though the Apostles their hearers be departed out of this life yet there still remaines a meanes in the world by which all men may assuredly know what the Apostles preached and the primitive Church received of them seeing the Church to the worlds end must be built on the Apostles and beleive nothing as matter of Faith besides that which was delivered of them as S. Paul saith Ephes 2.20 and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the chiefe corner stone CHAP. II. Of the meanes to know which is the Word of God And that all the Protestants Arguments to prove that the Scripture and it onely is the Word of God are insufficient And that the generall Tradition of the Catholike Church is the only assured proof thereof § 1. THese things being supposed the chief difficulty to my seeming consisted in this how we might certainly know now adaies so many ages after the Apostles death what all necessary points that they taught and preached the Protestants said that this was to be found in the Scriptures which were written by them but this did not satisfie my doubt for supposing the Scriptures to be the word of God delivered by the Apostles and others inspired by him yet I wanted some sufficient witnesse or proofe to assure me so much for of my selfe I could not find it The bare word of the Protestants I saw I had no reason to take because they confesse that they may erre and I in this matter not being able to discover whether they did erre or no relying upon a fallible guide must alwaies remaine in uncertainty and fear I observed moreover that although in most of their assertions they might upon examination prove false yet in saying that the Church might erre and taking themselves for the Church they had said most true finding that they indeed had erred in this most important Particular of declareing what is the word of God and what not the Lutherans affirming much lesse for the word of God then the Calvinists and the Church of England doth § 2. Now of necessity one of these sorts of Protestants must erre and that most dangerously the one by beleiving that to be the word of God which is not but the invention of men and perhaps false and foolish Praefat. in Epist Iac. in Edi◠levens as Luther said of S. Iames his Epistle or the other by renouncing that which is indeed the Word of God and so not believing what God himself hath spoken Their Authority being by themselves in their evident disagreement thus broken I descended to consider the reasons by them alledged to induce men to believe that the Scriptures are the Word of God which in general I apprehended to be insufficient because they did not lead the Protestants themselves to an agreement in the quantity thereof But I further weighed them particularly the principall whereof are these § 3. First they say the Scriptures are knowne to be divine by their owne light shining in them Cal. lib. 1. Inst cap. 7. Sect. 2. infine Even as sweet and bitter are knowne by the tast white and blacke by the sight which assertion to me seemed very absurd I confesse indeed much of the Scripture is but the amplification of the Morall Law which is a knowledge engrafted in man by nature by the light whereof we may see that it is true but this proves it not to be the Word of God For though all truth be from God as he is the prime verity and so may be called in some sense his Word yet by the Word of God in this case is meant truth revealed by God immediately unto the pen-men thereof and though we find much thereof to be true as agreeing with the engrafted principles of reason yet this proveth not that it was revealed immediately and extraordinarily which is the circumstance that makes it the Word of God in the sense of those that dispute about it As for the historical parts both of the Old and New Testament the institution of Sacraments with the like they have no affinity with the in-born principles of reason and are therefore not knowne to be so much as true by any light they carry with them much lesse to be extraordinarily revealed by God and so to be his Word Besides if it could be discerned what were the Word of God and what not by the resplendent light thereof as easily as the light is knowne from darknesse as some of them say how could there be so much dissention about the parts thereof as it is knowne there is the Calvinists seeing more to be the Word of God then the Lutherans do and lesse then the Catholikes and yet if it shew it selfe by its owne light the Turks may see it as well as any of them And heere I observed that many had blinded themselves with looking on the light and could not see so far as to discern between corporall and spirituall light but because the Prophet David saith Thy word is a lanterne unto my feet and a light unto my paths Psal 118.105 they conceived the Scripture was as easily discerned by its own light as the Sun True it is that every corporall light that doth enlighten the eye of the body must be evident in it selfe and originally cleer but not so every truth that doth illustrate mens understanding The reason is because the eye of the body cannot by things seen inferre and conclude things that are hidden but can only apprehend what doth directly and immediately shew it selfe but mans understanding apprehends not only what shewes it selfe but by things knowne inferres and breeds in it selfe the knowledge of things hidden Hence though things shewing themselves directly and by their own light be prime principles of the understanding and the meanes to know other things yet also things hidden in themselves being formerly known by the light of authority may thereby become lights that is meanes to encrease our knowledge of hidden things So that speaking of spirituall and intellectuall lights it is false that all lights that enlighten mans understanding to know other things are evident in themselves yea some secondary principles and lights there are which must be shewed by a superiour light before they become lights themselves In which kind is the Scripture being a light only to the faithfull because known by the Churches Tradition to be from the Apostles by the Apostles authority confirmed by miracles to be of God by Gods supreme verity who cannot deceive nor be deceived to be the truth Moreover this conceipt of theirs doth utterly extinguish faith and beleife of the word of God for every thing is so far forth the object of faith that it is not seen as S. Paul saith Faith is the argument of things not seen Hebr. 11.1 In Evang. Ioan. Tract 40. and S. Augustine What is faith but to believe that which thou dost not see If therefore they do see it they cannot properly
being once evident to the world are by the worlds full report declared unto us which is a morall infallibility So that if we have not a Metaphysicall or Mathematicall infallibility of the truth of Miracles yet we have a Physicall and morall infallibilitie as much as we have of any thing we either hear or see Nor doth this Physicall evidence take away the merit of faith because this evidence not being altogether and in the highest degree infallible in it self for our senses may somtimes be deceived it is not sufficient to conquer the naturall obscurity darknesse and seeming falshood of things to be believed upon the testimony of those miracles For the mystery of the Trinity of the Incarnation Reall presence and the like seem as far above the reach of reason as any Miracle can seem evident to sense hence when faith is proposed by Miracles there ariseth a conflict betwixt the seeming evidence of the Miracles and the seeming falshood and darknesse of Catholique Doctrine against which obscurity a man cannot get the victory by the sole evidence of miracles except he be inwardly assisted by the light of Gods Spirit moving him by pious affection to cleave to the Doctrine which is by so cleer testimony proved to be his Word Even as a man shut up in a chamber with two lights whereof the one makes the wall seem white the other blew cannot be firmly assured what colour it is untill day-light enter and obscuring both those lights discover the truth so a man looking upon Christian Doctrines by the light of miracles done to prove them will be moved to judge them to be truth but looking upon them through the evidence of their seeming impossibilities unto reason they will seem false nor will he be able firmly to resolve for the side of faith untill the light of divine grace enter into his heart making him prefer through pious reverence to God the so-proposed authority of his Word before the seeming impossibility to mans reason CHAP. VII That Catholique Tradition is the onely firm foundation and motive to induce us to beleeve that the Apostles received their doctrine from Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ from God the Father And what are the meanes by which this doctrine is derived downe to us § 1. AS Catholique Tradition is infallible in it self so is it most necessary for us there being no other certaine testimony to any prudent man no firme ground or motive to believe that the Primitive Church received her doctrine from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from God nor no way to bring it downe from those times to these but only the Tradition of the Church For we may observe three properties of the doctrine of faith to be true to be revealed of God to be preached and delivered by the Apostles The highest ground by which a man is persuaded that his faith is true is the authority of God speaking and revealing it the highest proof by which a man is assured that his faith is revealed is the authority of Christ and his Apostles who delivered the same as descending from God but the highest ground that moveth a man to believe that his faith was preached by the Apostles is the perpetuall Tradition of the Church succeeding the Apostles unto this day assuring him so much according to the saying of * De praescr c. 21. 37. Tertullian who maketh this ladder of belief in this sort what I believe I received from the present Church the present from the Primitive the Primitive Church from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from God and God the prime verity from no other fountaine different from his own infallible knowledge So that he that cleaveth not to the present Church firmely believing the Tradition thereof as being come down by succession is not so much as on the lowest step of the ladder that leads unto God the revealer of saving truth successive Tradition unwritten being the last and finall ground whereon we believe that the points of our belief came from the Apostles which may be proved by these arguments § 2. First if the maine points of faith be to be believed to come from the Apostles because they are written in Scriptures and the Scriptures are believed to be the Word of God upon the report of universall Tradition then our belief that the things which we believe come from the Apostles and from God resteth upon the Tradition of the Church but it is most certaine that the Scriptures cannot be proved to have been delivered unto the Church by the Apostles but by the perpetuall Tradition unwritten conserved in the Church succeeding the Apostles all the other waies by which the Protestants endeavour to prove the Scripture to be the word of God being vaine and insufficient as I have proved before Secondly common and unlearned people which comprehend the greatest part of Christians may have true faith yet they cannot have it grounded on the Scripture for they can neither understand nor read it or if read it yet but in a vulgar language of the truth of whose translation they are not assured therefore must rely upon the testimony of the present Church that that which they believe is the Word of God Thirdly if all the maine and substantiall points of Christian faith must be believed before we can securely read and truly understand the holy Scripture than they are believed not upon Scripture but upon Tradition going before Scripture and that it is so is manifest because true faith is not built but upon Scripture truly understood according to the right sense thereof nor can we understand the Scripture aright unlesse we first know the main Articles of Faith which all are bound expresly to believe by which as by a rule we must regulate our selves in the interpretation of the Scripture otherwise without being setled in the rule of faith by Tradition men are apt to fall into grievous errors even against the main articles of the faith as of the Blessed Trinity and Incarnation of the Son of God as experience doth sufficiently testifie so that reading and interpreting Scripture doth not make men Christians but supposeth them to be made so by Tradition at least for the main points such as every one is bound expresly to know Fourthly they to whom the Apostles wrote and delivered the Scripture were already converted to Christianity and instructed in all necessary points of faith and in the common practises of Christianity and so by what they knew by Tradition could easily interpret what was written but otherwise might easily have failed in the mainest points as some forsaking Tradition did for example the Arrians who were confuted by the Catholiques not by bare Scripture for of that the Arrians had plenty but as it was interpreted by Tradition Therefore none can be supposed to understand the Scripture aright so to know the true word and will of God but by being such as they were to whom the Apostles
delivered the Scripture that is first instructed by Tradition Otherwise they may easily erre in some chiefe articles of Faith any of which to erre in is damnable And I would faine know whether any understanding Protestant doth believe that if a Bible were given to a heathen or to one borne amongst themselves supposing he had not been trained up by Catechisme and other traditionall instruction whether I say he could out of that extract as points cleerly expressed therein the thirty nine Articles of the Church of England or the book called the Harmony of Confessions which is the profession of the faith of most of the Protestants of the world Lastly we cannot with modesty say that we are more able to understand Scripture than were our fore-fathers the ancient Doctors of the Church but they thought themselves unable to interpret Scripture by conference of places or such like humane means without the light of Christian Doctrine before-hand knowne and firmly believed upon the Tradition of the Church witnesse * Ruf. Eccl. hist l. 2. c 9. S. Basil S. Gregory Nazianzene and * Orig. tract in Mat. 29. c. 23. Origen who thus writeth In our understanding of Scriptures we must not depart from the first Ecclesiasticall Tradition nor believe otherwise but as the Church of God hath by succession delivered to us therefore no man is able to interpret Scripture without the light and assistance of Christian faith afore-hand received by the voice of the Church delivering what shee received from her ancestors Dangerously and high boldnesse then it is for men of this age so to presume on their owne interpretations of Scripture gotten by humane meanes as to make them over-ballance a thousand * Luther de capt Babil Tom. 2. VVittenberg p. 344. Cyprians Augustines Churches and Traditions § 3. From all which I observed that the Protestants do not well understand that place of Scripture so frequently urged by them against Tradition where S. Paul saith to Timothy Thou hast known the holy Scriptures from thy childhood which are able to instruct thee or make thee wise unto salvation Inferring from hence that the Scriptures are able to make all men wise unto salvation whereas this was spoken with relation to Timothy only and to such as agree with him in the cause for which this saying is true in him that is such as were aforehand instructed by Tradition and did firmly believe all substantiall Doctrines of faith and know the necessary practises of Christian Discipline even as what God said to Abraham I am thy protector and thy exceeding great reward Gen. 15.1 is not appliable to all men absolutely but only to all men that were of the same qualification that is faithfull and devout as he was Moreover the Apostle in that place speaketh only of the Scriptures of the Old Testament for the New was not written in the infancy of Timothy nor some of it at this very time that these words were written and these Scriptures he affirmes also to instruct Timothy not by themselves alone but by faith which is in Christ Jesus that is joyned with the doctrine of the Christian faith which Timothy had heard and believed on the voice of Tradition And the following words of the Apostle are with equall confidence insisted on All Scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach c. is very unprofitable for their purpose seeing that profitable can by no means be stretcht to signifie sufficient as they would have it and that for every man but particularly for him that is HOMO DEI a man of God that is one already instructed by Tradition in all the main points of Christian faith and godly life such an one as Timothy was Thus indeed the Scriptures may be granted sufficient joyned with Tradition but not alone And whereas there are some places of the Fathers alledged by Protestants to prove the Scriptures to be clear in all substantiall points they are to be understood as the Apostles words are with reference to such men who have been before instructed by Tradition even as they that hear Aristotle explicate himself by word of mouth may easily understand his books of nature which are very hard to be understood of them that never heard his explication either from his own mouth or by Tradition from his Schollers § 4. Whereas some Protestants say that the difficult places of Scripture are unfolded a VVootton triall of the Romish c. p. 88. l. â—9 by Scripture and the rules of Logick b Field p. 281. lin 20. and by other things beside Scripture evident in the light of nature it seems to me very incongruous First because the rule of faith must be for the capacity of the unlearned as well as the learned and unlearned men cannot be sure of the infolded sense of the Scripture by Logicall deductions Secondly the Scripture it self sends us to supply her wants not to the rules of Logick but unto Tradition saying Hold the Traditions which ye have received by word or our Epistle 2 Thes 2.15 It sendeth us to the Church the pillar and ground of truth 1 Tim. 3.15 which whosoever doth not heare is as a Heathen and a Publican Matth. 18.17 It did the same to the Jewes who had the Scriptures also saying Remember the old dayes think upon every generation ask thy father and he will declare unto thee the elders and they will tell thee Deut. 32.7 The same do the Fathers as I shall shew hereafter § 5. And whereas it is further objected that the Fathers disputed negatively from the Scripture against Heretiques thus Doctrine is not cleerly delivered in Scripture therefore it is not to be received as a matter of Faith we must know that the Fathers proceeded upon this supposition that was known to all and granted by the Heretiques themselves namely that the Doctrines they disputed against were not the Traditions of the Church and in this case they required the testimony of Scripture Yea more the Fathers did not onely require places of Scripture from the Heretiques by way of deduction and Logicall inference for to such all ancient Heretiques and Protestants now pretend wherewith they delude ignorant people but they required of them to shew their Doctrine in Scripture saith Irenaeus expresly and in termes and to prove it not by texts * Aug. de unitat Eccles cap. 5. which require sharpnesse of wit in the Auditors to judge who doth more probably interpret them not by places which require an interpreter one to make Logicall inferences upon the text but by places plaine manifest cleere which leave no place to contrary exposition and that no Sophistry can wrest them to other sense to the end that controversies which concern the salvation of soules be defined by Gods formall Word and not by deductions from it by rules of Logicke And even by this way of the Fathers arguing negatively from the Scripture the Protestant Religion is quite overthrowne for seeing nothing is
to be reputed a matter of faith which is not formally and expresly to be proved by the Word of God either written or unwritten and delivered by full Ecclesiasticall Tradition and seeing the Protestants doe not nor can pretend to this Tradition nor yet can prove their tenets by Scripture in expresse and evident termes but such as themselves confesse to receive probable solutions it must hence necessarily follow that their doctrines are false without foundation and to be rejected by every Christian § 6. Lastly whereas Protestants object that the Pharisees are reproved by Christ for the observation of Traditions it is altogether impertinent for the Scripture doth not say that their Traditions were derived by succession from Moses the first deliverer of their law nor did the Pharisees pretend to it but they were Traditions of their owne whereof some were frivolous and superstitious some impious some pious The frivolous and superstitious were their washing of hands pots dishes the like supposing that otherwise they might have some spirituall impurity in them which our Saviour confutes saying There is nothing without a man entring into him which can defile him Mark 7.15 The impious were such as whereby they violated the commandements of God under the pretence of observing their Traditions as when they allowed a man under pretence of giving something to the Church to neglect his duty to his parents Mar. 7.11 Neither of these kinds is the Catholike Church guilty of Of their pious we have an example in their paying Tithes of mint a very small herb which was a Tradition of their owne not commanded in their law yet this our Saviour approves and binds them to it saying this you ought to have done Luc. 11.42 And it is worth the observation that the thing most of all objected against our Saviour was the written word and Tradition of God by Moses about keeping the Sabbath day as appeares in all the Evangelists from which precept not by Tradition unwritten but by logicall inferences of their owne they concluded that our Saviour brake the Sabbath by healing or doing some small labour thereon So that the Pharisaicall Traditions were not pretended to be doctrines unwritten derived from the first deliverer of their religion but doctrines concluded from the Scripture by the rules of Logick and reason as they conceived according to the present manner of the Protestants CHAP. VIII That the Church is infallible in whatsoever she proposeth as the Word of God written or unwritten whether of great or small consequence That to doubt of any one point is to destroy the foundation of faith And that Protestants distinction between points fundamentall and non-fundamentall is ridiculous and deceiptfull § 1. HAving thus found out that the Church was shee from whom I was to receive assurance what is the word of God and that otherwise it was impossible for me to know it and that shee could not mistake nor erre in her directions I conceived then that I was bound to believe all that shee propounded to me as the word of God whether it were written or not written writing being no testimony of the truth of any thing seeing it may be false as well as speaking and that to doubt of any thing was to call all into question and to dissolve the whole nature of divine faith For to believe hath a threefold signification in speech first it is taken for knowledge as where our Saviour saith Thomas because thou hast seen me thou believest John 20.29 to wit that I am risen now he that sees one knowes so much Secondly for opinion which is an assent begot by probable reason so men delivering their opinions use to say I believe thus or thus Thirdly and most properly for an assent unto such things as doe not appear but are assented unto by a firm reliance on the truth of him that reports them as S. Paul saith Faith is the argument of things not seen Heb 11.1 And this reliance on an Author such as cannot deceive or be deceived at least in those things which he propounds unto us to be believed must beget in us an equall belief of things that have humane possibility or probability on their side and of things that are clean against it the matter propounded makes no matter nor yet the manner of propounding it is the Author and our apprehension of him that controles all opposition By this do we believe the inexplicable mystery of the Trinity the Incarnation of God the Mother-hood and yet Virginity of the B. Virgin Mother with many others with as much ease as we believe that Noah had three sons or that S. Peter had neither silver nor gold and by this do we believe the latter with as much strength and firmnesse as the former For he that believes a thing because such an one sayes it who he believes cannot lie must believe all that he sayes and that with the same firmnesse because the reason of his belief still remaines namely the inerrability of the speaker But if he apply his belief according to the probability of the thing spoken and no further then he doth not believe because of the truth of the speaker but of the thing spoken which he must gather from probabilities of reason wherein he doth not believe the thing for the truth sake of the speakers testimony but for the likelihood thereof which he finds by the measure of his own understanding which is not to believe the other but himselfe and the other no more than he would do the arrantest lyer in the world yea the Devill himself that is so far as he by his reason conceives that he speakes the truth Which reason of his if it be infallible he doth not believe the thing properly but he knowes it if it be but probable he believes it not properly but hath an opinion of it and no more assurance than of other humane reports whose authors have no security from error which as they may be true so they may also be false And thus to believe is not to believe by divine and infallible faith but by humane and fallible and so it cancells divine supernaturall faith the first in order of the three theologicall vertues without which no man can be saved § 3. So that all the place that reason hath in the government of our faith is this to lead us to believe that testimony which cannot deceive us and for the particular objects of beliefe to take them upon trust of that testimony without checking at them whatsoever they be and though they be bones to Philosophy yet make them milke to faith and not as Heretiques doe make us demand a reason of every particular point of faith which if it square not to their apprehensions they cashiere This is not faith but fancy For to rely upon a humane basis such as reason is will not support such a mighty statue as divine faith And to use Chillingworths own similitude Water will not rise
higher then the fountain from whence it springs if therefore particular reason be the governour of our faith which reason is a humane and fallible thing it cannot rise to nor support a divine faith But divine faith is that which God requires of us in the businesse of Religion and that which is not such is none And it is convenient that as God ordained man to a supernaturall end namely the blissefull vision of himselfe which is a thing far above all excellencies of nature so he should bring him to this blisse by believing things above the reach of reason which in man is his nature and to beget this faith by Miracles his owne acts which are above the power of nature and by the testimony of those that do those supernaturall acts to whom if he have given his deeds it cannot be doubted but he hath given his word of any part whereof to make any doubt is to call the credit of all into question the house of Faith being like some artificiall buildings whereof if you pull out one pin you loosen the whole frame So if a man disbelieve any one point delivered him by the Catholique Church he unjoynts the whole frame of faith and virtually denies it all and that because they have all the same height of proof to wit the testimony of the Church which if she can lie in one thing she may for ought wee know in another and so in all and thus bring a man to doubt of all and then to denie all And that those men that doe denie some one point of Catholique Tradition though unwritten doe not denie all is not for that they have any faith but out of secular ends and deceiptfull reason § 4. Indeed some Protestants grant that if Tradition be universall and perfectly Catholique it doth oblige to the belief thereof but not otherwise by which universall Tradition they meane such as never any one gainsaid But if such onely are to be called Catholique Traditions there is scarce any thing left for Christians to believe and indeed to that passe have many brought it for some have denied the distinction of Persons in the Trinity others the Divinity of our Saviour others his humanity others the Deity of the Holy Ghost and a hundred more now if no Tradition be to be called Catholique but such as was never denied by any one or some number of Christians then a man may deny the fore-mentioned and many other points and Articles of faith because their Tradition hath not been so universall but that some have denied it yea some books of the Scripture it self were not universally received till about four hundred years after Christ By Catholique or universall Tradition then must be understood that which the Catholique Church hath alwaies taught not which all Christians for then we must look for Tradition in the mouths of Heretiques whose property it is to deny some Tradition or other under pretence that it is opposite to Scripture And if any have taught contrary the Catholique Church hath condemned them for Heretiques which is a sufficient proof that untill such Hereticall Spirits opposed some one or more Traditions of the Church they were universally believed As for example the Doctrine of Christs consubstantiality or being of the same substance with the Father no reasonable man will deny but that it was generally believed in the Church before the daies of the Arch-heretique Arrius and that the Councel of Nice condemning of him was a sufficient proof that the doctrine he opposed was the universall Tradition of the Church by force whereof he was overthrowne and not by Scripture only there being no place of Scripture so plaine but he would give some answer to it and likewise alledge plenty of Scripture in the proof of his own Heresie while he took upon him to interpret it himself forfaking the traditionall sense thereof and would receive no answer to it And if Arrius his denyall of that point of Faith will make it universall for place or the doctrine it self new and so universall for time as some in other instances do alledge because it was then first declared by reason of that opposition then it may be lawfull under the same pretence for men to deny all the Traditions of the Church all the decrees of Generall Councells of the Church and to revive all the Heresies that were in the Church § 5. Moreover to attribute conditionall infallibility to the Church and not absolute in all that she delivers * Chillingworth pag. 118. Pet. Martyr loc Com. clas 4. c 4. sect 21. Confess Helvet c. 17. as some Protestants doe making her infallible onely while she followes the Scripture and Vniversall Tradition is to give her no more priviledge than to a child or fool who are also infallible while they affirm nothing but what is agreeable to Scripture and universall Tradition But if we know not Scripture nor Tradition but by the Churches direction how shall we know in her exposition of Scripture and deciding of controversies that she doth erre unlesse we know it from her also seeing her authority in the one is as good as in the other and by those reasons that we may deny the truth of the one we may deny the other And if she say she have expounded Scripture truly and decided controversies aright by the rule of Scripture and Tradition who shall gainesay her Can any man be so foolish as to think his word is of more credit than the whole Churches Or that his reason is better then hers Or that if she may erre from her rule he may not do so also And if their infallibilities be both of the same strength who in his right mind would not believe millions affirming the same thing rather than one or some few affirming the contrary If there were a rule so plaine and clear that all men understood it and none could pervert it then there were no need of a judge or directer but if the rule be obscure or liable to misinterpretation as all words are let them be expressed never so plainly then it is meet that there should not onely be a Judge but that this Judge should be infallible seeing the businesse concerns the salvation of mankind and not be subject to the petty after-examinations of proud and discontented people as if one or more of them did know the meaning of the rule better than the Judge when that Judge is the universall Church And that which these men affirm in this matter amounts to this wise Maxime That the Church is infallible while she is infallible and so is the Devill § 6. Frivolous then and without foundation is that late started distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall and the assertion built thereon That the Church may erre in the one and not in the other and so by consequence we are not bound to believe her in all things Indeed in regard of the materiall object or thing to be believed some points
