saved whatsoever else he want But it is as true that he that Receiveth the Essentials will from the same principles and obligations receive more when it is aptly notified to him And he that truly Covenanteth will honestly keep the Covenant he maketh which bindeth him still to learn of Christ But if any man be saved without the Essentials he must be saved without Christianity D. But you know that they distinguish of faith Explicite and Implicite He may be Implicitely a Christian that believeth not the Essentials Explicitely as long as he believeth that which would infer them if they were made known to him to be indeed the Word of God R. Thus do Words abuse and cheat the ignorant Could you but read their own Dr. Holden before cited in his Analys fid you would find this distinction justly rendred by him shameful and ridiculous according to their common sense and use of it and the truer sense delivered and vindicated An Implicite faith or Knowledge we confess to be true as it is opposed to 1. A distinct or 2. To a well-expressed faith or Knowledge For it is Implicite ☞ 1. As to the Object when a man knoweth the whole matter but not by distinct parts As a man may know a Cup of water and not know how many drops or drams it is or he may know a sentence and not know how many letters are in it 2. Or it is Implicite as to the Act when it is yet but a crude imperfect conception and the thing is really known but not the Logical notions or Grammatical names either the verba oris or mentis by which it should be expressed So that the man cannot notifie his knowledge to another These two are called Implicite the first signifieth Confused and General Knowledge and the other Imperfect and undigested But to call that Implicite faith or knowledge which extendeth only to some Principles and not to the Conclusions themselves is 1. To Call No-knowledge and faith by the name of knowledge and faith 2. And by their application to confound the World and the Church and to make all the Infidels and Heathens to be Christians and every Fool a Philosopher For 1. All men of Reason know these two Principles who own a God 1. That God is not a lyer but all his Word is True 2. That all the Truths in the world are God's some way or other revealed by him Therefore if they knew that the Gospel were Gods word they would believe it or if they knew it to be one of those Truths that are in the world they would take it to be of God And thus all Infidels and Turks and Pagans may by such abuse be called Implicite Christians But why then do the Papists burn the Protestants when if their Religion were true we are all Implicitely Papists For we believe 1. That all Divine Revelations are True 2. And that all those are Infallible whom God hath promised to make Infallible 3. And that all those must be believed and obeyed whom God hath commanded us to believe and obey 4. And that we must not forsake that Church which God hath commanded us to adhere to 5. And that all our Lawful Pastors must be reverenced and submitted to 6. And all their lawful Precepts obeyed 7. And all Gods Sacraments holily used 8. And all Traditions from the Apostles to the Churches received with many more such Only we know not that the Pope is our Pastor or that his Councils are the Church or have a promise of Infallibility and so of the rest And yet we must burn for it if they can procure it And yet he is a true believer Implicitely who believeth not the Essentials of Christianity But the Design which is predominant here is too visible when this Implicite faith cometh to be described For it is not a Belief in God or in Christ only that will serve the turn but it must be a belief in the Church and their Church and their Pope too or else it will not do The Implicite faith is the explicite belief of these three Articles 1. All Gods Word is true 2. All that is Gods Word which the Church tells us is Gods Word 3. The Pope and his Council and Subjects are this Church And yet this man must be supposed if he know no more per impossibile not to know that there is a Christ or who he is as to his Person or Office or what he hath done or will do for us And yet that he hath a Vicar and a Church Or else they may know Christ and Christianity before they know that there is any Pope or Church and then the Pope hath lost the Game D. But if Popery be so senseless a thing as you make it how come so great a number of persons of all ranks and qualities Kings Nobles Learned men and Religiously-disposed persons to embrace it Have not they souls to save or lose as well as you and do they not lay all their hopes of Heaven upon it and can such persons and so many be so mad and senseless R. Do we need thus to ramble round about as if we would doubt of the thing till we know the Causes of it when we see and they all confess that they deny all our senses Will you not believe that there is a Sun till you know what it is made of Or whether the Sea ebb and flow till you know the Causes of it I pray you tell me Q. 1. Do you think that the Mahometan's is not a very foolish Religion and their foundation the pretended Mission of their Prophet without any shew of truth and his Alcoran if ever you read it a heap of Non-sense and Confusion D. Yes I think it deserveth no better thoughts R. And do you not know that though it arose not till about six hundred years after Christ much more of the world is Mahometan than Christian And are there not far Greater Emperours and Princes Mahometans than any that are Christians And have not all these souls to save or lose And do they not all venture their souls upon that Religion Why then is not your argument here as good for Mahometanism as for Popery D. Though the Emperours of Constantinople the Great Mogul the Persian Tartarian Mahometans c. be all Great as to their vast Dominions yet they are barbarous and unlearned in comparison of the Papists R. 1. It is not because they have not as much wit as we but because they think that our laborious wordy kind of learning is an abuse of wit and against true Policy ludicrously or contentiously diverting mens minds and time from those employments which they think more manly and profitable to the Common-wealth Though no doubt but they do err more unmanly on that extream But I further ask you Q. 2. Do you not think that the Common Religion of the Heathens is very unworthy for any wise man to venture his soul upon If you have but read
your practice take God for your God even for your All and Christ for your Teacher King and Saviour and the Holy Ghost for your Sanctifier turning in heart and life from the Devil the world and the sinful pleasures of the flesh This is the question which I desire you to answer But I will prevent your answer lest you mistake my purpose and think I make my self your Confessour and I will tell you why I ask the question Either you have thus Kept your Baptismal Vow by a Godly life or else you have broken it by worldliness and sensuality c. If you have kept it and are a truly Godly person you have resolved your own doubt and absolutely confuted Popery already For no honest man and true Christian can possibly turn Papist without gross contradiction D. How prove you that R. Most easily I pray you do but mark 1. It is their principal Doctrine that the Pope is the Head of the Universal Church on earth and that the Church subjected to him is the Universal Church and that out of that Church there is no salvation and that no one is a true member of Christ and his Church who is not a subject of the Pope 2. And they all confess that every one shall be saved that is a true Christian and keepeth his Baptismal Covenant and that Loveth God above all So that they must needs hold that none in the world but Papists do truly Love God keep that Covenant and are true Christians Now if you can know that you have the true Love of God and are true to your Baptism you must needs confess that Popery is false which saith that none Love God above all but Papists D. But what if I have not Loved God and obeyed him above my flesh R. I 'le tell you what followeth 1. It is no wonder if you forsake the Protestants Religion who never truly entertained it If your Heart and Life were not devoted unfeignedly to God you were no true Christian nor indeed had any true Religion at all And he that hath no Religion turneth from none which he truly had If you were never a true Christian you were never a true Protestant And then what wonder if you turn Papist For you have no experimental Knowledge of that Religion which you seem to forsake 2. And how could you expect better but that God should penally forsake you and give you over to believe deceits if you have dealt so falsly and deceitfully with him as to live to the world and flesh which you renounced and neglect that God and Saviour and sanctifier to whom you were so solemnly devoted And if you have been so treacherous and unwise as to prefer a bruitish transitory pleasure before Gods Love and the Joyes of Heaven 3. And what honour is it to the Church of Rome that none but Infidels and false-hearted hypocrites and perfidious breakers of their Covenant with God did ever turn to them If you turn Papist you confess that you were a wicked hypocrite before 4. But the chief thing which I would tell you is that turn up and down as oft as you will to this Church or that Church to this side or that side you will never be saved unless you become a holy serious mortified Christian As long as you love pleasures wealth and honour more than God and Holiness and Heaven you shall never be saved whether you be Papist or a professed Protestant It would make the heart of a Christian ake to see so many thousands cheated by the Devil to take this opinion or that opinion called the true faith and this side or that side called the true Church to be to them instead of a holy heavenly heart and life And how many thousands especially Papists that are truly of no Religion do dispute and plot and disquiet the world as for Religion To hear a prophane man swear that his Religion is right or that man to think to be saved for being of the true Church and faith whose heart was never set on Heaven but liveth in drunkenness lying idleness fornication and thinketh that the Priests absolution sets all right again Without true Holiness no man shall be saved what Church soever he joyn with and with it no man shall be damned For God cannot hate them that have his nature and Image D. Well sir I came not to dispute with you but to desire you to meet a Roman Catholick Priest that I may hear you both together R. I have the greater hopes of you because you have so much regard of your soul as to be willing to hear what can be said For most that turn to them never come to an impartial tryal but rashly follow the deceiver or stay till they are secretly hardened by false insinuations and then take on them to desire to hear both when they are first resolved to be gone But you must tell me what is the question that you desire should be disputed D. I would know whether the Papists or the Protestants be the True and safe Religion R. I undertake to give you that plain undenyable evidence for your resolution which should fully satisfie any reasonable man at least that professeth himself a Christian so be it you will perform these reasonable conditions 1. That you will be impartially willing to know the truth 2. That you will honestly resolve to Live according to it when you know it and to be True to the True Religion 3. That you will bring such a man to confer with me who will yield to the Reasonable Conditions of a disputant such as your Doubt and the nature of the matter doth notoriously require and not a Knave and studied Deceiver who will set himself purposely to hide the truth D. These conditions are so reasonable that I must not deny them CHAP. II. The Conditions of the Conference between a P. and R. and D. R. SIR I am desired by this person who is brought by some of you to doubt of our Religion to debate this Case with you in order to his satisfaction Whether the Papists or the Protestants be the True and Safe Religion P. That is too large a Question We cannot dispute of all our Religion at once I will begin with you about some one of the Articles of the Church of England or the Visibility of your Church in all Ages or the Resolution of your faith c. And this I will do only on these conditions 1. That you bring some express Text of Scripture which without your Interpretation Reasonings or Consequences doth assert that Article of yours which I shall accuse or contradict any Article of our faith which shall be questioned 2. Or if you will go from the express words to Reasoning that we keep to the strictest Rules of Logick and that you use nothing but Syllogism and that all be done in writing and not by word of mouth R. Neighbour D. you promised me to bring another kind of Disputant
When you come to prove us heretical denyers of any of its essence we will give you a sufficient answer The twelfth Principle That the Essence of our Religion or Christianity as Active and Saving is Faith that worketh by Love Or such a Belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as is accompanied with a true devoting of our selves to him by Love and willingness to obey his Laws so far as we know them in opposition to the temptations of the world the flesh and the Devil And he that is truly such shall be saved P. I grant that he that truly Loveth God shall be saved But a Protestant cannot truly love God because he hath not true faith R. Do you not agree and confess then that If any Protestants do truly Love God and are sincerely willing to obey his will and to know it that they may obey it such are of the true Religion and shall be saved and that popery which denyeth their salvation is false P. If your false supposition were true these false consequents would be true But you are all deceived when you think that you sincerely Love God and are willing to know and do his will R. 1. Let all Protestants note this first that you grant that none but ☞ falshearted Hypocrites that are not what they profess to be and Love not God nor would obey him should turn Papists 2. And if a man cannot know his own Mind and Will what he Loveth and what he is willing of no not about his End and greatest concernments how can he know when he Believeth aright Why do you trouble the world thus with your noise about Believing the Proposals of your Church if a man cannot know whether he believe or not ☞ And he that cannot know what he Willeth Chooseth or Loveth can no more know what he believeth For the Acts of the Will are more plenary and easily perceived And do all Papists know their own Hearts or Minds but no Protestants What would you expect but indignation and derision by such arguing as this if you will go about the world and tell men You none of you know your own Minds and wills but we know them You think you Love God and are willing to obey him but you are all mistaken it is not so with you but you must believe our Pope and his Council and then you may know your own minds and hearts They that believe you on these rates deserve the deceit of believing you and punish themselves The thirteenth Principle That when Christ described all the Essence of Christianity by our Believing in and being baptized into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost the Apostles and first Pastors of the Churches instructed people to understand the meaning of these three Articles And the ancient Creed called the Apostles is the exposition of them as to Belief And that this Creed was of old the symbol of the true faith by which men were supposed sufficiently qualified for baptism and distinguished from Hereticks which after was enlarged by occasion of heresies to the Nicene and Constantinopolitane Creed To which that called Athanasius's was added as a fuller explication of the doctrine of the Trinity And he that believed all these was taken for one of the true Christian Religion which was sufficient in suo genere to salvation P. All that was then Necessary to be explicitely believed necessitate medii was expressed in the Creeds if not more But not all that is now necessary when the Church hath proposed more R. 1. Some of you say no more is necessary ut medium but to believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Others say that the chief articles of the Creed also are commonly necessary And in your discord we lay no great weight on your Opinions 2. But is not Christianity the same Thing now as it was at the beginning Is Baptism altered Hath not a Christian now the same definition as then Are not Christs promises and the Conditions the same Shall not he that was a Christian then be saved if he were now alive May not we be Christians and saved by the same Constitutive Causes which made men Christians and saved them in the primitive Churches Subvert not Christianity and confound not the Church and cheat not poor souls by labouring to hide the essence of Christianity and such plain important truths You cannot deny our faith to be true without condemning the ancient Church and Christianity it self While we aloud profess that the Christian faith explained in all the ancient Creeds is the faith which we own in its Essentials explicated The fourteenth Principle That the Books which the Protestants commonly receive as Canonical Scriptures are in the agreeing Original Copies as to the very words and in true Translations as to the sence the most true Infallible word of God R. I grant that where the Copies disagree by various Readings we are no more sure that any of them is the word of God than we are sure that such a Copy is righter than all that differ from it But as long as the essence of Christianity on which our Salvation is laid is in the Covenant of Grace explained in Credondis in the Creed and in Petendis in the Lords Prayer and in Agendis in the Decalogue as explained by Christ And no one Duty or material doctrine of our Religion dependeth on the various Lections but those texts that Agree are sufficient to establish them all yea as Franc. à Sancta Clara system fid professeth the ordinary Translations so agree as that no material point of Religion doth depend on any of their differences It is as much as we assert that the Agreeing Original Copies and the sound-Translations so far as they are such are the True Infallible word of God the former both as to words and sence and the later as to sence alone Do you not grant this P. We grant the Scripture as you say to be Gods Infallible word But 1. You cannot know it to be so because you take it not on the Roman Churches Authoritative Proposal 2. And you leave out part of it R. 1. Whether we can know it shall be tryed in due place 2. And whether we have All of it or enough is another question to be debated when you will You grant us expresly that which we now desire which is the Infallible Truth of our Canonical Scripture And this is All our Religion containing not only the Essentials but all the Integrals and Accidentals needful to be recorded So that All the Protestants Religion is confessed to be Infallibly True And from hence further note that in all our disputes you are obliged to be the defendants as to Truth For we deny the Truth of much of your Religion but you deny not the Truth of one word of ours but only the Plenitude or Sufficiency P. The name of a Protestant was never known till Luthers
