmine Gretser c. say the Church is the infallible Judge of controversies they mean not the whole Church which containeth every Christian when they tell you that it is the Pope they mean And therefore I had reason to inquire into your sense unless I would willfully be over-reacht Iohnson Num. 5. This is a meer Parergon for I declare in my Thesis that I speak only of that Church out of which no man can be saved as appears in your Edition p. 2. which is not cannot be the Church representative in a Council for then none could be saved who are out of that Council Baxter Num. 6. You now satisfie me that you mean it universally viz. All that Congregation or Church of Christians which is now the true Church of Christ doth acknowledge c. which I told you I deny Iohnson Num. 6. By this appears how inappositely you propounded the question Whether I meant by Congregation in my Proposition the whole Church or only some part of it seeing it was manifest I could not mean any part of it by that word Baxter To my following distinction you say That all the world knows that whatsoever is acknowledged to have been ever in the Church by Christs Institution cannot be meant of any accidentall thing but of a necessary unchangeable and essential thing in Christs true Church To which I reply either you see the grosse fallacy of this defence or you do not If you do not then never more call for an exact Disputant nor look to be delivered from your Errors by Argumentation though never so convincing If you do then you are not faithful to the Truth In your Major Proposition the words being many as you say you penetrated divers Arguments together ambiguities were the easier hidden in the heap That which I told you is accidental to the Church and that but to a corrupted part was the acknowledging of the Papacy Fallacy 1. as of Christs Institution and therefore if it were granted that a thing of Christs Institution could not be accidental yet the acknowledgment that is the opinion or asserting of it may If the Church by mistake should think that to be essential to it which is not though it will not thence follow that its essence is but an accident yet it will follow that both the false opinion and the thing it self so false conceited to be essential are but accidents or not essential You say it cannot be meant of any accidental thing But 1. That meaning it self of theirs may be an accident 2. And the question is not what they mean that is imagine or affirm it to be but what it is in deed and truth That may be an accident which they think to be none Iohnson Num. 7. Sir The fallacy is not in my Proposition but in your understanding You assert that the Soveraignty of the Pope is as accidental to the Church as will hereafter appear as pride and cruelty is to the Spanish Nation and therefore the Acknowledgement of it is Accidental for if the acknowledgement be in a matter Essential it self must also be Essential either to the constitution or destruction of the Catholick Faith For the Essence of Faith requires that all Essentials be believed And it must be destructive of Faith to believe any thing to be Essential and absolutely necessary to Christian Faith which is a meer Accident and non-Essential For such an Errour constitutes a false Christian and teaches that to be Essentially
Instances in your next Reply as are here demanded of you You cite me here Blondel and Aeneas Silvius so confusedly without Book Chapter Page or Column that I think it not worth my pains to spend time in seeking them if they have any thing worth your citing or satisfactory to what here I say either set it clearly down in your next or give me some clear means to know what you stand upon in those two Authors Baxter Num 80. Whether the Bishop of Rome had power over the Bishop of Arles Fallacy 11. by the Heathen Emperors is a frivolous question Arles was in the Roman Patriarchate and not out of the Empire The Churches in the Empire might by consent dispose themselves into the Patriarchal Orders Non-proof 10 without the Emperors and yet not meddle out of the Empire Iohnson Num. 80. You proceed Sophistically à possibili ad actum The Question is not What the Bishops might have done but what they did Now you affirm they did form themselves into Patriarchates by free consent make it appear to have been so by Authentical Testimonies from Antiquity I bring you proofs that their subjection to him was out of that most publick Tradition that he was successor to S. Peter Vide infra Bring me as many that he was made Patriarch of the West before Constantines time by force of free consent of the Western Bishops under the Empire Is it not a plain Paradox to affirm that a thing should be done by publick consent of a thousand Bishops through the whole Western Church and yet there should be no one step of proof no word of any Historian for it in all Antiquity Baxter Num. 81. Yet indeed Cyprians words intimate no power Rome had over Arles more then Arles had over Rome that is to reject Communion with each other upon dissent Iohnson Num. 81. S. Cyprians words shall be examined hereafter in their proper place CHAP. VI. ARGUMENT Num. 82. The four first General Councils proved by many Reasons and Authorities to be truly and properly Oecumenical having Authority over all Christian Churches as well without as within the Roman Empire num 84 85. Whom Mr. Baxtâ—â—r accounts univocal Christians and proper parts of the Catholick Church num 86. Whether he have made a good choice for himself num 88. No Heretick properly so called can have true Christian Faith in any Article whatsoever and consequently can be no part of the Catholick Church num 90 91. Christ the sole Head of the whole Church Triumphant and Militant The Bishop of Rome no more then Head of the visible Church on earth and not absolutely but secundum quid that is according to the external and visible Government onely and even that not as having all other Bishops under him as his Officers but as Christs Officers together with him they of their respective Districts and he of them to direct and correct them when need requires it Baxter Num. 82. Nay it more confuteth you that even under Heathen Emperours when Church-associations were by voluntary consent of Pastors only and so if they had thought it necessary Non-proof 11. they might have extended them to other Principalities yet de facto they did not do it as all History of the Church declareth mentioning their Councils and Associations without these taken in Iohnson Num. 82. Where are your proofs I deny any such consent to be extant in Antiquity nor could those Provincial or Nationall Councils call the Extra-Imperials to sit with them because they were only of the Provinces which were within the Empire and had no Authority without the precincts of their respective Churches Now you will give me leave to discover the weakness and inconsistency of your Novelty about the first four General Councils having had no power without the Empire First the very a Vide titulum Conc. Nicen. Titles of the Councils themselves confute you where they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is universal or General Nor can you say that is meant onely through the Empire for you hotly contend that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 universal is extended to all Christians through the whole world Part. 2. Secondly b Conc. Chalcedon Act. 16. ap Binium p. 464. they call themselves General Thirdly the Canons Decrees Definitions are General without any limitation more to the Empire then to any other part of the world as is clear out of all the Canons and Decrees themselves Fourthly Historians of all Ages call them Oecumenical or General and never intimate any Imperial limitation if they do produce the Historian that calls them National or Imperial Councils Fifthly the whole Christian world ever since their times have esteemed them General and to have had an obligatory power and authority over all Christians Sixthly the holy Fathers c D. Aug. tom 7. contra Denatist lib. 2. cap. 13. ut diu Concil in suis quibusque regionibus diversa Statuta nutaâ—â—rint donec plenario totius orbis Concilio quod saluberrimè sentieâ—â—atur etiam remoâ—â—is dubitationibus â—â—irmaretur Hoc enim jam in ipsa totius orbis unitate discussum consideratum perfectum etque firmatum est loquitur de Concil Niceno Now it is evident that S. Aug. by his totius orbis means totius orbis Christians the whole Christian world that is the whole Church of Christ as appears by a hundred places of his against the Donatiffs when he sayes they have separated themselves from the whole world that is from the whole visible Church and this you confess to be true pag. 229 230 c. of your Book who speak of them stile them General Oecumenical plenary yea plenissima c. d Produce any one of them who limits these Councils to the Empires or denies them to have had power to oblige all Christians Seventhly Protestant Authors so far as I can see before you esteemed them General without any limitation and if you can cite any who say the contrary I pray do it e Anno 1 Elizabeth cap. 1. Versus finem capitis Eighthly the very Statute-Books of England since Protestant times call them General f Artic. 21. where by saying Some General Councils have erred they suppose there have been General Councils in the Church which had Authority out of the Empire For those as you confess were onely National or Imperial Councils Ninthly your 39 Articles call them General and the Fathers g D. Aug. tom 7. de Baptism cont Donatist lib. 2. cap. 3. when they call them General they distinguish them also from Provincial or National Councils Tenthly h D. Aug. ibid. cap. 1. cap. 4. cap. 9. Sic ait si autem Concilium ejus Cypriani attenditur huic universae Ecclesiae posterius Concilium Nicenum intelligit praeponendum cujus se membrum ostendebat ut se in totius corporis compage retinendâ caeteri imitarentur saepiùs admonâ—â—bat Nam ut Concilia
posteriora prioribus apud posteros praeponebat universum partibus semper jure optimo praeponitur Orthodox Writers commonly affirm that what they define is the Definition of the Catholick Church i Thus were the Arrians Quartodecimans Rebaptisers Macedonians Nestorians Eutychians even in Ethiopia and Armenia c. esteemed ever since Hereticks for resisting the Definitions of those Councils All who resist their Definitions in matter of Faith have ever since been universally branded with the note of Hereticks whether they were within or without the Empire k Canon universalis Ethiopum prays for the Fathers of the three First General Councils and affirms they were gathered for the defence of the right Faith and not for those of the Fourth Council because the Eutychian Heresie which they hold was condemned in the Council of Chalcedon Epist. Armen primae ad Leon. Imperat. ubi se subjiciunt 4 primis Conciliis in aliâ Epist. ad cundem idem faciunt Episcopi Armeniae Secundae apud Binium pag. 535. Conc. Tom. Extra-Imperial Provinces and Churches have anciently and do yet subscribe to them Lastly not onely all kind of Authority but plain reason overthrows this your Novelty For first the end why these Councils were gathered was to procure peace amongst Christians not in the Empire onely but through the whole Catholick Church and to put a final period to the controversies defined in them as appears from the Authorities now cited out of S. Austin Now if the Extra-Imperial Nations had not been obliged by those Definitions the controversies had still continued among them as much as if no such Definition had been made Secondly if any desired to embrace still the Heresies condemned in them it was but conferring themselves to the Extra-Imperial Churches and they had freedome in conscience from their former obligation as not being bound there to subscribe to the Councils Decrees So that every obstinate Heretick might shake off these Decrees at his pleasure Thirdly if any Nation or Province should have been by force of Arms won from the Empire which was under it in time of these Councils they would ipso facto have been freed from obeying the Decrees and beleeving the Doctrine of these Councils Fourthly if on the contrary any Extra-Imperial Nation had been reduced under the Empire eo ipso it would have contracted an obligation to conform to the Decrees of the said Councils so that Christian belief should have depended on the fortune of War Fifthly if your assertion were true it would follow that now de facto neither Spain France Italy England Denmark Swethland Poland nor any of the Eastern Churches are obliged to subscribe to the Nicene Council and the same is of the rest otherwise then of their free choice ever since they were from under the command of the Empire Nay hence will follow that even those of Germany by reason that is another