are fundamentall others not that is some points are to be believed explicitely and distinctly others not and more points are to bee believed explicitely by some than by others as I have shewed before speaking of points necessary to salvation But in regard of the formall object and motive for which we believe namely the truth of God revealing it by his Church there is no distinction of points of faith we being equally bound to believe all that is sufficiently proposed unto us as revealed by God whether the matter be great or small and whether the points be fundamentall in their matter or no yet they are proposed unto us by the same authority therefore we are bound equally with the same firmenesse of faith to believe every one as any one For example the Creed of the Apostles containes divers fundamentall points as the Diety Trinity of Persons Incarnation Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour it containes also some points for their matter and nature in themselves not fundamentall as under what judge he suffered that he was buried and the circumstance of time when he rose againe to wit the third day Now whosoever knowes these to be contained in the Apostles Creed is bound to believe them as firmely as the other and the denyall of any one of them is a fundamentall and damnable errour a giving of God the lie For the nature of faith doth not arise from the greatnesse or smalnesse of the thing believed for then there should be as many different faiths as there are points to be believed but from the motive for which a man believes which is Gods revelation testified by the Church which being alike for all objects it is manifest that they that in things equally revealed by God do grant one thing and deny another do forsake the very formall motive of faith Gods revelation and so have no true divine faith at all § 7. Moreover if the Churches infallibility be tied to a certain matter in Religion then it is meet we should know that first that so we may accordingly apply our belief if it be fundamentall then without doubt to imbrace it if not to exercise our liberty and believe it so far as we see cause but then we must know the matter wherein she is infallible distinctly and particularly as also infallibly or else we may mistake and believe when we need not and disbelieve when we ought not Now from whence shall we have this knowledge God hath no where revealed it and it ought to have been revealed together with the Commission given to the Church to teach or else shee might have deceived us before the caution came but the Church it selfe hath told us no such matter we have no such Tradition therefore we must have this most fundamentall point of all the rest which is to know what is fundamentall and what not either by inspiration or by the strength of reason both which are ridiculous or by some authority coequall to the Churches and yet not hers which is most absurd And in this businesse the Protestants seemed unto me to deal as obscurely and deceiptfully as did once Richard the second King of England who in a return to peace betwixt him and his subjects granted pardon to all except fifteen but would not declare what their names were but if at any time he had a mind out of some new displeasure to cut off any man he would say he was one of the fifteen whom he excepted from the benefit of his pardon In like manner the Protestants say we will believe the Church in all points but those that are not fundamentall not expressing what they are and when they have a wanton disposition to deny their belief to something that the Church hath declared they shelter their denyall under the protection of this unlimited distinction and say it is a point not fundamentall And if on the other side they find it for their advantage to close with other Churches they say they are all one Church with them because forsooth they agree in they know not what that is in their inexplicable fundamentalls § 8. But Chillingworth hath undertaken to give us though not a catalogue yet a description as he supposes by which we may discern between fundamentalls not fundamentalls or circumstantialls as he calls them pag. 137. sect 20. The former being such as are revealed by God and commanded to be preached to all and beleived by all The later such as though God hath revealed them yet the Pastors of the Church are not bound under paine of damnation particularly to teach them unto all and the people may securely be ignorant of them And this is even the same obscurity in more words for what is to be preached to all and believed by all and what the Pastors may forbear to preach and the people may be ignorant of especially seeing the same degree of ignorance is not secure to all people alike but receives infinite variety according to their meanes of knowledge is as undeterminable as what is fundamentall and what not But suppose the Pastors doe preach more than they are bound to preach and reveal that truth which if it had not been revealed the people might safely have been ignorant of may they be ignorant or unbelieving now it is revealed to them If they be then they deny that very authority upon which they believed the most fundamentall points which is the ground of all belief and by consequence deny the whole faith From whence wee may see that the Pastors teaching is not to be stinted by the things the people ought necessarily to believe but the peoples necessity of believing ought to be enlarged according to the measure of the Pastors preaching The Church is not confined to the teaching of fundamentalls only for the matter but whatsoever shee teacheth is fundamentall for the forme and motive of beliefe The circumstantialls are as he confesseth revealed by God to the Church and if the Church reveal them to the people the people must either believe them or deny to believe God And though common people and others also may safely be ignorant before they have been instructed yet they may not be so after nor hath God confined the Pastors instructing of the people to any certain matter to fundamentalls only for Christ bids his Apostles teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever he commanded them Matth. 28.20 And though common people may safely be ignorant of many things yet they must not be unbelieving of any thing but by an implicite faith at the least believe all that the Church believes by adhering and resigning themselves to her being prepared to believe explicitly what and when shee shall declare it to them Which faith is originally and fundamentally built upon the Word of God not as written but as delivered by the Tradition of the Church successively from the Apostles upon the authority whereof we believe that both Scriptures and all other Articles of
thing invisible and according to this notion the Catholique Church is proposed in the Creed Secondly propositions of Faith must be invisible according to the Predicate or thing believed but not alwaies according to the Subject or thing whereof we believe some other thing The things the Apostles believed of Christ to wit that he was the Son of God the Saviour of the world were things invisible but the subject and person of whom they did believe these things was visible to them yea God did of purpose by his Prophets foretell certain tokens whereby that subject might by sense be seen and discerned from all other that might pretend the name of Christ or else his comming into the world to teach the truth had been to little purpose In this sort the Predicate or thing believed in this Article the Holy Catholique Church to wit Holy is invisible but the Subject to wit the Catholique Church which we affirme and believe to be holy in her doctrine is visible and conspicuous to all Yea God hath of purpose foretold signes tokens whereby shee may by sense be cleerly discerned from all other that may pretend to the title of Catholique For were not this subject the Holy Catholique Church which we believe to be holy and infallible in her teaching visible and discernable from all other that pretend to that title of what use were it to believe that there is such an infallible teaching Church in the world hidden we know not where like a Candle under a Bushell or a needle in a bottle of hey § 3. Secondly if there must be alwaies in the world as was proved before one holy Catholique and Apostolique Church that is a Church delivering doctrines uniformly thereby making them credible universally thereby making them famously known to mankind holily so making them certain and such as that on them we may securely rely Apostolically so making them flow in the channel of a never-interrupted succession of Bisbops from the Apostles then this Church must be either the Roman or the Protestant or some other opposite to both Protestants cannot say a Church opposite to both for then they should be condemned in their own judgement and be bound to conforme themselves to that Church which can be no other but the Grecian a Church holding as many doctrines which the Protestants dislike as the Church of Rome as might easily be proved if need were It is further manifest that the Protestants are not this One Holy Catholique and Apostolique Church since their revolt and separation from the Church of Rome because in that very act of separation they did extinguish all these titles for they changed the doctrines they once held they forsook the body whereof they were Members brake off from the stock of that tree whereof they were branches neither in their departure did they joyne themselves with any other Church different from the Roman professing the particular Protestant doctrines so that they made a new Church of their own not agreeing in all points of faith with any that went before neither have they which have come after them as there are very many Sects risen out of the first Protestant agreed with them And therefore there is none or the Roman is the One Holy Catholique and Apostolique Church § 4. Thirdly the Protestants had the Holy Scripture from the Holy Catholique and Apostolique Church otherwise they cannot be sure that they are the true Scriptures of the Apostles because the testimony and Tradition of any other Church is fallible and may deceive them And if it may for ought they know it hath seeing they lived not in the Apostles daies thereby to make themselves certain thereof and so they will be altogether uncertain of that which they make the only object of their faith Luther cont Anab To. 7. German Ien fol. 169. whitaker de Eccles l. 3. p. 369. Now it is most certain that they had the Scriptures from the Roman Church acknowledged by Luther himselfe and also by Doctor Whitaker only they took the wicked boldnesse to cancell some parts thereof therefore they must either acknowledge that they are not sure that the Scripture is the Word of God or that the Church of Rome from whom they received it is the true Church And if the true Church hath delivered the true Text of Scripture then hath she also together with the true Text delivered the true Apostolicall sense because the Apostles themselves did not deliver to her the bare Text but with it the true sense to be delivered perpetually to posterity not by making a large and entire comment of all difficult places but by delivering with the Text the sense also about the maine and principall points So that they who by Tradition receive from the Apostles the true Text must together with it receive the true sense Now principal * Chemnit exam Cont. Trid. p. 1. fol. 74. Doctor Bancroft in the Survey p. 379. Protestants affirme the former saying No man doubteth but the Primitive Church received from the Apostles and Apostolicall men not only the Text of Scripture but also the right and native sense Which is agreeable to the Doctrine of the * Vincentius Lyrinens cap. 2. Fathers that from the Apostles together with the Text descends the line of Apostolicall interpretation squared according to the Ecclesiasticall and Catholique sense Whereupon * Aug. de util cred c. 14. S. Augustine affirms the later that they that deliver the Text of Christs Gospell must also deliver the Exposition saying that he would sooner refuse to believe Christ than learn any thing concerning him but of those by whom he was brought to believe Christ For they that can deliver by uniform Tradition a false sense may also deliver a false Text as received from the Apostles their freedome from or liablenesse to error in both being equall If therefore the Church of Rome have delivered the true Text then she hath also delivered and preserved the true sense or else we are sure of neither and so she only is the true holy Catholique and Apostolique Church or else there is none § 5. Fourthly it is granted by Protestants that the Romane Church was once the true Church and it cannot be proved that she hath changed her doctrine since the Apostles time therefore she is still the same true Church And that she hath not changed her Doctrine is thus proved the Doctrines that have continued for divers ages in the Christian Church and no time of their beginning can be assigned must needs be Doctrines descending from the Apostles and unchanged and such are the Doctrines of the Church of Rome Than the Doctrines of the Romane Church which Protestants reject have been universally received for many hundreds of years is by many learned Protestants confessed Perkins saith * Expos of the Creed p. 307. 400. during the space of nine hundred years the Popish Heresie hath spread it selfe over the whole world and
examine the matter and being infallibly assisted by the Spirit of truth which our Saviour promised should be with his Apostles to the end of the world that is with the Church their Successor which was to continue to the worlds end shee declares what is true and what is false as agreeing with or disagreeing from that doctrine which shee hath received from her Fore-fathers the Prophets and Apostles upon whom shee is built as S. Paul saith built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Ephes 2.20 For as in a building there is not the least stone which rests not upon the foundation so in the doctrine of the Catholique Church there is not the least point which is not grounded on or contained in that which was delivered by the Apostles For example in the principles of every Science are contained divers truths which may be drawn out of them by many severall conclusions one following another These conclusions were truths in themselves before though they did not so appear to us till wee saw the connexion they had with the premises and how they were contained in them And by the many severall conclusions so drawn the truth of those principles doth more shew it selfe but doth not receive any change in it selfe thereby even so in the prime principles of our faith revealed immediately by God and delivered to the Church are contained al truths that any way belong to our faith but it was not necessary that the Church should manifest all these at their first meeting in Councell but only so much in every severall Councell as should concerne the present occasion of their meeting which is some particular heresie or heresies then sprung up and so more according to the successive growth of heresies which when shee hath done shee cannot be charged with creating of a new faith or altering of the old but shee doth only out of old grounds and premises draw such conclusions as may serve to destroy new heresies and shew them to be contrary to the ancient faith In this manner the Church hath grown and increased in knowledge by degrees and shall still do so to the end of the world And as the sun spreads the raies of his light more and more betwixt morning and noon and his beames display themselves in a valley or some roome of a house where they did not before without any change of light in the sun himselfe So may the Church spread the light of her faith shewing such or such a point to be a divine truth which before was not known to be so or which though it were a divine truth in it selfe yet it was not so to us for want of sufficient proposall that is of the Churches wherein the Church resembles our Blessed Saviour her Lord and Spouse who though he never received the least increase of grace and knowledge from the first moment of his being conceived yet the Scripture saith He grew in wisdome and age and in favour with God and men Luc. 2.52 to wit because he shewed it more and more in his words and actions This also further appeares by the method which Catholique Fathers and Doctors observe in and out of Councells in proving and defining points of faith namely by having recourse to the authority of Gods Word conteined both in Scripture and Tradition and to the belief and practise of the Church in searching whereof the Holy Church joynes humane industry with Gods grace and assistance For when any question or doubt of faith ariseth particular Doctors severally dispute and write thereof then if further cause require the Holy Church assembles her Pastors and Doctors together in a generall Councell to examine and discusse the matter more fully as in that first Councell of the Apostles whereof the Scripture saith The Apostles and Elders assembled together to consider of this word Acts 15.6 The Pastors being thus come together and having the presence of our Saviour and his Holy Spirit according to his promise amongst them out of Scripture and Traditions joyning therewith the consent of holy Fathers and Doctors of foregoing times she doth infallibly resolve and determine the matter not as new but as ancient orthodox and derived from her forefathers making that which was ever in it selfe a divine truth so to appeare to us that now wee may no more make question thereof So that from hence it appeares that the Church makes no new Articles of faith such as then may be said to have their beginning but only explications and collections out of the old which were delivered to the Apostles and by them to us And though the Church doe thus grow in the knowledge of points of faith yet this is no newnesse of faith but a maintenance of the old with a kind of increase by way of explicating that which was involved cleering that which was obscure defining that which was undefined obliging men to believe more firmly and explicitly that which before they were not bound so to believe That is only to be called a new faith which is contrary to that which was held before or hath no connexion with it and when we cease to believe that which we believed before this indeed is change of faith the other is but encrease And if this encrease of faith by the declaration of Councells may be called a change and innovation of faith there is no Heretique but may challenge antiquity to himselfe and put novelty on the score of the Church For he may say such a thing for example that the Sonne is of the same substance with the Father was not held de fide a matter of faith before the Councell of Nice therefore it is new That Baptisme administred by Heretiques is good baptisme was not held as a matter of faith before the daies of S. Cyprian therefore it is new And the Heretique may say that he believes only that which was believed before such or such a Councell which he please for the case is alike in all and therefore he believes the antient Faith By which way of arguing he may renounce the decrees of all Councells as Novelties and maintaine many Heresies as the antient Faith Yea by this absurdity a man may deny divers Books of the Scripture as the Epistle to the Hebrewes the second Epistle of S. Peter the Epistle of S. Iames of S. Iude and the Apocalyps with some others because they were not admitted for Canonicall untill 300. or 400. yeares after they were written Yet when they were declared to be Canonicall there was no change of faith in the Church thereby for the believing of these Books was involved in this revealed Article I believe in God and the believing of them to be Canonicall was involved in this revealed Article I believe the holy Catholike Church onely hereby was an increase of the materiall object of our faith to us not in it selfe we being bound upon the declaration of the Church to believe that thing firmely and without dispute
Hier. cont Iov lib. 1. those that married together after their vowes not onely for Adulterers but also for incestuous persons That Church held the g Cyp. Cacil Ep 63. mingling of water with Wine in the Sacrifice of the Eucharist for a thing necessary and of divine and Apostolicall Tradition She held h Aug. de pecc orig cap. 40. Exorcismes Exsufflations and renuntiations which are made in Baptisme for sacred Ceremonies and of Apostolicall Tradition She besides Baptism and the Eucharist held i Aug. cont Petil lib. 3. cap. 4. Confirmation k Aug. de nupt conc c. 17. Marriage l Amb. de poenit c. 7. Penance m Leo 1. Epist or auricular Confession n Aug. cont Parm. l. 2. c. 13. Orders and Extreme-Vnction for true proper Sacraments which are the seven Sacraments which the Church of Rome now acknowledgeth That Church in the Ceremonies of Baptisme used o Cyp. Epist 70. Oyl p Conc. Carth. 3. c. 5 Salt q Gr. Naz. de Bapt. Wax-lights r Aug. Ep. 101. Exorcismes the ſ Aug. cont Iul. lib. 6. cap. 8. sign of the Crosse a Amb. de Sacra l. 1. word Ephata and other things that accompany it none of them without reason and excellent signification She also held b Aug. de an ejus orig l. 3. c 15 Baptisme for infants of absolute necessity and for this cause permitted c Tertul. de Bapt. Lay-men to baptize in the danger of death That Church used Holy Water consecrated by certain words and ceremonies and made use of it both for d Basil de S. Spirit c. 17. Baptisme and e Epiph. har 30. against Inchantments and to make f Theod. hist Eccles l. 5. c. 3. Exorcismes and conjurations against evill spirits That Church held divers degrees in the Ecclesiasticall Regiment to wit g Concil Lacd c. 24. Conc. Carth. 4. c. 2. Bishops Priests Deacons Sub-Deacons the Acolyte Exorcist Reader and the Porter consecrated and blessed them with divers forms and ceremonies And in the Episcopall Order acknowledged divers seats of Jurisdiction of positive right to wit Archbishops Primates Patriarchs and h Hieron ad Damas Ep. 57. Concil Chal. Ep. ad Leon. one super-eminent by divine Law which was the Pope without whom nothing could be decided appertaining to the universall Church and the want of whose presence either by himself or his Legats or his Confirmation made all Councells pretended to be universall unlawfull In that Church their service was said throughout the i Hier. praef in Paralip East in Greek and throughout the k Aug. Ep. 57. de doct Christ l. 2. c. 13. West as well in Africa as Europe in Latine although that in none of the Provinces except in Italy and in the Cities where the Romane Colonies resided the Latine tongue was understood by the common people She also observed the distinction of k Aug. Ep. 118. Psa 63. 83. Feasts and ordinarie daies the distinction of l Hier. ad Helis Ep. 3. Theod. hist Ec. l. 2. c. 27 Ecclesiasticall and Lay habits the m Optat. l. 1. p. 19. reverence of sacred vessels the custome of n Theod. hist l. 5. c. 8. Isod de Diu. Off. l. 1. c. 4. shaving and o Greg. Naz. de pac or 1. unction for the collation of Orders the ceremony of the p Cyrill Hier. Cac. Mart. 5. Priest washing his hands at the Altar before the consecration of the mysteries q Concil Lacd c. 13. pronounced a part of the Service at the Altar with a low voice made r Aug. de Civit. Dei l. 22. c. 8. processions with the Reliques of Martyrs ſ Hier. cont Vigil kissed them t Hier. cont Vigil carried them in cloaths of silk and vessells of gold u Hier. c. Vi. took and esteemed the dust from under their Reliquaries accompanied the dead to their sepulchres with w Greg. Naz. in lul Orat. 3. Wax Tapers in signe of joy for the certainty of their future resurrection The Church of those daies had the pictures of Christ and his Saints both x Euseb de vita Const l. 3. out of Churches y Paulin. Ep. 12. Basil in Martyr Barlaam and in them and upon the very z Prudent in S. Cassian Altars of Martyrs not to adore them with God-like Worship but by them to reverence the Souldiers and Champions of Christ The faithfull then used the a Tert. de Coron milit sign of the Crosse in all their conversations b Cyril cōt Iul. l. 6. painted it on the portall of all the houses of the faithfull c Hier. in vit Hil. gave their blessing to the people with their hand by the sign of the Crosse d Athan. cont Idol imployed it to drive away evill spirits e Paul Ep. 11. proposed in Jerusalem the very Crosse to be adored on Good-Friday In brief that Church used either directly or proportionably the very same Ceremonies that the Roman Church useth at this day And finally that Church held f Tert. de Praescript Iren. l. 3. c. 3. l. 4. c. 32. that to the Catholike Church only belongs the keeping of the Apostolicall Traditions the authority of the interpretation of Scripture and the decision of controversies of faith and that out of the succession a Cyp de unit Eccles Conc. Car. 4. c. 1. of her Communion of b Hier. cont Lucif Aug. de util cred c. 8. her Doctrine c and her Ministry there was neither Church nor salvation d Cyp. ad Pup Ep. 63 ad Mag. Ep. 76. Hier. ad Tit. c. 3. And let the indifferent Reader now judge whether by this face we may know the Romane or the Protestant Church § 3. But because there is between two or three hundred years from the time of the first generall Councell to the Apostles and that some Protestants say that as Mephibosheth in his infancy fell from his nurses lap whereby he became lame and halted all his life after So the Church in the most primitive times fell from the true faith whereby she hath ever since gone awry we will still go on in the quest of the Roman Churches Antiquity even to the times of the Apostles alleadging some one amongst many of every age of the first five hundred years to make the proof the fuller in confirmation of some Roman doctrines that are most mainly gainsaid by Protestants Wherein will appear that false and vaine challenge of Bishop Jewell renewed by D. Whitaker who to the glorious Martyr Campian writes thus * Resp ad Rat. Camp Attend Campian the speech of Jewell was most true and constant when provoking you to the antiquity of the first six hundred years he offered that if you could shew by any one cleer and plain saying out of any one Father or Councell he would grant you the victory
the judgement of charity but of discretion Catholiques judge no particular man to be damned because they know not the operations of God upon his soule in his latest minutes but they judge that all men out of the Roman Catholique Church are out of the road of salvation because they are assured thereof by the word of God And if to grant the possibility of salvation to others be such a testimony of charity as they conceive then surely Origen was of all men most charitable who held that at the last even the devills themselves should be saved and yet I find no man agreeing with him in this charitable opinion But the truth is as I conceive that Protestants are thus kind to Catholiques for their own ends which are to provoke Catholiques to shew the same favour to them that so they may have the better security in their way by the concurrent opinions of others and also for feare lest by denying salvation to the Church of Rome they cut off the hope thereof from themselves who acknowledge no lawfull ministry by consequence no Church and by consequence no salvation but that which they derive from the Church of Rome Which seeing they do indeed want they are neither united with her nor can justly hope for salvation without her CHAP. XV. Of the fifth Mark of the true Church viz. Unity in doctrine And of horrible dissentions among Protestants § 1. A Fifth Mark of the Church is unity in doctrine of which it is said by S. Paul I beseech you that all speak one thing be ye knit together in one mind and one judgement 1. Cor. 1.10 endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Ephes 4.3 Continue in one Spirit and one mind Philip. 1.27 of one accord and one judgement Philip 2.2 Thus in the first times were the multitude of them that believed of one heart and one soule Acts 4.32 Thus our Saviour prayeth and no doubt was heard that they may be one John 17.11 and the effect of that prayer we see in the Church of Rome and no where else Thus also the Holy Ghost describes the Church of Christ saying my dove is one Cant. 6.8 And the want of this unity is so improper to God that he is therefore termed the God not of dissention but of peace 1 Cor. 14.33 And it is such an assured meanes to shorten continuance that the Scripture saith if you bite and devoure one another take heed that you be not consumed one of another Galat. 5.15 and that a kingdome divided against it self shall perish Luc. 11.17 And by the want of this mark of unity did the antient Fathers discover the Heretiques of their times S. Crysostome saith Op. imperfect in Math. Hom. 20. All infidells that are under the devill are not united nor hold the same things but are dispersed by divers opinions one saith so and another so c. in the same manner are the falshoods of Heretiques who never hold the same things but have so many opinions as there are persons To the same purpose speakes Jrenaeus Tertullian and others Iren. l. 1. c. 5. Tertull. de praesc advers haer 42. And this unity I found apparently in the Church of Rome and the contrary as apparent amongst Protestants Thus the antient writers do wonderfully agree in all matters of faith so also do all the decrees of all lawfull Councells and Popes though they were men living in severall ages in severall countries and wrote in severall languages And now also all Catholiques in the world howsoever otherwise divided by country language particular interest civill dissentions or war yet agree exactly in all points of faith And this because they have a certaine compasse to steere by to wit the generall Tradition of the Church and the decrees of Generall Councells who they have reason to believe doe preserve that which was delivered by the Apostles and if any doubt arise about the sense of Scripture are better able to interpret it than any other persons to which therefore they doe modestly and wisely submit their judgements But no such agreement was ever found or ever can bee found amongst Protestants or any sort of Heretiques S. Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 21. saith of Simon Magus his Heresie that it was divided into severall sects S. Augustine of the Donatists lib. 1. de Bapt. c. 6. that in his time it was cut into small threds And particularly the same is happened to Protestants who soon after their separation from the Church of Rome were divided amongst themselves and have ever since so continued multiplying daily in their divisions insomuch that even in the one Kingdome of England and even in the one City of London there are very many And in many particular houses there are some different Sects of Religion each pretending to be the true Protestant and denying that title to the other Nor is there any meanes to reconcile their differences but they are rather likely to grow more and greater as wee see at this day For no Sect will acknowledge another its superiour in matter of Religion nor stand to its judgment except it be by force no not any one particular person thinks himself obliged to submit to the whole world therefore they use to say that they will not pin their faith upon another mans sleeve but all pretend to be guided by the Word of God which each one will interpret for himselfe and accuse all others of error so far as they dissent from him And though Sects and Heresies do first arise out of the Catholique Church as the Apostle saith There must be Heresies 1 Cor. 11.19 yet the Church doth not lose her unity hereby because she having a certain Touch-stone whereby to try them namely the judgement of the Church if they will not submit to that they are excommunicated and by judiciall sentence cut off from that body from which they first cut themselves by mis-belief as the Apostle saith an hereticall man after the first and second admonition avoid Tit. 3.10 whereby they preserve the rest of the body intire and at unity within it self So that the Heresies do not arise from the Doctrine of the Church but from the malice of the Devill But amongst Protestants the liberty of reading and interpreting Scripture and the examining and judging the Preachers Doctrine thereby being given to every silly soul as Doctor Bilson saith c True difference part 2. p. 353. The people are discerners and judges of that which is taught as with good reason they ought for it was upon this ground that they first separated from the Church of Rome undertaking to be judges of her Doctrine and if the present Clergie should not continue this liberty to the people against themselves who are no more infallible than the other nor can pretend to it they would play very foule play with the people and instead of giving them liberty of conscience which they promised only translate them from