time And the occasion of it was a particular Protestation of the German Princes and not directly a Protesting against Popery R. It is not Names but Religion which we dispute of And it is that which each party Professeth to be their Religion Therefore you must take our Profession or you change the subject of the dispute And we profess that the Law of Nature which no sober man questioneth and the Scriptures are All our Religion Therefore if you please you shall suppose that the name Protestant were not now in the world It doth not signifie our Religion But we now use it to signifie our Protesting against Popery or that we agree in substance and in rejecting Popery with those that made that particular Protestation mentioned by you Names are oft given from accidents as Africanus Germanicus Britannicus c. to several Roman Captains when yet their Humanity was the same before they were so named P. Turks Socinians Quakers c. Protest against Popery It seems then they are Protestants too and your companions R. 1. Thus some men study to deceive by turning from the question to another Our question I tell you is Whether the Religion of the Protestants be Infallible and not Whence is their name 2. But by a Protestant we mean only one that taketh the Scripture for the Rule and Christianity for the Essence of his Religion Which no one doth that denyeth any essential part of it If we do so prove it and you shall have our answer How do you judge of any man among your selves that taketh Gods word proposed by your Church for his Religion and yet mistaketh the Church in any point As Durandus that thought the matter of Bread continues whom Bellarmine yet denyeth to be an Heretick So is it with any among us that mistake the sence of Scripture in some such point When a Name is put upon any person or party from a common accident you may if you will call all by that name which that accident agreeth to And so Papists are called by some Non-conformists now in England because they Conform not But the world knoweth well enough that it is Protestants which are commonly meant by that name and not Papists Quakers Seekers c. though these conform not And so you may say if it please your self that Turks Jews Heathens Socinians Quakers Ranâ—ers are Protestants because they Protest against or reject Popery But the world knoweth who is meant by the Name Even Christians rejecting proper Popery And for my part I deal openly with you I care not if the name Protestant were utterly cast aside If any man be so deceived by it as 1. Either to think that it signifieth the Essence of our Religion unless you mean as we Protest for Christianity 2. Or that we take those called Protestants for the whole Catholick Church they make it an occasion of their own deceit Names of distinction are used because men know not else readily how to speak intelligibly of one another without circumlocutions And then cometh the Sectarian and taketh his Party for all the Church at least which he may lawfully Communicate with and the name of his party to notifie his Religion And then comes the crafty Papist and pretends from hence that such a named Religion is new and asketh you where was there any e. g. Protestants before Luther My Religion is naked Christianity the same as is where the name of a Protestant is not known and as was before it was known and as if the name of the Pope had never been known But now the Pope and his Monarchical Vsurpation over all the world are risen and known I am one of those that protest against them as being against Christianity which is my Religion But so as to addict my self to the opinions of no man or party that opposeth them wholly and absolutely and beyond evidence of truth I take the Reformed Churches to be the soundest in the world But I take their Confessions to be all the Imperfect expressions of men and the Writings of Protestant Divines to be some more clear and sound and some more dark empty and less sound and in many things I differ from many of them Choose now whether you will call me a Protestant or not I tell you my Religion which is simple Christianity Names are at your own Will I could almost wish that there were no name known besides that of CHRISTIAN as notifying our faith and Religion in the Christian world Though as notifying Heresie and sin there must be proper names as in Rev. the name Nicolaitans is used Even the word Catholick had long a narrower sense in the Empire with many than I now own it in Though as it signifieth One that is of the Church Vniversal loveth Vniversally all true Christians and hath Communion with them in Faith Love and Hope so I like it and am A CATHOLICK CHRISTIAN I dispute for nothing else I perswade this person here in Doubt to nothing else but 1. To hold fast to true and meer Christianity 2. To Reject all in Popery or any other Sect that is Evidently against it 3. To suspend his belief of all that 's doubtful and to receive nothing as a part of Divine faith or Religion till he be sure that indeed it is of God And now these Principles being supposed let us proceed and try whether Popery be of God or not PART III. The Protestants Reasons against Popery D. I Have heard what you have said in stating the Protestants Religion I now expect to hear what Reasons you have against that which you call Popery And afterwards that you prove all that you charge upon it But I adjure you first that you say nothing but what you believe in your conscience to be the truth as one that looketh to be judged for it R. With many Papists confident and vehement protestations go instead of Arguments and we oft hear them say If this be not true I am content to be torn in a thousand pieces We will seal it with our blood We will lay our salvation on it And do you think we have not souls to save c. Which is much like as if they would end all Controversies by laying Wagers that they are in the right or by protesting that they are honester and credibler men than their adversaries And it is no more than a Quaker or other such Sectary will say the most proud and ignorant being usually the most confident But yet though I expect not that you should receive any thing from me upon Protestations but upon Proofs I will here promise you that I will charge nothing on the Papists but what in my Conscience I am verily perswaded to be true The Reasons which resolve me against Popery are these and such like I. Reason Their Doctrine of Transubstantiation is so notoriously false and inhumane even contrary to the fullest ascertaining evidence that mankind can expect on earth viz. for all men on pain
But they must be so many as are suited to every ones capacity and means during his life And no man living can know that he understandeth and believeth as much as his capacity and means were in their kind sufficient to Nay there is no man that hath not been culpably ignorant of somewhat which he might have known 2. Mens Sacramental receptions and comforts depend on the Intention of the Priest which no man knoweth 3. Almost all Godly men must expect the fire of Purgatory and consequently none of them can be rationally willing to dye Because this life is better than Purgatory and no man will desire to go from hence into the fire And so by making all men unwilling to dye it destroyeth a heavenly mind and killeth faith and hope and love and holy joy and tempteth men to be worldlings and to love this life better than the next Yea it tempteth men to be afraid of Martyrdom lest dying in Venial sins as all do they go to a Purgatory fire more terrible than Martyrdom XXIII Reason Their Doctrine is not only contrary to many express Texts of Holy Scripture but also contrary to it self One Pope and one Council having decreed one thing and another the clean contrary XXIV Reason All this evil is made more pernicious by that professed Impenitence which is included in the conceit of their Churches Infallibility For they that hold themselves Infallible do profess never to Repent of any thing in which they suppose themselves to be so And as Repentance is the great evidence of the pardon of sin so Impenitency is that mortal sign of an unpardoned soul without which no sin doth qualifie the sinner to be Excommunicated by man or damned by God And a sin materially less is more Mortal unrepented of than a greater truly lamented and forsaken XXV Reason Every honest godly Protestant may be as sure that Popery is false as he is that he is himself sincere and Loveth God and is truly willing to obey him And no man can turn Papist without self-contradiction who is a true Christian and an honest man For by turning Papist he confesseth himself to be before a false-hearted hypocrite who neither Loved God nor sincerely desired to obey him nor was true to his Baptismal Covenant For it is a part of Popery to believe that none are in a state of salvation but the Subjects of the Pope or members of the Papal Church And consequently that no others have true Faith Repentance or Love to God Or else that God is false in promising salvation to all that have true Faith Repentance and Love to God All therefore that know their own hearts to be truly devoted to God are safe from Popery And seeing it is agreed on both sides that none can or ought to turn Papists but ungodly hypocrites or Knaves no wonder if such are deluded by the most palpable deceits and forsaken of God whom they perfidiously forsook I will name you no more If I make these or any one of these good as I undertake to prove them all you will see that I refuse not my self to be a Papist without sufficient cause And yet by this charge you will see that I am none of their extream adversaries I pass by abundance of Doctrinal differences wherein by many they are most deeply charged Not as Justifying them against all or most so charged on them but 1. As giving you those Reasons which most move my self and which I am most able to make good and leaving every one to his proper work 2. And as one that have certainly found out that in many doctrinals seeming to be the matter of our widest difference we are thought by many to differ much more than we do 1. The difference lying most in Words and Logical Notions and various wayes of mens expressing their conceptions 2. And the animosity of men engaged in Parties and Interests against each other causing most to take all in the worst sense and to make each other seem far more erroneous than they are and to turn differing names into damnable heresies And 3. Few men having Will and Skill to state controversies aright and cut off mistaken seeming differences 4. And few having honesty and self-denyal enough to incurr the censure of the ignorant Zealots of their own party by seeming but impartial and just to their adversaries I mean in such points as 1. The Nature of Divine faith Whether it be a perswasion that I am pardoned c. 2. Of Certainty of salvation 3. And Certainty of perseverance 4. Of Sanctification 5. Of Justification 6. Of Good works 7. Of Merit 8. Of Predestination 9. Of Providence and the Cause of Sin 10. Of Free-will 11. Of Grace 12. Of Imputation of Righteousness 13. Of Universal Redemption 14. Of Original Sin and divers others In all which I cannot justifie them but am sure that the difference is made commonly to seem to be that which indeed it is not In the true impartial stating whereof Lud. Le Blanck hath begun to do the Christian Churches most excellent service worthy our great thanks and his bearing all the Censures of the ignorant PART IV. The First Charge made good against Transubstantiation In which Popery is proved to be the Shame of Humane Nature Contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTURE and TRADITION or the judgement of the Antient and Present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels CHAP. I. The First Reason to prove Transubstantiation false R. THe Papists Belief of Transubstantiation is that There is a change made of the whole substance of the Bread into the body of Christ and of the whole substance of Wine into his blood Their opinion called their faith hath two parts The first is that There is no more true Proper Bread and Wine after the words of Consecration Hoc est Corpus meum The second is that There is the true proper Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ under the species as they call them of Bread and Wine It is the first that I shall now prove false And you must not forget the state of the Question which is not Whether Christs Body and Blood be present But Whether there remain any Bread and Wine Arg. I. If there remain no Bread and Wine after the Consecration then all the senses of all the sound men in the world are deceived or all mens perception of these sensible things deceived though there be due magnitude site distance of the object a due abode and a due medium and no depravation of the sense or intellect But this Consequent is notoriously false as shall be proved Therefore Popery is false 1. That all mens senses perceive Bread and Wine or all mens Intellects by their senses will not be denyed Not only Protestants but Greeks Mahometans Heathens Papists all persons perception by sense is here the same Therefore it is sound senses or else there are none sound in the world 2. It is not one