Empire instituted independently of that in those ancient times and consequently that no Christian Churches in the world have any obligation successively descending down to them of obeying and following the Decrees of the four First General Councils My last reason is that those Extra-Imperial Christians who embraced the Heresies condemned in any one of those Councils never alledged this reason of yours that those Councils had no power to oblige them because they were not under the Empire and I pray you in your next produce any such reason authentically testified to have been alledged by them Baxter Num. 83. See now how little your objections are worth and how groundlesly you bid me See now how little my Allegations are to the purpose Iohnson Num. 83. Now you will have seen which proofs your or mine have been more to the purpose Baxter Num 84. As for the rabble of Hereticks which you reckon up as you esteem them some of them are no Christians univocally so called and those cannot be of the Christian Church Iohnson Num. 84. You would have given better satisfaction to your Reader if amongst all the Sectaries particularis'd by me pag. 43. in your Book which were to the number of eighteen you had determined which of them you had esteemed Christians univocally so called and which not but whilest you leave him thus in obscurity telling him onely that some of them were not univocal Christians and not telling him which some you mean I believe he will have little satisfaction Yet by justifying the latter part that is almost one half of them in your next ensuing words and excusing some of the rest Baxt. p. 48. he may gather that you account Montanists Donatists Nestorians Eutychians Iconoclasts Berengarians Waldensians Albigenses Wickliffists and Hussites Univocal Christians and consequently true parts of the Catholick Church in your Principles Baxter Num. 85. Others of them were better Christians then the Romanists and so were of the same Church with us And it is not many reproachfull names put on them by malice that makes them no Christians or of many Churches or Religions If an arrogant Usurper will put Nick-names on all that will not bow to him as Vice-Christ and call them Iconoclasts Berengarians Waldensians Albigenses Wickliffists Hussites Lutherans Calvinists you may as well give a thousand more names this makes them not of various Religions nor blots out their Names from the Book of Life Iohnson Num. 85. I have not Baptis'd any of them they were publickly known by these names many a fair year before you or I was born and since I desired to be understood I was to express them in such names as they commonly are known by whether they deserve the names I give them or no is not our dispute now I think they did when I called them so and that they deserve it as much as either Arrians or Donatists or Pelagians c. deserved to be branded with the names of those several Arch-Hereticks that broached them Nor can I yet find that the Roman B. whom you rudely call a Tyrant was more the imposer of those names upon the fore-named Sectaries then upon Arrians Donatists or Pelagians c. Baxter Num. 86. I have in my most retired thoughts perused the History of those mens Lives and of the Lives of many of your Popes together with their several Doctrines and with Death and Iudgement in my eyes as before the great God of Heaven I humbly beg of him that I may rather have my everlasting portion with those holy men whom you burned as Waldenses Arbigenses Hussites c. then with the Popes that burned them or those that follow them in that cruelty unless reconciling Grace hath given them repentance unto life Iohnson Num. 86. I humbly beg of God that he deliver you from ever coming to that place where any of those which I mentioned as condemned Hereticks are in the other world I hope he has prepar'd a much better for you But tell me seriously would you indeed be content rather to be with the Albigenses who held Two Gods
Bernard Lutsemburg de Albigens Vide etiam S. Anton. 4 parte summae Tit. 11 c. 7. the one Good and the other Evil with the Manichees who denied 1. the Old Testament 2. that Baptism profited Infants to Salvation 3. that an unworthy Minister could consecrate the holy Sacrament 4. that wicked Prelates had any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction or were to be obeyed 5. that it is lawfull to swear in any occasion whatsoever c. then with Alexander the Third whom no Christian in those times ever accused of Heresie or Errour in Faith who was elected against his will and after a Schisme made by Octavianus the Anti-Pope and Frederick the Emperour was received both by the Western and Eastern Churches excepting onely the party of Frederick who notwithstanding after acknowledged him and relinquisht Octavianus the Anti-Pope And whatsoever latter Historians relate by Hear-say Acta Alexâ—â—nd 3. ap Romuald Episcop Salern in suo Chronico ap Rogerium in Epist. Alexand in Histor. suâ of the insulting of this Pope over that Emperour yet those who recorded what past before their eyes in the time of Alexander record nothing but what became a modest and Christian Prelate of his eminency Baxter Num. 87 The Religion of all these men was one and they were all of one Vniversal Church Iohnson Num. 87. This is your grand Novelty at which I chiefly aim in this Answer It is not easie to conjecture what you mean by all these men whether the Iconoclasts Berengarians Waldensians Albigenses Wickliffists Hussites Lutherans Calvinists which you named in the end of pag. 105. and again pag. 106. in your Edit or those whom I named pag. 43. of your Book that is all at least amongst them whom you account Univocal Christians amongst which are Donatists Nestorians Eutychians Pelagians And can you or did yet ever any Christian before you account these men to have had one Religion Is the Religion of those who say there are Two Gods the same with that which teaches there is no more but one onely God if so then Heathens and Christians may be as well of one Religion If not then could not at least the Albigenses be of one Religion with the rest Vide supra whom I have proved to have held two gods Of the rest more hereafter Baxte Num. 88. Where you again call for one Congregation I tell you again that we know no unity Essential from whence the Church can be called one but either Christ or the Vice-Christ the former only is asserted by us and the latter also by you which we deny And therefore we cannot call the Universal Church one in any other formal respects but as it is Christian and so one in Christ. Iohnson Num. 88. We acknowledge the Church to be one in Christ as much as you but we acknowledge him as Head not to be the Formal but the Causal unity that is working the formal unity to wit Faith and Charity in his Church It is not enough to make one living organical body that there be one head and parts but those parts must be united to their Head and amongst themselves and to that Head Nor is it enough that there be several parts in the Church and one head of it but those parts must also be united to their Head and amongst themselves otherwise they are not one Now that which is the formall cause of this Unity is true Christian Faith and Charity which do both unite Christians amongst themselves and to Christ their Head I mean that necessary and prime charity which preserves external Communion and society amongst Christians so much celebrated by the Fathers and Schoolmen which is taken away by nothing but Schism or that which includes Schism Whence appears that to whomsoever the name of Christian is vulgarly given unless there be found true Faith and this Christian charity amongst all the other members they cannot be actual parts of the one true Catholick Church When therefore you say the Church universal cannot be called one in any other formal respect but as it is Christian if you mean by Christian all such as have true Christian faith and charity ut supra you say true and you say nothing but what all good Christians say But then here comes the difficulty how any Heretick or Schismatick can be a Christian more then nomine tenus in denomination only or in a laxe acception of the word for such as make a bare profession to beleeve in Christ and are thereby distinguished from Jewes Mahumetans and Heathens and so pass under the notion of Christians For if to be a Christian in our present strict sense be required a true Christian Faith then all that are true Christians have true faith but no Heretick hath true faith Ergo No Heretick is in this strict acception a Christian The Major is evident I prove the Minor Whosoever hath true faith beleeveth the material object of faith or the thing beleeved for the Divine Authority of God revealing it But no Heretick beleeves the material object of faith or the thing beleeved for the Divine Authority of God revealing it Ergo no Heretick hath true faith The Major is granted by all Divines yours and ours For Christian faith must rest upon Gods revelation as its formal object I prove the Minor Whosoever beleeves the material object of faith or thing beleeved for the Divine Authority of God revealing it must beleeve all things which are as suffiâ—â—iently propounded to him to be revealed by God as are the rest of the Articles which he beleeveth protesteth to and beleeve nothing as revealed which is as sufficiently declared to him to be erroneous or not revealed by Divine Authority as are the Articles of Faith propounded to be revealed by God But every Heretick either refuses to beleeve something which is so sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed from â—â—od or beleeves something as revealed which is so sufficiently declared to him to be erroneous or not revealed from God Ergo no Heretick hath true faith The Major I prove thus as to the first part Whosoever refuses to beleeve what is so sufficiently propounded to be revealed by God either beleeves all that is so propounded or beleeves some things and refuses to beleeve others as sufficiently propounded as those which he beleeves But if he refuses all he can have no true faith for he beleeves nothing and consequently is no Christian. If he beleeves some and refuses others equally propounded he beleeves them not for the Divine Authority revealing for when that is equally propounded to his understanding it ought to work equally upon it but upon his own willful choice or private judgement refuses one and assents to the other To illustrate this Let this sentence of Scripture Tertiâ die refurget he shall rise again the third day be so sufficienly propounded to be Gods revelation that whosoever refuses to beleeve the substance of our Saviours Resurrection delivered in it is
Church all the rest even the highest are no more then his Officers with a limited and restrained power that is in order to the sole sole external and visible government of it not having other Bishops under him as his Officers but as Officers of Christ and subject to him as hereafter shall be further declared Nor yet have you given here any direct answer to my Question I demand whether you account Rome and Protestants one Congregation To which you answer the Roman Church hath two heads and the Protestant but one and that 's the difference Now this gives no satisfaction to my demand for the Question inquires not Whether there be any difference betwixt us and you that was out of Question but whether that difference assigned by you be so great that it hinders them from being one Congregation and that you resolve not and thereby leave the difficulty unanswered Baxter Num. 91. They are Christians and so one Church as united in Chrst with us and all other true Christians If any so hold their Papacy and other Errors as effectively and practically to destroy their Christianity those are not Christians and so not of the same Church as we But those that do not so but are so Papists as yet to be truly and practically Christians are and shall be of the same Church with us whether they will or not Iohnson Num. 91. You tell us what would follow if such things as you fancy were done but you tell us not whether it is possible to do them or no. Can a Papist think you remaining still a Papist so hold his Papacy and other pretended errors as to destroy Christianity If he cannot why trifle you away time in printing such Chymerical conditionals if he can tell us how and by what means which you have not done nor indeed can you do it For how is it possible for two persons to be both Papists that is of the same Faith in all things for otherwise they will not be both Papists and the one of them only to be a Christian and the other none but practically and effectually destroying Christianity Baxter Num. 92. And your modest stile makes me hope that you and I are of one Church though you never