nor feet And even such imperfect things are all hereticall and deformed Churches which want faith for their head charity for their heart firmnesse and perseverance for their feet Holding such monstrous and absurd opinions that they make up a bundle of Heathenisme Turcisme Heresie and contradictions to common-sense Can then any indifferent and prudent man who knowes that God made the world with wisdome in number weight and measure can he think that they are the Church of God the deare Spouse of Christ for whose sake he descended from his heavenly Throne and took and lost humane life Or will he not rather say that they are mad 1 Cor. 14.26 Who are framed neither in number weight nor measure their societies and Churches being or being possible to be according to their principles as many as their persons their opinions vaine and foolish and their government confused and mis-shapen seeming rather a chaos than a creation In summe there is nothing that can be said for a true Catholique Church but may be truly said for the Roman there is â—othing that the Protestant Churches have said or can say for themselves but have been or may be said by Heretiques and are said by those who subdivide and separate from them which pretences if they be good in them against the Church of Rome they are good in others against them which yet they will not admit So that the Church of Rome is the true Church or there never was any true Church and all Protestants are Heretiques or there never were any that deserved that name § 9. What remaines then for all Protestants of what sort or title soever but to listen to the voice which sayeth Goe out of her my people that yee be not partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her plagues Revel 18.4 To redeem their soules from forfeiture that have been thus long morgag'd to eternall death and with the Prodigall son to returne home to the Catholique Church their mother and thereby to God their Father in whose house there is plenty of celestiall Manna while they perish for want of food or become fellow commoners with the hogs and feed upon huskes and draught and thereby to give joy both to earth and heaven in their conversion seeing that as the elements never rest contentedly but in their proper placeâ— so they will find no rest but in the bosome of the true Church which is the proper place of every Christian To listen to the voice which crieth Return return ô Sunamite return return Cant 6.13 And the Spirit and the Bride say come And let him that heareth say come and let him that is athirst come And whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely Revel 22.17 by coming to Mount Sion and to the city of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angells to the generall assembly and Church of the first borne which are written in heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant Heb. 12.22.23.24 before he come to them as a terrible Judge revealed from heaven with his mighty Angells in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospell of our Lord Jesus Christ 2. Thess 1.7.8 And that they may all doe so especially the Kingdome of England and most especially the most excellent King thereof Strike ô strike their and his soule O Lord with thy omnipotent grace whose magnetique vertue may draw his Royall heart to thee and make him a glorious and happy instrument of drawing others till they all meet in the unity of the faith so to continue untill their mortality shall put on immortality and his temporall crown of thornes be exchanged for an eternall crown of glory Amen FINIS S. Ambr. Ep. 31. ad Valent. Imp. Non erubesco cum toto orbe longaevo converti verum certè est quia nulla aetas ad perdiscendum sera est Erubescat senectus quae emendare se non potest Non annorum canities est laudanda sed morum Nullus pudor est ad meliora transire A Table of the Contents of the severall Chapters contained in this Book Chap. 1. THe Introduction And that the knowledge of the meanes to arrive unto eternall life is not otherwise attaineable then by faith grounded on the Word of God pag. 1. Chap. 2. Of the means to know which is the Word of God And that all the arguments imployed by Protestants to prove that the Scripture and it only is the Word of God are insufficient And that the Generall Tradition of the Catholique Church is the only assured proof thereof p. 6. Chap. 3. Of the insufficiency of means used by Protestants to find out the true sense of Scripture The absurdity of that assertion of theirs That all points necessary to salvation are clear and manifest p. 26. Chap. 4. Of the vanity and impiety of those who affirm that each mans particular reason is the last Judge and interpreter of Scripture and his guide in all things which he is obliged to believe and know And that the Catholique Church is the only Judge p. 36. Chap. 5. Of the meaning of those words Church and Catholique and that neither of them belong to Protestants p. 49. Chap. 6. Of the Infallibility of the Church p. 54. Chap. 7. That Catholique Tradition is the only firme foundation and motive to induce us to believe that the Apostles received their Doctrine from Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ from God the Father And what are the means by which this Doctrine is derived down to us p. 66. Chap. 8. That the Church is infallible in whatsoever she proposeth as the Word of God written or unwritten whether of great or small consequence That to doubt of any one point is to destroy the foundation of Faith And that Protestants distinction between points fundamentall and non-fundamentall is ridiculous and deceitfull p. 78. Chap ' 9. That there is and ever shall be a visible Church upon earth And that this Church is one holy Catholique and Apostolique p. 94. Chap. 10. That the Roman is that one holy Catholique and Apostolique Church p. 105. Chap. 11. That the true Church may be knowne by evident marks and that such marks agree only to the Roman Church And first of Universality the first mark of the Church p. 137. Chap. 12. Of the second mark of the Church viz. Antiquity both of persons and Doctrine p. 151. Chap. 13. Of Visibility the third mark of the Church And of the vanity of Protestants supposition that the true Church is sometimes invisible That Protestant Churches have not alwaies been visible p. 188. Chap. 14. Of the fourth mark of the true Church viz. a lawfull succession and ordinary vocation and mission of Pastors And that it is ridiculous to affirme that Catholiques and Protestants are the same Church p. 208. Chap. 15. Of the fifth Mark of the true Church viz. Unity in Doctrine and of the horrible dissentions among Pretestants p. 216. Chap. 16. Of the sixth Mark of the true Church viz. Miracles And that there are no true Miracles among Protestants p. 240. Chap. 17. Of the seventh Mark of the true Church viz. Conversion of Kingdomes and Monarchs p. 254 Chap. 18. Of the eighth and ninth Marks of the true Church viz. Sanctity of Doctrine and life p. 260. Chap. 19. Of the tenth and last here mentioned Mark of the Church viz. That the true Church hath never been separated from any society of Christians more antient then her felf p. 276. Chap. 20. That the Pope is the head of the Church p. 281. Chap. 21. That English Protestants do much mistake Catholike Doctrine being abused by the malice or ignorance of many of their Ministers And that upon their owne grounds they are obliged to inform themselves more exactly of the truth p. 297. Chap. 22. Of Communion in one kind p. 331. Chap. 23. Of the Liturgie and private prayers for the ignorant in an unknowne tongue p. 351. Chap. 22. Of the foolish deceitfull and absurd proceedings and behaviour of Protestants in matter of Religion And of the vanity and injustice of their pretext of conscience for their separation from the Roman Church p. 336 Chap. 23. The Conclusion wherein is represented on the one side the splendor and orderly composure of the Roman Catholique Church And on the other side the deformity and confusion of Protestant Congregations p. 362. The faults made by the Printer I desire the Reader thus to correct Page 21. line 1. dele § 5. p. 37. l. 2. r. tittle p. 47. l. 25 r. faith p. 61. l. 18. dele come p. 71. l 19. r. dangerous p. 85. l. 14. 15. r. ununiversall p. 140. l. 24. r. Psal 2.8 p. 147 l. 3. r. became l. 17. r. man p. 165. l. 9. r. intermingled p. 168. l. 11. r. unexpressible p. 188. l. 23. r. to a City p. 199. l. 9. r. tittle p. 201. l. 21. r. one p. 208. l. 22. r. all meet p. 210. l. 4. dele ought r. accusing p. 221. l. 13. r. call p. 261. l. 17. r. of hell l. 25. r. in our p. 276. l. 23. r. different p. 290. l. 2. r. say of l. 12. r. pillar of p. 293. l. 8. r. denying them p. 292. l. 18. r. Bishop p. 307. l. 12. r. as his p. 341. l. 15. r. consequentiae p. 358. l. 12. r. done in p. 358. l. 14. r. to this p. 367. l. 15. dele in p. 368. l. 5. r. Vnion Postscript The French Printer to the English Reader WHilst this piece so generally and deservedly lik'd and applauded both in the English Originall and in the French Version was reprinting here at Paris the learned Author returning hither from Rome in the very nick of time hath thought fit to add a Preface and two new Chapters to it the first Of Communion in one kind the other Of praying in an unknowne tongue both no lesse requisite then abundantly satisfactory So that I make no question but the contentment and benefit you will receive thereby will easily reconcile you aswell to the misnumbring of some Chapters pages occasioned by the Addition as to some other Errata's for which my ignorance in your language craves the benefit of a pardon Adieu
faith were delivered to them by the Apostles to the Apostles by Christ to Christ by God the fountain of all truth CHAP. IX That there is and ever shall be a visible Church upon earth And that this Church is one holy Catholique and Apostolique § 1. NOw considering all that hath been said before the summe whereof is this That we have no meanes to know certainly the doctrines of the Apostles but only the Tradition of the Church and that that Tradition is and ought to be infallible hence I conceived that this consequence was necessary that there should be and is alwaies a visible Church in the world to whose Traditions men might cleave and that this Church is one universall Apostolicall Holy First there is alwaies a true Church of Christ in the world for if there be no meanes for men to know that Scriptures and all other Articles came from Christ and his Apostles and so consequently from God but the Tradition of the Church then there must needs be in all ages a Church receiving and delivering these Traditions else men in some age since Christ should have been destitute of the ordinary meanes of salvation because they had no meanes to know assuredly the doctrines of Christianity without assured faith whereof no man can be saved And although a false Church may deliver the true Word of God as it is contained in the Scripture and the Creed yea even a Jew or Heathen may do so for this is but casuall yet none but a true Church can deliver the Word of God with assurance to the receiver that the text is incorrupt thereby binding him to the belief thereof Now it is necessary that men have the true Scripture not only casually but they must be sure the Text thereof be uncorrupt therefore there must be a true unerring Church whose authority is so aut hentique that it is a sufficient warrant for men to believe the doctrine shee delivers to come from the Apostles Secondly this Church must be alwaies visible and conspicuous For the Traditions of the Church must ever be famous and most notoriously known in the world that a Christian may truly say with S. Augustine De utilit Cred. c. 14. I believe nothing but the consent of Nations and Countries and most celebrious fame Now if the Church were at any time invisible or very secret and hidden then could not her Traditions be famously known nor could men that were willing to submit themselves to her directions know where to find her out of whose communion they cannot attain salvation Thirdly this Church is Apostolicall that is derived from the Apostolicall Sea by the succession of Bishops and Pastors for else how can we be assured that we have the Apostles doctrine It must be one generation that must certifie another and if there should be any interruption in that time all might be lost and changed And how could the Tradition of Christian Doctrine be notoriously Apostolicall if the Church delivering the same hath not a manifest and conspicuous pedigree and derivation from the Apostles Which is a convincing argument used by S. Augustine Epist 48. circa med How doe we trust out of the divine writings that we have manifestly received Christ if we have not also from thence manifestly received his Church The Church that hath a lineall succession of Bishops from the Apostles famous and illustrious whereof not one hath been opposite in Religion to his immediate predecessor proves evidently that this Church hath the Doctrine of the Apostles For as in the rank of three hundred stones ranged in order if no two stones be found in that line of different colour then if the first be white the second is white and so the rest unto the last even so if there be a succession of three hundred Bishops all of the same Religion if the first have the Religion of the Apostles and S. Peter the second hath and so the rest even unto the last Fourthly this Church is one that is all the Pastors and Preachers deliver and consequently all her Disciples and children believe one and the same Faith For if the Preachers and Pastors of the Church disagree about matters which they preach as necessary points of Faith they lose all their credit and authority for who will believe witnesses on their own words if they disagree in their testimony Fifthly I infer that this Church is universall spread over all Nations that she may be said to be every where morally speaking that is according to common humane account by which a thing diffused over a great part of the world and famously knowne is said to be every where In this manner the Apostle said that the faith of the Romans was renowned in the whole world Rom. 1.12 that so the whole world may take notice of her as of a worthy and credible witnesse of Christian Tradition howsoever her outward glory and splendour peace and tranquillity in some places and at some times be more or lesse eclipsed and shee be not alwaies in all places at once And the reason of this perpetuall visible universality is because the Tradition of the Church is the sole ordinary meanes of faith toward the Word of God This Tradition therefore must be so delivered as that it may be known to all men seeing God will have all men without exception of any nation to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth 1. Tim. 2.4 which they cannot do unlesse the Church be so diffused in the world that all known nations may take notice of her And Gods will that all men should be saved though it be but an antecedent will as Schoolemen call it yet it inferreth two things which some Protestants deny first the salvation of all men secondly the meanes of their salvation In respect of the meanes the will of God is absolute that all men in some sort or other have sufficient meanes of salvation In respect of the end to wit the salvation of all men the will of God is not absolute but as Schoolemen say virtually conditionall that is God hath a will that all men be saved as much as lies in him if the course of his providence be not intercepted and men will cooperate with his grace And the reason why some Nations hear not the Gospell and Word of God is not the defect of his Church but the want of working in the naturall causes to discover such Countries which defect God will not ever miraculously supply But if the Church were invisible to the world and hoarded up her Religion to her selfe either not daring or not willing to professe and preach the same unto others Nations may be knowne and yet the Word of God not known to them If therefore this Church should be hidden for a long time mens souls should perish not through defect in the naturall causes but only through the hiddennesse obscurity and wretchednesse of the supernaturall meanes to wit of the Church not
which before perhaps we were not so obliged to doe § 6. A fifth argument moving me to believe that the Roman Church is the Catholique was this That doctrine which hath been delivered by Tradition as the doctrine of our Ancestors without any opposition made by any known Catholique Fathers and Doctors and if any did oppose the doctrine he was censured of Novelty and after admonition if he persisted therein was condemned of Heresie such doctrine is derived from the Apostles and unchanged and such is the doctrine of the Roman Church 'T is true indeed that divers points of the Roman doctrine have been opposed as by Arrius Pelagius Berengarius Waldo Wickliffe Husse and many others but these were not accounted orthodox Fathers but were taxed of Novelty and innovation and for such are delivered to us by Tradition and history of the times wherein they lived And it cannot be prudenty imagined that if the Church of Rome had like these men attempted to change the doctrine of the Apostles there should be no Tradition of it no historicall narration of it but that all the good and true Catholiques should be asleep to this great businesse of defending the flock from Wolves or which is more absurd should against their knowledge and conscience suffer damnable errors to steal in to the destruction of themselves and all the world that should succeed them Now the opposition of the Church in the forementioned manner is so far from obscuring the Churches doctrine that it makes it far more famous and illustrious and apparently Apostolicall even as the sun strugling with a misty morning breaking through it appears more beautifully glorious and unconquerable And this Doctor Feild a learned Protestant confesseth when a doctrine is in any age constantly delivered as a matter of faith Field of the Church l. 4. c. 14 and as received from ancestors in such sort as the contradictors thereof were in the beginning noted for novelty and if they persisted in contradiction in the end charged with heresy it is impossible but such a doctrine should come by succession from the Apostles But Protestants think it sufficient that they find as they say the Roman doctrine contradicted in the writings of orthodox Fathers though their opposition was not noted by antiquity nor by the fame of Tradition delivered to posterity But this answer leaves no meanes to common people to know certainly the perpetuall Tradition of Gods Church which is the guide of their faith but by reading and examining the Fathers which to them is impossible Besides if that some few obscure and hard passages out of the Fathers may suffice to call the Tradition of the Church into question then there is nothing so cleerly and unanimously delivered by Tradition but may fall under a new examination seeing nothing is or can be writ so plainely especially where there is very much also written but that some obscure and oblique passages may be raked out to make shew of a contradiction and if this counterpart may have the title of antiquity set over it what Heresie will want its defence out of the Fathers What Tradition was more constantly delivered by the Christian Fathers and Doctors than our Saviours Consubstantiality with his Father Yet the new Arrians as we may see in Bellarmine bring divers testimonies out of the antient Fathers Lib. 2. de Christ c. 19. to prove that in this point they contradicted themselves and one another In like manner doe the Protestants now bring some obscure places out of the Fathers in the defence of their heresies which yet in a true sense doe import no such thing but being a little obscure they more easily wrest them to their corrupted meaning But on the contrary the Fathers are abundant and cleer in those places which maintaine the Catholique doctrines and none of the Fathers of those times did accuse other of error in those points which if they had thought them so there is no doubt they would For wee cannot imagine the true believers of those times lesse vigilant than of these and we see now that no man can broach an error against faith but presently he hath abundant opposition and further questioning if the cause require Therefore it is apparent that Protestants when they alledge the Fathers as contradicting themselves and one another in the Catholique Doctrines of those times either mis-alledge their words or mistake their meaning For if those contradictions were reall why did not antiquity note them as it noted their differences about smaller disputable matters S. Hierome and Epiphanius took pains to note the errors of Origen yet amongst them all they did not note any which the Church of Rome now holds though his writings be full thereof If the sentences of the Fathers be true in the sense that Protestants alledge them why did not some charge them for maintaining the contrary Romane Doctrines a thousand times more frequently mentioned in their writings And on the other side if the Romane Doctrines were true why did not some tax them for maintaining of Protestantisme doubtlesse they would if they had understood them in the sense that Protestants now do It is manifest therefore that they that lived in those times who were therefore better able to understand their meanings than the Protestants that are sprung up so many hundred yeares after did not conceive that the Fathers maintained the Protestant doctrines in their writings for if they had they would quickly have been reproved seeing the current of Christian Religion even of those times was agreeable to the present Roman for as * Napier On the Revelat p. 191. also Cent. Mag. cent 2. c. 4. col 55. Napier saith during even the second and third ages the true temple of God and light of the Gospell was obscured by the Roman Antichrist himself And according to * Treatise of Antichrist lib. 2. c. 2. p. 25. Downeham the generall defection of the visible Church fore-told 2 Thess 2. began to work in the Apostles time § 7. On the contrary wee find in the writings of the Orthodox Fathers that the Doctrines which Protestants now hold were condemned as hereticall in those persons that then held them and they were not therein opposed by any other Orthodox Fathers For example the Protestants hold that the Church may erre so did the Donatists for which they are frequently reproved by * S. Augustine Passim cont Donat. Protestants deny unwritten Traditions urge Scripture only so did the Arrians and are condemned for it by * Epiphan Her 75. Aug. cont Maximin l. 1. c. 2. ult S. Epiphanius and S. Augustine Protestants teach that Priests may marrie so did Vigilantius and for it is condemned by * Cont. Vigilant c. 1. S. Hierome Protestants deny prayer for the dead so did Arrius for which he is condemned by * Aug. haer 53. Epiphan har 75. S. Augustine and S. Epiphanius Protestants deny invocations of Saints so did Vigilantius
one Tyrant over their consciences so they called the Church of Rome to another the Church of England there must needs arise varieties of Sects in Religion according to the various conceipt and apprehension of people even out of the very nature of this their Doctrine which is the ground-work for all the rest and is the most exercised in those who are most conversant in the reading of Scriptures to wit the Puritans and Sectaries And in the many differences that are amongst them they call no Generall Councells nor indeed can they by way of authority no Sect acknowledging it self subject to anothers Jurisdiction if it be under another temporall Governour but constitutes a Church by it selfe absolute and independent And in the variety of Sects in any one Kingdome or Government neither party believing it self justly subject to another in matter of conscience But supposing themselves alwayes in the truth they think they are bound to maintain that truth with the hazzard of their lives and to oppose their lawfull Soveraignes in the defence thereof and whensoever they have power they put it in execution and turn Rebells for Gods sake As we see many have done heretofore and the English are many of them now in the accursed act Nor can the men under whose conduct the people do this hope for more calme obedience from them longer than by force they are subdued to it unlesse they give them that in possession which now they have in hope and for which they have all been united in their service to wit Liberty of Conscience to every particular person to be of what Religion soever he shall make to himself out of the Bible free independent on the jurisdiction of any other And with very good reason for seeing they have all shaken off Christs yoke why should any man put a yoke upon another mans conscience and oblige him to believe or do or suffer that which is against his Word of God Thus as their Religion is divisible according to their severall senses of the Scripture so Kingdomes are divisible according to their Religions So that there must still be division either in Religion or in War for the defence thereof Yea so accurately doth Heresie teach to run division that it is meerly by accident that any two Protestants are of the same Religion in any one point for seeing they do not oblige themselves to agree in any one Principle but only the letter of the Scripture and refer the interpretation to themselves as Chillingworth Preface fine saith Let all men believe the Scripture and that only indeavour to believe it in the true sense and require no more of others it is but by the constitution of their brains and the grain of their fancie running the same way that brings any two of them to an union in the same belief concerning any point of Religion which constitution as it was accidentall in their generation so it is daily changeable by age education and many other occurrences and so also as uncertain for the future as accidentall at the present Thus all tends to division amongst them through the nature of their doctrines and the method of knowing and preserving them And this division of theirs in doctrine and opinion is the reason why when I mention the belief of Protestants I usually say some Protestants because they are not all of a mind scarce in any one point wherein they differ from Catholiques And some of them are so silly as to think that if they themselves doe not believe such a point no Protestant else doth supposing all Protestancy included in their owne brests which indeed is nothing so only they have reason according to their principles to believe as they do that that which every particular man holds is the true Protestancy and ought to be a rule to all the world beside § 2. The Catholique Roman Church hath in it the propriety of heat and doth congregare homogenea gather together things of the same kind and disgregare heterogenea separate things that are of different natures casting out of her Communion all sorts of Heretiques And on the contrary the Protestant Religion hath the property of cold which is congregare heterogenea to gather together things of different natures enfoulding under her name a miscellane of Religions freezing them altogether and withall making them so brittle that every chance breakes them into smaller sects and sub-divisions which in the end will be the destruction of the whole as it hath been of all foregoing heresies And this truth Sir Edwin Sandys a learned Protestant In his Relation of Religion of the Western parts confesseth saying The Papists have the Pope as a common father adviser and conductor to reconcile their jarres to decide their differences to draw their Religion by consent of Councells unto unity c. whereas on the other side Protestants are like severed or rather scattered troupes each drawing adverse way without any meanes to pacifie their quarrells no Patriarch one or more to have a common superintendency or care of their Churches for correspondency and unity no ordinary way to assemble a generall Councell on their part the only hope remaining ever to asswage their contentions Of which seeing there is no hope the sword must be the Umpire Which if it should in England prevaile on the Puritane or Roundheads side as they now stile them which God forbid I think I may without rashnesse say that it falls out by the just judgement of God that they that cast out the Catholique Religion and Catholique Bishops their predecessors upon pretence of the Reformation of Errors which they discovered as they said by the pure word of God are upon the same pretences cast out themselves and are forced to say with Adonibezek in the first of the book of Judges As I have done so God hath rewarded me So true a rule it is that he that practises disobedience to his superiours teaches it to his inferiours § 3. But the Protestants say that they do not differ from one another in fundamentalls no not from the Catholiques so much at unity with all the world do they professe to be The impertinency of their distinction of fundamentalls and unfundamentalls I have before discovered and little reason have they to use it in this case For to my apprehension all their differences are in fundamentalls yea all that they believe they account fundamentall For the Church of England saith in her sixth Article That whatsoever is not read in Scripture nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any ma that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation as nothing but what may be proved by the Scripture is by her accounted necessary to salvation which is the same with fundamentall so I suppose that all that can be proved by the Scripture is necessary to salvation even in their own opinion for I think they will not say
