in usual Logical processes belonging to Syllogistical Form p. 37. Baxt. Edit Do what I can you will mistake me I speak of a Church denying that the Pope hath alwayes had it that is of a Church which now or of late times denies it and you make me speak of a Church which hath alwayes denied it contrary to my express words immediately following as you presently acknowledge All I pretend is this Prove that any Church which now denies it hath been alwayes visible and I am satisfied whether that Church alwayes denied it or no. Baxter Num. 27. I told you I would be a Papist if you prove That the whole visible Church in all Ages held the Popes universal Head-ship You say that you have proved it by this Argument that either he hath that Supremacy or some other Church denying that he hath alwayes had it hath been alwayes visible and that Church you require should be named I reply 1. Had not you despaired of making good your Cause you should have gone on by Argumentation till you had forced me to contradict some common Principle 2. If you should shew these Papers to the world and tell them that you have no better proof of the Succession of your Papacy then that we prove not that it hath alwayes been denied by the visible Church you would sure turn thousands from Popery if there be so many rational considering impartial men that would peruse them and believe you For any man may know that it could not be expected that the Churches should deny a Vice-Christ before he was sprung up Why did not all the precedent Roman Bishops disclaim the title of universal Bishop or Patriarch till Pelagius and Gregory but because there was none in the world that gave occasion for it How should any Heresie be opposed or condemned before it doth arise Iohnson Num. 27. I have manifestly forced you to contradict a common Principle and not one but Two of them First you are forced to contradict that Principle in Logick That he who denies an universal Negative Proposition framed in a positive Historical matter as mine is is not obliged to give an instance when it is demanded to infringe the universality of it and this I have and do refer The second is a Theological or rather Christian Principle That no professed Heretick nor Schismatick properly so called is a true part of the universal visible Church of Christ. That this is such a Principle shall appear hereafter where I shall make it evident that a professed Heretick properly so called had or could have true Christian Faith or the profession of it without which no man can be a true member of the Catholick Church that is united to Christ as his Head as you explicate your meaning Your other difficulties about the Title of Universal Bishop c. shall be answered in their place Baxter Num. 28. But you fairly yield me somewhat here and say that you oblige me not to prove a continued visible Church formally and expresly denying it but that it was of such a Constitution as was inconsistent with any such Supremacy or could and did subsist without it Reply I confess your first part is very ingenious and fair Remember it hereafter that you have discharged me from proving a Church that denied the Papacy formally and expresly Iohnson Num. 28. But have you dealt as fairly with me when after I had so clearly explicated my self in my former Answer not to exact a perpetual visible Church formally and expresly denying that Supremacy you make me frame an Argument in the precedent Paragraph exacting the formal and express denial of it in all Ages is this fair You corrupt again my Proposition I say not that I freed you from proving a Church that denied the Papacy formally and expresly but as you acknowledge in this Paragraph that I obliged you not to prove a continued visible Church formally and expresly denying it that is such a Church as denied it so all the time that it was visible yet I quitted you not of the obligation of instancing in a Church which at some time or other denied it formally and expresly as your inference seems to affirm I do For seeing it has for many hundred years been publickly acknowledged as due to the Bishop of Rome it was deniable by those who lived in the said Ages Baxter Num. 29. But as to what you yet demand 1. I have here given it you because you shall not say Iâ—â—le fail you I have answered your desire But 2. It is not as a thing necessary but ex abundanti as an overplus For you may now see plainly that to prove that the Church was without an universal Pastor which you require is to prove the Negative viz. that then there was none such whereas it's you that must prove that there was such I prove our Religion do you prove yours though I say to pleasure you I le disprove it and have done it in two Books already Iohnson Num. 29. I had no farther Obligation in the Process of this Argument then to inforce you to produce an instance of some Church perpetually visible which either denied or was inconsistent with and Independent of that Supremacy And this I say you were obliged to do according to Logical Form say as much as you please that it was ex abundanti no good Logician will beleeve you I mention not the Churches being without a Supream visible Pastor which you term universal nor oblige I you precisely to prove that but to prove a perpetual visible Church whose government was inconsistent with one supream visible Pastor over all which is an Affirmative Proposition Why mistake you perpetually prove this and I am satisfied Nor yet have you in what you have done performed what you undertake as shall appear in my following Rejoynder to your Arguments Baxter Num. 29. My reason from the stress of necessity which you lay on your Affirmative and Additions was but subservient to the foregoing Reasons not first to prove you bound but to prove you the more bound to the proof of your Affirmative And therefore your instance of Mahumetans is impertinent He that saith you shall be damned if you beleeve not this or that is more obliged to prove it then he that affirmeth a point as of no such moment Iohnson Num. 30. Sure if you prove me more bound you prove me bound à fortiori For every comparative supposes its positive The instance I bring is pertinent and all who read it attentively will see it is so Your last sentence is a repetition of what I denied without answering my answering my Argument against it Then say I a Christian is bound to prove his Religion to a Mahumetan but a Mahumetan is not bound to prove his to a Christian or if you will have it so is more bound of the two this you answer not because the same reason holding in both you saw you could not answer it Baxter Num.
Instances in your next Reply as are here demanded of you You cite me here Blondel and Aeneas Silvius so confusedly without Book Chapter Page or Column that I think it not worth my pains to spend time in seeking them if they have any thing worth your citing or satisfactory to what here I say either set it clearly down in your next or give me some clear means to know what you stand upon in those two Authors Baxter Num 80. Whether the Bishop of Rome had power over the Bishop of Arles Fallacy 11. by the Heathen Emperors is a frivolous question Arles was in the Roman Patriarchate and not out of the Empire The Churches in the Empire might by consent dispose themselves into the Patriarchal Orders Non-proof 10 without the Emperors and yet not meddle out of the Empire Iohnson Num. 80. You proceed Sophistically à possibili ad actum The Question is not What the Bishops might have done but what they did Now you affirm they did form themselves into Patriarchates by free consent make it appear to have been so by Authentical Testimonies from Antiquity I bring you proofs that their subjection to him was out of that most publick Tradition that he was successor to S. Peter Vide infra Bring me as many that he was made Patriarch of the West before Constantines time by force of free consent of the Western Bishops under the Empire Is it not a plain Paradox to affirm that a thing should be done by publick consent of a thousand Bishops through the whole Western Church and yet there should be no one step of proof no word of any Historian for it in all Antiquity Baxter Num. 81. Yet indeed Cyprians words intimate no power Rome had over Arles more then Arles had over Rome that is to reject Communion with each other upon dissent Iohnson Num. 81. S. Cyprians words shall be examined hereafter in their proper place CHAP. VI. ARGUMENT Num. 82. The four first General Councils proved by many Reasons and Authorities to be truly and properly Oecumenical having Authority over all Christian Churches as well without as within the Roman Empire num 84 85. Whom Mr. Baxtâ—â—r accounts univocal Christians and proper parts of the Catholick Church num 86. Whether he have made a good choice for himself num 88. No Heretick properly so called can have true Christian Faith in any Article whatsoever and consequently can be no part of the Catholick Church num 90 91. Christ the sole Head of the whole Church Triumphant and Militant The Bishop of Rome no more then Head of the visible Church on earth and not absolutely but secundum quid that is according to the external and visible Government onely and even that not as having all other Bishops under him as his Officers but as Christs Officers together with him they of their respective Districts and he of them to direct and correct them when need requires it Baxter Num. 82. Nay it more confuteth you that even under Heathen Emperours when Church-associations were by voluntary consent of Pastors only and so if they had thought it necessary Non-proof 11. they might have extended them to other Principalities yet de facto they did not do it as all History of the Church declareth mentioning their Councils and Associations without these taken in Iohnson Num. 82. Where are your proofs I deny any such consent to be extant in Antiquity nor could those Provincial or Nationall Councils call the Extra-Imperials to sit with them because they were only of the Provinces which were within the Empire and had no Authority without the precincts of their respective Churches Now you will give me leave to discover the weakness and inconsistency of your Novelty about the first four General Councils having had no power without the Empire First the very a Vide titulum Conc. Nicen. Titles of the Councils themselves confute you where they are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is universal or General Nor can you say that is meant onely through the Empire for you hotly contend that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 universal is extended to all Christians through the whole world Part. 2. Secondly b Conc. Chalcedon Act. 16. ap Binium p. 464. they call themselves General Thirdly the Canons Decrees Definitions are General without any limitation more to the Empire then to any other part of the world as is clear out of all the Canons and Decrees themselves Fourthly Historians of all Ages call them Oecumenical or General and never intimate any Imperial limitation if they do produce the Historian that calls them National or Imperial Councils Fifthly the whole Christian world ever since their times have esteemed them General and to have had an obligatory power and authority over all Christians Sixthly the holy Fathers c D. Aug. tom 7. contra Denatist lib. 2. cap. 13. ut diu Concil in suis quibusque regionibus diversa Statuta nutaâ—â—rint donec plenario totius orbis Concilio quod saluberrimè sentieâ—â—atur etiam remoâ—â—is dubitationibus â—â—irmaretur Hoc enim jam in ipsa totius orbis unitate discussum consideratum perfectum etque firmatum est loquitur de Concil Niceno Now it is evident that S. Aug. by his totius orbis means totius orbis Christians the whole Christian world that is the whole Church of Christ as appears by a hundred places of his against the Donatiffs when he sayes they have separated themselves from the whole world that is from the whole visible Church and this you confess to be true pag. 229 230 c. of your Book who speak of them stile them General Oecumenical plenary yea plenissima c. d Produce any one of them who limits these Councils to the Empires or denies them to have had power to oblige all Christians Seventhly Protestant Authors so far as I can see before you esteemed them General without any limitation and if you can cite any who say the contrary I pray do it e Anno 1 Elizabeth cap. 1. Versus finem capitis Eighthly the very Statute-Books of England since Protestant times call them General f Artic. 21. where by saying Some General Councils have erred they suppose there have been General Councils in the Church which had Authority out of the Empire For those as you confess were onely National or Imperial Councils Ninthly your 39 Articles call them General and the Fathers g D. Aug. tom 7. de Baptism cont Donatist lib. 2. cap. 3. when they call them General they distinguish them also from Provincial or National Councils Tenthly h D. Aug. ibid. cap. 1. cap. 4. cap. 9. Sic ait si autem Concilium ejus Cypriani attenditur huic universae Ecclesiae posterius Concilium Nicenum intelligit praeponendum cujus se membrum ostendebat ut se in totius corporis compage retinendâ caeteri imitarentur saepiùs admonâ—â—bat Nam ut Concilia
is one visible Kingdome yet to make it no more one visibly then the School of Christ-Church or Westminster is one visible School is in my Logick to speak-contraries Mr. Baxter Num. 100. Your next reason against me is because They cannot be parts of the Church unless Arians and Pelagians and Donatists be parts and so Hereticks and Schismaticks be parts Reply 1. You know sure that your own Divines are not agreed whether Hereticks and Schismaticks are parts of the Church William Iohnson Num. 100. You cannot but see I speak of parts of the Church as you understand parts and therefore I say pag. 48. in yours Secondly your position is not true Now your position is to hold that some Hereticks properly so called are parts of the Church of Christ and united to him as their Head by reason that they believe with a true Christian Faith the Essentials of Christianity whereby they are Christians though they erre in some Accidentals as appears by that distinction so often used by you In this sense then I say you hold Hereticks to be true and real parts of the Church And this I affirm to be contrary to all Christianity and a novelty never held before by any Christian. Though therefore taking the word parts in another more lax and improper sense and the Church as it is a visible body and government one only Catholick Authour * Lib. 2. de Haeret. punit c. 24. Haereticus etsi per Haeresim perdat fidem non tamen eo ipso est prorsus ab Ecclesiâ separatus sed adhuc est parâ—â— illius corporis membrum ejus c. Et infra Faâ—â—eor quidem meo quidem judicio negari non potest Haereticum esse partem Ecclesiae membrum illius non esse omnino ab illâ separatum quia etsi fidem non habeat habet tamen Characterem Baptismalem per quem primum factum est membrum Ecclesiae quâ—â— durante semper erit membrum illius Alphonsus à Castro thinks Hereticks may be called parts of the politick Body of the Church as She hath power over them to inflict punishment upon them by reason of the character of Baptisme which makes them ever remain subjects of the Church and lyable to her censures yet he holds expresly that they have no true Christian Faith at all quite against you whereby they can be made parts of Christ's Church united to Christ as their Head as you hold they are And the like is of Schismaticks For though some Catholick Author 's doubt whether they may be termed by reason of the profession of Christian Faith parts of the Church in a large sense yet none ever held as you doe that they were united to Christ as their Head and thereby compose one Christian Church with other Catholick Christians because they want that principal Christian Charity required as necessary to a compleat union to Christ. Your opinion therefore is contrary to all those of the Roman Church and shall God assisting me be * See my second Part. proved contrary to all Christians and Christianity and of most dangerous and damnable consequence But you must know that à Castro's opinion is censured by all other Doctours and thereby improbable nor yet makes the ground of his opinion Hereticks and Scismaticks more of the Catholick Church then are those Christians who are damned in hell for even they have the Character of Baptism and yet he says that so long as that Character remains they are Church-members quo durante semper erit membrum illius Mr. Baxter Num. 101. And if they were yet it is not de Fide with you as not determined by the Pope William Iohnson Num. 101. 'T is determined contrary to your sense a hundred times over by all the Anathemas and Excommunications thundred out against them in so many General Councils Mr. Baxter Num. 102. If it be then all yours are Hereticks that are for the affirmative Bellarmine nameth you some of them If they be not then how can you be sure it 's true and so impose it on me that they are no parts William Iohnson Num. 102. I have now told you None of ours ever held them parts as you doe that is united to Christ their Head as the rest of the parts are by Faith and Charity Mr. Baxter Num. 103. Arians are no Christians as denying that which is Essential to Christ and so to Christianity William Iohnson Num. 103. 'T is very true they are no real univocal Christians and your reason is good because they deny that which is Essential to Christ and so to Christianity But hence will follow that no proper Heretick whatsoever is a real univocal Christian for all of them deny something Essential to Christ and so to Christianity which I prove thus Whosoever denies Christ's most Infallible veracity Divine Authority denies Something which is Essential unto Christ. But every Heretick properly so called denies Christ's most infallible veracity and divine Authority Ergo Every Heretick properly so called denies something which is Essential to Christ and so to Christianity The Major is evident I prove the Minor Whosoever denies that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed from Christ denyes Christ's most infallible veracity and divine authority But every Heretick properly so called denies that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed from Christ. Ergo Every Heretick properly so called denyes Christs most infallible veracity and divine Authority The Minor is clear For that is properly to be an Heretick The Major is also clear For how is it possible to deny that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to me to be revealed from Christ without affirming that Christ said something which is not true which is manifestly to give Christ the lye and to doe that is to deny openly his divine veracity This Argument I hope you will please to think of seriously and either give an Answer in form to it or relinquish your Noveltie Mr. Baxter Num. 104. Pelagianisme is a thing that you are not agreed among your selves of the true naâ—â—ure of Many of the Dominicans and Jansenists think the Jesuites Pelagianize or Semi-Pelagianize at least I hope you will not shut them out Donatists were Schismaticks because they divided in the Catholick Church and not absolutely from it and because they divided from the particular Churches about them that held the most universal external Communion I think they were still members of the universal Church but I 'le not contend with any that will plead for his uncharitable denyal It 's nothing to our Case William Iohnson Num. 104. You fall again into a plain Fallacy proceeding à parte ad totum The doubt which is among some of our Divines is only about part of their Heresie and you would make your Reader believe it were about the whole Some points of their Heresie are clearly agreed upon by all Catholick Authors as is that
not Zygomalas suppose that the Protestants and they are two Churches that they were not then united into one saies he not that he hopes for such a Future Unity Gaudium in coelo supra terram erit si coibit in unitatem utraque Ecclesia c. Ergo that unity was not then actually made and that unity depended on the correction of those differences in Faith which were betwixt them which whilst they remained obstructed it now this is wholly destructive of your Novelty nay this Agreement and becoming one and the same Church as Synonimaes coibit in unitatem utraque Ecclesia et Idem sentiemus both Churches the Greeks and Lutherans shall join in unitie and we shall hold that is believe the same thing evinces that their disagreement was inconsistent with their being one Church nay besides Faith he requires a future charity and concord which argues it was then wanting Et simul vivemus in omni concordia pace secundum Deum in sincerae charitatis vinculo and sayes he we shall live together in all concord peace in God and in the bond of sincere Charity so that this very Text which you quote to prove the unity betwixt Greeks and Lutherans proves the quite contrary so choice are you in your Citations Mr. Baxter Num. 112. But as it is not the Patriarch that is the whole Greek Church so it is not their Errours in some lesser or tolerable points that prove us of two Churches or Religions William Iohnson Num. 112. Who saies he is the whole Church yet sure when the Patriarch writes concernings his own Jurisdiction he is supposed to understand the extent of it and when those of his Church shew no kind of contradiction against it neither when he writ this nor ever since and thereby give a tacite consent to it what he writes is to be esteemed as the tenet of his Church I am much joyed to hear you terme the differences in Faith betwixt you and the Grecians some lesser or tolerable points for they being in substance the very same with those betwixt you and us as the Authors confesse cited by me pag. 46. of your Edition you must consequently acknowledge the differences betwixt you and us to be some lesser or tolerable points but give me leave then to tell you that as you judge those points tolerable so must you also judge your separation from the external communion of the Greek and Roman Church intolerable for if those parts in difference be tolerable they were to have been tolerated by you without proceeding to an open and scandalous Schisme by reason of them nor will it excuse you to alledge you were forc't to separate in detestation of those things which you judged Errours otherwise you would have compell'd us by punishments to have assented to them for you were rather to have suffered patiently that force though it had been to death it self then to have made so notorious a Schisme for tolerable Errours or fear of persecution I have already shewed that every Errour in Faith against a divine truth sufficiently proposed separates the erring partie from the true visible Church of Christ. Mr. Baxter Num. 113. Whereas you say it is against all antiquity and Christianity to admit condemned Hereticks into the Church I Reply 1. I hate their condemnation rather then reverence it that even being non Judices dare condemn whole Nations without hearing one man of them speak for himself or hearing one witnesse that ever heard them defend Heresie and this merely because some few Bishops have in the dayes of all maintained Heresie and perhaps some may doe so still or rather differ from you in words while you misunderstand each other I see you have a sharp tooth against Bishops why name you them onely as maintainers of Heresies how many Bishops found you broaching or spreading heresie in the 2. first hundred yeares was either Simon Magus or Nicolaus or Cerinthus or Menander or Valentinian or Manes or Montanus Bishops and in the third Age was there not Arius and Eutyches neither of them Bishops broachers of two most pernicious Heresies as well as Nestorius and Dioscorus who were Bishops William Iohnson Num. 113. You mistake the manner of the Churches condemnation of Hereticks it is neither personal nor National save in some notorious Arch-Hereticks who either by their words or writings evidently professe or teach Heresie but general or abstractive viz. whosoever holds such or such Errours let him be accursed or we excommunicate all such as hold them c. where there can be no wrong done to any for those who de facto held them not are not cast out of the Church now when this sentence comes to Execution those who either acknowledge themselves to hold those Heresies or communicate with them who professe it are esteemed as Hereticks because they join with an heretical party against the Church and in case they profess to disbelieve their heresie and yet live in communion with them and subjection to them they become open Schismaticks separating themselves from the whole visible Church by communicating with Hereticks Mr. Baxter Num. 114. Did I find such Errours with them as with you yet first I durst charge them on no one man that I had not reason to hold guilty of them I dare not accuse whole Nations of your Errours but of all these things and of sundry words which you cite I have spoken already in two books and in the latter fully proved that you differ in many points of Faith and greater things then you call Heresies in others among your selves even your Pope's Saints and Councils and yet neither part is judged by you to be out of the Church see my Key pag. 124 125 127 128 129. and pag. 52. ad 62. William Iohnson Num. 114. You or any Christian may safely judge those Hereticks who publickly communicate and side with those who professe and teach open heresie for the very siding with them Argues a consent to their Doctrine and is a sufficient profession of it unlesse they professe publickly a difference from their heresie your recrimination is unseasonable the question is not for the present wherein or how We differ but whether You be guiltie of heresie or no our innocencie or guiltiness clears not you clear your Selves first and then you will have gained credit to accuse us 'till that be done you do nothing but divert the Question â—â—y removing it from your selves to us In your Key pag. 128. you trifle in using the words Material point Equivocally and proceeding à specie ad genus fallociously Mr. Turberville speaks of material Points against your 39. Articles saying for if they differ from them in any material point c. and you make him speak of all kinds of material points in Religion whether contrary to any Article or Ecclesiastical decree of Faith or no. Mr. Baxter Num. 115. When you say so much to prove the Greeks guiltie of manifest heresy
it if expresly containing all things necessary to salvation I deny it Again I distinguish all things necessary to salvation either you mean all things necessary to be distinctly known and expresly believed by all to obtain salvation and so I grant it or all things also to be believed implicitly and to be distinctly known to all and so I deny it These distinctions suppos'd I deny your consequence viz. That the Church whereof Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth 15. Pag. 210. your authorities prove nothing the aforesaid distinctions applied Bellar. and Costerus speaks of things necessary to be expresly believed by all Ragusa of the Scripture well understood which include the interpretation of the Church Gerson not of articles of Faith but of Theological conclusions drawn by private and fallible authority Durandus treats of private conclusions drawn from Scripture by himself as you cite him pag. 212. of delivering nothing contrary to Scripture and of using the interpretation of the Roman Church St. Thomas speaks not a word of Scripture nor so much as names it in those words cited by you and in his summe de veritate addes the interpretation of the Church to Scripture as you cite his words pag. 213. Scotus cited p. 213. is quite against you he sayes add you that many needful things are not expressed in Scripture but virtually contained which is not protestant but sound catholick doctrine Gregor Ariminensis p. 14. speaks not of points of faith but of Theological conclusions drawn by private discourse which is not as you add next more then to intend the sufficiency of express Scripture to matters of faith for the seusteine of faith is infallible and divine Theological discourse only fallible and humane now he sayes diametrically against your tenet that all truths are not in themselves formally contain'd in holy Scripture but of necessity following these that are contained in them c. but here 's the difficulty we say that every point we teach is contain'd as in general principles at least in Scripture and necessarily deduced from it but you adde they must be contained formally for what seems a necessary consequence of Scripture to us seems not so to you and the like is of what seems necessary to you seems neither necessary nor propable to us so that neither of us can be convinced that our respective deductions are points of faith and both you must confess yours are not because you have not infallibly authority deducing them and we do acknowledge that conclusions drawn from Scripture abstracting from the Churches authority oblige us not to receive them as matters of faith 16. Pag. 216. Gulielmus Parisiensis sayes no more then say the former Authors and Bellar. nothing at all to your purpose draw if you can the sufficiency of sole Scripture held by you from words which so cleerly declare its insufficiency Pag. 217. Your whole discourse is a pure parorgon our question is not what is essential or necessary necessitate medii or praecepti to be known and expresly believed by all per se and absolutely but whether one believing all that is essential and necessary in that manner and withal disbelieving any other point of faith whatsoever after it is hic nunc sufficiently propounded as such to any particular person can either be saved or be a true real part of the visible Church of Christ. Now we answer negatively to this question because such a disbelief excludes an implicite belief of that point so disbelieved and consequently a belief of all that God hath revealed and therby all supernatural saving faith To illustrate the truth of this assertion let us instance in a Pelagian who believed all that which you account essential that is the common Articles necessary for all to salvation the Creeds the Scriptures c. And had sufficiently propounded to him the belief of Original sin as a point of Christian faith which he refuses to believe and accounts an errour the question will not be in this case whether that Pelagian believe all these essentials in the account but whether that supposed he be not excluded out of the Church and dismembred from it by that wilful disbelief of Original sin This is our present case controverted betwixt us so that though it were admitted that you believe all that material object of faith which you esteem essential and necessary for all to be expresly believed yet because we accuse and judge you to disbelieve many points of as much concern as is that of Original sin and as sufficiently propounded to you as such as that was to the Pelagians we have as much reason to judge you to be excluded out of the Catholique Church and dismembred from it as we have to judge them either therefore you acknowledge the point disbelieved by you and propounded as matter of faith by us to you to be as sufficiently propounded as was that of Original sin to the Pelagians or you deny it if you acknowledge it you must acknowledge you are as much dismembred from the Church by your disbelief as they were if you deny it then we will put our selves upon the proof of it so that till our proofs be heard and fully answer'd you cannot secure your selves of being parts of the Catholique Church no more then could the Pelagians 17. If you affirm as your principles lead you that even the disbelief of Original sin hinder'd not the Pelagians from remaining parts of the Catholique Church you contradict St. Augustine and St. Epiphanius In Catalogis Haereticorum the Council of Nice all antiquity nay all modern authors even your own and I provoke you to produce so much as one Author who affirms Pelagians to be parts of the Catholique Church CHAP. II. Mr. Baxters authorities NUm 18. Whether Mr. Baxters doctrine about sole scripture agree with Tertullians in his prescriptions Num. 21. Mr. Baxter would send all his adversaries packing if he knew how he supposes his Readers to be very simple Num. 19. Whether St. Augustin taught that common people were to reade-Scipture in the place cited by Mr. Baxter whereas St. Augustine taught there that all things belonging to Christian Faith and manners are expressed in Scripture his two other Collections from St. Augustine examined Num. 22. He knowes not where his Church was An. 1500. Num. 25. He cites two texts of S. Augustine distructive to his own doctrine Num. 25.26 How much Optatus makes for Mr. Baxter Num. 26.27 What Optatus meanes by being within or in communion with the seven Churches of Asia Mr. Baxter cites two texts in Optatus which quite overthrow him Num. 28. Divers of his Effugiums examined and confuted concerning Tertullians prescriptions Num. 29.30 Many texts of Tertullian not Englished by Mr. Baxter make directly against him 18. Hence falls to nothing all you alledge from Bell. Costerus Gulielmus Parisiensis Aquinas Bannes Espenseus c. p. 216.217.218 For they speak of