Saint and yet not the benefits or effects As if Christs flesh and blood could be in a mans body without his benefit When he hath promised that he that eateth him shall live by him Yet see the measures of their faith and Church Saith Aquinas 3. q. 80. a. 3. ad 2. Vnless perhaps an Infidel intend to Receive that which the Church giveth though he have not true faith about other Articles or about this Sacrament then he may receive sacramentally CHAP. VI. The fourth Argument This Miraculous Transubstantiation is expresly contrary to the Word of God in Scripture Arg. 4. THe Papists say that there is no bread after the words of Consecration Gods word saith There is Bread after the Consecration Therefore the Papists speak contrary to the Word of God I. In 1 Cor. 11. It is called expresly BREAD after consecration no less than three times in three verses together 26 27 28. For as oft as ye eat this Bread and Drink this cup ye shew the Lords death till he come Wherefore whosoever shall eat this Bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the Body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that Bread and drink of that Cup Here they that call for express words of Scripture for our doctrine without our consequences may see their own faith expresly contradicted and our opposition justified The Holy Ghost here expresly calleth it Bread And yet no expresness nor evidence will satisfie them P. By Bread is meant that which was Bread before or else that which nourisheth the soul as Bread doth the body And so it is metonymically only called Bread as Christs Flesh is called Bread in Joh. 6. R. Why then do you call for express texts of Scripture as our proof when that expresness signifieth nothing with you but you can say It is a metonymie or a metaphor at your pleasure But you say so against notorious Evidence The Apostle calleth it Bread so often over and over as if he had foreseen your inhumane heresie He calleth it The Bread which is to be Eaten joyned with Drinking the Cup never once calling either of them the Flesh or Blood of Christ but as he reciteth Christs words which he expoundeth Yea he telleth us that eating this bread and drinking this cup is to shew the Lords death till he come where he calleth us to look back at Christs death as past in our Commemoration and to look forward to his personal coming as future but never telleth us that we must kill Christ and eat him our selves when we have made him nor that his body is there present under the accidents of Bread and Wine But the rest of the Scriptures as expresly justifie our doctrine 1 Cor. 10.15 The Cup of blessing which we bless is it not the Communion or Communication of the blood of Christ And the Bread which we break is it not the communion or participation of the body of Christ Here it is the Cup and the Bread after Consecration if the Holy Ghost may be believed And in the next words the Apostle repeateth it in his reason For we being Many are One Bread and One Body For we all partake of one Bread or Loaf Is not here express proof So Act. 20.7 When we came together to break Bread And v. 11. He ascending and breaking bread and eating c. Here it is twice more called Bread after the Consecration which ever went before the Breaking So Act. 2.42 46. It is twice more called Breaking of Bread And what else can the recitation of Christs institution mean 1 Cor. 11.23 24. Panem accepisse fregisse to have taken Bread and having given thanks to have broken What is it that he brake It s non-sence if it have no accusative case that it respects And plain Grammatical construction tells us then that it must be that before mentioned What he Took he blessed and brake and gave But he took Bread and the Cup The same is in Mat. 26 26 27. and the other Evangelists II. The Scriptures expresly Act. 2 c. make the Killing of Christ and drawing his blood to be the heynous sin of the Jews for which some Repented and others were cast off Therefore it is not to be believed that Christ did first kill or tear himself and shed his own blood or that his disciples did kill him or tear his flesh and shed his blood before the Jews did it And if they tore his flesh and drank his blood and yet killed him not the event altered not the fact The Jews did but break his flesh and shed his blood If you fly to a good intention Paul will come in for some further excuse for his persecution III. 1 Cor. 10.21 Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of Devils Ye cannot be partakers of the Lords table and of the table of Devils Here note 1. That the same phrase is used of the Participation of the Lords mysteries and the Devils But it was not the flesh and blood or the substance of Devils which the Idolaters ever intended to partake of but only their sacrifices 2. It is here called only the Table and the Cup and not the flesh and the blood 3. It is said that They could not partake of both whereas according to the Papists doctrine if a man should partake of the Idols sacrifice in the morning and of the Lords Table in the evening without repentance he should really partake of Christs own flesh and blood which the Text saith cannot be done P. It meaneth only You cannot Lawfully or you ought not to partake of both but not that it is impossible or never done R. No doubt but it meaneth that They ought not or cannot Lawfully but that 's not all The text plainly meaneth You cannot have communion with both You may take the bread and wine at your peril but you cannot partake of it as a sacramental feast which God prepareth you and so partake of Christ therein And the same is said expounding this 2 Cor. 6.15 What concord hath Christ with Belial and what agreement hath the temple of God with Idols Intimating that Communion with God and Idols Christ and Belial are so far inconsistent But by the Papists doctrine an Idolater and Son of Belial may partake of the very substance of Christs body and blood into his body as verily as he partaketh of his meat and drink IV. The Scripture teacheth us expresly to judge of sensible things by sense Luk. 24.39 Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self handle me and see for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have And when he had thus spoken he shewed them his hands and his feet And v. 43 he did eat before them to confirm their faith But they could have no more sensible evidence of any of this than we have of the being of Bread and Wine or some
though this will produce a humane belief in the Hearers or Readers as by advantages it is most taking with them yet that fallible belief is all the Certainty that it can afford them Therefore I think it most ingenuous and reasonable to give men such arguments as they are capable of understanding and improving to certain satisfaction 2. Because they that can study such Authors as have gathered the sentences of the Antients in this Controversie may find it so fully done by Edmund Albertinus in his second Book that they can need no more P. You know that Albertinus is answered R. And I know that he is again Defended And who doubteth but you can answer me copiously if I did maintain that the Sun giveth light What is it that a man cannot talk for especially they that can hope to perswade all the Christian world that they must be damned unless they will believe that all mens senses are deceived and that God is the great Deceiver of the world P. But how can you think to please God and be saved if you be not of the same faith as the Church hath alwayes been of All the antient Fathers and Catholick Church were for Transubstantiation and are you wiser and in a safer way than they R. You have lost your credit with me so far as that your word is no oracle to me If I must not believe my own nor other mens senses I am not bound to believe you at least when I know you speak falsly But I pray tell me How know you that the Church and Fathers did so believe P. Because the present Church saith so which cannot err R. Do not your own Writers say that a General Council and Pope may err in matter of fact and that they did so in Condemning Pope Honorius and in other Cases P. Yes but this is a matter of faith R. Is it not a matter of fact what this or that man said and what doctrine the Church at such a time did teach and hold But how know you that the present Church doth say so that this was the faith of the antient Church P. By their testimony in a General Council R. Did you hear the Council say so P. No but the Church telleth me that the Council said so R. Who is it that you now call the Church which tells you so P. My Superiours who have it from the Pope and their Fathers R. Are your Superiours that told you so the Church Or is the Pope the Church If so What need you say a Council is the Church And how know you that the Pope and your Superiours err not in a matter of fact P. I know it by the Decrees of the Council yet extant R. 1. But if sense be deceitful how know you that you ever read such Decrees 2. How know you that they are not forgeries or since corrupted P. The Church is a safe keeper of its own Records R. Still what mean you by the Church The Vulgar neither keep nor understand your Councils The Council of Trent is long ceased No other General Council hath been since to tell you what are the true Decrees of that Council The Pope is not the Church And he may err in a matter of fact What then is the Church that tells you certainly what the Council of Trent decreed Tell me if you can P. We have such common historical Evidence and Tradition as you have for your Acts of Parliament when the Parliament is ended The present Governours preserve them R. Very good It is the Office of the Governours to take that Care but therein they are not indefectible and infallible but they and the published Laws and the notice of the whole Land and the Judicial proceedings by them in the Courts of Judicature make up a Certain Historical Evidence And so it may be in your Case And when you have talkt your utmost you can shew no more And have not we the same Writings of Fathers and Councils as you have You dare not deny it Why then may not we know what is in them as well as you And I pray you tell me Whether your Antiquaries such as Albaspinaeus Sixtus Senensis Petavius Sirmondus c. do prove what Cyprian Optatus Augustine c. held by the judgement of the Pope or Councils or by citing the words of the Authors themselves And do Crab Binnius Surius Caranza c. prove what one Council said by the authority of another or by the Records themselves yet visible to all P. Those Records themselves even the visible Writings of the Fathers and Councils are for Transubstantiation R. Till you have perswaded me out of my senses I will not believe you I pray you tell me if you can of any Author or Council that ever used the name Transubstantiation before Stephanus Aeduensis after the year 1100 de Sacram. Altar c. 13. P. Though the name be new the Doctrine is not R. Tell me next what General Council did ever determine it before the Council of Laterane under Innoc 3. an 1215. P. Not expresly for General Councils need not mention it till the Albigenses Hereticks gave them occasion by denying it R. Was it an Article of faith before If it were either the Councils are not the measure of your faith or it is very mutable P. Among all your questionings answer me this question if you can If that General Council decreed Transubstantiation what could move them so to do if it were not the faith of the Church before Were they not all of the same mind the day before they did it and so the day before that and the day before that c. Or do you think that they were against Transubstantiation the night before and awaked all of another mind the next morning What could make all the Pastors of the Church think that this was the true faith if they did not think it was the antient faith And what could make them think it the antient faith if it were not so Did not they know what their Fathers held And did not their Fathers know what their Fathers held The same I say of the Council of Trent also R. Thus men that must not believe the common sense of mankind can believe the dreaming conjectures of their brains and sit in a corner and thence tell the world what can and what cannot be done by publick assemblies at many hundred years and miles distance Who would not laugh at a Fryer that in his Cell would tell by moral conjectures all the thoughts and motions of an Army or Navy that never saw them and contrary to the experience of those that were on the ground and interessed in their Councils and actions Observe how many false suppositions go to make up your cheats 1. You suppose this a true General Council which is a pack of factious Prelates subject to the Pope and assembled at Rome in his own Palace under the awe of his presence and power And as if the small
truly believed that Christ was the Messiah They erred that thought it lawful to eat things offered to Idols and yet they erred not in believing in Christ No two men in the world its like have the same degree of personal faith and knowledge as I oft said before But if our professed object of faith that is Gods word were false in one thing we could not be sure that it were true in any thing Yet here I told you before 1. That a man may be much surer that one part of Scripture is Gods word than another because some Copies are doubtful in the diverse Readings of some particular words or sentences and which of them that so differ is Gods word we oft know not But so much as we are sure is the word of God we are sure is true So if the Authority of some few books was once doubted of as 2 Pet. Jam. Jud. Heb. c. and yet be by any it followeth not that they doubt of the truth of any which they know to be the word of God 2. Or if any do hold that the Penmen might be left to their natural fallibility in some by historical circumstances or words it would not follow that one Article of the Gospel or Christian faith is doubtful which is plainly as the Kernel of it delivered in all the Scripture and also by infallible Universal Tradition by it self in the Sacrament Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue And our case also much differeth from the Papists in this For We profess that our objective faith Gods word is Infallible and we are Infallible so far as we believe it But we confess that we are lyable to misunderstand some parts of it and so far are fallible as being imperfect But the Papists say that their Pope and Councils and Universal Practicers are personally Infallible so as not to be lyable to any misunderstanding of any Article of faith say some or Article of Catholick faith say others And so they make their own Act of Believing to be Commensurate and equally certain with Gods word of faith and therefore they allow you to question them in all if they err in one as pretending to a gift of never erring in any D. But is it not a great reason to incline us to them rather than to you when They only pretend to Infallibility and You confess that you are all fallible in your Belief R. This is to be the subject of our next Conference and therefore not now to be anticipated only I shall tell you that It is a meer noise of ambiguous words to deceive the heedless that cannot search out the meaning of them 1. We not only Pretend but Profess and prove that our Christian Religion is altogether Infallible For which end I have written divers Treatises my self 2. And we profess that all the mystical Church of Christ that is all sincere Christians do truly and Infallibly believe all that is Essential to Christianity and as much of the Integrals as they can know 3. And we profess that the Catholick Church-Visible that is All professors of Christianity in the world do profess all these Essentials of Christianity and are Infallible in this profession But we hold withall that there is no particular Church or Bishop no Synod or Council that is so Infallible but that 1. They that hold to the Essentials may misunderstand and err about some Integrals 2. And those persons have no Certainty that they shall not err by Heresie or Apostacy from the Essentials themselves So that the Church is Infallible because it is essentiated by believing an Infallible Word which who ever believeth not ceaseth to be of the Church not Gods Word infallible because the Church or any number of men believe it or say Its true For Truth is before Knowledge and Faith As Aristotle was a Philosopher because he understood and taught the doctrine of real Philosophy and not that doctrine called Physicks or Philosophy because that Aristotle knew or taught it But alas What work shall I shew you when I come to open their bewildring uncertainties D. But to deal freely with you methinks their way of measuring out the Necessaries in Faith and Religion according to mens various parts and opportunities seemeth to me more satisfactory than yours who fix upon certain points as the Baptismal Covenant as Essentials For there is great diversity of mens Capacities R. This cometh from confounding several Questions as if they were all one 1. It is one Question What is the Christian Religion 2. ☞ It is another Question Whether the Christian Religion be absolutely necessary to the salvation of all those to whom it was never competently revealed 3. And it is another Question Whether more than the Essentials of Christian Religion be not necessary to the salvation of many who have opportunity to know more Alas what work doth Confusion make in the world To the first It is evident that as Mahometanism is a thing which may be defined so much more may Christianity Who that writeth of the several Religions of the world Ethnick Jewish Mahometan and Christian do not take them to be distinguishable and discernable Especially when Christ hath summed up Christianity into a Covenant and given it us in express words and affixed a flat promise of salvation to the true Covenanters and the Church hath ever called our Baptism our Christening Is Christianity Nothing If Something Why may it not be defined and differenced from all false Religions And if so It hath its Essential Constitutive parts All this is plain to Children that will see 2. And then as to the second question it concerneth not our Controversie at all It is but Whether any Infidels may be saved Or any that are no Christians And if it could be proved that any are saved that are no Christians do you thereby prove that they are Christians or members of the Christian Church or that Christianity is not a Religion which may be defined 3. And as to the third question We are on all sides agreed in it That they that have more than the naked Essentials of Christianity revealed to them aptly are bound to believe more Yea it is hardly conceiveable that any one should know and believe the Essentials only and no more It is not Essential to the Christian Covenant or Christianity to know that the Name of Christs Mother was Mary or that Pontius Pilate was the man that condemned him And if an Ignorant man thought that his continuance in the Grave was four dayes I do not think that this would damn his soul to Hell Much less the not believing that Mary dyed a Virgin And yet it is not like that any man should come to the Essentials of Christianity by any such way as should acquaint him with no one of these or any point besides the said Essentials And yet it is certain for all this that he that truly receiveth the Essentials and is true to the Baptismal Covenant shall be