so much renounce it Iohnson Num. 92. I never saw a man labor so confidently to perswade one out of his Religion upon so weak grounds as you do And truly something might be done in time to make you and me of one Church if I knew what Church you are of For you contradict so loudly the Tenets of all those who pretend either to be the Church or parts of the Church before you that I cannot finde but you are of a Church by your self which no man knows but your self and then I 'me sure you neither are nor can be of one Church with me so long as you remain in the state you are in yet it is the height of my desires that we may both be joyned in one Catholick Church which I shall most earnestly and unfainedly beg of God still hoping that your zeal and ardency in what you profess may as it did S. Paul bring you to see and imbrace his true Church Baxter Num. 93. As Papal we are not of your Church that 's a new Church-form Iohnson Num. 93. Prove it is new you know well enough we hold it to be ancient Baxter Num. 94. But as Christian we are and will be of it even when you are condemning torturing and burning us if such persecution can stand with your Christianity Iohnson Num. 94. I have shewed you are not as Christian speaking univocally of one Church with us For true Christianity requires true faith which I cannot beleeve you have nor have you proved it as shall appear hereafter I am unwilling to revive the memory of those severities you mention and you also might have pleased to have buried them in Oblivion for in objecting them to us you refresh the remembrance of yours towards us nor yet see I why such severities can better stand with your Christianity then with ours CHAP. VII ARGUMENT Num. 95. Roman Catholicks and Protestants cannot be of one and the same Church num 96 Length of time or continuance excuses not the succeeding Hereticks or Schismaticks from the crimes of their first beginners num 97. When Protestants deserted external Communion with Rome they deserted together with it the external Communion of all other particular visible Churches and that upon the same grounds n. 98. Mr. Baxters exclamation against Rome is injurious to all other ancient particular Churches existent immediatly before the first beginners of Protestancy n. 99. All the Kingdoms in the world not one visible but only invisible Kingdome under Gods invisible providence and power which governs them and in that regard an unfit instance to prove different particular Churches without one visible governour of them all to be one visible Church num 100. His opinion of actual Hereticks and Schismaticks properly so called contrary to all Authors ours or his own and to Christianity it self num 101. How Alphonsus à Castro held them to be members of the Church num 102. Every Heretick properly so called denies some essentials of Christianity num 103. Pelagians undoubted and manifest Hereticks and Schismaticks The Catholick Church so perfectly one that it s not capable to be divided Baxter Num. 95. But you ask Why did you then separate your selves and remain still separate from the Communion of the Roman Church Answ. 1. We never separated from you as you are Christians we still remain of that Church as Christian and we know or will know no other form because that Scripture and Primitive Churches knew no other Either you have by Popery separated from the Church as Christian or not If you have it s you that are the damnable Separatists If you have not then we are not separated from you in respect of the form of the Christian Church Iohnson Num. 95. You separated as much from us as did either Novatians or Pelagians or Donatists or Acacians or Luciferians or Nestorians Eutychians c. did from the Catholick Church of their respective times which is enough for us to deny you to be of one Church with us or to be any true parts of the Catholick Church If it be not so shew what you can say for your selves which any of those Hereticks might not as well have alledged in their own defence for neither did any of them separate from the Church as it was Christian nor did either the Pelagians Donatists Acacians Luciferians Novatians dis-beleeve any essential point of Christian faith if Protestants dis-beleeve no essential what you say of not separating from us as we are Christians is a precision never used by Catholick or Heretick in ancient times nor indeed did ever any Heretick who esteemed himself a Christian affirm he separated from the Church as it was Christian for that had been to deny himself to be a Christian which
is one visible Kingdome yet to make it no more one visibly then the School of Christ-Church or Westminster is one visible School is in my Logick to speak-contraries Mr. Baxter Num. 100. Your next reason against me is because They cannot be parts of the Church unless Arians and Pelagians and Donatists be parts and so Hereticks and Schismaticks be parts Reply 1. You know sure that your own Divines are not agreed whether Hereticks and Schismaticks are parts of the Church William Iohnson Num. 100. You cannot but see I speak of parts of the Church as you understand parts and therefore I say pag. 48. in yours Secondly your position is not true Now your position is to hold that some Hereticks properly so called are parts of the Church of Christ and united to him as their Head by reason that they believe with a true Christian Faith the Essentials of Christianity whereby they are Christians though they erre in some Accidentals as appears by that distinction so often used by you In this sense then I say you hold Hereticks to be true and real parts of the Church And this I affirm to be contrary to all Christianity and a novelty never held before by any Christian. Though therefore taking the word parts in another more lax and improper sense and the Church as it is a visible body and government one only Catholick Authour * Lib. 2. de Haeret. punit c. 24. Haereticus etsi per Haeresim perdat fidem non tamen eo ipso est prorsus ab Ecclesiâ separatus sed adhuc est parâ—â— illius corporis membrum ejus c. Et infra Faâ—â—eor quidem meo quidem judicio negari non potest Haereticum esse partem Ecclesiae membrum illius non esse omnino ab illâ separatum quia etsi fidem non habeat habet tamen Characterem Baptismalem per quem primum factum est membrum Ecclesiae quâ—â— durante semper erit membrum illius Alphonsus à Castro thinks Hereticks may be called parts of the politick Body of the Church as She hath power over them to inflict punishment upon them by reason of the character of Baptisme which makes them ever remain subjects of the Church and lyable to her censures yet he holds expresly that they have no true Christian Faith at all quite against you whereby they can be made parts of Christ's Church united to Christ as their Head as you hold they are And the like is of Schismaticks For though some Catholick Author 's doubt whether they may be termed by reason of the profession of Christian Faith parts of the Church in a large sense yet none ever held as you doe that they were united to Christ as their Head and thereby compose one Christian Church with other Catholick Christians because they want that principal Christian Charity required as necessary to a compleat union to Christ. Your opinion therefore is contrary to all those of the Roman Church and shall God assisting me be * See my second Part. proved contrary to all Christians and Christianity and of most dangerous and damnable consequence But you must know that à Castro's opinion is censured by all other Doctours and thereby improbable nor yet makes the ground of his opinion Hereticks and Scismaticks more of the Catholick Church then are those Christians who are damned in hell for even they have the Character of Baptism and yet he says that so long as that Character remains they are Church-members quo durante semper erit membrum illius Mr. Baxter Num. 101. And if they were yet it is not de Fide with you as not determined by the Pope William Iohnson Num. 101. 'T is determined contrary to your sense a hundred times over by all the Anathemas and Excommunications thundred out against them in so many General Councils Mr. Baxter Num. 102. If it be then all yours are Hereticks that are for the affirmative Bellarmine nameth you some of them If they be not then how can you be sure it 's true and so impose it on me that they are no parts William Iohnson Num. 102. I have now told you None of ours ever held them parts as you doe that is united to Christ their Head as the rest of the parts are by Faith and Charity Mr. Baxter Num. 103. Arians are no Christians as denying that which is Essential to Christ and so to Christianity William Iohnson Num. 103. 'T is very true they are no real univocal Christians and your reason is good because they deny that which is Essential to Christ and so to Christianity But hence will follow that no proper Heretick whatsoever is a real univocal Christian for all of them deny something Essential to Christ and so to Christianity which I prove thus Whosoever denies Christ's most Infallible veracity Divine Authority denies Something which is Essential unto Christ. But every Heretick properly so called denies Christ's most infallible veracity and divine Authority Ergo Every Heretick properly so called denies something which is Essential to Christ and so to Christianity The Major is evident I prove the Minor Whosoever denies that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed from Christ denyes Christ's most infallible veracity and divine authority But every Heretick properly so called denies that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed from Christ. Ergo Every Heretick properly so called denyes Christs most infallible veracity and divine Authority The Minor is clear For that is properly to be an Heretick The Major is also clear For how is it possible to deny that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to me to be revealed from Christ without affirming that Christ said something which is not true which is manifestly to give Christ the lye and to doe that is to deny openly his divine veracity This Argument I hope you will please to think of seriously and either give an Answer in form to it or relinquish your Noveltie Mr. Baxter Num. 104. Pelagianisme is a thing that you are not agreed among your selves of the true naâ—â—ure of Many of the Dominicans and Jansenists think the Jesuites Pelagianize or Semi-Pelagianize at least I hope you will not shut them out Donatists were Schismaticks because they divided in the Catholick Church and not absolutely from it and because they divided from the particular Churches about them that held the most universal external Communion I think they were still members of the universal Church but I 'le not contend with any that will plead for his uncharitable denyal It 's nothing to our Case William Iohnson Num. 104. You fall again into a plain Fallacy proceeding à parte ad totum The doubt which is among some of our Divines is only about part of their Heresie and you would make your Reader believe it were about the whole Some points of their Heresie are clearly agreed upon by all Catholick Authors as is that