best serves your turne and covers your falsitie Canus sayes there ab aliis plerisque totius orbis Episcopis which you translate thus but almost all the rest of the Bishops of the whole world so that alii plerique very many others is with you almost all the rest had you only said a great sort or the most part even that had bin to stretch the word plerique to its full length but to translate it almost all is too too bad and cryes shame of the translator for by this meanes you would perswade your Reader that scarce any Bishop at all adher'd to the Bishop of Rome according to this Author whereas he in the beginning of this seventh Chapter saith that not only the Bishops but Ecclesia the Church from the time of the Apostles alwayes acknowledg'd that the Roman Bishops succeeded place Faith and authority of St Peter and that all Catholicks respected his judgement in the controversies of Religion and this is most cleer and evident but yet this is not all your foul play You had undertook to prove Papists affirm that univocal Christians composing visible Churches have bin opposers of the Pope And here you seem'd to have cull'd out a text for your pupose for Canus acknowledges in this place that a very great number of Bishops and the greater number of Churches were against the Pope and who could he suppose these to be but true Catholick Bishops and Churches here you think you have your Reader sure but why cited you not these words the next following O that would have marr'd your market Canus is so farr from holding these mutineering Bishops and Churches to be true univocal Christians that he affirms expresly they were either Schismaticks or Hereticks Quinimo qui à Romanâ quidem sede defecerunt hi Schismatici semper ab ecclesia sunt habiti qui vero hujus sedis de fide judicia detrectarunt heretici But those sayes Canus who made a defection from the Roman Sea were alwaies accounted Schismaticks by the Church and those who refused to stand to the judgement of this Sea in matters of faith were esteemed Hereticks these are fair characters of your great sincerity If you should reply though Canus account them not univocal Christians nor true Churches who made those oppositions yet them not to be no true Churches nor no univocal Christians I reply it makes thus much at least that Canus his testimony proves not that any true Catholick Christians or Churches withstood the Pope for the proof whereof you cited this his testimony 66. Ibid You have a third bout with Raynerius I answer whatsoever he may hold of the antiquity of the Waldenses is nothing to me now holds he them to be univocal Christians prove that thus in all the testimonies you have alleadged for the proof of your antecedent against my distinction you have not so much as one that assayes to prove it Your eight Argument page 269. Is a pure non-proof that which you undertake to prove as appears by your question premised in the beginning of this second part page 197. Is to prove the Church whereof Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth and your title upon every page pretends to shew the successive visibility of the Church of which the Protestants are members Now as if you had quite forgot what you were about you pretend in this your Argument to shew that anciently the Papal soveraignty was not part of the Churches faith nor own'd by the Ancients when therefore you shall have logically deduced this consequence the Papal soveraingty hath not been alwayes visible Ergo the Church whereof Protestants are members hath bin alwayes visible I will esteem my self obliged to answer the proofs from your testimonies till then I purely omit your antecedent and deny the consequence which you ought to draw from it thence follows not that the Church whereof you Protestants are members hath bin alwaies visible though your antecedent were true the truth whereof I neither grant nor deny for the present but omit it as not being now to our purpose 67. Page 271. Your ninth argument halts of the same leg it follows not that though our Church as papal had no successive visibilitie that the Church whereof the Protestants are members had ever since Christs time on earth a successive visibility when you have proved this consequence which you do not so much as mention in your argument I oblige my self to answer every one of your instances till that be done all I am obliged to do by force of logical forme is to omit your antecedent as nothing to our purpose for you undertake not in this second part to disprove ours but to prove your own perpetual visibility and I deny again your consequence which you ought to draw logically from your antecedent to wit that it follows not from this argument that the Church whereof the Protestant are members hath bin visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth 68. Your 10. argument is sick of the same disease is propounded p. 275. this reaches no further then to prove that there hath bin a succession of visible professors of Christianity that were no Papists Transeat pro praesente I let that pass for the present neither granting it nor denying it nor medling at all with it because I judge it of no present concern to our purpose but whatsoever is of that I deny it follows thence what you are to prove that the Church whereof the Protestants are members hath bin visible ever since the daies of Christ upon earth Moreover by this manner of illogical proceeding you change the part of the respondent which only was yours into the part of an opponent you were to shew some other Church beside the Roman to have bin perpetually visible and this you undertake in this second part by proving the Protestants to be so Now you turne the scales and labour by 10. arguments to prove the Roman Church as Roman is not so You promis'd in the beginning a fair logical answer keep your word and turne not opponent whil'st you are to be respondent stick to something otherwise you confound all and render it impossible to draw any controversie to a period or open a passage to truth acquit your self of your present obligation prove your said consequence that accomplished when your instances come into logical course I here oblige my self again to answer every one of them but first let us dispatch this shew your consequence undertaken here of the perpetual visibility of the Protestant Church to follow from the want of perpetual visibilitie in the Roman no more then your perpetual visibility follows from the want of it in the Greek or Abissme Church what if neither of them have bin perpetually visible For there is no Heretick in the world no neither Arrian or Sabellian c. whom you hold no Christians which may not argue in the same manner against
the Church but whether you held any at all to be of it of what sort soever they were was all one to me should any one demand this question of you whether any who exercised the work of the ministrie since the year 1640 were favourers of the late Rebels against his Majestie and you in answer should distinguish as you do here that some of them were Episcopal other Presbyterial some who were first Presbiters turned Independents and others Anabaptists some Seâ—â—kers and others Ranters some Millinaries and others Quakers some studied in the Universities and others went no further then the Country schools some were tradesmen and others souldiers some Trumpeters and others Drummers some fancied the Rebeâ—â—s by preaching Rebellion in Pulpits others by framing the Covenants these by puting on buff coats and turning Collonels or Captaines and fighting valiantly in the field those by instituting associations of Counties others by writing seditious books and pamphlets comparing old Noll to David and young Dick to Solomon c. and those distinctions premised you should draw twelve conclusions which of those were or were not partakers with the Rebeâ—â—s could not you have saved all this labour and said in a word yes some who exercised the work of the Ministrie favoured the Rebels seeing no more then this was demanded of you but yet farther in your distinctions of Heretiques you interlace such as are expresly excluded in my question I demand whether Heretiques properly so called are true members of the Church page 293. you answer p. 296 Prop. 1. That Schismatiques that is Heretiques improperly so called are no parts of it what 's that to my question I demand whether any professed Heretiques are parts of the Catholique Church page 297. That some Heretiques if latent that is not professed Heretiques may be parts of it nay you are not content to answer thus farr from the question but contradict one answer by another you say page 293 that your answer was plain in your paper sent me videlicet that some Heretiques properly so called are parts of the Catholique Church page 229. prop. 7. you say that some softer Heresie excludes no man from the Church of it selfe unless they are legally convict of wicked impenitency and obstinacy in defending it and then it seemes to exclude them that is all Heresie excludes them for no man is guilty of Heresie unless he defend it obstinately and impenitently nor is to be held for an Heretique till he be convicted of that obstinacy and thus much you acknowledge your self page 298. n. 7. where you constitute formal Heresie inobstinacy saying 7. They are either judged to be materially as to the qualitie of their Error Heretiques or also formally as obstinate impenitent and habitually stated Heretiques So then by your own confession all obstinate that is all formal that is Heretiques properly so called are excluded from being true members of the Church Thus you answer page 193. Some Heretiques properly so called are excluded from being of the Church this I call a contradiction what call you't Nay farther in this answer you th'wart what you answered in your book against me there without any exception you affirm page 11. Schismatiques to be true parts of the Church and here you exclude some Schismatiques from being true parts of the Church there you say whosoever held all the Essentials as do all Schismatiques as contradistinct from Heretiques properly so call'd are true parts of Christs visible Church because they are constituted Christians by believing all the Essentials of Christianity And here you say that some schismaticks who are contra-distinct from hereticks and consequently believe all the essentials are not parts of the Church nor yet is this all you contradict your self in one and the same sentence p. 297. you say thus but should any schismaticks for you speak of those only here renounce the body of Christ as such and separate not from this or that Church but from the whole or from the universal Church as such this man would not be a member of the Church Now to separate from the body of Christ or from the universal Church as such is to separate from it as it is the universal Church of Christ and as it is the body of Christ quatenus talis but that is to renounce Christ and Christianity and consequently to lose the Christian faith and thereby to become an Apostata that is neither heretick nor schismatick so that according to you a schismatick which is no schismatick is no part of the Church of Christ for never was there yet any schismatick which separated from the body of Christ as such that is as it was the body of Christ but by some false pretence or other perswaded himself that not the visible company of Christians which he left but his separate party was Christs Church as may be seen in the Donatists Luciferians and others Now all those who believe all essentials of Christian faith as you understand essentials are you say true parts of Christs visible Church because they are univocal Christians consequently all those who believe no essential of Christian faith can be no Christians so no parts of the Christian Church if therefore you mean such only as separate from the whole Church as such that is as it is Christs universal Church you make them not erroneous in faith but rejecters and contemners of Christ and Christianity and thereby Apostataes from the faith 73. Pag. 300. you cite again Alphonsus of Castro whose opinion I have already evidenced not to prove your intent nor second your opinion then you cite Bell. de Ecclesia libro 3. c. 4. saying thus Haeretici pertinent ad Ecclesiam ut oves ad ovile unde confugerunt And then you add this inference so they are oves still would you have similitudes to go upon all four is it not sufficient to Bellar. purpose that it agrees in this that both are out of the fold 't is true a natural sheep is a sheep whether it be in the fold or no but so is not a sheep of Christ which is his sheep actually no longer then it is in his fold the Church though both he and his Church have power over it to reduce it into the fold or medicinally to shut the gate against it and keep it out till it give satisfaction Might you not as well have carp'd at our Saviours words as you do at Bellarmines when he said alias oves habeo quae non sunt ex hoc ovile and I have other sheep which are not of this fold Ioan. 10. so that they are oves sheep still though our Saviour say they be not of his fold know you not that those were by him call'd sheep which though they were not actually his yet were in time to be of his fold and when he had reduced them to his fold would be his sheep actually This done you add and if it be but ovile particulare veluti Romanum that they
we have seen nor will the communion of one heretick or schismatick with another serve the turn as St. Aug. cited by your self delivers l. de unitate Eccles. c. 4. That such as communicate with a part and not with the whole wheresoever it is diffused it is manifest they are not in the Catholick Church Now suppose one singular person turn a professed heretick or schismatick and leaves the external communion of the whole Church he can have no external communion at all if then he seduce to his party another that other can have no communion but with the first who had no communion with the Church so that their communion is without the Church and so will ever be though they increase to thousands and millions This truth therefore thus established my first argument returns upon you shew me said I any Congregation of Christians perpetually visible besides that which acknowledges the Popes supremacy c. This you have not been able to do but by producing known and notorious heretical congregations those I have proved not to be either one and the same congregation amongst themselves which I demanded nor one with the Catholick visible Church because no profess'd hereticks properly so call'd can be true members of the true Church And particularly you fail in this second part for till you prove Protestants to be no hereticks you can never evince them to be true parts of Christs visible Church Now therefore it remains that you begin again and find out some new solution for my argument for as yet you have brought nothing satisfactory to salve it but I hope God will give you the grace to desist from such imposible enterprises strike you with a sweet stroak of mercy as he did St. Paul and change you into a child of his holy Church which are the truest hearty desires of Your assured best wishing friend William Iohnson An Explication of The Catholick Church The chief terms used in this Controversie disputed betwixt Mr. Baxter and William Iohnson William Iohnson THe Catholick Church of Christ is all those visible Assemblies Congregations or Communities of Christians who live in unity of true faith and external Communion with one another and in dependance of their lawfull Pastours Mr. Baxter Of your definition of the Catholick Church Qu. 2. Whether you exclude not all those converted among Infidels that never had external Cemmunion nor were members of any particular visible Church of which you make the Catholick to be constituted William Iohnson It is sufficient that such be subject to the supream Pastours in voto or quantum in se est resolved to be of that particular Church actually which shall or may be designed for them by that Pastour to be included in my Definition Mr. Baxter You see then that your Definitions signifie nothing no man knows your meaning by them William Iohnson You shall presently see that your Exceptions signifie lesse then nothing Mr. Baxter First you make the Catholick Church to consist onely of visible Assemblies and after you allow such to be members of the Church that are no visible Assemblies William Iohnson I make those converted Infidells visible Assemblies as my Definition speaks though not actuall members of any particular visible Church as your Exception speaks for though every particular visible Church be an Assembly of Christians yet every Assembly of Christians is not a particular visible Church I do not therefore allow such to be of the Church who are no visible Assemblies as you misconceive me Mr. Baxter 3. You now mention subjection to the supream Pastour as sufficient which in your discription or Definition you did not William Iohnson Am I obliged to mention all things in my Definitions which I express after in answering your Exceptions prove that Mr. Baxter 3. If to be onely in voto resolved to be of a particular Church will serve then inexistence is not necessary to be onely in voto of the Catholick Church proves no man a member of the Catholick Church but proves the contrary because it is Terminus Diminuens seeing then by your own confession inexistence in a particular Church is not of necessity to inexistence in the Catholick Church why do you not onely mention it in your Definition but confine that Church to such William Iohnson I make them Actually inexsistent in some visible Assembly according to my Definition and in voto onely in a particular Church which is your Exception now every particular family or neighbourhood nay of two or three gathered together in prayer is an actual Assembly of Christians though it be no actual particular Church for according to S. Hierom Ecclesia est plebs unita Episcopo now this part of my Definition so much here opposed by you is in effect the same with the first part of the Definition of the visible Church delivered in your 39. Articles Article 19. for that sayes the visible Church of Christians is a Congregation of faithfull men c. And my Definition sayes the Catholick Church is all those Assemblies Congregations or Communities of Christians who live in unity of faith c. which unity makes them one intire and universal congregation of the faithfull In this therefore consists your fallacy that you esteem none to be actually members of the universal Church unlesse they be actual members of some particular Church which I denie and affirm that one may be actually a member of the universal Church though he be not actually but in voto a member of any particular Church for to be actually of the universal requires no more necessarily then to be an actual part of some Assembly though it be no particular Church Reply Will you say you meant in voto who then can understand you when you say they must be of visible Assemblies and mean they need not be of any but onely to wish desire or purpose it Rejoynder This is answered already above it is not necessary all should be actual members of any particular Church it is sufficient if they be actually of some Assembly or Congregation of Christians though it be no particular Church Mr. Baxter But yet you say nothing to my ease in its latitude many a one may be converted to Christ by a solitary Preacher or by two or three that never tell him that there is any supream pastour in the world how then can he be subject to that supposed Pastour that never heard of him The English and Dutch convert many Indians to the faith of Christ that never heard of a supream Pastour William Iohnson Whether he be named or no yet the Church must be supposed to be sufficiently explicated to those Convertists and that must be represented as having some prudent manner of Government so that they must be instructed to render obedience to such Governours as Christ instituted in his Church which seeing all of my profession hold to be by a chief Pastour and I have here undertaken to prove it is so by subjecting
because all men living are culpably ignorant of some truths which they had a revelation of that was thus farre sufficient if the second be your sense then the same unhappy consequence will follow that all are Hereticks and moreover by that sense of obscure education are unavoidable Hereticks because they had no opportunity to know those things which as to that Majority are of publick Testimony and universal Tradition William Iohnson I tell you I judge of no mens conscience it is sufficient 1. That such as acknowledge themselves they know such points of faith to be propounded by the Roman Church which I infallibly believe to be the true Church and that notwithstanding reject them as errours give me ground to presume them to be Hereticks 2. Such as oppose what all visible Churches have most notoriously practised and believed as Divine truths whilst they were so universarily taught and practised I may safely presume to be Hereticks because things so notorious cannot morally be presumed to be unknown to any one for other particulars I may and do suspend my judgement for what obligation have I to know all the Hereticks in the world these Rules being a sufficient judge of the greatest part of them See you not your fallacy how you passe ab abstracto in concretum Our question was onely what Heresie is and you divert it to inquire which particular persons are Hereticks cannot definitions stand though we know not all the individualls which are reducible to them Mr. Baxter Is not the Bible a publick Testimony and record and being universally received is an universal Tradition and yet abundance of truths in the holy Bible are unknown and therefore not actually believed by millions that are in your Church and are not taken by your self for Hereticks your befriending ignorance would else make very many Hereticks Rejoynder What if the Bible be a publick Tradition it is onely a Tradition that whatsoever is there delivered is the word of God but it is no Tradition that such a determinate sense and no other is the word of God in every sentence contained in it when according to the Analogie of faith the words are capable of many senses all therefore that is an universal Tradition concerning the Bible is sufficiently propounded but what is not Tradition left to the several Discourses and Expositions of Doctours will it hence follow think you that because what is not an universal Tradition is not sufficiently propounded to be known Ergo what is universal Tradition also is not Pope By Pope I mean S. Peter or any of his lawfull Successours in the Sea of Rome having authority by the institution of Christ to govern all particular Churches next under Christ. Of the Pope Mr. Baxter I am never the nearer knowing the Pope by this till I know how Peters Successours may be known to me Qu. 1. What personal qualification is necessary ad esse William Iohnson Answ. Such as are necessary ad esse of other Bishops which I suppose you know Mr. Baxter If so then all these were no Popes that were Heretques or denyed Essential points of Faith William Iohnson 'T is true they were no Popes whilst formal Heretiques if any such were Baxter As Iohn 24. Iohnson prove that Baxter And so were no Christians Iohnson Prove that Baxter All those that wanted the necessary abilities to the Essentials of their work Iohnson Prove there were such Popes Mr. Baxter And so your Church hath often bin headless and your succession interrupted Councils having censured many Popes to be thus qualified William Iohnson When you have proved the precedents prove that Mr. Baxter And the dispositio materiae being of it self necessary to the reception of that form it must needs follow that such were no Popes even before the Councils charged them with incapacity or Heresie because they had it before they were accused of it and Simony then made many uncapable William Iohnson Prove they were lawfull Councils which so censured any Popes which we admit as true and lawfull Mr. Baxter Qu. 2. Where and how must the Institution of Christ be found William Iohnson Answ. In the revealed Word of God written or unwritten Mr. Baxter You never gave the World assurance how they may truly know the measure of your unwritten Word nor where to finde it so as to know what it is William Iohnson We say we have Mr. Baxter 2. 'Till you prove Christ's Institution which you have never done William Iohnson That is to be done in our Controversie Mr. Baxter You free us from believing in the Pope William Iohnson All are free from believing in the Pope we believe in God but not in the Pope who of us ever obliged you you to do so Mr. Baxter Qu. 3. Will any ones Election prove him to be Pope or who must Elect him ad esse William Iohnson Answ. Such as by approved custome are esteemed by those by to whom it belongs fit for that Charge and with whose Election the Church is satisfied Reply Here you are fain to hide your self instead of Answering and shew indeed that a Pope that 's made an Essential part of the Church subjection to whom is made of necessity to salvation is indeed but a meer name or a thing unknown and so can certainly be believed or acknowledged by none For either Election in him by somebody is necessary or not If not then you or another man unchosen may be Pope for ought I know or any man else if yea then it is either any bodies Election of him that will serve turn or not if it will then you may be Popes if your Schollars chuse you and then you have had three Popes at once for many were Elected but if it be not then it must be known who hath the Power of Election before it can be known who is indeed the Pope but you are forced here by your Answer to intimate to us that the Power of Election cannot be known therefore the Pope cannot be known for 1. Here are no Determinate Electours mentioned and therefore it seems none known to you and no wonder for if you confine it to the People or to the Cardinals or to the Emperours or to the Councils you cut off all your Popes that were Chosen by the other wayes 2. Nor do you Determine of any particular discernable note by which the Electours and power of Election may be known to that Church but all these patches make up your description 1. it must be those that are esteemed fit for the Charge 2. that by those to whom it belongs 3. and that by Custome 4. and that approved 5. and the Church must be satisfied with the Election a miserable body then that hath been so often headlesse as Rome hath been 1. well esteeming them fit to serve turn though they be unfit then it is not the fitnesse that is necessary but the Estimation true or false 2. but why did you not tell us to whom it is