quae revelata non sunt ideoque ab articulorum fidei Catholicae numero excluduntur I know that there never was such a thing as a true Universal Council in the world unless Christ and his Apostles were such nor ever must or will or can be I know that they were called Universal but as to one Empire and that Emperours called them together who had nothing to do without that Empire and that unless accidentally any inconsiderable number no Churches out of the Empire were summoned or sent their Bishops thither Which needs no other proof than the knowledge of the limits of the Roman Empire and the Notitiae Episcopatùum and the Names subscribed to each Council in Binnius and the rest I know that long ago their Raynerius said Cont. Waldens Catal. in Biblioth Patrum Tom. 4. p. 773. The Churches of the Armenians and Ethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome And that Godignus and others make no doubt but the Abassines had the faith from the dayes of St. Matthew and the Eunuch I know that Theodoret. Histor Sanct. Patr. c. 1. saith James the Bishop of Nisibis came to the Synod of Nice for Nisibis then obeyed the Roman Empire Nothing can be more plain I know that Jacob. de Vitriaco and others say Hist Orient c. 77. that the Churches of the Easterly parts of Asia alone exceeded in number the Christians either of the Greek or Latin Churches And that Brochardus that lived at Jerusalem saith that those called Schismaticks by us are far better men than those of the Roman Church And to perswade the Kings of other Kingdoms that the necessary way of Church-Union is to unite all their Subject-Churches under the Patriarchs of another Empire is no wiser than to tell all the world that they must be under the Bishop of Canterbury I know that it was long ere Our antient Britains and especially Your Scots would so much as eat with the Roman Clergy as Beda sheweth And I know that their Melch. Canus saith Loc. Com. cap. 7. fol. 201. That not only the Greeks but almost all the rest of the Bishops of the whole world have fought to destroy the priviledges of the Church of Rome And indeed they had on their side both the Arms of Emperours and the greater number of Churches And yet they could never prevail to abrogate the power of the One Pope of Rome Was this Pope then or the Roman Church Universal Besides that to this day they are but about the third or fourth part of the Christian world And I know that General Councils are their Religion and what the General approved Council at Lateran sub Innoc. 3. hath Decreed against Temporal Lords and their Dominions and absolving of their Subjects from their Oaths of Fidelity Besides what Greg. 7. hath said in his Concil Rom. of his power to take down and set up Emperours The knowing of these things maketh me taken for their enemy And their Image of Worship in an unknown Tongue with their Bread-Worship and multitude of ludicrous deceitful toyes are things which my soul can never be reconciled to Much less to that renunciation of humanity which hereafter I detect in the following Treatise And having given You this Account of my self I add as to this Treatise 1. It grieved me to hear that so many refused the Parliaments Declaration against Transubstantiation And I desired to shew them what it is 2. Instead of joyning with those who talk much of the danger of Popery in the Land to keep it out I thought it better to publish the Reasons which satisfie me against it and leave the success of all to God 3. And having occasion to re-print the First Part of my Key for Catholicks with Corrections instead of the Name before prefixed of one whose face I never saw nor ever had a word from but ignorantly endeavoured to have provoked him to do good I thought Your Name fittest to be gratefully substituted who were the first then that checked my imprudent temerity Though I was not so vain as to expect of late in your multitude of greater business that You should read over my more tedious Writings I despair not but You may find leisure in perusing this to see that I have prefixed Your Name to nothing but what Sense and Reason and Religion do avow And so Craving Your Pardon for the boldness and tediousness of this Address I rest Your Graces humble much obliged Servant Richard Baxter August 27. 1673. TO THE READER THis Dialogue cometh not to you from an apprehension of any extraordinary excellency of it as if it did much more than is already done but as extorted by mens necessity 1. Because so many ignorantly turn Papists of late 2. And some are pleased to Say I dare not say To Think that it is long of men in my condition 3. And it is the Art of the Papists which our vanity encourageth to seek to bring the old Books into oblivion which are unanswerable and to call still for new The intended Use of this is 1. To tell those that will dispute with a Papist on what terms and in what order to proceed lest they be cheated into a snare 2. To teach the Ignorant Doubters truly to understand wherein the difference between us and the Papists doth indeed consist that the talk of Sectaries Calling that which displeaseth them Popery nor the scandal of our real or seeming divisions may not delude them nor Papists puzzle them by putting them to prove every word in our thirty nine Articles or other Writings 3. To Resolve all that will be Resolved by Senses Reason Scripture or the Judgement and Tradition of the Church Of the multitude of Reasons against Popery enumerated I have here made good but one by a special disputation because I would not make the Book too big The rest I shall easily prove in another Volume if greater work and shortness of life do not hinder it which I fully expect And lest I have no more opportunity to answer their Charges against us on the other side I have reprinted and added Corrected the first part of my Key for Catholicks where it is long ago done and never answered There is extant one Piece of theirs against me unanswered called Mr. Johnson's Rejoynder about the Visibility of the Church which I seriously profess I have left unanswered as utterly unworthy of my precious Time till I have no greater matter to do which I hope will never be And he that will well study his opening of the terms in the latter end will see to how pitiful a case they are reduced I conclude with this solemn Profession That I am satisfied of the truth of what I write and must dye ere long in the faith which I here profess and lay my hopes of endless happiness on no other way And that I would joyfully receive any Saving Truth from Papists or any other who will bring
TRUE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES Here note 1. That our Religion hath its Essential parts And its Integral parts and Accidentals I. The Essentials of our Religion are contained in the Baptismal Covenant which is expounded in the CREED the LORDS PRAYER and the DECALOGUE as delivered and expounded by Christ and the Law of Nature II. Our Entire Religion in the Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals is contained wholly in the Law of Nature and the Canonical Scriptures The Essentials are delivered down to us two wayes 1. In Scripture with the rest 2. By the sure tradition of the Vniversality of Christians in actual Baptizings and the daily profession of Christianity This is all the Protestants Religion If you fasten any other on us we deny it we own no other And none know What is my Religion that is What I take for the Rule of my holy Faith Love and Life so well as my self P. This is meer craft you will make that only which is past controversie among us to be Your Religion that so your Religion may be past controversie too R. It is such Craft as containeth that naked truth which we trust all our own salvation on I say that I have no other Religion And if you know better than I disprove me P. I disprove you three wayes I. Because the Name Protestant signifieth no such Religion but somewhat else lately taken up II. Because the Angustane Confession the thirty nine Articles and such like are by your selves called The Articles of your Religion III. Because all your Writings declare that besides these you hold all those controverted points which are contrary to that which you call Popery R. I pray you mark D. that he would perswade you that he knoweth my Religion better than I do my self What if I should pretend the like as to his Religion Were I to be believed P. No but if you have an odd Religion of your own that proveth it not to be the Protestant Religion R. Remember D. that I come not hither to perswade you to any other Religion than this which I have mentioned Let him talk as long as he will what is other mens opinions I perswade you to nothing but this to take Gods Law of Nature and the Scripture for your Religion Either this is Right or Wrong If Right fix here and I have done If Wrong let that be disputed But yet I open to you all his three deceits I. The name Protestant doth not signifie our Religion but our Protesting against the Papists corruptions and additions I have no Religion but Christianity I am a Christian and that signifieth all my Religion I am a Catholick Christian that is of the Common Christian Faith and Church and not of any heretical dividing Sect And I am a Reformed Protestant Christian because I renounce Popery Therefore I rather say The Protestants than the Protestant Religion As if I were among Lepers If I say I am no Leper that signifieth not my Essence But if I say I am a Man and I am not a Leper I speak my Nature and my freedom from that disease So if I say I am a Christian Protestant I mean only that I am a Christian and no Papist or renouncing Popery as by the word Catholick I renounce all Sects and Schisms I tell you This is my meaning when I say I am a Protestant and can you tell my meaning better than my self II. And as to what he saith of the thirty nine Articles and other Church Confessions I answer None of these are our Religion in the sense now in question that is They are not taken by us to be the Divine Revealed-Rule of our Faith Love and Life which is our Religion now disputed of And that this is so I prove to you past all question For 1. Else should we have as many Religions as we have Church Confessions and should alter our Religion as oft as we alter our Confessions and our Religion should be as New as those Confessions All which the Protestants abhor 2. All those very Confessions themselves do assert that Gods Word is our only Religion and all mens Writings and Decrees are lyable to mistakes To pass by all the rest these are the words of our sixth Article Holy Scripture containeth all things Necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of faith or be thought Requisite or necessary to salvation What would you have more plain and full And in the Book of Ordination it is askt Are you perswaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ And are you determined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge and to teach Nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation but that which you shall be perswaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture Is not this plain P. Why then do you call the thirty nine Articles the Articles of your Religion And what is their use And why are all required to subscribe them R. 1. Their Use is to signifie how the Conjunct Pastors who use them do understand the Holy Scriptures in those points And that partly for the satisfaction of all forreign Churches who may hear us accused of Heresie or Error and partly to be a hedge to the Doctrine of young Preachers to keep them from vending mistakes in the Churches and also to try the soundness of their understandings 2. The Confessions and Articles and Catechisms are our Religion as the Writings of Perron Bellarmine Suarez c. or many of these agreeing are the Roman Religion They are not the Divine Revelation and Rule of faith and practice to us But they are the expression of our own conceptions of the sense of several chief matters in that Rule or Revelation So that they are the Expression of our faith or Religion taken subjectively for acts and habits and not our objective Rule it self Our Sermons and Prayers are our Religion in this sense that is The Expression of our own Religious Conceptions And so are your Sermons and your Writings also to you But if this were our Rule of Faith and Life and so our Divine Objective Religion then we should be of as many Religions as we are several persons For every one hath his several Expressions And every new Sermon or Book or Prayer would be a new part of Religion And so with you also So that this doubt is past all doubt Our Confessions are but the expressions of our personal belief and not our Rule of Faith III. And as to your third pretence that we have other Articles as opposite to Popery I answer Our Religion as a Rule of Faith and Worship is one thing And our Rejecting all Corruptions and Additions is another E. g. My Religion is that our God is only the true God
The words could not come down to us without some to deliver them We have the Bible by Tradition and we have practical Tradition of Baptism and the Creed by it self and that in many languages where we are sure we have all the necessary sence But do you remember that this is Vniversal Tradition and not meer Roman Tradition such as is certain by moral Evidence even the consent of all that are yet of cross opinions and Interests as to matter of fact Historical Evidence and not the pretended certainty of a Pope and his favourites phanatically claiming a spirit of Infallibility But I am not now disputing with you I am only telling you that the Protestant Religion is nothing but Christianity and the Scriptures And all our Confessions are our Religion besides Consent but as our Sermons and Treatises are which vary as they are various expressions of mens various subjective faith while Gods word varyeth not P. If the Bible be your Religion then the Ceremonial Law of Moses is your Religion For that is part of the Bible R. You study what to say against another and never think how it concerneth your selves 1. Is not the Bible at least Part of your Religion You dare not deny it And is the Ceremonial Law of Moses therefore your Religion 2. I told you that as a perfect man hath hair and nails which are but Accidents so the Bible hath more than the Integrals of our Religion 3. The Ceremonies of Moses in that sense as now they are delivered to us in the Bible are parts or appurtenances of our Religion That is the historical narrative of those Abrogated Laws which now bind us not as Laws but tell us as the Prophesies what was heretofore and how Christ was fore-typified and what intimations of Gods will we may gather from the history And the abrogated Laws are no otherwise delivered to us and so we must use them P. If the ten Commandments be your Religion you must keep the Jewish seventh day Sabbath so that neither there can you fix R. The same answer will serve 1. The ten Commandments are no otherwise part of our Religion thâ—n they are of yours 2. They are a Law to us as delivered and expounded by Christ and in Nature and the seventh day is an abrogated part of Moses Law P. If the Creed be your Religion you must take the Article of Christs descent into Hell to be necessary to salvation R. 1. Is the Creed no part of your Religion As you answer so may we 2. I did not tell you that the Creed had no more than the Essentials I told you that all the Essence of Christianity is in the Baptismal Covenant And he that understandeth that understandeth it all And that the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Christian Decalogue are the exposition of it But the Exposition may have somewhat more than the Essentials 3. The Creed was not written first in English nor Latine And Christs descent to Hades is more needful to be believed than his descent to Hell as the word is commonly taken in English But to conclude remember 1. That I profess here to own and plead for no other Religion as we explained the word but Gods Law of Nature and Scripture 2. That I profess to perswade