spread through the world are the Catholick Church why then cite you words quite overthrowing that position out of St. Augustine pag. 230. 24. Quicunque de ipso capite ab scripturis sanctio dissentiunt etiamsi in omnibus locis inveniantur in quibus ecclesia designata est non sunt in ecclesia whosoever discents from the holy Scriptures concerning the head our Saviour though they be found in all places in which the Church is design'd yet are they not in this Catholick Church or intend you to evince that all those who profess the Essentials of Christianity as you understand them though they separate from the external communion of all visible Churches existent when they first begun communicate only amongst themselves in some particular countries are parts of the Church why then cite you the words immediately following Et rursus quicunque de ipso capite scripturis fanctis consentiunt unitati ecclesiae non communicant or as after ab ejus corpore quod est ecclesia ita dissentiunt ut eorum communio non sit cum toto quacunque diffunditur sed in aliqua parte separata inveniatur manifestum est eos non esse in ecclesia Catholica And againe whosoever consents with the holy Scripture concerning the head Christ communicate not with the unity of the Church as after but so dissent from his body which is the Church that their communion be found in some separate part it is manifest they are not in the Catholick Church Now seeing St. Augustine intends by this argument to convince the Donatists not being parts of the Catholick Church because they departed from the external communion of all particular Churches existing immediately before in their time yet it is manifest that in your opinion they held all the essentials of Christian Faith and thereby communicated with those Churches as they were Christians as much as you do you separate from external communion as much as they did it is evident that this very text cited by your self against us unanswerably confutes the substance of your whole book against me overthrowes the foundation of your key and suppresses that grand noveltie of Schismaticks being parts of the true Church O you are a stout disputer are you not 25. Pag. 231. Optatus is cited to as little purpose as was St. Augustine why distinguish you obedience and subjection from charity is not it a preserving of charity in the Church to yield subjection to Superiours is not that a part of Christian charity being a performance of a command touching the love to our neighbour otherwise you must argue thus Optatus sayes the schismatiques were charitatis desertores non subjectionis desertores desertors of charity not desertors of subjection ergo he makes no spiritual Superiours or Pastors at all essential parts of the Catholique Church nor talks of unity caused by subjection to them how like you this consequence If you admit it every old wife at Kidderminster might have tanted you and told you there needs no subjection to you from me more then to me from you so long as I am in charity with you and all men I have no need of subjection to any and therefore as you acknowledge in your answer to Iohnson pag. 231. Optatus calls the schismatiques desertors of charity not of subjection O this is a welcom doctrine to the vulgar and a precious seed of rebellion for if no subjection but a charity as amongst equals be required to the Essence of the Church why should it be essential to a common-wealth O how sweet will this sound in the ear of a Leveller But why say you he accounts not the Apostolick Roman See to be an essential part of the Catholique Church sayes he not expresly in the words now cited by me that unity is to be preserv'd through the whole Church by means of the singular Seat unica sedes of St. Peter at Rome and is not both unity and that which is necessary to preserve it essential to the Church sayes not Optatus presently after those words that this unica sedes the one only See of Rome is Dos Ecclesiae one of the Dowries or properties of the Church and are not they essential 26. Pag. 231. It is cleer Optatus means by extra septem Ecclesias out of the seven Churches no more then out of their communion as they were parts of the Catholique Church as appears from the next words you cite dissentio schisma tibi displicuit concordasti cum fratri tuo cum una Ecclesia quae est in toto orbe terrarum communicasti septem Ecclesiis memoriis Apostolorum amplexus es unitatem Dissention and Schism hath displeased thee thou hast agreed with thy brother and with one Church which is in the whole earth thou hast communicated with the seven Churches and the memories of the Apostles thou hast imbraced unity Thus you save me the labour of salving your arguments by salving them your self 27. But why cite you Optatus his words lib. 6. p. 93. in your 232. page I know not if it be not to confute and confound your grand novelty of Schismaticks properly so called being parts of Christs Church sayes he not after his description of the Catholique Church aquâ vos concisos esse from which you are cut off Why have you not added this sentence to leave your Reader doubtful whether Optatus say these Schismaticks were or were not cut off from the Church nothing surer then that but it 's most certain Optatus was in the affirmative as the full sentence declares Optat. lib. 6. Itra Parm. p. 93. which quite ruines that your novelty Thus you save me again the labour of confuting your novelties by confuting them your self Are you not a strong Disputant let the world judge that 28. Pag. 232. you say first Tertullian thought it a tiresome way to dispute with the Hereticks of and before his time out of Scripture that they were to be convinc'd by prescription and what I pray think you of the matter are you of Tertullians mind why then have you press'd so much the sufficiency of sole Scripture as the rule by which you intend to dispute against us may not we reply against you as Tertullian did against those that it is a tiresome thing to dispute with Hereticks out of Scripture and that you are to be convinc'd by prescription But these Heretick say you err'd in fundamentals tell us I pray precisely once for all which are those how shall we know otherwise whether they err'd in sole fundamentals or no Please also to tell me where Tertullian restrains his rules of prescription to such only as erre in those which you would put in the number if you were able to sum it up of fundamentals what fundamental point even in your account deny'd the Chilliasts or Millenaries the Nicolaitans the Sacramentaries mention'd by St. Ignatius as he is cited by Theod. Dial. 3. deny they any article
God and in the entrance of the same Epist. he compares Schismatiques to Corah Dathan Abiram who separate themselves from the communion of the Jewes and their high Priest Aaron St. Aug. lib. 20 contr Faustum c. 30. Schisma est eadem opinantem eodem ritu colentem quo caeteri solo congregationis delectari dissidio Schism is a voluntary Dissidium or separation of one who agrees in doctrine from the Congregation viz. of the Church St. Aug. lib. 4. contr Donatistas Cap. 14. Nam caetera omnia vera vel censeatis vel habeatis in eadem separatione tamen duretis contra vinculum fraternae pacis adversus unitatem omnium fratrum Thus he states the Schism of the Donatists if ye continue in separation against the bond of Brotherly peace and unitie of all the Brethren that is of the whole Church Lib 2 contr Donatistas cap. 6. Respondete quare vos separastis quare contra orbem terrarum Altare erexistis quare non communicastis Ecclesiis respondete quare separastis propterea certe ne malorum communione periretis Quomodo Ergo non perierunt Cyprianus Collegae ejus quare ab innocentibus separastis Sacrilegium Schismatis vestrum defendere noâ—â— potestis The holy Father disputing against Schismatiques askes them as we à pari aske Protestants why have you separated your selves why have you erected an Altar against the whole world answer me why did you separate certainly you separated least you should perish in the communion of the wicked how then did not Cyprian and his colleagues perish Lib. contra Petilianum nulla igitur Ratio fuit sed Maximus furor quod isti velut commmnionem caventes se ab unitate Eeclesiae quae toto orbe terrarum diffunditur separarunt There was no cause but a great madness that they fearing communion should separate themselves from the unity of the Church through the whole earth what can be more evident then this that St. Aug. held the Donatists to be out of the Church which you flatly deny St. Hierome Haeretici de Deo falso sentiendo ipsam fidem violant Schismatici discessionibus iniquis a fraterna charitate dissiliunt Contra Luciferianos quamvis ea credunt quae credimus Heretiques by teaching false things of God violate the Faith Schismatiques by unjust seperations depart from fraternal charity though they believe the same thing with us Nothing can destroy more fully your novelty then do these words for he speaks indefinitely of all Heretiques and affirms that they violate the faith and consequently have no faith without which they cannot be true members of Christs Church and that all Schismatiques leave fraternal charity which is necessary to be in the unity of the Church St. Hieron comment in Ep. ad Titum c. 3. Propterea vero a semet ipso dicitur esse damnatus Haereticus quia Fornicator Adulter Homicida caetera vitia per sacerdotes de Ecclesia propelluntur Haeretici autem in semetipsos sententiam dicant suo arbitrio ab Ecclesia recedendo Therefore he an Heretique is said to be condemned of himself because a Fornicator an Adulterer a Murtherer and the like vices are expelled out of the Church by the Priests but Heretiques pronounce a sentence against themselves by receding or departing from the Church of their own accord Does not this profound Doctor condemn your novelty in these words both by teaching that all Heretiques for he speaks indifinitely depart from the Church and by shewing a difference betwixt other criminal sinners and Heretiques when they are to be avoided which you labour to put in the same state with some Heretiques viz. That other sinners are cast out of the Church but Heretiques out themselves and yet farther that even other criminal sinners when they are excommunicated are no actual parts of the Church as you hold they are because they are cast out of it which doctrine is also Emphatically delivered by St. Aug. l. 11. quest cap. 3. Omnis Christianus qui excommunicatur Satanae traditur quomodo Scilicet quiaextra Ecclesiam est diabolus Sicut in Ecclesiae Christus ac per hoc quasi diabolo traditur qui ab Ecclesia communione removetur Vnde illos quos Apastolus Satanae traditos esse praedicat esse excommunicatos demonstrat Every Christian who is excommunicated is delivered up to Sathan how that to wit because the devil is without the Church as Christ is in the Church and by this he is as it were delivered to the devil whosoever is removed from the communion of the Church whence the Apostle demonstrates those to be excommunicated whom he pronounces to be delivered to Sathan whence followes also that seeing all profest Heretiques are excommunicated persons that according to St. Aug. they are all out of the Church I forbear the citation of more Authors esteeming these â—â—ufficient 75. I have at large deduc'd the reason of this truth against you in my answer to your first part The sum whereof is this that whosoever disbelieves any divine truth sufficiently propounded to him as such disbelieves the infallible truth of Gods word and consequently evacuates the formal object of Christian faith thereby destroyes faith which cannot subsist without its formal object and by that destroyes Christianity in so much as in him lyes and consequently Gods Church nay and God himself whence also follows that such a disbeliever hath no supernatural faith at all of any other articles which he believes but a meer humane natural and fallible assent to them for he cannot assent to any of them because they are reveal'd by Gods infallible authority for he hath made that fallible in disbelieving something which is sufficiently notified to him to be revealed from God Now if he have no true faith he can neither have salvation nor be a member of Christs true Church which is directly destructive of your novelty That which has deceiv'd you and such as follow you in this is that you make your whole reflection upon the material object of faith which considered alone is as a dead carcass in respect of true Christian faith seeing it wants the soul and life of it the infallible authority of God revealing it and though hereticks perversely perswade and delude themselves they assent for the infallible authority of God to such articles as they believe yet seeing we now suppose there is no defect in the proposition of such articles as they believe not that they are reveal'd from God they being propos'd to them equally with other articles which they believe in reallity there is no other cause of their disbelief then that they attribute not an infallible authority to God revealing the said articles which they disbelieve Now if he be fallible in one he is infallible in nothing for his erring in one supposes him subject to error which is to be fallible And as faith is wanting so is external communion also to every profest heretick and schismatick as