NOVELTY REPREST In a Reply to M r. BAXTER'S Answer to WILLIAM JOHNSON WHEREIN The oecumenical Power of the four first General Councils is Vindicated the Authority of Bishops asserted the compleat Hierarcy of Church Government established his novel succession evacuated and professed Hereticks demonstrated to be no true parts of the visible Church of Christ. By WILLIAM JOHNSON Prophanas vocum i. e. dogmatum novitates devita quas recipere atque sectari numquam Catholicorum semper vero Haereticorum fuit Lirinensis contra Haereses c. 23 24. c. Retenta est Antiquitas explosa Novitas Idem c. 10. PARIS Printed for E. C. Anno 1661. The Preface MEdusa sister to Euryale and Sthemione and daughter of a sea-monster ensnared by her beautie and golden tresses Neptune god of the Ocean and with him polluted the Temple of Minerva and had for issue Pegasus the winged Courser Minerva that learned and Virgin Goddess in revenge of so foul an injury metamorphos'd each hair of Medusaes head into a serpent and laid so heavy a Curse upon her that every one whose eyes were so curious as fixedly to behold her chang'd into stones whereupon the Beldam Medusa took her flight into the Dorcades islands in the Aethiopick sea and there raging like a hellish furie made her self Queen and Generaless of a femal armie her two sisters being the chief Commanders under her wasting and depopulating all where they march'd with unheard of cruelty The noble and valiant Captain Perseus covering his breast with a brazen shield of Minerva marched undauntedly towards this hideous Monster and discovering by the reflexion she made in the brightness of his shield while shee and her brood of serpents were all asleep at one blow cut off her head and those of the serpents with it and took it upon the point of his fauchion with him into Africa but such was the venome and pestilence of that inchaunted head that every drop of bloud which fell from it turn'd into a serpent whereby the whole coast of Africa was fill'd with snakes and vipers This though a fiction seems to be a fit Embleme of Heresie S. Greg. in Iob. lib. 35. cap. 34. The sea whale or Monster mother of Medusa by reason of her immense bulk and strength of body toweing her self over all other creatures in the Ocean is Pride and Ambition styled by Saint Austin the mother of hereticks Lib. 2. c. 3. contra lit Parmen Medusa seducing the heart of inconstant Neptune with her youth and beauty is a luxuriant wit priding it self in the invention of novelties in Religion The violation of Minervaes Temple the staining of the holy Church with sordid tenets and practices Pegasus the high flying thoughts of heretical spirits Those snakes and serpents crawling from Medusaes head and twisting themselves about her neck gnawing and consuming not onely one another but the head which bore them are wicked Heresies hatch'd in the brain and nourish'd in the head of Arch-Hereticks condemning and thwarting one another by perpetual contrarieties and still gnawing upon the Conscience which brought them forth The Petrifying Metamorphosis wrought upon the curious spectators of Medusa is the obduratenesse of those hearts who open too broad an eye to the speculations of Hereticks The wasting and destroying what ever oppos'd that femal army the horrible rebellions civil warres destractions desolations caus'd by Hereticks both in ancient and in our present ages The undaunted Perseus the supreme Bishop of the Catholick Church guarded with the shield of Faith and arm'd with the sword of Saint Peter cuts off the serpentine head of Medusa errours and heresies with his definitions decrees censures and anathemaes the drops of bloud distilling from Medusaes head even after it was struck dead and divided from her shoulders turning into so many snakes and adders the pullulation of new divisions and subdivisions of Heresies spreading themselves all o-over and infesting the countries where they fall with implacable dissentions and tumults each against other This is the sad story of Medusa Emblemis'd And yet happy had been our Nation and many others with it had it rested in the nature of an Embleme and been no more then a bare speculation But as it hath faln heavy upon several Countries in all precedent ages so in this and the former has it almost crush'd ours and many adjacent to us the histories are too too fresh in our memories and the late pressures too broad before our eyes to need recital and yet we might hope to obliterate their foul Characters in time were there not new drops distilling from Medusaes ghastly head and perpetuating that generation of vipers which took their first birth from it Force of Reason and Authority had devested our adversaries of both and so enervated their Principles that they had no consistency when behold a new brood of unheard of Novelties dropping from Medusa's brain rise-up to reestablish their dying cause Sects and Schismes are united as parts to the Catholick Church Oecumenicall Councils are despoiled of their ancient Authority Ecclesiasticall Decrees pin'd up within the Circuit of the Romane Empire true Christian and Divine Faith made consistent in the same soul with Heresie ancient Theologicall Definitions question'd and revers'd c. And those Principles once advanced which both Parties condemned and execrated as Diabolicall our Arguments are frustrated and we put upon a necessity to prove what we and all Christians suppos'd hitherto as undeniable Truths This is the task which Mr. Richard Baxter inventer of the said Novelties hath put upon me a man who had his fecunditie of invention been equalliz'd with a soliditie in Learning might have proved as offensive as he is now invective against the Roman Church My present work therefore is not so much a defence of mine own as of the common cause of Christians against those young Meducean Serpents new bred Novelties hissing against it so that it may be equally intitled CHISTIANITY MAINTAIN'D and NOVELTY REPRES'T Yet I have made choice of the latter as not daring to assume a Title to any writing of mine which a Person so far excelling me in all respects has prefixed to his own in answer to another bold oppugner of Christian Principles Whosoever therefore shall please to peruse this present Tract shall I hope find the whole controversie laid open so plain before his eyes that he needs no more then to parallell each answer to its respective objection in their severall Paragraphs for to this end I have inserted the whole first part of Mr. Baxters last Answer by Sections verbatim and to each applyed my rejoinder that neither the Reader may be put to the cost or trouble of perusing Mr. Baxters Book nor he himself have any occasion to complain that I accuse him to say any thing which he expresses not in his own Treatise For the same end also I have reprinted here the whole precesse of the argument with all our precedent respective Answers and Replies that the
first sense I grant your conclusion if really you are part of the Church There is no Salvation to be had out of Christs Universal Church of which you are a small corrupted part In the second sense I told you we deny the supposition in the subject In the third sense I deny the sequel non sequitur because your Major Proposition being false de Ecclesia universali the conclusion must be false de parte ista as excluding the rest But to the unskilful or unwary Reader your conclusion seemeth to import that the being in such a Church which acknowledgeth the Popes Soveraignty as it is such a Church is necessary to Salvation and so that the persons acknowledgement is neccesary But it is a fallacia accidentis cunningly lapt up that is the life of your imported cause That part of the Universal Church doth hold to the Popes Soveraignty is per accidens and could you prove that the whole Church doth so which you are unlike to do I would say the like And that your fallacy may the beter appear I give you some examples of such like Sophismes Whatsoever Nation is the true Kingdom of Spain is proud and cruel against Protestants But there is no protection there due to any that are not of that Kingdome therefore there is no protection due to any that are not proud and cruel Or whatsoever Nation is the true Kingdome of France acknowledgeth the Pope but no protection is due from the Governours to any that are not of that Kingdom therefore no protection is due to any that acknowledge not the Pope Or what ever Nation is the Kingdome of Ireland in the days of Queen Elizabeth was for the Earl of Tyrone but there was no right of Inheritance for any that were not of that Nation therefore there was no right of Inheritance for any that was not for the Earl of Tyrone Or suppose that you could have proved it of all the Church If you had lived four hundred years after Christ you might as well have argued thus Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ is against kneeling in adoration on the Lords days But there is no salvation to be had out of that Congregation of Christians which is now the true Church of Christ therefore there is no salvation to be had out of that Congregation which is against kneeling on the Lords day c. But yet 1. There was Salvation to be had in that Congregation without being of that opinion 2. And there is now Salvation to be had in a Congregation that is not of that opinion as you will confess Or whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ doth hold the Canticles and the Epistle to Philemon to be Canonical Scripture and so have done c. But there is no Salvation to be had out of the true Church therefore there is no Salvation to be had out of that Congregation which holdeth the Canticles and Epistle to Philemon to be Canonical Scripture But yet 1. Salvation is to be had in that Church without holding it 2. And its possible hereafter a Church may deny those two books and yet you will think Salvation not thereby overthrown This is but to shew your fallacy from a corrupt accident and indeed but of a part of the Church and a small part Now to your proof of the Major Resp. ad Major The present matter of the Church was not visible in the last Generation for we were not then born but the same form of the Church was then existent in a visible Matter and their Profession was visible or audible though their faith it self was invisible I will do more then you shall do in maintaining the constant visibility of the Church Ad minorem 1. If you mean that no Congregation hath been alwayes visible but that Vniversal Church whose lesser corrupt part acknowledges the Popes Soveraignty I grant it For besides the whole containing all Christians as the parts there can be no other If you mean save that part which acknowledgeth you contradict your self because a part implyeth other parts If you mean save that Universal Church all whose members or the most acknowledg it there is no such subject existent 2. I distinguish of Visibility It s one thing to be a visible Church that is visible in its essentials and another thing to be visible quoad hoc as to some separable accident The Universal Church was ever visible because their Profession of Christianity was so and the persons professing But the acknowledgment of the Vice-christ was not alwayes visible no not in any parts much less in the whole And if it had it was but a separable accident if your disease be not incurable that was visible and therefore 1. It was not necessary to Salvation nor a proper mark of the Church 2. Nor can it be so for the time to come I need to say no more to your conclusion Your Argument is no better then this whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ hath been alwayes visible since the time of Christ But no congregation of Christians hath been so visible save onely that which condemneth the Greeks which hath a Colledge of Cardinals to chose the Popes which denieth the cup to the laity which forbiddeth the reading of Scripture in a known tongue without license c. Therefore whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church of Christ hath all these 1. In a corrupt part it hath 2. But it had not alwayes 3. And may be cured hereafter To your proof of the Major 1. I grant your Major 2. Ad minorem 1. Either you mean Vniversal Pastors each one or some one having charge and Government of the whole Church or you mean unfixed Pastors having an indefinite charge of Preaching and Guiding when they come and have particular calls and opportunities or you mean the fixed Pastors of particular Churches In the first sense your Minor is false the Catholike Church was never so united to any Universal Head but Christ no one of the Apostles governed the rest and the whole Church much less any since their time In the second sense I grant that the Church hath ever had Pastors since the Ascension In the third sense I grant that some parts or other of the Catholick Church have ever had fixed Pastors of Congregations since the first setling of such Pastors But any one particular Congregation may cease to have such Pastors and may cease it self And Rome hath been long without any true Pastors and therefore was then no such visible Church 2. If by Congregation you mean not the Universal Church but a part or if you mean it of all the parts of the Universal Church I deny your Minor Communities of Christians and particular persons have been and may be without any Pastors to whom they are united or subject The Indians that died in the faith while Frumentius and Edesius were
such and the consent of all Orthodox Christians who ever since esteemed them no other or you must make condemned Hereticks parts of the Catholick Church against all antiquity and Christianity And for those Greeks near Constantinople who are not infected with Nestorianism and Eutychianism yet in the Procession of the Holy Ghost against both us and you they must be thought to maintain manifest Heresie it being a point in a fundamental matter of faith the Trinity and the difference betwixt those Greeks and the Western Church now for many hundred of years and in many General Councils esteemed and defined to be reall and great yea so great that the Greeks left the Communion of the Roman Church upon that difference alone and ever esteemed the Bishop of * See Nilus on this Subject Rome and his party to have fallen from the true faith and lost his ancient Authority by that sole pretended error and the Latins always esteemed the Greeks to be in a damnable error in maintaining the contrary to the doctrine of the Western or Roman Church in that particular And yet sure they understood what they held and how far they differed one from another much better then some Novel Writers of yours who prest by force of Argument have no other way left them to maintain a perpetual visibility then by extenuating that difference of Procession betwixt the Greek and Latin Church which so many ages before Protestancy sprung up was esteemed a main fundamental error by both parts caused the Greeks to abandon all subjection and Communion to the Bishops of Rome made them so divided the one from the other that they held each other Hereticks Schismaticks and desertors of the true Faith as they continue still to do to this day and yet you will have them both parts of the Catholick Church But when you have made the best you can of these Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants whom you first name you neither have deduced nor can deduce them successively in all ages till Christ as a different Congregation of Christians from that which holds the Popes Supremacy which was my Proposition For in the year 1500. those who became the first Protestants were not a Congregation different from those who held that supremacy nor in the year 500 were the Greeks a visible Congregation different from it nor in the year 300. were the Nestorians nor in the year 200. the Eutychians a different Congregation from those who held the said Supremacy But in those respective years those who first begun those Heresies were involved within that Congregation which held it as a part of it and assenting therein with it who after in their several ages and beginnings fell off from it as dead branches from the tree that still remaining what it ever was and only continuing in a perpetuall visibility of succession Though therefore you profess never to have seen convincing proof of this in the first 400 years and labour to infringe it in the next ages yet I will make an Essay to give you a taste of those innumerable proofs of this visible consent in the Bishop of Romes Supremacy not of Order only but of Power Authority and jurisdiction over all other Bishops in the ensuing instances which happened within the first 400 or 500 or 600 years (a) Liberatus in Brev. c. 16. Iohn Bishop of Antioch makes an Appeal to Pope Simplicius And Flavianus (b) Epist. praeambula Concil Chalcedon Bishop of Constantinople being deposed in the false Council of Ephesus immediatly appeals to the Pope as to his judge (c) Concil Chalcedon Act. 1. Theodoret was by Pope Leo restored and that by an (d) Concil Chalcedon Act. 8. appeal unto a just judgement (e) S. Cyprian Epist. 67. Saint Cyprian desires Pope Stephen to depose Marcian Bishop of Arles that another might be substituted in his place And to evince the supream Authority of the Bishops of Rome it is determined in the (f) Concil Sard. cap. 4 cited by S. Athan. Apol. 2. page 753. Council of Sardis That no Bishop deposed by other neighbouring Bishops pretending to be heard again was to have any successor appointed untill the case were defined by the Pope Eustathius (g) St. Basil Epist. 74. Bishop of Sebast in Armenia was restored by Pope Liberius his Letters read and received in the Council of Tyana and (h) St. Chrysost. Epist. 2. ad Innocent Saint Chrysostome expresly desires Pope Innocent not to punish his Adversaries if they do repent Which evinces that Saint Chrysostome thought that the Pope had power to punish them And the like is written to the Pope by the (i) Concil Ephes. p. 2. Act. 5. Council of Ephesus in the case of Iohn Bishop of Antioch (k) St. Athanas. ad Solit. Epist. Iulius in lit ad Arian ap Athan. Apol. 1. pag. 753. Theodoret lib. 2. cap. 4. Athanas. Apol. 2. Zozom lib. 3. cap. 7. The Bishops of the Greek or Eastern Church who sided with Arius before they declared themselves to be Arians sent their Legates to Iulius Bishop of Rome to have their cause heard before him against S. Athanasius the same did S. Athanasius to defend himself against them which Arian Bishops having understood from Iulius that their Accusations against S. Athanasius upon due examination of both parties were found groundless and false required rather fraudulently then seriously to have a fuller Tryal before a General Council at Rome which to take away all shew of excuse from them Pope Iulius assembled Saint Athanasius was summoned by the Pope to appear before him and the * The Appeal of Theodoret from that Council as to his judge is so undeniable that Chamier is forced to acknowledge it Tom. 2. l. 13. â—â— 9. p. 498 and the whole Council of Calcedon acknowledged the right of that Appeal restoring Theodoret to his Bishoprick by force of an Order given upon that Appeal by Leo Pope to restore him Concerning Saint Athanasius being judged and righted by Iulius Pope Chamier cit p. 497. acknowledges the matter of fact to be so but against all antiquity pretends that judgment to have been unjust Which had it been so yet it shews a true power of judging in the Pope though then unduly executed otherwise Saint Athanasius would never have made use of it neither can it be condemned of injustice unless Saint Athanasius be also condemned as unjust in consenting to it Nicâ—â—ph lib. 13. cap. 34. Chamier cit p. 498. says other Bishops restored those who were wrongfully deposed as well as the Pope Which though it were so yet never was there any single Bishop sâ—â—ve the Pope who restored any who were out of their respective Diocess or Patriarchates but always collected together in a Synod by common voice and that in regard only of their neighbouring Bishops whereas the Bishop of Rome by his sole and single authority restored Bishops wrongfully deposed all the Church ever Council in Judgement
beleeved to be implicitely by them when they subject themselves to all their lawful pastors he being one and the chief of them Baxter Num. 21. To your Confirmation I reply You mis-read my words I talk not of invisible I say it is true that the universal Church is united to Christ as their universal Head Iohnson Num. 21. Nor say I you have writ there the word invisible but that the pastor or Head which you there name Viz. Christ is an invisible pastor nor say I as you mis-conceive that Christ is an invisible person that toucht not the controversie but that he was an invisible Pastor and that most certainly he is both in heaven and earth for though his person may be seen there yet the exercise of his pastorship consisting only in spiritual influxions and internal graces cannot be seen by any corporal eye whatsoever therefore as pastor of the Militant Church he is wholly invisible whence it is evident that you put a visible body the universal Militant Church for we treat no other here save that without a visible Head for Christ as head that is as supream pastor of this Church is invisible all that is visible in the pastoral Function being performed by visible pastors and all that is invisible by our Saviour Thus whilest you by a strange piece of Novelty constitute a visible Body without a visible Head you destroy the visible Church and frame a Monster Baxter Num. 22. And is visible 1. In the members 2. In the profession 3. Christ himself is visible in the heavens and as much seen of most of the Church as the Pope is that is not at all As the Pope is not invisible though one of a million see him not no more is Christ who is seen by most of the Church and by the best part even by the glorified You know my meaning whether you will call Christ visible or not I leave to you I think he is visible But that which I affirm is that the universal Church hath no other visible universal Head or Pastor But particular Churches have their particular Pastors all under Christ. Iohnson Num. 22. If Christ be no otherwise visible as Head of the Church then in his members and their profession of his Faith you may as well affirm that God the Father is visible in his creatures and make him also visible which were absonous and contrary to Christian Faith It seems you regard not much what follows from your doctrine so you may at present oppose your Adversary The question in treatie is seeing we both confess the members and profession of the Universal Militant Church to be visible whether Christ in the exercise of his Headship or chief-Pastorship over the Church renders himself visible to our corporal eyes or performs immediatly any visible action in relation to his Church To constitute therefore Christ to be a visible Head of the Church when he performs nothing visible as Head of the Church or to make a visible Body without a visible Head is another of your grand Novelties fit to be represt and stifled in the cradle And all men will expect that in your Rejoynder to this you shew that Christ not in his person but in the exercise of his pastoral Headship works visibly by himself One thing is worth observation in this Paragraph that you affirm Christ is seen by most of the Church and by the best part even by the glorified whereby you must either affirm that the glorified are now conjoyned to their bodies and thereby evacuate the general resurrection of Saints bodies at the day of judgement or that the souls of Saints in heaven have corporal eyes for we speak only of corporal sight Baxter Of Ephes. 4. I easily grant that the whole Church may be said to have Pastors in that all the particular Churches have Pastors But I deny that the whole have any one Universal Pastor but Christ. Of that which is the point in controversie you bring no proof If you mean no more then I grant Fallacy 7. That the whole Church hath Pastors both in that each particular Church hath Pastors and in that unfixed Pastors are to preach to all as they have opportunity then your Minor hath no denial from me Iohnson Num. 23. All I intend from Ephes. 4. is to prove my Minor the perpetual Succession of visible Pastors whatsoever those be you grant here it proves thus much Why then presse you me to know whether I would prove from it one supream visible Pastor on earth when I alledge it not to prove that It is strange Logick to ask an Opponent whether he intend to prove more by his Syllogism then what he was obliged to prove in Form when the Respondent grants he has proved that and by proving the Proposition which was to be proved has evinced the Thesis to be true which he first undertook to prove by his Argument Viz. the Popes Supremacy CHAP. II. The ARGUMENT No Negative fram'd in Positive Historical matters to be proved num 24. but the Instances alledged against it to be disproved by the Opponent num 25. The Pope obeyed in England not only as Patriarch of the West but as Supream visible Pastor of the whole Militant Church See Stow and Spâ—â—ed with the Statutes of Parliaments and decrees of our English Councils in and before the beginning of King Hâ—â—nry the eighths Râ—â—ign of this matter was in quiet possession of the spiritual government of the English Church when Protestancy first appeared in it Mr. Baxter forced n. 27. to deny two common principles n. 28. His unfair dealing with his adversary n. 33 34. Visible Pastors though Christs Officers Essential to his visible Church and if they why not the Supream amongst them n. 35 36. Some under Officers are Essential to Monarchies p. 38. No new work to be attempted till the old be finish'd n. 39 40 41 42 c. Mr. Baxter puts many questions and doubts where there is no need and n. 46. mistakes grosly his Adversaries words and meaning Baxter Num. 24. In stead of prosecuting your Argument when you had cast the work of an Opponent upon me you here appeal to any true Logician or expert Lawyer Content I admit your Appeal But why then did you at all put on the face of an Opponent Could you not without this lost labour at first have called me to prove the successive visibility of our Church But to your Appeal Ho all you true Logicians this Learned man and I refer it to your Tribunal whether it be the part of an Opponent to contrive his Argument so as that the Negative shall be his and then change places and become Respondent and make his Adversary Opponent at his pleasure We leave this Cause at your Bar and expect your Sentence But before we come to the Lawyers Bar I mâ—â—st have leave more plainly to state our Case Iohnson Num. 24. I am still content to refer my case as I state
Bernard Lutsemburg de Albigens Vide etiam S. Anton. 4 parte summae Tit. 11 c. 7. the one Good and the other Evil with the Manichees who denied 1. the Old Testament 2. that Baptism profited Infants to Salvation 3. that an unworthy Minister could consecrate the holy Sacrament 4. that wicked Prelates had any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction or were to be obeyed 5. that it is lawfull to swear in any occasion whatsoever c. then with Alexander the Third whom no Christian in those times ever accused of Heresie or Errour in Faith who was elected against his will and after a Schisme made by Octavianus the Anti-Pope and Frederick the Emperour was received both by the Western and Eastern Churches excepting onely the party of Frederick who notwithstanding after acknowledged him and relinquisht Octavianus the Anti-Pope And whatsoever latter Historians relate by Hear-say Acta Alexâ—â—nd 3. ap Romuald Episcop Salern in suo Chronico ap Rogerium in Epist. Alexand in Histor. suâ of the insulting of this Pope over that Emperour yet those who recorded what past before their eyes in the time of Alexander record nothing but what became a modest and Christian Prelate of his eminency Baxter Num. 87 The Religion of all these men was one and they were all of one Vniversal Church Iohnson Num. 87. This is your grand Novelty at which I chiefly aim in this Answer It is not easie to conjecture what you mean by all these men whether the Iconoclasts Berengarians Waldensians Albigenses Wickliffists Hussites Lutherans Calvinists which you named in the end of pag. 105. and again pag. 106. in your Edit or those whom I named pag. 43. of your Book that is all at least amongst them whom you account Univocal Christians amongst which are Donatists Nestorians Eutychians Pelagians And can you or did yet ever any Christian before you account these men to have had one Religion Is the Religion of those who say there are Two Gods the same with that which teaches there is no more but one onely God if so then Heathens and Christians may be as well of one Religion If not then could not at least the Albigenses be of one Religion with the rest Vide supra whom I have proved to have held two gods Of the rest more hereafter Baxte Num. 88. Where you again call for one Congregation I tell you again that we know no unity Essential from whence the Church can be called one but either Christ or the Vice-Christ the former only is asserted by us and the latter also by you which we deny And therefore we cannot call the Universal Church one in any other formal respects but as it is Christian and so one in Christ. Iohnson Num. 88. We acknowledge the Church to be one in Christ as much as you but we acknowledge him as Head not to be the Formal but the Causal unity that is working the formal unity to wit Faith and Charity in his Church It is not enough to make one living organical body that there be one head and parts but those parts must be united to their Head and amongst themselves and to that Head Nor is it enough that there be several parts in the Church and one head of it but those parts must also be united to their Head and amongst themselves otherwise they are not one Now that which is the formall cause of this Unity is true Christian Faith and Charity which do both unite Christians amongst themselves and to Christ their Head I mean that necessary and prime charity which preserves external Communion and society amongst Christians so much celebrated by the Fathers and Schoolmen which is taken away by nothing but Schism or that which includes Schism Whence appears that to whomsoever the name of Christian is vulgarly given unless there be found true Faith and this Christian charity amongst all the other members they cannot be actual parts of the one true Catholick Church When therefore you say the Church universal cannot be called one in any other formal respect but as it is Christian if you mean by Christian all such as have true Christian faith and charity ut supra you say true and you say nothing but what all good Christians say But then here comes the difficulty how any Heretick or Schismatick can be a Christian more then nomine tenus in denomination only or in a laxe acception of the word for such as make a bare profession to beleeve in Christ and are thereby distinguished from Jewes Mahumetans and Heathens and so pass under the notion of Christians For if to be a Christian in our present strict sense be required a true Christian Faith then all that are true Christians have true faith but no Heretick hath true faith Ergo No Heretick is in this strict acception a Christian The Major is evident I prove the Minor Whosoever hath true faith beleeveth the material object of faith or the thing beleeved for the Divine Authority of God revealing it But no Heretick beleeves the material object of faith or the thing beleeved for the Divine Authority of God revealing it Ergo no Heretick hath true faith The Major is granted by all Divines yours and ours For Christian faith must rest upon Gods revelation as its formal object I prove the Minor Whosoever beleeves the material object of faith or thing beleeved for the Divine Authority of God revealing it must beleeve all things which are as suffiâ—â—iently propounded to him to be revealed by God as are the rest of the Articles which he beleeveth protesteth to and beleeve nothing as revealed which is as sufficiently declared to him to be erroneous or not revealed by Divine Authority as are the Articles of Faith propounded to be revealed by God But every Heretick either refuses to beleeve something which is so sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed from â—â—od or beleeves something as revealed which is so sufficiently declared to him to be erroneous or not revealed from God Ergo no Heretick hath true faith The Major I prove thus as to the first part Whosoever refuses to beleeve what is so sufficiently propounded to be revealed by God either beleeves all that is so propounded or beleeves some things and refuses to beleeve others as sufficiently propounded as those which he beleeves But if he refuses all he can have no true faith for he beleeves nothing and consequently is no Christian. If he beleeves some and refuses others equally propounded he beleeves them not for the Divine Authority revealing for when that is equally propounded to his understanding it ought to work equally upon it but upon his own willful choice or private judgement refuses one and assents to the other To illustrate this Let this sentence of Scripture Tertiâ die refurget he shall rise again the third day be so sufficienly propounded to be Gods revelation that whosoever refuses to beleeve the substance of our Saviours Resurrection delivered in it is