D. to no other And you cannot make me a Religion against my will CHAP. IV. What is the Papists Religion R. I Have plainly told you what my own and the Protestants Religion is viz. Nothing but Christianity contained Integrally in the holy Scriptures And the Essentials being the Baptismal Covenant explained in the Creed Lords prayer and Christian Decalogue are delivered to us both in the said Scriptures and by distinct Tradition which also hath brought down to us the Scripture it self Not a Tradition depending on the pretended Authority of the Roman Pope or party or on any other that shall pretend the like But that Historical Evidence of matter of fact which is surelier given us by all sorts of Christians taking in the Concord of many Hereticks Infidels and Enemies which evidence dependeth not on the credit of supernatural Revelation but on the natural credibility yea and certainty of such universal Circumstantiated Concordant testimony and is necessarily antecedent to the Belief of supernatural Revelations in the particulars as sight and hearing were in the auditors of Christ and the Apostles seeing these two Acts of Knowledge Whatever God saith is True and This God saith must necessarily go before our Belief or Trust that This is True because God saith it And so we run not in a circle and need not a supernatural faith for the founding of our first supernatural faith that is A first before the first Without fraud or obscurity this is our faith and Religion Now do you as honestly and plainly tell me What is Yours which D. must be perswaded to For I confess that I take it to be an unintelligible thing and despair that ever you give any man a certain notice what it is which may be truly called the Religion of your roman-catholick-Roman-Catholick-Church P. I shall make you understand it if you are willing But 1. Note that Religion being a larger word than faith includeth also Practice or Manners we must give you a distinct account of each For they have not the same Causes Our Faith is Divine But our Manners or Practice must follow the Laws of the Church as well as the Immediate Laws of God These must not be confounded R. Man hath three faculties Intellective Volitive and Vitally Executive or Active Our Religion subjectively must be in all viz. The Sanctity of all by Holy Life Light and Love And therefore the Rule which is our objective Religion doth extend to all to Intellect Will and Practice And surely for All there is a Rule directly Divine given by Inspiration of the Holy Ghost or Christs own words and subordinate Rules by Christs Ministers which are directly Humane and no otherwise Divine than as God hath in General authorized them thereto Even as the Soveraign hath the only Vniversal Legislative power and Magistrates by Him are authorized to subordinate mandates and acts of Government And so we have a Divine Faith and Revelation and a subordinate Humane faith and Ministerial Revelation or Preaching We have Divine Perswasions and subordinate Perswasions of men We have Divine Laws yea and executions and we have Humane subordinate Laws and executions If you resolve to call the Humane Divine so far as they are indeed Authorized by God I will not quarrel about words But remember 1. That so you must do also on the same reasons by the Laws of Kings and the Commands of Parents who are as much authorized by God to their proper Government 2. And I hope you mean not to Confound these Humane Laws with Gods own Vniversal Laws nor humane faith with Divine faith And be it known to you It is the Divine Revelations and Laws as distinct from the Humane which we are
now calling our Religion and disputing of though this Religion teach us to obey Parents Pastors and Princes and that obedience may be consequentially and reductively called Religious if you please But if really your Religion be not Divine but Humane let us know it For by the word Religion we essentially mean that which is Divine P. Men were the speakers and writers of the Scriptures and so far they are humane as well as the Decrees of the present Church R. The Decalogue was witten by God and delivered by the Ministry of Angels Christ was owned by a Voice from Heaven And himself spake and did most recited by the four Evangelists And the Prophets and Apostles spake by the immediate Infallible Inspiration of the Holy Ghost So that the Holy Ghost is the Author of the Scriptures But the present Pastors of the Church instead of that Immediate Revelation from God by the Spirits Inspiration have but the ordinary help of the Spirit to understand those same Revelations and that proportioned to the measure of their diligence natural parts and helps of Art as the knowledge of Theologie is attained by other Students who are none of them perfect or free from error P. I will tell you what our Religion is It is Gods Word concerning things to be Believed and Done delivered partly in the Canonical Scriptures and partly by Oral Tradition and received by the Church and by it delivered to us The Trent Catech. Prefac q. 12. saith Omnis doctrinae ratio quae fidelibus tradenda sit verbo Dei continetur quod in Scripturam Traditionesque distributum est The Reason of every doctrine which is to be delivered to the faithful is contained in the Word of God which is distributed into the Scripture and Traditions Vide Concil Senonens in Bin. Decr. 5. p. 671. Concil Tridentini Sess 4. p. 802. Perspiciensque hanc Veritatem disciplinam contineri in libris sacris sine scripto Traditionibus quae ex ipsius Christi ore ab Apostolis acceptae ab ipsi Apostolis Spiritu sancto dictante quasi per manus traditae ad nos usque pervenerunt orthodoxorum patrum sententiam sequuta omnes libros tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti nec non Traditiones ipsas tum ad fidem tum ad mores pertinentes tanquam vel ore tenus a Christo vel a Spiritu sancto dictaâ—as continua successione in Ecclesia Catholica conservatas pari pietatis affectu reverentia suscipit ac veneratur Bellarmin de Verbo Dei lib. 4. c. 2 3. sheweth the divers sorts of unwritten Traditions which are part of Gods Word some de side as the perpetual Virginity of Mary that there are but four Gospels c. and some of Manners as Crossing Fast-dayes c. Easter Whitsontide and other Festivals Veron de Reg. fid cap. 2. saith The total and only Rule of the Catholick faith to which all are obliged under pain of Heresie and Excommunication is Divine Revelation delivered to the Prophets and Apostles proposed by the Catholick Church in her General Councils or by her Universal practice to be believed as an Article of Catholick faith All that is of this nature is an Article or doctrine of faith And no other doctrine can be of faith if either the first Condition fail viz. Divine Revelation or the second which is a Proposal by the Universal Church p. 5. No doctrine grounded on Scripture diversly interpreted either by the antient Fathers or our Modern Doctors is an Article of faith For such a doctrine though it may be revealed yet the revelation is not ascertained to us nor proposed by the Church Nor any Proposition which can be proved only by consequence drawn from Scripture though the consequences were certain and evident and deduced from two propositions of Scripture Yet these doctrines are Certain when the premises are so Gratians decrees the Papal decrees contained in the body of the Canon Law none of them do constitute an Article of saith Nor that which is defined in Provincial Councils though the Pope preside in person for the second condition is alwayes wanting in this case and very often the first p. 11. I did not say that such definitions were not of faith but they are not of Catholick faith or which all as Catholicks are bound to hold as of faith and the contrary to which is heretical and removeth from the bosome of the Church p. 12 13. The Practice even of the Vniversal Church is no sufficient ground for an Article of Catholick faith by reason the object of faith is Truth and oft times the Church proceeds in matter of practice upon probable Opinions and this probability is sufficient to justifie the practice which the Church on just cause may change As e. g. as Vasquez teacheth the Church did antiently pray in the Mass for Infidels alive and Catechumens dead and the Sacrifice of the Mass was offered for them and yet he rather inclineth to the contrary that the Sacrifice of the Mass ought not to be offered but for the faithful living and dead by which Opinion the Church seemeth guided at present But Vasquez answers that the Church following a probable opinion did practise that which she did not declare to be of faith p. 15. So General Councils when they mention any thing in this manner by way of simple assertion and do not properly define For as Bellarmine affirms it is necessary that General Councils properly define the thing in question as a Decree which ought to be held as of Catholick faith Hence Bellarmine adds they are not properly Hereticks who hold the Pope not to be above all Councils though he say the last Laterane Council under Leo the tenth Ses 11. expresly and professedly teacheth that the Pope is above all Councils and rejects the contrary Decree of the Council of Basil because it is doubtful whether the Laterane Council defined that doctrine properly as a Decree to be believed with Catholick faith The same Bellarm. de Concil l. 2. c. 19. also requireth that the definition be made Conciliarly Pope Martin the fifth said he only confirmed those Decrees of faith which were made in the Council of Constance Conciliariter that is after the manner of other Councils the question being first diligently examined But its clear saith he that this Decree that a General Council hath immediate authority from Christ which all even the Pope are bound to obey was made without any examining p. 17. The object defined must be truly and properly an object of faith and a Decree ought to be on a thing universally proposed to the whole Church Vasquez holds It is not at all erroneous to affirm that a General Council may err in Precepts and in particular Judgements and p. 19. in framing Laws not necessary to salvation or making superfluous Laws Without all doubt a General Council may err in a question of fact which depends on testimony and
information of men So the sixth General Council condemned Honorius of Heresie by false Information and misunderstanding his Epistles p. 20. The Pope saith Suarez to a particular action belonging to humane Prudence hath no infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost As that such or such an excommunication is valid or that such or such a Kingdom is disposable by the Pope for such and such causes So far Veron who is most favourable to you in narrowing our faith R. Thus far you have resolved me but I must crave somewhat more Qu. I. Are there no Essential Constitutive parts of your Religion more necessary than the Integrals and Accidentals Have you no description for it but that It is Divine Revelation proposed by the Church The Doctrine of Sacrificing was a Divine Revelation to Adam and the difference of clean and unclean Beasts to Noah and the Jewish Law was Gods Revelation to Moses and them And yet I suppose Christianity is somewhat different from all these Is not Christianity your Religion Hath Christianity no Constitutive special Essence but only the Genus of Divine Revelation which is common to that with all other Divine Revelations And what if you add to a Prophet or Apostle Was Agabus Prophesie of Paul or Pauls of the event of the shipwrack c. essential to Christianity Hath Christianity no Essence Or is all Divine Revelation essential to it P. You take advantage of the disagreement of our Doctors You know that some few acknowledg distinct fundamentals and some deny the distinction in your sense And most of us say that no man can enumerate the things necessary to all but that it dependeth upon mens various capacities educations and means of knowing And in sum that no more is necessary to all to be explicitly believed but that Gods Revelations are true and that All are Gods Revelations which the Church proposeth as such You may take our judgement much from him that cometh nearest to you whom I have heard you much praise as most moderate and judicious viz. Dr. H. Holden Anal. fid l. 1. c 5. Lect. 2. p. 53. Divines disputing of the necessity of points to be believed do commonly tend this way to denote the Articles of things revealed the explicite and express belief whereof is as they opine altogether necessary to all Christians The resolution of which question is among them so doubtful and uncertain as that they are in this as ☞ they are in all things else distracted and divided into various Opinions which they that care for them may seek To me they are as Nothing while the Authors of them profess that they have nothing of Certainty Yea to one that meditateth the matter it self laying by all preoccupation it is most clearly manifest that the Resolution of this question is not only unprofitable that I say not pernicious as it is handled by Divines but also vain and impossible It is unprofitable because no good accrueth by it to souls ☞ It is pernicious while Divines for the most part assert that only One or Two Articles yea as some say no singular Article at all is necessary to be believed of all by an explicite faith For hence however the truth of the matter be the colder Christians taking occasion do little care to obtain that degree of Knowledge in the Mysteries of faith which they might commodiously and easily attain It is Impossible seeing it is Manifest that no particular Rule or Points to be believed or Number of Articles can in this Matter be given or assigned which shall be wholly common and necessary to all Christians For this dependeth on every individual mans natural capacity means of instruction and all the other circumstances of each mans life and disposition which are to each man so special that we can determine of nothing at all that is common to all But I handle the Necessity of points to be Believed in a far other sense For the Articles of the Christian faith which I now call necessary I do not at all understand to be such as all and every one must distinctly know or hold by explicite assent But I mean only such the belief of which is accounted universally by the whole Catholick Church so substantial and essential as that he that will deservedly be esteemed and truly be a member of it must needs adhere to them all at least Implicitely and Indirectly that is by believing whatsoever the holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of divine faith And therefore he is for that cause to be removed from its Communion and Society who shall pertinaciously and obstinately deny the least of them much more if he maintain the contrary while he knoweth and seeth that it is the Universal sentence of that Church that we must adhere to that as an Article of faith And in this sense I will henceforth use the word Necessity R. This might have been said in fewer and plainer words viz. That your Divines herein do commonly err and that perniciously and yet that indeed he is of the same mind viz. that It is impossible to name the Articles necessary to be believed explicitely of all because each mans divers capacity means and circumstances diversifie them to each But that only this one thing is explicitely to be believed That whatsoever the Holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of faith is true And therefore that no man must pertinaciously deny any thing which he knoweth the Church so holdeth So that nothing is necessarily to be believed actually and indeed but Gods and the Churches Veracity P. Another of ours that cometh as near you as most openeth this more fully Davenport alias Fr. a Sancta Clara De. Nat. Grat. p. 111 c. As to the Ignorance of those things that are of necessity of Means or End there is difference among the Doctors For Soto 4. d. 5. q. 5. l. de Nat. Grat. c. 12. Vega l. 6. c. 20. sup Trid. hold that now in the Law of Grace there is no more explicite faith required than in the Law of Nature Yea Vega ib. Gabriel 2. d. 21. q. 2. ar 3. 3. d. 21. q. 2. think that in the Law of Nature and in Cases in the Law of Grace some may be saved with only natural knowledge and that the habit of faith is not required Whom Horantius terms men of great name and will not accuse of heresie I would this great mans modesty were more frequent with modern Doctors Yea Alvarez de aux disp 56. with others seemeth to hold that to justification there is not at all required the knowledge of a supernatural object or the supernatural knowledge of the object Others hold That both to Grace and Glory is required an explicite belief of Christ Bonav 3. d. 25 c. Others that at least to salvation is an explicite belief of the Gospel or