of all that ever God revealed to them and within three or four lines you say absolutely and without all exception no man knoweth all that God hath revealed first you say all men or most at least have been sinfully negligent in searching after and receiving truth and within a Line or two you leave out your Restriction and say no man knoweth all that God hath revealed or that he ought to know 13. I would know the reason why you first suppose your principle that no man can believe all unlesse he actually knows all and thence inferre against me that in my Principles who deny that of yours I cannot know who is who is not of my Church because I cannot know what Reasons any particular have had to know more or fewer divine Truths or whether they have concurred with those Reasons or no and so must make my Church invisible now I make my Church visible though by comprehending in it all those who professe 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 behalf though they should happen through culpable negligence not arrive to the knowledge of many things which they ought to know necessitati 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 Mr. Baxter The second sort of implicite belief is no belief of the particulars at all an Animal may live and yet it followeth not that you are alive or an Animal William Iohnson How impossibly dispute you here your instance is from the matter for when you say omne Animal vivit every sensible creature lives it must have this sense that it lives onely so long as it is and as it continues Animal or a sensible Creature for otherwise you would have it to be when it is not and to live when it is dead now understanding the proposition thus whosoever believes omne Animal vivit believes me to be a sensible creature so long as I am in being and to live before my Death nay you seem not to reflect upon the sense of such propositions for they relate not to the proposition by chance in relation to particular individua but to the Essence of the subject whereof they predicate for when Philosophers say omne Animal vivit they mean it is 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 existency or no nay you bring an instance of a particular to confirm an universal your Question was of omne Animal all sensible creatours as appears above and of all that God has revealed and to confirm your assertion in this you being a particular an individuum vagum saying an Animal may live c. that is some particular Animal nor stay you here but to amend the matter you bring an instance of changeable things to confirm a proof of things unchangeable I who now am may cease to be in actual existencie but whatsoever is once revealed from God can never cease to be revealed or become a thing unrevealed though therefore it follows not that because omne Animal vivit therefore I live actually yet it follows that whatsoever is once revealed of God remains alwaies actually revealed Mr. Baxter If this were your meaning then either you mean that it is enough if all be believed implicitly besides that general proposition or you mean that some things must be believed explicitly that is actually and some implicitly that is not at all Rejoinder I have told you something more must be believed explicitely how much or what is a dispute amongst Divines not necessary to be determined here yet I will speak something to that presently Reply If the former be your sense then Infidels or heathens may be of your Church for a man may believe in general that the Bible is the word of God and true and yet not know a word that is in it and so not know that Christ is the Messias or that ever there was such a Person Rejoynder Your instance 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 believes it prudently and then he must be moved by prudential motives of credibility which must draw him to afford credit to that Authority as derived from God which commends to him the Bible as the written word of God now that can be no other then the Authority of the Catholick Church which he cannot be ignorant to profess the faith of Christ there being no other save that though therefore he knows not by experience that Christ is mentioned in the Bible yet 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 in him is necessary to salvation Reply But if somewhat be explicitly that is actually believed the question that you would have answered was what is it for till that be known no man can know a member of your Church by your discriptions Rejoynder There was no necessity to tell you that for when you so often distinguish betwixt points of faith Essential and accidental seeing you ought to understand the terms of your own distinction as I could not but suppose you did you had no need to be informed what points were to be believed by explicite faith all Essentials in your opinion are such Reply If you take implicite in the third sense then implicite faith is either Divine or humane Divine when the Divine veracity is the formal object humane when mans veracity is the formal object which may be conjunct where 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 or inspireth him that is at once to believe a humane and Divine veracity If any of this be your meaning that last question remains still to be resolved by you A man may believe that God is true and that his Prophets and inspired messengers are true and yet not understand a word of the message so that still if this will serve a man may be of your Church that knoweth not that ever there was such a person as Iesus Christ or that ever he died for our sins or rose again or that we shall rise William Iohnson Your third member I have rejected before as a stranger to implicite faith but I think you speak not true Divinity when you say that to believe God to be true
and his inspired Prophets to speak truth is to believe a humane and Divine veracity for what Divine ever said before you that Christian faith which is to believe God speaking by the Prophets c. is to believe so much as partially a humain veracity for that would make Christian faith partly humaine which no Christian can affirm it being a pure Theological virtue and having no other formal object save Divine veracity revealing for though the Prophet be a humaine person yet he speakes when he is inspired by God not with humain but with Divine authority God speaking by his mouth Mr. Baxter And are all Infidels of your Church while you are arguing us out but if there be some trueths besides the veracity of God and his messengers that must be believed you must shew what it is or your Church members cannot be known tell me Ergo without tergiversation what are the revealed truths that must be actually believed or what is the Faith material in unity whereof all members of the Catholique Church do live William Iohnson Tell me what points of Faith you account Essential to make a Christian precisely which is part of your own distinction and you will save me the labour of telling you what points are to be believed explicitely if you know not that you delivered a distinction which you understood not Mr. Baxter I pray fly not but plainly tell me and if again you fly to uncertain points because of the diversity of means of informations and say it must be so much every man as he had means to know I again answer you First If a man had no means to know that there is a Christ it seemes then he is one of your Church Secondly you still damn all your own there being not a man that knoweth all that he hath meanes to know because all have culpably neglected meanes and so you have no Church Thirdly still you make your Church invisible if you had any for no man can tell as I said who knoweth in full proportion to his helps and meanes do you not see now whether your Implicite Faith hath brought you William Iohnson Truly Sir your demand is not so great a Bug-bear to make me fly from it for fear it devour me you cannot but know in your perusal of our Divines that your question has bin answered by them an hundred times over have you not heard them deliver in materia de fide that trite distinction that some points of faith are necessary to be believed explicitely necessitate medii and others necessitate praecepti and those of the first classe are absolutely necessary for all men to be so beleived to obtein salvation and to become parts at least in voto if they be not baptized of the Catholique Church and know you not that Divines are devided what are the points necessary to be believed explicitely necessitate medii some and those the more ancient hold that the expliâ—â—tte belief of God of the whole Trinity of Christ his passion resurrection c. are necessary necessitate medii others amongst the recentiors that no more then the belief of the Deity and that he is rewarder of our workes 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 First all those who are baptised and believe all the points of our faith explicitely if any such persons be to be found are undoubted members of our Church Secondly all those who believe explicitely all the Articles and whatsoever belongs to them in particular by reason of their respective offices in the Church Thirdly those who so believe all things necessary necessitate medii or necessitate praecepti extended to all adulti Fourthly all those who believe in that manner all things held necessary necessitate medii according to the first oppinion of the more ancient Doctors Fifthly It is probable though not altogether so certain as the former that such as believe explicitely the Diety and that he is a rewarder of our works and the rest implicitely as conteined in confuso in that Baptisme supposed are parts of the Catholique Church now seeing all those who are conteined in my four first numbers which comprehend almost all Christians are certainly parts of the Catholique Church we have a sufficient certainty of a determinate Church consisting at least of these by reason whereof our Church has a visible consistency these of the fift rank though not so certain as the former take not away the certainty of the former but that consistency supposed Divines found a question amongst themselves those of the first oppinion will answer that such as believe not the aforesaid Christian mysteries expresly are not parts of the Catholick Christian Church though they believe the Deity remunerating and the rest implicitely see you not by this discourse that we answer sufficiently to your questions by telling which are undoubted members of our Church and thereby give a sufficient description of it and rendering it visible by assigning those which are undoubted members of it though in some others without which it hath consistency be controverted amongst us in this discourse I suppose that such as only believe the Diety or some few of our misteries are excused by invisible ignorance from the obligation of knowing the rest for if their ignorance be vincible culpable and willfull it will indanger at least their implicite faith would not a Philosopher give a sufficient discription of a humane living body by defining it to consist undoubtfully of head shoulders armes c. which are the known parts of it though there be a doubt amongst Philosophers whether the nailes humors c. be animated and parts of it here therefore you may consider that we all agree in these parts which give a real visible constitution to our Church though some question be amongst us about the Exclusion or Admittance of some few which whether they be admitted or no our Church remains by reason of the former in a real visible Existency and by this are Answered your three ensuing Numbers Mr Baxter Quaest. Is it any Lawfull Pastours or all that must necessarily be depended on by every member and who are those Pastours William Iohnson Ans. Of all respectively to each subject that is that the Authority of none of them mediate or immediate be rejected or contemned Mr. Baxter Here still you tell me that your descriptions signified nothing you told me that the members must live in dependance on their lawfull Pastours and now you tell me that their Authority must not be Rejected or contemned and indeed is dependance and non-Rejection all one The millions of heathens that never heard of the Pope or any of your Pastours reject them not nor contemn them are they therefore fit matter for your Church 2. If you say that you mean it of such onely as have a sufficient Revelation of the Authority of these Pastours Rejoynder You