Church all the rest even the highest are no more then his Officers with a limited and restrained power that is in order to the sole sole external and visible government of it not having other Bishops under him as his Officers but as Officers of Christ and subject to him as hereafter shall be further declared Nor yet have you given here any direct answer to my Question I demand whether you account Rome and Protestants one Congregation To which you answer the Roman Church hath two heads and the Protestant but one and that 's the difference Now this gives no satisfaction to my demand for the Question inquires not Whether there be any difference betwixt us and you that was out of Question but whether that difference assigned by you be so great that it hinders them from being one Congregation and that you resolve not and thereby leave the difficulty unanswered Baxter Num. 91. They are Christians and so one Church as united in Chrst with us and all other true Christians If any so hold their Papacy and other Errors as effectively and practically to destroy their Christianity those are not Christians and so not of the same Church as we But those that do not so but are so Papists as yet to be truly and practically Christians are and shall be of the same Church with us whether they will or not Iohnson Num. 91. You tell us what would follow if such things as you fancy were done but you tell us not whether it is possible to do them or no. Can a Papist think you remaining still a Papist so hold his Papacy and other pretended errors as to destroy Christianity If he cannot why trifle you away time in printing such Chymerical conditionals if he can tell us how and by what means which you have not done nor indeed can you do it For how is it possible for two persons to be both Papists that is of the same Faith in all things for otherwise they will not be both Papists and the one of them only to be a Christian and the other none but practically and effectually destroying Christianity Baxter Num. 92. And your modest stile makes me hope that you and I are of one Church though you never so much renounce it Iohnson Num. 92. I never saw a man labor so confidently to perswade one out of his Religion upon so weak grounds as you do And truly something might be done in time to make you and me of one Church if I knew what Church you are of For you contradict so loudly the Tenets of all those who pretend either to be the Church or parts of the Church before you that I cannot finde but you are of a Church by your self which no man knows but your self and then I 'me sure you neither are nor can be of one Church with me so long as you remain in the state you are in yet it is the height of my desires that we may both be joyned in one Catholick Church which I shall most earnestly and unfainedly beg of God still hoping that your zeal and ardency in what you profess may as it did S. Paul bring you to see and imbrace his true Church Baxter Num. 93. As Papal we are not of your Church that 's a new Church-form Iohnson Num. 93. Prove it is new you know well enough we hold it to be ancient Baxter Num. 94. But as Christian we are and will be of it even when you are condemning torturing and burning us if such persecution can stand with your Christianity Iohnson Num. 94. I have shewed you are not as Christian speaking univocally of one Church with us For true Christianity requires true faith which I cannot beleeve you have nor have you proved it as shall appear hereafter I am unwilling to revive the memory of those severities you mention and you also might have pleased to have buried them in Oblivion for in objecting them to us you refresh the remembrance of yours towards us nor yet see I why such severities can better stand with your Christianity then with ours CHAP. VII ARGUMENT Num. 95. Roman Catholicks and Protestants cannot be of one and the same Church num 96 Length of time or continuance excuses not the succeeding Hereticks or Schismaticks from the crimes of their first beginners num 97. When Protestants deserted external Communion with Rome they deserted together with it the external Communion of all other particular visible Churches and that upon the same grounds n. 98. Mr. Baxters exclamation against Rome is injurious to all other ancient particular Churches existent immediatly before the first beginners of Protestancy n. 99. All the Kingdoms in the world not one visible but only invisible Kingdome under Gods invisible providence and power which governs them and in that regard an unfit instance to prove different particular Churches without one visible governour of them all to be one visible Church num 100. His opinion of actual Hereticks and Schismaticks properly so called contrary to all Authors ours or his own and to Christianity it self num 101. How Alphonsus à Castro held them to be members of the Church num 102. Every Heretick properly so called denies some essentials of Christianity num 103. Pelagians undoubted and manifest Hereticks and Schismaticks The Catholick Church so perfectly one that it s not capable to be divided Baxter Num. 95. But you ask Why did you then separate your selves and remain still separate from the Communion of the Roman Church Answ. 1. We never separated from you as you are Christians we still remain of that Church as Christian and we know or will know no other form because that Scripture and Primitive Churches knew no other Either you have by Popery separated from the Church as Christian or not If you have it s you that are the damnable Separatists If you have not then we are not separated from you in respect of the form of the Christian Church Iohnson Num. 95. You separated as much from us as did either Novatians or Pelagians or Donatists or Acacians or Luciferians or Nestorians Eutychians c. did from the Catholick Church of their respective times which is enough for us to deny you to be of one Church with us or to be any true parts of the Catholick Church If it be not so shew what you can say for your selves which any of those Hereticks might not as well have alledged in their own defence for neither did any of them separate from the Church as it was Christian nor did either the Pelagians Donatists Acacians Luciferians Novatians dis-beleeve any essential point of Christian faith if Protestants dis-beleeve no essential what you say of not separating from us as we are Christians is a precision never used by Catholick or Heretick in ancient times nor indeed did ever any Heretick who esteemed himself a Christian affirm he separated from the Church as it was Christian for that had been to deny himself to be a Christian which
no Hetick ever did so that if this excuse save you from Schismatical separation every Heretick in the world may be excused as well as you Actual separation and refusal of external Communion with all the Churches in the world of their time as your first beginners did was ever esteemed and will ever be esteemed by Orthodox Christians a destruction of true union with the visible Church of Christ under what notion or precission soever it be done because as Dr. Hammâ—â—nd affirms lib. de schismate there can be no sufficient cause given for any such separation Baxter Num. 96. And for your other form the Papacy 1. Neither I nor my Grand-father or great Grand-father did separate from it because they never entertained it Iohnson Num. 96. This is strange doctrine and would help out an Arrian or a Donatist at a dead lift after a hundred or two hundred years continuance of those Heresies no lesse then your self Is not the maintaining of a Separation or Schisme ever termed amongst Christians a Schism or separation even many generations after it begun Were not the succeeding Donatists after some ages as truly esteemed Schismaticks as the first beginners of their Schisme S. Austin called them Schismaticks and said they had left the Church above a hundred years after their first parting from it Baxter Num. 97. Those that did so did but repent of their sin and that 's no sin We still remain separated from you as Papists even as we are separated from such as we are commanded to avoid for impenitency in some corrupting Doctrine or scandalous sin Whether such mens sins or their professed Christianity be most predominant at the heart we know not but till they shew repentance we must avoid them yet admonishing them as brethren and not taking them as men of another Church but as finding them unfit for our Communion Iohnson Num. 97. This is one of the handsomest passages of your whole Reply and shews a fecundity of invention to maintain a Novelty But give me leave to tell you it will not it cannot acquit you of separating from the true â—â—hurch of Christ. Had you indeed deserted the sole Communion of the Papacy as you term it it might have born some shew of defence though no more then a shew but seeing when you separated from that you remained also separate as much from all particular visible Churches in the world as from that there can be neither shew nor shadow of excuse in it For you must either say that all the particular Churches in the world existent immediatly before you Anno 1500. were guilty of impenitency in some corrupting Doctrine or scandalous sin for which you were commanded to avoid them which were both to contradict Tertullian cited by your self page 235. Eâ—â—quid verisimile est c. to prove the contrary and thereby to condemn your selves of manifest Schisme which is nothing but a separation of ones self from the whole Visible Church or you must say there were some particular Churches then existent not guilty of that impenitency in some corrupting Doctrine or scandalous sin to which Churches you adhered when you first separated from the Roman and with which you lived in external Communion and then you are obliged to shew design and nominate which that Church oâ—â— those Churches were which neither you nor any of your professors ever yet did or could doe Nor will it excuse you to alledge you communicate with all Churches as Christian for whilest you profess your selves Christians you cannot affirm that you left all Churches as they are Christian and by this means never yet any Heretick no neither Arrian nor Sabellian could be convinced to have separated from all Churches for never would any of them acknowledge that they left them as Christian seeing they all not only protested but really beleeved themselves to be Christians Now if you will acquit your selves of separation from Christs Church shew in your Rejoynder some visible Churches pre-existent immediatly before you and co-existent with you in your first beginning which did not pray for the dead desire the assistance and Prayers of Saints for themselves use and reverence Images in their Churches which had not Altars Priests Masses reall and proper Sacrifice which held not Bread and Wine to be really changed by vertue of consecration into Christs true Body and Blood before they received them which held not S. Peter and him whom they esteemed his lawfull Successor to be the Supream visible Governour next under Christ of the whole Militant Church as is declared above Or which held not some other points as points of Faith which you deny or held not or denied some points which you hold to be points of Christian faith by reason wherof you had sufficient reason to leave their external Communion if you had reason to forsake that of Rome For till this be shewed all the world will see that as you separated from all other particular Churches as much as from those who adhere to the Church of Rome so had you the very same or equivalent Reasons to separate from them So that in accusing the Church of Rome of impenitency in some corrupting Doctrine and scandalous sin you accuse in like manner all other Christian Churches then existent in the World together with her Baxter Num. 98. But O Sir what manner of dealing have we from you must we be imprisoned rackt harg'd and burned if we will not beleeve that Bread and Wine are not Bread and Wine contrary to our own and all mens senses and if we will not worship them with divine Worship and will not obey the Pope of Rome in all such matters contrary to our Consciences and then must we be chidden for separating from you if we can but a while escape the Strappado and the flames What! will you blame us for not beleeving that all mens senses are deceived and the greater part of Christians and their Traditions against you are false when we read studie and suspect our selves and pray for light and are willing to hear any of your reasons but cannot force our own understandings ti beleeve all such things that you beleeve and meerly because the Pope commands it and when we cannot thus force our own understandings must we be burned or else called Separatists Would you have the Communion of our Ashes or else say We forsake your Communion In your Churches we cannot have leave to come without lying against God and our Consciences and saying We beleeve what our senses contradict and without committing that which our Consciences tell us are most hainous sins We solemnly protest that we would do as you do and say as we say were it not for the love of truth and holiness and for fear of the wrath of God and the flames of Hell but we cannot we dare not rush upon those Errors and sell our souls to please the Pope And must we then either be murthered or taken for uncharitable Will you
universal proposition in it in place of the word those form required all those Secondly you put more in the medium of the major to wit in its parts then you do in the medium of your minor and so make it consist of 4. terms Thirdly you make the predicate of the minor the subject of the conclusion This is a hopeful beginning put your sylogism first in form and then I 'le answer it suppose all adjusted I deny your minor Protestants are no part of that Church on earth whereof Christ is head Non-proof 2. 6. Pag. 204. the second sylogism is likewise out of form having no universal proposition in it Adde all to your major to set it in form and I first deny it It is not true that all who profess true Christian Religion in all its essentials are members of Christs Church for to these essentials they may add some error or non-essential as an essential to them and thereby destroy faith as you your self cite Durandus pag. 211. and put a N. B. not a bene upon it I deny also your minor but first prove your major which you have not done Protestants professe not the true Christian Religion in all its essentials you prove that in this manner Non-proof 3. 7. Your third sylogism p. 295. is also out of form for want of an universal proposition add All to your major I grant that and deny your minor Protestants profess not so much as God hath promised salvation upon the Covenant of Grace Non-proof 4. Your fourth sylogism is also out of form not assuming the whole proposition to be proved for in that proposition was this term in the Covenant of Grace which is not to be found in this fourth sylogism To your fourth sylogism therefore page 205. supposing it were in form I deny that part of your major that Protestants have willingness and diligence to know the true meaning of all the law of nature and holy Scripture for if they were willing and diligent they would take the expositions of the universal Church and not follow their novel interpretations and private judgements I deny also that they believe with a saving divine faith any of the mysteries here named or that their profession general and particular affirm this Non-proof 5. 8. Your 5. sylogism p. 206. nu 2. is likewise out of form for want of an universal proposition make it universal and I deny your major they profess not so much as Catecumens and Competentes for those profess to believe implicitly all that was taught as matter of faith by the Catholique Church in that article I believe the Catholique Church which Protestants do not nor can they do it truly since their profest disbelief of many points evinces the contrary Non-proof 6. 9. Your 6. sylogism p. 206. nu 3. is also out of form for the same reasons add all to the major I deny your major their general profession is contradicted by their particular denial of such points as are sufficiently propounded to them as articles of faith Secondly you distinguish not betwixt being implicitly contained in general principles and being expresly contain'd in the Creeds and Scriptures Thirdly Creeds and Scriptures are not enough traditions and decrees of general Councils in matters of faith must be believed Fourthly I deny those Protestants who are such wittingly and willingly and not excused with invincible ignorance believe any article of faith at all with a supernal saving faith Thus in six sylogisms you have not so much as one in form So mighty strong is your first argument Non-proof 7. 10. Pag. 206. sect ad hominem infra p. 207. you cite Bellar. and Costerus to no purpose for our question is not of what is to be believed expresly only but of what is to be believed both expresly and implicitly respectively by all Christians 11. Your second Argument is p. 207. lit b I grant your major and deny your minor Protestants are not members of the true Church as intrinsecally informed 12. Pag. 208. you prove say you your antecedent or minor which is a Syntax in Logick and deserves a ferula for no minor can be an antecedent Pag. 208. The antecedent I deny your minor 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 for had they this they would never have disobeyed and disbelieved all the visible Churches in the world anno 1517. as their first broachers did and they follow that disbelief to this day Pag. 208. I deny your minor what I deny in the former sylogism is not in your profession both general and particular the second shews the contrary and contradicts the first as did the Arrians ut supra 13. Pag. 208. nu 2. I deny you have any certain knowledge or feeling that you love God or his servants or willingness to obey his precepts as you ought to love and obey him if you be a formal Protestant for if you be such your heart deceives you and your false feelings delude you please to peruse Ier. 17.9 Pravum est cor hominis inscrutabile quis cognoscit illud Ego Dominus scrutans cor probans renes qui do unicuique juxta viam suam juxta fructum ad inventionum suarum And Sapient 9.14 cogitationes mortalium timidae incertae providentiae nostrae ponder a while the strange delusion which bewitched the Angel or Pastor of Laodicea Apoc. 3.17 quia dicis quia dives sum locupletatus nullius egeo nescis quia tu es miser miserabilis pauper caecus nudus consider the Pharisee Luk. 18.13 how much he was deceiv'd in his own judgement of his own state and let not that saying of the Wise man pass without reflection Ecclesiastes 9.1 Nescit homo utrum odio an amore dignus sit sed omnia in futurum servantur incerta What would you answer to a new Arrian or Antitrinitarian c. nay to a Turk or Iew which you hold to be no Christian should they urge the like knowledge and feeling in themselves against you to prove they were members of Gods true Church what you would reply to them take as said to your self 14. Pag. 209. num 2. your sylogism is not in form making the predicate of the minor the subject of the conclusion for your conclusion in form should not be as you have it Ergo the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth which is your Thesis to be proved but it ought to have been this Ergo the Church which hath been alwayes visible since the dayes of Christ on earth is that whereof the Protestants are members which is not your Thesis nor the thing you are immediately to prove but supposing it right I distinguish your major if you mean contained in volutely as in general principles I grant
whatsoever of any Apostolical Church nor was he there to have regard to the order but to the substance of his instances Pag. 236. you make Tertullian speak false Latin and non-sence again by printing institutum for instituuntur so careful are you in your citations fill they but up paper and help to patch up a new volum 't is enough for you Who can doubt but the Apostolical doctrine will prove an Apostolical Church when ever planted as you collect from this Text of Tertullian but how come those succeeding Churches to agree with the precedent but by means of a visible head who hath preserved all in the unity of faith which subject themselves to him where did you ever find any Churches continue long in the same faith with the Apostolical Churches after they had put themselves in opposition to the See of Rome let such Churches be nam'd in your next CHAP. III. More of Mr. Baxters Arguments Num. 32. Mr. Baxters third Argument out of form Num. 33. If the Roman Church were infected with the plague c. anno 1500. the whole visible Catholick Church was infected with it which is a foul Blasphemy Num. 34. Possession stands in force against Protestants Num. 36. the Popes Supremacy in spirituals essential to the Church Num. 37. The true meaning of the 28. Canon of Chalcedon and of the 2. Canon of the first Council of Constantinople Num. 39. Whether the ancient Fathers were accustomed to press the Authority of the Roman See against Heretiques Num. 40. A loud untruth of Mr. Baxter Num. 41. Extra-Imperial Churches subject to the Bishop of Rome Num. 44. 5. Reasons of Mr. Baxters against the Popes supremacy in spirituals answered 32. Pag. 238. Your third argument is out of form having the term as Christian in the first part of the antecedent and not in the sequel or second part therefore I deny the antecedent viz. Though the Roman as Christian hath been alwayes visible yet the Protestant hath not been alwayes visible It is fallacia à secundum quid and simpliciter For all that can be pretended to follow is no more then this that the Protestants have been visible as Christians that is so far as they profess the belief of the chief articles in Christian faith nor yet follows so much for I deny they believe any one of them as Christians ought to do that is with an infallible supernatural divine faith so that they have not been alwayes a visible Church as Christian though the Roman have been so Hence falls the proof of your consequence 33. Pag. 239. I denie your supposition that when Protestants first pretended to reform what displeas'd them in the doctrine of the Roman Church that thereby they were cured of the plague c. for if the Roman Church were then infected with the plague all the visible Churches in the world and consequently the whole Catholique Church was infected with it which is diametrically contrary to the Texts here cited by you out of Tertullian and a horrible blasphemie to affirm that the mystical body of Christ is infected with the plague or any such like mischief Here you trifle again prove the Popes supremacie first to be an usurpation and then take it for a ground of your argument what millions abroad and within the Roman Territories are those you talk of is everie number which you fancie a million Ibid. you frame an objection of your own and then answer it what 's the one or the other to me That which I have objected to be proved by you is no negative but a plain affirmative for 't is this that you prove any Church now denying or opposing the Popes Supremacy to have been alwayes visible Pag. 240. you essay to answer the argument about possession Your first answer is petitio principii or falsum suppositum that any parts of the Catholique Church much less the most fit can be nominated wherin the Popes Supremacy had not possession Non-proof 34. Your second of making good against our title of supremacy c. is only affirm'd by you who are a party but never yielded by us nor legitimately judged or defin'd against us so that sub judice lis est the matter is still in process and you know lite pendente till the cause be decreed or yielded up by one of the parties the possessor is to enjoy his title according to all law and reason you therfore by actual dispossessing the Roman Bishops of that right and title whereof he was quietly possest in the year 1500 in this our Nation and in all other places where you entred upon this pretence only that you think you have sufficiently disproved it from the divine law is to do him as much wrong as if a plantif in a suite at law should thrust the defendant out of quiet possession without decree or order from any competent Judge upon this sole pretence that he frames a judgement to himself he has convinced by law the others title to be null for in these cases both he and you make your selves judges in your own cause and proceed to an execution without a warrant 35. Page 240. To your question what you must prove I answer 't is this that any Church which has at any time or does now deny the Popes supremacy or remain independent of it has bin allwaies visible Ibid. of such as know nothing of the Popes supremacy I say nothing it being not our case then only they are bound to alledge proof for the denyal of it when it is or shall be sufficiently propunded to them 36. Page 241. The Smpremacie it self I have proved to be essential to the Church for there can be no visible body without a head But then it is essential to the subsistance of Christian faith in particular persons when it is sufficiently propounded to them as a point of faith page 241. You propose your fourth argument in proof of the Catholick Church not acknowledging the Popes supremacy for some time Your first Sylogism is out of form 1 for want of the word ever it should be ever since in your antecedent 2 and in the sequel for you say only that the Church whereof the Protestants are members hath been visible where as you should say hath been ever or alwayes visible for that only is the present question 3 You suppose the sole denyal of the Popes supremacy constitutes the Church whereof the Protestants are members which I deny for all hereticks as well as Protestants denyed his supremacy 37. Page 232 233. I have already answered to your 28 canon of Chalcedon first it uses the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is deferr'd or attributed not gave or conferr'd a new 2 they pretend to give no more to Constantinople then the second general Council had done as appeares by the words now that was to be next after Rome so that the principallity which Rome had before the Council of Constantinople was no way infringed by that canon 3