of Christ though not to Grace or Justification And this is common in the Schools as Ferera shews that followeth it And for this Opinion Scotus is cited But I think he holdeth that explicite belief of Christ or the Gospel is not of necessity of means as to Grace or Glory as 4. d. 3. q. 4. What is plainer than that now men may be saved without the explicite belief of Christ And I plainly think its Scotus's and the common opinion which Vega followeth and Faber 4. d. 3. and Petigianis very well and of the Thomists Bannes 2.2 q. 2. a. 8. Canus and others Yea the Trent Council seemeth to favour it Sess 6. c. 4. p. 114. So Corduba Medina Bradwardine ☞ And such as have no explicite faith in Christ are not formally without the Church This way go Victoria in 4. Relect. 4. tit Richard de Villa med 3.25 a. 3. q. 1 c. Well saith Petigianis 2. d. 35. q. 1. a. 9. that if there were a simple old woman to whom some false Opinion were preached by a false Prophet e. g. that the substance of Bread remaineth with the body of Christ in the Sacrament and she believe it Doth she sin by this No. p. 119. Yea if she so err through piety thinking that the Church so believeth perhaps she should merit p. 120. For my part I think that the Vulgar committing themselves to the instruction of the Pastors trusting of their knowledge and goodness if they be deceived it will be taken for invincible ignorance or at least probable as Herera which excuseth from faultiness Yea some Doctors give so much to the Instruction of Pastors that have the care of the Sheep that if they should teach that ☞ hic nunc God would be hated the rude Parishioner were bound to believe him which yet I think false p. 123. It seemeth at this day to be the common judgement of the Schools and Divines that the Laity erring with their Doctors or Pastors are altogether excused from all fault ☞ Yea oft times so materially erring do merit for the act of Christian obedience which they owe their Pastors as you may see in Valent. To. 3. disp 1. q. 2. p. 5. and others So Angles 2. d. 22. q. 2. dub 7. Vasqu p. 2. disp 121. In case they never doubted of the Veracity of their Prelates Much more saith Sancta Clara there to prove that the ignorant Protestants here may be saved citing further to his end Zanchez in Decal l. 2. c. 1. n. 8. Alph. a Castro Simanca Argon Tanner Faber Emanâ—sa Rozell And out of Argon tells us when Faith is sufficiently proposed viz. When faith is so confirmed by Reasons holiness of life the confutation of the contrary errors and by some signs as that Reason it self beginneth prudently to prescribe that the matters of faith heard are to be believed and the contrary Sect is false p. 125. And probl 16. p. 127. Whether men may be blamelesly ignorant of the Law of Nature and the Decalogue The common opinion is that they may not of the first principles but 1. Of the easie conclusions for some time and of the remoter conclusions for a longer time Such are the Commandments of the Decalogue as to the substance of the act as in some lying theft fornication manslaughter in Will at least c. R. Qu. II. But do you think that men may not as invincibly and inculpably be unacquainted with the Authority of the Pope and Roman Councils or Church as you say they may be ignorant of Christ and the Law of Nature I instance in the millions of the Abassme Christians who for above a thousand years never heard from the Pope or his emissaries P. That cannot be denyed For they have not the necessary means R. How then do you make your Churches proposal to be the necessary point to be Explicitely believed of all P. We do not mean it of all that Will be saved For you hear that some may be saved without any explicite belief of Christ But we mean it of all that will be in the Church and be saved there R. But do you not hold and say that out of the Church there is no salvation P. Some say so and some say that It is rare out of the Church R. But are the Ethiopian Christians out of the Church P. They are out of the true Church being Schismaticks R. Why said your Author before that Infidels were not formally out of the Church who are invincibly ignorant P. But other Doctors are of another opinion R. But Christ is the Saviour of his body Are not those of the Church who are saved or in a state of salvation What hold you of that P. Some say They are all of the Church and others that Christ saveth more than his Church And some say that They are of the Church Regenerate but not of the Church Congregate But few own this because it is your distinction as of a visible and invisible Church R. Qu. III. But above all I would know of you what you mean by the Catholick Church whose proposal is necessary to the being of faith P. We mean the Roman Catholick Church that is the Pope and his Subjects R. Do you mean the Pope without a General Council or a General Council without the Pope or only both agreeing and conjunct R. You take advantage of our differences but those do but shew that this is no point of faith Some hold that the Pope alone may serve and some that the Pope in a Provincial Council and some that a General Council without him But you heard Veron taketh in the Council and it is no true Council without the Pope And therefore the surest opinion saith that it must be both in Concord R. But what is the Vniversal Church whose Practice is made sufficient instead of or without a General Council P. It is the whole Roman Church real distinct from the Representative R. Is it the Clergy only or the Laity only or must it be both P. Both but not equally but in their several places R. Must it be All the Church without any excepted Or only the greater part P. These are points not agreed of and therefore not of faith Some say that it must be so many as that the dissenters be not considerable But how many are considerable or inconsiderable is undetermined Others say It may be the minor part that practise so be it the rest do not contradict it or do contrarily R. I will trouble you with no more such questions though I have a multitude which should be here resolved for I perceive that we must expect nothing but a Maze of uncertainties and confusion We are next in order to Agree upon our common principles which must be supposed in our following Dispute For they that Agree in nothing are uncapable of disputing of any thing seeing all conclusions of which we doubt must be drawn from more evident truths of which we
what Turks did ever exercise such Inhumane fury Besides their burning and tormenting men as Hereticks that will not do all this and more and will not say as they require them XI Reason Their Church indeed is invisible while they deny it and an unknown thing For 1. Men are forced into it by such bloody Laws as that they cannot rationally be known to be Consenters 2. And they have no certain faith to constitute a Church-member For they hold that his obligation to believe is according to his inward and outward means of which no man can possibly judge And so no man can know whether himself or another have that faith which is required as necessary to salvation And many of them say That they that believe not in Christ have saving faith and are in the Church if they had not sufficient means XII Reason The Papacy doth intolerably tyrannize over Kings and teach such Doctrines of Perjury and Rebellion as their very Religion as is not in the practice of it to be endured in any Kingdom nor dare they fully practise it The Crowns and Lives of Princes being at the mercy of the Pope As the said Laterane Council sheweth XIII Reason Their Church is oft Essentially unholy heretical and wicked because the Pope is often so who is an Essential part of it And therefore it is not the holy Catholick Church General Councils have upon examination judged their Popes to be Hereticks Schismaticks Adulterers Murderers Simonists yea guilty of Blasphemy or Infidelity it self And the Church cannot be Holy whose Essential part is so unholy XIV Reason Their Churches succession is so notoriously interrupted and their Papacy so often altered in its causes as that it is become a confounded and a meer uncertain thing So many notorious or judged Hereticks Simonists Murderers Sodomites Adulterers have possessed the Seat who were therefore uncapable that the line of succession must needs be interrupted by them And so many wayes have they been made or elected sometimes by the people sometimes by the City-Presbyters sometimes by Emperours sometimes by Cardinals sometimes by Councils that if any one way of Election be necessary they have lost their Papacy long ago If no one way be necessary then the Turk may make a Pope XV. Reason Their Church called One is really two in specie one Headed by a Pope and another by a General Council For while the Head or Supream Ruler is an Essential part and one part of the people own one Head and another part own another Head as they do the Churches thus constituted cannot be One. And also de individuo there have been long two or three Popes at once and consequently two or three Churches And to this day none knoweth which was the right XVI Reason They plead for a Church which never had a being in the world that is All Christians Headed by one Pope When all the Christian world did never take him for their Head nor were governed by him to this day XVII Reason They dreadfully injure the holy Scriptures as if Jesus Christ and all the Prophets and Apostles in all those Sacred Records had not had skill or will to speak intelligibly and plainly to deliver us the doctrines necessary to salvation But they make their Voluminous Councils more intelligible and sufficient as if they had done better than Christ and his Apostles And when men must only Discern Gods Laws and Judge Causes by the Law they make themselves Judges of the Law it self that is of God the Judge of all and of the Law by which they must be judged XVIII Reason There is no other Sect of Christians under Heaven which hath so many differences among themselves or have written so many Books against one another as the Papists And though many of them are of great importance yea some are about the very Essence or Constitutive Head of their Church yet have they no handsomer way to palliate all by than by saying that these are but Opinions and no Articles of faith and the Infallible Judge dare not decide them No though it be diversity of Expositions of Gods own Word yet Commentators still differ without any hope of a decision as if Gods Word were not to be believed but were only the matter of uncertain Opinion till the Pope and Council have expounded it and no more Scripture is de fide than they expound XIX Reason Perjury is made the very Character of their Church or the brand by which it is stigmatized As is visible 1. In the Trent Oath imposed on their Clergy which whoever taketh he is immediately perjured and 2. By their disobliging men from Oaths and Vows even the Subjects of Princes from their Oaths of Allegiance whenever the Pope shall excommunicate them and give their Dominions to others as is decreed Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. XX. Reason They are guilty of Idolatry in their ordinary Worship by the Mass while they worship Bread as their Lord God Nor will it justifie them to say that if they thought it to be Bread they would not worship it Any more than it would justifie Julian to say that he would not worship the Sun if he thought not that it was God And they confess that if it prove to be still Bread their Worship will prove Idolatry and we desire no other proof And I am not able to justifie their sending God his Worship by a Cross Crucifix or other Image as a medium cultum from being a gross Violation of the second Commandment which they leave out XXI Reason Their Religion greatly tendeth to Mortifie Christianity and turn it into a dead Image by destroying much of its life and power 1. By befriending Ignorance and hiding the holy Scripture forbidding all the people to read them in a known tongue without a special license blaspheming Gods Word as if so read it had more tendency or likelihood to hurt men than to profit them to damn them than to save them when they will say otherwise of all their own Vulgar postils and such like writings 2. And by teaching the people a blind devotion viz. to pray in an unknown tongue and to worship God by words not understood 3. And by making up a Religion much if not far most of external formalities and a multitude of ceremonies and the opus operatum of their various Sacraments As if God delighted in such actions as befit not the acceptance of a grave and sober man or as if Guilt and Sin would be wiped off and charmed away into virtue and holiness by such corporeal motions shews and words XXII Reason Their Religion though it thus tend to gratifie the ungodly by deceitful remedies and hopes yet is very uncomfortable to the godly For 1. By it no man can know that he is a true believer and not a child of Hell much less that he shall be saved For they teach that no Divine can tell them what Articles are necessary to be believed to salvation
if you make Gods own ordinary Natural Revelations or significations to be false how will you be able to disprove the Infidel about the rest 3. And then note that our Case is yet lower and plainer than all this For if the very Being of the Creatures which is the Matter of these Signs be uncertain to us and all our senses and minds deceived about it then we have no place for enquiry Whether this Creature be any sign of the mind of God As if the hearing of all men was deceived that thought they heard that voice This is my Beloved Son or Pauls that thought he heard Christ speak to him Saul Saul c. or if their Eyes and Intellects were deceived that thought they saw Christ and his miracles or that think now that they read the Bible and indeed there be no such thing as a Bible no such words c. then there is no room to enquire what they signifie For nothing hath no signification Truth and Goodness are affections or modes of Being And if we cannot by all our sound senses know the Being of things we can much less know that they are True or Good Therefore all knowledge and all faith and all Religion is overthrown by your denyal of the truth of our Senses and Intellects perception of things sensible Reason IV. And by this means you are not capable of being disputed with nor any Controversie between you and any others in the world of being decided while you deny sense For then you agree not with mankind in any one common principle And they that agree in nothing can dispute of nothing For this is the first principle Est vel non est is first to be agreed on before we can dispute any farther of a substance What will you do to confute an adversary but drive him to deny a certain principle And can you drive him to deny a lower fundamental Principle than the Being of a substance perceived by sense yea by all the sound senses of all men in the world Reason V. Yea it is specially to be noted that our difference is not only about the species of a sensible substance but about the very substance it self in genere Whether all our senses perceive any substance at all or not Suppose the question were Whether it be water or not which all mens senses see in Rivers If a Papist would deny it to be water doubtless he denyed the agreeing judgement of all mens Intellect by sense But if he should also say It is no substance which we call water or earth This were to deny the first Principle and most fundamental perception in nature Now that this is your case is undenyable For 1. You profess that Christs Body and Blood are not sensible there That it is not the quantity shape number colour smell weight c. of Christs Body and Blood which we perceive and that these Accidents are not the Accidents of Christ 2. And you believe that the Bread and Wine is gone that is changed into the body and blood of Christ so that no part of their substance matter or form is left And you put no third substance under these Accidents in the stead So that you maintain that it is the quantity of nothing the figure of nothing the colour the weight the scituation the smell the number c. of nothing which all mens Intellects by sense perceive So that the Controversie is Whether it be any substance at all which by those accidents we perceive And when we see handle taste smell it you believe or say you believe that it is none neither Bread or Wine or any other Now if by sense we cannot be sure of the very Being of a substance we can be sure of nothing in the world Reason VI. Yea it is to be noted that though Brutes have no Intellects yet their Sense and Imagination herein wholly agreeth with the common perception of man A Dog or a Mouse will eat the bread as common bread and a Swine will drink the Wine as common Wine and therefore have the same perception of it as of common bread and wine And so their senses must be all deceived as well as mans And Brutes have as accurate perfect senses as men have and some much more And meer natural operations are more certain and constant as we see by the worlds experience than meer Reason and Argumentation Birds and Beasts are constant in their perceptions and course of action being not left to the power of Mutable free-will Reason VII You hereby quite overthrow your own foundation which is fetcht from the Concord of all your party which you call all the Church You think that a General Council could not agree to any thing aâ— an Article of faith if it were not such when it is buâ— the Major Vote that agree You say that Traditioâ— is Infallible because All the Church agreeth in iâ— when it is perhaps but your Sect which is a Minoâ— part But do you not overthrow all this when yoâ— profess that All the senses of all the sound men in thâ— world and all the simple perceptions of their Intellectâ— by sense do agree that there is substance yea dâ— specie Bread and Wine after the Consecration No onâ— mans perception by sense disagreed in this from thâ— institution of the Sacrament to this day that can be proved or the least probability of it given And iâ— this Concord be no proof much less is yours For 1. The Intellect in Reasoning is more fallible than iâ— its Immediate perception of things sensed or perceived by sense 2. Yours is but the Consent of some men but ours is the Consent of all mankind Yours among your selves hath oft in Councils a Minor part of dissenters who must be overvoted by the rest But our Case hath never one dissenting sense or perception Reason VIII By this denyal of sense you overthrow the foundations of Humane Converse How can men make any sure Contracts or perform any duty on a sure ground if the Concordant senses of all the world be false Parents cannot be sure which are their own Children nor Children which are their own Parents Husbands cannot certainly know their own Wives from their neighbours No Subjects can certainly know their own Prince No man can be sure whether he buy or sell receive money or pay it c. No man can be sure that there is a Pope or Priest or man in the world Reason IX You seem to me to Blaspheme God and to make him the greatest Deceiver of mankind even in his holy Worship Whereas God cannot lye It is impossible And the Devil is the Father of lyes And you make God to tell all the world as plainly as if words told them even by demonstration to their sight smell feeling taste that here is Bread and Wine when there is none yea that it is at least some substance which they perceive when it is none at all Reason X. You thus fain