Church you have imposed an obligation upon me of answering the reasons and allegations whereby you labour to prove it to have been perpetually visible Baxter Num. 39. You complain of a deficiency in quality though you confess that I abound in number But where is the deseâ—â—t You say I must assert both that these were one Congregation and ever visible since Christs time Reply If by one Congregation you meant one Assembly met for personal Communion which is the first sense of the word Congregation it were ridiculous to feign the universal Church to be such Iohnson Num. 39. You know I mean not that why lose you time in putting an if upon it Baxter Num. 40. If you mean one as united in one visible humane Head that 's it that we deny and therefore may not be required to prove Iohnson Num. 40. I abstract from that also be it but truly and properly one whencesoever that unity is drawn 't is all alike to the Solution of my Argument Baxter Num. 41. But that these Churches are one as united in Christ the Head we easily prove in that from him the whole Family is named the Body is Christs Body 1 Cor. 12.12 13. and one in him Ephes. 4.4 5 6. c. Iohnson Num. 41. These Churches which these mean you all that you seem to point at in your Catalogue All sure or you prove nothing but which are those all You name only those of the present age Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants After these for eleven hundred years you name none at all How shall we then know determinately what you mean here by these Churches when you give no light to know your meaning Let us therefore first know which are these Churches you here relate to by some particular designation and denomination of them or how can you either prove or we know whether they were united in Christ or no and then and not till then can it be discerned whether these Churches be or be not parts of Christs family or body according to the places you here cite Baxter Num. 42. All that are true Christians are one Kingdome or Church of Christ but these of whom I speak are true Christians therefore they are one Kingdom or Church of Christ. Iohnson Num. 42. I grant your Major and deny your Minor if they were independent of the Roman Bishop Baxter Num. 43. And that they have been visible since Christs time till now all History even your own affirm as in Judea and from the Apostles times in Ethiopia Egypt and other parts Rome was no Church in the time of Christs being on earth Iohnson Num. 43. Let them have been as visible as you please that 's nothing to me so were the Arrians Sabellians Montanists c. as much as many of these prove they were no more then one visible Congregation of Christians amongst themselves and with Orthodox Christians that 's the present controversie Baxter Num. 44. And to what purpose talk you of determinate Congregations Do you mean individual Assemblies those cease when the persons die Or do you mean Assemblies meeting in the same place So they have not done still at Rome Iohnson Num. 44. Why do you still ask me if I mean what you know I mean not Baxter Num. 45. I told you and tell you still that we hold not that God hath secured the perpetual visibility of his Church in any one City or Country but if it cease in one place it is still in others It may cease at Ephesus at Phillippi Colosse c. in Tenduc Nubia c. and yet remain in other parts I never said that the Church must needs be visible still in one Town or Country Iohnson Num 45. I assent to you in this why lose you labour in asserting that which no man questions Baxter Num. 46. And yet it hath been so de facto as in Asia Ethiopia c. But you say I nominate none Are you serious must I nominate Christians of these Nations to prove that there were such You reqâ—â—ire not this of the Church-Historians It sufficâ—â—th that they tell you that Ethiopia Egypt Armenia Syria c. had Christians without naming them When all History tells you that these Countreys were Christians or had Churches I must tell you what and who they were Must you have their Names Sirnames and Genealogies I cannot name you one of a thousand in this small Nation in the Age I live in how then should I name you the people of Armenia Abassia c. so long ago You can name but few of the Roman Church in each Age and had they wanted Learning and Records as much as Abassins and Indians and others you might have been as much to seek for names as they Iohnson Num. 46. You trifle away time exceedingly I require as you have seen above the nomination of the determinate Opinions or Societies as Hussites Waldenses Nestorians Eutychians c. not of their persons And therefore I say you nominate none See Baxt. p. 41. much less prosecute you those with whom you begun Now these were Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants so that I speak undeniably of the nomination of Sects and Societies not of Names Sirnames and Genealogies of persons There were different Sects and Professions in different Countreys as Armenia Abassia c. I require the nomination of which of those Sects or parties you mean in those times and Nations not what were their names and sirnames Nor is it sufficient that you say there were Christians that is Christians univocally so called or true Christians in all Ages in Armenia Ethiopia Egypt c. who denied the Popes Supremacy for unless you nominate of what party sect opinion or profession they were how shall any man judge whether they held not some Opinion contrary to the Essentials of Christianity and by that became no Christians even in your opinion You must therefore either have nominated and designed what sort of professions you mean or acknowledge you have spoken in the air and produc'd a pure non-proof in the nomination of those Countreys since no man can know by that what sort of profession you mean amongst all those different professions which have inhabited the said Nations for Arrians Sabellians Manichees Menandrians c. whom you hold to be no Christians and to erre in Essentials denied the Popes Supremacy in those Nations CHAP. III. ARGUMENT Num. 47. No Congregations of Christians can be united in Christ which are not united in the profession of one and the same Faith and in the Unity of external Communion n. 50 51 c. Assertors of the Popes Supremacy within the first 400. years after Christ. Extra Imperial Nations subject to the Roman Bishop n. 51. India and outer Armenians not alwayes Extra-Imperial n. 51. An Universal prov'd from a Particular by Mr. Baxter His word a proof n. 55. A bold Assertion of his contrary both to Ancient and Modern Writers n. 54. The Ethiopians subject to the Three
some exception witnessed bâ—â— Catholick antiquity made against it or grant it was accepted by the whole Church yet had it been Theodoret alone who approved that appeal I had prov'd there was at least one Orthodox christian who held the Popes supremacy in those ages which was all I undertook to prove to infringe your assertion ut Supra Mr. Baxter Num. 147. The Council expresly take on them the determination after Leo and they slight the legates of the Pope and pronounce him a Creature of the Fathers and give Constantinople equall priviledges though his legates refuse to consent but of the frivolousnesse of this your instance see D. Field of the Church lib. 5. cap. 35. pag. 537.538 and more fully Blondel de primatu ubi sup cap. 25. sect 63.65 William Iohnson Num. 147. Here is much said and nothing proved part of what you say is just now satisfied when in your rejoynder you alleadge the reasons of those two Doctors of yours you shall have an answer Mr. Baxter Num. 148. Your next instance is that the Council of Sardis determined that no Bishop deposed by other neighouring Bishops pretended to be heard againe was to have any successor appointed till the case were defined by the Pope Conc. Sard. cap. 4. cited by Anthanas apol 2. pag. 753. Reply It seems you ar well acquainted with the Council that know not of what place it was It was the Council at Sardica and not at Sardis that you would mean Sardis was a City of Lydia apud Tmolum olim Regio Coersi inter Thyatiram Philadelphiam But this Sardica was aâ—â— City of Thrace in the confines of the higher Mysia inter Naissum Mysiae Phillippopolim Thraciae as to the instance William Iohnson Num. 148. Had you seen my citation in the margin you might have saved this labour for I find it cited in two different copies of mine Concilium Sardicense not Sardiense and in a third Con Sardic which haply was contracted in the copie sent to you as you have printed it Con. Sard whereby it is manifest I know what I cited and all the defect was in Englishing the latine word Sardicense wherein such as have lived most part of their lives beyond Sea are not so well verst as those who never stept out of England and indeed you might as well blame the common strain of our English writers as me in this who ordinarily translate Nicea Nice when it should be Nicee for Nice and Nicea are all as different Cities as Sardis and Sardica yet the very name Sardis for Sardica was used long before me for I am not the first who confounded the names of those two Cities as Baronius witnesses an 347. Mr. Baxter Num. 149. This Council is by Augustine rejected as Heretical though I defend not his opinion William Iohnson Num. 149. Why then loose you time in mentioning it Zozom l 3. cap. 10. Epist. Synodalis Arianorum Extat inter Hilar. frag l. 2. but by your leave St. Augustine never rejected this Council of Sardica for it is probable it was unknown to him to be different from that of Nice But that of Philippopolis not far from Sardica where the Arian Bishops assembled a conventicle and gave it out under the name of the Arian Council Mr. Baxter Num. 150 2. It was of so little note and authority that it was not known to the Council of Carthage to have the next antecedent Canons which you would have omitted if you had read them its like in which your writers glory as their cheifest strength and which Bellarmine thinkes Pope Zosimus called the Nicene William Iohnson Num. 150 I can scarce think you were in earnest when you writ this was the Sardican Council of little note when Socrates Zozomen Severus Theodoret Vigilius episc Tadentinus Hilarius Epiphanius and above all St. Athanasius who was present in it make most honourable mention of it as of a famous general Council wherein as many of them say were above 308 Bishops all Catholicks wherein the Nicene Faith was confirmed against the Arians which for its great and unblemisht authority so fully consonant with the Nicene doctrine deserved to be accounted the same with it and to passe under the name and notion of the Council of Nice now this Council was celebrated by consent of both the Emperours of the East amd West and therein were Bishops as St. Athanasius and Theodoret witness from all the Provinces of Christendome Athan. ad salit even from Arabia it self though extra-imperial Mr. Baxter Num. 151. Or rather is it not suspicious that this Canon is forged when those Carthage Fathers plainly say in nullo patrum concilio invenimus mentioning that antecedent Canon proposed by Hosius to which this mentioned by you proposed by Gaudentius is but an addition or supplement And it is not like that all these African Fathers could be ignorant of those canons of Sardica when such abundance of African Bishops were at the Council and that but about 50 years before You may see in Binius how hard a strait he is put to to give any tolerable reason of this and onely saith that its like some of the Canons were lost sure tradition was then grown untrusty William Iohnson Num. 151. Had you but perused at leisure what the malice of the Donatists had wrought in Africa concerning the acts of the true Sardican Council in suppressing the canons of that Council and obtruding those of the false council of Philippopolis composed of Arians under the title and name of the Council of Sardica you had had smal reason to judge that the Affrican Fathers could not be ignorant of those canons of Sardica Now that the foresaid Arian Council was given out by the Donatists under the name of the Sardican Council it was most evident from St. Aug. ep 163. where he affirms that in a book containing the Council of Sardica he found St. Athanasius and Iulius Bishop of Rome condemned whence he collected it was a Council of Arians and contra l. 3. c. 24. He tells his adversary the Council of Sardica was a conventicle of Arians as was evident by the copies which in his time they had of it amongst them having been assembled principally against St. Athansius whereas it is manifest as the authors witnesse in the former paragraph the true Council of Sardica was in favour and defence of St Athanasius and in confirmation of the Nicene Faith Epist. con Sard. apud Athan. Athan Apol. ad sol vit that this fraud was practised by the Donatists St. Aug. witnesseth Ep. 163. where he affirmes that Spurious book was shewed him by Fortunius the Donatist and gives also there the reason of this perfidious dealing because they found in that Arian Council a writing addrest to the African Bishops of their communion with Donatus the first beginner and then Bishop of the Donatists whence appears undeniably that in St. Aug's and so in time of the African Council there was