God and in the entrance of the same Epist. he compares Schismatiques to Corah Dathan Abiram who separate themselves from the communion of the Jewes and their high Priest Aaron St. Aug. lib. 20 contr Faustum c. 30. Schisma est eadem opinantem eodem ritu colentem quo caeteri solo congregationis delectari dissidio Schism is a voluntary Dissidium or separation of one who agrees in doctrine from the Congregation viz. of the Church St. Aug. lib. 4. contr Donatistas Cap. 14. Nam caetera omnia vera vel censeatis vel habeatis in eadem separatione tamen duretis contra vinculum fraternae pacis adversus unitatem omnium fratrum Thus he states the Schism of the Donatists if ye continue in separation against the bond of Brotherly peace and unitie of all the Brethren that is of the whole Church Lib 2 contr Donatistas cap. 6. Respondete quare vos separastis quare contra orbem terrarum Altare erexistis quare non communicastis Ecclesiis respondete quare separastis propterea certe ne malorum communione periretis Quomodo Ergo non perierunt Cyprianus Collegae ejus quare ab innocentibus separastis Sacrilegium Schismatis vestrum defendere noâ—â— potestis The holy Father disputing against Schismatiques askes them as we à pari aske Protestants why have you separated your selves why have you erected an Altar against the whole world answer me why did you separate certainly you separated least you should perish in the communion of the wicked how then did not Cyprian and his colleagues perish Lib. contra Petilianum nulla igitur Ratio fuit sed Maximus furor quod isti velut commmnionem caventes se ab unitate Eeclesiae quae toto orbe terrarum diffunditur separarunt There was no cause but a great madness that they fearing communion should separate themselves from the unity of the Church through the whole earth what can be more evident then this that St. Aug. held the Donatists to be out of the Church which you flatly deny St. Hierome Haeretici de Deo falso sentiendo ipsam fidem violant Schismatici discessionibus iniquis a fraterna charitate dissiliunt Contra Luciferianos quamvis ea credunt quae credimus Heretiques by teaching false things of God violate the Faith Schismatiques by unjust seperations depart from fraternal charity though they believe the same thing with us Nothing can destroy more fully your novelty then do these words for he speaks indefinitely of all Heretiques and affirms that they violate the faith and consequently have no faith without which they cannot be true members of Christs Church and that all Schismatiques leave fraternal charity which is necessary to be in the unity of the Church St. Hieron comment in Ep. ad Titum c. 3. Propterea vero a semet ipso dicitur esse damnatus Haereticus quia Fornicator Adulter Homicida caetera vitia per sacerdotes de Ecclesia propelluntur Haeretici autem in semetipsos sententiam dicant suo arbitrio ab Ecclesia recedendo Therefore he an Heretique is said to be condemned of himself because a Fornicator an Adulterer a Murtherer and the like vices are expelled out of the Church by the Priests but Heretiques pronounce a sentence against themselves by receding or departing from the Church of their own accord Does not this profound Doctor condemn your novelty in these words both by teaching that all Heretiques for he speaks indifinitely depart from the Church and by shewing a difference betwixt other criminal sinners and Heretiques when they are to be avoided which you labour to put in the same state with some Heretiques viz. That other sinners are cast out of the Church but Heretiques out themselves and yet farther that even other criminal sinners when they are excommunicated are no actual parts of the Church as you hold they are because they are cast out of it which doctrine is also Emphatically delivered by St. Aug. l. 11. quest cap. 3. Omnis Christianus qui excommunicatur Satanae traditur quomodo Scilicet quiaextra Ecclesiam est diabolus Sicut in Ecclesiae Christus ac per hoc quasi diabolo traditur qui ab Ecclesia communione removetur Vnde illos quos Apastolus Satanae traditos esse praedicat esse excommunicatos demonstrat Every Christian who is excommunicated is delivered up to Sathan how that to wit because the devil is without the Church as Christ is in the Church and by this he is as it were delivered to the devil whosoever is removed from the communion of the Church whence the Apostle demonstrates those to be excommunicated whom he pronounces to be delivered to Sathan whence followes also that seeing all profest Heretiques are excommunicated persons that according to St. Aug. they are all out of the Church I forbear the citation of more Authors esteeming these â—â—ufficient 75. I have at large deduc'd the reason of this truth against you in my answer to your first part The sum whereof is this that whosoever disbelieves any divine truth sufficiently propounded to him as such disbelieves the infallible truth of Gods word and consequently evacuates the formal object of Christian faith thereby destroyes faith which cannot subsist without its formal object and by that destroyes Christianity in so much as in him lyes and consequently Gods Church nay and God himself whence also follows that such a disbeliever hath no supernatural faith at all of any other articles which he believes but a meer humane natural and fallible assent to them for he cannot assent to any of them because they are reveal'd by Gods infallible authority for he hath made that fallible in disbelieving something which is sufficiently notified to him to be revealed from God Now if he have no true faith he can neither have salvation nor be a member of Christs true Church which is directly destructive of your novelty That which has deceiv'd you and such as follow you in this is that you make your whole reflection upon the material object of faith which considered alone is as a dead carcass in respect of true Christian faith seeing it wants the soul and life of it the infallible authority of God revealing it and though hereticks perversely perswade and delude themselves they assent for the infallible authority of God to such articles as they believe yet seeing we now suppose there is no defect in the proposition of such articles as they believe not that they are reveal'd from God they being propos'd to them equally with other articles which they believe in reallity there is no other cause of their disbelief then that they attribute not an infallible authority to God revealing the said articles which they disbelieve Now if he be fallible in one he is infallible in nothing for his erring in one supposes him subject to error which is to be fallible And as faith is wanting so is external communion also to every profest heretick and schismatick as
there preaching before they had any Pastor were yet Christians and saved If a Lay man convert one or a thousand and you will say that he may baptize them and they die before they can have a Pastor or ever hear of any to whom they owe subjection they are nevertheless saved as members of the Church And if all the Pastors in a Nation were murdered or banished the people would not cease to be Christians and members of the Church Much lesse if the Pope were dead or deposed or a vacancy befell his seat would all the Catholick Church be annihilated or cease To your Confirmation of the Major that a visible Church is nothing but a Visible Pastor and people united I answer 1. It s true of the Universal Church as united in Christ the great Pastor but not as united in a Vice-Christ or humane head 2. It is true of a particular Political or organized Church as united to their proper Pastors 3. But it is not true of every Community of Christians who are a part of the Universal Church A companie converted to Christ are members of the Vniversal Church though they never heard of a Pope at Rome before they are united to Pastors of their own The Proof of the Minor from Ephes. 4. I grant as aforesaid The Text proveth that Pastors the Church shall have I disclaim the vain Objection of Conditionality in the Promise which you mention But it proves not 1. That the Church shall have an Universal Monarch or Vice-Christ under Christ. 2. Nor that every Member of the Universall Church shall certainly be a member of a particular Church or ever see the face of Pastor or be subject to him You say next There remains only to prove the Minor of the second Syllogism Viz. That no Congregation of Christians hath been always visible but that which acknowledges c. This is the great point which all lyeth on The rest hath been all nothing but a cunning shooing horn to this Prove this and prove all Prove not this and you have lost your time You say The Minor I prove by obliging the answerers to nominate any Congregation of Christians which always till this present time since Christ hath been visible save that only which acknowledges c. And have I waited all this while for this You prove it by obliging me to prove the contrary Ridiculous sed quo jure 1. Your undertaken form of arguing obligeth you to prove your Minor You cannot cast your Respondent upon proving and so arguing and doing the Opponents part 2. And in your Postscript you presently forbid it me You require me to hold to a Concedo Nego Distinguo Omitto Transeat threatning that else you will take it for an Effugium And I pray you tell me in your next to which of these doth the nomination or proof of such a Church as you describe belong Plainly you first slip away when you should prove your Minor and then oblige me to prove ehe contrary and then tell me if I attempt it you 'l take it for an Effugium A good cause needs not such dealing as this which me thinks you should be loth a learned man should hear of 3. Your interest also in the Matter as well as your office as Opponent doth oblige you to the proof For though you make a Negative of it you may put it in other terms at your pleasure It is your main work to prove that all the members of the Vniversal Church have in all ages held the Popes Soveraignty or Universal Headship Or the whole Visible Church hath held it Prove this and I will be a Papist you have my promise You affirm and you must prove Prove a Catholike Church at least that in the Major part was of that mind though that would be nothing to prove the condemnation of the rest If you are an impartial enquirer after truth fly not when you come to the setting too I give you this further evident reason why you cannot oblige me to what you here impose 1. Because you require me to prove the Visibility of a Church which held not your point of Papacy and so put an unreasonable task upon me about a Negative Or else I must prove that they held the contrary before your opinion was started And it is the Catholike Church that we are disputing about so that I must prove this Negative of the Catholike Church 2. It is you that lay the great stress of Necessity on your Affirmative more then we do on the Negative you say that no man can be saved without your Affirmative that the Pope is the universal Head and Governour But we say not that no man can be saved that holdeth not our Negative that he is not the Vice-Christ For one that hath the plague or leprosie may live Therefore it is you that must prove that all the Catholike Church was still of your mind 3. And it is an Accident and but an Accident of a smaller corrupted part of the Catholike Church that you would oblige me to prove the Negation of and therefore it is utterly needlesse to my proof of a visible Catholike Church I will without it prove to you a successive Visibility of the Catholike Church from the Visibility of its Essential or Constitutive parts of which your Pope is none I will prove a successive visible Church that hath still professed faith in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and been united to the Universal Head and had particular Pastors some fixed some unfixed and held all essential to a Christian. And proving this I have proved the Church of which I am a member To prove that England hath been so long a Kingdom requireth no more but to prove the two Essential parts King and Subjects to have so long continued united It requireth not that I prove that it either had or opposed a Vice-King This is our plain case if a man have a botch on one of his hands it is not needful in order to my proving him a man heretofore that I prove he was born and bred without it so be it I prove that he was born a man it sufficeth Nor is it needful that I prove the other hand always to have been free in order to prove it a member of the body It sufficeth that I prove it to have been still a hand I do therefore desire you to perform your work and prove that no Congregation hath been still visible but such as yours or that the whole Catholike Church hath ever since the ascention held a Humane Universal Governour under Christ or else I shall take it as a giving up your cause as indefensible And observe if you shall prove onely that a part of the Catholick Church still held this which you can never do then 1. You will make the contrary opinion as Consistent with salvation as yours For the rest of the Catholick Church is savable 2. And then you well allow me to turn
which he presently did and many other Eastern Bishops unjustly accused by the Arians aforesaid had recourse to Rome with him and expected there a year and half All which time his Accusers though also summoned appeared not fearing they should be condemned by the Pope and his Council Yet they pretended not as Protestants have done in these last ages of the Kings of England That Constantius the Arian Emperour of the East was Head or chief Governour over their Church in all Causes Ecclesiastical and consequently that the Pope had nothing to do with them but only pretended certain frivolous excuses to delay their apearance from one time to another Where it is worth the noting that Iulius reprehending the said Arian Bishops before they published their Heresie and so taking them to be Catholicks for condemning S. Athanasius in an Eastern Council gathered by them before they had acquainted the Bishop of Rome with so important a cause useth these words An ignari estis hanc consuetudinem esse ut primum nobis scribatur ut hinc quod justum est definiri possit c. Are you ignorant saith he that this is the custome to write to us first That hence that which is just may be defined c. where most clearly it appears that it belonged particularly to the Bishop of Rome to passe a definitive sentence even against the Bishops of the Eastern or Greek Church which yet is more confirmed by the proceedings of Pope Innocent the first about 12. hundred years since in the case of S. Chrysostome Where first Saint Chrysostome appeals to Innocentius from the Council assembled at Constantinople wherein he was condemned Secondly Innocentius annuls his condemnation and declares him innocent Thirdly he Excommunicates Atticus Bishop of Constantinople and Theophilus Bishop of Alexandria for persecuting S. Chrysostome Fourthly after S. Chrysostome was dead in Banishment Pope Innocentius Excommunicates Arcadius the Emperour of the East and Eudoxia his wife Fifthly the Emperor and Empress humble themselves crave pardon of him and were absolved by him The same is evident in those matters which passed about the year 450. where Theodosius the Emperour of the East having too much favoured the Eutychian Hereticks by the instigation of Chrysaphius the Eunuch and Pulcheria his Empress and so intermedled too far in Ecclesiasticall causes yet he ever bore that respect to the See of Rome which doubtless in those circumstances he would not have done had he not beleeved it an Obligation that he would not permit the Eutychian Council at Ephesus to be assembled without the knowledge and authority of the Roman Bishop Leo the first and so wrote to him to have his presence in it who sent his Legats unto them And though both Leo's letters were dissembled and his Legate affronted and himself excommunicated by wicked Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria and president of that Conventicle who also was the chief upholder of the Eutychians yet Theodosius repented before his death banished his wife Pulcheria and Chrysaphius the Eunuch the chief favourers of the Eutychians and reconciled himself to the Church with great evidences of sorrow and pennance (m) Concil Chalced. Act. 1. Presently after An. 451. follows the fourth General Council of Chalcedon concerning which these particulars occur to our present purpose First Martianus the Eastern Emperour wrote to Pope Leo That by the Popes Authority a General Council might be gathered in what City of the Eastern Church he should please to chuse Secondly both Anatolius Patriarch of Constantinople and the rest of the Eastern Bishops sent to the Legats of Pope Leo by his order the profession of their faith Thirdly the Popes Legats sate in the first place of the Council before all the Patriarchs (n) Concil Chalced. Act 3. Fourthly they prohibited by his order given them That Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria and chief upholder of the Eutychians should sit in the Council but be presented as a guilty person to be judged because he had celebrated a Council in the Eastern Church without the consent of the Bishop of Rome which said the Legats never was done before nor could be done lawfully This order of Pope Leo was presently put in execution by consent of the whole Council and Dioscorus was judged and condemned his condemnation and deposition being pronounced by the Popes Legats and after subscribed by the Council Fifthly the Popes Legats pronounced the Church of Rome to be * Which could not be by reason of the Sanctity and truth which was then in it for the Church of Milan and many others in France Africa and Greece were also then pure and holy and yet none have this title save the Church of Rome In the time of Iustinian the Emperour Agapet Pope even in Constantinople against the will both of the Emperour and Empress deposed Anthymus and ordained Mennas in his place Liberat. in Breviario cap. 21. Marcellinus Comes in Chronico Concil Constantin sub Menna act 4. And the same S Greg. c. 7. ep 63. declares that both the Emperour and Bishop of Constantinople acknowledged that the Church of Constantinople was subject to the See of Rome And l. 7. Ep. 37. Et alibi pronounceth that in case of falling into offences he knew no Bishop which was not subject to the Bishop of Rome Caput omnium Ecclesiarum the Head of all Churches before the whole Council and none contradicted them Sixtly all the Fathers assembled in that Holy Council in their Letter to Pope Leo acknowledged themselves to be his children and wrote to him as to their Father Seventhly they humbly begged of him that he would grant that the Patriarch of Constantinople might have the first place among the Patriarchs after that of Rome which notwithstanding that the Council had consented to as had also the third General Council of Ephesus done before yet they esteemed their grants to be of no sufficient force untill they were confirmed by the Pope And Leo thought not fit to yeeld to their petition against the express ordination of the first Council of Nice where Alexandria had the preheminence as also Antioch and Hierusalem before that of Constantinople Saint Cyril of Alexandria though he wholly disallowed Nestorius his doctrine yet he would not break off Communion with him till Celestinus the Pope had condemned him whose censure he required and expected Nestorius also wrote to Celestine acknowledging his Authority and expecting from him the censure of his doctrine Celestinus condemned Nestorius and gave him the space of ten daies to repent after he had received his condemnation All which had effect in the Eastern Church where Nestorius was Patriarch of Constantinople (o) S. August Tom. 1. Epist. Rom. Pontif. post Epist. 2. ad Celestinum After this Saint Cyrill having received Pope Leo's Letters wherein he gave power to Saint Cyril to execute his condemnation against Nestorius and to send his condemnatory letters to him gathered a Council of his next Bishops and sent Letters
to an Argument not precise I therefore expect accordingly that the unlearned be not made the Iudges of a Dispute which they are not fit to judge of seeing you desire us to avoid their road William Iohnson Num. 2. When I press you to as much brevity as my first Adversary prest me I shall require no more and shall easily bear with penetrations of Syllogisms and mediate consequences when they are proveable in lawfull form My chief care was to obstruct all excursions amplifications and irregularities quite out of form and all Sophisms and Fallacies which I have avoided When the learned are sufficiently informed I hope they will have so watchful a care of conscience and Christian charity that they will impart what they finde to be truth to the ignorant And this I expected signally from you in whom I discovered a fervent desire to publish what you thought truth to every one Baxter Num. 3. And by a Congregation of Christians you may mean Christians politically related to one Head whether Christ or the Pope But the word Assemblies expresseth their actual Assembling together and so excludeth all Christians that are or were members of no particular Assemblies from having relation to Christ our Head or the Pope your Head and so from being of the Congregation as you call the Church universal Iohnson Num. 3. Assembly implies no more an actual assembling then Congregation an actual congregating prove it does They are both taken in the same sense in Scripture and approved Authors and comprised in the word caetus and the one as capable to include a head and members subject to it as the other Baxter Num. 4. I had great reason to avoid the snare of an Equivocation or ambiguity of which you gave me cause of jealousie by your whatsoever as I told you as seeming to intimate a false supposition To your like I answer it is unlike and still more intimates the false supposition Whatsoever Congregation of men is the Common-wealth of England is a phrase that importeth that there is a Congregation of men which is not the â—â—ommon-wealth of England which is true there being more men in the world so Whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church doth seem to import that you suppose there is a Congregation of Christians univocally so called that are not the true Church which you would distinguish from the other which I only let you know at the entrance that I deny that you may not think it granted Iohnson Num. 4. My Simile is alike in what I prest it Viz. That no man can rightly understand me as you do to mean by Congregation a part of the Church when I say it is the whole Church The disparity mentioned by you shall hereafter be examined when I come to confute your Novelty in that point In the interim you may please to take notice that there are as well Congregations of Christians univocally so called which are not the Church as there are of men which are not the Common-wealth of England Such are the Senate of Venice the Common-Council of London the Parliament of Paris c. Baxter Num. 5. Yet I must tell you that nothing is more ordinary then for the body to be said to do that which a part of it only doth as that the Church administreth Sacraments Discipline Teacheth c. The Church is assembled in such a Council c. when yet it is but a small part of the Church that doth these things And when Bellarmine Gretser c. say the Church is the infallible Judge of controversies they mean not the whole Church which containeth every Christian when they tell you that it is the Pope they mean And therefore I had reason to inquire into your sense unless I would willfully be over-reacht Iohnson Num. 5. This is a meer Parergon for I declare in my Thesis that I speak only of that Church out of which no man can be saved as appears in your Edition p. 2. which is not cannot be the Church representative in a Council for then none could be saved who are out of that Council Baxter Num. 6. You now satisfie me that you mean it universally viz. All that Congregation or Church of Christians which is now the true Church of Christ doth acknowledge c. which I told you I deny Iohnson Num. 6. By this appears how inappositely you propounded the question Whether I meant by Congregation in my Proposition the whole Church or only some part of it seeing it was manifest I could not mean any part of it by that word Baxter To my following distinction you say That all the world knows that whatsoever is acknowledged to have been ever in the Church by Christs Institution cannot be meant of any accidentall thing but of a necessary unchangeable and essential thing in Christs true Church To which I reply either you see the grosse fallacy of this defence or you do not If you do not then never more call for an exact Disputant nor look to be delivered from your Errors by Argumentation though never so convincing If you do then you are not faithful to the Truth In your Major Proposition the words being many as you say you penetrated divers Arguments together ambiguities were the easier hidden in the heap That which I told you is accidental to the Church and that but to a corrupted part was the acknowledging of the Papacy Fallacy 1. as of Christs Institution and therefore if it were granted that a thing of Christs Institution could not be accidental yet the acknowledgment that is the opinion or asserting of it may If the Church by mistake should think that to be essential to it which is not though it will not thence follow that its essence is but an accident yet it will follow that both the false opinion and the thing it self so false conceited to be essential are but accidents or not essential You say it cannot be meant of any accidental thing But 1. That meaning it self of theirs may be an accident 2. And the question is not what they mean that is imagine or affirm it to be but what it is in deed and truth That may be an accident which they think to be none Iohnson Num. 7. Sir The fallacy is not in my Proposition but in your understanding You assert that the Soveraignty of the Pope is as accidental to the Church as will hereafter appear as pride and cruelty is to the Spanish Nation and therefore the Acknowledgement of it is Accidental for if the acknowledgement be in a matter Essential it self must also be Essential either to the constitution or destruction of the Catholick Faith For the Essence of Faith requires that all Essentials be believed And it must be destructive of Faith to believe any thing to be Essential and absolutely necessary to Christian Faith which is a meer Accident and non-Essential For such an Errour constitutes a false Christian and teaches that to be Essentially
Christian Religion which is a Falsity in Christian Religion If therefore the whole Church as I affirm hold the Popes Supremacy to be by Christs Institution that is to be essential to the Church as you admit for the present and it be not by his Institution the Church errs in an Essential matter which errour is not Accidental to the Church that is such an errour that the Church can subsist as truly with it as without it but essentially destructive of the Church If the Popes Supremacy be by Christs Institution and thereby Essential as you now suppose the Churches acknowledgement that it is so is not accidental but necessary and essential to the subsistence of the Church So that to admit as you do here the thing it self that whatsoever is of Christs Institution is Essential and yet to make the acknowledgement of its Essentiality by the whole Church to be Accidental to the Church is strange Divinity and one of your grand Novelties I intreat you therefore to tell me in your next what makes the Arrian Heresie as you hold destructive of Christianity and an essential Errour save this onely that it is against a point essential to Christian Faith And I think I have as much reason to hold the Errour either contradicting that which is Essential to Christianity or asserting that as Essential which is onely Accidental to be an Essential Errour against Christian Faith as was that of the Arrians For it had been doubtless an essential Errour in Faith and destructive of Christianity not onely to deny the Consubstantiality of the Father and the Son but also to deny that consubstantially and the belief of it to be essential to the Christian Faith and necessary to the constitution of Christianity Your Fallacy therefore consists in this that you suppose all that Christ hath instituted to be Essential to the Church and yet in that very supposition make the acknowledgement of the whole Church that such a thing is instituted by Christ to be accidental to the Church Of which more hereafter Baxter Num. 8. But that which you say all the world knows is a thing that all the world of Christians except your selves that ever I heard of do know or acknowledge to be false What! doth all the world know that Christ hath instituted in his Church nothing but what is Essential to it Fallacy 2. Corruption 1. I should hope that few in the Christian world be so ignorant as ever to have such a thought if they had the means of knowledg that Protestants would have them have There is no natural Body but hath natural Accidents as well as Essence Nor is there any other Society under Heaven Community or Policy that hath not its Accidents as well as Essence And yet hath Christ instituted a Church that hath nothing but Essence without Accidents Do you build upon such Foundations what upon the denial of Common Principles and Sense But if you did you should not have feigned all the world to do so too Were your Assertion true then every soul were cut off from the Church and so from Salvation that wanted any thing of Christs Institution yea for a moment And then what would become of you You give me an Instance in the Eucharist But 1. will it follow that if the Eucharist be not Accidental or Integral but Essential that therefore Every thing instituted by Christ is Essential Iohnson Num. 8. Sir Your Answer proceeds fallaciously à particulari ad universale I say that is Essential which hath been ever in the Church by Christs Institution and you accuse me to say whatsoever is of Christs Institution is Essential leaving out which hath been ever in the Church by his Institution Shew me therefore something which hath been ever that i in all ages in the Church by Christs Institution which is Accidental to the Church Till that be done you have answered your own Fallacy not my Proposition Whence appears the vanity of your instancing in a Pâ—â—litick Body without Accidents For those things which Christ instituted to be as Things Temporary or for a time not for ever were Accidents as some Ceremonies in his last Supper the washing of Feet and other matters belonging to the order and decency as different circumstances require in the Church which by Christs Institution were left to the direction of the Church are Accidents to the Church So that I say not nor ever said that Christ hath instituted a Politick Body without Accidents as you misconceivingly accuse me but that whatsoever he instituted to be ever in his Church is none of those Accidents You should do well to reflect more punctually upon your Adversaries words and not to leave out such terms as give the whole force and Energie to his Proposition For if this be not done an Answer may be prolong'd till Dooms-day by multiplying mistakes one upon another to no end Baxter Numb 9. The question being not whether the Being of the Eucharist in the Church be Essential to the universal Church but whether the Belief or Acknowledgement of it by all and every one of the members be Essential to the members I would crave your Answer but to this Question though it be nothing to my cause Was not a Baptized person Fallacy 3. in the Primitive and Ancient Churches a true Church-member presently upon Baptism And then tell me also Did not the Ancient Fathers and Churches unanimously hide from their Catechumens even purposely hide the Mystery of the Eucharist as proper to the Church to understand and never opened it to the Auditors till they were Baptized This is most undeniable in the concurrent vote of the Ancients I think therefore that it follows that in the judgement of the Ancient Churches the Eucharist was but of the Integrity and not the Essence of a Member of the Church and the acknowledgement of it by all the members a thing that never was existent Iohnson Num. 9. Here you commit another Fallacy proceeding à sensu conjuncto ad sensum divisum I affirm no more then that the Assembly or Congregation which is the Church See p. 30. Bax. Edâ—â—tion hath this acknowledgement and you argue against me as if I said Every particular member of the Church is obliged to have that actual express acknowledgment Know you not that many things are necessary to the whole Politick Body conjunctively which are not necessary to every part of it separate Whence your instance of the Eucharist is answered For though that be not necessary to be expresly beleeved by every Christian necessitate nudii yet it is essentially necessary to the whole Church You misconceive therefore very much in saying the question is not whether the belief if you mean explicite belief of the Eucharist is essentially necessary to all and every one of the members of the Church for I neither propounded that the express belief either of the Eucharist or the Popes Supremacy is essentially necessary to every Christian but to