God to be Cruel to Mankind and that under pretence of Grace Even to put such hard Conditions of salvation on man which seem to us impossible to any but mad men or those who by faction have cast their minds into a dream If these be Gods Conditions that no man shall be saved that doth not believe that all his senses and all the senses of all the world are deceived when they perceive Bread and Wine or substance many may take on them to believe it but few will believe it and be saved indeed Reason XI Hereby you make the Gospel or New Covenant to be far harder and more rigorous than either the Law of Moses or the Law of Innocency For neither of these did damn men for believing the agreeing senses of all mankind Perfect Obedience to a perfect nature was fit to be a delight The burdensome Ceremonies had no such Impossibilities in them None of them obliged men to renounce all their senses and to come to Heaven by so hard a way Reason XII You seem to me to Contradict Gods Law and terms of life and to forge the clean contrary as his He saith He that cometh to God must Believe that God is c. and He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned But you seem to me to say in plain effect He that Believeth Gods Natural Revelations to all mens senses shall be damned and that believeth that the said Revelations are false may be saved caeteris paribus Reas XIII And what a thing by this do you mak◠Gods Grace to be Whereas true Grace is the Repaire◠and perfecter of Nature you make it to be the destroye◠and deceiver of Nature The use of Grace according to your faith is to cause men to believe that Gods natural Revelations are false and that all the senses of th◠world in this matter are deceived Whereas a mad ma◠can believe this without Grace Reas XIV By this doctrine you abominably corrupt the Church with hypocrisie while all that will hav◠Communion with you must be forced to profess tha◠all mens senses are thus deceived And can you thin◠that really they can all believe it or rather you◠Church must be mostly made up of gross hypocrites who falsly take on them to believe it when they do not Reas XV. And by this means you make the Vnity of the Church to become a meer Impossibility For you◠condition of union is that men all believe this among other Articles of your faith And that man hath lost o◠vitiated his humanity who can believe and expect tha◠all Christians in the world should ever believe that al◠the senses of all the world are thus deceived You might as well say The Church shall never have Unity till all Christians do believe that David or Christ was a Worm and no man a door a Vine a thief a Rock in proper sense or we shall have no unity till we renounce both our humanity and animality and the light and Law of God in Nature And after this to cry up Vnity and cry down Schism what abominable hypocrisie is it Reas XVI And by this doctrine what bloody inhumanity is become the brand or Character of your Church When you decree Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. that all that will not thus renounce their senses and give the lie to Gods natural revelations shall be excommunicated and utterly undone in this World even banished from all that they have and from the Land of their Nativity Yea your Inquisition must torture and burn them and your Writ de hereticis comburendis must be issued out against them to fry them to death in flames if they will not renounce the common senses of mankind Reas XVII And it even amazeth me to think what horrid Tyrants you would thus make all Christian Princes When the said Canon determineth that they shall be first Excommunicate and then cast out of their Dominions which shall be given to others and their subjects absolved from their allegiance and fidelity except they will exterminate all these as hereticks from their Dominions who will not give the lye to all mens senses and to Gods natural Revelations The plain English is ☞ He shall not be the Lord of his own Dominions who will have men to be his subjects or such as will not renounce both their humanity and animality or sense For to perceive substances in genere in specie by sense and to believe or trust the Common senses of all the World about things sensible as being the surest way that we have of perception is as necessary to a Man as Ratiocination is Choose then O ye Princes of the Earth whether you will be Papists and whether you will have no men to be your Subjects even none that believe the senses of themselves and all the world Reas XVIII Thus also your Idolatry exceedeth in absurdity the Idolatry of all the Heathens else in the World Even Canibals and the most barbarous Nations upon Earth For if they call men to Worship an Image the Sun the Moon an Ox or an Onion of which the Egyptians are accused they do but say that some spiritual or celestial numen affixeth his operative presence to this Creature But they never make men swear that there is no Image or Sun or Moon or Ox or Onion left but that the whole substance of it is turned into God or somewhat else Your Absurdities tend to make the grossest Idolatry seem comparatively to yours a very fair and tolerable errour Reas XIX By these means you expose Christianity to the scorn of humane nature and all the world You teach Heathens Mahometans and other Infidels to deride Christ as we do Mahomet and to say that a Christian Maketh and Eateth his God and his faith is a Believing that Gods supernatural Revelations are a lie and that God is like the Devil the great Deceiver of the world Wo be to the world because of offences and wo be to him by whom offence cometh Reas XX. Lastly by this means you are the grand pernicious hinderers of the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel world For you do as it were proclaim to them Never turn Christians till you will believe that Gods Natural Revelations are false and that all mens senses in the world are deceived in judging that there is Bread Wine or sensible substance after the words of Consecration These are the mischievous Consequents of your doctrine But one benefit I confess doth come by occasion of it that it is easier hereby to believe that there are Devils when we see how they can deceive men and to believe the evil of sin when we see how it maketh men mad and to believe that there is a Hell when we see such a Hell already on Earth as Learned Pompous Clergie men that have studied to attain this malignant madness to decree to fry men in the flames and damn them to Hell and
blood which is shed for you 1 Cor. 11.25 This Cup is the new Testament in my blood And here no man denyeth a double Trope at least no man expoundeth it that the Cup or the Wine was the New Testament it self And yet it is as expresly said as it is that the Bread is the Body it self How then will they prove that one is spoken properly and the other figuratively III. There is no more found in these words to assert the Bread to be Christs Body than is found in a multitude of such phrases in Scripture asserting things which all men expound otherwise As in Joh. 15.1 I am the Vine and my Father is the husbandman Joh. 10.7 9. I am the door Joh. 10.14 I am the good Shepherd and know my Sheep Psal 22.6 I am a worm and no man which being a prophesie of Christ a Heretick imitating you might deny Christs humanity 1 Cor. 10.4 That Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 12.27 Ye are the body of Christ Mat. 5.13 14. Ye are the Salt of the earth Ye are the lights of the World Joh. 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are Life Abundance such are in the Scripture as All flesh is grass Christ is the Lamb of God the Lyon of the Tribe of Juda the bright Morning Star the head Corner Stone c. And it is yet more fully satisfactory that the Hebrew constantly putteth is for signifieth as you may find in all the old Testament having no other word so fit to express signifying by And as Christ spake after that manner so the New Testament ordinarily imitateth As Daniel and the Revelation agree in saying of the Visions This is such or such a thing instead of this signifieth it So Christ Matth. 13.21 22 23 37 38 39. He that soweth is the Son of man the field is the world the good seed are the Children of the Kingdom the tares are the children of the wicked one the enemy is the Devil the Harvest is the end The reapers are the Angels And thus ordinarily IV. Yea the same kind of phrase used before in the Passeover teacheth us how to expound this Exod. 12.11 Ye shall eat it in haste It is the Lords Passeover vers 27. It is the sacrifice of the Lords Passeover V. Yea the ordinary way and phrase of Christs teaching may yet farther put us out of doubt For he usually taught by Parables and expresseth his sense by such assertions As Matth. 13.3 Behold a sower went out to sow c. Luk. 15.11 12. A certain man had two sons and the younger said c. Luk. 12.16 The ground of a certain Rich man c. Luk. 16.19 There was a certain Rich man c. Mat. 21.28 A certain man had two sons c. Vers 33. There was a certain housholder which planted a Vineyard c. The Gospel aboundeth with such instances which teach us how to interpret these words of Christ VI. But most certainly all those forementioned texts teach it us which expresly call it Bread after the Consecration If we will not believe the Holy Ghost himself who so frequently calleth it bread it is in vain to alledge any text of Scripture in the Controversie Now to feign a course of ordinary Miracles Greater and more than Christs and this to every Priest how ignorant and impious soever to pretend that every Pope and Bishop can for money sell the Holy Ghost or the Gift of Miracles in Ordination and all this when no eye seeth the Miracles when it is confessed that Angels cannot naturally see it yea when all mens senses perceive the contrary and all this because that Christ said This is my Body while abundance such sayings in Scripture yea the words about the Cup it self are confessed to be tropical and when the Scripture expresly telleth us that there is Bread Judge whether it be possible for Satan to have put a greater scorn upon the Christian faith or a greater scandal before the enemies of it or a greater hinderance to the Worlds Conversion than to tell them you must renounce not only your Humanity but all common sense if you will be Christians and be saved or suffered to enjoy your estates and lives VII Lastly It is ordinary with their subtilest Schoolmen to confess that this their doctrine of Transubstantiation cannot be proved from Scripture and that they believe it only because their Church saith it which must be believed and because that by the same spirit which wrote the Scripture the Church is taught thus to expound it So that all their faith of this is by them resolved into a phanatick pretence of Inspiration As I have elsewhere shewed out of Durandus Paludanus Scotus Ockam Quodl 6. li. 5. q. 31. Rada vol. 4. Cont. 7. a. 1. pag. 164 165. And no General Council ever determined it till that at Rome under Innoc. 3. Where saith Matth. Paris many decrees were proposed or brought in by the Pope which some liked and some disliked And this was 1215 years after Christs birth And Stephanus Aeduensis is the first in whom the name of Transubstantiation is found about the year 1100. CHAP. VIII Arg. 6. From the Nature of a Sacrament Arg. 6. THat Doctrine which by consequence denyeth the Lords Supper to be a true Sacrament is false The Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation by consequence denyeth the Lords Supper to be a true Sacrament Therefore the Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation is false The Major I know no man that will deny that we have now to deal with The Minor needeth no other proof than the common definition of a Sacrament and Christs own description of this Sacrament in the Scripture I. Aquinas concludeth 3. q. 60. a. 1. that a Sacrament is a sign and a. 2. that it is a sign of a thing sacred as it sanctifieth men and a. 3. that it is a Rememorative sign of Christs passion a demonstrative sign of Gods Grace and a prognosticating sign of future Glory And a. 4. that it must be Res sensibilis a sensible thing it being natural to man to come to the knowledge of things intelligible by things sensible and the Sacrament signifieth to man spiritual and intelligible Goods and a. 5. that they must be things of Divine determination c. But 1. If the Bread and Wine be gone there is nothing left to be a sign a Real sensible sign to lead us to the knowledge of spiritual and intelligible things If they say that the species of Bread and Wine is the sensible sign what mean they by that cheating word species Not the specifying form or matter but only the outward appearance And is it a true or a false appearance If True then there is Bread and Wine If false it is a false sign And what is that false appearance which God maketh a Sacrament of It is plainly nothing but the Accidents of Bread and Wine without the substance But 1. When they take the Cup from the