read that Epistle and had thought that any others would be induced by your words to read it William Iohnson Num. 161. This is a strange way of answering I cite not St. Basil as it comprises those matters which treated in regard of himself or of the Western Bishops but only as it contains his testimony of Eustathius having been restored to his Bishopprick by force of the letters of Liberius which he clearly witnesses Now that this was done not by way of recommendation only and testification of his profession of the Catholick Nicene faith in consideration whereof he desired he might be restored to the Bishoppricks is manifest seeing he actually restored him by an absolute command For you to alleadge other passages of a different nature and nothing contrary to what I say and unfit to shew the thing I cite to be untrue is a meer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why trifle you thus answer the wordes of St. Basil relating to Eustathius and Liberius It is not proofs from your key that I expect here but answers to my Arguments non proof 18. Your branding Liberius with the note of an Arian without proof is as easily rejected by me as said by you what had such a parenthesis as that to do in the argument But I see it is hard to hide rancor where it is excessive For being universal authority drawn from these and the like instances is of force by an argument a paritate Rationis What reason can be alleadged why Pope Liberius should command the restauration of Eustathius a Bishop of the Eastern Patriarck save this that he had power to restore any one wrongfully ejected through the whole Church You assert that all the preheminence he had given him over all the Bishops within the Empire was no more then a Primacy of place and precedency how then came he to have a Primacy of authority and jurisdiction over all the imperial Bishops to judge condemn and restore them shew me who gave him that imperial power this you never resolved in your whole book and I know the reason you could not resolve it into any other grant then into that of Christs institution from the Council of Nice it could not be both because that Council according to your principles rather restraines his power to the Western Churches then extends it into the wole Empire and the Popes exercised power through the wole Empire long before the Council of Nice so that neither that nor any other subsequent Council could give it him nor could the Christian Emperours give him that power for he exercised it long before the Emperours were Christians both in the East and West nor did the the primitive Bishops through the whole Empire give it him for there is no proof in antiquity of any such grant ergo there is no appearance that any such authority was given to the Bishops of Rome from any save Christ himself Now Christ never restrained the power he gave him to the Empire but rather intended it to the whole Church and if he did restrain it shew where and how Mr. Baxter Num. 162. Your seventh proof is from Chrysostome who you say expresly desireth Pope Innocent not to punish his adversaries if they do repent Chrys. Epist. 2. ad Innoc. Reply you much wrong your soul in taking your religion thus on trust some book hath told you this untruth and you beleive it and its like you will perswade others of it as you would do me There is no such word in the Epist. of Chrysostome to Innocent nor any thing like it William Iohnson Num. 162. Either you or I must be in a mighty errour I affirm those very words are in you accuse me of taking things on trust and thereby deceive my self and others and you flatly deny there is any such word in the Epistle of St. Chrys. to Innocent or any thing like it in which Epist. 1 ad Innocentium I again affirm those words are and refer my self to the inspection of the Greek and Latine copies where St. Chrysostome intreates Pope Innocent that in case his opposers would put a remedy to their crimes and Illegalities they might not be punished Mr. Baxter Num. 163 Your eight proof is this the like is written to the Pope by the Council of Ephesus which no doubt you mean is in Binius enough to make a considerable volume and divided it into six tomes and each of those into Chapters and not into acts and if you expect that I should read six Tomes in Folio before I can answer your several sentences or shredds you will put me on a twelve moneths to answer a few sheets of paper If you mean by p. 2. Tom. 2. and by Act. 5. cap. 5. then I must tell you there is not a word of that you say nor like it only there is reference to Celestines and Cyrils Epistles and Celestine in his Epistle recited Tom. 1. cap. 17. threatens Nestorius that if he repent not he will excommunicate him and they will have no communion with him which others did as well as he but not a word of John Bishop af Antioch there nor can I finde any such time in the fourth â—â—ome where John's cause is handled Indeed the notes of your historians divide the Council into sessions but in his fift session there is nothing of John but of Nestorius and in the fourth session John and his party excommunicate Cyril Memnon and others and it was the Council that suspended first and after excommunicated John and it is the Emperour to whom he appeales William Iohnson Num. 163. Had I been sufficiently informed before I writ this answer you had no other edition of the Council then that of Binius I should easily have framed my citations according to that to save you the labour of turning volums over but how should I know that before you told it me I had reason to suppose that you who are and have been for many years so famous a writer of controversies had the Council ready in all sorts of Editions so that none could fall amisse to you If therefore you please to peruse in the Ed of Paul quintus you shall finde the words cited by me conc Ephes. 1. p. 2. Act. 5. in relatione ad Celestinum where writing of Iohn Bishop of Antioch to Pope Celestine the Fathers reserve or remit him to the judgement of Celestine in the interim had provisionally declared him excoÌ„municate deprived him of sacerdotal power whereby it appears how the Council excomunicated him and not only that but declared him also deprived of sacerdotal power Now seeing they reserve this very sentence to the Popes further censure It is manifest they both prefer his sentence before their own and that the sentence was not only negatively to avoide him or not communicate with him but positively to deprive him of the commuion of the faithful which alwayes argues superiority in power as we have seen above in Acatius and tooke the
man in those times You would say I suppose Pulcheria the Empress But you should have dealt more fairly if you had declared in what manner Pulcheria mentions the Confession of Faith sent by Leo. Really Sir the cunning which you use here is unsufferable First you say that Confession of Faith from Leo was sent to Anatolius Which is manifestlie untrue for the Empress Pulcheria saith it was sent to Flavianus his Predecessor This may pass as an error in Historie onlie Secondlie you say that Anatolius consented to that Faith which is true but you express not in what manner he consented to it for equals may consent in Faith one with another but the Empresse saith that Anatolius subscribed to the confession of Faith sent to Flavianus from Pope Leo and that without the least difficulty or demurr which argue that Leo's confession was sent to this end that the Pope required the Bishops of Constantinople to subscribe to what he wrote there to shew that they believed the Catholick Faith Et Epistolae similiter Catholicae fidei quam ad sanctae memoriae Flavianum Episcopum tua Beatitudo decrevit sine ulla dilatione subscripsit Anatolius The Empresse writes thus And he Anatolius without any delay subscribed to the Epistle of Faith which thy blessedness directed to Flavianus Thirdly whereas this Epistle or Confession of Faith was sent as from a superiour to be subscribed by those Patriarcks that he might know whether they held the right Faith or no and thereby judge whether he were to admit them into his communion as was then the ordinary custome you would make it to be a confession sent as from an equal to give them to whom he sent it an account of his Eaith Fourthly whereas I speak of a confession ordered by the Bishop of Rome to be sent from the Bishop of Constantinople to him that the Pope might thereby judge of his Faith you in answer return a confession of Faith as freely sent from the Bishop of Rome to the Bishop of Constantinople as though the Pope had given an account of his Faith to that Bishop now all know it to be a rule of Faith sent Vide verba Pulcheriae by Leo to which was required the in ep ad Leonem Bishop of Constantinople should subscribe to shew that he held the same Faith with the Bishop of Rome and thereby deserved to be received as a Catholick into his communion And lastly you make that to be a confession of Pope Leo's faith made to Anatolius when it was only a summe of the Catholick Faith Epistola fidei Catholicae in general that those Bishops were to subscribe by the Popes order For this very same Epistle in a Council held by the Popes legates in Constantinople Council Chalced in gracis was sent by their order to all the codicibus post Act â—â— tam. Metropolitans in those parts as Pope Leo had given them order to be subscribed by them CHAP. VI. Council of Chalcedon ARGUMENT NUm 219. Mr. Baxters imposition upon his adversary ibid. The legates precedency how it proves the Popes Supremacy Num. 221. Dioscorus not sitting as a Father in the Council shews the Bishop of Romes authority over the Council Num. 222. Mr. Baxter put to desperate shifts read these words Caput omnium Ecclesiarum that Rome is the head of all the Churches Num. 223. The Councils not contradicting what the legates said an undoubted sign of their assent Num. 224. His weak answer to the Councils calling the Pope their Father and themselves his children Num. 226. Mr. Baxter denyes most confidently the Council of Chalcedon to say what it sayes most manifestly Num. 227. Mr. Baxter dissembles his adversaries answer Num. 231. Of what authority was the 28 canon of Chalcedon in St. Leo's time and after Num. 132. General Councils never writ to exhort Bishops and Patriarchs to confirm their decrees in that manner as did the council of Chalcedon to the Pope ibid. two sleights of Mr. Baxters discovered Mr. Baxter Num. 219 You say the Popes Legates sate first in Council Reply what then therefore the Pope was Governour of the Christirn world though not a man out of the Empire were of the Council corruption William Iohnson Num. 219. Your petty slights are grown so numerous that they become intolerable An unskilful Reader would easily perswade himself this consequence is mine which you so confidently impose upon me here viz that I deduce or ought to deduce from the Popes legates sitting first in the Council that the Pope was Governour of the Christian world though not a man out of the Empire were of that Council as If I had granted and were agreed with you in this that there was not a man out of the Empire in that Council and supposing that as a truth with you yet that not withstanding I draw the Popes universal supremacy from the precedency of the Legates in that Council Now I pray you where have I in my whole paper supposed or delivered that there was not a man out of the Empire in that Council name the place and cite the words where I say so or acknowledge that you have imposed a most fals injurious calumnie upon me For you are not content to father your own error and so much your own that you are the first and sole inventor of it upon me but upon that imposition you aske me in a bitter Sarcasmus whether I be still in jest that is you put a consequence as you esteem it ridiculous of your own forging upon me and then aske me are you still in jest is not this handsome yet I Sr give me leave to tell you thus much that though I had granted which I constantly deny that not a man out of the Empire had been in the Council of Chalcedon yet it would have been no jest but a solid truth that from the precedency of the Roman Legates in the Council follows that the Pope was governour of the Christian world for it is necessary to the making of a Council truly and absolutely general and powerful over the Christian world that any Bishop out of the Empire should be actually present in it it is sufficient that they be legitimately and Canonically called to it as much as morally all circumstances considered can be done their actual sitting in it may be obstructed by a hundred accidents dangers impossibilities which hinders not those who can and do present themselves to compose a Council absolutely oecumenical as a sufficient representative of the Church no more then a Parliament legally summoned ceases to be a representative of the kingdome though the Knights of some Counties or Burgesses of some Cities be accidentally absent prove therefore in your next that for this reason that not a man out of the Empire was in that Council the Popes universal government over the Christian world followes not from his legates sitting first in it Mr. Baxter Num. 220. But if it must be so then I can prove that others