First General Councils An obscure Authority obscurely cited from Bishop Usher n. 5â—â— 58. He draws an Argument for no-subjection due to the Pope from the disobedient Acts of Schismaticks and Hereticks against him n. 60. The 28. Canon of Chalcedon though admitted proves not Mr. Baxter's Assertion ibidem What is meant by the Merits of S. Peter when they are alledged by Ancient Fathers as the prime Ground of the Popes Supremacy Baxter Num. 47. You ask were they different Congregations Answ. As united in Christ they were one Church but as assembling at one time or in one place or under the same guide so they were not one but divers Congregations Iohnson Num. 47. You answer not the question for they might be in different places and times and under several guides and yet be one and the same Congregation as appears in the succession and extension of the Catholick Church The question I demanded is this were they all united in the profession of one and the same Faith and unity of External Communion without these two it is impossible to be united in Christ as I shall prove hereafter Baxter Num. 48. That there were any Papists of 400. years after Christ do yo prove if you are able My Conclusion that all have been against you for many hundred years must stand good till on prove that some were for you Yet I have herewith proved that there were none at least that could deserve the name of the Church Iohnson Num. 48. I have proved there were some in citing the Orat on of the Legates from Pope Celestine in the first Ephesine Council who you grant were for us and if they were for us then all were not against us for so many hundred years See Baxt. p. 23. for you speak there of the first 400. years Now though that Council was celebrated in the year 430. yet both that in a moral consideration passes for 400. and those Legates witnessing what they said to have alwayes been known to every one notum omnibus c. give an Authentical Testimony that it was alwayes acknowledged as a Christian Truth in and through the Church and consequently within the first 400. years No nor was the Council of Ephesus nor any part of it then against us For if they had they would have at least some of them contradicted that which they had in your supposition esteemed so manifest an untruth and contrary to the liberty and jurisdiction of all other Bishops and Churches as imposing upon them a Superiour and Judge who had no lawfull Authority over them Baxter Num. 49. Do you think to satisfie any reasonable man by calling for positive proof from Authors of such Negatives Iohnson Num. 49. I demand no proof of a Negative prove I demand it My demand is to shew any one Congregation of Christians always visible since Christ till now See Baxt. p. 5. beâ—â—de that which acknowledged the Popes Supremacy which is an Affirmative Baxter Num. 50. Yet proof you shall not want such as the nature of the point requireth viz. That the said Churches of Ethiopia India the outer Armenia and other Extra-Imperial Nations were not under the Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome Iohnson Num. 50. I suppose you mean by were not under c. were never under the Bishop of Rome otherwise your instance proves nothing for if they were under him in any age and for any time since Christ you can never make them to be an instance of those who were perpetually in all Ages a visible Congregation of Christians not acknowledging the Popes Supremacy for in that Age wherein they were subject to him they did acknowledge it Baxter Num. 51. You find all these Churches or most of them at this day that remain from under your Iurisdiction and you cannot tell when or how they turned from you If you could it had been done Iohnson Num. 51. I neither find it nor can find it till you tell me which were these Extra-Imperial Churches you mean when you say other Extra-Imperial Nations Mean you all other or some other If all I find the quite contrary For the Goths successively inhabitants of Spain never acknowledged themselves Subjects to the Empire who notwithstanding are now subject to the Roman Bishop and consequently were and are for some time under him And the Suedes and Danes which pretend to proceed from the Goths Vandals c. though now they reject all obedience to him yet in the year 1500. they all acknowledged themselves to be his Subjects in Spirituals and that for many hundred of years together Well then I find not all Extra-Imperial Churches from under the Popes Jurisdiction and some who are I can and do find when and how they turned from him It was about the year 1520. by occasion of the Lutheran Heresie as all the world knows If you mean onely some of those other Extra-Imperial Churches when you have told me which are those some you shall have an Answer In the interim give me leave to tell you that to maintain your Novelty you must shew all Extra-Imperial to have been exempt for if any one were not all might have been subject nay were to have been so à paritate rationis As to the Indians they were not alwayes Extra-Imperial For in the year 163. they subjected themselves to the Roman Emperour Antoninus Pius Euseb. in Chronic Anno 22. Anton. Eutrop. lib. 8. Evagr. Id. c. 7. The Armenians that were Christians were not alwayes Extra-Imperial For in the year 572. being grievously persecuted for the Christian Faith by the Persians they rendred themselves Subjects to the Roman Emperour Nor were they always a separate Congregation from those who acknowledged the Spiritual Soveraignty of the Roman Bishop â—â—n Flor. in literis unionis de Armenorum concordia Vide Plat. Naucler Volaterranum Chalcond Emilium Onuphrium Genebrard de Concilio Flor. See Iovius Gen. Maseus Iâ—â—rriâ—â— in anno 1524. For in the year 1145. they and the Indian Christians subjected themselves to him and again Anno 1439. and so remain for the present Nor were the Ethiopians in all ages a different Congregation from the Romane For Anno 1524. the Emperour and High Priest David promised obedience to the Sea Apostolick And Claudius his Successor did the like Anno 1557. Now let us review the force of your instances You undertook to shew in Answer to my Minor some visible Congregation beside that which acknowledges the Popes Supreme power in all Ages since Christ. To prove this you nominate onely the Indians Ethiopians Armenians Now no one of these Three have been in all Ages a visible Congregation beside that of Rome for each of them at one time or other became the same Congregation to that by subjecting and conforming themselves to and with the Bishop of Rome as I have proved You assert that these Three are and ever were Extra-Imperial Nations and upon that score in your principles independent of the Roman Bishop
posteriora prioribus apud posteros praeponebat universum partibus semper jure optimo praeponitur Orthodox Writers commonly affirm that what they define is the Definition of the Catholick Church i Thus were the Arrians Quartodecimans Rebaptisers Macedonians Nestorians Eutychians even in Ethiopia and Armenia c. esteemed ever since Hereticks for resisting the Definitions of those Councils All who resist their Definitions in matter of Faith have ever since been universally branded with the note of Hereticks whether they were within or without the Empire k Canon universalis Ethiopum prays for the Fathers of the three First General Councils and affirms they were gathered for the defence of the right Faith and not for those of the Fourth Council because the Eutychian Heresie which they hold was condemned in the Council of Chalcedon Epist. Armen primae ad Leon. Imperat. ubi se subjiciunt 4 primis Conciliis in aliâ Epist. ad cundem idem faciunt Episcopi Armeniae Secundae apud Binium pag. 535. Conc. Tom. Extra-Imperial Provinces and Churches have anciently and do yet subscribe to them Lastly not onely all kind of Authority but plain reason overthrows this your Novelty For first the end why these Councils were gathered was to procure peace amongst Christians not in the Empire onely but through the whole Catholick Church and to put a final period to the controversies defined in them as appears from the Authorities now cited out of S. Austin Now if the Extra-Imperial Nations had not been obliged by those Definitions the controversies had still continued among them as much as if no such Definition had been made Secondly if any desired to embrace still the Heresies condemned in them it was but conferring themselves to the Extra-Imperial Churches and they had freedome in conscience from their former obligation as not being bound there to subscribe to the Councils Decrees So that every obstinate Heretick might shake off these Decrees at his pleasure Thirdly if any Nation or Province should have been by force of Arms won from the Empire which was under it in time of these Councils they would ipso facto have been freed from obeying the Decrees and beleeving the Doctrine of these Councils Fourthly if on the contrary any Extra-Imperial Nation had been reduced under the Empire eo ipso it would have contracted an obligation to conform to the Decrees of the said Councils so that Christian belief should have depended on the fortune of War Fifthly if your assertion were true it would follow that now de facto neither Spain France Italy England Denmark Swethland Poland nor any of the Eastern Churches are obliged to subscribe to the Nicene Council and the same is of the rest otherwise then of their free choice ever since they were from under the command of the Empire Nay hence will follow that even those of Germany by reason that is another Empire instituted independently of that in those ancient times and consequently that no Christian Churches in the world have any obligation successively descending down to them of obeying and following the Decrees of the four First General Councils My last reason is that those Extra-Imperial Christians who embraced the Heresies condemned in any one of those Councils never alledged this reason of yours that those Councils had no power to oblige them because they were not under the Empire and I pray you in your next produce any such reason authentically testified to have been alledged by them Baxter Num. 83. See now how little your objections are worth and how groundlesly you bid me See now how little my Allegations are to the purpose Iohnson Num. 83. Now you will have seen which proofs your or mine have been more to the purpose Baxter Num 84. As for the rabble of Hereticks which you reckon up as you esteem them some of them are no Christians univocally so called and those cannot be of the Christian Church Iohnson Num. 84. You would have given better satisfaction to your Reader if amongst all the Sectaries particularis'd by me pag. 43. in your Book which were to the number of eighteen you had determined which of them you had esteemed Christians univocally so called and which not but whilest you leave him thus in obscurity telling him onely that some of them were not univocal Christians and not telling him which some you mean I believe he will have little satisfaction Yet by justifying the latter part that is almost one half of them in your next ensuing words and excusing some of the rest Baxt. p. 48. he may gather that you account Montanists Donatists Nestorians Eutychians Iconoclasts Berengarians Waldensians Albigenses Wickliffists and Hussites Univocal Christians and consequently true parts of the Catholick Church in your Principles Baxter Num. 85. Others of them were better Christians then the Romanists and so were of the same Church with us And it is not many reproachfull names put on them by malice that makes them no Christians or of many Churches or Religions If an arrogant Usurper will put Nick-names on all that will not bow to him as Vice-Christ and call them Iconoclasts Berengarians Waldensians Albigenses Wickliffists Hussites Lutherans Calvinists you may as well give a thousand more names this makes them not of various Religions nor blots out their Names from the Book of Life Iohnson Num. 85. I have not Baptis'd any of them they were publickly known by these names many a fair year before you or I was born and since I desired to be understood I was to express them in such names as they commonly are known by whether they deserve the names I give them or no is not our dispute now I think they did when I called them so and that they deserve it as much as either Arrians or Donatists or Pelagians c. deserved to be branded with the names of those several Arch-Hereticks that broached them Nor can I yet find that the Roman B. whom you rudely call a Tyrant was more the imposer of those names upon the fore-named Sectaries then upon Arrians Donatists or Pelagians c. Baxter Num. 86. I have in my most retired thoughts perused the History of those mens Lives and of the Lives of many of your Popes together with their several Doctrines and with Death and Iudgement in my eyes as before the great God of Heaven I humbly beg of him that I may rather have my everlasting portion with those holy men whom you burned as Waldenses Arbigenses Hussites c. then with the Popes that burned them or those that follow them in that cruelty unless reconciling Grace hath given them repentance unto life Iohnson Num. 86. I humbly beg of God that he deliver you from ever coming to that place where any of those which I mentioned as condemned Hereticks are in the other world I hope he has prepar'd a much better for you But tell me seriously would you indeed be content rather to be with the Albigenses who held Two Gods
and pretend that it is but some novel Writers of ours that deny it as forced by your Arguments I must say that you prove but your own uncharitablenesse instead of their heresie and you shew your self a stranger to your own Writers who frequently excuse the Greeks from heresie and say the difference at the Council of Florence was found to be more about Words then Faith Thomas à Jesu de Conversâ—â—omn Gentium lib. 6. cap. 8. pag. 281. saith His tamen non obstantibus alii opinantur Graecos tantum esse Schismaticos Ita exjunioribus docet Pater Azorius 1. primae Institut moral lib. 8. cap. 20. quaest 10. Quare merito ab Ecclesia Catholica non haeretici sed Schismatici censentur appellantur it a aperte insinuat D. Bernardus no novel Protestant in Epist. ad Eugenium lib. 3. ego addo inquit de pertinacia Graecorum qui nobiscum sunt non sunt Iuncti fide pace divisi quanquam in fide ipsa claudicaverint à rectis semitis Idem aperte tenet D. Thom. Opusc. 2. ubi docet Patres Graecos in Catholico sensu esse exponendos Ratio hujus opinionis est quoniam ut praedictus Author docet in praedictis Fidei Articulis de quibus Graeci accusantur ab aliquibus ut haeretici potius nomine quamre ab Ecclesia Romana dissident Imprimis inficiantur illi Spiritum Sanctum à Patre Filioque procedere ut in Bulla unionis Eugenii 4. dicitur Existimantes Latinos sentirâ—â— Ã Patre Filioque procedere tanquam à duobus principiis cum tamen Latina doceat Eclesia procedere à duabus personis tanquaÌ„ ab uno principio spiratore quare Graeci ut unum principiuÌ„ significent dicunt SpirituÌ„ sanctuÌ„ à Patre per FiliuÌ„ procecedere ab omni aeternitate Your Paulus Veridicus Paul Harris Dean of your Academy lately in Dublin in his confutation of Bishop Usher 's Sermon saith that the Greeks Doctrine about the procession of the holy Ghost à Patre per Filium and not à Patre Filioque was such that when they had explicated it they were found to believe very Orthodoxly and Catholickly in the same matter and for such were admitted and that he findeth not any substantial Point that they differ from you in but the Primacy so the Armenians were received in the same Council of Florence many more I have read of your own Writers that all vindicate the Greeks and others that disown you from heresie I think more then I have read of Protestants that do it And do you think now that it is not a disgrace to your cause that a man of your Learning and one that I hear that hath the confidence to draw others to your opinions should yet be so unacquainted with the opinions of your own Divines and upon this mistake so confidently feign that it is our novel Writers forced to it by your Arguments that have been so charitable to these Churches against Antiquity that knew better William Iohnson Num. 115. I should have reason to take it something ill from you to accuse me at once both of uncharitablenesse and ignorance and that upon a more mistake of your own but I am resolved not to take any thing you say against Me in ill part but rather to pity and commiserate you as I really do you could not but see I speak of that Errour in the holy Ghost's procession which of late yeares has been pertinaciously defended by the Schismatical Greeks not of the expressions of the more ancient Fathers and Doctours amongst them you need not have told me for I was not so ignorant that those which S. Bernard and S. Thomas speaks of differ'd rather in Expressions then in the thing it self the Question is whether the modern Greeks and those who have held with them and particularly since the Council of Florence concerning the point of the holy Ghost's proceeding from the Father and not from the Son differ not in the thing it self I speak of these onely for my words clearly design what is now done pag. 47. in your Edit I say they must be thought to maintain manifest heresie and p. 4. Desertours of the Faith as they continue still to this day now I marvel to see this distinction of times unknown to you when our Authors and particularly S. Bonaventure took notice of it in his time and as there it is that S. Bernard distinguishes betwixt them in his time for he sayes expresly in Fide claudicaverint which signifies that at least some of them were even then deficient in Faith S. Thomas writes expresly of the ancient Greek Fathers Patres Graecos in Catholico sensu esse exponendos Harris also as you call him speaks of the same ancienter Grecians if therefore you will convince me either of uncharitablenesse or ignorance shew that our Authours affirme the modern Greeks and all those who held as they now do erre not in Faith or in the thing believed about the procession of the holy Ghost but differ onely in words or terms as you held they do not I said and still maintain they do and not the ancient Fathers amongst the Greeks of whome I speak not one word because I knew very well our Authours have ever taught and still do affirm that those Fathers say the same thing in re with us But you shall see more of this in some other work which expects the Press and wherein this point was throughly examined long before I writ that reply to you Mr. Baxter Num. 116. If the Greeks and Latines tear the Church of Christ by their condemnations of each other they may be both Schismatical as guilty of making divisions in the Church though not as dividing from the Church and if they pretend the denyal of the Christian Faith against each other as the cause you shall not draw us into the guilt of the uncharitablenesse by telling us that they know better then we If wise men fall out and fight I will not justifie either side because they are wise and therefore likelier then I to know the cause William Iohnson Num. 116. I told you before the Church of Christ cannot be divided it is so perfectly one It were well if you medled not at all with the difference betwixt them but you do meddle and contrary to both their judgements you and yours affirm they differ not now in matter of Faith concerning this Mysterie and thereby prefer you Novel Judgements before that of so large ancient and Learned Churches whom you confess here have more reason to know the true difference betwixt them then your self Do you not intermeddle deeply in it when in the next ensuing words you labour mainly to prove they differ onely in worlds Mr. Baxter Num. 117. But what need we more to open your strange mistake and unjust dealing then the Authority of your so much approved Council of Florence that received both Greeks and Armeniâ—â—ns and the
is scarce faire pardon this plainness consider of it your self The substance of Nilus book is about the Primacie of the Pope the very Contents prefixed to the first book are these Oratio demonstrans non aliam c. an Oration demonstrating that there is no other cause of dissention between the Latine and the Greek Churches then that the Pope refuseth to defer the Cognisance and Iudgement of that which is Controverted to a General Council but he will sit the sole Master and Iudge of the Controversie and will have the rest as Disciples to be hearers of or obey his word which is a thing aliene from the Lawes and Actions of the Apostles and Fathers and he begins his Book after a few words thus Causa itaque hujus dissidii c. The Cause therefore of this difference as I judge is not the sublimity of the point exceeding man's capacitie for other matters that have divers times troubled the Church have been of the same kind this therefore is not the cause of the dissention much lesse is the speech of the Scripture it self which as being concise doth pronounce nothing openly of that which is Controverted for to accuse the Scripture is as much as to accuse God himself But God is without all fault but who the fault is in any one may easily tell that is well in his wits He next shews that it is not for want of learned men on both sides nor is it because the Greeks do claim the Primacy and then concludeth it as before he maintaineth that your Pope succeedeth Peter onely as a Bishop ordained by him as many other Bishops that originally were ordained by him in like manner to succeed him and that his Primacy is no governing power nor given him by Peter but by Princes and Councils for order sake and this he proves at large and makes this the main difference Bellarmine 's answering his so many Arguments might have told you this if you had never read Nilus himself and if you say that this point was the Cause I deny it but if it were true yet was it not the onely or chief Cause afterwards The manner of bringing in the Filioque by Papal Authority without a general Council was it that greatly offended the Greeks from the beginning William Iohnson Num. 118. This is a strange manner of Arguing what if his chief subject be about the Popes Primacy may he not ex incidente and occasionaliter treat other matters Is not your chief matter in this Treatise to prove the succession of your Church and oppose ours and yet treat you not in this very place incidentally the procession of the holy Ghost I say then that Nilus declaring the cause why the Bishop of Rome hath lost all that Primacy and Authority which he had anciently by reason he is fallen from the Faith in adding Filioque to the Creed and teaching that the holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son the words you cite out of Nilus proves nothing he pretends indeed that the cause of the present dissention is the Popes challenging so high a Primacy which they are unwilling as all schismaticks ever were to grant him but that may well stand with what I affirm him to say that the first original cause of the breach betwixt the Greeks and Latines was the adding of Filioque and holding the holy Ghost's procession from the Father and the Son But see you not how fair a thread you have spun by pressing those words as you do against me is there indeed no other cause of dissention betwixt the Greek and Latine Church nor ground of their breach save the Popes supremacy then sure there is a full agreement in all other things if so there is a main disagreeing betwixt you and the Greeks in all other points of Faith controverted betwixt you and us for if they agree with us they disagree from you in every one of them nay you press Nilus his words in that sense you must take them to frame an Argument against me quite against the very words themselves for you alledge them to shew that he touches not the procession of the holy Ghost in that Book as the first ground of their difference to prove this you must proceed thus he treats nothing there save the Pope's Supremacie ergo he touches not the holy Ghost's procession you prove the Antecedent by the words of the Title of his first book here cited because he affirmes in them there is no other cause of dissention then that the Pope refuses to stand to the judgement of a general Council as if that onely were controverted betwixt them for otherwise you prove nothing Now it is most evident that Nilus supposes many other Controversies betwixt them and the Latines for he saies even as you cite him thus then that the Pope refuseth to defer the Cognisance and Iudgement of that which is Controverted to a general Council Ergo you must acknowledge that according to Nilus there was something controverted betwixt the Greeks and the Latines besides the Pope's Supremacie and after you bring him in pag. 124. mentioning this very point of the procession when you alledge him thus the cause therefore of this difference as I judge is not the sublimity of the point exceeding man's capacitie where he speaks of the holy Ghost's procession as I affirm him to doe thus you play fast and loose say and unsay at your pleasure thus you confound times and by not distinguishing the past as before you did not the future from the present make that which is now onely pretended by Nilus to be the chief cause of their not coming to Agreement to have been many hundred yeares agoe the original cause of their breach and opposition against the Latines whereby you confound the first occasion of the breach and the present obstacle to the making it up and reconciling them together as if they were one and the same thing Now it is most manifest that the first occasion of the breach made by the Greeks from the Latine Church was the Exception they took against the Latines for adding the word Filioque and from the Son to the Nicene Creed for Michael Patriarch of Constantinople anno 1054. in time of Leo the 9. Pope and Constantine the 10. Emperour styled Monomachos aspiring not onely in name and Title as many of his predecessours had done before him but in reality and effect to be universal Patriarch proclaimed Leo and all the Latines who adhered to him to be Excommunicated because contrary to the decree of the Ephesine Council they had made an Addition to the Creed so that the Roman Bishop being pretended by the Greeks to be thereby deposed from his Sea The Primacie of the Church fell by Course and right upon him as being the next Patriarch after the Bishop of Rome which gave occasion to Nilus of acknowledging that Controversie about the procession of the holy Ghost to have been the first occasion of
such as with the belief of what they esteem universally essential and fundamental in themselves not to be joyn'd with an actual disbelief of any point though not so generaly necessary to be expresly believed by every one yet sufficiently propounded to them hic nunc as a point of Christian faith To what purpose cite you Tertul p. 219. What is that rule which he speaks of Is it sole Scripture without Church or tradition prove that or what hurts us in his other sentence c. 8. Do we teach any thing against it prove that or why make you such observations upon Tertullians prescriptions p. 220. why prove you not your observations froÌ„ Tertul. words where say's he the rules of Essentials extracted from the whole Scriptures is the Churches ancient creed that the compleat rule of all points of faith is the whole Scripture what mean you to cite that from Tertullian which destroyes you have you ever yet cleared your selves from denying some Essentials I am sure Tertullian puts in the book cited by you the Eucharist Baptisme amongst the things which he would have to be principal points taught by St. Peter and to be believed by all Christians to whom they were sufficiently propounded are not our controversies about these leave not you many books of Scripture out of the Canon and use you not the large feild of Scripture to puzzle the weak how then can you turne your selves more from the lash of Tertullian then the Hereticks against whom he writes And you say this ancient Author advised the ordinary Christians of his time instead of long puzling disputes to hold them to the Churches prescription of the simple doctrine of the creed do you not confound your own publick practise in perswading every ordinary Christian to read the Scriptures in his own language to maintain their cause by some obscure mistaken passages out of them against the Churches prescriptions nay and the simple doctrine of the Creed too by perverting that article of believing the holy Catholick Church instance if you can the prescription of the Church in the year 1500 to justifie your so many oppositions against the prescriptions of all particular visible Churches in that age and be sure you fail not with all to tell me what Church prescribed in the same year against the Church of Rome in opposing those which you call supplemental traditions held by her and all other visible Churches at that time 19. Page 221. You cite St. Augustine de doctrina Christiana lib. 2. cap. 9. and note in an English parenthesis he was not against the vulgar reading Scripture which how it follows I know not unless you would have him also not against the vulgars being vers'd both in Latin Greek and Hebrew which he here requires for the perfect understanding of Scriptures Secondly you put an N. B. upon St. Augustines words minding your reader to note that he affirms all things which belong to Christian faith and manners are thereby set down in Scripture which N. B. might have been well omitted where you place it and a N. B. put upon his next following words whereby it would have appeared that this holy Doctor speakes not of all manner of points of Faith but de quibus libro superiore tractavimus of such as he had treated in the foregoing book and in that he treates only of the Trinity of the Incarnation of the Church of the resurrection of the dead which we acknowledge are openly set down in Scripture so much heed take you to the words you cite so pertinent is your collection drawn from these words about the sufficiencie of Scripture and so faire are you in your citations let an N. B. passe upon that pag. 223 223. What conclude you from St. Augustines words lib 3. cap. 6. contra lit Petiliani which of us ever thought it lawful to teach any thing praeterquam besides that is against for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in greek signifies the law or gospel and as wise is your question collected thence page 223. viz was not the Church then purely protestant in their religion 20. To the proof of the minor by your profession p. 223. I have told you already your particular profession in disbelieving many things conteined in Scripture evidences your general profession of taking Scripture for the sole rule of your faith to be false and nugatorie 21. As to your discourse page 224. tells us first which are all the Essentials of Christianity in your account and then we shall see whether they are all expresly conteined in Scripture or no. The rest is course and unhandsome better suiting with a country ballad then with a controversie You add in good time the parenthesis if you know how to keep those Friars and Iesuits as much out as to keep out the devil I see they stay not in through any want of opposition in you 't is well you have not as much of the knowledge as you have of the malice of him to whom you compare them I beseech God to pardon you for then they had been all sent packing long ere this and t is not I see for want of ignorance in you that you are not quit of them if any such be within the Nation yet if you drive them no more out then you can drive out the devil they have no great reason to fear you You must think your Reader to be very silly when you go about to perswade him that the Popes supremacie and transubstantiation were brought into the kingdome by Friars and Jesuits of late since you begun your new gospel 22 Page 225. you answer the Catholicks question where your Church was c. very profoundly what if you can neither tell where it all was nor half nor a considerable part nor for all ages nor by entire catalogues can you not at least tell where existed any one though a smal part of it in the year 1500 immediately before your doctrine appeared in Germany shew that and we press you no farther at this time Pag. 226.227 You change the terme Protestant Church into Catholick Church the question was where was the Protestant Church and you shew where the Catholick Church was call you this answering nor can you suppose the Protestant to be part of the Catholick for I have shewed that hitherto you have not proved it pag. 227. You first say your Church was in Europe c. 1. and l. 8. you say you 'l say nothing of Europe n. b. 23. Page 227.228.229.230 To what purpose have you taken so much paines in copying the Latin texts of St. Augustine you were afraid I see to English them least the vulgar whom you chiefâ—â—ly lalour to please should finde many flawes in them Intend you therefore to prove no more by those authorities then the Churches being spread all the world over which of us ever denyed nay who amongst us have not constantly asserted that Intend you to shew that whatsoever professors of Christianity are