miserable and endlesse end Now seeing in the opinion of all men there are but two sorts of things required in this matter that is things to be believed and things to be done and that the things to be done are consequences of the former it behoveth you in the first place to be assured of the things you ought to believe seeing as our Saviour saith Mark 16.16 that He that beleeveth not shall be damned Which words in reason cannot be understood of some one or few yea or many points of faith excluding any one but of all that our Saviour commanded to be believed according to his Commission given to his Apostles saying Goe ye therefore and teach all nations or teaching them to keep all things whatsoever I have commanded you and according to the exhortation of S. Jude to the Church in his time That ye earnestly endeavour for the faith which was once delivered to the Saints Ep. Iude v. 3. Nor can you be probably assured that you have the faith once delivered to the Saints the whole faith which the Apostles taught all nations but by examining according to your ability the pleas for it on both sides seeing it is granted by all that the Roman Faith was the true and perfect faith as the Apostle himselfe by consequence confesseth where he saith I thank my God that your faith is published throughout the whole world Rom. 1.8 And if the Church of Rome have not changed her faith as in this Treatise is proved then you that differ and separate from her must be accused of novelty and change in forsaking her doctrine and communion which formerly in your predecessors you held Your return unto both which must be the meanes in the first place to deliver you from eternity of torments and advance you to the glorious liberty and felicity of the sonnes of God And that you may do so shall be the daily prayer and endeavour of From Paris August 4. 1648. Your humble servant in Christ Iesus THO. VANE A LOST SHEEP RETURNED HOME OR The motives of the Conversion to the Catholike Faith OF THOMAS VANE CHAP. I. The introduction And that the knowledge of the meanes to arrive unto eternall life is not otherwise attaineable then by Faith grounded on the Word of God § 1. SAINT Peter the Prince of the Apostles doth thus comfort encourage and command us 1 Pet. 3.14.15 But and if you suffer for righteousnesse sake happy are ye But be not affraid of their fear neither be troubled But sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts ready alwaies to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meeknesse and fear § 2. This happinesse and comfort of suffering for a good cause is remarkably expressed by our Saviour in the fift of S. Matthew where the blessings of other vertues are placed in the future time that they that mourne shall be comforted they that are mercifull shall obtain mercy and so of the rest but of the poore in spirit and of the poore absolutely as S. Luke hath it ch 6.20 and of those that suffer for righteousnesse sake it is affirmed in the present time that theirs is the Kingdome of God Mat. 5.10 the other Beatitudes are but in reversion but this in present possession § 3. And this by the mercy of God I feele in my selfe for heaven is more the joy then the place and this joy because God thinks it not fit as yet to call me to it he hath sent to mee so that I can say with S. Paul Rom. 5.3 I glory in tribulation The Apostles encouragement to abandon feare and to sanctifie the Lord I will by his grace daily put in practice But my present undertaking is the Apostles command to give an answer to every one that asketh me a reason of the hope and faith from whence the hope springs that is in mee and this with the enjoyned circumstances of meeknesse towards men and the feare of God § 4. And as some men here have asked me a reason so if I were in England I assure my selfe many more would do so and having heard of my change do aske one another and that with as much wonder and sorrow as beliefe thereof To these therefore and to all other both Catholiques and Protestants I give this ensuing answer for satisfaction To Catholiques that they may quit all feare of my recoyling to Protestants that they may be invited to follow my example which though it be founded in an unworthy person yet in so glorious an action as coming to the bosome of the Catholike Church they have no reason to disdaine to follow me § 5. In this affaire it is much more easie to find an entrance then an end For what time since the beginning of Christian Religion what place what thing doth not bear witnesse to the Catholike Faith Solomon saith Cant. 4.4 that the neck of the Spouse the Church is like the Tower of David builded for an armory whereon there hang a thousand shields a thousand arguments of defence of the Catholike Doctrines which the many excellent bookes of controversie written both by those of our own and other Nations doe most abundantly declare It shall therefore suffice me to say only so much as may witnesse that I did not make this change without sufficient Motives wherein I will make choice of a little of much and say as much as I can in a little § 6. Entring then into a serious consideration of the end for which I and all men were created to wit the glory of God and our owne eternall happinesse and of the knowledge of the meanes to attaine thereunto I found that by the consent of all Christians this was not to be gotten by cleer evident sight nor by humane discourse founded on the principles of reason nor by reliance upon authority meerly humane but only by Faith grounded on the word of God revealing unto men things that are otherwise only known to his infinite wisedome Secondly that God revealed all these things to Jesus Christ and he to his Apostles as he saith John 15.15 All things which I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you and this partly by word of mouth but principally by the immediate teaching of the holy Spirit to the end that they should deliver them unto mankind to be received believed and obeyed over the whole world even to the end thereof as he saith Math. 28.19 Goe teach all nations Thirdly that the Apostles did accordingly preach to all nations as S. Mark saith Chap. 16.20 They going forth preached everywhere And planted an universall Christian company charging them to keepe inviolably and to deliver unto their posterity what they had received of them the first messengers of the Gospel as S. Paul saith to Timothy 2 Tim. 2.2 The things that thou hast heard of me amongst many witnesses the same commit thou to faithfull men who may instruct others Fourthly that
of two thousand years had no word of God but that which was unwritten which we call Tradition the Church of the Jewes had Scripture but with it Tradition as the prayer of Elias concerning raine Jam. 5.15 The contention of the Archangel S. Michael and the Devill about the body of Moses Jude v. 9. with others and of the Scripture both Old and New many books are lost as many Parables and Verses of Salomon 3 King 3.32 with many other books and S. Paul wrote an Epistle to the Laodiceans Col. 4.16 and another to the Corinthians which are not extant 1 Cor. 5.9 And seeing we have not the whole Canon of the Scripture how can we be sure that that part which we have conteineth all that we are bound to believe and do we do not read that the Apostles were sent to write but to preach and S. John denies that he had expressed in writing all that he had to say Having more things to write unto you saith he I would not by paper and inke for I hope that I shall be with you and speake mouth to mouth that your joy may be full Now that these things that the Apostles did not write but teach by word of mouth were matters also of weight and belonging to Faith S. Paul assures us in these words Night and day more abundantly praying that we may see your face and may accomplish those things that want of your faith 1 Thes 3.10 By which it is evident that the Apostles besides their writings did preach other things which were wanting to their faith § 10. Nor did the Apostles surely intend to write all points of faith for if they had it is probable that they all together or some one of them would have done it purposely punctually and methodically and declared so much unto the world But we know the contrary to wit that they did not write all by their own confession and that which they did write was but accidentall and upon particular occasions as Hooker affirmes Eccles Pol. l. 1. sect 15. p. 37. The severall Books of Scripture are written upon severall occasions and particular purpose which occasions if they had not happened it is most likely that they had not written that which they did For instance the Epistles of S. Peter James John and Jude were written against certain Heretikes who mis-understanding S. Paul did thereupon teach That faith onely without works sufficed to salvation of which very point S. Augustine saith Because this opinion was then begun De fide operibus c. 14. other Apostolicall Epistles of Peter John James Jude do chiefly direct their intentions against it that they might strongly confirm Faith without works to profit nothing S. John also did preach the Gospell till his last age which was very long without writing any Scripture and took occasion to write as S. Ierome affirmes by reason of the heresie of the Ebionites De Scriptoribus Eccles which then brake out The like might be shewed of all the rest And lastly which is worth the observation all the Epistles are written to such persons onely as were already converted to the Christian Faith therefore they were written not so much to instruct Tom. 2. l. de Eccles fol. 43. as to confirme as Zuinglius also confesseth § 11. By all which it is evident so far as we can see that the Apostles and Evangelists did write their books not by any command from Christ but upon some accidentall occasion moving them thereunto Wherein one and the same matter is often repeated as in S. Pauls Epistle to the Romans and to the Galatians and also in all the Evangelists and many other things are omitted as a world of works which our Saviour did as S. John testifieth 2. John 21.25 and which the Apostles did also the small book of their Acts being too little to expresse all their actions and also the things which S. Paul ordained in the Church of the Corinthians 1 Cor. 11.34 by which it is manifest that they neither intended any compleat Ecclesiasticall history nor body of divinity containing all matters of faith and practice So that it did neither appear to me that the Scripture contained all the doctrine of salvation that the Apostles taught nor yet any of it because I could not see by the directions that Protestants gave me whether the Scripture were the Word of God or no. CHAP. III. Of the insufficiency of the Protestants meanes to find out the true sense of the Scriptures And of the absurdity of their assertion that all points necessary to salvation are clear and manifest § 1. AS to know the letter of the Scripture so to know the meaning thereof I found a matter of great difficulty agreeable to S. Peter who saith speaking of S. Pauls Epistles 2 Pet. 3.16 In which are certain things hard to be understood which the unlearned and unstable deprave as also the rest of the Scriptures to their own damnation But * Falke Con. Rhē Test in 2 Pet. cap. 3. Morton Apol. part 1. lib. 1. cap. 19. VVhitaker contro◠2. q. 5. c. 7. p. 513. Protestants to avoid their dependence on the Church for the interpretation thereof say that all things necessity to salvation are easie to be understood even by the most unlearned Reader But they never yet expressed what points were necessary to salvation and what not nor have given any rule by by which it might be found out but have left themselves the liberty of adding to or substracting from that title what and whensoever they pleased And who seeth not that with this device they may exclude if they please almost all the points of Christian belief and practise § 2. Wonderfull confusion I found herein for here the understanding of the most unlearned Reader is made the size of things necessary to salvation and if it be a measure unto all men then the most learned Clerk is bound to believe no more than the most unlearned peasant that can but read and the most unlearned need not the help of the learned for the understanding of things necessary but can find them out by his own reading So that you must take the arrantest dunce in their Church that can read and after he hath diligently perused the Bible and prayed for understanding therein that which he understands must be accounted necessary to salvation and no more Surely me thinks they are to blame that have not for the greater credit and cleernesse of their cause made this tryall upon some silly fellow and from his mouth have set downe their points necessary to salvation But by this it appears that they are willing to draw the matters necessary to salvation for their great ease into a very narrow compasse and make the same measure serve the silliest clown and the greatest Clerk which is uncomly And coming closer to the matter I have known some affirm which I believe is the opinion of very many that to believe
government can best determine § 7. Lastly if any of these fore-mentioned waies of Protestants for the knowledge of the Word of God the guide to eternall life were sufficient what need were there of preaching and instructing of the people at least of them that can read but let them take the Bible and let nature work which in the co-operation of their owne wise fancies will hatch a goodly Religion no doubt borne like Minerva of the brain of Jupiter and be as comely as a Chymera of many seuerall shapes tackt together and to them instead of the ancient heathens houshold-Gods which every one must adore as his private God within himselfe O sacras gentes quibus haec nascuntur in ipsis Numina Who prove the truth of this saying in themselves that He that is Schoole-master to himself is Scholler to a fool § 8. Observing thus the weaknesse and absurdity of all the Protestants alledged in proof that the Scripture is the Word of God easie to be understood at least in all things necessary to salvation and that it is to be interpreted by it self or by the Spirit to everie particular man so making way for as much variety in Religion as there may be diversity of opinion I saw that although some probable arguments may be drawn from the Scriptures to prove them to be of God yet there was no other infallible way to know what is the true Word of God first taught by the Apostles and their hearers but by the testimony of some sure certain and agreeing witnesses and what is the meaning of this Word of God in case there should be any important difference about it thereby to give a period to all controversies but by some society of men renowned for their wisdome And this I conceived in common prudence a far better way than for a man to rely upon himselfe But though this were a better way than those of the Protestants yet if this society of men were not in these matters free from error although it is more likely they should tell truth than the Protestants yet I could not have an immovable foundation for my saith but it would be subject to wavering and inconstancy and so there could be no prudent setlednesse in Religion nor any well-built hope of the end thereof eternall life I saw then that it was needfull that there should be a faithfull witnesse a wise judge and so wise and faithfull that he should not be subject to falshood or error otherwise it seemed to me that God had not contrived a competent way to his own glory or mans salvation which to be wanting in is neither sutable to his wisdome nor his goodnesse I therefore concluded that there was some society of men who must instruct us in the premises and that this society in reason ought to be infallible and that none could with any colour pretend to be this society but that which we call the Catholique Church which all Christians professe to believe according to the Creed of the Apostles But before I could proceed any further I was cast upon the examination of the sense of the words Church and Catholique finding therein much difference amongst the pretenders to these titles CHAP. V. Of the meaning of these words Church and Catholique and that neither of them belong to Protestants § 1. THere were seven Cities that strove for the body of Homer And very many societies of Christians there are that lay claime to the body of Christ which is his Church And as when Telesius a young Grecian having won the prize in the Pythian games was to be led in triumph there arose such a dispute between the severall Nations there present every one being covetous to have him for their owne that one drawing one way another another instead of receiving the honour that was prepared for him he was torne in pieces even by those who seemed most ambitious to honour him So happens it to the Church all those that beare the name of Christians avow that to her only appertaines the victory over hell and that whosoever will have part in the prize and glory of this triumph must serve under her Ensigne but when they come to debate about the body of this society then every Sect desirous to draw her to themselves they rend and teare her in pieces and instead of embracing the Church which consists in unity they embrace Schism and Division which is the death and ruin of the Church § 2. The Protestants do somtimes give a strict definition of a Church somtimes a large somtimes they restraine her to the number of the predestinate only somtimes they enlarge her so far that they imbrace within her compasse because they will be sure not to leave out themselves all the variety of Christians whatsoever But by all the former they exclude the visibility of the Church which is an inseperable companion thereof as I shall shew hereafter for the predistinate are not knowne to any body nor ordinary unto themselves But those that are so presumptuous as very many are to assume unto themselves the assurance of their predestination do easily lay hold on this tenure which they do the more boldly by how much it is more difficult for another to disprove but as it is not easie for another to disprove so it is as hard for them to prove and concludes nothing therefore in the behalf of the Churches description in generall or of their share in particular Beside the word Ecclesia Church is derived from a verb which signifies to call not to predestinate And the Church is a society but the predestinate are a multitude and there is this difference between a societie and a multitude that a society hath a certain form and vertue whereby they communicate together which the other without this association have not Now predestinaton as it is meere predestination establisheth nothing in the predestinate nor is it made in them but in God only and by consequence doth not make them actuall parts of the society called the Church It is not the union of predestination but of vocation that builds men into a Church By the later definition of a Church they deny the very being of Heresie and Schisme for if the whole Masse of Christians be the Church notwithstanding the errors in faith which some of them hold or separation in communion which they make then there are none that can be called Heretiques or Schismatiques or else which is equally absurd all Heretiques and Schismatiques are of the Church and this destroyes the holinesse of the Church in doctrine which is another inseparable ornament thereof Others which are some of the subdivisions of sects amongst the Protestants as Brownists Anabaptists and the like say each sect for it selfe that that is the Church excluding all others from that title even their fellow Protestants but this excludes the universality of the Church another inseparable companion thereof at least after the Apostles had
propagated it But the Church having in it the property of heat which as Philosophers say is to gather together things that are of the same nature and separate things that are of different natures includes all that are of the same faith and admitteth no other § 3. I therefore conceived according to the judgement of the most learned the Church to be a society of those that God hath called to salvation by the profession of the true faith the sincere adminstration of the Sacraments and the adherence to lawfull Pastors Which description of the Church is so fitted and proportioned to her that it resembles the nest of the Halcion which as Plutarch saith is of such a just and exact size for the measure of her body that it can serve for no other bird either greater or lesse Then for the meaning of the word Catholique the Protestants say that that Church is Catholique which holdeth the true faith which though it be not spread universally over the world yet it ought to be so say they and therefore it is Catholique By which they leave men in a labyrinth of finding out the true faith in all the particulars thereof which as they say must guide a man to the Church that is truely Catholique which being the object of the understanding is much more difficult to find out than that which is the object of the sense as is its being Catholique And therefore it seemed to me as proposterous as to set the cart before the horse to prove a Church Catholique because it is true whereas it should be proved true because it is Catholique Beside the name Catholique is not a name of belief only but of communion also else antiquity would not have refused that title to those which were not separated from the belief but only from the communion of the Church S. Aug. Ep. 50. nor would they have affirmed that out of the Catholique Church the faith and Sacraments may he had but not salvation So that Catholique imports thus much both the vast extension of doctrine to persons and places different and the union of all those places and persons in Communion Therefore allbeit the Protestants should hold the same belief that the ancient Church did yet if they did not communicate with the same ancient Church which by succession of Pastors and People is derived down to this present time I could not see how they could with justice assume to themselves the title of Catholiques CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of the Church § 1. NOw that the Catholique Church which society of Christians soever it be of which we shall deliberate hereafter is the only faithfull and true witnesse of the matter of Gods Word to tell us what it is and what is not it the only true interpreter of the meaning of Gods word and the last and finall judge of all controversies that may arise in matters of Religion and that shee is not onely true but that shee cannot be otherwise seeing shee is infallible I was perswaded to believe by many reasons In the alleadging of which I will avoid the accusation of Protestants of the circular disputation of Catholiques saying they believe the Scripture because the Church saies it is so and the Church because the Scripture bids them do so First then without dependence on the Scripture I conceived the Catholique Church to be infallible in her Traditions in that which she declareth to us concerning the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles and that even in the very nature of her testimony and tradition For Tradition being a full report of what was evident to sense namely what doctrines the Apostles taught what Scripture they wrote it is impossible it should be false Worlds of men cannot be universally deceived in matters evident to sense as are the things men heare and see and not being so it is impossible they should either negligently suffer it or maliciously agree to deceive others being so many in number so distant in place so different in affections conditions and interests Wherefore it is impossible that what is delivered by full Catholique Tradition from the Apostles should be by the deliverers first devised as Tertullian saith Tert. de praesc cap. 28. That which is found one and the same amongst many is not an error but a Tradition Yet supposing universall Tradition as it is meerly humane be in its nature fallible yet the Tradition of the Catholique Church is by God himselfe preserved from error which is thus demonstrated God being infinitely good and ardently desiring the salvation of mankind cannot permit the meanes which should convey the Apostles doctrine to posterity by the belief whereof men must be saved to be poisoned with damnable error to the destruction of their salvation now the onely meanes to convey this doctrine is the Tradition of the Catholique Church Tert. de Praes cap. 21. as Tertullian saith what the Apostles taught I will prescribe ought no other wayes to be proved than by those Churches which the Apostles founded All other means as I have shewed you before are insufficient and if this Tradition of the Church should be insufficient also by reason of its liablenesse unto error then were there no certainty at all of the truth of Christian Religion no not so much as that there was such a man as Jesus Christ but all men would be left to grope in the wandring uncertainty of their owne imaginations which for God to suffer cannot fall under any prudent mans belief § 2. Secondly that which bindeth men to believe a thing to be Gods Word God cannot suffer to delude men into error whereby for their devotion unto his truth they may fall into damnation now Catholique Tradition from the Apostles is that which bindes men to believe the same to be the Word of God and that because it is thereby sufficiently proposed the World affording no higher nor surer proposall so that either this must be infallible or else God hath left us to the guidance of our own weak understandings the weaknesse of which conceit I shewed even now and all Christians to that confusion which all different opinions yet reputed the Word of God by them that hold them may produce § 3. Thirdly God being the Prime Verity he cannot so much as connive at falshood whereby he becomes accessory of deceiving them who simply readily and religiously believe what they have just reason to think to be his Word but there is most just and sufficient reason to believe that the doctrine delivered by full and perpetuall Tradition from hand to hand even from the Apostles is undoubtedly their doctrine and the Word of God therefore he cannot suffer Catholique Tradition to be falsified Nor can as I conceive any prudent man imagine that God having sent his Son into the world to teach men the way to heaven every moment of whose life was made notable by doing or suffering somthing to that end should suffer the efficacy and
endewed with so much zeal and courage as to professe her Religion and to propagate it in the world which cannot be Therefore it is impossible that the true Church should not be ever universall and famously known Sixthly this Church is holy both in life and Doctrine Holy for life shining in all admirable sanctity the rayes whereof do overcome the hearts of the beholders such as the Holy Apostles gave example of as of poverty chastitie obedience charity in undergoing all forms of labour and danger for the safety of soules patience invincible in the rough handling of themselves by wonderfull fastings and all kind of austerities fortitude heroicall in suffering martyrdome not onely with patience but with joy though given them in all the most hideous shapes that mans imagination steeled with malice could invent And although this kind of sanctity does not shine in all the members of the Church but in the more eminent professors and principally in the Pastors yet if this kind of sanctity together with Miracles were wanting she could not be so sufficient a witnesse to Infidells who ordinarily are not won to the affection and admiration of Christianity but by beholding such wonders of power and sanctity in the Professors thereof Holy shee is also for doctrine in regard her traditions are divine and holy without commixture of error for if the Church could deliver any one or few errors intermingled with many truths her Traditions even of the truth were questionable and could not be believed upon her word Even as if we admit in Scripture any error in smaller matters we cannot be sure of its infallibility in matters of greatest moment as he that shall say Gods written word is false or uncertaine when it tells him that S. Paul left his cloake at Troas may also say with as much reason that it is false or uncertain when it tells him that Christ was borne of the Virgin Mary Even so he that grants that some part of Traditions or the Word of God unwritten may be false inferrs by consequence that every part thereof may be so and that because we have no antecedent ground or touch-stone to try Traditions by but they must be believed for their own sakes being therein more fundamentall than the Scripures which are not known to be Apostolicall but by Tradition whereas perpetuall Tradition is knowne to come from the Apostles by its own light for what can be more evident then that that is from the Apostles which is delivered as Apostolicall by perpetuall succession of Priests and people affirming and believing the same § 2. But against this truth that if the Church may erre in one thing neither wee nor shee can be sure that shee speakes truth in any thing Chillingworth makes these in my judgement impertinent interrogations A Judge may possibly erre in Judgement can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A travayler may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtfull whether I am in the right way from my hall to my chamber pag. 117. sect 106. In which he weakly falls into comparison betwixt matters which are the object of the sense or of the understanding and of faith which in this case have no proportion betwixt them For the doctrines of faith as they are of faith being altogether and all equally without the reach of our knowledge we have no way to attaine to but by the help of others whom we must absolutely believe and if we know that they may deliver that which is false to us wee can never be sure that any thing they deliver to us is not false unlesse we had some superiour rule to try and examine their Traditions by which certainly we have not Nor can the Church it selfe if shee may erre in the delivery of one thing be sure that shee doth not erre in every thing because shee hath no infallible rule to examine her doctrines by out of her selfe who if shee be assisted by the Holy Ghost cannot erre in any thing if not for ought shee knowes shee doth in all things Now that the Church is assisted by God and that mans reason cannot be the highest judge to whom the last appeal is made in matters of faith which descend from God I have shewed before As for a humane Judge as he may erre through ignorance wilfulnesse or negligence which to conceive of the Church is absurd yea blasphemous shee having Christ for her Head and the Holy Ghost for her Spirit so he cannot bee more certaine of the truth of his judgement than his reason can make him which will not reach to an absolute infallibility And as a travayler may mistake his way in one journey so he may in another if he have no more certainty nor better guide of the one way than of the other which is the Churches case in propounding and believing matters of faith revealed to her by God which like the Circumference from the Center are all equally distant from our knowledge and the Church hath an equall Prerogative of infallibility by the guidance of the Holy Ghost in all who therefore can erre in nothing or in all things which she saith she so receives and delivers Yet Chillingworth saith that his consequences are as like the other as an egge to an egge or milk to milk but more truly they are as like as an egge to an oyster or milk to ink § 3. And lest any Protestant who honours the Scriptures much with his lips though he be far removed with his heart should think that I am injurious to the Scripture in saying that Tradition is more fundamentall than Scripture it selfe I desire him to take notice that Tradition and Scripture according to different comparisons are equall and superior the one to the other Compare them in respect of certainty of truth they are equall both being the Word of God the one written the other unwritten and so both infinitely certain Compare them in respect of depth of sublimity and variety of doctrine the Scripture is far superiour to Tradition Tradition being plaine and easie doctrine concerning the common capitall and practicall Articles of Christianity whereas the Scripture is full of high hidden senses and furnished with great variety of examples discourses and all manner of learning Compare them in respect of antiquity and evidence of being the Apostles the Scripture is inferiour to Tradition in time and knowledge and cannot be proved directly to be the Apostles and therefore Gods but by Tradition As Philosophy is more perfect than Logicke and Rhetoricke than Grammar in respect of high and excellent knowledge yet Logicke is more prime originall and fundamentall than Philosophy Grammar than Rhetorique without the rules and principles whereof they cannot be learned Even so Tradition is more prime and originall than Scripture though Scripture in respect of depth and sublimity of discourse be more excellent then Tradition CHAP. X. That the Roman is that one holy Catholique