what a man may say is certain R. To this I have several things to say 1. Ordination doth not make men wise holy humble and self-denying but sets such men apart for the sacred office who seek it and have tolerable gifts of utterance And it is too ordinary for worldly minded men to make a worldly trade of the Priesthood meerly for ease and wealth and honour In which case do you not think that the Papists who have multitudes of rich benefices prelacies preferments and Church-power and worldly honour are liker to be drawn by worldly interest than such as I that am exceeding glad and thankful if I might but preach for nothing 2. Do you lay your faith and salvation upon plausible discourses and will you be of that mans faith whom you cannot confute Then you must be of every mans faith or indeed of no mans There are none of all these sects so hardly confuted as a Porphyry a Julian or such like Infidels who dispute against Christ and the truth of the Scriptures or such Sadducees as dispute against the Immortality of the soul Alas the tattle of Papists Pelagians Antinomians Separatists Quakers and all such supposing the truth of the souls Immortality and the Scriptures is easily resisted and confuted in comparison of their assaults who deny these our foundations And will you turn Sadducee Atheist or Infidel because you cannot confute their Sophistry I tell you if you knew how much harder it is to deal with one of these than with a Papist or any other Sectary you would shake the head to hear one man dispute for an universal Monarch and another dispute against a form of prayer and another whether it be lawful to Communicate with dissenters c. while so few of them all can defend their foundations even the souls Immortality and the Scriptures nor confute a subtle Infidel or Sadducee 3. What if we all agreed to say that there is no Bread in the Sacrament after Consecration Were it ever the truer for that Will you be deceived as oft as men can but agree to deceive you There is a far greater party Agreed against Jesus Christ even five parts of the World than that which is agreed for him Will you therefore be against Christ too There are more Agreed for Mahomet a gross upstart deceiver than are agreed for Christ And doth that make it certain that they are in the right 4. Will you deny all your senses and the senses of all the World as oft as you cannot answer him that denyeth them Upon these terms what end will there be of any Controversie or what evidence shall ever satisfie man Have Papists any surer and more satisfying evidence for you than sense I pray you tell me Did you ever meet with any of them that doubt of another life or of the Immortality of the soul D. Yes many a one I would we were all more certain than we are R. And what is it that such men would have to put them out of doubt D. They say that our talk of Prophets and supernatural revelation are all uncertainties and if they could see they would believe Could they see such Miracles as they read of Had they seen Lazarus raised or Christ risen from the dead c. Had they seen Angels or Devils or Spirits appearing Had they seen Heaven or Hell they would believe R. And are not you more obstinate than they if you will not believe that there is any Bread and Wine when you see feel smell and taste it and all men that have senses are of the same mind What is left to satisfie you if you give so little credit to the common sense of all the world D. But I oft think that the faith of all the Church is much surer than my sense or my private faith At least it is safest to venture in the common road and to speed as the Church speedeth which Christ died for and is his Spouse R. 1. But do you think that the opinion of the Papal faction who are not the third part of the Universal Church that is the Christian world is the faith of all the Church Why call you Opinion faith and a sect and faction All the Church 2. Indeed if all the Church did set their senses against mine I would rather believe them than my senses For I should think that I were in that point distracted or my senses by some disease perverted which I did not perceive I mean if it were in a case where they had the affirmative As if all England should witness that they saw it Light at Midnight I would think my eyes had some impediment which I knew not of if I saw none But this is not your case The Papists themselves do not set all their senses against yours much less the senses of all mankind They do not say that We and all men except the Protestants do see and feel and taste that There is no Bread and Wine But contrarily You have the senses of all the world and the saith of two or three parts of the Christian world against the Opinion of one Sect which Schismatically call themselves All the Church D. But suppose that they err in this one point they may for all that be in the right in all the rest Who is it that hath no error I must not for this one forsake them R. 1. I will stand to their own judgements in this Whether all their foundation and faith be not uncertain if any one Article of their faith prove false They are all that ever I knew agreed of the affirmative And will give you no thanks for such a defence 2. And if we come to that work I shall prove all the rest of their opinions before mentioned to be also false D. What then if I find but one point false in the Protestants Religion Must I therefore forsake it all as false R. 1. Still remember to distinguish between our Objective and our Subjective faith or if you understand not those words between Gods Revelation and Mans Belief of it or the Divine Rule and Matter of our faith and our faith it self And about our own Belief you must distinguish between a mans Profession of Belief and the Reality of his belief All true Protestants profess to take Gods word alone or his Revelation in Nature and Scripture for the whole Matter of their Divine Belief and Religion But who it is that sincerely believeth little do I know nor how much of this word any singular person understandeth and believeth I can give you no account of If personal faith were that which we dispute of I would be accountable for no mans but mine own In this sense There are as many Faiths and Religions as men For every man hath his Own Faith and Religion And if you know that a man erreth in one point it followeth not that he erreth in another They that believed that the Resurrection was past believed a falshood and yet
natures which their ill opinions cannot make fierce and sanguinary nor overcome And none of them I think shall be more loving kind and peaceable to me than I will be to him And I confess I have a greater respect and honour for those whose Ancestors have transmitted Popery to them under the name of the True Catholick faith and who live according to what they know though perhaps in blind zeal they hate me and such others for the Interest of their way than I have for those that seemed once Protestants and by filthy debauched lives have made it seem needful or convenient for them to turn Papists that they may have a seeming Religion and Priests pardons to quiet or deceive their Consciences or than I have for those Papists who live in drunkenness lust and common lying and prophane swearing while yet they seem to be Religious and regardful of God and their souls or than I have for those Priests who befriend such mens wickedness for the increase and interest of their Church Yea I truly profess that if I know a truly Godly conscionable charitable Papist I must I will love and honour him far more than an ungodly unconscionable uncharitable Protestant And as far as I can discern both Ministers and private Christians but especially Ministers whom I most converse with are of the same mind D. But is there no way possible to bring them fairly off in this gross business of Transubstantiation without putting them upon the disclaiming of the Popes and General Councils Infallibility R. I am not bound to devise accommodations to strengthen them in their other errours if I could But yet I would cure any errour in any though they intend their own cure to an evil end I cannot be perswaded but their understanding men are sorry at the heart that the Laterane Council hath drawn them into such a snare by making Transubstantiation an Article of their faith and that they are very angry at them and wish that it had never been done but being done they must take on them to believe it lest they pull down with their foundation all their fabrick I doubt not but they are troubled and ashamed to read the Schoolmens disputes of Transubstantiation exposing Christianity to the Infidels scorn which this Council hath most occasioned I know not how to bring them off unless they will hearken to what Dr. Taylor in his Disswasive from Popery and Dr. Heylin and Dr. Pierson and Dr. Gunning in the Dispute have said against the Validity of that Laterane Council could they but spare the Canon for deposing Temporal Lords and dispossessing them of their Dominions and absolving all their Papists subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance and exterminating the rest Yea it would be more serviceable to them at last with Princes to retract that also than to keep it Their best way is to take the help of these pretences and condemn the contrary Reasons of Mr. Terret and his fellow Disputant against the foresaid Doctors and expunge that Council out of Binnius Surius and the rest who number it with the approved Councils and because Matth. Paris and others say that some at the Council thought the Canons burdensom and they were brought in by the Pope and hastily read c. therefore say that They were not passed at least Conciliariter which you know is a word that serveth their turn against another Council which they dislike D. But what shall they do with following Councils especially that at Trent which say the same R. The best shifts that I know are 1. To do as they do about the condemning of Pope Honoririus as a Heretick They say that a General Council and Pope too may err in a matter of fact and so they did in judging of Honorius his meaning So they may say that the Council of Trent did decree this as an Article of faith only because they thought that the Church so held it which was because they thought that the General approved Council of Laterane had so decreed it But now finding that it was not so decreed there the error in matter of fact ceasing which was the supposition the doctrinal error proveth to be no Article of faith or Conciliariter decretum 2. Or if this will not do they are best yet stretch the words of Rome and Trent to a more tolerable signification and say That it is not the ceasing of the substance of Bread and Wine which is meant but the changing it into a Relative new form And so as the Whole substance of a man is changed from being a meer Common man into a King a Bishop a Doctor without any cessation of his Humanity but only quia forma ultima denominat he is not any more to be called meerly A Man but A King A Bishop c. Or as the whole substance of a piece of Gold is changed into Currant Coin by the Kings Stamp c. So the whole substance of Bread is turned into the Representative Body of Christ and the whole substance of Wine into his Representative blood which change they call Transubstantiation But why should I give counsel to men that will not thank me for it and that obstinately refuse much better D. But why speak you nothing of their denying the people the Cup I thought you would principally have fastned on that R. Because it is no part of this present Controversie which I was first to handle though it concern the same Sacrament But it is such an instance as serveth to tell those of the world that will understand what horrid unreasonable audacious arrogance and Vsurpation and Treason against God and the true Head of the Church this pretended Monarch of the world and his pretended Catholick Church the Popish Sect are guilty of considering 1. That it is as essential a part of the Sacracrament as the Bread is For Christ hath made no difference 2. It hath the same Institution and express Command He that said Take Eat said also Drink ye all of this He hath said Do this in remembrance of me of One as well as of the Other 3. Therefore to take away an Essential part is to take away the Sacrament and make it another thing As it is not a humane body that hath not both Head and Heart So here 4. Therefore by the same authority they might have continued the Cup and taken away the Bread or have taken away both 5. And on the same reason they might have taken away Baptism and all Christs positive Institutions And for ought I know the Ministry it self as instituted 6. But then Gersons question de auferabilitate Papae would be next to be debated For were he of Christs own Institution as he is not it is no more than the Cup in the Lords Supper Could he but prove an Institution of his Papacy as evidently who would not be his Subject If you say But who should take him down if it might be done I answer Kings in their own Kingdoms
and his own General Councils The Kings of France Spain c. may easily prove that they have more power to cast out the Pope than he hath to cast out half Christs Sacrament And they may better forbid their own Subjects to obey a forreign Usurper than he can forbid all the world to obey Christ 7. And for all this the wit of man can hardly devise What Reason they have to do it What point of their Religion What Interest of their own did engage them to it Unless it be their Interest to shew that they are Above Christ and the Scripture I do not yet discern their reason 8. And yet they have with Resolution and obstinacy persisted herein divers hundreds of years and denyed the requests of Emperours Nobles and great part of several Kingdoms in this point This and the leaving out the second Commandment seem to be of purpose to shew that they are above the Maker of the Ten Commandments and of the Gospel How long Lord shall Tyranny oppress the Nations of the Earth and the Honour and Domination and Wills of Rebels prevail to tread down Truth and Godliness and keep the notice of thy salvation from the sinful miserable world whilest yet we daily pray by thy Command that Thy Name may be Hallowed Thy Kingdome come and Thy Will be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven Whether the Pope be the Antichrist meant in the Scripture by that name or not you see that my passing it by doth shew my cautelousness in resolving as Zanchy and others before me have done because I am confessedly so far unstudyed or ignorant of the sense of the Revelations and some other Scripture Prophecies as that I must leave such cases to such as Bishop Downame and others that have deeper insight into them Every man should be best at that which he hath most studyed But I must needs say that though I take it to be indispensible duty to keep up all due charity to all professed Christians such instances as these which I have here opened do utterly disable me from confuting that man who shall assert that this pretended Vicar of Christ and King or Monarch of the world and so King of Kings and Lord of Lords is an abominable Usurper and insolent Traytor against God and the true King and Head of the Universal Church How long will Princes and Prelates Learned and Unlearned be deluded by him or fear Power And when shall he be restrained from hindering Christs Gospel and the Peace and Concord of the Christian world FINIS Johns Nov. Repr p. 426. Protestants formally such have not enough to be brought to the unfeigned Love of God above all things and special Love to his servants and unfeigned willingness to obey him I deny you have any certain knowledge or feeling that you love God or his servants or willingness to obey c. Knot against Chillingworth Ch. 2. p. 122. In no one doctrine Protestants would seem more unanimously to agree than in this That all things necessary to salvation are contained evidently in Scripture which they hold as the only foundation of the whole structure of their Faith and Religion Note this Confession See Dr. Holden Analys fidei Li. 1. c. 3. Lett. 1. He that would know what stress we lay on Tradition as the Medium may see it fully in my Reasons of Christ Relig. And Dr. Holden is more for us than for the Papists Cap. 3. Q. Was it from the Church that the first Church received it Or was it not the same Divine Religion which the first Church whether Council or Practicers received without the Tradition of Council or Practicers If so this cannot be essential to Religion If the Apostles words were to be believed their proved Writings are to be believed And their Writings were proved theirs before a General Council or Universal Practice witnessed it Even by each Church and person that received any Epistle from any one of them So that if the Doctors will but differ in their Expositions the Scripture is no more the sure Word of God or to be believed by Catholick faith Of the Pope without a General Council Mark then that it may be de fide divina though not of Catholick necessity without the proposal of Council or universal practice Johns Nov. Rep. p. 19. of the explication of Terms Know you not that Divines are divided what are the points necessary to be believed explicitely necessitate medii Some and those the more antient hold that the explicite belief of God of the whole Trinity of Christ his Passion Resurrection c. are necessary necessitate medii Others among the recentiors that no more than the belief of the Deity and that he is the rewarder of our works is absesolutely necessary with that necessary to be explicitely believed He doth better interpret the distinction of Explicite and Implicite on another occasion in another sense Holden l. 1. c. 9. p. 169. Queret an teneatur quispiam aâ— internum Divinae fidei actum quem nec semper fortasse in eius potestate situm novimus Quamdiu sane arbitretur quispiam hujusmodi fidei actum lumini naturali rationi oppositum contrarium esse nequaquam poterit ad illum eliciendum astringi Aquin. p. 3. q. 75. a. 5. ad 3. Fides non est contra sensum sed est dâ— eo ad quod sensus non attingit But doth not sense say Here is Bread and Wine Vid. Aquin. 3. q. 82. a. 7. c. Vid. Aquin. 3. q. 69. a. 9. Vid. Aquin. 3. q. 82. a. 8. 2 Cor. 12.12 Rom. 15.19 Act. 14.3 15.12 Matth. 21.15 So they do by forbidding to eat Flesh in Lent And yet say they eat Christs flesh in Lent When Irenaeus cited by Occumenius Com. in 1 Peâ— c. 3. bringeth in Blandina proving to the Heathens that Christians did not eat flesh and drink blood in the Eucharist because that they use even to abstain for exercise sake from Lawful flesh See my More Reasons for the Christian Religion and the Lord Herbert de Veritate Apply this to Mr. Johnsons Rejoynder on this Point and you will see his Vanity