spread through the world are the Catholick Church why then cite you words quite overthrowing that position out of St. Augustine pag. 230. 24. Quicunque de ipso capite ab scripturis sanctio dissentiunt etiamsi in omnibus locis inveniantur in quibus ecclesia designata est non sunt in ecclesia whosoever discents from the holy Scriptures concerning the head our Saviour though they be found in all places in which the Church is design'd yet are they not in this Catholick Church or intend you to evince that all those who profess the Essentials of Christianity as you understand them though they separate from the external communion of all visible Churches existent when they first begun communicate only amongst themselves in some particular countries are parts of the Church why then cite you the words immediately following Et rursus quicunque de ipso capite scripturis fanctis consentiunt unitati ecclesiae non communicant or as after ab ejus corpore quod est ecclesia ita dissentiunt ut eorum communio non sit cum toto quacunque diffunditur sed in aliqua parte separata inveniatur manifestum est eos non esse in ecclesia Catholica And againe whosoever consents with the holy Scripture concerning the head Christ communicate not with the unity of the Church as after but so dissent from his body which is the Church that their communion be found in some separate part it is manifest they are not in the Catholick Church Now seeing St. Augustine intends by this argument to convince the Donatists not being parts of the Catholick Church because they departed from the external communion of all particular Churches existing immediately before in their time yet it is manifest that in your opinion they held all the essentials of Christian Faith and thereby communicated with those Churches as they were Christians as much as you do you separate from external communion as much as they did it is evident that this very text cited by your self against us unanswerably confutes the substance of your whole book against me overthrowes the foundation of your key and suppresses that grand noveltie of Schismaticks being parts of the true Church O you are a stout disputer are you not 25. Pag. 231. Optatus is cited to as little purpose as was St. Augustine why distinguish you obedience and subjection from charity is not it a preserving of charity in the Church to yield subjection to Superiours is not that a part of Christian charity being a performance of a command touching the love to our neighbour otherwise you must argue thus Optatus sayes the schismatiques were charitatis desertores non subjectionis desertores desertors of charity not desertors of subjection ergo he makes no spiritual Superiours or Pastors at all essential parts of the Catholique Church nor talks of unity caused by subjection to them how like you this consequence If you admit it every old wife at Kidderminster might have tanted you and told you there needs no subjection to you from me more then to me from you so long as I am in charity with you and all men I have no need of subjection to any and therefore as you acknowledge in your answer to Iohnson pag. 231. Optatus calls the schismatiques desertors of charity not of subjection O this is a welcom doctrine to the vulgar and a precious seed of rebellion for if no subjection but a charity as amongst equals be required to the Essence of the Church why should it be essential to a common-wealth O how sweet will this sound in the ear of a Leveller But why say you he accounts not the Apostolick Roman See to be an essential part of the Catholique Church sayes he not expresly in the words now cited by me that unity is to be preserv'd through the whole Church by means of the singular Seat unica sedes of St. Peter at Rome and is not both unity and that which is necessary to preserve it essential to the Church sayes not Optatus presently after those words that this unica sedes the one only See of Rome is Dos Ecclesiae one of the Dowries or properties of the Church and are not they essential 26. Pag. 231. It is cleer Optatus means by extra septem Ecclesias out of the seven Churches no more then out of their communion as they were parts of the Catholique Church as appears from the next words you cite dissentio schisma tibi displicuit concordasti cum fratri tuo cum una Ecclesia quae est in toto orbe terrarum communicasti septem Ecclesiis memoriis Apostolorum amplexus es unitatem Dissention and Schism hath displeased thee thou hast agreed with thy brother and with one Church which is in the whole earth thou hast communicated with the seven Churches and the memories of the Apostles thou hast imbraced unity Thus you save me the labour of salving your arguments by salving them your self 27. But why cite you Optatus his words lib. 6. p. 93. in your 232. page I know not if it be not to confute and confound your grand novelty of Schismaticks properly so called being parts of Christs Church sayes he not after his description of the Catholique Church aquâ vos concisos esse from which you are cut off Why have you not added this sentence to leave your Reader doubtful whether Optatus say these Schismaticks were or were not cut off from the Church nothing surer then that but it 's most certain Optatus was in the affirmative as the full sentence declares Optat. lib. 6. Itra Parm. p. 93. which quite ruines that your novelty Thus you save me again the labour of confuting your novelties by confuting them your self Are you not a strong Disputant let the world judge that 28. Pag. 232. you say first Tertullian thought it a tiresome way to dispute with the Hereticks of and before his time out of Scripture that they were to be convinc'd by prescription and what I pray think you of the matter are you of Tertullians mind why then have you press'd so much the sufficiency of sole Scripture as the rule by which you intend to dispute against us may not we reply against you as Tertullian did against those that it is a tiresome thing to dispute with Hereticks out of Scripture and that you are to be convinc'd by prescription But these Heretick say you err'd in fundamentals tell us I pray precisely once for all which are those how shall we know otherwise whether they err'd in sole fundamentals or no Please also to tell me where Tertullian restrains his rules of prescription to such only as erre in those which you would put in the number if you were able to sum it up of fundamentals what fundamental point even in your account deny'd the Chilliasts or Millenaries the Nicolaitans the Sacramentaries mention'd by St. Ignatius as he is cited by Theod. Dial. 3. deny they any article
deliver'd in the Creed or propos'd to be expresly believed by Catecumens as necessarie to Baptism But they say you lived neer the Churches that were planted by the Apostles and how far lived your beginners from one of them were they not so neer it that everie one of them was of it before they began to novelize That 's not all say you but they were neer the Apostles daies and were those Christians who liv'd neer the Apostles daies to have another rule of faith and principles to confound Heretickes then those of succeeding ages Tertullians rule of prescription is universal and illimitted either to time or place is it not if it be not how came all insuing ages to make use of it against Hereticks of their respective ages And were the Christians in Brittanie Spain and Affrica neerer to those Churches then then they are now what perergons are these Or are those of Armenia and Graecia farther from them now then they were in Tertul. time Num. 1. pag. 232. It was the common Creed then say you and is it not now nay but you adde no other doctrine save that what mean you by other contrary doctrine to the Creed no more is it now not express'd in the Creed so were not many doctrines inculcated then by Tertullian as the holy Eucharist and Pennance where read you these express'd in the Creed which Christian mysteries notwithstanding Tertullian requires in his prescriptions Num. 2. pag. 132. if he would have all Apostolical Churches to be assured witnesses then sure Rome was not excluded why exclude you't now Num. 3. pag. 232 233. if he woâ—â—lâ—â— have the present Churches to the respective beginnings of Hereticks the immediate witnesses as you acknowledge here why refus'd you the witnesse of all immediate Churches existent in the world in your beginnings did they not all celebrate Mass pray for the dead fast Lent desire the prayer of Saints held merits of good works Confession Purgatorie c. Name those who did not hold some or all of these in those times Pag. 232. you cite Latin Texts without rendring them into English there 's something in 't what mean you when you say Tertullian understands not the Church of Rome by una Ecclesia no more then this that it was not the Church of Rome when it first begun in Jerusalem who ever contradicted you in this mean you that it was not made one visible Church by the same visible government first under our Saviour whilst he remain'd on earth then under St. Peter both before and after he became Bishop of Rome which it had under his lawful Successors the Roman Bishops in all ensuing ages that 's indeed the question and seeing Tertullian speaks here of one Church as propagated thorough the world successively from the Apostolical Churches and that of Rome was one and the chief amongst them how can Tertullian speak of the Church and not speak of the Church of Rome in this sentence and seeing also he treats here of a Church as one visible and there is no other means to render it so one if it have not one supream visible ordinary Tribunal to whom all are subject as Optatus had said above and that can neither be the Bishops diffus'd thorough the whole Church nor assembled in a general Council for that is an extraordinarie Tribunal as I have proved there must be some one supream ordinarie Pastor over all other Bishops which if it be not the Bishop of Rome pray tell me in your next who it is By this is satisfied your seven notanda pag. 234. for though Tertullian instance in the Apostolical Churches of his time whilst they agreed in faith with that of Rome as paterns of Christian faith yet experience hath told us and you cannot denie it that all the rest by departing from the faith profest in Rome fell by degrees into heresie so that now you must either say there is no Apostolical not fallen into Heresie or that the sole Roman remains pure from it and a pattern of unitie and puritie of faith to all Christians even till and at this day 29. Pag. 235. you make Tertullian speak both false Latin and non-sence by putting tenentem for tenendum 'T is not put amongst your errata's your English parenthesises as you larded the Latin Text with them three in number look methinks something odlie 30. Pag. 235. what if Tertullian in that passage send us not to the Roman Church would you have him to write nothing in his whole works but dispatches to Rome what if he call the holy Ghost only Vicarius Christi in that place sayes he therefore that he only is his Vicar cannot Christ have one invisible and another visible Vicar Why not sayes Tertullian as you here acknowledge that it is the holy Ghosts office to procure that all the Churches lose not the Apostles doctrine why then say you they have all lost it you 'l replie they have not all lost it in its essentials names Tertullian essentials he sayes the holy Ghost would never permit all Churches to leave the Apostles doctrine now that which you account non-essential was as we now suppose as much their doctrine as was that which you account essential besides ut supra what essentials were contradicted by the Millenaries Nicolaitans c yet they in Tertullians account left the Apostles doctrine but you 'l reply again those onlie are said to leave the Apostles doctrine who leave all their doctrine not those who hold some points though they leave others Then no Heretick can be said to have left the Apostles doctrine for never did any leave it all then though the Church should deny some articles of the Creed and hold others it could not be said to have left the Apostles doctrine you 'l bring I see the Church at last to a fair pass I am glad to see you so ingenuous as to cite the words of Tertullian ecquid verisimili est c. but should have been more satisfied had you English'd them He saies there that it is unlikely all Churches should agree in one and the same errour so that when many agree in one it is no errour but tradition and then demands whether any one have the audaciousness to say those err'd who deliver'd such a doctrine How like you this did not all the visible Churches in the world deriveable from the Apostles agree in the celebration of Mass real Sacrifice desiring the prayers of Saints in heaven praying for the dead fasting in Lent c. immediately before Luther begun to play the Novelist name me any such Church who did not ergo non est erratum sed traditum therefore these are no errours but traditions according to Tertullians doctrine here you are an excellent confuter of your self 31. Pag. 236. you cite Tertullian again reckoning Smirna with many others before Rome Answer it was enough for illustrating Tertullians argument prest there of reducing Churches to their first Originals to bring any instance
reason why that was subject rather then all the rest I convince by that the subjection of all now it is evident that both the Churches of Spain and France Brittaine and Ireland of France and Germany even when divided from the Roman Empire were as subject to the sea of Rome as were those which remain'd united to the Empire And the ancient historians writing upon the Council of Nice affirm as I have observed that the Bishops of all the Churches in Europe Affrica Theod. l. 1. c. 7. Mar. Victor advers Arium l. 1. Euseb. l. 3. de vita Const. c. 7. Socrat. l. 1. cap. 5. and Asia were call'd to it and consequently from all the Countries excepted by you save India if you account that in America now if they all were call'd to the Council of Nice there must have bin some who had authoritie to call or summon them that was not the Emperour for he had no power out of the Empire ergo it must have been some spiritual power over them but none can be thought with any probability to have that power save the Patriarks and those were all resident within the Empire ergo some spiritual Governour within the Empire had power out of the Empire if so then he who is now suppos'd to have precedency before all the rest is the most likely to have had that power or the others at least who were under his power 42. But to shew unanswerably the universal power of the Roman Bishop as he is successor of St. Peter over the whole Church first the most ancient Fathers of the 4. first ages deferr'd to St. Peter the care and power over the whole Church even over the Apostles themselves Thus in the first age St. Clements (a) Epist. 1. stiles St. Peter the first or chief of the Apostles (b) Epist. ad Rom. St. Ignatius that the Roman Church preceded or was the chief without any limitation to the Empire (c) De divino no. post medium St. Denis calls St. Peter the supream and most ancient summitie of the Divines 43. In the second age (d) In orat de consummatione mundi St. Hippolitus calls St. Peter the rock of faith the Doctor of the Church and the chief or first of Christs disciples (e) Hom. 5. in Exod. lib. 5. in Iohan. hom 17. in Lucam in ep ad Rom. Origen that he is the Rock upon which the Church is built and the first of the Apostles and that Christ had delivered unto him the supream charge in feeding his sheep (f) De veritate Eccles ep 55. ad Corn. ep 7. ad Ianuar. ep 52. ad AntonianuÌ„ St. Cyprian that St. Peter received the charge of feeding Christs sheep that the Church was built upon him that the primacy was given to Peter ut una Christi Ecclesia Cathedra una constitueretur (g) hom de resurrectione St. Eusebius of Alexandria that the Church was built upon the faith of Peter (h) In Chronicis an 44. lib. 2. histori Eusebius Cesariensis intitles St. Peter the first Bishop of the Christians and that the providence of God had made Peter Prince of the Apostles And to (i) Lib. 2. hist. Eccle c. 24. shew even in time of the Heathen Emperours this supream Authority of the Roman Bishop was so notorious in the world that it was known even to them he relates that there being strife in Antioch who of the Pretendents to that Bishoprick had right to possess the Bishops house that it should be deliver'd to him whom the Christians of Italy and the Roman Bishop decreed it was to be given The Nicen Council in the 39. Canon according to the Chaldaick Edition sent into Portugal an 1605. the 11 of November from Franciscus Ross Bishop of Angomala in the Mountains of St. Thomas sayes thus Ita ille cujus principatus Romae est Petro similis authoritate par Patriarcharum omnium dominatum Principatum obtinet Huic sanctioni siquis repugnaverit obsistere ausus fuerit totius Synodi decreto anathemati subjicitur So he whose principality is at Rome like to Peter and equal to him in authority hath the dominion and principality over all the Patriarchs whosoever repugnes against this Decree and shall dare to resist it shall be excommunicated by the decree of the whole Council St. Athanasius calls Marcus Bishop of Rome (k) Ep. ad Marcum the Bishop of the universal Church and after calls the Church of Rome the mother and head of all Churches and promises obedience to it and stiles it the Apostle-ship and in another Epistle (l) Ep. nomine Episc. Aegyp Thebaidis Libiae ad Filicem papam affirmes that their predecessors had ever receiv'd help from the Roman Sea nay even ordinations points of doctrine and redresses That they had recourse to that sea as to their mother they confess they were committed to him and a little after they profess they would not presume without acquainting the Bishop of Rome to conclude any thing the Ecclesiastical Canons commanding that in causes of high concern Majoribus causis that is causes betwixt Bishops about heresie or belonging to the whole Church they should determine nothing without the Roman Bishop and our Lord hath commanded the Bishops of Rome who are placed in the very top of greatness to have the care of all Churches and that the judgement of all Bishops is committed to the Bishop of Rome and that it is decreed in the Council of Nicâ—â— that without the Roman Bishop neither Councils were to be celebrated nor Bishops condemned that the Roman sea was established firm and moveable by Christ our Saviour St. Hilarius (m) in psal 131. calls St. Peter the foundation of the Church the dore-keeper of the Kingdome of heaven and that judge in the judgement of the earth St. Epiphanius (n) In Anchorato inter initium medium that St. Peter was the first of the Apostles establish'd by our Saviour and the firm rock whereupon the Church of God is built and that God (o) heresi 51. circa medium made choise of St Peter to be the head of his Disciples St. Ambrose (p) In luce 24. post medium that our Saviour left St. Peter as the vicar of his love (q) l. 3. de sacer c. 1. St. Ambrose desir'd in all things to accord with the Roman Church and relates that (r) orat de obit Satiri fratris post medium Satyrus his brother demanded of a certain Bishop to have a tryal of his Faith whether that Bishop were of the same minde with the Catholick Bishops that is to say with the Roman Church St. Optatus (s) l. 2. contr Parmen non longe ab initio Melevitanus writing against Parmenian the Donatist sayes thus Igitur negare non potes scire te in urbe Roma Petro primo Cathed am Episcoâ—â—alem esse collatam in qua sederit omnium
fly from and not the universal that proves them not out of the universal Church Who sayes it does why interlace you such parergons as those treats Bell. here of any particular fold speaks he not expresly of the whole universal Church which he defined cap. 2 but by the rules of contraries you should affirm here against your self that if all hereticks fly from the universal Church they cannot be in the universal Church Now it is most evident that all heretiques fly from the universal Church ergo none of them can be in the universal Church for therefore are they hereticks because they either reject obstinately some doctrine sufficiently propounded to them as taught by the universal Church to be a point of Christian faith or imbrace some doctrine sufficiently propounded to them to be rejected by the universal Church as an error in Christian faith de Eccles. l. 3. c. 2. Next you bring in Bellar. thus And Bellar. saith of the Catechumenis excommunicatis that they are de anima etsi non de corpore Ecclesiae Now who can understand by those words of yours but that Bellar. teaches absolutely that both all as well excommunicati as Catechumeni are de anima Ecclesiae of the soul of the Church whereas he speaks only sub conditione conditionally not absolutely and so of some excommunicate persons but not of all that is such as he declares himself c. 6. sect Respondeo lucem esse c. have faith and charity as being either unjustly excommunicated or repenting before they be absolutely absolv'd by the Church from excommunication Bellar. words cap. 2. clipt off in the midst by you are those Rursum aliqui sunt de anima non de corpore ut Catechumeni vel excommunicati si fidem charitatem habeant quod fieri potest Again sayes Bell. some are of the soul of the Church and not of the body as are the unbaptized or excommunicate if they have faith and charity which may happen You see how candidly you have proceeded with Bellarmine and in this sense and no other is Canus to be understood whom you cite next out of Bellarmine and if you could prove any profest heretick properly so call'd had faith and charity I would acknowledge with Bellar. that they were de anima Ecclesiae of the soul of the Church or de Ecclesia quae comprehendit omnes fideles c. of the Church which comprehends all the faithful from Abel to the end of the world you see by this how unfairely you have dealt with Canus also What follows in answer of yours to my question whether profess'd hereticks properly so called are true parts of the visible Church is upon matter of fact who are or who are not in particular rightly condemn'd for hereticks which is an alien to my question and so neither worth the answering nor reading I come now to the question it self 74. That therefore no profess'd heretick properly so called is or can be a true part of Christs universal visible Church I prove by those arguments 1. St. Paul in his 3 to Titus v. 10 11. writes thus A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth being condemned of himself Thus yours translate the words but the vulgar and Pagninus have it devita avoid or decline from it signifies also in Scapula to refuâ—â—e remove or expel one from them where the Apostle speaking indefinitly is to be understood of all profess'd hereticks properly so called so that all such hereticks are to be avoided rejected removed or expelled from the community and society of all Christians for the same reason which obliged Titus to avoid them obliged all the faithful which is nothing but to be depriv'd of the communion of the universal Church and so even in your principles just now deliver'd to be cast out of the Church and St. Hierom expounds those words that Hereticks are cast out of the Church by themselves leaving the Church and separating themselves from it by their obstinacy in error 2. St. Iohn in his first Epistle and second chapter verse 19. ex nobis exerunt They went out from us where the Apostle speaks in general of all heretiques and of the whole visible Church of Christ for how could it be manifest they were not of the Church as St. Iohn sayes it was if they did not visibly go out of it Thus also St. Cyprian (a) St. Cypri lib. ep 8. unit Eccl. sive de simplicitate St. Hierom and St. Aug. writing upon those words expound them 3. Ioh. ep 2. v. 9 10 11. whosoever trangresseth and abides not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ hath both the Father and the Son if there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine receive him not into your house neither bid him God speed for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil works Where the Apostle without any distinction or exception intends the denial of communion through the whole Church for he gives a general precept to all Christians to all those who teach contrarie to the doctrine of Christ. And this not as to others scandalous sinners lest they should draw others to sin by their bad example but as to Hereticks for no other crime then their maintaining a doctrine contrary to the doctrine of Christ and that in what point soever it be for he speaks in general of all doctrine contrary to that of Christ. Now since all profess'd Hereticks properly so call'd teach contrary to Christs doctrine in some point or other they are all to be avoided and deny communion thorough the whole Church consequently are out of the whole Churches communion and so out of the Catholique Church This is proved from the authorities both of the ancient fathers later Doctors and Protestant Authors which are cited and confirm'd at large in schism unmask'd in a late conference with Doctor Gunning and Doctor Pierson from p. 131. to p. 188. where the very definition of schism and heresie of schismaticks and heretiques make it most manifest that no profess'd heretick or schismatick properly so call'd can so long as they remain in that state be true parts of the Catholique Church These following I cite for a brief confirmation of this truth St. Aug. de fide symbolo c. 10. quapropter nec hereticus pertinet ad Ecclesiam Catholicam quoniam diligit Deum nec schismaticus quoniam diligit proximum wherefore neither doth an heretick belong to the Catholick Church because she the Church loves God nor a schismatick because she loves her neighbour And Optatus lib. 1. cont Parmenianum addressing himself to the Donatists whom you say were not separated from the Church sayes thus Desertâ matre Catholica impii filii dum for as excurrunt se separant ut vos fecistis à radice matris Ecclesiae invidiae