and Apostolique Church THese premises considered I look'd round about to see amongst al the societies of the world professing the name of Christ to which of them the title and dignity of the Church might most justly be applyed and I found that the Roman Church that is the multitude of Christians spred over the face of the known world adhering to the doctrine of the Church of Rome is the One Holy Catholique and Apostolique Church The vulgar objection against the title of Catholique Roman that is say they universall and yet but particular seemed very childish the one title being applyed in regard of the doctrine and the extent thereof which is universall the other of the discipline and the fountaine and head thereof which is particular from the Bishop of Rome For the word Catholique is taken three waies to wit formally causally and participatively Formally the universall Church only that is to say the society of all the true particular Churches united in one selfesame Communion is called Catholique Causally the Roman Church is called Catholique for as much as shee infuseth universality into all the whole body of the Catholique Church For to constitute universality there must be two things one that may be instead of matter thereto to wit the multitude and the other instead of form thereto to wit unity for a multitude without unity doe not properly make universality Take away vnity from the multitude saith S. Augustine and it is a tumult De verb. Dom. sceundum Luc. Serm. 26. but bring in unity and it is a people Therefore the Roman Church which as the center and beginning of the Ecclesiasticall Communion infuseth unity which is the forme of universality into the Catholique Church may be called Catholique causally though in her own being shee be particular Even as the chief Captaine of an army on whom all the inferiour Captaines Officers and common Souldiers have their dependency and with whom they hold correspondency is called The Generall though he be but one particular man because it is he that by the relation that all others have to him gives unity to the whole body of the Army And thirdly particular Churches are called Catholique participatively because they agree and participate in doctrine and Communion with the Catholique Church § 2. Now I was induced to believe that the Roman Church is the only true Catholike Church by these ensuing reasons First God being the Prime Verity revealing truth cannot suffer the knowledg of saving doctrine to be impossible but it is impossible if it be hidden or if a false meanes of knowledge thereof be so drest with the marks of the true as that the true become undiscernable from it And if the Roman be not the true Catholique Church and Tradition then the true Catholique Church and Tradition is hidden and a false Church hath the marks of the true so cleerly that no other can with any colour pretend to be Catholique rather than it that is to have doctrine delivered from the Apostles by whole worlds of Christian Fathers to whole worlds of Christian children Hence either there is no meanes left assuredly to know the saving truth or else it must be inward teaching by immediate revelation without any externall infallible meanes or the Scripture known to be the Word of God and truly interpreted by the light and evidence of the things or by the force of naturall reason the vanity and falshood whereof I have already shewed for knowledge of supernaturall truth by the light and lustre of the doctrine is proper to the Church triumphant inward assurance without an externall infallible ground is proper unto Prophets and the first publishers of Religion Hence it may be concluded that if God be the Prime Verity teaching Christian Religion darkely without making men see the light of things believed and mediatly by some externall infallible meanes upon which inward assurance must rely then he must ever conserve the Catholique Church and Tradition visible and conspicuous that the same may be by sensible marks discerned And if any object that the senses of men in this search may be deceived through naturall invincible fallibility of their organs and so be no ground of faith that is altogether infallible I answer that evidence had by sense being but the private sense of one man is not ordinarily fallible but when the same is also publique generall that is when a whole world of men concur with him then his evidence is altogether infallible Besides seeing God will not teach men immediatly but will have them cleave to an externall infallible means and to find out this means by the sensible evidence of the thing he is in a manner bound by the perfection of his veracity to assist mens senses with his providence that therein they be not deceived when they use such diligence as men ordinarily use that they be not deceived by their senses Now what greater evidence can one have that he is not deceived in this matter of sense that the Roman doctrine is the Catholique that is doctrine delivered from the Apostles by worlds of Christian Ancestors unanimous amongst themselves in all matters of faith what greater assurance I say can one have that herein he sees aright than a whole world of men professing to see the same that he doth And surely this was the meaning of God by the Prophet Esay when speaking of the Church of Christ he calls it a direct way so that fools cannot erre therein Esa 35.8 which cannot be but by following a world of Ancestors going before them in the same Tract Otherwise it is not only possible for fools but even for them that seem to be wisest to erre yea in this case it is impossible to be otherwise And if it be further objected that I believe the Catholique Church is an Article of Faith and Faith is the argument of things not seen I answer an Article of Faith may be visible according to the substance of the thing and yet invisible according to the manner it is believed in the Creed The third Article He suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried according to the substance of the thing was evident to sense and seen of the Jewes and is now believed of their posterity but according to the manner that it is believed in the Creed to wit that herein the Word of God by his Prophets was fulfilled and that it was done for the salvation of man in this manner this visible Article is invisible and so it is believed in the Creed In like manner that there is in the world a Catholike Church and that the Romane is this Catholique Church Pagans Jewes and Heretiques if they shut not their eyes against the light do clearly behold but that herein the Word of God concerning the perpetuall amplitude of his Church is accomplished that this is an effect of Gods varacity to the end that the meanes to learn saving truth may not be hidden this is a
for many hundred years an universall Apostacy over-spread the whole face of the earth so that our Protestant Church was not then visible to the world Fulk saith * Treatise ag Stapleton Martiall p. 25. the Pope hath blinded the world these many hundred years some say 900. some 1000. some 1200. And * On the Revelat. p 64. Napier saith The Antichristian and Papisticall reign began about the year three hundred and sixteen after Christ which is now above 1300. years ago raigning universally without debateable contradiction Gods true Church abiding certainly hidden and latent Secondly Protestants cannot tell the time when the Church of Rome began to change and swerve from the Apostolicall doctrine therefore doubtlesse she hath never changed her faith Now that doctrines universally received although they be not written are Doctrines derived from the Apostles is affirmed by * De Baptis lib. 5. c. 23. S. Augustine and allowed by * D. sence p. 351. 352. D. Whitguift Archbishop of Canterbury who in his book against Puritanes citing divers Protestants as concurring in opinion with him saith whatsoever opinions are not knowne to have begun since the Apostles time the same are not new or secundary but received their originall from the Apostles But because this principle of Christian divinity brings in as Cartwright the Puritan there alledged speaks all Popery in the judgement of all men I will further demonstrate it though of it selfe it be cleer enough Christ by his Spirit being still present with his Church cannot permit errors in Faith so to creep into the Church as that by the very principles of Christianity they become unreformable but if errors so creep into the Church as that their beginning cannot be knowne and their progresse become universall then do they so enter and prevaile that by the principles of Christianity they are past reformation and that because whosoever undertakes to reform them is to be condemned as an Heretique for he that will undertake to reform Doctrines universally received by the Church opposeth himself against the whole Church and is therefore by a knowne and received Principle of Christianity and Christs owne precept to be accounted as a Heathen and a Publican Mat. 18.17 Epist 118. And as S. Augustine saith To dispute against the whole Church is insolent madnesse For the Church by Christ is appointed the Judge and corrector of all others as our Saviour saith Tell the Church and therefore is not to be judged nor corrected by any he that hath the high presumption to doe so presently pulls on himself the censure of a Heathen And justly too for like the Giants amongst the Poets who waged war against the Gods he doth not only oppose the present Church but the Church of all ages even the Apostles themselves and who is sufficient for these things And he begins a new course of Christianity seeking to overthrow that Doctrine which is universally received and cannot be proved by any Tradition of Ancestors to be otherwise planted in the world than by the Apostles themselves through the power of innumerable miracles Wherefore these Doctrines if they be errors are errors whose reformation no man by the principles of Christianity ought to attempt And seeing it is impossible there should be any such errors the Principle of S. Augustine stands firm That Doctrines received universally in the Church without any known beginning are truly Apostolicall and of this kind are the Roman Doctrines from which Protestants have revolted But some Protestants object that the errors of the Pharisees were universally received in the Jewish Church yet reformed by our Saviour To which may be answered that Protestants out of their desire to make Catholiques seem like the Pharisees make themselves seem as if they did not any whit understand the Gospell For the Traditions of the Pharisees were not universall Traditions but certaine practises of piety invented by themselves and deducted by their skill from Scripture whereby they would seem singularly religions and not as other men Secondly Christ Jesus proving himselfe to be true God might reforme errors universally received and the Church of the Jewes falling erect a new Church of Christians as he did which is not lawfull for any one else to doe For Christian Religion must continue to the worlds end by vertue of the first Tradition thereof and must never be interrupted without extraordinary and propheticall beginning by immediate revelation and Miracles If therefore errors be delivered by the full consent of Christian Tradition they are irreformable Again some Protestants say that one may oppose the whole Church and confute her errors by Scripture not be as an Heathen or Heretique for not every one that opposeth the Church is to be accounted an Heathen Whites Reply p. 136. but only such as inordinately and without just cause oppose it And who I pray shall judge of the justnesse of the cause By this doctrine every man is made an examiner and judge of the whole Church hellish confusion brought in thereby For if against the sentence of perpetual universal Tradition a private man may without the guilt of heresie pretend Scripture and stand obstinately therein though the Church do give seeming and appearing answers as some of them confesse to his Scripture yet condemne her answers saying they are sophisticall as some of them do what can be more disorderly or what is Hereticall obstinacy if this be not Wherefore S. Augustine saith absolutely Epist 48. it is impossible men should have just cause to depart from impugn the whole Christian Church And why but because it is a ruled case in Christianity he that heareth not the Church is an Heretike Yet notwithstanding this the Protestants doe charge the Church of Rome DE FACTO to have falne into errors and to have changed her faith and that because points of doctrine undefined about which Doctors have disputed and held different opinions have been afterwards defined by the Church so that it was not lawfull for any after that to make doubt thereof the Church by this meanes hath held in later ages that to be DE FIDE a matter of faith which the former ages did not and so say they hath changed the faith and believes and delivers more than shee received from the Apostles But this I found to be no change of faith but only a declaration of some point explicitly which was implicitly and involvedly believed before For all the Articles of faith were immediately re-revealed by Christ to his Apostles and by them againe delivered to their posterity so that since there have been no new and particular revelations but the first being laid up in the treasury of the Church for which cause S. Paul calls it a depositum a stock or pawn other truths have been deduced from thence as occasion hath required For when any one endeavours to corrupt the doctrine delivered by the Apostles the Church calls her Pastors and Doctors to
for which he is condemned by S. * Hier. cont Vigil c. 3. Hierome Protestants deny reverence to Images so did Xenaias for which he is rereproved by * Hist lib. 16. c. 27. Nicephorus in these words Xenaias first O audacious soule and impudent mouth vomited forth that speech that the Images of Christ and those who have pleased him are not to be worshipped Protestants deny the reall presence so did the Capernaites who were saith * In Psal 54. 55. S. Augustine the first Heretiques that denied the reall presence and that Judas was the first suborner and maintainer of this heresie Protestants deny confession of sinnes to a Priest so did the Novatian Heretiques for which they are reproved by * Lib. de poenit c. 7. S. Ambrose So did the Montanists and are reproved by Saint * Hieron Epist ad Marcell 54. Hierome Protestants say that a man is justified by faith only so did the Pseudo-Apostles for which they are condemned by S. * De fide oper c. 14. Augustine I might increase this Catalogue by the addition of many other and make the new Protestant Religion appear but a frippery of old Heresies but these shall suffice From all which it appears that the Fathers held the same faith with the present Romane Church and that there was no opposition of Fathers against Fathers nor of any one Father against himself at least in matters of faith but that they all held the unity of the faith that they that held the contrary were by them condemned of Heresie that in bringing any places out of the Fathers to confirm their Heresies they did misinterpret them as the Protestants now do that therefore the Doctrine of the Romane Church is Apostolicall and unchanged and therefore she is the true Church CHAP. XI That the true Church may be knowne by evident marks and that such markes agree only to the Roman Church And first of Vniversality the first mark of the Church § 1. IN further pursuit of the true Church I addressed my self by the marks thereof to find it out For I accounted it vaine to try by the Scripture whether the particular doctrines of Protestants were the doctrines of the Apostles unlesse I could find their Church to be the true Church by the marks of the true Church set down in Scripture For either the Scripure can clear all controversies or it canntot if it cannot there will be no end of controversie amongst them that rely only on Scripture if it can then surely it can clear this most important one which is the true Church by the marks thereof and if so it is fit that that should be determined in the first place on which all the rest depends Ep. dedic as Doctor Feild acknowledgeth And whereas some Protestants make the truth of the doctrine to be the onely mark of the Church it is preposterous being the declaration of a thing obscure or pretended to be so by a thing more obscure in as much as to know the truth of the doctrine in all the particular instances is harder than to know the society of the Church And it is necessary to know the truth of doctrine in all the particulars before we can thereby know the true Church because if she erre in any one point of faith she thereby falls from the title of the true Church Now who is he that can boast to know the integrity of the doctrine of the Church in all the particular controversies against every society that holds the contrary by infallible proofs of Scripture and invincible answers to all their objections If any could do this who knowes not that ignorant and unlearned people of whose salvation notwithstanding God hath the same care as of the learned and to whom the marks of the Church should be equally common since they are equally obliged to obey her are not capable of this examination Cont. Ep. Fund c. 4. For the rest of the people saith S. Augustine it is not the quicknesse of understanding but the simplicity of belief that secure them Therefore it is manifest that they must have other marks to know the Church by than that of her Doctrine namely marks proportionable to their capacity to wit externall and sensible marks as eminency antiquity perpetuity with the like even as children and ignorant people must have externall and sensible marks and other than the essentiall forme of a man to know and discern a man from other living creatures Else how could S. Paul say God hath made in the Church Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors to the end we should be no more little children blown about with every wind of doctrine Ephes chap. 4. ver 11. if hee had not given us other marks to know the Church than the purity of the Doctrine Besides purity of Doctrine being the essentiall form of the Church cannot be a mark of it because they are commonly repugnant and incompatible conditions For the mark doth commonly demonstrate the thing to the sense and the essentiall form doth shew it to the understanding the mark designes the thing in existence the essentiall forme designes it in essence the mark shewes where the thing is the essentiall form teaches what it is the mark is sooner known than the thing and contrariwise the thing is sooner known than the essentiall form of the thing 1 Phys c. 1. for the thing defined as Aristotle saith is known before the definition A Mark then must have three conditions The first is to be more known then the thing since it is that which makes the thing to be known The second that the thing be never found without it The third that it be never found without the thing either alone if it be a totall mark or with its fellowes if it be a mark in part According to these conditions I found divers Marks set down in Scripture appliable only to the Church of Rome § 2. Of which the first is to be Catholique that is universall which was fore-told by the Prophet Esay saying All Nations shall flow unto it Esay 2.2 And by the Psalmist that it should have the Heathen for its inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for its possession Psal 2.2 And by our Saviour saying This Gospell of the Kingdome shall be preached in all the world for a witnesse to all Nations and then shall the end come And that repentance and remission of sinnes should be preached in his Name amongst all Nations beginning at Jerusalem Mat. 24.14 Luc. 24.47 Therefore to distinguish Christs true Church from all Hereticall Sects the Apostles in their Creed and the antient Fathers in their Writings have given her the Sirname of Catholique a name ever insisted upon by the Fathers against Heretiques no lesse than now And that the Roman Church is this Catholique Church dispersed over the whole world is manifest to all those that have either read the histories of the world or
have been eye-witnesses of the severall Countreys thereof wherein though the publike profession thereof be Hereticall Mahometicall or Heathenish yet even there hath the Romane Catholique Church both Fathers and children Pastors and people And like the Sea what she loseth in one place she wins in another what she hath lost by the falling away of the Protestants in Europe she hath gained with increase by the propagation of her faith in the East and West Indies where whole Kingdomes are converted thereunto as a Protestant Author confesseth saying Simon Lythus in respons altera ad alteram Gretseri Apologiam p. 333. The Jesuites within the compasse of a few years not content with the bounds of Europe have filled Asia Africa and America with their Idols And thus shee was Catholique by Napier a Protestant Writers confession forementioned and others for 12. or 1300. yeares ago and ever since And whereas Protestants say that this universality is no true mark of the Church because it is appliable to Turkes and Pagans it is doubtlesse a very poor objection for the markes of the Church are not given her by God to distinguish her from all sorts of Religions but only from those that are contained equivocally under the same next kind and may be supposed and taken for Churches that is to say from other Christian societies to wit from Hereticall and Shismaticall Sects which challenge by false markes the title of the true Church To which purpose S. Augustine saith disputing with the Donatists Thou askest of a stranger whether he be a Pagan or a Christian he answers thee a Christian thou askest him whether he be a catechumene Aug de Pastor c. 13. or one of the faithfull he answers thee one of the faithfull thou askest him of what communion he is he answers thee a Christian Catholique Besides the Roman Church hath this forme of universality beyond all Religions of the world even Turkes or Heathens That there is no place of the known world where there are not Roman Catholiques propagating their Religion by converting the people of the land whosoever they are which is manifestly wanting to all other Religions and is therefore in this regard also more universally spread over the face of the earth than any other Others say that this universall spreading of the Church is antidated by Roman Catholiques with application to themselves for that it was not to take beginning but from the time of Luther because some places of Scripture which speak of the largenesse of the Church say it shall be in the later daies But it is manifest that by later daies is meant all the space of time from Chirst to the end of the world as S. Peter interpreting a prophecie of Joel which saith that it shall come to passe in the last daies that God will powre his Spirit upon all flesh Acts 2.17 by which is intended the amplitude of the Church applies it to that present time when the holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles Nor can any reasonable man imagine that it can sort with the goodnesse of God and his tender love to mankind to suffer the light of his truth in the not spreading of his Church to be eclipsed for 14. or 1500. years seeing that according to the opinion of some learned men grounded upon fair probabilities the world is likely to last but 2000. yeares after Christ. Howsoever this universality of the Protestant Religion is but begun it is not perfected for the Roman Church is yet actually exceeding larger and Protestants that allow this for a mark of the true Church now begin hopefully to apply it to themselves are bound to be of the Roman till they see their expectation satisfied in the Protestant Churches exceeding her in latitude which I dare boldly say will not be as long as they live and therefore they ought to die in the Roman Faith § 3. But if we examine the matter a little more strictly we shall find that the Protestants plea for universality wil be cut very short when we consider that though they make themselves all of one Church when they would vie for multitude with the Roman Church yet compared with one another we shall find that they are very many Churches not distinguished by nation only but by doctrine and points of faith and that there are many Churches in one Nation as in England for example and will be many more if the desired Independency be advanced Now it is not sufficient that the Protestant Religion in generall be enlarged but it must be the true Protestant Religion which every particular Sect thinking it self to be of and denying it the most of them to the rest the universality of the Religion wil be mightily abated Indeed when they muster their strengths together and make boast of their greatnesse then they rake all into the title of Protestantisme who have revolted from the Roman Church count them on their side as if the definition of a Protestant were one that is opposite to the Church of Rome So that if there were a thousand sorts of Heretiques in the world they would in this case account them but one Church But the word Catholique being a note of Communion as I have shewed already as the Roman Church calls none a Catholique that doth not communicate with her so cannot the Protestant Church of Engl. count any to be of her Religion thereby by inlarging of her bounds to prove her selfe Catholique unlesse they will communicate with her which the Grecian Churches wil not the Lutheran Churhes will not many of the Sects within the Kingdom will not as Presbyterians Antinomians Anabaptists Brownists Familists Erastians Socinians Arminians Seekers Adamites Shakers Independents with many others These I say will not communicate with the Protestant Church of England nor will they communicate each with other but have at least most frequently their Congregations as they call them separate and apart so that these are all to be accounted severall Churches and Religions and no one is further universall than the communion thereof doth spread which is so litle a way that none of them is nay though they were al united together would they be able to stand in competition with the Roman Church under whose Communion are many entire Kingdoms and in all known parts of the world an infinity of people even in Asia Africa and America where the name of Protestant much more any particular Sect thereof is altogether unknowne Besides all the Christian Churches which are now separated from the Roman were once united to her both in faith and communion and then either she was the Catholique Church or there was none in the world which is impossible therefore they that departed from her departing from the Catholique Church became Schismatiques and departing from the faith they received from her become Heretiques § 4 Lastly the very possession of the name Catholique is a proof that it doth belong to her seeing no sort of Christians
else can usurp it from her For howsoever some when being so hard pressed that they cannot claime the title of true Chritian unlesse they assume the name of Catholique do then arrogate it to themselves and say that they are Catholikes yet in ordinary speech if you speak of a Catholike every one understands thereby a Romane Catholike all other Sects voluntarily taking to themselves the name of some men for their founder as of Luther Calvin whom they call their Reformers or of some place as the Albigenses or from some accident of their pretended reformation as Protestants by which the legall Protestants delight to stile themselves with this addition of the Church of England renouncing therein as they suppose Luther and Calvin as ashamed or seeming to scorne to derive themselves from any one man as though the Church of England in this matter namely in opposition to the whole Church both present and precedent were of more consideration then one single man Moreover certain enough it is that the Reformation of the Church of England began by one man and he no God neither except it were such an one as Jupiter was who transform'd himself into a beast for the love of women before it filled the whole Kingdome and arrived at that high pitch of perfection that some suppose And who that man was is well enough knowne and what godly motives he had which they must confesse or else that their Church is like Melchizedek without Father or Mother or like a Mushrump started up in a night no man knowes how On the contrary the true believer will own no name but that of the Catholique Faith which was first devised by the Apostles in the Creed and which the successors of the Apostles in that Faith have alwaies worne As the Antient Father a Pacianus ad Symp. Ep. 1. S. Pacianus saith in an Epistle to Sympronianus a Novatian Heretique Christian is my name Catholique is my Sir-name that names me this marks me out by that I am manifested by this I am distinguished And Saint b Cyrill Hieros Catech 15. Cyrill of Jerusalem expounding the Creed For this cause saith he thy faith hath given thee this Article to hold undoubtedly and in the holy Catholique Church to the end thou shouldest fly the polluted Conventicles of Heretiques And a little after when thou comest into a Town inquire not simply where the Temple of our Lord is for the Heresies of impious persons do likewise call their dens the Temples of the Lord neither ask simply where the Church is but where is the Catholique Church For that name is the proper name of this holy Church And on the contrary c Hieron cont Lucifer c. 9. S. Hierome saith If in any part thou hearest of men denominated from any but from Christ as Marcionites Valentinians c. know that it is not the Church of Christ but the Synagogve of Antichrist And d Lib. deutilitat cred cap. 7. S. Augustine fully Although there be many heresies of Christians and that all would be called Catholikes yet there is alwaies one Church if you cast your eyes upon the extent of the whole world more abundant in multitude and also as those that know themselves to be of it more sincere in truth than all the rest but of the truth that is another dispute That which sufficeth for the question is that there is one Church to which different Heresies impose different names whereas they are all called by their particular names that they dare not disavow from whence it appears in the judgement of any not pre-occupate with favour to whom the name of Catholike whereof they are all ambitious ought to be attributed And again e De vera relig cap. 6. We must hold the Christian Religion and the communion of that Church which is called Catholique both by her own and by strangers for whether Heretiques and Schismatiques will or will not when they speak not with their own but with strangers they call the Catholiques no otherwise than Catholiques As for the Protestants it is certain that neither by others nor yet by themselves in ordinary speaking are they called Catholiques No nor yet in their most solemne and serious speaking as appears by the severall Acts both of the King of England and of the Houses of Parliament wherein both sides publish to the world and yet in a sense different from one another that they will maintain the Protestant Religion But the Roman Church hath alwayes possessed the name of Catholique and therefore she is such CHAP. XII Of the second Mark of the Church viz. Antiquity both of persons and doctrines § 1. THe second mark of the Church is Antiquity as God saith by the Prophet Jeremy Stand in the waies see inquire of the old paths which is the good way and walk therein Ier. 6.16 And our Saviour saith Mat. 13. that the good seed was sown first and afterwards the tares And even in nature truth is before falshood And this Antiquity I found applyable in the highest degree to the Roman Religion for though some heresies are very antient as is intimated in that the tares were sowen soon after the good seed yet the truth is more antient and so is the Church of Rome This antiquity of hers for the greatest part of time is confessed by Protestants Perkins whom I alledged before grants it for 900. yeares Napier goes higher and saith it raigned universally and without any debateable contradiction 12. hundred and 60. yeares And seeing this raign of the Catholique Religion which Protestants call Popery was then universall it is apparent that it did not then begin for such an universall possession could not be got on the suddain as they may perceive by the Protestant Religion which is not improved to neere that universality in above a hundred yeares so that in all probability even according to the opinion of Protestants the beginning thereof must be in or neere the Apostles times Now whether we take the Roman Church for the society of Christians that acknowledge the Bishop of Rome for their head or whether we take it for Fathers and Doctors holding the doctrines of the present Church of Rome in both respects it will appear that the Church of Rome is most antient and Apostolicall The former is proved by the testimony of S. * Iren. cont Val. lib. 3. c. 3. Irenaeus who calls the Roman Church the greatest and antientest Church founded at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul And of S. Augustine * Aug. Epist 162. who saith In the Roman Church hath alwaies flourished the Principality of the Apostolique Seat This word alwaies including all the time upward from that present to S. Peter So that by this it is manifest that there was a Roman Church even from S. Peters time who was the first Bishop and Pope thereof Which S. Augustine confirmes in another place saying Number the Priests even from