instructed me to help my ignorance in this I have no obligation at all to tell you what power Valentinian had out of the Empire for he might first declare as he did the power of the Roman Bishop to govern the whole Church in the beginning of this breif and in the end take care that all those Provinces which were under his Empire should observe that his law concerning so much as belonged unto him that the universal power of the Pope should be observed As may now the Emperour of Germany or the King of France or Spain first declare the universal power of the Roman Bishop over all Churches and then command all their Provinces to obey him which is all the Emperour does here For Valentinian sayes not as you falsifie his words omnium provinciarum of all the Provinces but aliarum provinciarum of other Provinces nor ut Pax ubique servetur as you corrupt him but tunc ubique servabitur then peace will be observ'd every where if the whole universality acknowledge their governour and that not in the law but in the declaration made of the Popes authority vide supra as an introduction to it You answer to Valentinians affirming the Popes authority and sentence was of force without any imperial law to back it is much deficient For seeing he had before declared that the Popes commands had been alwaies observed they must have been of force both before any Patriarchate was assign'd to him by any general Council as you imagine it was and before any Christian Emperours had enacted any lawes concerning it and the very law it self destroyes your glosse for Valentinian sayes presently what shall not be lawful for the authority of so great a Bishop to exercise upon the Churches Whereby he shews his power extends it self not only to his own but to all other Patriarchates nay your very restraining his words to the Empire and yet extending them to the whole Empire shew evidently that the Popes sentence had not been only of force independently of any imperial law within his own but also in all other jurisdictions of the Patriarchs within the imperial verge and hence the consequence which you draw from this authority whereas Valentinian sayes it needed not the imperial help that it needed this extraordinary secular support is as contrary as to draw darkness from light and as inconsequent is it to argue from Hilaries repugning against the Pope sentence for a time that the Pope had no such power over him which notwithstanding you granted just now as to argue that a lawful Prince hath no power over rebellious subjects because they resist it So that it could never seem to any considering person otherwise then that it came into the thoughts and words too of Valentinian here that the Popes supremacy exceeded the limits of the Roman Empire But it is evident enough through the vein that runs through this Paragraph that you are soundly netled with this law of Valentinian and yet because you are resolved what ere comes on 't to persist in your errour you fall foul upon Hosius Leo Valentinian Bishops Popes rather then yield to a manifest truth Hosius you make so shallow that he took things away weakly and facilly upon the custome of the times Leo you make proud and fraudulent and Valentinian a young and raw Prince subject to be perswaded to any thing The most part of considering readers will smile to see Hosius the most honoured Bishop of his time through the whole Church who presided in two general Councils and legate of the holy Pope Silvester for the Western Church Leo graced with the title of most blessed Father Nicene Sardican pronounced the head of the Catholick Church and universal Bishop stiled the mouth of St. Peter in the Council of Chalcedon and ever since honoured with the title of a Saint and Valentinian a most renowned Emperour both for fortitude and prudence for he was twenty seven years of age when he composed this edict so slighted reviled and debased by the Minister of Kiddermunster and that upon your surmises and guesses without any proof at all And others will pitty and compassionate your misery as I really do to see you so deeply plunged in adhesion to your own opinion that you will break all the bonds of Christian modesty and charity rathen then acknowledge your error or yield to a manifest truth Mr. Baxter 258. And it 's no credit to your cause that this Hilary was by Baroniu's confession a man of extraordiry holiness and knowledge and is sainted among you and hath his day in your Kalendar William Iohnson Num. 258. But does not Baronius in the very same place reprehend him at that time when he fell into those defaults and tell you that after his condemnation he came again to himself crav'd most humbly pardon of the Pope and shewed manifest signs of repentance and upon this his humiliation and perseverance in obedience to the See of Rome became both a famous defender of the Catholick Faith and a Saint Was it any disadvantage to the Catholique Church that Origen Tertullian or even St. Cyprian himself men of equal understanding and learning with St. Hilary opposed the doctrine of the Church and raised troubles in it Mr. Baxter Num. 259. And yet Valentinian had great provocation to interpose if Leo told him no untruth for his own advantage for it was no lesse then laying siege to Cities to force Bishops on them without their consent That he is accused of which shews to what odious pride and usurpation prosperity even then had raised the Clergy fitter to be lamented with floods of tears then to be defended by any honest Christian Leo himself may be the Principal Instance William Iohnson Num. 259. He had so indeed but must he therefore give more power to the Bishop of Rome then of right belonged to him Who either defends or is not ready to bewail these abuses But I see where you are you would cast a blot if you could upon Episcopal Government and cry down the power and possessions wherewith God and good men had even in those times inriched them Mr. Baxter Num. 260. You next return to the Council of Chalcedon Act. 1. seq where 1. you referre me to that Act. 1. where is no such matter but you adde seq that I may have a hundred and ninety pages in folio to peruse and then you call for a speedy answer but the Epistle to Leo is in the end of Act. 16. pag. Bin. 139. And there you do but falsly thrust in the word thou governest us and so you have made your selfe a witness because you could find none The words are Quibus tu quidem sicut membris caput praeeras in his qui tuum tenebant ordinem benevolentiam praeferens Imperatores vero ad ordinandum decentissime praefidebant Now to go before with you must be to govern if so then Aurelius at the Council of Carthage and others
deliver'd in the Creed or propos'd to be expresly believed by Catecumens as necessarie to Baptism But they say you lived neer the Churches that were planted by the Apostles and how far lived your beginners from one of them were they not so neer it that everie one of them was of it before they began to novelize That 's not all say you but they were neer the Apostles daies and were those Christians who liv'd neer the Apostles daies to have another rule of faith and principles to confound Heretickes then those of succeeding ages Tertullians rule of prescription is universal and illimitted either to time or place is it not if it be not how came all insuing ages to make use of it against Hereticks of their respective ages And were the Christians in Brittanie Spain and Affrica neerer to those Churches then then they are now what perergons are these Or are those of Armenia and Graecia farther from them now then they were in Tertul. time Num. 1. pag. 232. It was the common Creed then say you and is it not now nay but you adde no other doctrine save that what mean you by other contrary doctrine to the Creed no more is it now not express'd in the Creed so were not many doctrines inculcated then by Tertullian as the holy Eucharist and Pennance where read you these express'd in the Creed which Christian mysteries notwithstanding Tertullian requires in his prescriptions Num. 2. pag. 132. if he would have all Apostolical Churches to be assured witnesses then sure Rome was not excluded why exclude you't now Num. 3. pag. 232 233. if he woâ—â—lâ—â— have the present Churches to the respective beginnings of Hereticks the immediate witnesses as you acknowledge here why refus'd you the witnesse of all immediate Churches existent in the world in your beginnings did they not all celebrate Mass pray for the dead fast Lent desire the prayer of Saints held merits of good works Confession Purgatorie c. Name those who did not hold some or all of these in those times Pag. 232. you cite Latin Texts without rendring them into English there 's something in 't what mean you when you say Tertullian understands not the Church of Rome by una Ecclesia no more then this that it was not the Church of Rome when it first begun in Jerusalem who ever contradicted you in this mean you that it was not made one visible Church by the same visible government first under our Saviour whilst he remain'd on earth then under St. Peter both before and after he became Bishop of Rome which it had under his lawful Successors the Roman Bishops in all ensuing ages that 's indeed the question and seeing Tertullian speaks here of one Church as propagated thorough the world successively from the Apostolical Churches and that of Rome was one and the chief amongst them how can Tertullian speak of the Church and not speak of the Church of Rome in this sentence and seeing also he treats here of a Church as one visible and there is no other means to render it so one if it have not one supream visible ordinary Tribunal to whom all are subject as Optatus had said above and that can neither be the Bishops diffus'd thorough the whole Church nor assembled in a general Council for that is an extraordinarie Tribunal as I have proved there must be some one supream ordinarie Pastor over all other Bishops which if it be not the Bishop of Rome pray tell me in your next who it is By this is satisfied your seven notanda pag. 234. for though Tertullian instance in the Apostolical Churches of his time whilst they agreed in faith with that of Rome as paterns of Christian faith yet experience hath told us and you cannot denie it that all the rest by departing from the faith profest in Rome fell by degrees into heresie so that now you must either say there is no Apostolical not fallen into Heresie or that the sole Roman remains pure from it and a pattern of unitie and puritie of faith to all Christians even till and at this day 29. Pag. 235. you make Tertullian speak both false Latin and non-sence by putting tenentem for tenendum 'T is not put amongst your errata's your English parenthesises as you larded the Latin Text with them three in number look methinks something odlie 30. Pag. 235. what if Tertullian in that passage send us not to the Roman Church would you have him to write nothing in his whole works but dispatches to Rome what if he call the holy Ghost only Vicarius Christi in that place sayes he therefore that he only is his Vicar cannot Christ have one invisible and another visible Vicar Why not sayes Tertullian as you here acknowledge that it is the holy Ghosts office to procure that all the Churches lose not the Apostles doctrine why then say you they have all lost it you 'l replie they have not all lost it in its essentials names Tertullian essentials he sayes the holy Ghost would never permit all Churches to leave the Apostles doctrine now that which you account non-essential was as we now suppose as much their doctrine as was that which you account essential besides ut supra what essentials were contradicted by the Millenaries Nicolaitans c yet they in Tertullians account left the Apostles doctrine but you 'l reply again those onlie are said to leave the Apostles doctrine who leave all their doctrine not those who hold some points though they leave others Then no Heretick can be said to have left the Apostles doctrine for never did any leave it all then though the Church should deny some articles of the Creed and hold others it could not be said to have left the Apostles doctrine you 'l bring I see the Church at last to a fair pass I am glad to see you so ingenuous as to cite the words of Tertullian ecquid verisimili est c. but should have been more satisfied had you English'd them He saies there that it is unlikely all Churches should agree in one and the same errour so that when many agree in one it is no errour but tradition and then demands whether any one have the audaciousness to say those err'd who deliver'd such a doctrine How like you this did not all the visible Churches in the world deriveable from the Apostles agree in the celebration of Mass real Sacrifice desiring the prayers of Saints in heaven praying for the dead fasting in Lent c. immediately before Luther begun to play the Novelist name me any such Church who did not ergo non est erratum sed traditum therefore these are no errours but traditions according to Tertullians doctrine here you are an excellent confuter of your self 31. Pag. 236. you cite Tertullian again reckoning Smirna with many others before Rome Answer it was enough for illustrating Tertullians argument prest there of reducing Churches to their first Originals to bring any instance