themselves to Christs manner of Government they virtually subject themselves to a chief Pastour Mr. Baxter If it be necessary that a particular Church must be assigned for such members by the supream Pastours then they are yet little the better that never have any Assignation from him as few have Rejoynder Who sayes it is necessary ad esse to be a part of the Catholick Church that all Assemblies of Christians should be actual members of some particular visible Church prove I say so from my words nor is it necessary the chief Pastour should assign any it suffices that those Christians be resolved to conform when it is assigned Mr. Baxter Qu. 2. What is that faith in unity where all members of the Catholick Church do live Is it the belief of all that God hath revealed to be believed or of part and what part William Iohnson Answ. Of all either explicitely or implicitely Mr. Baxter Your second Answer further proves that your Definitions signifie just nothing they must live in the unity of the faith that is either with faith or without it with a belief of what God hath revealed to be be believed or without it for to believe any point implicitly in your ordinary sense is not to believe it but onely to believe one of the premises whence the conclusion must be inferr'd But why do you not tell me what you mean by an implicite faith faith is called implicite in several senses 1. When several truths are actually understood and believed in confuso or in grosse in some one proposition which containeth the substance of them all but not with accurate distinct conceptions nor such as are ripe for any fit expression This indistinct immature imperfect kind of apprehension may be called implicite 2. When a general proposition is believed as the matter of our faith but the particulars are not understood or not believed As to believe that omne Animal vivit not knowing whether you be Animal or Cadaver or to believe all that is in Scripture is the word of God and true but not to know what is in the Scripture 3. What is onely the formal object of faith that is believed without understanding the Material object The first sort of these I confess is actual though indistinct but I suppose you mean not this 1. Because it is not the ordinary sense of your party 2. Because else you damn either all the world or most of your own professed party at least as no members of the Church for few or none have an actual understanding and belief of all that God ever revealed to them because all men or most at least have been sinfully negligent in searching after and receiving truth and so are sinfully ignorant no man knoweth all that God hath revealed or that he ought to know 3. Because by this rule it is impossible for you or any man to know who is indeed a member of your Church for you cannot know mens confused knowledge or know that it extendeth to all revealed for if you speak of all revealed in general or in Scripture you still damn all or most in your own sense for none as I said understand it all to a word but if you speak of all which that particular man hath had sufficient means to know It is then impossible for you to make a judgement of any mans faith by this for you can never discern all the means internal or external that ever he had much less can you discern whether his faith be commensurate to the truth so farre revealed so that by this course you make your Church invisible I pray tell me how you can avoid it William Iohnson Your discourse about implicite faith seems strange I require a proof from you that in your ordinary sense it is no belief at all 2. That it is onely to believe one of the premises whence the conclusion must be inferr'd 3. Tell me why you require that I should have declared to you what I meant by implicite faith when you suppose that I speak in the ordinary sense of our schoolmen and I could not but suppose you understood their doctrine 4. Why do you put the belief of the formal object without the belief of the material object of faith a third member of implicite belief or who did ever so before you 5. Why do you confound the two first members of your Distinction both of them being knowledge or belief in confuso your first is when several truths are actually understood and believed in confuso or in gross in some one proposition which containeth the substance of them all c. thus you Your second is to believe that omne animal vivit not knowing whether you be Animal or Cadaver or to believe that all that is in Scripture is the word of God and true but not to know what is in the Scripture thus you Now tell me does not this proposition omne Animal vivit contain the substance of these truths Equus vivit Leo vivit Aquila vivit c. so that by believing or knowing this proposition distinctly omne Animal vivit I believe or know in confuso those other propositions contained as species under their genus in it and the like is of your second proposition for believing all that is in Scripture is the word of God and true expresly I believe in confuso all that is in Genesis Exodus Leviticus c. to be the word of God and true though I neither believe or know expresly and distinctly all that is contained in those books can you deny this If you proceed in Philosophical principles is not the express knowledge of the genus a confused knowledge of species under it and an express knowledge of the species a confused knowledge of the individua under it and a knowledge or belief when they are known or believed in confuso Thus you give distinctions without differences and examples to illustrate your distinctions which quite destroy them 6. Why put you a contradictory proposition you say thus not knowing whether you that is such a man be Animal or Cadaver now this is a plain implicancy in adjecto for it is as impossible that you or any man should be a Cadaver as that a man should be a barn door the one being as truely disparate from a true man as the other and disparates you know cannot predicate the one of the other every one therefore knows who knows what a man is that no man is or can be Cadaver a dead caâ—â—kass so that no man can be ignorant whether you be Animal or Cadaver A little more heed to what you write would do well when you dispute 7. Why say you you suppose I mean nor your first manner of implicite faith when I and all who understand themselves must either mean that or nothing The object of implicite faith delivered in the Schools being nothing else save particular truths contained in substance under some general proposition so that though they be
neither known nor believed distinctly or expresly yet they are known or believed in confuso confusedly and implicitly by the knowledge or belief of their general proposition 8. Why misconceive you the notion of implicite faith it is not as you conceit therefore no faith at all of all the particulars in Scripture because he who has it understands not distinctly many truths contained in Scripture for a Christian has implicite faith because such determinate truths being de facto contained in Scripture by believing all that is contained therein he believes confusedly or implicitly every one of the said truths though he have not distinct knowledge of many of them 9. But most of all I wonder why you take my second answer in a quite other sense then I intended it for your second question being this whether I mean by faith the belief of all that God hath revealed to be believed or of part c. My Answer is this of all either Explicitly or Implicitly that is that those of the Catholick Church must believe all the very same Articles and points of faith by an Explicite faith in order at least to some of them and by an Implicite faith in order to the rest so an explicite faith of some Articles is necessary to all who actually believe with a Divine faith now you would make me say as appears by your Reply that implicite faith is sufficient in relation to all points of faith whatsoever as if I held it not necessary to believe any thing at all explicitly for you press me thus they must live in unity of the faith that is either with faith or without it with a belief of what God hath revealed or without it which inference you could never urge against me if you had supposed me to hold that some explicite faith is alwayes necessary to salvation in such as are capable of actual belief for whilst they have explicite faith of some Articles they can never be thought to be without faith nor could you with reason draw any such consequence from my speaking in this distributive sense both because it is the ordinary sense of the Schools where an explicite faith of some Articles is held necessary to salvation and because my Answer connaturally admits of that sense And lastly because though the words precisely in themselves were capable of your affixed sense yet when words are of a doubtful meaning no man with reason can bind his words to one determinate sense but must leave the determination to him who framed the proposition 10. But now let us try a while what will follow from your Doctrine of Implicite Faith as that term is ordinarily understood by us To believe any point in our ordinary sense say you is not to believe it now our ordinary sense as I have declared is so to believe that point that we have no distinct or expresse knowledge of it but onely a confused understanding because it is contained in confuso under this Proposition I believe all that God has revealed or I believe all that is delivered to be believed in Canonical Scripture Let us therefore settle this Assertion out of your Doctrine whosoever believes all that God has revealed or all that is in canonical Scripture believes no one particular point contained confusedly in those Propositions which he understands not with an actual understanding in particular to be revealed farther then as contained in those Propositions this is your Doctrine now I subsume But no man knoweth all that God hath revealed to wit with that actual understanding of every particular required by you immediately before as is above explicated this minor is yours Ergo say I no man believes all that God hath revealed now I proceed if no man believe all that God has revealed then you believe not all that God has revealed this is evident then further whosoever believs not all that God has revealed is no good Christian nor in state of Salvation But you believe not all that God has revealed Ergo you are no good Christian nor in state of Salvation See you not how fair a thred you have spun against your self or will you say that he who believes not all which God hath revealed is a good Christian if you will you may but sure if you doe so no good Christian will believe you and that you may see how far you are out in asserting this that one cannot truly believe what he understands not actually and in particular or no farther then as the particulars are contained in that universal proposition I believe all that God has revealed or that is in Scripture when you recite the Nicene Creed wherein you professe to believe that God is creator of all things visible and invisible I demand do you truly believe as you professe to believe when you say those words if you do not you make a profession against your own Conscience if you do then you may believe with an actual Belief that he is Creator of many particular things both visible and invisible whereof you have no actual understanding or which are wholly unknown in particular or distinctly to you or by any other knowledge then as confusedly contained in the word all you recite the Athanasian Creed and there professe to believe that all men shall rise at the last coming of Christ and give an account of their works and yet you have no actual knowledge of many thousands and millions of them The like is of St. Paul when he tells us all men are to stand before the Tribunal of Christ c. shall we say that St. Paul believed not as he professed to believe Acts 24.5 14. Credens omnibus quae in Lege Prophetis scripta sunt yet cannot we suppose that he had then an actual understanding of every particular contained in them II. And that you may see by instances how untrue your Assertion is a Christian I suppose has by vincible or culpable oblivion forgot some grievous Sinne of his Life past he comes to the point of Death he is heartily sorrowfull even for the pure love of God for all his sinnes committed against the Law of God without any actual remembrance or understanding of that forgotten sin and so dyes must not one say in your Principle that such a Penitent had no actual sorrow for that forgotten sin implicitly because he had no actual understanding of it what horrid Doctrine would this be the like is of one who forgives from his heart all Injuries done against him but has no actual Remembrance of some of them does he not therefore actually forgive even those which he has forgotten a thousand like Examples might be brought which I leave to your learned consideration having been something with the longest in this Point because I know it imports much to make a true understanding betwixt us 12. why are you so wavering and inconstant in your Propositions first you say that few or none have an actual understanding or belief
of all that ever God revealed to them and within three or four lines you say absolutely and without all exception no man knoweth all that God hath revealed first you say all men or most at least have been sinfully negligent in searching after and receiving truth and within a Line or two you leave out your Restriction and say no man knoweth all that God hath revealed or that he ought to know 13. I would know the reason why you first suppose your principle that no man can believe all unlesse he actually knows all and thence inferre against me that in my Principles who deny that of yours I cannot know who is who is not of my Church because I cannot know what Reasons any particular have had to know more or fewer divine Truths or whether they have concurred with those Reasons or no and so must make my Church invisible now I make my Church visible though by comprehending in it all those who professe an Explicite Faith in several Articles which they understand distinctly and an implicite Belief of the rest whereof they have not distinct understanding by professing that they believe all that God hath revealed to be believed by them whatsoever they be in particular now so long as they persevere in this behalf though they should happen through culpable negligence not arrive to the knowledge of many things which they ought to know necessitati praecepti yet they remain members though corrupt and wicked of the Church whereby you see how easily I avoid that difficulty which you thought I could not Mr. Baxter The second sort of implicite belief is no belief of the particulars at all an Animal may live and yet it followeth not that you are alive or an Animal William Iohnson How impossibly dispute you here your instance is from the matter for when you say omne Animal vivit every sensible creature lives it must have this sense that it lives onely so long as it is and as it continues Animal or a sensible Creature for otherwise you would have it to be when it is not and to live when it is dead now understanding the proposition thus whosoever believes omne Animal vivit believes me to be a sensible creature so long as I am in being and to live before my Death nay you seem not to reflect upon the sense of such propositions for they relate not to the proposition by chance in relation to particular individua but to the Essence of the subject whereof they predicate for when Philosophers say omne Animal vivit they mean it is of the Essence or notion of Animal to be a living thing and this is true of me and all particulars whether we be in actual existency or no nay you bring an instance of a particular to confirm an universal your Question was of omne Animal all sensible creatours as appears above and of all that God has revealed and to confirm your assertion in this you being a particular an individuum vagum saying an Animal may live c. that is some particular Animal nor stay you here but to amend the matter you bring an instance of changeable things to confirm a proof of things unchangeable I who now am may cease to be in actual existencie but whatsoever is once revealed from God can never cease to be revealed or become a thing unrevealed though therefore it follows not that because omne Animal vivit therefore I live actually yet it follows that whatsoever is once revealed of God remains alwaies actually revealed Mr. Baxter If this were your meaning then either you mean that it is enough if all be believed implicitly besides that general proposition or you mean that some things must be believed explicitly that is actually and some implicitly that is not at all Rejoinder I have told you something more must be believed explicitely how much or what is a dispute amongst Divines not necessary to be determined here yet I will speak something to that presently Reply If the former be your sense then Infidels or heathens may be of your Church for a man may believe in general that the Bible is the word of God and true and yet not know a word that is in it and so not know that Christ is the Messias or that ever there was such a Person Rejoynder Your instance is morally impossible for either such a person believes the Bible rashly and imprudently and then according to all Divines his faith cannot be supernatural and Divine or sufficient to constitute him a Christian or he believes it prudently and then he must be moved by prudential motives of credibility which must draw him to afford credit to that Authority as derived from God which commends to him the Bible as the written word of God now that can be no other then the Authority of the Catholick Church which he cannot be ignorant to profess the faith of Christ there being no other save that though therefore he knows not by experience that Christ is mentioned in the Bible yet he cannot but know that he is professed to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by those of the Catholick Church who delivered the Bible to him as the word of God and that such a faith in him is necessary to salvation Reply But if somewhat be explicitly that is actually believed the question that you would have answered was what is it for till that be known no man can know a member of your Church by your discriptions Rejoynder There was no necessity to tell you that for when you so often distinguish betwixt points of faith Essential and accidental seeing you ought to understand the terms of your own distinction as I could not but suppose you did you had no need to be informed what points were to be believed by explicite faith all Essentials in your opinion are such Reply If you take implicite in the third sense then implicite faith is either Divine or humane Divine when the Divine veracity is the formal object humane when mans veracity is the formal object which may be conjunct where the Testimonies are so conjunct as that we are sure that it is God that speaks by man who is therefore credible because God infallibly guideth or inspireth him that is at once to believe a humane and Divine veracity If any of this be your meaning that last question remains still to be resolved by you A man may believe that God is true and that his Prophets and inspired messengers are true and yet not understand a word of the message so that still if this will serve a man may be of your Church that knoweth not that ever there was such a person as Iesus Christ or that ever he died for our sins or rose again or that we shall rise William Iohnson Your third member I have rejected before as a stranger to implicite faith but I think you speak not true Divinity when you say that to believe God to be true
and his inspired Prophets to speak truth is to believe a humane and Divine veracity for what Divine ever said before you that Christian faith which is to believe God speaking by the Prophets c. is to believe so much as partially a humain veracity for that would make Christian faith partly humaine which no Christian can affirm it being a pure Theological virtue and having no other formal object save Divine veracity revealing for though the Prophet be a humaine person yet he speakes when he is inspired by God not with humain but with Divine authority God speaking by his mouth Mr. Baxter And are all Infidels of your Church while you are arguing us out but if there be some trueths besides the veracity of God and his messengers that must be believed you must shew what it is or your Church members cannot be known tell me Ergo without tergiversation what are the revealed truths that must be actually believed or what is the Faith material in unity whereof all members of the Catholique Church do live William Iohnson Tell me what points of Faith you account Essential to make a Christian precisely which is part of your own distinction and you will save me the labour of telling you what points are to be believed explicitely if you know not that you delivered a distinction which you understood not Mr. Baxter I pray fly not but plainly tell me and if again you fly to uncertain points because of the diversity of means of informations and say it must be so much every man as he had means to know I again answer you First If a man had no means to know that there is a Christ it seemes then he is one of your Church Secondly you still damn all your own there being not a man that knoweth all that he hath meanes to know because all have culpably neglected meanes and so you have no Church Thirdly still you make your Church invisible if you had any for no man can tell as I said who knoweth in full proportion to his helps and meanes do you not see now whether your Implicite Faith hath brought you William Iohnson Truly Sir your demand is not so great a Bug-bear to make me fly from it for fear it devour me you cannot but know in your perusal of our Divines that your question has bin answered by them an hundred times over have you not heard them deliver in materia de fide that trite distinction that some points of faith are necessary to be believed explicitely necessitate medii and others necessitate praecepti and those of the first classe are absolutely necessary for all men to be so beleived to obtein salvation and to become parts at least in voto if they be not baptized of the Catholique Church and know you not that Divines are devided what are the points necessary to be believed explicitely necessitate medii some and those the more ancient hold that the expliâ—â—tte belief of God of the whole Trinity of Christ his passion resurrection c. are necessary necessitate medii others amongst the recentiors that no more then the belief of the Deity and that he is rewarder of our workes is absolutely necessary with that necessity to be explicitely believed now to answer your question what it is whereby our Church members are known I answer that First all those who are baptised and believe all the points of our faith explicitely if any such persons be to be found are undoubted members of our Church Secondly all those who believe explicitely all the Articles and whatsoever belongs to them in particular by reason of their respective offices in the Church Thirdly those who so believe all things necessary necessitate medii or necessitate praecepti extended to all adulti Fourthly all those who believe in that manner all things held necessary necessitate medii according to the first oppinion of the more ancient Doctors Fifthly It is probable though not altogether so certain as the former that such as believe explicitely the Diety and that he is a rewarder of our works and the rest implicitely as conteined in confuso in that Baptisme supposed are parts of the Catholique Church now seeing all those who are conteined in my four first numbers which comprehend almost all Christians are certainly parts of the Catholique Church we have a sufficient certainty of a determinate Church consisting at least of these by reason whereof our Church has a visible consistency these of the fift rank though not so certain as the former take not away the certainty of the former but that consistency supposed Divines found a question amongst themselves those of the first oppinion will answer that such as believe not the aforesaid Christian mysteries expresly are not parts of the Catholick Christian Church though they believe the Deity remunerating and the rest implicitely see you not by this discourse that we answer sufficiently to your questions by telling which are undoubted members of our Church and thereby give a sufficient description of it and rendering it visible by assigning those which are undoubted members of it though in some others without which it hath consistency be controverted amongst us in this discourse I suppose that such as only believe the Diety or some few of our misteries are excused by invisible ignorance from the obligation of knowing the rest for if their ignorance be vincible culpable and willfull it will indanger at least their implicite faith would not a Philosopher give a sufficient discription of a humane living body by defining it to consist undoubtfully of head shoulders armes c. which are the known parts of it though there be a doubt amongst Philosophers whether the nailes humors c. be animated and parts of it here therefore you may consider that we all agree in these parts which give a real visible constitution to our Church though some question be amongst us about the Exclusion or Admittance of some few which whether they be admitted or no our Church remains by reason of the former in a real visible Existency and by this are Answered your three ensuing Numbers Mr Baxter Quaest. Is it any Lawfull Pastours or all that must necessarily be depended on by every member and who are those Pastours William Iohnson Ans. Of all respectively to each subject that is that the Authority of none of them mediate or immediate be rejected or contemned Mr. Baxter Here still you tell me that your descriptions signified nothing you told me that the members must live in dependance on their lawfull Pastours and now you tell me that their Authority must not be Rejected or contemned and indeed is dependance and non-Rejection all one The millions of heathens that never heard of the Pope or any of your Pastours reject them not nor contemn them are they therefore fit matter for your Church 2. If you say that you mean it of such onely as have a sufficient Revelation of the Authority of these Pastours Rejoynder You
to be sworn that they would fain know the truth William Iohnson We enter not into the heart of any particular person that we leave to God onely the Church presumes such to be Hereticks as have Catholick truths sufficiently propounded to them and that notwithstanding contradict and oppose them and let such be ready to swear what they please she has more reason to think that proceeds out of a blind zeal to their own opinion then that they are not to be presumed Hereticks by their open profession of heretical opinions Qu. 2. Must it needs be against the formal object of faith is he no Heretick that denieth the matter revealed without opposing obstinately the Authority revealing William Iohnson Answ. Yes nor is he a formal but onely a material Heretick who opposes a revealed truth which is not sufficiently propounded to him to be a Divine Revelation Mr. Baxter Every man that believeth there is a God indeed believeth that he is true for if he be not true he is not God if therefore no man be formally an Heretick that doth not obstinately oppose the veracity of God which is in the formal object then as there are I hope but few Hereticks in the world so those few cannot by ordinary means be known to you unless they will say that they take God to be a lyer so that you make none Hereticks indeed but Atheists William Iohnson There is a twofold denying of God the one formal and direct the other virtual and indirect Atheists are guilty of the first and Hereticks of the second which solves your dâ—â—fficulty This I oblige my self to prove when occasion shall require it in our Larger Controversie For the present it is sufficient to tell you that whosoever obstinately contradicts any truth revealed from God as all Hereticks do some or other of them they sinfully and wilfully affirm that what God has revealed is not true and consequently that God is a lyer and by that destroy as much as in them lies the very essence of God though their obstinacy and pride will not suffer them to acknowledge it now since you confesse here that what the Hereticks deny is the thing revealed and the revelation is from God you cannot deny that Hereticks make God a lyer and thereby take away the veracity or truth of God Mr. Baxter What if a man deny that there is a Christ a Heaven a Hell a Resurrection and also deny the Revelation it self by which he should discern these truths and yet deny not that veracity of God no nor the Church is this no Heretick I would your party that have murdered so many Hereticks if a falshood may be wished as a thing permitted to have prevented such a mischief it is not Godâ—â—s veracity that is commonly denied by Hereticks but the thing revealed and the Revelation of that thing William Iohnson If they be not sufficiently propounded to him as revealed from God he will be onely a material Heretick if propounded sufficiently as such the case is implicatory for that proposition must be made by the Church so long therefore as he believes the infallible veracity of the Church propounding he cannot disbelieve what it propounds sufficiently to him to be believed as revealed from God Mr. Baxter And your Turnbal against Barronus hath told you that the revelation is no part of the formal object of faith but as it were the copula or a condition sive qua non If he that obstinately refuseth to believe that the Godhead of Christ or the holy Ghost is any where by God revealed and so denieth it be no Heretick unlesse he also obstinately deny or resist the veracity of God then there are few that you can prove Hereticks for forma dat nomen and he that is not an Heretick formally but materially onely is no Heretick at all William Iohnson Turnballs saying touches not me nor the present difficulty an Heretick as we now treat denies not onely the thing to be revealed but the thing or Mystery it self to be true now supposing that it be sufficiently propounded to him that God reveals it he denying the thing it self to be true denies that to be true which he hath sufficient reason to judge by that proposition made to him to be revealed of God but whosoever denieâ—â— that denies virtually Gods veracity by denying the truth of that which God has revealed and which he hath obligation to believe to be revealed from God Ergo. Mr. Baxter Lastly many a truth is sinfully neglected by the members of the Church that have a proposal sufficient and yet not effectual through their own fault and yet they are no Heretiticks millions in your Church are ignorant of truths sufficiently proposed and their ignorance is their sin but it followeth not that it is their Heresie but if it be then Hereticks constitute your Church and then your Church is a thing unknown because the Hereticks cannot be known the sufficiency of each mans revelation being much unknown to others William Iohnson Whatsoever their neglect be to know what is propounded yet so long as they believe explicitly what is necessary to be so believed necessitate medii ut supra and implicitly the rest they can be no Hereticks For it is not the ignorance though culpable but the contradiction of what is sufficiently propounded to them and known to them to be propounded by those who have power to oblige them as being their lawfull Superiours which makes an Heretick Mr. Baxter Qu. 2. What mean you by sufficient proposal William Iohnson Answ. Such a proposition as is sufficient in humanis amongst men to oblige one to take notice that a King or Magistrate have enacted such and such Laws c. that is a Publick Testimony that such things are revealed by the infallible Authority of those who are the highest Tribunal of Gods Church or by notorious and universal Tradition Mr. Baxter In humanis there lieth not so much at stake as a mans salvation and man is not able as used to make a truly sufficient revelation of his will to all and therefore the proportion holds not William Iohnson Imports it not often to salvation to know some Laws of the Commonwealth wherein you live would you have God declare by revelation who are the ordinary Governours of his Church is not this to have constituted a visible Government imprudently whose Governours cannot be sufficiently known but by revelation therefore the proportion holds Mr. Baxter 2. But if it did either you think the sufficiency varieth according to the variety of advantages opportunities and capacities of the persons or else that it consisteth onely in the act of common publication and so is the same to all the subjects if the first be your sense as I suppose it is then still you are uncertain who are Hereticks as being uncertain of mens various capacities and so of the sufficiency in question unlesse you will conclude with me that thus you make all Hereticks as aforesaid