adversaries thereof that are under the title of Christian being divided amongst themselves and notorious changers and according to this notion the Church is ever visible and sensible to all men even to her enemies Otherwise there is no ordinary meanes left for men to know what the Apostles taught nor consequently what God by inspiration revealed to them And if she and the light of truth she carries with her should be hidden and lost we must begin again anew from a second fountain of immediate revelation from God and build upon the new planting thereof with Miracles in the world by some new Apostles And if this be absurd then there must ever be in the world a Church visible whose Traditions are famously Catholique and consequently shewing themselves to be the Apostles to all men that will not be obstinate And that the Church shall be universally visible even in the daies of Antichrist may be gathered out of the Scripture Rev. 20.8 For she shall then be every where persecuted which could not be unlesse she were visible and conspicuous even to the wicked And even during the first 300. years after Christ wherein the Church indured incomparably more universall and raging persecutions than ever were yet the a Magd. cent 1 2 3. Fulke cont Stapleton de success Eccl. p. 246. Century-writers and sundry others do take certain and particular notice of the Catholique Bishops and Pastors by name in those very ages of their administration of the Word and Sacraments and their open impugning of Heresies And surely our Lord himself had been which is blasphemy to think of him who is the eternall wisdome of the Father the most imprudent of all Law-makers to have a Law so obscure and exposed to so many suppositions depravations and false expositions whereto the malice of the Heretiques of all ages hath subjected it without leaving a depository to keep it and a judge to interpret it or to leave it to such a keeper and such a judge as should be invisible § 4. Other Protestants I have observed who though they confesse the invisibility of their Church yet professe the being thereof and assigne the place for it to be in the Roman Church mixed like a great deal of ore with a very little pure gold so that it was not discernable But this assignation of their Church seemed to me very unreasonable for either those Protestants did professe their owne faith or they did not if they did then doubtlesse they were visible and the Roman Church would soon have taken notice of them as she did in all ages of such though it were but one man that differed from her If they did not make profession of their faith what wretched sonnes of fear were they that to preserve their temporall security durst not publiquely avow their own Religion but comply in all things with a Religion in their opinion false and impious and dissemblingly do all the externall acts thereof and this all their lives for many generations successively This was not the part of a true Church or of any true member thereof who will surely die rather than deny his Saviour as he doth who believing himselfe to be of the true Religion makes profession of that which he deemes to be false Nor did they fulfill the Prophesie of Esay concerning the true Church which saith I have set watchmen upon thy walls which shall never hold their peace day nor night Esay 62.6 But Doctor Feild hath a new fancy of his owne which I never observed in any but himselfe who saith to this purpose that before the separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome the Church of Rome it selfe was the Protestant Church and that the Papists were but a faction of the Court of Rome an assertion so grosly false that all the world is a witnesse against it yea even I think all other Protestants themselves and needs no confutation § 5. Others taking all these Pleas for insufficient do affirm that their Church was in being and in sight also in all ages but that through the injury of later times no testimony thereof is now remaining but that all their records through the violence of the Pope and his Clergie have been utterly suppressed Of which vaine conceipt there is no proof at all and if the assertion without proof will serve their turne it may serve also for any other Religion Christian or not Christian who if they please may say the same thing but are never like to be believed by any man of common understanding Besides it thwarteth all experience as appeares by the example of Husse and Wickliffe whose writings are yet extant of Charlemaines pretended Book against Images and Bertrams concerning the Sacrament Also by the decrees of Catholique Councells and the large writings of Catholique Doctors reciting and condemning all opinions contrary to the Roman faith Lastly by the Ecclesiasticall Historiographers of every age who make this the argument of their writings yea even from them the Protestant * Centurists of Magdeburg Cent. Madg. Osiand Ep. Illyricus Catol VVhitak cont Duraeum pag. 276. 469. and others do recite the opinions mentioned and condemned in every age by the Church of Rome of which some were the very same that have since been revived by Protestants So that the Church of Rome hath been so far from extinguishing their records that she hath been the chief recorder of them and their doctrines § 6. The last and most valiant attempt of Protestants is to affirme that as the Church must be allwaies visible so theirs hath been in persons distinct from the Roman Church and thereby invite us to * A Protestants book so entituled look beyond Luther Which barren endeavour of theirs hath been like Peters fishing all night and catching nothing For they whom the Protestants claime for their predecessors were neither of their Religion nor yet alwaies visible there happening huge gaps betwixt them nor can the Protestants by any art or industry bring both ends together First they were not of the same Religion for to be of the same Religion or Church with another imports an agreement in all points of faith for the truth of doctrine being of the essence of the Church whosoever erres in any little thereof he ceaseth to participate of the soule of the Church which is the Spirit of truth and is but a dead member one equivocally and in name but not in truth We see that the Arrians Macedonians and many other Heretiques were accounted and are so by many Protestants not of the Catholique Church for one single error against faith now the Protestants disagreeing in many points not only from one another at this present but from all that went before them and that in points which they believe to be revealed in the Scripture their only rule are neither one Church amongst themselves at this present nor any one of them one with any society that hath gone before In particular the Grecians whom
they court to their faction are no Protestants for they hold damnable errors in the judgment of Protestants to wit Invocation of Saints Adoration of Images Transubstantiation Communion in one kind for the sick with many others So that Protestants are in great penury of professors of their Religion before Luther that are forced to call the Grecians in as Protestants in essence for they may even as well name the Pope himselfe As for John Husse and his followers who brake out about the year 1400. and are claimed to be Predecessors in the Protestant Religion it is certaine that they were no Protestants but held such Doctrines that if they were now in England they should suffer as Papists For they held a p. 216. seven Sacraments b p. 209. Transubstantiation c p. 217. art 7 8. the Popes primacy and the d Luther in Colloq Ger. c. de Missa Masse it self as Fox in his Acts and Monuments acknowledgeth No greater title have they to Wickliffe who appeared about the year 1370. in whom some Protestants say their visibility was maintained for he did visibly maintain Popery as e Wiclerus de blasphemia c. 17. holy water the f Idem de Eucharist c. 9. worship of Reliques and Images the g Idem in Ser. de assumpt Mariae intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary h Idem de apostosia c. 18. the Rites and ceremonies of the Masse all the i Idem in postil sup c. 15. Marci 7. Sacraments with all the points of Catholique doctrine now in question Moreover he held errors in the condemnation wherof both Catholiques and Protestants do agree as that k Acts Mon. p. 96. a. art 4. if a Bishop or Priest be in mortall sinne he doth not order consecrate or baptize l Idem p. 96 fine That Ecclesiasticall Ministers should not have temporall possessions He m Osiand Epit. hist Eccl. p. 459 art 43. condemned lawfull oathes with the Anabaptists and held many other pernicious doctrines Let any man then judge whether this man and his followers were Protestants or no. Then they ascend higher and claim on Waldo a merchant of Lions who brake out of the Sheepfold about the year 1220. with his followers as men in whom the Protestant Church was visible But these men were no more of kin to them than the former For they held the n In Ep. 244. p. 450. reall presence in the B. Sacrament for which they are reproved by Calvin who therfore understood them in the Catholique sense not in the Protestant And the most essentiall Doctrine of the Waldenses was their extolling of the merit of * Illiriâ—us Catolog Test p. 1498. voluntary poverty affirming all Ministers to be damned that had rents and possessions and that the Church perished under Pope Silvester and the Emperour Constantine through the poyson of temporall goods which Clergy-men began then to enjoy as they said against the Law of God Surely Protestants do not account this an Article of their faith Moreover the Waldenses held * Idem Catol Test p. 1502. these Anabaptisticall Errors That children are not to be baptized That there is no difference betweene a Bishop and a Priest a Priest and a Lay man That the Apostles were Lay-men and that every Lay-man that is vertuous is a Priest may preach and administer Sacraments That a woman pronouncing the words of consecration in the vulgar tongue doth consecrate yea transubstantiate bread into the body of Christ That it is a mortall sin to swear in any case That Magistrates being in mortall sin do lose in their office and no man is to obey them with many other absurdities too tedious to be recited The like may be said of the Albigenses and also of Beringarius who broached his Heresie about the yeare 1048. who was a Protestant but onely in the point against Transubstantiation which he also recanted and died a Catholique And what do any of these or all these together availe the Protestants every one of them extending but to some part of time between this and the Primitive Church and is also but the example of some one or other private man in whom the revolt first began who was first a Catholike and beginning afterwards to hold some one or few points of the Protestant faith continued in all other matters of controversie a Catholique By all which it appeares that none of these were Protestants and that therefore in them the visibility of the Protestant Church is not maintained And that if it were yet seeing they lived at severall times ununited by a line of time one to another but jumping over severall ages against the Law of nature which non facit saltum and that therfore in the between-spaces there was an invisibility of the Protestant Church the main question of their Churches perpetuall visibility is yet unsatisfied Especially when we consider that for about a thousand yeares which was the time betwixt Beringarius and the Apostles the Protestants pretend to no predecessors As for the most Primitive Fathers whom they affirm to maintain the Protestant Doctrine I have in brief shewed it to be false already and they that will search shall more largely find it so Also they all died members of the Roman Church So that the Protestants have not in them to wit the Fathers a visible Church distinct from the Roman nor was the Roman theirs From whence it is manifest that there is not any one Protestant Church in the world that can shew her visibility in any Kingdome city poor countrey village or particular person from the Apostles time to Luther the truth wherof M. Wotton is not ashamed to confesse where he saith in his answer to a Popish Pamphlet p. 11. You will say shew us where the faith religion you professe were held Nay prove you they were held no where c. and what if it could not be shewed yet we know by the Articles of our Creed that there hath been alwaies a Church in which we say this Religion we now professe must of necessity be held with us it is no inconvenience to have the true Church hid This stands you upon to disprove which when you attempt to do by any particular records you shal have particular answer Than which saying what more ridiculous To presume that their Church was alwaies visible in the land of Vtopia sure where no man ever saw it because it is the true Church wheras they should prove it the true Church because it hath been alwaies visible the knowledge of her visibility being much more easie than of her truth which is the main thing in controversie And to require of Catholiques proof that they were not visible by particular records is extreme foolish records being memorialls of things that were not of things that were not § 7. All which considerations shaking the confidence of many Protestants in the visibility of their Church before Luther
after they have thus fluttered up and down finding like the Dove out of the Arke no rest for the sole of their foot they at last fly to the Scriptures think to pearch upon that under whose obscurity and their corruption of them while they will admit none to interpret them but themselves they frame what sense they please as any bodie els may do with great confidence but little judgement as all Heretikes do assure themselves thereof But if they will allow the Fathers for good interpreters as none but those that are puffed up with the Spirit of Pride will refuse to do then we find as I shewed before that even Christ and his Apostles were of the Roman not the Protestant Religion and the first Founders and publishers thereof But Doctor White in his Reply p. 105. concludes thus that this notwithstanding if Protestants be able to demonstrate by Scripture that they maintaine the same faith and religion which the Apostles taught this alone is sufficient to prove them to be the true Church But they that cannot by the markes of the Church set downe in Scripture cleere themselves to be the true Church do most fondly appeale to Scripture to shew the truth of their particular points For what more vaine than to appeale from Scripture setting things down cleerly unto Scripture teaching matters obscurely or not so cleerly Now no particular point of doctrine is in holy Scripture so manifestly set down as is the Church and the markes whereby we may know her No matters about which the Scripture is more copious and perspicuous than about the visibility perpetuity amplitude the Church was to enjoy so that as S. Augustine saith the Scriptures are more cleer about the Church than even about Christ in Psal 30. Conc. 2. and De unitat Eccles c. 5. that the Scripture in this point is so cleer that by no shift of false interpretation it can be avoided the impudence of any fore-head that will stand against this evidence is confounded a Tract 1. in 1. Ep. Ioan. That it is a prodigious blindnesse not to see which is the true Church For b Aug. l. 1. cont Crescon c. 33. l. 13. cont Faust cap. 13. God would have his Church to be described in Scripture without any ambiguity as clear as the beams of the Sun that the controversie about the true Church being cleerly decided when questions about particular Doctrines that are obscure arise we may fly to her and rest in her judgement and that this visibility is a manifest sign whereby even the rude and ignorant may discern the true Church from the false What vanity then is it for Protestants not being able to clear by Scripture the cleerest of all points to appeal to her for the cleering of other points by lesse evident places CHAP. XIV Of the fourth mark of the true Church viz. a lawfull succession and ordinary vocation and mission of Pastors And that it is ridiculous to affirme that Catholiques and Protestants are the same Church § 1. A Fourth mark of the Church is personall succession of Pastors and their mission by ordinary callings which is alwaies to be found in the true Church as is foretold by the Prophet Esay ch 59. v. 2. My spirit which is upon thee and the words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed from henceforth for ever And the Apostle saith of our Saviour Ephes 4.11.12 that he appointed Pastors and Teachers in the Church to the consummation of the Saints for the work of the ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all meet in the unity of the faith And this charge is not to be undertaken by usurpation but by lawfull calling and mission as the Apostle saith Heb. 5.4 No man takes to himselfe this honour but he that is called of God as Aron was to wit visibly and by peculiar consecration And againe How shall they preach except they be sent Rom. 10.15 And our Saviour saith who so entreth not by the doore into the sheepfold but climeth another way is a thief John 10.5 And God in the old Testament reproves those that went without mission saying J have not sent these Prophets yet they ran Jeremy 23.21 I have not sent them saith the Lord yet they prophecie fasly in my name Jer. 27.15 And this is a note of the Church so pertinent that S. Augustine Lib. cont Epist Fundament c. 4. saith the succession of Priests from the very Seat of Peter the Apostle to whom the Lord commited his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishoprick doth hold me in the Church And Optatus Milevitanus reckons all the Roman Bishops from S. Peter to Syricius who then was Pope to shew that the Church was not then with the Donatists who by like succeson could not ascend up to the Apostles and then lib. 2. cont Parmenianum he addes Shew you the originall of your chaire who challenge the holy Church to your selves Now that this mark is found upon the Church of Rome I know no man that denies But the Bishops where they are and Ministers of Protestant Churches cannot thus derive themselves from the Apostles The Roman Church indeed made Luther Priest and gave him Commission to preach her Doctrine but to preach against her Religion who gave him order That Commission seeing he had it not from any Church he had either from himself minting a Religion out of his owne braine coloured with abused Scripture which he then proudly pretended to know better than all the Christian world beside g Tom 7. VVittenberg fo 228 or from the Devill with whom he conferred and to whose arguments he yeelded as himself confesseth Also the succession of the English Bishops and Ministers was interrupted upon their pretended Reformation the lawfull Bishops being turned out and others preferred to their place by the temporall authority of the Kingdome in chief which had no power to choose or consecrate Bishops and ordain Priests Or if they were at first consecrated by lawful Bishops of the Church of Rome as for their credit they pretend yet they had not thereby Commission to preach their new Doctrine differing from the Church of Rome nor howsoever is their succession lawfull for in a lawfull succession it is required that the former Bishops be dead or lawfully deposed but these conditions were not observed in Enland the Catholique Bishops being violently cast out by the Authority of Q. Elizabeth assuming to her self the title of head of the Church a thing never arrogated by any temporall Prince of the world untill her Father King Henry the eight gave the example But it is worth the observation that the Bishops and Ministers of England to maintain the lawfulnesse of their succession do affirm that they were consecrated by Catholique Bishops their predecessors which while they do
not prove it shewes the interruption of their succession and while they affirm it shewes that they believe their succession and calling insufficient unlesse they derive it from the Church of Rome thereby acknowledging the Church of Rome the true Church which they in their Doctrine and dependence have forsaken and there can be no reason to forsake the true Church upon what pretence soever For the errors of the Church of Rome are but supposed and their Reformation neither is but supposed they being infallibily sure of nothing since they hold their Church may erre and so for ought ought they certainly know it did in accu and forsaking the Church of Rome and in their own imaginary amendment and instead of Christ have chosen Barrabas And what can be more inconsiderate than to forsake the true Church by their own confession upon pretences of whose truth they are by their own confession also uncertain For he that confesseth he may erre in that wherin he may erre being an object of the understanding not of the sense cannot be sure that he doth not erre And so they are altogether at a losse and a ground not infallibly no nor prudently sure of the least tittle they affirm They cannot be infallibly sure because they may erre as themselves confesse they cannot be prudently sure seeing there is a hundred voyces and judgements of men for the Roman Church to one for any Protestant Church They had therefore done much more wisely to have followed the admonition of S. Paul to Timothy DEPOSITUM CUSTODI keep that which is committed to thy charge 1. Tim. 6.20 and what is that saith Vincentius Lirinensis He answereth Comomnit advers haer c. 27. It is that which thou art trusted with not that which is found out by thee that which thou hast received not which thou hast devised a thing not of wit that is of thine own fancy but of learning that is which thou hast learnt not of private usurpation but of publique Tradition a thing brought to thee not brought forth by thee wherein thou oughtest to be not the Author but the keeper not a Master but a Scholler not a leader but a follower § 2. As for their assertion who say that Roman Catholiques and Protestants are all one Church it is both false foolish False it is because the differing in any one point of faith proposed by the Church makes one party not to be of the true Church it is certain that the Church of Rome and England differ in many Doth not the Church of England account the four grand Heretiques who were condemned in the first four Generall Councells to be out of the Church and not one with her that condemned them and they held each of them but some one or very few points different from the Church of Rome So that either they must confesse themselves also not to be one with the Roman Church or else that all Hretiques are of it which is absurd and contrarie to the mind of d De fide Symbolo c. 10. S. Augustine who saith that neither Heretiques nor Schismatiques are of the Church If Protestants say that they that were condemned in those Councells did indeed hold Heresies and so were not the Church but their own are truths and amendments of the Doctrine of the Church I answer so did those Heretiques also say yea and prove it by Scriptures and Fathers in their own sense and did believe their Doctrines to be the pure Word of God as confidently as any Protestants in the world do theirs who cannot say more for themselves than they did and they were some of them as numerous and as learned as Protestants are nor was there more authority against them than against the Protestants which is The Catholique Roman Church guided by the Spirit of God and the Word of God written unwritten Moreover they were the parties accused so are the Protestants it is not fit therefore that they should be the Judges If they say that they also accuse the Church of Rome of errors and therefore it is not fit that she should be Judge I answer some body must if ever we will have an end of controversie and then whether the whole society of Christians or some one or few men for so all Heresies began and so did the Protestant Religion in one Luther let any indifferent man judge Moreover God hath made the Church the Judge saying tell the Church and that is the Church of Rome as those Protestants must grant who say they are one with it and that it was the Church when they revolted from her And to consider the matter according to reason seen in the practise of all societies and bodies whether Ecclesiasticalll or Civill if any one or few members break the law and rule of the whole who shall judge whether it be well or ill done Surely either the head or the head and whole representative body together And this was the proceeding against Luther and the Protestants in a Generall Councell by which they were condemned and cast out of the Church Which judgement if it be not sufficient but that the condemned party justifying himself by his own bare affirmation or interpretation of the Law according to his own particular fancy contrary to the whole body whereof he is or was a member may be admitted what Heretique or Rebell will ever be found guilty or will not in despite of all mankind be accounted a true Christian and loyall subject and the soundest member of the whole body Secondly it is both poore and absurd for Protestants to seeke for shelter and countenance under that Church which they have abandoned disgraced and cruelly wounded though to their owne destruction thereby also abusively perswading many people to keep still in the Protestant Church while they think they are of the Roman they being as their new Masters teach them both but one Church § 3. But Catholiques whose consent it is very fit should be taken in this matter acknowledge no such union of Churches betwixt themselves and Protestants for Catholiques doe not allow their Ordination and Consecration of Bishops and Priests for good which appeares in that if a Priest of the Roman Church revolt to the Protestant party he is allowed by them to be a lawfull Priest but not so if a Protestant Minister returne to the Roman Church Also some Protestants grant that Roman Catholiques may be saved in their Religion but Catholiques doe not grant the like to Protestants which they would doe surely if they thought they were all one Church Besides the denying to communicate with each other is a proof that in the opinion of both they are not all one Church And whereas Protestants magnifie their own charity in this kind conceit of theirs and accuse Catholiques of the want therof it is very idle for the controversie about the meanes of salvation and the Church wherein it is to be had is not to be determined by
directions only not obligations Therefore in England many both of the people and Clergie also doe deny some one some another particular according to their pleasure and yet the Generall Church of Protestants and the particular of England doth suffer men teaching and professing contrary doctrines as points of faith to abide in her communion and passe under the name of Protestants And seeing that of contrary doctrines one side must needs be false while the Protestant Church permits both sides to be preached as matter of faith and the Word of God she knowingly suffers the profession of false doctrine and so is the mother of falshood as much as truth and therefore cannot be the true Church The Church of Rome doth not so but if any preach or professe contrary to that which is decreed she shuts them out of her Communion and disinherits them of the title of Catholique As for other points which are without the compasse of her decrees wherein there is a mighty latitude according to the extent of mens reasons she permits every man to hold as his particular understanding shall direct him The Puritanes will have all governed by the written word of God The Chillingworthians will have all guided by particular reason and both sorts differ amongst themselves The Church of Rome more wisely in matters of faith and Religion is directed by the Word of God either written or unwritten and therein her children never differ or if they do are renounced In Schoole points and things undefined her children are guided by their particular reason and herein they do and may differ yet without disunion as well as in points of Philosophie For Schoole points are not points of Religion properly religion being derived à RELIGANDO from binding but in School points men are not bound to the belief of either side but have free liberty to hold or change as they think they have cause untill it be otherwise determined by a Councell And this may be done without the just imputation of division as S. Augustine De Bapt. cont Donat. l. 1. c. 18. l. 2. c. 4. saith Divers men be of divers judgements without breach of peace untill a generall Councell allow some one part for pure and cleer Thus doth he excuse S. Cyprians disagreement and error concerning the baptizing of such as were baptized by Heretiques saying that himselfe durst not have condemned the same unlesse I had been strengthened with the most agreable authority of the Catholique Church to which Cyprian himselfe no doubt would have yeelded if at that time the truth of the question had been made cleer and manifest by a generall Councell Which some refusing to doe after that that opinion of Cyprians was by a Councell condemned to shew the difference of holding against a point defined and not defined Vincentius Lyrinensis chap. 9. thus breakes out O admirable change the authors of one self opinion are called Catholiques and the followers of it heretiques Secondly there is in doctrines a difference between the conclusion or point of faith it selfe and the reason or manner thereof in the former of these unity is required and is performed most axactly amongst Catholiques but in the later which concernes but the reason of that conclusion which reason is for the most part reduced to some Scholasticall subtilty learned men have in all ages and may without breach of unity maintaine their difference For although all men be bound to the decree'd point of faith yet they are not so to the reason and manner thereof unlesse the same also be defined by the Church And hereby are answered all the objections of Protestants concerning the disagreement of Catholiques as of the Thomists and Scotists concerning the Conception of our Blessed Lady of the Dominicans and Jesuites about the concurrence of Grace and Freewill with such like in which the Church hath not yet interposed her Decree And some Protestants affirm out of their profound politicall insight that she never will and that because forsooth she dares not out of fear to displease so mighty a party as each opinion hath And yet they know that the Church was not afraid to decree against the opinions of Luther and his brood notwithstanding she lost some Kings and much people thereby but the losse was not only hers but theirs much more she lost some incurable members but they lost themselves And doubtlesse when she sees it meet to determine any of the controversies amongst the learned shee will doe it without any fear but of God In the mean time we see that their differences of opinions breed no more disturbance in the Church nor rancor amongst themselves than their different colours and shapes of apparrell Brotherly charity is not violated amongst them they will all goe to the same Church they will communicate together and confesse to one another nor is there any of them but if he be asked will say that he will stand to a Generall Councell in any of the points of difference amongst them and submit his judgement to hers But Protestants have no Councells nor any authority to call a Councell out of the extent of their temporall dominions the Articles of Religion which they have agreed upon apart are very different one from another as may be seen in their Harmony of Confessions nor in the same Dominion will they stand to any determination of Convocation Synod or Assembly further than it decrees according to the Word of God of which every one will be a judge for himfelfe And in the mean time they violate brotherly charity make schisms and separations one from another refuse to goe to Church or communicate together and in defence of their differences wage war one against another So that their Harmony of Confessions may more truly be called the confusion of Confessions and their Churches the tumults of Religion The greatest unity they have is not in believing but in not believing though therein they are not exact as I have shewed before their faith as they call it being for the most part negative consisting in denying what Catholiques affirme as denying and not believing the infallibility of the Church the Reall Corporall presence seven Sacraments Invocation of Saints Purgatory and Prayer for the dead with many other abating their positive faith almost to nothing now not-believing is not believing and their profession and union in the most is not of faith but of infidelity And for their positive belief I think it consists in two Articles only That there is a God and that Jesus Christ died for the sinnes of the world and whosoever affirmes more than this it will be no hard matter to find some other Protestants that will deny it what union then is there amongst them but that which was betwixt Symeon and Levi to be brethren in evill and in writing the Articles of their Religion as Draco did his lawes in blood For what nation is there where the Protestant Religion hath settled her foot where they did
so much as Couell the Protestant in his Answer to Burgesse pag. 138. saith No man can deny but that God after the death of his Son manifested his power to the amazement of the world in this contemptible sign being the instrument of many Miracles Concerning the neglect of Confession we read divers Miracles in S. Bedes History l. 5. c. 14. S. Francis and S. Dominick preached against the Albigenses who denied Purgatory Prayer for the dead Confession Extreme Vnction the Popes authority Indulgences Images Ceremonies Traditions with many other and are by the Protestants claimed for their Predecessors in the Protestant Faith and wrought many Miracles whereof one of S. Francis is most notable to this purpose and is recorded by Mathew Paris an approved Author amongst Protestants who thus relates it pag. 319. The fifteenth day before his death there appeared wounds in his hands freshly bleeding such as appeared in the Saviour of the world hanging on the Crosse Also his right side appeared so open and bloody that the inward parts of his heart were to be discerned whereupon there repaired to him great store of people amongst whom the Cardinalls themselves demanded of him what this sight imported to whom he said This sight is therefore shewed in me to them to whom I preached the mystery of the Crosse that you may believe in him who for the salvation of the world suffered upon the Crosse these wounds that you see and that ye may know me to be the servant of him whom I preached c. And to the end that you may without doubt persevere in this constancy of faith these wounds which you see in me so open and bloody shall immediately after I am dead be whole and close like to my other flesh Afterwards he yeelded up his soule to his Creator without all anguish or pain of body and being dead there remained no marks of his foresaid wounds Lastly for confirmation of the Reall Presence it is reported that in a town called Knobloch in the year 1510. one Paul Forme a Sacrilegious person went secretly into the Church by night brake the Pyx and stole from thence two consecrated Hosts one of which he sold to a Jew who in disdainfull malice said If thou be the God of Christians manifest thy selfe and thereupon pierced the Sacrament with his dagger whereupon blood did miraculously flow forth This Miracle was so publique and evident that 38. were thereupon apprehended and burned in the Marquisate of Brandenburg and all other Jewes banished out of the said Territory And this is reported for credible not onely by a Surius in Chron. Pontanus l. 5. rerum memorab Catholique but by b Ioan. Manlius loc Com p. 87. Osiander Epit. cent 16. c. 14. p. 28. fine Protestant writers If I should undertake to set down all the Miracles that have been done in the Catholique Church I might say as S. Iohn did of our Saviours doings that if they were all written the whole world could not contain the books Ioh. 21.25 To all which Protestants answer as the Blasphemous Iewes did to our Saviour that they were done by the Devill To whom Catholiques cannot give that answer our Saviour did If I by Belzebub cast out Devills by whom do your children cast them out Mat. 12.27 For your children cast out none And truly I believe that they that do thus accuse the Miracles done by so many holy Catholique men and women would have done the same to our Saviour if they had lived in his daies For Miracles being the last and highest proof of other things can have no proof for themselves but the evidence of sense to them that see them and their testimony and report to others But if as Protestants say the Miracles of Catholiques were done by the Devill how were they Miracles For the Devill can do none though he can do wonders if they were Miracles how were they done by the Devill Now that they were Miracles many Protestants do grant and therefore Chillingworth their Paragon doth also confess that they are done by God whence any reasonable man would infer that his next word would be the profession of himself a Roman Catholique in which Church God works Miracles the last and highest motive of belief But instead hereof O the accursed power of the devill he belcheth forth the most blasphemous speech against God that ever struck the tender sense of a pious eare and saith a In the preface of his book fine that it seemes most strange to him that God in his justice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many to delude the world As if God the Father of truth would set his seal which is Miracles to confirme falshood to delude the soules of men into sin and so change titles with the Devill and be the father of lies and deceiver of mankind Than which what can be imagined more hellish More true and pious was the saying of Nicodemus and appliable to our workers of Miracles we know that thou art a teacher come from God for no man could do these miracles that thou dost except God were with him John 3.2 But wee may take up the complaint of the Prophet Esay who hath believed our report and to whom is the arme of the Lord revealed Esay 53.1 Protestants will not believe these things and in matter of proof Catholiques can goe no further our Saviour himself did not so that now nothing remaines but for God to touch their hearts with his grace and to move them to believe that which they have most reason to think to be his word which God of his great mercy grant And if they consider it they shall find it the most unreasonable thing in the world to deny Miracles in the Roman Church for that there are and shall be Miracles in the world no prudent man I suppose will deny at least for the conversion of the people Yea we read of many Miracles done in the Church of the Jewes amongst those that were of the true faith and therefore were not intended for conversion but for confirmation or to some other end And why may it not be so in the Church of the Christians Now Protestants or any other Christians doe not so much as pretend to Miracles therfore they that are are amongst Roman Catholiques Indeed I have read of Calvin that for the credit of his new doctrine he would make shew to the people of doing a Miracle and hired one that was sick to counterfeit himselfe dead who when Calvin should speak certain words was to rise up as it were from the dead but he not stirring nor answering at his cue they looked and found him dead indeed b Capcavil in chronicis Pontificum Leodiensium But on the other side the sonne of Calvin being bit by a mad dog and his father not able to cure him he was sent to S. Hubert in Ardenne where the body of that
Saint is kept with great veneration and frequent Miracles wrought thereby and there was he made perfectly whole and thereupon abjured the Religion wherein his father brought him up and became a Roman Catholique § 3. Now for the Miracles that are said to be done in the Roman Church we have as high humane Testimony as can be imagined So that Protestants may with as much reason deny all humane story as that there were Henries and Edwards Kings of England whom they never saw yea they may as justly deny or doubt of the truth of their owne names which they doe not know but by report and mens calling them so and the poor record of a Church-book but Miracles have much more famous Records and more people that believe them And can they prudently imagine all Christians but themselves so stupid and foolish to believe these things without sufficient proof who in all other matters they must without the help of modesty acknowledg more wise and learned then themselves What did Christ and his Apostles doe more than the Roman Church hath since done and what can Protestants say more against her than the unbelieving Jewes or Gentiles might say against them And because some feigned Miracles are sometimes discovered from thence to charge all with the same accusation as it is unjust so it is absurd and destroies all humane faith they may as well deny all that is or hath been done in the world whereof they have not been eye-witnesses because some of those reports have been false Therefore as they believe Catholiques when they say some were feigned so in justice they ought to believe them when they say others are not so Otherwise by the same way of reasoning they may say that the Miracles of Moses were not true because the Magitians were counterfeit or that the new Testament is not the word of God because there were many Gospells Epistles counterfeited under the names of the Apostles And surely Catholiques would never endeavour to discover feigned Miracles if they were not sure that some were true but rather by one act condemn all that have been since the Apostles that are or shall be for false and counterfeit as Protestants in effect doe when they say that Miracles are ceased Moreover to affirme that Miracles are Antichristian as some Protestants doe is improper first because it is yet in question betwixt us whether Antichrist be come or no which Protestants have not proved nor never will with reference to the Pope Secondly it is granted on both sides that Antichrist shall doe no Miracles properly but only some signes and wonders not exceeding the power of nature and the devills art whereof one is to cause fire to come down from heaven Apoc. 13.13 which never any Pope did but the Miracles done in the Church doe exceed all created power And lastly many Miracles were done in the Roman Church before the time or times for they agree not in their reckoning that Protestants say Antichrist did first appear as at the reliques of d Chrysost in lib. cont Gentiles Babylas e Nazian in Cyprian Cyprian f Ieron in vita Hilar. Hilarion and many others So that all Catholiques may say with Richardus de Sancto Victore not with doubt or feare of being deceived but with assurance to the contrary g Lib. 1. de Trinit c. 2. O Lord if it be error that we believe we are deceived by thee for thou hast confirmed these things to us with signes and wonders which could not be done but by thee CHAP. XVII Of the seventh Mark of the true Church viz. Conversion of Kingdomes and Monarchs § 1. ANother Mark of the true Church is the conversion of Kingdomes and Nations from Heathenisme to the faith of Christ As the Prophet Esay saith Kings shall bee thy nursing-Fathers and Queens thy Mothers Esay 49.23 thou shalt suck the milke of the Gentiles and the brests of Kings Esay 60.61 Their Kings shall minister to thee and thy gates shall be continually open that men may bring to thee the riches of the Gentiles and that their Kings may be brought c. Esay 60.10 11. And the English Bible printed Anno 1576. upon the 49. of Esay vers 23. saith The meaning is that Kings shall be converted to the Gospell and bestow their power and authority for the preservation of the Church And this Mark I found on the Roman Catholike but not upon the Protestant Church The first three hundred years after Christ being a time of great persecution there were few or no Kings converted to Christianity and from Constantine to Boniface the third which was almost 300. years more there were few Kings converted except the Emperours of the East and West and they were converted to the Roman Catholique not to the Protstant Faith as Napier in his Treatise on the Rev. p. 145. confesseth saying After the year of God 300. the Emperour Constantine subdued all Christian Churches to Pope Sylvester from which time till these our daies the Pope and his Clergie hath possessed the outward and visible Church Now since the yeare 600. these Prophesies have been accomplishing and they have been done by the Roman Church not by the Protestant Churches which were untill Luthers daies under hatches and invisible by their owne confession before mentioned And if wee look upon the conversion of Kings and Nations in these later times since their ignis fatuus which they call the glorious light of the Gospell hath appeared we shall find it performed not by Protestants but by Roman Catholiques in the remote and divided parts of the m Joan. Petrus Maffeus hist Indicarum 16. East and n Jos Acosta de natur novi orbis West Indies and of o Hartwell of Congo Epist to Reader Africa as by sufficient testimony appears In so much that Simon Lythus a Protestant before alledged saith The Jesuites within the space of a few years have filled Asia Africa America with their Idolls And whereas it is objected that the Gothes were converted to the Christian Religion by the Arrians first p Cap. 22. de not Eccl. Bellarmine proves it to be false secondly if it were true yet it is of no moment to prove the power of any other Religion but the Roman Catholique for the converting of nations and the fulfilling of the large Prophesies of the Scripture therein seeing they that are pretended to be converted by the Arrians were but the lesser part of the Gothes most of them having been Catholiques before Thirdly this example doth rather make for the Roman faith in that of all the world converted to Christian Religion there is but one poor half example of conversion and that false too wrought by any other Religion Which when it is observed that this pretended conversion was wrought by Arrians who even in the opinion of most Protestants were Heretiques it will turne to the shame and reproach of Protestants who pretending to be the true
Majesty is on my side so that I doe not care though a thousand Augustines a thousand Cyprians a thousand Henricane Churches stood against me And in his defence of his Translation of the new Testament he saith If thy Papist wil prattle concerning this word alone which he added to the text where it is said that we are justified by faith presently answer Doctor Martin Luther will have it so and saith a Papist and an asse are the same So I will so I command my will be a law For wee will not be the schollers of the Papists but the Masters and Judges And Sleydan his deare Scholer l. 3. fol. 29. b. initio l. 2. fol. 22. a. doth report that he himselfe acknowledged his profession not to be of life or manners but of doctrine wishing that he were removed from the office of preaching because his manners and life did not answer his profession In so much that it gained the place of a Proverb amongst the Protestants of those daies to expresse their riot and intemperance by saying c Morgensterne in â—ra de Eccl. p. 225. HODIE LUTHERANICE VIVEMUS to day we will live like Lutherans His impudent railing his foule filthy and Bedlam-like expressions have bred a stench through all his writings and it is no wonder for who would look for better language or beter life from one who was such a darling of the devill Luther in Conc. Dom. Reminis fo 19. apud Cochleum Idem in Colloq Germ. fo 275. 281. that he knew him very well as he to his great credit confesses that he had eat more than one measure of salt with him and that the devill slept with him oftner than his wife Katherine Concerning Calvin that admired Apostle of Protestants it is affirmed by Conradus Schlusselburg in Theol. Calvinistar l. 2. fol. 72. a man of eminence in the Protestant Church and certainly a great enemy to the Church of Rome that God in the rod of his fury visiting Calvin did horribly punish him before the fearfull houre of his unhappy death for he so struck this Heretique with his mighty hand that being in despaire and calling upon the Devill he gave up his wicked soul swearing cursing and blaspheming He died of the disease of lice and worms increasing in a most loathsome ulcer about his privy parts so as none present could indure the stench These things are declared concerning his lasciviousnesse his sundry abominable vices and Sodomiticall lusts for which he was by the Magistrate under whom he lived branded on the shoulder with a hot burning iron unto which I yet see not any sound and clear refutation made Thus far he Of Beza also another Father of the Protestant Religion many foul and impious things are recorded his odious conspiracies and seditious books are mentioned by Bolseck in his book of Beza's life and by Bancroft in his Survey pag. 127. 54. 59. 219. 220. By whom also he is taxed of insolency pride and impudence in being too bold with the antient Fathers Lastly he wrote a Faius de vita obitu Beza p. 19. many lascivious Poems and that after he was turned Protestant and one Epigram amongst the rest most infamous wherein debating with himself whether he should prefer his lust with Candida his wench or Andebertus his boy in conclusion he prefers the later and of two evill doings both of which he ought to have avoided he doth deliberately choose one and that the most foul and unnaturall These things and much more to this purpose are recorded of these and others the supposed Apostles converters of the world and restorers of the purity of Evangelicall Doctrine of whom we may say as Josephs brethren did to Jacob of his Coat all smeered with blood VIDE UTRUM TUNICA FILII TUI SIT AN NON See whether it be thy sonnes coat or no Gen. 37.32 Judge whether these be the lives of the Sonnes of God sent to controule the world to reform and lead out of error the misguided sonnes of men Surely any prudent man will believe that either God never intended the change they have made or if he did he would have chosen other kind of men than these such as Moses and the Prophets who gave the Law unto the Jewes and Christ and his Apostles who brought the Gospell to the Gentiles As for the common multitude Luther to the credit of his Doctrine confesses Postill super Evang. Dominicae 1. Advent that the world grows daily worse men are now more revengefull covetous licentious then they were ever before in the Papacy And again he saith Domin 26. post Trin. before when we were seduced by the Pope every man did willingly follow good works and now every one neither saith nor knowes any thing but how to get all things to himself by exactions pillage theft lying usury c. And of those that have changed from the Catholique Roman to the Protestant Religion it is confessed by Luther in Serm. convivial Germ. fol. 55. Musculus Loc. Com. cap. de Decal in explanat 3. praecepti p. 62. circa med That they have changed their lives into worse Which made Paulus Eberus a Protestant writer of note complain saying in praefat Comment Philip. in Ep. ad Cor. which evills seeing every one doth behold with his proper eyes he doubts not without cause whether our Evangelicall congregation be the true Church Which also with the other reasons forementioned hath made me not at all to doubt thereof but to believe assuredly that it is not the true Church § 3. As for the recriminattion of the Protestants and charging the lives of some Popes and many of the Clergie and Religious with great impiety as it is not denied so far forth as it is true so it is in it self impertinent for what Church pretends to have every particular person though of the highest rank blamelesse Let them look upon the heads of their own Churches whosoever they be that they count so and see whether by their owne members they are accounted spotlesse particularly the first head of the Church of England King Henry the eight And upon their own Clergie of whom not I but Doctor King Bishop of London in Jonam Lecture 45. saith that scarce the tenth man of the Ministry is morally honest But howsoever the successors may faile yet it is a matter highly suspitious yea altogether convincing that they that pretend to be the first revealers or revivers of the forsaken truth of God if they be not of godly lives are counterfeit Messengers and false Prophets And the Protestants have no reason to make an inventory of the faults of Catholiques for so many hundred years as they confesse Catholiques have possessed the Church and that throughout the world and compare it with their own faults whose Church is little above one hundred year old and possessing but some corners of the world Nor is the sanctitie of the Church I confesse to be measured exactly
by the zealous complaints against sin on either side for zealous complaint is hyperbolicall even in holy Scripture But it is manifest that the Protestant Religion hath not that sanctity of life in it that the Catholique hath when neither the founders thereof had any at all nor the followers any more but much lesse than when they were Catholiques In fine compare the lives of Roman Catholiques and Protestants both Clergie and Laity and of the same Nation for that some Nations perhaps are addicted to vice in generall more than others and every Nation to some one or few particular vices more than another the best to the best and the major part to the major part we shall find so have I done and I have heard even Protestants themselves confesse that they are exceedingly overballanced by the Catholiques CHAP. XIX Of the tenth and last here mentioned Mark of the Church viz. That the true Church hath never been separated from any society of Christians more antient then her selfe § 1. THe last Mark of the Church which I will mention is her never going forth out of any visible society of Christians elder than her self of which going out as a note of error and falshood the Apostles say They went forth from us 1 Joh. 2.19 Certain that went forth from us Acts 15.14 Out of your selves shall arise men speaking perverse things Acts 20.30 These are they that separate themselves Jude vers 19. Certain it is that the true Church is most antient as truth it self is elder than falshood if therefore there have risen in the Church men of indifferent judgements or affections from the true Church they have presently made a separation gone out of the Church wherein they were and erected a new Church to themselves As S. Augustine saith Tract 3. in Ep. Joan. de Sym. ad cateth l. 1. c. 5. All Heretiques went out from us that is they go out of the Church and againe The Church Catholique fighting against all Heresies may be opposed but she cannot be overthrowne all heresies are come out from her as unprofitable branches out from the Vine but she remaines in her vine in her root in her charity A vain thing therefore it is for Protestants to charge the Church of Rome with departing from the Word of God and the Doctrine of the Apostles unlesse they can prove that she departed from some former Church that held other doctrine than she doth But certain it is that this cannot be proved seeing she was planted by the Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul and never separated her self from any precedent Church It is true indeed that there were Churches elder than she in time as she is a particular Church as the Church of Ierusalem where the Gospell was first preached and of Antioch where S. Peter was first Bishop with other Churches in Asia but these all agreed in the unity of Faith and were all subject to the Church of Rome after it was planted in union under the head thereof S. Peter and his successors as I shall shew by and by And the Church of Rome did never seperate from any of these but many of these from her in the Heresie of Arius and others as Protestants will not deny If then she did never separate from any elder Church so that men might say here is a Church and there is the Church of Rome once the same with her and now separated from her she must still be the first and true Church or there is none upon earth But certain it is on the contrary side that all the former Churches which Protestants themselves will call Heretiques as Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Entychians Donatists with many others did separate from the Church of Rome and she can tell when and why and no lesse certain is it that all that are now called Protestants and all the pedigree of their fore-fathers Waldo Wickliffe Husse Luther Calvin and all the Kingdomes wherein their followers are were once and first of the Roman Catholique Church and have forsaken her Communion and departed from her and have not joyned to any other Church more antient and subsistent apart from her by which shee was condemned of novelty and separation nor are they able to shew any such Church therefore the Roman must needs be the true Church Or else which is a most absurd and impossible imagination the true Church hath been utterly extinguished and revived againe and that not by the service of such men as proved their calling by miracles or sanctity of life as Roman Catholiques have done to all the nations they have converted but were men notable only for their wickednesse And these amongst many others which might be added and of which much more might be said are those infallible Markes that prove the Church of Rome and those that communicate with her to bee the one true holy Catholique and Apostolique Church That Church of whose infallible and never-erring Judgement the Scripture assures us calling it The ground and pillar of truth which hath the Spirit of God to lead it into all truth which is built upon a rock against which the gates of hell shal not prevaile wherein Christ placed Apostles Prophets Doctors and Pastors to the consummation and ful perfection of the whole body that in the mean time we be not carryed away with every blast of doctrine 1 Tim. 3.15 John 16.13 Mat. 16.18 Ephes 4.11.12 That Church which whatsoever it says God commands us to doe and he that will not is an heathen and a Publican which whatsoever shee shall bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatsoever shee shall loose one earth is loosed in heaven which is the spouse of Christ his body his lot Kingdome and inheritance given him in this world Math. 23.3 and 18.17.18 Of which S. Cyprian Epist 55. saith To S. Peters chaire and the principall Church infidelity or false faith cannot have accesse And S. Hierome Apol. advers Ruff. l. 3. c. 4. That the Roman faith commanded by the Apostles cannot be changed And S. Gregory Nazianzen Carm. de vita sua 'Old Rome from antient times hath the right faith and alwaies keepeth it as it becomes the city which over-rules the world Which being so what remaines to every man but laying aside endlesse dispute about particulars to cast himself into the armes of this Holy mother Church and wholly rely upon her infallible judgement wherein Christ Jesus her husband hath promised and hath reason to preserve her And to submit themselves to the visible head thereof the Pope of Rome of whose authority as I did my self particularly enquire and was moved thereby so I will briefly propound it to others CHAP. XX. That the Pope is the head of the Church § 1. THe Protestants doe usually blaspheme the Pope and Sea of Rome with the title of Antichrist of the Whore of Babylon of the Mother of Abominations of the Beast with seven heads and ten hornes and many other like courteous compellations
and it is the maine designe of some of the Clergie to perswade the people into a belief that he is Antichrist which conceipt when it hath once strongly seized them as it doth yet by very weake and silly arguments they care not to enquire any further but conclude from thence and that justly if it were true that neither he nor his adherents are either Head or members of the Church But the contrary I found most evident by the testimony of all antiquity First that our Saviour appointed S. Peter his Vicar Head of his Church here on earth and after him his successors in the Sea of Rome nor do we read either in Scriptures Councells Fathers or histories that any other of the Apostles but Peter was thought or pretended by any to be the chiefest over the rest and over the whole Church and that it is necessary that some one be Head both reason and authority doe convince Nor is it a denyall of Christ to be the Head while we say that S. Peter was and the Pope is so For Christ we confesse is the Head originally and immediately the Pope derivatively from and by him Christ is the principall the Pope but his deputy and representer and these two headships doe not contradict as some Protestants imagine but are subordinate the one to the other And with as much reason they may deny a King to be head of his Kingdome because the Scripture saith Psal 46.8 God is King over all the earth as deny the Pope to be head of the Church because Christ is so S. Basil Concione de poenit shewes us the difference of their headships Though Peter be a rock saith he he is not a rock as Christ is for Christ is the true immovable rock of himselfe Peter is immoveable by Christ the rock for Jesus doth communicate and impart his dignities not voiding himselfe of them but holding them to himselfe bestowes them also on others He is the light and yet you are the lights He is the Priest and yet he makes Priests He is the Rock and he made a rock Therefore our Saviour saith to Peter Math. 16.18.19 Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevaile against it And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Nor is it contrary to this as Protestants imagine to say as the Fathers sometimes doe that the Church was built upon the confession of Peter these two expositions not excluding but including one another For they intend that the Church was built causally on the confession of Peter and formally on the ministry of the Person of Peter that is to say the confession of Peter was the cause wherefore Christ chose him to constitute him the foundation of the ministry of the Church and that the person of S. Peter was that on which our Lord did properly build his Church as S. Hilary in Mat. c. 16. saith The confession of S. Peter hath received a worthy reward So that to say the Church is built upon the confession of Peter is not to deny that it is built on the person of Peter but it is to expresse the cause wherefore it is built upon him as when S. Hierome ad Pammach advers error Joan. Hierosol Ep. 91. said that Peter walked not on the waters but faith it is not to deny that S. Peter walked truly on the water but it is to expresse that the cause that made him walk there was not the naturall activity of his body but the faith that he had given to the words of Christ So that these two propositions are both true Peters faith walked on the water and Peters person walked on the water so likewise these the Church is built on the faith of Peter and the Church is built on the person of Peter the confession of Peters faith being the cause why Christ built his Church upon Peters person Againe our Saviour said to Peter Simon sonne of Jonas lovest thou me more than these He saith unto him yea Lord thou knowest that I love thee He said unto him feed my lambs John 21.15 And thus the second and the third time Which speed was directed to Peter alone as appeares by these words more than these whereby he is separated from the rest and by these words is given to him the Ecclesiasticall power to feed and also to governe as the word in the originall doth signifie and that not some alone but all the whole flock of Christ Of which the Fathers give abundant testimony S. Aug. saith Serm. 5. in fest Pet. Pauli speaking of S. Peter that he only amongst the Apostles deserved to hear verily I say unto thee thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church worthy truly who to the people who were to be builded in the house of God might be a stone for their foundation a pillar for their stay a key to open the gates of the Kingdome of heaven And againe Quaestion vet nov Test q. 7◠'Our Saviour when he commands to pay for himself and Peter seemes to have payed for all because as in our Saviour were all the causes of superiority so after him all are contained in Peter for he ordained him the head of them that he might be the head of our Lords flock S. Gregory also lib. 4. Ep. 32. saith ' It is cleer to all that know the Gospell that by our Lords mouth the care of the whole Church is committed to Holy Peter the Prince of all the Apostles for to him it is said Peter lovest thou me feed my sheep and further he applies the places of Scripture spoken to S. Peter above mentioned to this end And S. Chrysostome Hom. 87. in Joan. 21. saith that Peter was the mouth of the Apostles and the Prince and top of the company and therefore Paul went to see him above others As for S. Pauls reproving of S. Peter it was for an error of conversation not of doctrine as Tertullian saith nor doth it any way diminish his Primacy but only shews that an inferiour may reprove his superiour if the matter require it and the manner be not unseemly which no man will deny Therefore this instance is nothing to the purpose being thus also answered by S. Augustine lib. 2. de Bapt. c. 1. § 2. And as Christ ordained S. Peter to be the supreme Pastor and Head of the Church so it was his will that that office should continue in S. Peters successors in the Sea of Rome That there should be one chiefe Pastor alwaies in the Church for the government thereof and deciding of controversies Gods practise in the Church of the Jewes Numb 20.28 Exod. 18.15 c. Deut. 17.8 c. gives us reason to believe who appointed the High Priests therein to succeed
understood word by word by every one of the vulgar assistants neither doth the end of the publike Service require it As for those Sects that use no Liturgie at all but in their Church-meetings do only make an extemporall prayer before after Sermon as the custome is now for the most part in England that the people may pray with them they do as they ought in using the vulgar tongue Catholiques if they used such exercise no doubt would do it in like manner § 2. As for the comfort more plentifull edification of the understanding which some few want in that they do not so perfectly understand all the particulars of divine Service it may by other means abundantly be supplied without turning the publike Liturgie into innumerable vulgar languages which would bring great confusion into the Christian Church For first the Church could not be able to judge of the Liturgie of every country when differences arose about the translation thereof and so divers errors heresies might creep into particular countries and the whole Church never able to take notice thereof Secondly particular countries could not be certain that they had the parts of the Scripture used in the Liturgie truly translated for they can have no other assured proof thereof than the Churches approbation nor can she approve what she her self doth not understand Thirdly if there were as many translations of the Liturgie as there be severall languages in the world it could not be avoided but that some would in many places be ridiculous incongruous and full of mistaking to the great prejudice of souls especially in languages that have no great extent nor many learned men that naturally speak them Fourthly the Liturgie must of necessity be often changed together with the language which doth much alter in every age as is very well knowne Fifthly in the same country by reason of different dialects some provinces understand not one another and in the Island of Japonia as some write there is one language for men another for women one language for Gentlemen another for rusticks into what language then should the Liturgie of Japonia be translated So that it is cleer that the inconveniences of divine Service translated in all vulgar languages are insuperable the commodity is but to the most ignorant part and that but in part and to be recompenced by other means and is so by prayer books and other instructions in abundance in the vulgar tongue In so much that I dare boldly say for I have been an eye-witnesse that in the cities of Paris and Rome there is five times as much preaching and ten times as much catechising of youth and ignorant people as is in London so that blindnesse ignorance to Catholiques is ignorantly blindly objected Lastly we cannot imagine that if S. Paul had intended that which the Protestants labour to enforce out of the above-named chapter to the Corinthians that both he and his fellow Apostles would have practised the contrary at the writing thereof and all their lives after for we doe not find that they or any after them did use any Liturgie but in one of the learned languages which though they were vulgar to some people in those times yet but to a small part in comparison of all the nations of the world amongst whom they celebrated Masse § 3. As for private prayer the Catholique Church permits all men whether out of the Churches or in them to pray in what language they please yea the Pater the Ave and the Creed are commanded by divers Councells to be learned in the vulgar tongue and divers bookes of prayers in the vulgar tongue are published and used in all Catholique Countries Yet those Catholiques that do pray or sing Psalmes in Latin which they doe not understand either by choice or obligation are not to be condemned For either they understand the prayer in the whole masse thereof as the PATER NOSTER for example though they know not perhaps whether PATER signifie our and NOSTER father or the contrary yet saying this prayer with due devotion and knowing that it is our Lords prayer which they can very well repeat in their mother tongue no man I suppose can be so absurd to think this prayer is not acceptable to God though the pious thoughts be not measured geometrically to the words Or else they understand only more generally that such or such a prayer or Psalme for example MISERERE is a Psalme full of penitent affections and this they say with much inward sorrow and contrition for their sinnes and who can deny that this pious affection is pleasing to God though the thoughts and words doe not mathematically correspond the one to the other I am sure the Apostle approved the like saying in the 17. verse of the forementioned chapter Thou verily givest thanks well And to conclude he doth absolutely allow it in the 28. verse saying But if there be no interpreter let him keepe silence in the Church and let him speak to God and himselfe And in this matter as well as the rest the Protestants also may keep silence unlesse they could speak more to the purpose § 4. These points all other I examined with diligence and found that Protestants ordinarily did not truly apprehend many of the Catholique doctrines nor justly oppose any of them But I have only touched these few particulars to let the unlearned Protestant Reader see that the Catholique doctrines are not such monstrous things as they ordinarily conceive them but rather that it is monstrous in them not to believe them And to awaken the further diligence of all Protestants to search into the truth of all points so far as they are able either by themselves or others if they will not at the first cast themselves upon the infallibility of the Church which I conceive I have sufficiently proved in the former part of this Treatise and is the shortest and surest way and to read the Bookes of Catholiques set forth to this purpose not to exercise an implicite faith to the Protestant Religion and even against the rule of it to their hurt seeing they will not yet do it to the Catholique Religion to their advantage In which Catholique books they shall find all the Pleas for Protestancy all their objections against Catholique doctrine answered with that learning and solidity with that cleernesse and fullnesse that were not faith also required which is the gift of God only to the apprehension of those things which the Church teaches it were impossible in my judgement impossible I say that any reasonable man should continue in his judgement a Protestant Yet many there are I fear who though they be in belief and judgement Catholiques yet in outward profession are Protestants Who like the inferiour spheares which are moved one way by the PRIMUM MOBILE and a contrary way by their owne peculiar motion So they are moved to believe the Catholique verities by the influence of
mentioned by Plutarch which hath a body like a sword but wants a heart they had at least in the opinion of some a shew of strength and sharpnesse but inwardly had no power Spirit or vigour And that all their specious shewes of purity Reformation and Evangelicall truth were but like a shallow brook or plash of water wherein we may discern the Sun or moone and stars with the whole face of heaven as if it were as deep as heaven is high when if we but sound it with our little finger we pierce it through even to the earth So their pretences of the pure Word of God heavenly truth and nothing but the truth as if like Prometheus they had fetch'd it themselves from heaven being fathomed I found no deeper than the shallow conceits of private heads And that like Micol they had sent away David and laid an Image in his place 1 Kings 19. they had renounced the true and living Word of God which is the true sense thereof and laid an image of their owne fancy drest in the same letter in the room thereof and so were though not of Saints and Images which they ought yet worshippers of their owne imaginations which they ought not as being a high Idolatry § 8. These these are the motives which have inclined me to believe that the Church of England and all other Protestant Churches are guilty both of Heresie and Schisme two sinnes of highest nature the one against God the other against our neighbour the one against faith the other against charity by denying their beliefe to doctrines revealed by God the supreme Author and proposed by the Catholique Church the supreme witnesse of divine truth and by rending the seamlesse coat of Christ separating from the Communion of his Church and that as some of their most learned say for things not fundamentall and what can be more imprudent than for an unfundamentall error to commit a fundamentall sinne And such it is to separate from the true Church as the learned amongst them confesse the Church of Rome to be And as the pretended errors for which they did separate they confesse were not fundamentall so for ought they know for they confesse that the judgement of their Church may erre they were no errors at all and so again for ought they know they have not reformed but deformed themselves and are gone out of Gods blessing as we say into the warm Sun What madesse it is to make or continue a separation from a true Church so acknowledged by all Christians upon pretences not accounted true by any but themselves and nor certainly known to be true so much as by themselves And as S. Augustine de unit Eccles c. 3. argues against the Donatists If both sides were true they had no cause to separate and to fly from those whom they had in possession If both false there was no cause of separation that they should fly from those who were no more faulty than themselves If our doctrines are true and theirs false there was no cause of their separation because they ought rather to have amended themselves and continued in unity and if ours are false and theirs true there was no cause of their separation because they ought not to have forsaken the innocent world to whom either they would not or they could not demonstrate their truth Nor can it excuse them to say that such or such things are against their conscience for as much as they ought to regulate their consciences by the Word of God in the mouth of the Church not of themselves otherwise contentious and self-will'd Spirits will never want this plea to separate from the Church and so to serve God with their Will-worship and not to demand of the Church that she make her conscience stoope to a compliance with theirs which is insolent and unreasonable 'T is true that he that doth any thing against his conscience sins so also if he do not that which he is commanded he sins therefore to reconcile this conflict of conscience men may and must though it go against the grain of their private judgement submit themselves by an implicite faith to the Church by believing her to be wiser than themselves and so believing what she saith to be true Otherwise this conscience would be a plea for all disobedience and impiety when wicked men might say that they could not be perswaded in their conscience that the things they were commanded to believe or do were good but rather the contrary were so and therefore they would do them Thus erroneous men may think it lawfull to commit murder or adultery as all Rebells do the one and Familists and Adamites the other And we see that Protestants who make conscience their Plea against the Church of Rome and a ground of Separation will not admit this from others that are under their command The legall Protestants of England would not permit any man under pretence of conscience to refuse the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy but thought all men bound to submit their beliefes therein to them And now the Reformers of the reformed who heretofore complained of it as an Egyptian burden to have any thing imposed on them against their conscience make no scruple to impose upon other mens consciences in their oaths Protestations and Covenants of conspiracy and Rebellion against their lawfull Prince and of believing a Religion not only now in Being but whatsoever hereafter shall be by them contrived nor will they suffer any mans tendernesse of conscience to be a ground for the separation of his obedience So that the separation of all Protestants from the Church of Rome under pretence of conscience as it hath no ground of truth so hath it not either of prudence or justice § 9. And if the Protestants especially the Chilling worthians will be as they pretend the servants of reason and follow her whither she shall guide them I cannot see how they can avoid coming to the Catholique Roman Church For seeing that according to them there is no infallible certainty of the truth of any point of Faith for if there be so it is in their fundamentalls yet seeing they have no infallible knowledge what those fundamentalls are they must needs slide back againe to their former universall uncertainty all the assurance they have in matter of religion can be but probable Now Aristotle the great Master of reason gives this rule of probability That saith he is probable which seems so to all or to the most or to the most wise and amongst them to all or to the most or to the most famous and eminent which rule is so consonant to reason as I think no reasonable creature will deny it Nor can any Protestant except pride and ignorance shut the doore of his confession deny that this rule of probability amongst all sorts of Christians is applyable only to the Roman Catholique Church there having been infinitely more and more wise and learned people
of her Communion than of any other yea many times there have been when shee hath enfolded all Christians in her armes and not one to be found out of her Communion her doctrines then in reason are to be received as most probable And as some Philosophers say naturall bodies doe neglect the lawes and rules of of their particular motions to serve and follow the lawes of universall nature of which one is That there must be no Vacuum or place utterly empty which law to observe we see that heavie bodies will rise upward which otherwise would fall downward So the particular rules of reason in particular men if they will shew themselves the dutifull children of reason must give place to this generall and universall rule of reason implanted in mankind and when they are inclined one way to an opinion by their own private and domestique reason they must suspend that inclination and conquer the provocations thereof and readily yeeld unto the fundamentall and universall law of reason which is that in matters of whose truth there is no infallible certainty that is most likely to be true and hath the most reason on its side wherein the most and the most reasonable of reasonable creatures doe agree Which if they doe they shall not run upon the rock of believing contradictions as some of them imagine but shall find themselves obliged by the train of their owne principles to become Roman Catholiques These considerations together with the great assistance of Gods grace have caused me to forsake the Communion of all Protestant Churches who like those mentioned in S. John say they are Jewes the true Church and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan Revel 2.9 And not to content my selfe to be a Catholique in opinion only keeping it private to my selfe to save my temporall interest nor with the two Tribes and halfe forbear to enter into the land of Canaan but stay on the other side of Jordan tempted thereunto by the pleasantnesse of the land but disdaining to match my love so low as of this creeping world with the renouncing of all I possessed or that my hopes could reach at to the pulling on my selfe the displeasure of my friends and kindred the reproach and hatred of the Protestant party to the abandoning of my selfe my wife and children to all the calamities which are all that beggery and perpetuall banishment could throw upon us lanching forth into the deepe of this wide world without rudder anchor sailes or tackling to humble our selves at the feet of our Holy Mother the Church of Rome which is the one true holy Catholique and Apostolique Church and will be so and will be accounted so when these like their predecessors revolters from the Church of Rome shall be no more And to choose to perish for want if it be the will of God in communion with the Catholique Church rather than to have the Empire of the world stoop under my command and be a Protestant And to say as Themistocles did to his wife and children though in a different sense PERIISSEMUS NISI PERIISSEMUS we had perished if we had not perished if we had not perished temporally we had perish'd eternally nor would I sell the inward peace and consolation I here find though at such a rate as would undo the world to buy it for he that purchaseth worldly prosperity with the losse of the true faith out-buyes it and will prove a bankrupt with which the tendries of the whole world being counterpoized prove too light as our Saviour saith What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose his owne soule Math. 16.20 And all this because they that are out of the true Church are out-lawes against God are without Christ and without God in the world as the Apostle speakes Ephes 2.12 and because as all antiquity testifies that b Concil Cart. 4. c. 1. out of the Catholique Church there is no salvation c Aug. Ep. 152. That whosoeuer is not in the Catholique Church cannot have life d Aug. de Sym ad Catech lib. 4. That he shall not have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his Mother e Cyp. de unit Eccl That Christ is not with those that assemble out of the Church f Ibidem That though they should be slaine for the confession of Christ this spot is not washed away even with blood g Ibidem That he cannot be a Martyr that is not in the Church h Aug de gest cum Emerito That out of the Catholique Church one may have Faith Sacraments and in sum every thing except salvation i Prosp promis praedic Dei par 4. c. 5. That he that communicates not with the Catholique Church is an Heretique and Antichrist k Fulgent de fide ad Pet. c. 19. That no Heretique nor Schismatique that is not restored to the Catholique Church before the end of his life can be saved And this Catholique Church is the Roman Church because the Bishop of Rome is the head thereof appointed so by God and received by the Christian world in all ages as I have proved before and that not only for a time but at this time and for ever And this being the Rock on which the Church is built surely it shall never be removed nor he that like the wise-man builds thereon as our Saviour saith the raine fell the floods came the winds blew and rushed upon the house and it fell not for it was founded on a rock Matth. 7.25 26 27. On the other side all other Churches are built upon the sandy foundation of humane invention and must expect the fate of the fooles house on which the the raine fell the floods came the winds blew and rushed thereon and it fell and the ruine thereof was great CHAP. XXIII The Conclusion wherein is represented on the one side the splendor and orderly composure of the Roman Catholique Church And on the other side the deformity and confusion of Protestant Congregations § 1. NOw for a Conclusion let me invite the Reader to stand as it were upon mount Nebo as Moses did and take a view of the Land of Canaan the Roman Catholique Church on the one side and the wildernesse of the Protestant Churches on the other Here amongst Catholiques you shall see a Church like the cloud that appeared to Elisha as big as a mans hand which by and by spread over the face of the earth a Church which hath incircled in her armes at least in their predecessors all that ever wore the name of Christians which hath stretched her dominions as far as the Sun his beames and wheresoever he hath bestowed his corporall she hath bestowed her spirituall light There amongst Protestants you shall see Churches that have got possession only of the most obscure places and that by patches like a poor mans land and those too usurped by fraud and violence
from the just owners thereof not purchased but stolne Here you shall see a Church that hath continued without interruption since the first planting thereof that hath kept perpetuall Term without Vacation that in all the rough tempests of this worlds persecution hath still rid out the storme and though by the tyranny of heathen and heretiques millions of her children did fall it was but like the morning deaw watering thereby the seeds of grace which themselves had sowne and when they calmly bled it was but oyle to the Apostles lamps whose bright flames may yet serve to light posterity to heaven And as the enemies of the city of Rome were wont to weep to see it on fire because it would afterwards be fairer built so the devill though he caused it yet did mourne to see the Church of Rome on fire in her Martyrs which was ever repaired by a greater encrease of converts who constantly kept the faith till they lost themselves in keeping it like Naboth who kept his possession with the losse of his blood There you shall see Churches like Castor and Pollux rising and setting by turnes sometimes alive sometimes dead with such huge great gaps between the times of their subsisting that for any succour they could have from them millions of soules might in the interim have dropt into hell And as the Moabites when they saw the waters look ruddy thought they had been mingled with blood when it was but the reflexion of the morning sun beames on them so when they suffered any thing they called it persecution for their obedience to God when it was indeed but the effect of justice on them for their Rebellion against Gods deputies Ecclesiasticall and civill the high Priest and the Prince and instead of giving them increase as persecution hath alwaies done to the Church it did with the aid of their inward discords utterly extingnish them Who have had none but have made many Martyrs reviving even in these later present times the antient copies of cruelty against Catholikes blindly believing that by killing Gods servants they do God service Whose meek spirits have paid as large a tribute of patience unto heaven and sufferance to the world as any that went before them and have proved in themselves the truth of the Spouses saying in the Canticles ch 5. v. 10. My beloved is white and ruddy being blanch'd with the whitenesse of innocence guled with the blood of martyrdom the fury of whose malice and persecution hath pursued many even through the gates of death adding prophanation to their cruelty by disturbing the dead bodies and silent urnes of Saints departed A poor revenge and foolish which doth more expresse their hatred than satisfie it and shewes that their malice doth more afflict their owne minds before it is executed than it can doe their enemies bodies in the execution So eager so importunate is sinne ever to its owne shame § 2. Here you shall see a Church that hath alwaies been in view whom neither fear nor coynesse hath made to hide her head and whose admired beauty hath invited all men to her chast embraces and like Medusaes head hath turned them to stones of this living building by the admiration of her surpassing beauty There you shall see Churches such which is very strange as were never seen or very seldome keeping such unkind and retired state that men like Diogenes who went about Athens with a candle and a lanterne at noone day to seek an honest man must doe so about the world to find them out and in the mean time perish for want of spirituall aid who never had any beauty riches or rarity amongst them but only Giges his ring whereby they did for the most part walk invisible The English Proverb saith that where God hath his Church the devill hath his Chappell and so he hath alwaies had in Heretiques who in regard of place have been mingled with Catholiques but that the devill should have all the Church and God not so much as the Chappell as they pretend is most incredible § 3. Here you shall see a Church like the city of Jerusalem that is at unity within it selfe and like the wals of Byzantium so closely united that they seem to be all but one entire stone And as God spake of old By the mouth of his Prophets Luc. 1.70 intimating that though they were many Prophets yet they had all but one mouth in regard of the unity and agreement of their sayings so speakes he now by the mouth of the Priests in the Catholique Church A body having Christ for the head from whom as the Apostle saith the whole body being fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplies according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part makes encrease of the body to the edifying of it selfe in love Whose powerfull union like the Bundle of Arrowes presented by the Emperour Saladine to his sonnes as the Embleme of united strength cannot be broken by the assault of any force which like the floating Ilands or the stone Tyrrhenus being unbroken floats still aloft and keepes her head above the main when others like clods of earth rent from the Jland or broken in pieces of that stone sink to the bottom and perish There you shall see Churches stand like the stones in some high waies to measure their length a mile asunder from each other And as the Cameleon changes it self into all colours except white So they wander through all the forms of opinions that fancy can imagine saving only truth Which need no externall disasters to try their strength no forraine enemies to attempt their destruction For like the Serpents teeth sown by Cadmus or the eternally-hating brethren Eteocles and Polynices they with mutuall cruelties destroy each other Here a Church that for the admirable effects of her unity deserves the name of that pretious stone which for the rarity thereof is called Vnity There such as for the variety and deformity wherewith they are possessed may be termed Legion § 4. Here you shall see a Church that religiously triumphs over all Christian Kings and Kingdomes of the world making them the Trophees of her spirituall victories and conversions whose powerfull influence hath cast a charme upon the fierce and lionly natures of barbarous Princes and hath not only made the Lion and the lamb to live together as was foretold by the Prophet but hath turned the Lions into Lambs Alexander the great being asked if hee would run at the Olympick games said I could be content so I might run with Kings Here then may be exercised a vertuous ambition and truly worthy of the majesty of the most excellent King of England who if he will honour the Church and himselfe to run this way shall run with almost all Kings of the Christian world both his owne and other Kings predecessors and that at the true Olympick exercises the exercises of heaven There you shall see
Churches that never had the power to invite a King or nation to their Communion but such as were born to it or at first compel'd to it by the violence of some prevailing faction or moved to it by oblique and self-reflecting ends Barren and in jurious Churches that live not by their own labour and the gaines they make thereof but boast only of that which they have ravished from others and convert not from Heathenism but neerer to it § 5. Here you shall see a Church working wonders far above the power of all created Beings commanding by the rich dowry of her husband and Saviour heaven earth and hell and all the frame of the creation making them bow their fixt and stubborn natures and meekly yeeld to the dreadfull command of man propt by omnipotent Divinity In which the miracle of miracles Transubstantiation is most frequently wrought even millions of times a day and sufficiently proved to be so by the frequent effusion of blood that it hath made like murdered bodies many times bleeding afresh in the presence of the murderers to confute the incredulity of Jewes and Heretiques which if it do not so to those that do not see it having credible testimony thereof as well as to those that see it shall one day with the rest of his most precious soul-healing balm be required at their unhappy hands when he shall come incircled with flames and armed with dreadfull thunder to throw down vengeance on the impious and unbelievers who shall remedilesly feel that which heretofore they would not believe that he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 There you shall see Churches that do wonders indeed but they are wondrous evills the fowlest in all the stock and brood of villany too many to be repeated but not to be forgiven for that therefore I will alwaies pray Churches that are so poor in proof of their Doctrine that they neither come neere the Church of Christ nor yet do so much as the accursed Antichrist for he shall do some wonders but they do none Or at least it is but one only Miracle that they do and that is that being as they say the true pure Church of God they do no Miracle And one Miracle I beseech God to do amongst them and especially in the once-every-way happy and the now-every-way miserable Kingdome of England that is once more to convert them to his true faith and Catholique Roman Church where it is only to be had that they may see and submit before it be too late to him whom they have pierced and may as Christ admonisheth the Church of Ephesus remember from whence they are faln repent and do their first works Rev. 2.5 before all hope to see the Kingdome flourish be withered and that by their falling from bad to worse there remaine nothing but a fearfull expectation of seeing it over-run and possessed by some barbarous Nation as the Greek Churches are by the Turks for their Heresies most likely and Schism from the Church of Rome or else that they will become such themselves § 6. Here you may see a Church that is the worlds SANCTUM SANCTORUM most holy place guilded with the lives of innumerable both men and women persons of matchlesse sanctity shining through the vailes of their coarse cloth and neglected flesh yea in the feebler Sex God making his power as he saith to S. Paul perfect through weaknesse People so charitable to others that they will forgive every one but themselves and so severe to themselves that they had rather lose the reward of their well-doing than the punishment of their evill Whose fasting and prayers like empty-bellied instruments send up harmonious musick to heaven and exceed the Spheres Who suffer no mutiny of passions against reason or of reason against God Who disdain to stoop to the lure of sense or to serve it in any thing beyond the margent of necessity but ascending up to the mount Tabor of heavenly contemplation do there abide with Christ and are transfigured with the beauty of holinesse on whose hearts is written that which was on the brest-plate of Aaron Holinesse to the Lord. These are those noble Worthies of God who like Vriah one of Davids Worthies are ashamed to injoy the pleasures and delicacies of this life while they consider that their great Generall wanted them but like him spend all their time in suffering evill and doing good and are therein like to arched roofs whereon the more weight is laid the firmer and stronger they are And are many of them so extasied with heavenly raptures that their unbodied soules leave them forgetfull of all things that may tend to their temporall preservation Having such strong impressions of the presence of God that wheresoever they are or whatsoever doing they so behave themselves as if with S. Hierome they heard the sound of the Archangells trump summoning them to judgment Which high degrees of holinesse they underprop with the basis of humility and like the weightiest eares of corn bow down their heads the lowest to the earth and stand like figures in Arithmetique where the last in place is greatest in account So that this alone may perswade infidells that God was made man while they see men thus made Gods Into their secrets O Lord let my soule come let my glory be joyned to their assemblies There you shall see Churches calculated onely for the meridian of flesh and blood whose Apocryphall Priesthood cannot beget Canonicall much lesse super-canonicall vertues whose Priests like anticks which we see carved on the sides of sumptuous buildings seem with their bowed shoulders to bear up the house when they are indeed borne up by it so they pretend to be the only Pillars of the house of God but indeed have no share therein but what they derive from this Church of Rome Thou bearest not the root but the root thee Rom. 11.18 And what remaines of the perfume of goodnesse yet amongst the people bating the disposition of nature is but the reliques of the Roman scent perhaps not yet utterly faded § 7. Lastly look upon the Roman Catholique Church and you shall see a thing so complete and perfect in all her dimensions as if it had been as indeed it was moulded on a heavenly frame many members built up into one body and that body united under one head maintaining most sweet and admirable correspondence having in it selfe all fit means for the spirituall conservation both of the individuum and species of the particular body and of the kind For birth here is Baptisme Confirmation for strength and advancement in the state of grace The sacred Eucharist for our daily stock of spirituall improvement and encrease And so our spirituall sicknesses and wounds which we receive in our Christian warfare here are Physitians with the balme of Gilead the good Samaritanes with wine and oyle to powre into our wounds the holy Priests after the order of Melchisedeck with the Sacrament of Penance